Chapter 2 – The Sword God Emperor and the Samurai Girl
We dropped our luggage at the lodging house and went out to walk the port town.
Narcis Island’s port was a loud, thriving sort of place. Stalls and shops ran the length of the streets, and at midday the main road was packed solid with people out for lunch. The island holds something like half a million people on not very much land, so being livelier than a mid-sized city is only to be expected.
As for why a rock this far out to sea prospers at all: it grew up as a staging post for shipping. There are other reasons too, one of them being the ruins of the ancient magic civilization here. The ruins on this island still have monsters walking around inside them. Elsewhere that work is long finished, whereas here the neutralizing of the monsters and the defensive systems is still under way—which means relics may yet be left in there. So adventurers and treasure hunters come swarming in, and die off just as fast. The place fills up with people dreaming of one big score, though apparently the crowds have been thinning as the relics run out.
There are plenty of scenic attractions besides, so the trade in tourists runs to a considerable scale as well. All of which has boiled the island down into a stew of every culture there is: goods and customs collect here from all over the world.
The upshot was Anastasia and Maria in raptures, working their way along the stalls examining the stranger merchandise. Four hundred years on and women still love to shop… I thought, and gave a wry smile.
Sheryl, for her part, had no interest in shopping. What she had instead, if instead is the word, was a professional survey of the skewer stands.
And for the record, if anything I lean Sheryl’s way. Merlin and Sasha are shoppers. So, our objectives being aligned, Sheryl and I ended up wandering the town together.
“…Ephthal. This is good.”
“It really is.”
We had ordered salmon and vegetables fried together at one of the stalls, a dish not far off Hokkaido’s chanchan-yakiback home. We had already put away a serious volume at the other stalls, so I had asked for a small portion, and it went beautifully with white wine.
“The food on the other tables looks good too. If I’d known, I’d have skipped the skewers and eaten properly here.”
“…”
Sheryl gave a small nod, the same blank face as always.
Hmm…
You really can’t get much off this girl’s expression.
“…I want something sweet at the end.”
“You’re still eating? I’ve had ten skewers and who knows what else, and I’m about to burst. And you ate as much as I did, didn’t you?”
“…I want it.”
“Where does it all go in a body that size…”
“…Sweet things have their own stomach. And—”
“And?”
“…I am growing. A child’s work is to eat and sleep.”
“All right, fine. I’m done, but if you’re going, I’ll keep you company.”
I drank off the last of the wine, smiling crookedly. And then, as I stood up, my breath caught. “Ah!”
“…What is it, Ephthal?”
“That’s…”
“…You mean that parfait shop.”
“It’s not just a parfait! It has chocolate on it!”
“…So. That parfait shop.”
“It’s not just a parfait! It has chocolate on it!”
Chocolate very rarely makes it as far as the region we live in. That was true four hundred years ago and it’s true now, and I’ve wanted chocolate, and wanted chocolate, for a very long time…
So I set off at tremendous speed, towing Sheryl by the hand, to eat a chocolate parfait.
“…Ephthal likes chocolat?”
“It’s been my favorite for four hundred years. When you’re worn out from research it’s genuinely wonderful.”
“…Fufu. Funny.”
“What is?”
“…Kaminari-sama, the name they frighten children with… likes chocolat… Hh-hah. Hahaha. Ha! Funny. Ephthal is funny… Ephthal is cute.”
For reasons I couldn’t identify, Sheryl had started laughing. She ended up crouched on the spot with her arms around her stomach. By the finish there were actual tears in her eyes. I don’t understand where this girl’s sense of humor lives, and I really don’t understand this girl…
Personally I find her mysterious insistence on saying chocolat for chocolate a good deal more interesting.
⁂
And so, having finished eating, Sheryl and I went back to the meeting point to rejoin Merlin and the others.
For the record, I had three chocolate parfaits, and Sheryl laughed herself silly watching me do it. Also for the record… Sheryl had five parfaits of assorted kinds, which was a magnificent sight, and where a body that small was putting it remains a mystery.
Ah.
Come to think of it, her ancestor Isaac was a thin one too, and ate without limit.
I was smiling at the thought and patting Sheryl’s head when my breath caught a second time. “Ah!”
“…What is it, Ephthal?”
“Eggs…”
“…What about the egg shop?”
“I could swear it says they can be eaten raw.”
“…The sign does say that.”
I moved again, Mach speed, towing Sheryl by the hand straight for the egg stall.
“Is it true you can eat these raw?”
I asked him more or less nose to nose, and the owner grinned and gave me a thumbs up.
“Aye, there’s demand from the folk out east. Salmonella’s handled, don’t you worry!”
“If there’s demand from easterners for raw eggs, then… rice? Soy sauce?”
“Go and look in the market, you’ll find as much as you like! Hang on, friend… Eggs, rice and soy sauce… you’re not about to do that, are you?”
The owner’s face was like the sun coming out…
Honestly, in that moment the man looked like a Buddha to me. I mean that literally: I could see the halo, and before I knew it there were tears in my eyes and I had put out my hand to shake his.
“Yes! I’m about to do that!”
“So you are! You’re about to do that!”
He laughed a great booming laugh and shook my hand like an old friend, and the two of us started nodding at each other, in perfect understanding.
Sheryl, however, asked with a face like a closed door:
“…I do not understand. What is that?”
“TKG!”
“Tee kay gee?”
“Ta. Ma. Go. Ka. Ke. Go. Han!”
“…?”
“You take a raw egg… pour it over steamed rice, and put soy sauce on it!”
Sheryl fell silent for a while and tilted her head slightly.
“…Is that some kind of magic ritual?”
“How does a conversation about food become a magic ritual?”
“…A conversation about… food? I do not think a raw egg is food.”
“…?”
“…?”
We faced each other with question marks visibly hanging over both our heads. Then I clapped my hands.
“Ah. Right. We don’t have a culture of eating raw eggs where we live.”
“…Then let me ask. There are regions that do?”
“It’s fairly popular in the east, I hear. Though they’re a luxury, so ordinary people can’t reach them easily.”
“…Ephthal?”
“What is it, Sheryl?”
“…I am absolutely not eating that.”
“What?”
“…This is very obviously heading toward my being made to eat it. I will say it now. I have no taste for grotesqueries.”
“It’s not a grotesquerie!”
Sheryl’s expression had gone thoroughly cold. But on this, as a Japanese man, I have to plant my feet and say no. Letting TKG be treated as a grotesquerie… isn’t a thing that can be permitted to happen.
The owner, evidently of the same mind, raised his voice.
“I was put off myself at first. Just let me con you into it and eat the thing!”
“Yes, Sheryl! Let yourself be swindled!”
“…I have been told before to let myself be conned into eating something, and I was, in fact, conned… The bitter memory of broccoli.”
“Broccoli and TKG are different things, Sheryl!”
“That’s right! The lad’s got it! Ah… hold on, the stall next door sells eastern food. They ought to be able to sell steamed rice on its own!”
“Really?! In fact—I want to eat it right now!”
“Right you are. Soy sauce is… on the house! I’ll give you what you use!”
“Thank you very much!”
“You there, next door! Bring steamed rice over here, right now!”
A few minutes later the owner handed over a flawless TKG, and we ate standing at the stall.
“…Ephthal said a moment ago that he was full. I mean this kindly. Let us stop.”
“TKG has its own stomach!!!”
My declaration, delivered at volume, put the cold look straight back on Sheryl’s face.
“…I am full, so I will decline.”
“I know for a fact that you have unlimited room!”
“…Help… Someone help me… This is the first time I’ve found Ephthal frightening and I’m very confused.”
And then Anastasia spotted us, and her voice came across to where we stood.
“Master!♪ You weren’t at the meeting place, so I came looking… what are you doing?”
“Eating TKG!”
“Tee kay gee?”
“A raw egg poured over steamed rice with soy sauce on it!”
“Um… is that some kind of magic ritual?”
My impassioned case was landing exactly as well as it had with Sheryl. I mean, Anastasia’s reaction was identical.
Damn it… Why does nobody get it…?
Disheartened but undeterred, I redoubled my oratory.
“You’ll understand if you eat it! Because it’s delicious!”
“It’s food?! A raw egg?!”
Anastasia’s face was pure shock. Then she thought about something for a while… and with the look of a woman making a great decision, she said:
“Is this an absolute order, as between master and slave? Because if it is, then I… Master, I’m prepared to die for you if you tell me to die!”
“No, that’s not what this is!”
Oh, for—honestly. Why will nobody understand?
Then the remaining three arrived: Maria, Merlin and Sasha.
“Oh, so this is where you got to, Ephthal. And what are you two doing with a bowl?”
“Ephthal-sama, were you in the middle of a meal? What is it you’re eating?”
“You’ve always been thus about food… Well? What is that you’re eating?”
“Eating TKG! A raw egg poured over steamed rice with soy sauce on it!”
The three of them looked at one another, and then, thoroughly puzzled, asked me:
“Is that some kind of magic ritual?”
⁂
“It was so good I could have cried! Knowing about food like that—that’s our Master!”
“That’s Ephthal-sama for you… Your appetite for inquiry even in matters of food does no dishonor to the name of the original Four Emperors. I must be ashamed of myself for hearing only the description and thinking it a grotesquerie.”
“Well. Things you call good have generally turned out to be outrageously good, since long ago.”
“…I will follow Ephthal for life. That way I will keep meeting unknown delicacies.”
A magnificent about-face, all round. I hold no grudge against any of them for it. If anything I was filled with the pride and satisfaction of having done the bare minimum any Japanese owes the world. When somebody sneers at egg over rice without having eaten it… all you can do is dig in and insist that it’s absolutely wonderful.
So, reunited, we browsed the stalls in a leisurely way and started back toward the lodging house. And then—
“I take it you are Headmaster Merlin.”
Ahead of us on the road, a ponytailed girl of about my own age was kneeling formally on the ground.
“Eastern dress…”
“Indeed. And she wears a sword as well. An eastern samurai, perhaps?”
Merlin cleared her throat and addressed the girl in eastern dress.
“I am Merlin, certainly… And you?”
“I am aware this is discourteous, but—would you consent to a bout?”
“Hm. A bout?”
“As you see, I too live by the blade. I too pursue the martial way.”
“And your reasoning, in asking a bout of me?”
“A frog in a well knows nothing of the ocean… Only by being put through the mill by one’s betters does one grasp one’s own immaturity and throw oneself into further training… That is what I believe.”
“I will not deny the belief. Unfortunately your sort never stops coming… and they are without exception so far beneath the bar as to be nothing but a nuisance. I cannot very well injure them, which leaves me in difficulty. I do not know whose student you are, but I have no time to keep children company at play.”
“Then if immaturity is the problem, I need only make you acknowledge my ability?”
“That would follow, yes. Begin by making a name at the world tournament and putting in the training. If in time your name reaches me, I might well—”
Before Merlin had finished, the girl was on her feet. And she leveled her blade at Anastasia.
“Then I shall start with the headmaster’s student!”
“That is not what I said! Are you listening to a word?”
I caught Merlin’s shoulder as she moved to stop it.
“Ephthal… sama?”
I gave a small nod.
“By my read… well, never mind. Let her try it. It won’t be wasted experience for Anastasia.”
“If you say so, Ephthal-sama…”
“So it’s all right if I take her?”
The moment she said it Anastasia drew her sword with her right hand and squared off against the girl in eastern dress. Anastasia’s left hand had gone inside her coat, so she was planning to open with a throwing weapon or some other trick.
The girl also drew with her right, slid her left hand into her robe, and came out with something.
“Eh? A coin toss…?”
Precisely that: a silver coin out of her robe, tossed straight up.
And in that instant the girl was at Anastasia’s throat with the point of her blade.
“If all one wants is to catch an opponent off guard, this is sufficient.”
“…Tch.”
“If it is only a matter of pulling attention onto something, there is no need for elaborate contrivances.”
“…”
“There is no need, for instance, to send spices riding on a wind you have shaped with magic in order to blind someone.”
“Oh—you’d spotted that?”
Anastasia’s eyes went everywhere. She dropped her sword on the ground and put both hands up in surrender. And at that moment—
The girl turned and looked behind her, and caught the arrow coming at her out of the air.
So Maria had put herself at effective bow range in advance. She followed the arrow with an ice-strike spell, and the girl gave a shout and cut once, cleanly.
“She cut a spell? With a sword?!”
“If one cannot do this much, one cannot call oneself a demon-slaying swordsman.”
Then the girl closed the distance all at once. Maria met her with a knife, and the girl slipped it with the smallest movement she could have made, and answered with an overhead cut brought straight down.
“Don’t get cocky! I’ve been knife-fighting since I was a—”
Maria, already moving to evade the blade, went wide-eyed with alarm.
“Wait, seriously?!”
Because the descending cut had bent its line like a snake and chased her, homing-missile fashion, exactly where she had dodged to. When an attack you have definitely evaded comes after you anyway, there’s not much a person can say beyond you have got to be kidding.
“A jack of all trades. Everything is passable. Passable is all it is, and it does not reach me.”
“Ka… hah…!”
She had turned the blade and struck with the spine of it… and she had picked her force and her spot so as not to do lasting damage.
Regrettably, there was no denying the girl was a class or two above them.
Last of all she kicked a stone up off the ground. It flew at Sheryl, and Sheryl went down with a high, sharp yelp.
“Beginning her Level 6-class construction the instant the elf girl fell… But the speed is soft.”
By the time I looked properly, Maria and Sheryl were on the ground, Anastasia was standing in a posture of surrender, and the girl in eastern dress had her point turned on me.
“So—what to do about the last one, the black-haired boy…”
“Sorry? Me?”
“I have no interest in you, so fight or no fight is all the same to me. It would be an easy win, in any case.”
“What makes it an easy win, out of curiosity?”
“The magic power you wear. There is nothing in its precision or its refinement worth a second glance.”
“…”
“Among Headmaster Merlin’s students… let me see. On sheer volume of magic, the only one who gave me any sense of danger would be the blue-haired child lying over there.”
So the girl’s ability was about where I had read it: she can see through what Maria and Anastasia and Sheryl are worth, but not through the concealment on me.
Merlin leaned in and murmured by my ear.
“Ephthal-sama? She’s saying a great many things as she pleases…”
“She certainly is.”
“This little madam… is genuinely a nuisance. Shall I make her regret it?”
“No, leave it. I’m not interested in what she’s worth either, so we’re even. Only—”
“Only?”
“I might be interested in the swordsman who trained her.”
Because there’s a real point there. Anastasia and the others are unquestionably top-tier among students in this world, and this girl handled all three like children, which makes her ability, for her age, extraordinary. If somebody raised her, then yes… I’m genuinely interested.
“And you there, black hair.”
“Hm? What?”
“I have heard it said that Headmaster Merlin surrounds herself with pretty boys and gives them special treatment.”
Ah.
Come to think of it, there was that rumor. Not that it can be dismissed as purely a rumor, since she apparently runs a magic class at her house for a collection of small boys.
“So no—I’ve no interest in you. To use one’s charms in a world of ability is beyond excuse.”
Then she turned her point on Merlin.
“Headmaster Merlin. I have shown you my ability. I ask you most sincerely for a single exchange.”
At that Merlin sighed from somewhere deep and shrugged.
“Very well… I shall play a little, to the extent that it does not injure you.”
Magic came pouring off Merlin in a torrent, and the girl’s brows drew together against the pressure of it.
And at that moment—
“Stop there, Naomi.”
Another person in eastern dress appeared: a man, early thirties at a guess, his hair long and tied back like the girl’s. He smiled pleasantly and rapped her on the top of the skull.
Then he gave us a deep bow.
“It appears my disciple has been rude to you… My apologies.”
He took in the state of Anastasia and the others with one glance and bowed again.
“I am aware there is no adequate way to apologize for this. My apologies once more.”
Merlin released the magic she had built up and shrugged, wearily.
“These girls of mine lost because they are immature. I think it was a good lesson for them. Please, raise your head.”
“That is generous of you… Thank you. This is what one would expect of Headmaster Merlin, called the hero of the demon race. I am honored to meet you.”
“I would rather be called the first Thunder God Emperor’s live-in disciple than the hero of the demon race, though that name has stuck fast and will not shift…”
Merlin laughed quietly and went on.
“The honor is mine. Sword God Emperor.”
“Oh? You had realized?”
“The magic power you wear… honed and refined into a form specialized for close quarters. And the extraordinary ability of your disciple.”
“…”
“There is nobody else on this island who fits both conditions.”
Which is fair enough. Magic power handled that quietly and that powerfully… even four hundred years ago there weren’t many who could realize physical enhancement at what you would have to call its highest form.
The Sword God Emperor smiled and offered Merlin his right hand. Merlin bowed her head slightly and met it with her own.
“We both have a great deal of tedious business to deal with, it seems, Sword God Emperor.”
“We do indeed.”
“I hear you travel the world honing yourself, and that no institution anywhere can reliably say where you are.”
“I have not cut my ties with the world entirely, mind. Once a year I must attend the Magic Society’s general assembly as a guest, and once a year I must appear at the Holy Emperor’s tournament as a swordsman.”
“Forgive me, but this year you are not attending as a guest, I think?”
“Quite so. About ten years ago I began taking young disciples… and as you know they have been placing well at sword tournaments the world over.”
“Ha. Placing well, is it? I had heard they win the junior divisions outright, every one.”
“That is partly why, this year, I was offered an exhibition match.”
“Oh? An exhibition match?”
“You have not heard, then. A contest against the winning school of the magic academies’ world tournament… sword against magic… That is the entertainment on offer, and my disciples have agreed to take it on. The winner there is to be called the true student champion team.”
That put a visible tremor through Anastasia and the others.
Which means that if we win, we end up facing the Sword God Emperor’s disciples at the finish.
Sasha, who had kept quiet until now, spoke up.
“And no greeting for me, Kiichi?”
“Ah. It has been a long time, Undead Emperor.”
“And how is it you’ve ignored me all this while?”
“Well… the thing is… I find you difficult.”
“Difficult? All I did was try to creep into your bed, out of pure affection, on the very day you came asking to be taken as a pupil. I hardly deserve to be spoken of so.”
You absolutely do deserve it, I thought, and pulled a face.
“That is precisely why. From the age of fourteen… six years, was it. Until I passed twenty and aged out of your range… you have no idea how I dreaded the nights.”
“Be that as it may. That a man who fled home to the east in the dead of night to escape me… should now be the Sword God Emperor isn’t to my taste.”
“Meeting the sword rather than magic where I fled to was a piece of great luck, I would say.”
“I’d have liked to see you make something of yourself as a mage… There was talent in you, I say.”
“And you are the one who crushed it. In any case, Headmaster Merlin—we have both been blessed with excellent students, it seems.”
“As to that… I am not the one teaching them.”
Merlin pulled a face like she’d bitten into something bitter. The Sword God Emperor tilted his head at her with a puzzled little hm?
“Still, whether one calls it fate or something else… My own master, Breit the War God, and yours, Ephthal. That two people who carry the lines of a pair of old friends should meet on this island, four hundred years on!”
“War God-dono spent something like two hundred years on this island, I believe.”
I found myself asking him:
“Sorry—you’re Breit’s… War God-dono’s disciple?”
Breit has been a close friend since my adventuring days. He was strong enough that when the Demon Lord was to be put down, the allied nations summoned him alongside us Four Emperors. That he was later called the War God surprises nobody.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And two hundred years on this island… War God-dono was a human… Doesn’t the lifespan make that impossible?”
“Hmm… You are a strange boy.”
“Meaning?”
“You seem to know about my master, and at the same time not to know.”
He can say that, but I only know up to a certain point.
“Never mind. Breit the War God worked an immortality technique on himself.”
“Immortality?”
“There was precedent, after all. The Undead Emperor… Sasha-sama.”
“So the War God did the same to himself?”
“Just so. While he was hunting down the remnants of the Demon Lord’s army, by then no better than bandits ravaging the world, he happened to get hold of an artifact of the ancient magic civilization, and that seems to have been the making of it.”
“Hunting remnants? Why would he do that?”
Breit did have something of the training fanatic about him. He was a man permanently shut away in the mountains, and beyond that he collected information on the strong in every country so he could go and challenge dojos and press people for bouts, the sort of thing the girl they called Naomi had just been doing, in fact. He loved it. Even the adventuring was only ever part of looking for strong opponents; the proof being that the moment he hit S-rank and ran out of enemies, he quit.
Except… I tilted my head.
A man like that would have no interest whatsoever in hunting the remnants of a Demon Lord’s army that had lost its core and could manage nothing worse than petty crime…
“Ah, that. Before the final battle at the Demon Lord’s castle… there was a matter between him and Ephthal of the original Four Emperors.”
“Meaning?”
“At the time, my master had a wife who was stricken with an incurable illness.”
“…”
“Before a battle nobody knew they would come back from, Ephthal said to him:”
“…”
“‘Which matters more to you, the fate of the world or your own damn wife? Quit making a dying woman sit and worry, you thick-skulled idiot! We’ll handle all of it—you go home and be with her!’”
The Sword God Emperor said it, beaming.
At which point Merlin—and Anastasia and the others with her—turned to look at me with the collective expression of people thinking yes, he would absolutely say that, and started to giggle.
I do, in fairness, have some feeling that I said something along those lines. I knew Breit’s wife well.
“Though normally you’d think both the fate of the world and your own wife matter, wouldn’t you?”
“That… would be so, yes.”
“But the way he declared flatly that the wife mattered most, and lost his temper about it… the Thunder God Emperor’s regrettable character comes through rather clearly.”
“…Regrettable might be putting it a little strongly.”
“In any case, my master was grateful for it.”
“Grateful?”
“His wife died during the period of the expedition. So—thanks to Ephthal, he was able to be at her side at the end. He says so constantly. Had he gone on the expedition, he would have regretted it his whole life.”
“…I see.”
“And at the same time he felt himself in debt.”
“In debt? In what sense?”
“That at the moment that mattered most, he had been at his wife’s side, and not at Ephthal’s…”
“But the Demon Lord was put down in the end, so wasn’t that all right?”
“My master is a stubborn man… So: the remnants of the Demon Lord’s army that the Four Emperors failed to catch, he would deal with himself… And when time ran short he worked immortality on himself. That is roughly how it went.”
He was a dutiful sort, so I can see how it would go that way. But… so that’s it: Breit is alive.
In that case I’d very much like to meet him once and share a drink.
While I was sunk in that, the Sword God Emperor drew the sword at his hip and swung it at a leaf drifting down toward the ground.
“Ah, and—by way of apology for my disciple’s discourtesy in demanding you show her your strength, let us say… This is my ability.”
Too fast for the eye is the expression, and this is what it means. The sheer speed of it stopped my breath.
Then, in the same motion as he returned the sword to its scabbard, the Sword God Emperor was instantly behind me. And he spoke low, for me alone.
“Tell me. Are you really a student?”
“What else would I look like?”
“That ability… You look like anything but a student… I’m afraid.”
“Your disciple told me I was too weak to be of interest.”
“Ha. You tell a joke with a very straight face.”
“A joke?”
“You have highly advanced concealment on you. That an unripe disciple cannot see through it is only natural. The magic power you wear… even I cannot see the bottom of it.”
“…”
“So far as I know… let me see. The closest thing would be a complete, wily old magic swordsman.”
“…”
“And of the caliber of monster one runs into in the Holy Emperor’s main tournament, at that.”
With that he stepped away and turned back to Merlin.
“In any case, the exhibition match after the world tournament. I’d assumed we’d win overwhelmingly against any opponent, and it appears it won’t be so simple.”
“No. We are of one mind on that.”
“Still, having rivals is a good thing, surely.”
And the Sword God Emperor smiled and went on.
“Just as the Thunder God Emperor of old and my master were… Well then—we shall take our leave.”
He called “We’re going, Naomi” to the girl, and left, walking away so quietly that he seemed to fade out of the place.
His footsteps, in fact, made no sound at all, which I imagine is a by-product of what he does every day.
“Ephthal-sama?”
“What is it, Merlin?”
“That man’s movement just now, when he cut the leaf… Could you follow it?”
“It looked to me like eight swings.”
Merlin went and gathered up the pieces of leaf scattered on the ground.
“Eight exactly… I saw it as seven… That’s Ephthal-sama for you.”
“Being able to see it and being able to answer it are different matters.”
“If even Ephthal-sama says so…”
“His physical enhancement really is a beautiful thing, though. On that point I can flatly declare that I lose.”
“…If it came to a fight at full strength—could you win?”
“Let me put it this way. He’s the sort of opponent where calling the win in advance would be the fastest way to lose it.”
And so, with that, we set off back to the lodging house—and toward the magic academies’ world tournament, which began the next day.