The Reborn Swordmaster
Chapter 33
It was a pitch-black night.
At the center of the military camp, a massive fire roared toward the sky.
Crackle. Crackle.
Another sound mixed with the burning wood.
The kind of sound Riyan didn't want to think too deeply about.
Countless soldiers who had fallen during the day were turning to ash inside the flames.
Thick black smoke blanketed the sky, while sparks scattered into the darkness.
They looked almost like the souls of the dead rising into the heavens as stars.
...
How many battles had it been?
Riyan had long since given up counting.
He closed his eyes as he looked back on the state of the war.
The situation was terrible.
Their supply lines had been cut off for a long time.
Torn tents fluttered in the wind, and the groans of wounded soldiers hung low over the camp.
They had won today's battle.
Yet there was no sense of victory anywhere.
Riyan had been the first to enter the battlefield and the last to withdraw.
Dragging his exhausted body with him, he finally sat down in front of the flames.
The black blood of monsters and the red blood of his comrades had mixed together and dried across his entire body.
But he had neither the strength nor the desire to wash it away.
He simply stared blankly into the fire.
The only thing burning in his sunken eyes was the reflection of those red flames.
And on days like this, there was always one face that came to mind.
Eldred.
It had already been more than ten years since he'd died.
Sometimes Riyan even forgot the exact anniversary of his death.
But Eldred's face remained vivid in his memory.
"Riyan."
That was when someone called his name.
Riyan returned from his thoughts as a heavy hand settled on his shoulder.
He looked up.
Siegfried was standing there.
Beneath his disheveled blond hair, his face was flushed red.
His eyes, once fierce and bright like a lion's, were now half-lidded and clouded by alcohol.
There was a weakness in them.
The harsh smell of liquor struck Riyan's nose.
It had been a long war.
And this was how Siegfried endured the deaths of his comrades.
Not through mourning.
Through pain.
Rather than dwelling on grief, he chose to numb himself against it.
Siegfried dropped down beside Riyan.
Then he held out a wineskin.
Riyan normally didn't drink much.
But this time, he accepted it without a word and took a swallow.
...
Strong.
Bitter.
Sour.
The cheap alcohol scraped down his throat, making him frown.
Then again, their supplies were barely arriving at all.
Being able to drink even something like this was almost a luxury.
Most soldiers couldn't get their hands on alcohol even if they wanted it.
"Great stuff, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Incredible."
Despite Riyan's dry answer, Siegfried gave a melancholy smile.
Then he stared into the same blazing fire and spoke.
"How many more people have to die before this ends?"
"Who knows."
"The guys who were joking with us this morning are burning in there now. What were their names again? I'm starting to forget even that."
Siegfried raised the wineskin.
His throat moved several times as he drank deeply.
"At first, I remembered every single one of them. Their names. Their faces. But now I keep wondering what the point is."
"When are you planning to forget my name?"
"Huh? Have we met before? Who are you? Damn, I must be drunk."
The ridiculous joke drew silent laughter from both of them.
Their shoulders shook as they held it in.
Eventually, Siegfried let out a deep sigh and raised his left hand.
A bracelet hung around his wrist.
The same bracelet Riyan had never once seen him remove since the day they first met.
Siegfried looked down at it.
"If I die, take this."
Riyan answered as though he'd heard something absurd.
"What am I supposed to do with that?"
His voice was dry and indifferent.
Siegfried didn't care.
He gave a bitter smile and continued almost as though talking to himself.
"My family doesn't have much to boast about in terms of bloodline, but we've produced excellent knights for generations. This is why."
"So you wrap that bracelet around your wrist and pray to your precious god all night?"
"Hey. Even if it's you, enough with the blasphemy."
Riyan didn't answer.
He merely continued staring into the fire.
Siegfried sighed again.
"...Sometimes even I start to waver."
"So you're not trying to make me wear a bracelet and pray with you?"
What Siegfried said next was enough to interest even Riyan, despite how deeply the weight of the battlefield had settled over him.
Apparently, the bracelet was some kind of strange artifact.
Siegfried seemed determined to call it a holy relic blessed by the gods.
But there was no way any god existed in such a rotten world.
So Riyan called it an artifact.
"...It increases one's natural sensitivity to Aether?"
"That's right. That's what the previous head of the family told me when he passed it down. And thanks to it, I've been able to become a proper knight."
There was unmistakable affection in the way he touched the bracelet.
"So why are you telling me this?"
"Normally, this should be passed down secretly to the legitimate heir of the family, but..."
Siegfried trailed off.
Then he gave a crooked smile.
"What's the point of worrying about heirs when humanity itself might go extinct? If I die, take it and use it to make yourself stronger. And if you get the chance someday, give it to someone suitable among the surviving members of my family."
"You could just give it to them yourself instead of making me deal with the trouble."
"I know that's your way of comforting me, but it doesn't really help, Riyan. You know it too. I'm falling apart more and more. I don't have much time left."
Riyan couldn't deny it.
There had been a time when Knight Siegfried had seemed like a lion on the battlefield.
Whenever fear froze the ranks, it was Siegfried's roar that melted it away.
But what about now?
He couldn't make it through a single night without alcohol.
He had given up trying to remember the dead.
And yet he despised both the numbness growing inside him and the person that numbness was turning him into.
Of course, Siegfried wasn't the only one suffering that way.
But he was the one closest to Riyan.
That made him the hardest not to worry about.
"So if the opportunity comes, take it. I believe it'll help you."
At Siegfried's weak words, Riyan slowly nodded.
Truthfully, he wasn't particularly impressed.
He had already spent more than a decade on battlefields, tempering himself to the limit until he could control Aether perfectly.
If Siegfried's explanation was accurate, the bracelet merely helped an incomplete knight open the path toward Aether.
For someone like Riyan, who could already control it as naturally as his own body, the item didn't seem particularly useful.
But Siegfried believed Riyan was humanity's only hope in the war against the Demon Dragon.
Riyan couldn't bring himself to reject even this small gesture coldly.
"...If I get the chance, I'll put it to good use. It might even help when I kill that black lizard."
"Thanks."
Siegfried seemed to understand what Riyan truly thought, but he didn't point it out.
"Still, it's strange that something so valuable hasn't caught anyone else's attention all this time."
"There's an activation phrase. Most of the time, as you can see, it's just an ordinary bracelet."
"An activation phrase?"
"Yeah. Want me to tell you?"
"Later. Tell me when you actually hand it over."
For some reason, hearing it now felt as though Siegfried would fail to return from battle the very next day.
"Really? Fine. But I'll give you a hint."
Siegfried laughed and took another drink.
Then he threw an arm around Riyan's shoulders and whispered.
"You wake me up every morning, don't you?"
"...That's the hint?"
"Yeah."
Siegfried lowered his voice, imitating Riyan.
"With that grumpy face of yours, making it sound like the most irritating lecture imaginable. You say it so often that I feel like I'll remember it even after I die."
Riyan frowned.
What kind of pointless joke was this?
"What does that have to do with the activation phrase?"
"Why wouldn't it? I'm the one who chose it."
Siegfried smiled sadly.
"Let's call it a bit of romance. Even after I die, I want your voice to wake me up."
Riyan slowly opened his eyes.
He was still inside the mausoleum.
The violently burning flames from that night were gone.
In their place, a pillar of moonlight poured down from the ceiling.
Something red and hot had become blue and cold.
Through the faint haze of incense smoke, Riyan looked over the stone statue of Siegfried, frozen in the middle of a hearty laugh.
Then he spotted the bracelet around the statue's wrist.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
"So you really took the secret all the way to the grave."
It was almost funny.
During the final battle, they had managed to bring down the Demon Dragon.
But Siegfried had suffered fatal wounds and hovered on the brink of death.
Even then, he had trusted Riyan and kept the secret.
And immediately afterward, the very person who had inherited Siegfried's last wish had been branded a traitor and executed.
The only man in the world who knew the truth of the bracelet and its activation phrase had disappeared.
The secret must have vanished completely.
The descendants of the traitors.
The magicians who later rose to power.
To them, the bracelet was probably nothing more than a humble keepsake that one hero had been strangely attached to.
That was why it remained here, untouched, right before Riyan's eyes.
Ignorance born from lies.
Riyan smiled faintly.
They had used even the dead without hesitation to fabricate history.
And yet, through that very lie, they had preserved something that would now become power for the enemy who hated them most.
Riyan slowly reached out.
His fingertips touched the darkened steel links.
Cold.
Rough.
There was no hint of power in them.
They felt like nothing more than dead metal.
You wake me up every morning, don't you?
Siegfried's voice seemed to brush past his ears.
Every morning.
There was nothing unusual about it.
Whenever Siegfried drank himself unconscious and collapsed on the floor of his tent, Riyan would nudge him awake with the toe of his boot.
Always with the same irritated remark.
That single phrase had somehow become the promise of a man who wanted Riyan to remember him and wake him even after death.
Riyan's lips moved faintly.
"...Wake up, you damn drunk."
At that moment—
Whoooosh.
A faint tremor ran through the bracelet.
Then thin blue lines, like veins, spread beneath the lifeless steel.
The glow circled the bracelet once before resonating through Riyan's fingertips.
It was a familiar sensation.
A power that had always existed there, yet one he normally had to struggle to grasp, was now pulsing more strongly.
Of course, it wasn't as though he had suddenly seized complete control of Aether.
But the energy that normally felt like a distant mirage, even when he strained to sense it, was now much clearer.
It was like a blind man suddenly gaining sight.
So it was true.
Riyan lightly touched the bracelet.
As though it possessed a will of its own, it immediately wrapped around his wrist.
Click!
At the same moment, the blue light vanished as though it had never existed.
What was unusual was that once the glow faded, the bracelet no longer looked quite the same.
It was thinner.
Smoother.
And slightly loose around his wrist.
If the activation phrase can be changed, perhaps its appearance changes to suit the wearer's will as well. It really is an artifact.
Riyan lightly ran his fingers over the bracelet and nodded.
That was one less thing to worry about.
To anyone who didn't know the truth, it would probably look like an ordinary bracelet.
Many fighters covered themselves in accessories simply to show off, so wearing one wouldn't attract much attention either.
Riyan gave the bracelet one final, gentle stroke before looking up at the statue.
Siegfried was still laughing as heartily as ever.
"...You've had enough to drink. Sleep well now, Siegfried."
After that brief murmur, Riyan turned and walked away.
Leaving the mausoleum behind.
A hall dedicated to immortal stars and cowardly traitors.
And as he departed, he did so under the silent farewell of the one true friend he had left there.
