Chapter 36

The Reborn Swordmaster

Chapter 36

Rattle, rattle.

The carriage rocked rhythmically every time its wheels rolled over the main road.

And beyond that vibration, another sound pierced through the walls.

"Wooooooo!"

Cheers.

Not from one or two throats.

It was like a massive wave.

A wave of sound, formed from thousands, tens of thousands of voices merging together until the ground itself seemed to tremble.

It was the day of the mock naval battle.

And the people lining the central boulevard of the Imperial Capital were welcoming the procession of carriages carrying the fighters.

"Hmm. It's like this every year, but somehow this year feels even more excessive."

It was Berka who voiced the thought.

Inside the carriage were Berka, director of the Rodus Training Center, Haral, Riyan, Aries, and several members of the special detachment.

"Does it?"

At Haral's response, Berka frowned.

"You wouldn't know. You skip the mock naval battle every year, you bastard."

"I told you before. I don't like watching people die meaningless deaths."

"Then why did you come today?"

"Now you're complaining because I did come?"

"You little..."

As Haral and Berka bickered, Aries leaned toward Riyan and whispered.

"Are they always like that?"

"Most of the time."

"Your training center is quite entertaining compared to ours. Anyway... Hup!"

Aries stood and stretched.

Then he alternated between sitting and standing to loosen his legs, twisted his waist, and let his arms hang as he rolled his joints.

The fact that he could do all of that without losing his balance inside the swaying carriage was almost strange.

"Hey. What are you doing?"

Haral asked.

Aries smiled.

"What do you think? I'm doing what needs to be done."

Then Aries suddenly thrust both hands upward.

Thump!

A square hatch in the carriage roof popped open, allowing bright light to pour inside.

Aries jumped through it.

He perched on the roof, spread both arms wide, and shouted.

"Uraaaaaaa!"

The reaction was explosive.

"Wooooooo!"

"The Rose Fighter! It's the Rose Fighter!"

At the thunderous cheers, Berka tilted his head.

"What the hell? Have all the citizens in the Imperial Capital gone blind? Can't they see what he looks like?"

Berka's confusion wasn't unreasonable.

The past two or three months of training with Riyan had stripped away much of the Rose Fighter's former elegance.

His once-pale skin had tanned beneath the sun.

A number of shallow cuts that hadn't fully healed still lined his cheeks and neck.

But apparently, that only made him more attractive.

"Oh my! Look at those scars! And that tan!"

"He's become so manly! Rose Fighter! Please look this way!"

Women along the boulevard waved handkerchiefs and squealed.

"...Damn it!"

Someone inside the carriage clicked his tongue.

It was Yarik.

His dark, muscular frame was crammed awkwardly into the narrow seat, and he grumbled with a fierce expression.

"Bullshit. That's manly? Did every man in the world die? Did they replace their eyes with iron balls or something...?"

Yarik had once tried to give Riyan an initiation beating when Riyan first entered the Rodus Training Center, only to get beaten badly himself.

After that, fear of Riyan had driven the Nord-born fighter to train diligently.

And somehow, he'd eventually made it into the special detachment, putting him closer to Riyan in battle than almost anyone else.

"Yarik."

Riyan, who had been sitting calmly across from him, spoke.

"Huh? Ah, yes! Captain! What is it?"

Yarik nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Riyan's voice and immediately straightened his posture.

Haral snorted at how quickly he became obedient.

Riyan, meanwhile, slowly opened the eyes he'd had closed and continued.

"Does your room not have a mirror?"

"..."

Several members of the special detachment snickered.

Yarik instantly deflated and shrank back into his corner.

Riyan chuckled and glanced toward the window.

That was a mistake.

His eyes met those of the crowd that had moved closer to the carriage to throw flowers toward Aries.

The first to notice him was a young noblewoman.

Her eyes widened.

"Oh? Ah! The White Wolf?"

By the time Riyan realized his mistake, it was already too late.

"Oh my! Riyan! It's Fighter Riyan!"

"The White Wolf of Rodus! It's Riyan!"

It spread like a wave.

One person's shout caught the attention of the next, then another, then another.

In an instant, his name swept across the entire square.

"Riyan! Riyan! White Wolf!"

"Show us your face, White Wolf!"

The chanting was loud enough to make the carriage itself seem to shake.

Riyan pressed a hand to his forehead.

Above him, Aries leaned down from the roof with a grin.

"Your popularity is reaching the heavens. I'm jealous."

"What kind of nonsense is that?"

"I'm serious. Come up here."

"I'll pass."

Aries dropped back down from the roof and began urging Riyan to go up.

Riyan frowned as he refused.

Then he suddenly noticed someone staring at him from the front of the carriage.

Berka.

He didn't say anything.

But the expression on his face was obvious.

He looked like a desperate puppy begging to be let outside.

Riyan's standing inside the training center had grown considerably, and with such an important match ahead of them, Berka seemed to be exercising what little restraint he had.

Riyan finally let out a quiet sigh and nodded.

"...Just for a moment."

"Y-Yes!"

Berka's face lit up instantly.

He sprang to his feet and even held Riyan's legs to help him climb through the roof hatch.

Truly devoted service.

With a thoroughly reluctant expression, Riyan finally pushed his upper body through the opening.

"..."

The world changed.

The first thing that struck him was the light.

Summer had begun to retreat, leaving behind the cooler air of early autumn.

Golden sunlight poured down from the clear sky, making Riyan narrow his eyes.

But even after his vision adjusted...

He couldn't properly see the sky.

Thousands, tens of thousands of red and white flower petals filled it like falling snow.

They were constantly being scattered in every direction from the top of a gigantic bell tower in the distance.

Riyan unconsciously drew in a breath.

A tingling fragrance filled his lungs.

It was a rich scent unlike anything he'd ever smelled in his life.

As though the entire square had been thrown into the middle of a vast flower garden.

Then the thunderous cheers struck him.

"Wooooooo!"

"Riyan! Riyan! Look over here! Riyaaan!"

"Glory to the White Wolf!"

The roar was deafening.

Only then did Riyan fully register what surrounded him.

The central square of the Imperial Capital stretched out like an enormous plain.

And that vast space had been completely filled by people.

Even a conservative estimate would put the crowd at tens of thousands.

They packed the square around the main boulevard, cheering at the top of their lungs.

And through that sea of voices moved the procession of carriages.

It wasn't only Rodus.

Nearly a hundred carriages from training centers across the Imperial Capital had gathered.

Each carried its own banners as the long procession wound forward like a massive serpent, pushing against the river of falling petals.

This was the grandeur of the Empire.

...Disgusting.

Riyan slowly closed his eyes.

He knew the truth.

All of this was a cruel performance.

At the end of it waited the stench of blood.

And yet...

For one brief moment, his heart had genuinely stirred.

Expectation.

Excitement.

Pride.

A sense of belonging.

He couldn't deny it.

He wasn't capable of lying to himself.

And that realization filled him with disgust toward himself.

At the same time, something heavy pressed down on one corner of his heart.

Riyan understood all over again.

Just how systematic the Empire's methods were.

How difficult it would be to bring such an Empire down.

What kind of monster the kingdom of the past had become.

For the first time, he felt it with his entire body.

The underground levels of Judgment, the Imperial Arena, felt like another world.

The brilliance from above was nowhere to be found.

The waiting areas below were filled only with damp, gloomy air.

Moisture seeped from moss-covered stones.

Torches lining the underground passages released black soot.

Rats squeaked in the darkness.

And then there was something else.

Wooooosh!

A massive sound moved overhead.

It was unmistakably the sound of waves.

There was nothing strange about waves in a naval battle.

The problem was that they were currently beneath the Arena.

For fighters accustomed to standing on dry earth and fighting with swords, the sensation was even more unsettling.

"..."

The waiting room was unnaturally quiet.

No one spoke.

Only the occasional sound of hurried breathing could be heard.

Tension was contagious.

One fighter stared nervously at the ceiling, sweating as though afraid it might collapse.

Another crouched in a corner and began vomiting.

"Is it always like this?"

Riyan asked Aries, who looked relatively composed.

Of course, even Aries wore a tense expression.

"This is my first mock naval battle too, but I've heard it's usually like this."

Riyan quietly looked around at the frightened fighters.

This was his first mock naval battle as well.

But the atmosphere itself was familiar.

That familiarity came from his previous life.

This was what battle lines often looked like before clashing with monsters.

Surprisingly, the monsters themselves weren't what broke soldiers first.

The real problem was the fear they created in their own minds.

Fear was the first blade to kill a soldier.

The heart was cut down before the battle even began.

...Looks like I'll have to step in.

Riyan was just about to say something when—

"You pathetic bastards!"

Yarik suddenly stood and cursed at the others.

He flinched when Riyan looked at him, but deliberately avoided his gaze and swung his arms around.

"You call yourselves fighters? You're scared stiff just because you can hear some water overhead? You're trembling like gutless little worms!"

At Yarik's words, several more fighters stood.

Cutler.

Gaze.

Bjorn.

Varg.

Like Yarik, they were either former pirates or had backgrounds closely tied to the sea.

During the earlier mock naval battle training, they'd once served as squad leaders and been brutally defeated by newcomers under Riyan's command.

Back then, they had looked down on the other fighters.

Now, they were glaring at those same frightened men in irritation.

"Think about the last two or three months! Did we work ourselves half to death just so you could sit here shaking like idiots?"

"You bastards! That noise above us? It's just a tiny damn lake! Compared to a real sea in the middle of a storm, it's child's play!"

Scrrrape!

Yarik dragged the battle axe in his hand across the stone wall.

Sparks flew.

"What the hell are you afraid of?! We've prepared everything we could! We've trained until there was nothing left to give! You bastards have beaten warriors from Nord on a ship! Is there even one man in here who hasn't beaten me during training?"

As Yarik reminded them of the long months they'd spent training on the model ships, the expressions of the frightened fighters began to change.

"Quite the thing to brag about."

"Captain! Come on! I was finally setting the mood!"

Riyan's remark became the finishing touch.

Yarik's face crumpled in wounded embarrassment.

A ripple of quiet laughter spread through the room.

Nothing more needed to be said.

These were men who had spent a long time being thrown around on model ships together.

Just as Yarik said, they'd prepared as much as they could.

They'd trained until there was nothing left to give.

Perhaps everyone reached the same conclusion, because the fighters' trembling subsided almost unnaturally quickly.

Bwooooooo!

At that moment, a horn blast shook the entire underground level.

Rumble!

At the same time, the gigantic iron gate at the front of the waiting room opened with a deafening roar.

A passage leading outside was revealed.

Blinding light poured through the widening gap.

Yarik spread both arms and roared.

"Uraaaaaaaa!"

Aries immediately raised his right hand high and shouted.

"Let's kill them all!"

The fighters erupted.

"Let's go! Let's slaughter every last one of them!"

"The White Wolf and Rose Fighter are with us!"

"Uraaaaaa!"

With the cheers behind him, Riyan took the first step forward.

Out of the darkness.

Toward the brilliant light.

Aries, the special detachment, and more than a hundred fighters followed behind him.

The mock naval battle had begun.