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I exited the Tram Station and walked through District 21.

As I walked along the cracked and broken brick path, I pondered whether accepting the position of Instructor was still a good decision. However, my meeting with Heinkel Headmaster had left a deep impression on me, and as the Kalstein Marquis said, it was true that I had nothing special to do.

I once had goals of my own. The goal to become a knight. The goal to become stronger. The goal to end the war. When I think about it, all of those goals were tied to Ella and Charlotte. I resolved to shake off their shadows and live my own life, but I had no idea how I was supposed to live that life.

Living on the battlefield for so long had made me too familiar with it, and life outside the battlefield felt all the more difficult. My decision to accept the Instructor position had been part of my effort to grasp a new way of life.

As I walked in silence, I found myself near the Red Bear Inn. Just as I was about to enter the inn, I heard the sounds of a fight coming from a nearby alley. Thinking it was just some local thugs brawling and dismissing it, my keen hearing picked up on something that seemed different about the ruckus.

Chaotic and disorderly footsteps, screams and shouts. It sounded like a group was fighting against someone… no, one person.

“Hm.”

After some hesitation, I lightly kicked off the ground and leaped up the wall. With a single push, I swiftly made my way onto the roof of the building, moving towards the source of the noise.

“Ugh!”

“Ahhh!”

Looking down from the roof, I saw a black-haired boy with his hair tied back, pounding on a group of thugs. The weapon he wielded was a club wrapped in cloth, but upon closer inspection, it looked like a sword. He had wrapped a sword and its sheath in white cloth and was swinging it like a club.

The thugs, each armed with their own tools like wooden planks or daggers, swung at the boy, but he stood firm like a rock, parrying all incoming attacks and retaliating. The boy’s sharp strikes—no, clubbing—swept the thugs away like fallen leaves. Despite the somewhat comical appearance, his skills were quite impressive.

I was reluctant to get involved in troublesome matters, but depending on the situation, I was willing to help, although it seemed like unnecessary worry. Just as I had seen enough and was about to leave, I accidentally locked eyes with one of the thugs below. His shady gaze felt familiar as if I’d seen him somewhere before.

“Whoa! It’s him—Gah!”

He was the thug from the Red Bear Inn, the one who had been all over me when his buddy got pinned. Now, he collided head-on with his own gang and collapsed to the ground. He probably wanted to say something like, “You’re that guy who took down my brother!” but the boy below interpreted it differently.

Before long, the boy who had taken down all the thugs aimed his club at me and said, “Are you their leader? What an old-fashioned way to appear from the roof!”

“…”

I seemed to have stirred up some unnecessary misunderstandings. Feeling a strong foreboding that the situation might get annoying if it continued like this, I opened my mouth to correct it.

“No, I am—”

“Questions are useless!”

Interrupting my words, the boy grabbed a piece of wood lying around and threw it. I bent backward to dodge the flying plank, but it was merely a means to buy time for the boy to jump onto the roof. Without checking on the plank he threw, he leapt, kicking off the wall and window frame and landing on the roof like a cat.

Then he immediately swung his club at me.

“Evil-doers must be punished!”

“Hah…”

Although the boy’s attack was fierce, I didn’t sense any malice in it, so I decided to play along. His full-body swings were fast and powerful, but their trajectories were straightforward. His intentions to incapacitate my limbs were obvious, so evading his attacks was quite simple.

I pulled back my right leg and barely dodged the swinging club. It was a narrow escape, just a hair’s breadth away. Surprised that his attack didn’t hit as he expected, the boy clearly showed signs of confusion.

Taking advantage of the opening he created, I landed a palm strike to the boy’s chest. With a dull thud, he was pushed back and realized that there was nothing beneath his feet.

“Gah!”

He let out a high-pitched scream and fell off the roof. For a boy, his voice was notably sharp. Glancing down, I saw he must have taken a roll to break his fall, but he landed safely, staring up at me with a dazed expression.

“W-Who in the world are you…?”

I lightly hopped down from the roof. At that height, there was no need to roll upon landing. Seeing me descend, the boy swallowed hard, his face filled with more tension.

“That remarkable martial art. You must be quite the extraordinary expert… But why would you stoop to the level of a thug?”

“I’m not a thug.”

“E-Eh? Then…”

I casually glanced around. The thugs were strewn about, groaning and clutching their broken limbs, clearly not in a state conducive to conversation.

“Let’s move to a better spot.”

*

“I am very sorry!!”

The boy bowed deeply, making it embarrassing for anyone watching. I could feel the eyes of passersby on us as we made quite the scene in the middle of the street, but he didn’t seem to care and kept his head down.

“To swing a weapon at an innocent is a disgrace to a martial artist! I don’t know how to repay this sin! Can I be forgiven if I kneel and apologize!?”

He looked like a young man who had just hit adulthood. If I let him go on, he truly would kneel, so thinking he was young and must have simply made a mistake, I decided to stop him there.

“It’s fine. Just make sure you don’t mistake your targets next time.”

“Y-Yes! Thank you for forgiving me!”

The boy, perhaps delighted at being forgiven, lifted his head and smiled brightly. He was bursting with energy, likely due to his youth. Now that the misunderstanding was cleared up, I had no more business here, but just as I was about to part ways, the boy hesitated and spoke up.

“U-Um… if it’s not too much trouble, may I ask for your name, esteemed one?”

“My name?”

“Yes! I want to know the name of the master I’ve met from afar. Ah, I am Gwen Tris! I’ve just arrived in the Empire from my home, Han. I have a different name back home, but for now, you can call me Gwen.”

‘Han’ refers to a nation at the eastern edge of the continent. There seems to be very limited trade with the Empire, making it quite distant, yet he came all the way here from there. Thinking about it, his outfit also had an Eastern style to it.

I nodded and replied, “I’m Ion Graham. But why is someone from Han fighting thugs in such an alleyway?”

“Ah! The thing is, I saw a group of them heading towards the inn as I was walking. The atmosphere looked bad, so I thought I’d eavesdrop, but things escalated, and I had to step in.”

The inn he pointed at was the Red Bear Inn. I finally understood the situation. Those guys who had caused me trouble in the morning were trying to get revenge by gathering their gang to enter the inn when they ran into this boy.

In a way, Gwen had gotten dragged into my mess. I felt a bit grateful for him taking care of my aftermath, even though it meant I had to deal with another annoying situation.

At that moment, Gwen cautiously spoke up.

“Um, Ion-san, I can’t shake the feeling that just letting this go as an apology would leave me too uncomfortable. Since I’ll be staying in the Empire for a while, if you ever need my help, please feel free to visit Philion Academy.”

“…Philion Academy?”

“Yes. I came to the Empire to become a martial artist. Now, I must excuse myself as I have somewhere to be!”

Gwen performed a traditional Eastern parting gesture, clashing his fists together, and hurried off. Was he genuinely in a rush? His steps were quite quick. As I watched the boy’s figure grow distant, I fell into thought.

The swordsmanship he had shown. Though it had taken place with a club, the way he stood his ground against all incoming attacks and countered like a rock was incredibly familiar.

In the midst of a hell of intertwined people and monsters on the battlefield, the heavy and straight sword of an old man I once knew overlapped with the boy’s swordsmanship as it reflected both past and future.

“You were the heir of the rock.”

I quietly opened and closed my fist a couple of times. The sensation I felt when I pushed against Gwen’s chest was definitely… that was as far as I wanted to think.

I had a strange feeling I would meet that boy again.

 

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