“…!”
Anya jolted awake from his dream at the suddenly felt killing intent. With the bluish dawn air at their back, someone was pointing a sword at him. The creases of the mask that covered up to the neck due to the cold had frost gathered here and there. The man’s sword pierced through the mask and came in deeper.
“Do not let your guard down. Even in that moment when you fall asleep. Darkness is always close at hand.”
The man said as he withdrew his sword. A long, thin line of blood flowed down Anya’s neck beneath the mask. The man was Sabelli.
For a moment he mistook him for Royster. The dream still vivid, Anya rose from his spot with a face pale as a sheet.
“If you cannot even properly feel killing intent, you cannot reach the Dragcals.”
Sabelli ground out the campfire that still had embers remaining with his foot.
“Yes… I’m so-sorry.”
“Pack your bags. We’re going deeper. The forest’s darkness will raise your limits.”
It was the third day since entering the forest. Three days had passed, yet Sabelli hadn’t even uttered the first syllable of ‘contract.’ Anya sat on a rock, stuffing the provisions Gregos had packed into his mouth while watching Sabelli’s mood.
“Don’t look at me like that. The boy is not yet ready. You need to increase your lung capacity enough to hold your breath for a long time underwater, and above all, you must be able to raise your senses to their limit.”
Anya had only just begun to walk. Even that walking had been done with truly mortal resolve. If he had more time, he would have somehow gratefully received Sabelli’s teachings. But there was no time. He had to return within three weeks.
Anya took out a quill pen and drew three diagonal lines on his palm. He had to return by any means before twenty-one lines were drawn.
“I kn-know that too. But… if I go ba-back after three weeks, it’ll be use-useless. I ab-absolutely must go before then. If Sabelli-nim ta-takes me to the Dragcals, somehow I… I can do-do it.”
“How so?”
Sabelli bit his long pipe and exhaled a hollow circular smoke toward the sky. Ice particles clung to the ends of his beard.
Before when he fell into the lake, and when there was the duel with Rips Mohan, the Dragcals had saved him. Anya felt a deep communion with that spirit he couldn’t name. If he could just meet that mysterious spirit once… if he could just meet it once….
“Have you tried calling the Dragcals?”
“……”
“Did it answer your call?”
Anya couldn’t answer. Since then, the Dragcals hadn’t shown itself to Anya. That fact made Anya very depressed.
“You’re not ready yet. Your mind and body’s balance still doesn’t match.”
It was a difficult statement. Anya had no choice but to ask again.
“Ba-balance?”
“Yes. The boy’s mind is seized by an obsession to become strong as quickly as possible, but your body is not. Do you know what another name for spirits is?”
Anya obediently shook his head. Anya liked reading and was more confident than anyone in speed reading, but he hadn’t been given enough books to satisfy his intellectual curiosity.
“Guardians of balance. Since ancient times, the ancients called them thus. They are neutral beings that exist to balance this world.”
Gathering away the thin frost, the ash-colored morning sunlight came in through the bare branches and illuminated Sabelli’s face. Balance… Anya quietly pronounced that word. Somehow he liked it.
“They are such beings. The existence you will meet is an unknown soul that has been asleep for thousands of years. Even I couldn’t handle it. However, if there’s only one thing I know….”
“……”
Without realizing it, Anya gulped. The old man’s grave expression was unfamiliar.
“If the boy’s balance doesn’t match, you cannot call them.”
“……”
“And to make a contract, the contractee must pass the guardian’s test without fail. If you cannot even pass my training, you will never be able to respond to the guardian’s test. If you’re in a hurry, then hurry and defeat me accordingly.”
There wasn’t a single wrong point in his words, so Anya dared not make any retort or complaint. Sabelli had said something similar before.
Since the Dragcals had already told him its name, now it was his turn to call.
The boy quietly followed behind Sabelli.
The deeper they went into the forest, the closer the huge white curtain came before their eyes. Snow began to scatter again. Anya pulled up his mask to cover his nose and mouth. The cold air filled his lungs, making him breathless. They finally arrived at the entrance of a deeply carved gorge. The gorge connected to a passage between steeply sloped mountain ranges. What lay beyond it, they couldn’t tell. Because it was all white.
“Climb to the top of this cliff before the sun reaches its zenith. In the afternoon you will train swordsmanship with me. Can you do it?”
Anya inwardly recited Chapter 2 of the training manual.
<Training Manual of the Blind Knights: Chapter 2. If you are blind, develop your other senses.>
* * *
The strength suddenly drained from the grip holding the protruding rock on the cliff. Anya’s body dangled in the middle of the cliff. If he fell from here, at least one bone would surely break easily and then some. If that happened, he could no longer resume training. Anya gritted his teeth and lifted his arm that had lost sensation again.
‘If I just climb up recklessly, it’ll only take more effort and waste time.’
Anya raised his head to look at the cliff that still remained dizzyingly high. At first, his body couldn’t even climb half of half the cliff, but now he could climb up to the middle of the cliff. In the past, he would have been satisfied with just this.
But the goal was to climb to the end of the cliff. He fell countless times, climbed again, and his body became battered, but Anya willingly endured it.
‘I need to consider the route.’
If he climbed up ignorantly without thinking, he would fall down there again.
As time passed, the snowfall swirled more fiercely. His vision was obscured, but now Anya could identify objects beyond the obscured vision. His desperate body had become assimilated to this environment.
The faint and cool winter sun was already gradually moving from the eastern ridge toward the center of the gorge. His arms, which severely lacked muscle strength, trembled. Anya’s eyes quickly counted the rocks protruding from the cliff and drew the optimal route in his head.
‘…I have to climb before I can’t endure anymore.’
His breath rose to his chin, and his reddened, swollen hands now had no sensation at all. Anya knew his body’s endurance. Soon Anya moved his body following the route he had carefully calculated in his head.
Huff, huff. His breath rose to the point where he worried his lungs might burst. It felt like his eyeballs would roll back at any moment.
“Just a little more… just a little….”
Whipping himself as he kept trying to lose consciousness, Anya finally grabbed the edge of the cliff.
“Ugh, ugh…!”
The hands hanging on the edge of the cliff trembled. Anya gathered up the last bit of strength he had from nursing and pulled his body up. Finally Anya’s body collapsed onto the edge of the top of the gorge.
“Ha, haah….”
Sunlight poured through the mist particles. Physiological tears streamed down beside the eyes of Anya, who was lying flat. Anya gazed at the sky and exhaled rough breaths. The breath he expelled with a huff spread out white.
“Tomorrow morning you’ll climb this cliff again. The day after tomorrow, the day after that, you’ll climb it every day.”
Sabelli stuck his face out over Anya, who for the first time in his life was desperately catching his breath and couldn’t answer properly.
“Every… every day?”
Anya asked while coughing up a cough. The thought that he had to do this again tomorrow made his vision go dark for a moment. But he had to accept it. Anya fiddled with his thread bracelet and rose from his spot with effort. Sabelli grinned while holding a wooden spatula.
“Before that, let’s have a meal and start the afternoon swordsmanship training. Isn’t your swordsmanship still stuck at the duel with Rips Mohan?”
* * *
On the wide clearing atop the cliff, the sound of swords clashing rang out. Anya only now realized that the swordsmanship training he received while preparing for the previous duel with Rips Mohan was merely like children’s playing house.
Sabelli pushed Anya without changing his expression even once, and Anya was busy staggering backward to avoid him. When he was finally pushed back to the edge of the cliff, Anya looked at Sabelli with a flustered face.
“Do not beg for mercy from the enemy.”
He smiled coldly and nimbly bent his body to attack the back of Anya’s leg. Anya barely caught his body that was about to pour forward and turned his body to the side. Sabelli didn’t miss the chance and struck Anya’s back hard enough to make a thud.
“Do not show your back to the enemy.”
It was a fierce attack enough to make him cry out. He only attacked Anya with a bladeless scabbard, yet it was fiercer than any attack. On the other hand, even though Anya was holding a real sword called Haebing, he couldn’t cut even a single hair of Sabelli’s.
When Anya misstepped and rolled in the snowfield, Sabelli’s scabbard loomed below his neck.
“If this had been a real sword, the boy would have just died here forlornly, spewing blood.”
Sabelli withdrew his sword and looked at the sun already crossing over the western ridge, narrowing his eyes.
“Well, it’s dinner time. Time to be disappointed in yourself is also very precious to the boy right now, so put away that aggrieved face.”
Anya grasped the hand Sabelli extended and raised his body. His whole body screamed. When the swordsmanship training ended, only then could he feel the bruised places.
Anya sat by the campfire and stuffed food into his mouth crunchingly. Never had food tasted so sweet. Since there was no one to see, Anya decided to throw away his dignity as the lady of the house. The boy’s eyes gazing at the campfire blazed like burning flames.
