“One, two, three, …”
In the empty training ground, soft, labored breathing spread. The boy raised his sword in a defensive stance, then stood upright again. He repeated this position continuously. He tried to gather magical energy with his other hand while holding up the sword, but Sabelli had told him to never use magic in this training ground.
The boy’s sword practice had no offensive positions at all. Using only one hand to hold the sword sent shivers up his right arm as if it were paralyzed.
“…One hundred.”
He knew well that his skills were far inferior to Lipps Mohan’s. Accepting this fact humbly made it clear what he needed to do.
Beads of sweat fell onto the muddy ground. Anya took a deep breath after finishing his movements. The bitter, cold dawn air filled his lungs. The sun was rising over the Beriela Mountain Range. The boy readjusted his sword.
“One, two, …”
The sword practice continued. As if time had turned back, in one corner of the empty training ground, a youthful voice counting numbers began to echo softly again. One particular spot on the ground was deeply indented with footprints.
An owl flew down with a flutter and perched on a tree. The owl lifted one foot to scratch its feathers, then shook itself.
‘An owl at dawn…?’
Owls were nocturnal animals that slept during the day. This was common knowledge. Yet this owl sat on a tree with the flooding sunlight at its back. The beast’s golden eyes stared intently at Anya.
“He-hello?”
When he awkwardly raised one hand in greeting, the owl flew up into the sky as if mocking him. Anya let out an empty laugh.
‘What a strange creature.’
One, two…. The counting sounds repeated again.
* * *
Near the training ground, in the wooden dining hall.
“Oh my.”
Clang. A brass bowl fell to the floor with a noise. The thick stew inside spilled miserably onto the ground.
“I apologize, Your Imperial Highness. When I thought about you eating something like this, my heart ached so much…”
Lipps Mohan bowed his head with his hands folded over his chest. The other knights sitting at the wooden table looked up from their meals with interested gazes. What if they start fighting now, everyone? That fellow has so much energy. Someone responded cleverly to what was meant to be a joke. There’s never been a decent man among those who talk about energy.
“Surely you’re not planning to fight with a wooden sword?”
Lipps glanced at Anya’s wooden practice sword neatly placed beside him. His tone was clearly mocking. Anya didn’t answer and silently picked up the brass bowl from the floor, walking toward the serving counter. Low curses could be heard from behind.
‘Don’t tremble. Like flowing water. Accept it.’
Anya kept repeating to himself inwardly. A maid watched him cautiously as she ladled stew with a wooden spoon. Anya expressed his thanks and returned to his seat.
Clang.
Lipps Mohan struck the bowl again. Once more, the bowl fell in the same place as before. He gathered phlegm and spat forcefully onto the table where the bowl should have been.
“Fuck, pretending to be noble…”
Lipps Mohan had been picking fights with Anya like a common ruffian from a famous heroic novel. He seemed full of discontent and behaved like the “man without honor” he kept denouncing.
“Why is the atmosphere like this?”
Just then, the door opened roughly and a young man with golden hair entered. His messy golden hair shattered brilliantly in the winter sunlight. When he noticed the usually noisy wooden dining hall strangely subdued, the young man’s eyebrows rose crookedly. The place was already dreary, made of wooden planks that were lying around, but today it felt even more so. The maids huddled in the corner breathed a sigh of relief when Sisou appeared.
“Is today’s meal not… oh?”
Sisou was scratching his head and yawning when he noticed a remarkable figure. He quickly wiped away the tears that had formed and rushed to the table.
“Your Highness, I heard about the honor duel!”
Sisou pushed Lipps Mohan’s chest back. Lipps Mohan, suddenly forced backward, had his face crumple with a fierce expression. However, he couldn’t talk back to a senior knight. Lipps Mohan’s mouth could be seen forming words.
‘Be. Care. Ful.’
But his arrogant face was soon obscured by Sisou’s smiling countenance. After pushing Lipps Mohan aside, Sisou pulled out the chair next to Anya, sat down, and complained while resting his chin on his hand.
“I heard you’ll be facing someone called Lipps Mohan… who is that person?”
‘He’s right next to you!’
Everyone in the dining hall shouted in unison in their hearts. Lipps Mohan’s face turned sickly blue with shame. Somehow, it felt like justice. The corner of Anya’s mouth involuntarily quirked upward. Had he always been this mean-spirited? Still, he didn’t want to defend Lipps Mohan.
“Just… a l-lower-rank knight.”
Anya took a rag from a passing maid and roughly wiped away the spit Lipps Mohan had left. Suddenly, Sisou grabbed Anya’s hands. Anya’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Then if you win, you’ll join our knighthood!”
Hey, Bella. Over here. Sisou sang as he slurped the steaming stew brought by Bella, a maid from the wooden dining hall. He had such a good appetite that he kept shouting “One more bowl, one more bowl!” and Anya ended up emptying two bowls in front of him as well.
“If I w-win, I’ll j-join the kn-knighthood?”
Only after Sisou had emptied about five bowls could Anya ask the question that had been bothering him like a fishbone stuck in his throat.
“Isn’t that obvious? When you win a duel, you can take the opponent’s position.”
“Then if L-Lipps Mohan wins… d-does he become L-Lord Evernight’s w-wife?”
“Good heavens!”
Sisou held his forehead and then burst into laughter, bending backward. Even the other knights having their meals spewed out their stew with a “Pfft!”
“Hey, Lipps! Did you want to become the Duke’s wife?”
At one knight’s lewd shout, Lipps Mohan’s face swelled like an active volcano about to burst. Soon, he quickly left the wooden dining hall with thundering steps. He closed the door so hard that the entire dining hall shook.
“In an honor duel, the position dispute only refers to positions within the knighthood. Since Your Highness doesn’t have a knight position, Lipps Mohan is… participating in the duel purely out of vengeance and petty pride rather than desire for position. It’s foolish.”
Sisou squinted one eye while rubbing his full stomach.
* * *
The next day, and the day after that… the mistress of Tildyen and honor duel participant, Anya Evernight, visited the training ground at the crack of dawn. The boy didn’t show any grand swordsmanship but always huddled in a corner repeating the same movement.
“If that movement looks as clean as being the best in the empire, is my eye blind?”
A knight picking his teeth with a leaf under the shade of a tree said with a chuckle.
“I guess the old man doesn’t teach him any other movements? Some scholar he is.”
The knights moistened their throats with warm wine and chatted, using the boy’s counting voice—”one, two…”—as background music.
“Lipps Mohan, that bastard, was so openly jealous that my face burned with embarrassment.”
“You should understand. That fellow lost his wife and child, all killed at the Wall.”
Lipps Mohan was originally a man from a small northern village near the Wall. He was a carpenter who wielded tools instead of swords and was in charge of repairing the Wall. Several years ago, when Ramsey Claicest came as commander, that royal commander possessed inherited madness, just like the terrifying rumors about the ‘Claicest’ name. It was said he forcibly took Lipps’s wife and dragged his young son beyond the Wall.
“Is there anyone here without a sad story?”
“By the way, I heard that if His Highness wins, he’ll join the knighthood. Is that true?”
Everyone shrugged. The code is the code. But will he really win? No way. In the distance, the prince was still stubbornly repeating the same stance. Though no one noticed, his movements were subtly becoming faster.
When the sun completely disappeared behind the Beriela Mountain Range, someone lit a torch. Hey, let’s call it a day! Anya put down his sword with a thud. His entire body was drenched in sweat, emitting hot steam. Had he ever used his body this much in his life? Anya fluttered the neck of his tunic and walked toward the wooden dining hall. When the boy opened the door and entered, there was a moment of silence, but then it became noisy again.
Because they had grown accustomed to the prince coming to eat at this hour.
“Potato stew, light on salt. Right?”
Bella’s dimples deepened. She spoke while serving stew in a plate that had fewer chips than the others. Anya expressed his thanks with stuttering words, then went to his usual seat and pulled out the old chair.
During lunch, Lipps Mohan would pick fights over everything, so Anya had to eat hurriedly, but dinner was relatively more relaxed. The wooden dining hall flickered with orange light, and here and there were sounds of clinking glasses or rough curses.
Anya paused while eating his stew and took in the scene. The duel was now only a week away. This might be the last time he’d see this. Anya quietly closed his eyes and focused on his five senses. The rough texture of the oak table, the thick laughter and the busy footsteps of the maids, the faint food smells from beyond the kitchen…
“Hmm…”
It was still too difficult. Under the table, a cluster of light gathered on his left palm and disappeared instantly. Disappointment welled up, but rather than being weighed down by that emotion, Anya chose to quickly rise from his seat.
‘What will happen will happen anyway.’
It was time to go to the Nameless Forest.
