“Are you going to keep defending?”
Rips Mohan approached, narrowing the distance with a crooked smile. Anya managed to block the spear’s attack with difficulty. As the same scene repeated, the crowd began to chatter, seemingly bored. Spitting on the ground, Rips Mohan twirled his spear in the air and attacked from a different direction than before. Unable to block with his sword, Anya either rolled to the side to avoid or bent his waist to barely block the spear’s attack.
“Like a little rat!”
As the duel dragged on longer than expected, Rips Mohan bit his lip anxiously. Anya wiped away the sweat flowing down his chin while catching his breath.
“Look at that, his defensive moves are amazing. Didn’t I tell you?”
Hearing such comments from the crowd, Rips Mohan muttered curses under his breath and raised his foot. Anya expected the spear to fly, but was startled when the large man’s foot came flying instead. His chest was kicked directly.
*Cough!*
Anya fell backward with a painful cough. To make matters worse, he dropped his sword. Apparently pleased with the impact of his kick, Rips Mohan straddled Anya’s body and swung his fist. Blood burst from Anya’s nose, and his vision flickered.
It was too painful and agonizing. Anya flailed his arms, struggling to grasp his sword. Something was caught.
‘You aim for vital points.’ Someone’s teaching came to mind. Anya thrust the sword precisely into Rips Mohan’s solar plexus, just as he had practiced repeatedly.
“Ack!”
Rips Mohan staggered backward, expelling a sound of pain. Anya maintained the momentum, thrusting his sword into Rips Mohan’s philtrum and abdomen in succession. However, what Anya held was not a real sword but a wooden stick, so he couldn’t inflict fatal wounds.
*Spit!* Rips Mohan spat blood-tinged saliva on the ground before raising his spear high. The spear flew toward Anya at high speed. Each time the spear struck, the ground was dented. Anya barely managed to avoid the first attack by rolling sideways, but it was impossible to dodge all the consecutive spear thrusts. Red blood seeped from where the blade grazed him while dodging. Cold sweat trickled down from the pain, and his face instinctively grimaced.
“Die!”
Anya clearly saw the cold blade approaching him. He had an intuition that he couldn’t avoid this one.
Ah, so this is how I die.
It’s okay. Everyone dies.
Anya felt his chest growing as cold as Tildyen’s winter. That’s when it happened.
《Anya.》
Anya heard the voice. He couldn’t see their form. Instead, he could feel it with his entire body. Though drenched in sweat, his heart was colder than ever, and his mind was so empty it couldn’t even conjure any imagery.
《Our name is Dragcals.》
A strange voice mixed with dozens of others that made his head buzz. Anya whispered the name. ‘Dragcals.’ White light leaked out above Anya’s palm.
“W-what is that!”
Someone in the crowd shouted, filled with fear. Simultaneously, the boy’s wheat-colored hair waved before Rips Mohan’s eyes. Anya created a round mass of light above his hand and threw it at Rips Mohan. In an instant, a light bright enough to numb the eyes enveloped Rips Mohan. Rips swung his spear randomly, but the intense light prevented him from seeing clearly. He cried out as if in agony.
While everyone covered their eyes, pained by the light, only Anya could see everything. Anya picked up his fallen sword and leisurely dodged Rips’s spear. Then he stood behind him. Like a shadow.
Anya fiercely kicked Rips Mohan’s shin. Rips Mohan knelt, groaning in pain.
“A-alright. E-everyone has their circumstances.”
Rips Mohan could feel a cool sensation on the back of his neck. Ugh, he let out a groan filled with anger and pain. The pointed sword tip had slightly pierced his skin.
“B-but just because you h-have circumstances doesn’t m-mean you should act like y-you.”
Anya roughly removed his helmet and threw it to the ground. The helmet, forged from low-quality metal, tumbled across the ground with a thud. The boy’s face, marked with sweat and bruises, was revealed. The crowd, unable to see what had happened because of the light, stared at the boy with their mouths agape.
The boy stood sideways, pointing his sword at Rips Mohan with one hand. On the boy’s other palm, a mass of light still floated.
“M-magic…”
Someone muttered, as if entranced. Even the senior knights sitting on the platform looked at the boy with surprised faces.
“Did you know?”
Riario leaned in urgently and whispered to Evernight. He shook his head slightly. Evernight’s blue eyes had somehow deepened in color. He watched the boy standing in the middle of the training ground with his legs crossed. The fingers resting on his knee made a regular tapping sound.
“I-is this the ‘h-honor’ that y-you preach about?”
A cold wind from the deep forest cooled the boy’s wet bangs. Anya narrowed his brow against the high noon sun. The boy clearly remembered the insulting words he had heard dozens of times.
“Rips Mohan, you’re like someone without honor. D-do you have anything else to say?”
The crowd, wrapped in silence, clearly understood the words the boy uttered.
“T-this…!”
But Anya was not yet trained enough to kill someone. Though he had a knife to Rips Mohan’s neck, he couldn’t easily cut it. Rips Mohan could also sense the boy’s hesitation up close.
The moment Rips Mohan grabbed the spear he had dropped beside him, a dagger flew from far away. The dagger swiftly passed by the side of Anya’s face with a whoosh and fell downward. It then lodged into Rips Mohan’s nape. Blood spurted out like a fountain, soaking Anya’s face.
“Rips Mohan has lost.”
Evernight announced softly as he rose from his seat. Rips Mohan’s body collapsed sideways with a thud. The dagger stuck in his nape was familiar. It was the dagger Evernight had been playing with in his hands during their journey to Tildyen, inside the tent.
Anya, drenched in blood and sweat, looked at Evernight. They continued to gaze at each other for a while.
Chapter 6. Thaw
“……”
The hall was deathly quiet. Not even the sound of someone swallowing could be heard. Rips Mohan lay face down, and his fingertips quivered slightly, bidding a final farewell. Death was far more hollow than one might think.
Covered in blood, the boy’s vision had turned completely red. Beyond the bloody veil, that man… had just committed a killing with a simple movement. Despite taking someone’s life with his own hands, the man acted as if he were watching a play with a suitably bored expression.
*Clap clap clap.*
Then someone broke the silence with applause. It was Sabelli Nox. Following that, thunderous cheers poured into the training ground. Anya had to stand still and helplessly receive them. The world looked red because he was covered in blood.
A harsh land where only the strong survive. What did Tildyen look like in ancient times? Anya couldn’t take his eyes off Evernight, even though he could see Sisou rushing toward him.
“Your Highness, you were truly amazing! Magic, no less!”
Sisou hugged Anya tightly. Anya, pushed back by the momentum, fell into his arms with a dazed expression as his arm was pulled. Sisou, who was a full span taller, acted like a brother. Thick blood would stain his shoulder, but the young man didn’t care at all.
“You kid, you’re really clueless. Get off.”
This man with the monocle who always seemed to be with Sisou must be Karen. Karen grabbed Sisou’s shoulder and roughly pulled him away. Even as he was pulled away, Sisou kept struggling with his hands, trying to maintain the embrace. Soon the crowd became noisy with appropriate excitement, and servants hurriedly ran to take care of Rips Mohan’s corpse.
“Master, the dagger…”
Anya eagerly followed Evernight with his eyes as he walked down leisurely. He passed by Anya and pulled out the dagger lodged in Rips Mohan’s nape. Red blood splattered onto the man’s pale skin. Would his face also look so frightening and devoid of emotion? Anya hastily wiped his face with his sleeve.
“I…”
Anya hadn’t wanted to kill Rips Mohan. He had vowed to accept his fate regardless of the outcome of the honor duel. Even for a trivial wheel of life, he never wanted to overpower and kill someone like Rips Mohan.
He wouldn’t act like that man. He wanted to show mercy. That was what Anya considered true honor and chivalry. The knight protagonist Thorn in the novel “Great Knight, Thorn” that he had read as a child was like that too.
“W-why d-did you k-kill him?”
For a moment, Anya hated Evernight. He was saddened by the arrogant man’s attitude, trying to control even the final scene of fate according to his will. Evernight looked at Anya while playing with the dagger in his hand.
“Then you were planning to let him live?”
Anya’s mouth gaped open. Somehow everyone seemed to be waiting for his answer. Anya answered while wiping away the blood that kept trickling down from his forehead. His tone was mixed with a bit of stubbornness.
“I w-was going to show m-mercy… Urgh!”
He hadn’t realized it because he had just witnessed an extremely surreal scene, but as he met Evernight’s cold blue eyes, he finally noticed an unfamiliar smell. Belatedly, nausea surged. Anya hurriedly turned and vomited stomach acid.
He thought he would be different from them… but in the end, he too had ended up killing someone to survive. Anya, while emptying his stomach, was overwhelmed with self-loathing.
Behind him, Evernight clicked his tongue.
“How leisurely you talk.”
He nonchalantly wiped the blood off the dagger with his collar. With a glance, servants quickly removed the corpse. Anya wanted to immediately rebut the man’s words, but everything sounded like a plausible excuse.
