Ch.157300 Years of Essence (7)

A deal with a demon. The meaning of this idiom, now firmly established as an expression, is as follows:

‘To invite greater destruction in order to avoid immediate danger.’

The reason it became such an idiom is simple. Because deals with demons actually work that way. Without exception, those who made deals with demons met their ruin. The long history of humanity has proven this, and since ancient times unrecorded in history, humans have dealt with demons and subsequently faced destruction.

Nevertheless, humanity continues to make deals with demons.

Despite legal prohibitions, warnings from countless Stars, cruel executions of demon dealers, and widespread knowledge of their terrible ends, somewhere, someone will inevitably deal with demons. Demon dealers appear endlessly.

The reason for this is equally simple.

Because humans live in the present, not the future. Because escaping immediate danger is more important than avoiding an uncertain future destruction. Because they are willing to throw away the future for the sake of the present.

Najin looked at the Helm Knight.

His expression remained unreadable. Even if it had been readable, Najin wouldn’t have tried to read it. He asked in a light voice:

“If you dealt with the Demon Lord, king of demons, I imagine the price wasn’t light.”

“Indeed it wasn’t.”

“Have you already paid it?”

“Half of it. The other half I’m still paying.”

“Have you received anything in return?”

“Not yet.”

The cryptic exchange continued.

Najin didn’t ask for details.

“Are you disappointed?”

“No.”

“Dealing with a demon—isn’t that disqualifying for a knight? King Arthur would have said that a true knight should slay demons, never compromise with them.”

“He also said that the last sentence matters more than all the others.”

Najin spoke that last sentence.

“Are you a knight?”

“No. Shamefully not.”

“At the very least, do you wish to be a knight?”

“That I’m working on.”

“That’s enough.”

With those words, Najin smiled.

It was a smile that refreshed anyone who saw it. At first glance, it seemed like a thoughtless smile. But the Helm Knight knew this smile meant something else entirely.

The boy before him wasn’t thoughtless. Quite the opposite. He had thought deeply, pondered, and agonized before arriving at his answer.

And that answer was this:

‘That’s enough. Nothing else matters.’

Whether you dealt with demons, knelt before them, or ultimately begged pathetically for your life—none of that matters. And why doesn’t it matter?

‘Because you wish to be a knight.’

Because the person I’ve observed is that kind of person.

At those words, the Helm Knight somehow felt his armor grow lighter. The armor that had always felt heavy, the helmet that had weighed down his head, now felt light. Thanks to that, the smile that escaped his lips could also be light.

“Well now.”

The Helm Knight scratched his helmet.

“I thought you were lucky to have met me, that it was fortunate for you that the first hunter you encountered in this cursed land was someone like me… But I was wrong. I was completely wrong.”

He let out a hollow laugh.

“It was the opposite.”

“The opposite,” he muttered. Standing in place, the Helm Knight who had been laughing let out a long breath. He seemed to have made a decision.

“I can’t miss this stroke of luck that’s come after 150 years. Yes, it’s a bit late, but I’ve made up my mind.”

“What decision is that?”

“The decision to take you as my disciple. Didn’t you tell Bernstein that I was your master? A true knight should never speak falsehoods. I’ll make that declaration a reality.”

The Helm Knight gestured with his eyes. Understanding, Najin knelt on one knee before him and bowed his head. The Helm Knight drew the sword from his waist. The sword wrapped in chains wouldn’t unsheathe, but that wasn’t particularly important right now.

The Helm Knight’s sword lightly touched Najin’s shoulder.

“From today, you are my disciple. You are also an apprentice knight, and my servant.”

“Sadly, you’d be my fourth master and second lord. Is that acceptable?”

“Come now. That’s from the continent, isn’t it? This is the Outer Continent. On the continent, they describe the Outer Continent as the afterlife or the other shore, don’t they? Since it’s a completely different world, shouldn’t we start that calculation from the beginning?”

Najin laughed incredulously.

“That makes sense too.”

“Indeed. Then, as your master, I say this…”

He repeatedly clenched and unclenched his hand.

As if confirming something.

Finally, seeming to have finished his confirmation, he spoke.

“Thirty days. Grant me thirty days. Within thirty days, I will teach you all of my three hundred years.”

2.

Thirty days. The Helm Knight promised Najin thirty days. He declared that within those thirty days, he would teach everything from his three hundred years.

Even if geniuses dismiss others’ lifetimes in an instant, that only applies when the subject of study is an ordinary person. Naturally, the Helm Knight was far from ordinary and was actually closer to someone like Najin.

The Empire’s hero, the Empire’s Best Swordsman.

A Sword Master who had reached transcendence.

The swordsman who created the original swordsmanship that became the foundation of Imperial swordsmanship.

Just gathering these fragments of information about the Helm Knight was enough. And even with just this much, there was no doubt about how exceptional a warrior he had been. The title of Empire’s Best Swordsman wouldn’t be given to just anyone.

Even among those called geniuses, only a tiny minority reach the realm of transcendence. The experience accumulated over three hundred years by a genius exceptional enough to be among that “tiny minority”… Indeed, even for Najin, this wasn’t something easily learned.

“Kugh!”

“That’s not it. Stronger! Don’t waver. It’s usually correct to position yourself so you can always retreat and flow into the next attack. But not in this case. Think about ending it in one strike.”

After accepting Najin as his disciple, the Helm Knight changed his teaching approach. He personally wielded a sword and sparred with Najin, roughly correcting his posture. Sometimes he would strike Najin’s body with his sword.

“Atanga’s swordsmanship—the first strike of the swordsmanship you’ve learned is excellent. But the second strike that follows is terrible. What good is breaking through an enemy’s technique if your follow-up attack is so inadequate? Don’t rely on sword energy. Look straight at the direction the sword is swinging.”

The Helm Knight corrected the flaws in Najin’s posture, filled in the gaps, and pointed out better approaches. With none other than the sword in his own hand. He now taught Najin not with some old, rusty sword picked up from anywhere, but with the sword that had been tied to his waist.

“You’ve learned various sword techniques. Not bad. Having many techniques at your disposal means you can respond to more diverse situations. But simply ‘knowing many things’ and ‘utilizing what you know’ are different. I’ll teach you how to use them.”

The sword wrapped in chains still wouldn’t unsheathe, but.

The Helm Knight began to swing it little by little.

“Yes, that’s it. That’s the foundation of my swordsmanship. How is it? Pretty good, isn’t it?”

“This seems like swordsmanship that only has meaning if the user is monstrously strong. It’s a bit…”

“Hey! It’s not that you need to be monstrously strong for it to have meaning—it’s that practicing it makes you monstrously strong. With this swordsmanship, I’ve split demon bodies that devoured six stars in half, and I’ve even broken into the palace of the Celestial Star to steal alcohol!”

“Why did you steal that?”

“He made really good alcohol.”

“……”

One day passed, then two days, then a week.

As time passed, Najin’s sword grew sharper. The Helm Knight began pointing out fewer issues. He would sometimes marvel at Najin’s sword, sometimes burst into laughter.

“You’re properly insane. This isn’t something that’s easily learned. If you absorb all my three hundred years so completely, what will be left of me?”

Despite saying this, the Helm Knight showed no signs of displeasure. On the contrary, he was delighted. The more Najin kept up, the more he taught, and the faster he taught it.

“Why would a transcendent’s swordsmanship differ from an ordinary person’s? Why would a Sword Expert’s technique differ from a Sword Seeker’s? Even swinging the same sword produces different results. It’s the sword energy that creates that difference.”

The Helm Knight swung his sword.

“Depending on how you draw out sword energy, the same technique can transform into hundreds of different forms. And in the case of my swordsmanship… I compress the sword energy to its limit. Just like you did against Bernstein.”

At some point, the chains binding his scabbard and sword began to shake. The sword still wouldn’t unsheathe, but it trembled in the scabbard as if it might come out at any moment.

“I’ll show you. Watch and try to follow.”

“I keep telling you, I can’t understand it just by watching.”

“Then watch more carefully.”

“This is driving me crazy.”

“Did you think learning a Sword Master’s technique would be easy?”

Another week passed.

Around the fourteenth day of learning swordsmanship from the Helm Knight, changes began to appear in him.

3.

On the fourteenth day.

“……”

In the middle of teaching swordsmanship, the Helm Knight stared blankly into space. Even when Najin called out to him, he didn’t respond. Only after a moment passed did he continue, saying, “Where was I?”

At first, Najin didn’t pay much attention to it.

But as the frequency increased to several times a day, he could no longer ignore it.

The Helm Knight also noticed the anomaly happening to his body, but he said nothing about it. Najin didn’t bother to ask either.

Twenty days passed.

Now, rather than learning new things from the Helm Knight, Najin spent more time applying what he had already learned. Against a powerful undead, Najin demonstrated the Helm Knight’s swordsmanship. Though a formidable opponent, Najin managed to defeat the undead after a struggle.

An undead who had possessed about four stars in life.

Standing before the undead’s corpse, Najin looked at the Helm Knight. He asked how his swordsmanship was and if there was anything to correct. In the middle of answering, the Helm Knight fell silent. He approached Najin with his mouth shut.

No, he walked past Najin.

He stood before the undead that Najin had defeated and reached out toward the crumbling corpse. Even when Najin called out to him, the Helm Knight didn’t answer. As if entranced by something.

“……Ah.”

Belatedly, he shuddered briefly.

He grabbed his outstretched right hand with his left and took a sharp breath. He turned to look at Najin. As if checking Najin’s gaze. Though his expression was hidden by the helmet, Najin could tell the Helm Knight was afraid.

Of what? Of what he had done unconsciously? Or of the possibility that his disciple might despise him for that action?

It seemed to be both.

Najin was also surprised, but he didn’t show it in his expression. He looked at the Helm Knight as he always did. Then he glibly replied, “Was my swordsmanship so excellent that you stopped mid-critique? There’s nothing left to point out, is there?”

“……Huh.”

The Helm Knight let out a hollow laugh and stood up.

“Yes. Excellent. So when do you plan to learn my ultimate technique? That’s the only one left.”

“Like I said, I can’t understand it just by watching.”

It would have been better if it had ended with just one incident, but similar occurrences continued.

Before the undead that Najin had defeated, or before beasts imbued with starlight, the Helm Knight would stop in his tracks. Each time, he would tightly grip the military flag wrapped around his body and regain his senses.

The periods of his silence also increased. He would stare blankly into space and only belatedly come to his senses.

Twenty-six days.

With four days left of the time the Helm Knight had promised, Najin had learned most of his swordsmanship. But there was still one technique he couldn’t grasp. The technique the Helm Knight described as his ultimate move.

A technique containing the essence of three hundred years.

Najin couldn’t figure out how to imitate or learn that particular technique.

“Najin.”

On the twenty-seventh day.

The Helm Knight suddenly pointed at the spear Najin was holding and spoke.

“That uniquely shaped spear.”

“You mean the Cross Star Spear?”

“Yes. The owner of that spear, what was his name?”

“……Pardon?”

This time, even Najin couldn’t hide his confusion. Until now, whenever the Helm Knight showed strange behavior, Najin had managed to move past the situation with appropriate wordplay and jokes… but this time, he couldn’t.

“The Knight of Silence, Krinbel.”

“Ah, yes. That’s right. That’s who it was.”

“……”

“Yes. I remember now. The Golden Horn Knights. This horned helmet is called the Hornhelm. And I am……”

The Helm Knight stopped speaking.

He stared into space and muttered blankly.

“Who was I again?”