Chapter 66

A short while after entering the temple.
Even without any particular explanation, Serpens realized who they had come to meet.

The Knight Commander of the Imperial First Battalion. And the Knight Commander of the Imperial Second Battalion.
Not far away, two people who suited those titles came into view.

One was a middle-aged man.
On his face, framed by neatly swept-back silver hair, a short beard was neatly trimmed, and his sharp, bold features somehow brought a wolf to mind.
A blue cloak was draped over his silver armor, and a longsword hung at his waist.

Across from him stood a young woman.
Her sea-green hair was tied back, and she had clear, distinct eyes, with a gentle impression that suited the slight upward curve of her lips.
Like the man, she wore silver armor, but with a red cloak over it, and held a long spear upright over her shoulder.

“Those are them.”

Lucas said quietly.
Serpens nodded instead of answering.

When they drew a little closer, the two Knight Commanders bowed in greeting.

“Good day, Commander.”
“It’s been a while, Commander!”

The man greeted Lucas in a low, quiet voice, and the woman in a bright one.
Both of them wore smiles.
Their silver and sea-green eyes shone with emotion.

“Right.”

Lucas’s answer, on the other hand, carried no particular emotion.
Serpens moved his gaze from the two of them to him.

He amazed him every time.
He truly was a person who remained blunt without the slightest wavering.
On rare occasions, few enough to count on one hand, a faint emotion could be felt from him, but…….
Because those occasions could literally be counted on one hand, even that felt strange.

“Serpens. These are Lionel Vermon and Berisa Arknight. They are the current Knight Commanders of the Imperial First and Second Battalions.”

Silver and sea-green eyes turned toward the boy.
There was pressure at the end of their gazes, but Serpens chose to meet them instead of looking away.

At that, the sea-green-haired woman smiled as if amused.

“Who is this child?”
“……For now, my disciple.”
“Pardon?”
“My disciple.”
“What?!”
“……Do not make me repeat myself, Berisa.”

Berisa seemed so shocked she could not close her mouth.
Lionel’s eyes beside her had also widened as far as they could go.

“What happened over the past four years…….”

Lionel muttered.
His eyes swept over the boy from head to toe.

As far as he knew, Lucas Liberator was not the kind of person who would take a disciple.
No, he was not someone who could.

Until now, countless people had come to Lucas, saying they wanted to become his disciple.
Lucas always refused their requests at once.
Even when they offered him a huge sum, even when they promised him a high position, Lucas did not accept disciples.

There had been a time when Lionel asked him the reason.
The answer that came back had two parts.
Because it did not suit his personality. And because they would clearly be unable to keep up with his training.

The first reason was easy to understand.
Even before losing his family, Lucas was not a person who showed his emotions much.
When Lionel heard that he was getting married, he had felt more puzzled than congratulatory.

‘She was a warm person.’

Suddenly, Lionel thought of Lucas’s wife, Helena.
She had been a warm person, like spring sunlight.
When he heard that Helena had passed away in an accident, he had felt deep sorrow.
For someone so good and kind to die in an accident.
Even now, whenever he thought of that accident, he felt enough resentment to blame the gods.

How great must Lucas’s sense of loss have been after losing such a wife?
Lucas, who had shown a warm smile at least to her.

In any case.
Lucas’s blunt personality did not suit raising a disciple.
Even when someone accomplished something, he didn’t praise them,
and at every moment, far from encouraging them, he only drove them harder.

Thinking about it again, perhaps it was wrong to describe him as blunt.
He was an extremely cold person.

However, Lionel liked that part of Lucas.
After all, while serving under him, it was true that he had been able to grow further because of Lucas’s cold personality.

He only understood the second reason after experiencing it himself and being put through the wringer.
He could not keep up with Lucas’s training method.

Lucas Liberator was a genius.
An unprecedented genius, at that.

The geniuses people talked about often taught others in unique ways that relied only on instinct, saying things like, ‘Whoosh, then bam! Why can’t you just do it like this!’

Was Lucas like that too?
Lionel could say with certainty that he wasn’t.
If it had been that kind of teaching, Lionel could have become Lucas’s disciple.

Lionel himself was first-rate.
He could understand something like ‘Whoosh, then bam!’ right away.

Even so, the reason it was difficult to follow Lucas’s teaching.
He built from the basics.
Firmly enough that they would not waver no matter what happened.
Even in the next stage, and the stage after that, Lucas built skill firmly enough that it would not waver.
Whether that skill was swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat, or even one’s breathing in daily life.

Some might say, ‘Isn’t that only natural if you want to build skill?’
Or, ‘If that’s all, it sounds doable enough.’

Those were words only possible because they did not know Lucas as a person.
As said before, Lucas was an unprecedented genius.
At the same time, he was a fanatical hard worker.

Lucas’s standard for “firmly enough that it would not waver” was extremely high.

There had once been a strange rumor that spread through the knight order.
The rumor was, ‘The reason the Sword Saint Lucas fights monsters is to improve his swordsmanship.’
Surprisingly, part of that rumor could be considered true.

During the roughly twenty years Lucas belonged to the imperial court, he created two kinds of swordsmanship against monsters.
Swordsmanship to kill them as efficiently as possible.
Swordsmanship to kill them while causing as much pain as possible.
He had killed countless monsters to create those two kinds of swordsmanship.
No, because he had killed countless monsters, he had been able to create that kind of swordsmanship.

Among the swordsmanship Lucas created, the swordsmanship for killing monsters efficiently.
That had become the swordsmanship of the knights affiliated with the imperial court under the name ‘Anti-Monster Swordsmanship.’

It was swordsmanship recognized not by an individual, nor by a group, but by the imperial court.
But Lucas was probably still not satisfied with his swordsmanship.
How did Lionel know?
Even among monsters, there were species with low numbers.
A dragon, of which only a single one had ever been witnessed, or Basilisks, which had only been subjugated twice including the recent incident.

Lucas had once said something.
That because he had only faced them once, he couldn’t guarantee that his swordsmanship was effective.
Lucas had not consented to his swordsmanship being made known to the knights.

Would such a person be satisfied with his swordsmanship now, when unidentified monsters had appeared?
There was no way.
At least, the Lucas he knew was not that kind of person.

This was the kind of person Lucas Liberator was.
His standard for ‘firmly enough that it would not waver’ was not decided by the world.
He decided it himself.

And the path he decided on was one only he could walk.
That was why neither Lionel, nor Berisa beside him, nor the many knights here could become his disciples.

“A disciple…….”

That was why the boy before him was simply fascinating.
Because he was someone Lucas himself had introduced as his ‘disciple.’

“I am Lionel Vermon, commander of the Imperial First Battalion and a Knight Commander.”

Lionel reached out his hand in greeting.
Serpens gave an awkward smile as he took that hand and shook it.
Feeling the calluses and scars, Lionel asked.

“You look young, but it seems you trained hard. It must have been difficult.”
“Mm……. It was difficult while I was training, but thinking about it now, it was fun.”
“Fun?”
“Yes! I was born a beggar, so I had never really learned anything before. I was used to falling and getting hit, so more than how hard it was, the fun of learning something new felt bigg…… no, it didn’t.”
“……?”
“I misspoke. It was difficult while I was training, and it’s still difficult now. There isn’t a single part of my body that doesn’t ache.”

Serpens grumbled.
Lionel gave a faint smile.

“Well, I’ll leave my surprise about your disciple at that. I received the order in rough terms. You need to make use of our knight order, correct?”

Lucas nodded.

“In about a month, a troublesome monster will appear near the capital.”
“When you say near the capital, where exactly do you mean?”
“No one knows that. Even Lars could not calculate the exact time or location.”
“So that is why you needed us.”
“Yes. Because we need manpower stationed in various places.”

Lionel and Berisa exchanged a brief conversation.
Their conversation was filled with names Serpens was hearing for the first time.
Names of places, people, and positions.
Many different names came and went in a short time.

“We will divide and organize the teams in advance. What size would be best, Commander?”

Berisa asked.
The tip of the spear she held gleamed.

“How many troops are available?”
“If we call back the soldiers deployed elsewhere and gather those on leave as well, around twenty thousand.”
“And Experts at squad-leader level?”
“Around seventy.”
“It would be best to group them in tens and station them in the outskirts around the capital.”
“As many as ten?”
“Only ten. At minimum, a Basilisk-level monster will appear.”
“A Basilisk……!”

As the conversation continued, Berisa’s voice settled calmly.
With a hand at her chin, she seemed to have fallen into rather deep thought.

“In that case, I think it would be better to group them in fives and narrow the intervals between deployments. If it’s Basilisk-level, there won’t be much difference between five and ten.”
“That would be better. When the monster appears, we will be able to concentrate our forces more quickly.”
“Then fourteen groups of five squad-leader-level Experts. I will divide the teams with about fourteen hundred troops under each group.”
“Set the troops under each group at one thousand. We will also need personnel to remain in the capital in case of emergency.”
“Yes, understood.”

Berisa bowed her head to Lucas.

“Then I will go ahead. I need to send telegrams quickly if we are to gather the soldiers.”
“Understood.”

She turned around and headed somewhere.
Serpens looked at the red cloak and sea-green hair swaying with her steps.

He had thought she would be someone playful like Lars, but she was very serious.
Since he had not spoken with her much, he couldn’t judge, ‘This is what kind of person she is!’ but…….
At the very least, her attitude toward work seemed extremely sincere.

“I received the order, so I will follow it, but…… what is happening?”

After Berisa disappeared, Lionel asked.

Lucas did not open his mouth for a while.
Then, as if he had thought of the optimal answer, he fixed his indifferent eyes on Lionel.

“An all-out war against the monsters is beginning.”
“All-out war?”
“Lionel. Do you know how much damage has been suffered because of monsters until now?”
“……If only we could know the exact scale.”

Lucas nodded.

“The sweat and blood we have shed until now are the opening act. The battles over the next five months will be the middle act. You need only swing your sword for the coming middle act.”

Lionel clenched his fist.

“The important part is the final act, is it not? I want to swing my sword for the final act.”

Resolve filled his eyes.
Serpens thought those eyes looked cool.

The way confidence in his skill shone there,
the way his will shone within them,
and the fact that he could open eyes that shone like that, all seemed cool.

“You will have a role in the final act as well. However, that is only if the middle act ends properly.”

Lucas’s answer.
Lionel smiled.

“This is my first operation with you in four years, Commander. I will show you how much I have grown in that time.”
“I am not curious, so there is no need to show me. Just do not cause any trouble.”