47. I Am Jiang Taigong

Rose gazed at Beron’s portrait for a long, long while.

“I called you here to tell you I’m sorry. Handing you a problem there was no possible way to clear — that was plainly my mistake.”

Rose trailed off, then bowed her head.

“I’m in no position to refuse even if you told me to leave the house, but….”

I didn’t mean to go that far, though.

“Just that — please forgive me that one thing.”

Only now did it dawn on me that she’d come to apologize.

“Do you not keep up with the trends in novels these days?”

“…What?”

“There’s actually pretty strong demand for the kind of cathartic-payoff protagonist who, instead of fussing over plausibility or setting errors, figures that as long as the result is good, that’s all that matters.¹”

I had no desire to leave things on a stiff note. This wasn’t a one-and-done relationship, after all.

“If you really feel that bad about it, then the next time I ask you for a favor, you grant it, no matter what.”

When I held out my hand and smiled, Rose’s eyes wavered.

“Or you can leave the house, if you’d rather.”

“Understood. I swear it.”

Rose snatched my hand at once.

“It’s hardly my place to say this, but you’re quite a decent fellow, young master.”

“Isn’t that something we’ll have to wait and see on? You don’t know yet what kind of favor I’ll ask for.”

“…That’s true enough.”

“I’ll be counting on you when the time comes.”

Rose, who’d worn a teary face all day, finally smiled. It would have been nice if this could blow away the regret in her heart too, but that wasn’t something in my power to fix.

She’ll just have to overcome it herself.

A life with the crushing weight of well over two centuries melted into it wasn’t going to change in a single stroke.

Rose seemed finished, so I started to push myself up from the seat.

“You probably already know, but Valerian passed the Trial of Wisdom too.”

“Wha… huh? What did you say?”

Thinking I’d misheard, I asked again, and Rose flicked a finger. A book wedged into the corner of the shelf floated up and came drifting toward me.

I, Who Lived an Ordinary Life as a Farmer, Am Actually the Empire’s Strongest Knight?

Valerian had reached for that very book over the past three years, only to be turned down by Rose every time.

No matter how I looked at him, the guy seemed like he’d just go on a one-man rampage with a hoe, so how the hell had he cleared this?

“Stung by the news that you’d passed, I suppose. He didn’t attempt it for a while, then suddenly showed up and cleared it.”

Rose shrugged and added,

“Passing is one thing, but what really astonished me was that the high-and-mighty Valerian didn’t come here alone — he came with someone.”

“Who did he come with?”

Valerian? The man who wouldn’t so much as glance at an attendant, dismissing them as cumbersome dead weight?

At my reaction, Rose knit her brow.

“You ought to manage your maids a little better.”

“…A maid? You mean Elli?”

When I asked again, Rose clicked her tongue as if I were hopeless.

“The two of them were really in perfect sync. The maid would coach him from the side — ‘Your hoe angle’s wrong!’ — and Valerian would follow without a word of complaint.”

Was the world playing a trick on me? What in the world had happened between those two to get them stuck together like this?

So Leo wasn’t just making a fuss over nothing.

I was starting to understand Leo’s worry.

The combination of Valerian and Elli, of all things.

This wasn’t a simple matter of having a single maid stolen from me.

Elli’s DV stat was 2%. A pristine human you couldn’t find anywhere else in this entire world.

I had any number of plans with her placed at the forefront.

There’s no way I’m letting her get taken.

This was tantamount to ripping the spine out of my plans. I had to get her back from Valerian, no matter what.

“‘Don’t get your foot cut by the axe you trusted’… is what I’d say, except it looks like it’s already been cut.”

Rose’s offhand remark snapped me back to my senses.

I definitely needed to go see Elli, to pin down exactly how this whole situation was playing out.

And so, with an uneasy feeling, I shot up from my seat.

I’d only just made it out of there.

“Young Master!”

Leo shouted the instant he saw me. By the look of him, he’d been waiting out front a good while.

I was already on edge over this business with Elli, and seeing Leo just stirred up a pointless streak of spite.

“What? Don’t tell me — this time Big Brother Valerian and Elli were holding hands or something?”

“Huh? What kind of nonsense is that, exactly? No, more importantly… well, it’s not really a ‘more importantly’ kind of problem to brush past, but anyway!”

Leo gestured toward the front gate, gasping for breath.

“Lady Seraphina has just arrived!”

I hurried after Leo. I’d naturally assumed we were headed for the head’s chamber or a reception room, but the place he led me to was the manor’s training hall.

Seraphina stood at the center of the training hall. She wasn’t dressed in comfortable training clothes but in the full dress uniform of the Imperial Knights. A pure-white cloak draped over her silver-white uniform fluttered in the wind, and the sheath at her waist bore the Empire’s crest, two crossed swords and a golden laurel crown, carved sharp and clear.

Such was the dignity of a Knight Commander, the symbol of the Empire’s mightiest force. Knowing a Seraphina like this stood as my guardian felt newly, deeply reassuring.

“Sister! Have you been keeping wel—”

I waved my hand and approached, glad to see her, but Seraphina cut me off coldly without so much as turning around.

“Sword.”

She gestured with her chin toward the weapon rack.

Proposing a sparring match the instant she gets back from the Empire — that’s something, all right.

Swallowing a sigh, I trudged over to the rack. I’d forgotten that Seraphina, no less than Valerian, was crazed for the sword.

Well, it has been half a year — I suppose she’s curious how much I’ve improved.

I picked up a decently broken-in wooden training sword.

I gripped the wooden sword and turned, meaning to loosen up a little.

Kwaang—!

A sharp sound sliced through the air, and a heavy impact jolted through my hand. I stared blankly ahead, gripping nothing but the hilt of a wooden sword snapped clean in half.

Seraphina stood with her hand outstretched. A blue ice spear loosed from her fingertips had smashed my wooden sword to pieces with pinpoint accuracy.

She slowly drew the blade at her waist.

“I heard you passed the Trial of Wisdom while I was away.”

Seraphina’s eyes gleamed fierce.

“Whether it was mere luck, or whether you’ve truly earned the qualification — I’ll confirm it with my own eyes.”

Her sword tip leveled at me.

“That’s a real fiery way to say hello.”

I drew the sword at my waist.

“If you think I’m the same as I was before, you’re in for a rude shock.”

Seraphina traced a magic circle on the floor with her blade, and cold air condensed within it, hardening into an ice knight.

“Are you underestimating me? A small fry like this is no match for me anymore.”

“You talk too much. If you’re a knight, prove it with your blade.”

Having summoned the ice knight, Seraphina shifted herself outside the training hall.

In her place, the ice knight came charging, swinging an enormous greatsword in simple, crude strokes.

In the end it’s nothing more than a lump of ice.

I’d been hoping for a slightly more unpredictable pattern, honestly. It felt like a rerun of a raid I’d already cleared, a bit of a letdown. Still, on the bright side, it was a chance to prove at a single glance how much stronger I’d gotten.

I resolved to deal with it swiftly, right in front of Seraphina’s eyes.

Kiik!

The ice knight’s greatsword buried itself where I’d just been standing. I dove into the opening, aiming to lop its arm clean off.

But.

Swsh—!

My blade swept through empty air, clean and smooth. Startled, I looked closer, and saw that the instant my edge made contact, the ice knight’s arm had sloshed like water and let the blade pass straight through.

A chill brushed past the tip of my nose. A moment’s delay and my head would have gone flying.

I opened up the distance, buying myself time to breathe.

“Hey, that’s cheating!”

“A blade grown arrogant is one that breaks.”

If I may offer an excuse that isn’t really an excuse, I’d never once seen this kind of pattern from any enemy. Liquefying part of your body in an instant to slough off a physical attack is just way too broken.

Maybe I really had fallen into arrogance, just as Seraphina said. Had it gone to my head, breezing through enemies this easily all along?

“Here I come.”

Before my self-reflection was even finished, two more ice knights were summoned at a wave of Seraphina’s hand.

Even one had been tricky, and now there were three. Go to cut them and they’d turn to water and let the blade pass; close in to trade blows and they’d strike at my blind spots from every direction.

It was like playing rock-paper-scissors against an opponent who reads your hand and swaps theirs at the last second.

“Guh!”

A shard thrown off by a shattering greatsword lodged in my shoulder.

“Dammit!”

My bravado, that easy certainty I could smash them, was slowly crumbling away.

Get your composure back.

I steadied my breathing and struggled to regain my poise.

Following her advice, I cast my mind back over the traces left in days past.

“When the heart is hurried, the sword will not answer.”

“When only the urge to cut blindly runs ahead, the sword acts as it pleases.”

“A knight is not one who merely knows how to swing a blade.”

“Only when there is something one must protect does one become, at last, a knight, and that is its pride.”

The noble teachings handed down by the ancestors.

Recalling those sentences sent my combat power soaring dramatically… like hell it did.

Protect what, exactly? I’ve got my own neck on the line right now.

That kind of lofty philosophy is talk for heroes with full bellies.

I took up the sword to win, and I grew stronger only to clear content.

The fact that it liquefies in the instant, right at the spot I aim to cut, means it has some degree of intelligence or learning ability.

Even with Seraphina staying out of the fight, this was nowhere near an easy duel. Call them upgraded ice knights, broken free of any simple AI.

Let’s change my approach.

Cut twice, thrust once.

Cut, cut, thrust.

Whatever attack I made, I capped it with a thrust, deliberately simplifying my pattern. Like the tutorial of some dead-easy rhythm game, I repeated the exact same thrust, over and over, mechanically.

And gradually the ice knights grew accustomed to my rhythm. The bastards matched the timing of my thrust, turning to water faster and more fluidly to slough off each attack.

That’s it. Go ahead and get used to it.

The secret to fishing doesn’t lie in good bait and a high-end rod alone.

Patience.

How long you can endure this drawn-out, tedious stretch of waiting is the essential condition for becoming a Jiang Taigong.

Just because I’d never been a Jiang Taigong before, did that mean I couldn’t become one?

With the leisurely, unhurried heart of a Jiang Taigong, I cast my bait, and cast it again.

But maybe a real big catch isn’t so quick to bite the bait?

The ice knights grew wary of the bait I’d laid. Even at the openings I deliberately showed them, they no longer rushed in.

I am Jiang Taigong.

The me of right now is Woo Suhan, and Arden, and Jiang Taigong.

Every time I felt myself about to get hasty, I recited it in my head.

And so, at a certain moment, the offensive ground to a standstill.

This time too, the moment I went for the thrust, all three of them read its trajectory, dropped their guard, and lunged with arms spread wide. Whichever of them reached me first would seize me and trap me inside that clammy, frigid body.

They’d thrown their decisive move.

They’ve bitten the bait.

In the very instant their bodies liquefied to swallow my blade.

Taat—!

I kicked off the floor and spun on the spot like a top. Without breaking the thrusting motion, I cranked the centrifugal force to its absolute limit and swept the entire length of the blade around.

A powerful blade-wind crashed over the bastards.

Nothing can hold its shape before a raging typhoon.

The liquefied bodies of the ice knights burst into water droplets scattering in every direction.

Chwaak—!

The knights’ limbs splattered apart before they had a chance to coalesce. Before the scattered droplets could bind back together and take form, I gave the liquid pooling on the floor a hard kick.

Thwack!

The water-blobs, denied the chance to regenerate, shot straight out.

“Whoops, sorry!”

The droplets rained down over Seraphina’s head. Obviously, that kick had been aimed her way on purpose.