"I see… Well, no wonder you suddenly summoned me to the capital. This is quite an impressive feat. A young man of his fifteen or sixteen, all clad in black, masked face, unknown identity with a single facts of information about his name. And nothing else, huh…"
"Well, now. Please conclude it with your wisdom. How do you see those series of information as? Which is rumors and which is facts?"
After about half an hour of reading those paper containing information of Geheim, Raust started the conversation. He seems to have a lead to what and why Geheim Nisubelschatt suddenly appeared here for.
"First, I think the information about him being someone from Herrlichkeit continent is true. In fact, I think he's someone from the Holy Leginalf Empire."
!!
Everyone is shocked by the information. Though they never really go to the Herrlichkeit continent themselves, there's no way they don't know of Holy Leginalf Empire (神聖レギナルフ帝国). With the capital Dusselford (デュッセルフォード), which is previously a small kingdom, they now ruled all over the entire continent as of this ages. The glory of this empire is twofold of what Makenaria could make when Ernst the First conquering this continent of Falngard (ファルンガルド). The king who started the conquest is King Oberregent Herrscher (オーバーレゲント・ハーシャー), who will later know as Emperor Herrscher. The legend say that he started the conquest in early age of fifteen. And in twenty years, he overruled the entire continent of Herrlichkeit.
Now, Holy Leginalf Empire is ruled by his descendant, the Emperor Jürgen Herrscher (ユルゲン・ハーシャー). It is said that he also had that burning passion of his ascendant Oberregent and has started his conquest toward neighboring continent of Herrlichkeit, the continent of Demetia (デメチア). About half of Demetia continent is now under the rule of Holy Leginalf Empire. Now, in this era of swords, that empire is a threat, also a target of treaty of many other empire or kingdoms. They didn't see them as enemies, or they couldn't. When the holy empire sees your kingdom or empire as enemy, then every other neighboring kingdom or empire will sees yours as one as well. Even Makenaria Empire, which has their own glory in this continent of Falngard, didn't want to put their hand on the holy Empire's territory.
"Do you know the state of Holy Empire Leginalf as of late, your majesty?"
"Hm… Who wouldn't know about it? They're on a conquest at Demetia continent as of now."
"Yes. Geheim Nisubelschatt attitudes, attires and personalities written over the report…Seem very similar to the common nobles in Dusselford."
"Then, how about his appearance? Why did he appeared here? As of what I know, most of the capable personality are sent to Demetia right now."
"Yes. It's a good question. There's no way someone like him wouldn't be sent to the frontline. But there's an exception. You know about the three major figures that always stand beside the emperor?"
"The Great Sage, the Lord Architect of Technology and Machinery, and the Black Magic Swordsman?"
"Yes. The three of them, though being known in public as right hand man of the emperor, there's not a single clue about what or who they are. All the world know about their existence is that they're the emperor most trusted man."
"Are you saying that Geheim Nisubelschatt is one of them?"
"It's just a speculation. But here we go, the Black Magic Swordsman is know to be a man of mystery. He randomly appeared in places, killing and/or assassinated the threats for the holy empire. What people know of his appearance is that he's a man clad in black, with massive mana and magic power, and his signature sword arts of Infinity Flying Sword."
!!
Now they remember. The man, though never said how many sword he used in a battle, but he's a person capable of controlling many swords at once.
And they remembered, Geheim Nisubelschatt has a scabbard with seven swords intact. He looked more than enough to be the Black Magic Swordsman that Raust mentioned.
"Now that you said it…"
"It sounds like a fact."
"I think Raust-sama is on point. There's no other way to explain who Geheim is than the Black Magic Swordsman."
"But again, what is he doing here? And why a dukedom instead of the emperor?"
"It's simple. Either he's here for vacation or business, it's clear that he already know of Sanctia family. You can say that they had a relationship of short. It's highly impossible he would be plotting coup d'état with Sanctia dukedom. He did show himself in public. One way or another, it's a way to actually show us that he's not here with hostility."
"Hm… Makes sense."
"Thus, I think it has something to do with an errand from the emperor. Whatever it is, I don't really know about it. But I have something in my mind."
"What is it?"
"The Holy Leginalf Empire has a unified belief of the goddess of light, Leiseschein."
The goddess of light, Leiseschein (レーシェシャイン) is known to be one of the six major entity that created the world in the beginning of time.
"They believed that there's a demon plotting to open the gate to this world and is preventing them to succeed. There's a lot of cases where they made an expedition team to explore dungeon and ruins. All in order to find the clue about the demon realm and their plot."
!!
All the people there are shocked. Now, their attention are caught. The demon realm. Are a different world in legends and myths. Many stories and fables are written about them. With heroes and demon engaging in the stories. All those heroes, though the stories are fabricated in many ways, some of them contain a real events happening in histories. Including the existence of demon realm and grand magic ages.
"Are you saying that there's a clue about the demon realm in this land?"
"No way… There's only little left of lands that our Empire doesn't set foot at in this continent. We never found anything of the sort."
"Maybe we are not looking enough."
"But, if it is true, then…"
"I assumed he'll tell us the truth of his appearance when the time come. Right now, let us just play together with the plot of him being someone mysterious with unknown origin. That's the best course of action."
"We can't get on the bad side of the holy empire, after all. I guess we'll just go with your explanation and advice."
Thus, conclude the meeting between major figure in Makenaria Empire about the mysterious man clad in black, Geheim Nisubelschatt.
*****
Raye, or rather, Geheim. Is now standing at a field. Together with him, is Lucille with her eyes still dyed in red.
It's been about a day since the incident in the tournament, and the committee has yet to gave them news of when the tournament will resume.
"Then, show my your arts."
Lucille goes forward, and then show Geheim her polished sword arts that combining about 20 kind of arts. The movement are precise, short and fast. All of the strike would cause certain death if this is a match. But Geheim easily parry her. Even though she's using all her experience with the estoc, and is always keeping Geheim in her maai, he didn't falter.
Instead, it looks like he just move a bit from each counter after another. The scene continues for about a minutes. Unable to even reach a strand of his hair, she's depressed.
"As I thought. I really like your arts. Its brutal, without any hesitation. An arts of killing."
Listening to that comment, her eyes brim with happiness. This is the first time she show the arts she's making to someone. And she's being praised. And those word are coming from someone who won against her sister and Darius.
"Why didn't you show this art to your sister? Or your family? I'm sure they'll see you differently."
"That's not it. I just… Give up on trying to impress them."
"Then why are you so fixated to sword arts? Why do you make them?"
"Ehh? It's…"
She couldn't answer that question. Even she herself already know why she keep learning about sword arts. But, she just can't accept it. That's right. She's doing this because she wanted to be accepted. But if she really did it, then what happen next? Will her sister accept her? How will people sees her and her sister? The fear of having losing a precious thing such as her sister came to her whenever she think of it. Yes. All because she didn't want to show it as it would put an end to her sister so-called 'genius'.
"You know, human are a selfish beings."
She quickly regained herself from deep thought after listening to that.
"This is a story of a certain human from long, long time ago. Let say that he's Alpha. When he born into this world, he realize that human are weak. They didn't have powers like animals and other creature that his parent hunts to fed him. But somehow they could win against them. So he looks around and realized that, human hunts using rocks in barbaric ways. They go around and found sharp-edge rock and used them for hunting. They also work together to hunt the animal."
"When Alpha's reach adulthood, he to is hunting in a similar way with how his parent did. At first, he satisfied with just that. After a while, he seems to realize that using rocks are not efficient. So he make a hilts. Now, the angle and range of his strikes using those simple sharp rock being tied in a rope is longer and it's easier to use. He hunts, and he ate his share of loots to his heart content. Until there's not much more to eat. And he also failed to hunt animal in the last few day. Hunger strikes him, and for the first time in his life, he felt jealousy from looking at other humans who returned with their looting. And then, he think of something outrageous. Why didn't he just steal from another? So he attacked other humans and take away all their belongings. He is now safe from hunger. But it's not enough with just that. Just having food, and hunting everyday, then stealing from others, isn't really a satisfying life."
"So, he tried to ask his parent on how they gave birth of him. It's reproduction. He then asked other humans around, and wanted to see if there's someone interested enough to try with him. But no one answered. When he asked his parent, they said its because to do a reproduction, you need to have 'Love'. Because that what make you a family. So he wandered, what is love? And what is family?"
"He never get to understand what that is, and so he hid himself inside a house of a couple. And when the couple returns, he attacked them. He defeated the male and then raped the female to experience the 'reproduction'. Seeing this scene happening in front of them, the brutality of how Alpha smashed his weapon to the male and raped the female made the other human learn the meaning of 'fear'. And so since then, others are following him as example and the rule of the strong will take and the weak will lose everything is made. The very first hierarchical system in human history are born."
"Alpha however, still think that it's not enough. He had a lot of females, and food now. But what is lacking in them? He just didn't get it. He then took a stroll and trying to think of something. Then he saw a male and female, flirting each other. Different from how he took other male's females, the two humans look happy together. So his heart felt 'anger' for the first time. He attacked the couple, and killed them."
"The guilt, and scared of being discovered, the took the two cold body deep into forest. He buried them. But he learn a good lesson now. He remembered what his parent say before, 'love' and 'family'. Is that what it's mean for them? Like the two couple he just killed?"
"So he looks around all the females and found the one he likes. He then flirted her. Responding him, especially when the female know of how strong Alpha is, that female flirt back. And so, for the first time, Alpha learns what it means to have a mutual liking feeling. He remember of what he did in the past, when he stole from other's. Afraid of the same thing happened to him, he then called all males and make a battle. The one who win will have rights over the other lives."
"Alpha with his special sharp-edge rock with hilts won the battle easily. Then, he said he won't took anything from the all the male that lose the battle. But in exchange, they'll have to listen to him. That's how a term of 'lead' and 'ruler' exist."
"Now, from this part of story, what did you learn?"
The question Geheim gave is so sudden. The stories doesn't even end yet. Lucille wanted to know the rest of the stories. What happened after that? What becomes of Alpha when he created that rule? What about the female that seems to like Alpha?
But instead of asking them, she swallowed all that question and digest them.
"Alpha is insatiable."
"Yes. Humans, deep in their mind, are always burning in jealousy. They lived their life looking at others. When they don't have something, they'll be angry of them. When they have it, they wanted more. That's how human progress through this world until what we are right now."
"So what does this has to do with me?"
"It's mean that it's okay to be a little bit selfish, Lucille. Do what you want. Don't care about other or what they might thought of you. Just do it. What matters is that you are satisfied. Its not give and take, in human life. It's win and lose. That's how rotten is this world, so being a little selfish, isn't something people will mind at all."
Listening to Geheim, she felt something snapped in her heart. So, it's alright for her to show her strength? Is it alright to win against her sister? Now, her face look determined.
"Yes. That's the face I wanted you to have. Don't think about anything. Think about yourself first. What do you want?"
"I… I want to show them. I wanted to win the tournament!"
Geheim smiled. Yes. He has known since the beginning about her. From just her hand, he know about how much efforts she put in sword arts. She wanted to win. But the fear of having losing someone important in her life, is stopping her. Her heart already set to proofing herself but her mind is hindering her. Geheim has now destroyed of what's in her mind, and now she's left with a desire to win.
"I will make you win."
Say Geheim. Then, the two started to parry their weapon again, while having Geheim instruct her about which movement should be improved, like which should be reduced, which should be added, and the likes.
To be continued…