Inside Lithia's central stronghold, Lana the Moon Tempest finished presenting the two newly hired mercenaries to Taren after their harrowing return to the city through the raiders' attack.
Everyone was seated, but the survey soldier Lana's small frame was halfway buried between the high armrests of the meeting room chairs.
"Shalk the Sound Slicer. Higuare the Pelagic. You did well to find them, Lana. Though…I had hoped you would find the World Word as well."
"Unfortunately, no one I encountered seemed to match the description. Surely, it must've just been an exaggerated rumor of some sort. Though, if there was someone with almighty Word Arts like that, hell, it'd make any battle a breeze to win."
"Hmm. If they do exist, our first step should be thinking up measures to keep such a dangerous person in check."
A skeleton and mandrake. While they certainly wielded tremendous fighting strength, they were unusual figures that the minia kingdoms, including Aureatia, didn't commonly employ. Nevertheless, what Taren sought were outstanding champions, capable of routing a hundred soldiers single-handedly. To her, their race was of little consequence.
In this land, it was possible for deviations to far exceed all known common logic. This was no more clearly proven than by the boundless legends and realities, most of all the previous existence of the True Demon King.
"First, I've heard the rumors about you, Higuare the Pelagic. An undefeated duelist on the frontier."
"That's correct. I've been fighting for a fairly long time. In minia years, I believe it adds up to around thirteen or fourteen years' time."
"…Slave fighting, then?" Shalk questioned, cocking his skull to the side as he gazed at the spires outside. Taren answered in Higuare's stead.
"The frontier's home to savage places where they gamble on people's and beasts' lives. This, of course, is illegal. In Aureatia, the rights of slaves have
been on the upward trend in recent years, but…during the dark age of the True Demon King, there were many places that sank quietly beneath the kingdom's watchful eye."
"That's not what I mean. I'm saying during those fourteen years of his, he was at some racketeer's beck and call, right? That makes me suspicious about that 'undefeated' reputation."
"Shalk does make a fair point. If it's not too much, could you explain yourself, Higuare?"
"Of course. Though my story is a trivial one."
Higuare the Pelagic was born in a forest on the western frontier, totally unknown to the races of minia-kind.
Among the mandrakes, a race of sentient plants, he grew to be bigger than any of his fellow mandrakes, almost as tall as a minia. As such, the minia living in a nearby city picked and "harvested" him.
He was meant to be felled in the minia-run combat arena, a beastfolk for their entertainment.
In the darkness, he remembered the first conversation he'd exchanged with a minia.
"You know how to hold a weapon?" "No. I don't understand."
"It's a sword, stupid. This may be a slave arena, but the attendees aren't gonna get hyped to see a mandrake get killed without putting up a fight. Learn how to hold that short sword by tomorrow morning."
"Okay. And I just have to fight with it?"
"Assuming you even can with those roots of yours."
The world of the minia races completely foreign to him, Higuare simply accepted the situation as commonplace, without either anger or despair.
Which was why he did exactly as he was told.
The next morning's spectacle displayed the mandrake from the mysterious forest repeatedly stabbing and dispatching all the other slave fighters in the arena.
Due to their origins as plants, mandrakes are assumed by many to be sluggish creatures. However, their flexible tendrils are equipped with strength not unlike a steel coil, and the speed with which they can burst out of their bodies, depending on the individual's physique and skill, make them even stronger.
Additionally, all mandrakes are poisonous. The deadly poison is one of the most lethal chemical substances in the world, with trace amounts being enough to dissolve nerve cells and quickly kill its victims with intense pain and respiratory trauma.
Simply laying out the plain facts, it was clear his captors were fools for planning on using the oversize mandrake as a performer. For Higuare, it was a blessing in disguise. The ignorance and self-conceit displayed by his first few opponents handed him his victories.
"Who will be my opponent for my next match?"
"Match…? There's no way in hell we're putting something like you in a one-on-one fight. Instead of the worthless slaves you've been fighting, you're going up against three top-ranked fighters. And just to be clear, it ain't a match. They're puttin' you down. Go out there and give us an entertaining death."
"But I do not wish to die."
"That's too bad, Higuare. In this arena, it's either kill or be killed." "Kill or be killed."
Higuare was obedient. In the following day's match, he killed his three opponents.
He fully accepted his new reality. Kill or be killed. Just as he had been told, he would not die as long as he continued to kill.
Completely lost about how to swing a sword at first, the mandrake practiced. He watched the fighters who had been there longer than he had, no matter their race, and naturally adopted the more impressive techniques for himself. While defeating his opponents with his lethal poison and the cutting slices of his vines, he still observed how other fighters drove their opponents into a corner, avoided danger, and formed their battle strategies, all being forced to fight with their lives on the line.
If there was a single talent of Higuare's that was purely his own and not
an innate part of his mandrake heritage, it was his obedience.
"No more matches for you. I sold you off to another city."
The person he conversed with that day appeared not to be the guard who had always handled him but instead the promoter and owner of the arena.
With the public procurement of slaves being banned by the kingdom's laws, Higuare, who continued to single-handedly kill any opponent he faced, had become a fighter who was too much for a small city's arena to handle.
"Understood. A new master, then? I wonder if I'll be fighting even stronger opponents."
"I assume so. Whether you've got intelligence or can use Word Arts, you're still a beastfolk, all told. Next fight, you're gonna end up dead."
"Why is that? I was born a beastfolk, so I have no control over it."
"It looks better to see monsters getting killed by the minia races, that's why. Reason's that simple."
"…No. I don't want to die."
If there was a single rebellious will within Higuare, it was his will to defy death.
That will solidified with each match he fought, with the mandrake himself unsure why.
Do I want to live…? What meaning is there in a life like this?
He had no attachment to life. He simply didn't want to die.
Once a captive regular soldier of the kingdom challenged him with a tempered and well-polished blade.
"Higuare…! Don't hold it against me! I'm gonna cut you down and get back home!"
"I understand. I don't bear you any ill will."
Not only is he spinning from his waist, but he's using his spine like a bow to shoot himself for a quick opening strike. If I was to replicate that with my body, I'd interlock my internal fibrovascular bundles…
Another time, an ogre who had eaten twelve village children challenged him with a large hatchet, requiring more strength to wield than any of the
minia races could muster.
"What a good day. These minia worms will watch this battle and tremble. If they're gonna look down on races like ours, then we gotta show them just how terrifying we can be, eh, Higuare?"
"Indeed."
Though I'm faster, his strength overshadows mine. I don't have the power to push him back. If I send several vine slices at the precise moment, then…
Once, he had been brought out and used as target practice for a group of gun-wielding executioners.
"Higuare. You've battled real hard up until now. Today's your last big performance."
"Thank you very much."
I'll watch the muscles in their fingers. I want to test if my slashes will be fast enough to match the speed of a bullet. If I use the recoil from launching my vines to disappear outside their field of vision, then, assuming these executioners react the same way slave fighters do…
Even while he obediently accepted each new and extremely disadvantaged fight, on top of surviving, he observed his opponents and further honed his skills to develop himself for the merciless fights to come. Although he was without a mentor, at the same time, all the slaves he killed had been his teachers in a way.
Despite being subjected to one-sided and unscrupulous fights every time, Higuare faced no judgment outside of his matches. His obedience never gave the arena promoter the opportunity to do so.
Finally, once he became known as the strongest arena fighter there was, even the audiences began wishing for Higuare the Pelagic's defeat. The peerless slave no one could manage to slay.
The ideal trajectory to thrust my short sword…
The opinions of those around him had absolutely no sway on the mandrake. He continued his unending sword wielding in his underground cell.
Outside of the ring, the meager water droplets and fissures in the darkness
served as his training targets.
I need to study other methods more effective than poison. I might lose next time. My next opponent might see through my strategy.
He contemplated these strategies, not out of cowardice or self-restraint but as the simple facts laid out before him. Higuare continued to candidly believe what he had been told—the next match will be even more dangerous; this time it's your turn to die.
As he devoted himself to fighting, slowly the other slave fighters' numbers began to dwindle, and the audience numbers began to drop. A strange terror flickered now and again within the speech of his guard, and others around him grew restless. These changes did nothing to distract Higuare from his training.
While he was captured, the times changed. The True Demon King arrived. Then, the fated day came. Suddenly, Higuare the Pelagic was a free being.
The underground prison was thrown open, and all the slave fighters were liberated. The True Demon King's army was at the doorstep.
There were flames. He saw minia killing each other. The madness of the True Demon King's army was blanketing the city.
A question came to Higuare's mind as he advanced against the crowds of people fleeing the madness.
Why didn't they fight back?
He slayed the deranged enemies who set upon him like they were nothing. Thrusting his short sword between their ribs, he twisted it before pulling it out. The people who had lived in the outside world died just the same as the
warriors he had fought in the arena. "I see."
He couldn't help but mutter to himself. After delivering death to someone from the outside world for the first time, he finally came to understand.
Even after gaining freedom, nothing about the world had changed. Kill or be killed. The very first lesson he had learned and dutifully followed his whole life had been true.
Well then.
He continued to win. To live meant trampling over the hopes of other creatures to survive and to stand strong within the world.
The enslaved arena fighters who faced him, the beasts without Word Arts, and the near-thousand opponents he had fought against all wanted this very thing. They must have.
I see. So this must be "pride," then.
Though now free…when he thought about all those who had died at his hands, he knew there was no way opponents of this level would be able to kill him.
Higuare the Pelagic was an unrivaled fighter and never lost.
He had wanted to live.
"Haaaah…"
It was a monotone and meaningless utterance. It was strange that such a voice would come out of his own mouth.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."
Higuare laughed flatly. It was the first time he had ever laughed in his entire life.
As he did, he turned toward the endless sea of enemies before him.
Time passed, landing him in the present. Since sprouting his mandrake resolve, he knew no life other than that of the sword, now becoming a soldier in Taren the Punished's army.
"When we discovered him…this guy said he had been battling the Demon King Army. I'm not kidding," the tiny Lana told Shalk, amused.
Shalk asked in earnest, "Has this guy met the True Demon King before?" "Of course not, c'mon. Still, though, we're talking about that army here!
No one would ever expect to hear something like that. I wouldn't be surprised to hear this guy was the Hero."
"…If that's true, it is quite the feat. So he's faced off against the Demon King Army, huh…?"
Even now, with the True Demon King defeated, almost no one would
purposefully mention the Demon King Army. Its lingering existence, the weight of the words alone, was enough to strike fear into any heart.
More so than the deceased True Demon King—their true identity still shrouded in mystery—it was the Demon King Army itself that was the ubiquitous terror, emblematic of the times.
"Yo."
Right as the talk about Higuare ended, the inner door opened, and a young man returned to the room. Looking across the faces gathered there, he spoke.
"I see you've found some more strange fellows, Miss Taren." "Introduce yourself, Dakai."
The Visitor acknowledged the two guests and approached the mandrake with curiosity.
"That skeleton's a spearman, huh? As for this mandrake, I can't really gather what he's about… Can't even tell where his face is, for starters."
"Shalk the Sound Slicer. Though I believe you were the one told to introduce yourself," the skeleton muttered. "I heard right, didn't I? Forgive me. Senses haven't been the same since I died."
"I am Higuare the Pelagic. Nice to meet you."
"Hmmm… I don't know; are you two really that strong…?" Dakai questioned as he held one of Higuare's weapons in his hand, sizing it up.
…Just a normal dagger, far as I can see. How many does he have stashed inside that body of his?
Taren elected to answer Dakai's question herself.
"They're powerful mercenaries and worthy of trust, just like you. I believe we need individual power to fill our enemy's armies with dread—like the True Demon King. Assuming it will come to armies, but I want a symbol of fear that will stop soldiers in their tracks, long before a drawn-out war fatigues the soldiers and the people."
"That sort of deterrent's effective in times like these, huh? You confident you can manage that, Shalk?"
"Hate to break it to you, but I don't plan on living up to those expectations," Shalk responded calmly.
"Unlike Higuare over there, I'm just a mercenary. No matter how cheap it may be, I don't work until I get my advance."
"I know. A survey of the final land, where the True Demon King died, right? Until we get word that the survey's finished, you're free to remain on standby, to a degree."
"Ha-ha-ha. You don't plan to keep avoiding the issue like this, do you?" "I could ask you the same thing. You don't think we expect the dead to
work for free, do you? If you want to see for yourself, I'll pay you from my own coffers, right here, right now. I can turn a blind eye to a dual contract."
"Sounds great. I like big talkers. What about that one over there…?"
As the conversation continued, Dakai took a piece of fruit off a plate on the table. A hawthorn berry. He tossed it toward Higuare.
"…Oddly quiet, aren't you? What do mandrakes eat anyway?" "I don't eat hawthorn berries."
The fist-size berry froze in the air immediately after it left Dakai's hand.
Then, it fell.
Huh.
Dakai was inwardly impressed. The berry kept its shape after falling onto the table. Cut through, without leaving a single trace behind. It was sliced up so cleanly, each part of the berry still remained in one piece.
"If you'd like to see my capabilities…"
The berry split—two pieces, four pieces, eight pieces. Each fragment immediately began corroding away.
With each of his vine-like arms holding a short dagger, he had sliced through the air three times. Not only that, but all the blades were covered in lethal toxins.
"…then I've just shown you."
Taren smiled fiercely, leisurely clapping her hands a few times. "Masterfully done."
The New Principality, under her control, was power. That power, gained through independence from Aureatia's control, served as a unifying force to gather powerful beings from all across the great wide world.
Brought together in Lithia was a handful of these individuals, a special selection of great talent.
Closely observing Higuare's movements, Lana the Moon Tempest offered her own perspective.
"…I get it. So a mandrake can use a sword in three arms at once, then? From that distance, though… And then add in the mandrake poison, yeah,
that's some supernatural skill."
It was truly some fantastical swordsmanship, totally impossible for a minia body to imitate. So this was how Higuare the Pelagic had managed to stay alive.
"No."
For more than fourteen years, those who had misjudged the extent of Higuare's abilities had had their lives taken from them.
To be supreme in the world of Shura, it meant one was a monster far beyond normal comprehension, further still than the realm of fantasy.
"I have forty-two of them."
He possessed dueling skills honed through the colossal amounts of blood spilled in the arena of life and death.
He concealed fatally lethal poison that nothing living could resist.
He boasted innumerable and abhorrent sword strikes, made extreme through his grotesque body.
The ultimate slave through his own will, obeying everything but completely free from the control of others.
The Gladiator Mandrake.
Higuare the Pelagic.