The decisive turning point arrived four days ahead of the negotiations over the match conditions.
Just past midday, a report suddenly came to Hyakka as he attended to his duties.
"Milord Hyakka. We've received a complaint from the people. They have a matter they wish to petition you about directly."
"Not again! More problems with General Haizesta?!"
Dealing with complaints involving Haizesta was almost becoming a routine part of Hyakka's daily workload.
Hyakka didn't know the reason why, but it seemed people considered him the one to bring any complaints against Haizesta, and it was an entirely meaningless bypass of proper procedure. Hyakka had firmly resolved to bring up this inefficiency at the next assembly meeting, no matter what.
"No, sir. It concerns you." "What?"
"Their complaint is lodged toward you, sir." Hyakka was at a loss on how to answer.
He listened to the opinions of those he governed in the agriculture division whenever necessary and had set things up that, outside a truly serious emergency, there wouldn't be any situation that would bring the concerned parties directly to him to lodge their complaint.
Then had such an emergency broken out now, of all times, with the Sixways Exhibition close on the horizon?
When he headed to the reception room, unable to hide his confusion, there were already several woman sitting inside.
"Thank you for waiting. I am the Nineteenth Minister, Hyakka the Heat Haze! How may I help you all today?"
"Thank you for making time for us. I'm Yubalk the Goblet Hall, mayor of the sixth northeastern ward."
The slender, middle-aged woman finished her slightly hasty self-introduction as soon as Hyakka sat down.
She was the type of person that Hyakka didn't really enjoy dealing with, with the fact that she was there to lodge a complaint not helping the matter. Her position as ward mayor represented the opinions of all the citizens in her ward, and if she was making a direct petition on top of that, it was difficult even for one of the Twenty-Nine Officials to ignore.
"I'll begin by saying I don't want to waste your precious time, so I'll get
straight to the point—Master Hyakka, what sort of perception do you have of a true duel fight?"
"P-perception… By that, you mean…?"
"I am asking you if you believe combatants will be able to display their true skills in a battle on unequal terms."
"Ahhh, you don't happen to mean the seventh match's—"
"Why, whatever else could I mean, when it is you yourself who designated Dogae Basin as its venue, isn't that right? Everyone's heard the rumors saying such. You realize your opponent is Mele the Horizon's Roar, don't you? The champion who protects Sine Riverstead, who took down the Particle Storm, and who's known to everyone across the land. I can hardly believe I'm asking this, but you're not trying to defeat him before he can fire a single arrow, are you?!"
The middle-aged woman slammed the table. She was trying to browbeat Hyakka with the gesture.
…Dammit. Just because I'm young doesn't mean…
It was maddening. Supposing it was Haade or Jel sitting where he was, he knew she wouldn't have been acting the same way.
The same thing happened with Haizesta, too. In the end, Hyakka was simply an easier person to throw complaints at. That was why he always ended up suffering losses like this.
In any case, he had already thought up the wording he'd use in response to such complaints.
"Please calm yourself, Yubalk! If I may? We have yet to confirm the match terms. Thus, if you've come to complain about simply rumors, I—"
"That doesn't matter." "Huh?"
"It doesn't matter! Everyone has reached a consensus on the matter."
The middle-aged woman ostentatiously threw down a bag stuffed full of bundles of paper strips.
There were several different patterns of seals lined across the page—voting seals. Each registered family in Aureatia possessed a unique seal, and pressing this in with a stamp signified agreement with the opinion in question.
"Th-this many… Um, is there really enough to fill the bag like that?"
"I still have two more! You're one of the Twenty-Nine Officials, right? Haven't you heard the talk on the street? Holding the match in Dogae Basin, why, it's obviously ludicrous!"
"Like I said…that hasn't been set in stone yet—"
"Listen here, Hyakka! We've come here to advise you—refrain from causing any suspicions of foul play during this very important event!"
Hyakka lightly rubbed his head. He wasn't getting through to them… No— Even if her initial preconception was wrong, she was sticking to it.
Basically, she was forcibly demanding him to retract the match terms that she was personally unsatisfied with.
Y-you've got to be kidding me…! Did she really think that'd be enough?! A measly reason like that?!
Hyakka could admit that seeing the Mele the Horizon's Roar put his technique on display in a public event for the first time had been a large part of the Sixways Exhibition's publicity. His opponent, Shalk the Sound Slicer, was a no-name. The citizens one-sidedly focusing on Mele might have been the natural outcome.
However, the significance of a true duel absolutely did not lay in that time of showy performance.
Expending all of one's efforts under mutually agreed-upon conditions. As long as there was a consensus, each of the hero candidates took responsibility in following them. That was how it was to be.
"…I understand your feelings on the matter very well. I will be sure to think over your complaints," Hyakka replied with an artificial smile.
After continuing to voice her complaints for a time, the middle-aged woman left satisfied.
It wasn't his first time dealing with someone like her. Even when in a position like the Twenty-Nine Officials, as long as he governed over people, there would be times he'd have to endure such unreasonableness.
…However, something about her words stuck with him.
Is that how everyone's discussing the rumors?
He stopped on the way back to his office and thought.
I had instructed…my subordinate to spread the decision of the arena for the seventh match. But how was it being conveyed to the citizenry? How were they talking about it?
What had been a tiny thorn of anxiety suddenly began to swell.
This was everyone's consensus. Then did that mean everyone was talking about how they didn't want it to happen?
"Refrain from causing any suspicions of foul play"—that would then mean he was under such suspicions, wouldn't it?
Back then…what did the general store owner say?
"Though, well, that's good."
Perhaps, then, was his implication that he was glad it wouldn't be held in Dogae Basin?
Without realizing it, he was doubling back down the hallway.
He needed to get a clear grasp on the content of the rumors spreading on the streets.
That night. In a rare move, Shalk had returned to his own inn.
"You're here, Hyakka. Perfect timing. Sorry, but for the first time, I got a bit of a request for you."
"…Shalk."
There were several empty liquor bottles rolling around on the floor.
Shalk gazed at them without seeming particularly interested, before shifting his gaze back to Hyakka.
"Been a problem or something?" "What's it to you?"
As it had turned out, all his apprehensions had been right on the mark.
The number of voting seals he'd seen had certainly not been wrong. It was abundantly clear that in regard to Shalk's advantageous match terms, the citizens were, if anything, displeased. It was merely that no one openly mentioned it in front of him, and behind the topic of the seventh match, there had been all kinds of unfavorable criticism toward Hyakka the Heat Haze, groundlessly suspecting him of bargaining and secret maneuvering.
…Something this simple—if I just looked into it a little, I could've figured it all out immediately. I came up with countermeasures and everything… I… I was supposed to be thinking things through as I fought, but in the end, I didn't see through anything. I wasn't thorough. My failure. My…
He had pounced wholeheartedly on the unexpected good fortune presenting itself in the Dogae Basin rumors. Without at all thinking what sort of end result would follow.
As his sponsor, he already knew about the formidable strength of Shalk the Sound Slicer, but most of the people of Aureatia were looking forward to Mele the Horizon's Roar instead.
Perhaps, back in the moment, he shouldn't have spread such rumors and instead used any method to stamp them out entirely.
"Mind if I keep going with what I was saying?" asked Shalk. "..."
"Make the Mari Wastes the arena for the seventh match. Quit overthinking things."
"...! Not you too! Shalk!"
Make Mari Wastes the arena. He had heard the words over and over all day.
Hyakka smacked the table and shouted:
"You have to take this seriously! You're basically throwing away your chance to win!"
"Now, that's weird. I remember someone going on and on about the integrity of the hero candidate or something."
"…This is nonsense! Did those tavern scoundrels say something to you?! Is that why your stubborn, worthless pride's got you purposely trying to fight a losing battle, huh?! The sponsor's the one who gets to decide the match terms! Me! Y-you're my hero candidate…and you don't get to order your sponsor around!"
"Doesn't matter."
The head of his white spear was pressed up to Hyakka's neck.
An undead who found no value in anything else. A man who couldn't be bargained with.
"Whether it's some tavern scoundrel. The boss of some shop or another. No matter who it is, I can't stand to have anyone looking down on me. I'm dead— what else do you think I've got left?"
"Hic… Hngh…"
"Hell, even I don't know what I've got left for me besides this worthless pride."
The negotiations determining the match terms were a consensus between hero candidates.
In actuality, it was their sponsors in the Twenty-Nine Officials who did the negotiating as their representatives. That was where their talents were put to the test.
However…supposing circumstances had induced the hero candidate himself to wish for conditions that disadvantaged him, at that point, Hyakka's hands were tied.
"I…I just—! Listen to me, Shalk!! I want to win! I want to win, Shalk!" "Yeah. I'll get you your win."
The hollow warrior seemed to be smiling with his expressionless skull.
"I'll fight my opponent at his full strength and win."
The day of the negotiations. Cayon the Skythunder appeared in the Coordinating Room, where the one-on-one conversation would be held.
A one-armed man with decorous facial features. He looked at the emaciated and haggard Hyakka and announced:
"Well, how about we wrap this up quick?" "..."
Sitting in the chair opposite Hyakka, he gave his conditions.
"Seems like the whole city's settled on Dogae Basin, hasn't it? I'd feel bad throwing them for a loop, so if you two are fine with that, then—"
"Nhg…hngg."
Hyakka was terrified by his enemy's lack of quarter.
Many, Rosclay first and foremost, had avoided a battle against Mele the Horizon's Roar, who assumedly had a distinct weakness in close-quarter combat. More than Mele, they were avoiding a battle against Cayon the Skythunder. Without either the power of a faction or a vast amount of wealth, he achieved his goals with the barest stratagems necessary, having full knowledge of his opponent's capability to deal with him.
Hyakka had been locked into a battle with the absolute worst opponent. "Um…well, those terms are unacceptable!"
All he could do was force the words from his own mouth.
It wasn't enough to stamp out the rumors. He was supposed to have investigated where they had started.
Who was the person who'd first circulated the rumors involving the seventh match?
Chewing on the all-too-distant gap in their abilities, he had to say it.
"The Mari Wastes… For the seventh match, I r-request t-to have the… candidates…at bow range…!"
"Oh, really? Thanks."
Match seven. Shalk the Sound Slicer versus Mele the Horizon's Roar.
An arctic wave, normally an inconceivable phenomenon in the region, brushed against the spectators, who were gathered together at a safe distance.
All of them were at a loss for words, gazing at the impossible landscape— even those who had already heard about the circumstances of the second match.
The Mari Wastes.
Yet the once-level topography was twisted like a billowing wave, and the lithologic nature of the earth, previously dried out and littered with fissures, was condensed. A chill that changed the very weather still lingered.
However, today, they weren't witnessing a fight from Lucnoca the Winter.
On top of the hills where, in the second match, two of history's ultimate dragonkin faced off, there were now two different people standing there and waiting for the match to begin.
One of them could be easily picked out even without a monocular looking glass: the gigant Mele the Horizon's Roar. His body was remarkably enormous, even among his own kin, with his height extending well over twenty meters tall. A colossal body piercing the sky.
The other one should've have been standing on a hill as well, but he couldn't be seen. Shalk the Sound Slicer's height was no different from any normal minia. The mercenary who'd slain Kazuki the Black Tone, a legendary champion known to all in Aureatia, was said to be this Shalk the Sound Slicer himself.
Their opening distance from each other was identical to the opening distance between Alus the Star Runner and Lucnoca the Winter. The space was set up with the flight speed of dragonkin in mind, but when compared with the maximum range of Mele's arrows, it was also an extremely short distance.
Moments before the start of the match, Cayon the Skythunder, standing beside Mele the Horizon's Roar, was peering through a monocular looking glass. "The one over there, that's Shalk the Sound Slicer. Can you see him? I
certainly can't."
"Ohhh, that guy who looks like a walking rag? He's so small, I can't see 'im too well."
"You better take this seriously now. Your opponent's faster than Kazuki the Black Tone's bullets. I haven't checked anything out, got it? Get a good look at him yourself and fight it out."
Aureatia's Twenty-Fifth General, Cayon the Skythunder. The man who'd engineered this match at the Mari Wastes.
However, for this match, he hadn't done anything beyond inducing the current terms of the duel with his information warfare. He could have secretly maneuvered to enact even more, but he hadn't.
Things really would get dicey otherwise.
Cayon wasn't a part of any of the major factions fighting the political war in Aureatia. Belonging neither to Rosclay's camp nor Haade's, he was battling in the Sixways Exhibition under his own personal motives.
The operation to intercept the Particle Storm, making use of Mele the Horizon's Roar, had been another facet of his initial preparations. Utilizing his massive achievements from the successful operation, Cayon formed a secret pact of nonaggression with all the other camps. However, in exchange, Mele needed to be burdened with properly established matches in order to satisfy the bare minimum of what the Sixways Exhibition promised.
That was something that Cayon's side wanted as well.
Why, winning without showing Mele's fight to anyone—it's completely out of the question.
Mele the Horizon's Roar stood up and fixed his eyes on his enemy.
He had a gallant air and vigor that made him look like a completely different person from the Mele whom Cayon knew.
"Go out and win, Mele."
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to? I'll blow your mind." "…Hmph. I'm cheering for you, okay?"
On the hill opposite Mele, Shalk the Sound Slicer and Hyakka the Heat Haze prepared for the start of the battle.
His tiny frame shivering in the Mari Wastes' cold air, Hyakka moaned. "H-he's…looking at us."
Mele the Horizon's Roar was clearly visible as he stood on the other side. Hyakka was looking squarely at the gigant, who was readying himself for a fight. That mean that he was within the range of death, with all chance of evasion impossible.
"You'll be able to avoid it, right?! We may be this far away, but I can tell he's focusing his sights on us! He'll fire an arrow right as the match begins! Mele's vision is special!"
"I get it. Move."
The enemy obviously had Shalk's figure, smaller than a speck, in his sights. Shalk had swallowed the disadvantageous terms to the match, but that definitely wasn't because he scorned Mele's strength. It was the opposite.
Since his opponent was the most gifted long-range fighter in the land, then if he, holding nothing but a single spear in his heads, was then able to get inside Mele's melee range…
…Who am I? This time, I might find out for sure.
Shalk the Sound Slicer was strong. He remained oblivious to the reason why. The strength was there to fight against something. That much he was sure of. Given that he was a construct…someone out there in the world created Shalk the Sound Slicer in order to defeat an enemy that only someone with his strength
could oppose.
It was possible that this enemy was the True Demon King. It could have been something different, but similarly strong. Perhaps it was even Mele the Horizon's Roar himself.
This was why he continued to fight as a mercenary.
Putting his entire being on the line, he kept fighting those who were close to this fundamental principle of his being. More than knowing the name of the True Hero, he felt that this was what would get him closer to the true identity he so desperately desired.
Beyond that, it was win or die.
"…You have to win," Hyakka quietly murmured at Shalk's back. "If you don't win, pride, stubbornness—it won't mean anything. Isn't that right, Shalk?!"
"…Get outta the way. You'll get hit by the arrow." Hyakka was speaking the truth. Shalk thought so.
If he didn't fight with everything he had, he wouldn't be able to realize his wishes. Then should he end up losing, nothing would be left. His answer only lay beyond the true line between life and death.
He defied the norms. Even Shalk himself understood that. "You're going to make me say it a third time?" asked Shalk. "..."
He made the nuisance Hyakka evacuate. No matter where he was in the vast Mari Wastes, as long Mele could turn his eyes toward him, he risked death. Especially right here next to Shalk once the match started.
"…All right, then, come at me."
The only thing that would remain behind would be the frozen loneliness.
He readied his spear, stark white, parallel to the ground. Mele's bow, opposite him, was black darkness.
The stone pillar that had been used as a sundial to signal the match's start had been destroyed in the tremendous battle prior.
A brief silence passed between them.
Fireworks, instead of a starting gun, began the match.
—It's coming.
Far off, hazy in the pale-blue air, Shalk could see Mele pick up his bow. During Shalk's subjective view of the time frame, he had gotten in his stance to rush at full speed far before Mele had begun.
He had stripped off one of his two layers of rags and tossed it behind him. A decoy, little more than self-comfort. However, assuming the gigant's eyes were drawn to it even just once, at this long range, it would then be impossible for him to keep track of Shalk's real movements.
Together with his acceleration, Shalk the Sound Slicer transformed into a belt-like trail.
Godlike speed impossible of any living creature that the average person couldn't even visually recognize.
It's already coming. Fast.
With thoughts keeping up with his speed, Shalk had recognized it. The arrow. The mass of Mele's first shot, like a tower closing in.
He didn't take the bait. It's following me. Twenty paces in range. Seven. Now
—
The air screamed like a lightning strike.
The terrifyingly massive and boiling-hot earthen arrow passed through
Shalk's position.
The speed as it pierced the atmosphere was so great, the soil burned from the high temperature of the adiabatic compression. The arrow passing through the surface was enough to melt the ground, which had been frozen over, bedrock and all, by a dragon's breath.
A carved-out ditch extended in a clean straight line to the horizon, and even after the arrow stuck into the ground, it signaled that the unobstructed destruction had been etched into the topography.
"…Hold up now."
Shalk, escaping to a point slightly removed from the arrow's flight path, became freshly cognizant of his enemy's might.
He had seen the trajectory. He had seen the moment of impact, too. Even
evading it wasn't impossible.
However, it was monstrous. A voice, half-appalled and half marveling, slipped out of his mouth.
"Trying to cremate me here, are you?"
He knew from this attack that instantaneous destructive force wasn't what he truly needed to fear.
It was that, from a distance far enough away for the atmosphere to haze, Mele had accurately caught Shalk the Sound Slicer's movements, without being tricked by the decoy…and to go even further, he'd successfully calculated Shalk's supernatural agility and led his shot at where Shalk would end up.
I had been on guard to see if he would match up with my speed or not, but if I moved carelessly, it would've been all over with that first arrow.
His first act to try to close the distance between Mele and himself hadn't been made at Shalk's max speed. In the moment the arrow hit its target, he had been able to increase his speed one step further and avoid the ace shot.
Shalk's speed was neck and neck with the size of the arrows' moving inertia, and he was fully aware from the start that against the overwhelming area of attack of such a colossal arrow, dodging with a clever last-minute change in direction would be meaningless.
It meant he needed to constantly surmount a calamity more terrifying than lightning with just simple speed.
Three geographic reliefs I can see from here. Hide behind one of them, then I can cut off his line of sight, at the very least. Right now, he's nocking an arrow… He's creating them with Craft Arts. There's an interval between shots. If I use the reliefs and move at top speed—two shots. If I can stave off two shots, then I'll be at his throat.
Shalk's thoughts boasted the same abnormal speed as his movements. He could observe the process Mele took to nock an arrow, but to the average person, it all went by in the span of a single second.
Mele the Horizon's Roar. The minian-race champion who saved Sine Riverstead.
However, looking at him from Shalk's distance, he seemed like a mechanism of disaster given minian shape, wielding power easily capable of bringing ruin to everything within his bow range. A mountain moves, and life ends.
Even with his colossal frame, due to the long distance between the two, Shalk couldn't grasp the gigant's finer motions.
Conversely, Mele was watching Shalk's preliminary motions down to the
littlest twitch.
Including his initial movement when he began to run. Just then, the next arrow flew—
In that moment, Shalk's trajectory reversed.
After visually confirming the arrow's release, he didn't continue forward and retreated farther away from Mele instead.
"What in the world?!"
Sitting far off in a carriage and watching over the course of events, Hyakka couldn't suppress his shout.
Even a child could understand it was a bad move to go away from someone skilled in long-range combat like Mele. It was a move that went horribly against standard strategy.
The line of destruction once again licked the ground.
It threw up clouds of frozen soil as it carved its destruction, but it didn't, of course, hit Shalk, having hidden which direction he would advance with his monstrously explosive speed.
"…Can you see me real well?"
For now, he had made his move. Shalk called out to his enemy, who could not hear him.
"The better sights you got on someone, the more you're supposed to get tripped up by feints."
While he dampened his movement by stabbing his white spear into the ground, Shalk hadn't taken his sights off Mele.
He watched his enemy's initial motions, moved after he saw them, and reacted according to said movements.
This was the fighting style that Shalk the Sound Slicer had always utilized. If he made his enemy act first and could observe it properly with his ultra-high- speed thinking, he could then come up with the perfect countermeasures against any opponent.
It was at that moment.
At three points simultaneously, streaks of lightning rained down from beyond the sky.
At least, that was the only thing Shalk's perception registered it as.
The earth burst and split open together with terrifyingly resonant earthquakes, and heated soil and gravel erupted like a volcano up to the clouds. The blast wave didn't stop.
"..."
Three points. He had never even thought about it.
The arrows hit the three areas Shalk had, mere moments prior, considered as possible places where he could hide himself.
Did that mean Mele had shot them to the heavens, to make them land with a slight delay?
If Shalk hadn't reversed course, instead electing to dodge the first arrow and close in on Mele…then the very moment he hid behind cover after evading the first shot…
No. Him seeing through my ideas isn't that big of a problem. What the hell was that? It's impossible.
The essence behind it wasn't Mele's eyes, which could fully grasp the flow of the terrain; nor his combat judgment, which could accurately track Shalk's thoughts; nor was it even the precision of his archery, freely manipulating his arrow's descent through the sky.
Three spots at once? All this power…
There was a lot of distance between them. Even though he watched out for the moment Mele fired, Shalk's vision couldn't get any handle on what sort of movements the gigant's hands were making.
It meant that, just as Shalk had done himself, Mele, too, had techniques to beguile what his movements were when firing. Even then, that wasn't the essence of it, either.
And he shot four times?
Many people knew about Mele the Horizon's Roar. He was the most tremendous archer in the land.
His fierce arrow fire of unparalleled accuracy had always shot down whatever target he aimed at with a single arrow.
Thus, no one had ever even imagined it.
That Mele the Horizon's Roar could shoot his bow rapid-fire.