"…Did you need something from me?"
"…."
Matyos looked up at Professor Vilhelmine, who stood towering before him.
Her shadow swallowed the sunlight as it fell over him. Within that shade, she gazed down at Matyos with an expression utterly unreadable, her eyes fixed and still.
Whoosh.
Then, Professor Vilhelmine's black-gloved hand came toward Matyos's shoulder.
More precisely — toward where Shu was.
"Whoa—"
Shu startled and flung herself into the air.
Professor Vilhelmine's hand paused for a moment. Her crimson eyes shifted almost imperceptibly, groping through empty space as if searching for something.
The hand rose again.
Shu darted away quickly.
But the professor's hand moved as though certain of something, tracking Shu's movements.
Matyos held his breath.
Could she actually see her?
"This won't do. I'm borrowing your hair for a moment."
Shu dove swiftly into the tangle of Matyos's hair.
His ashen locks rustled and swayed, and his scalp prickled with a strange, ticklish sensation.
If she hid in Matyos's hair, Vilhelmine wouldn't be able to reach out so freely. That was Shu's reasoning.
But Vilhelmine's hand followed Shu right in. Long fingers plunged straight into Matyos's hair.
"…."
His hair was thoroughly disheveled.
"Um…."
"Ah—"
The moment Matyos cautiously opened his mouth, Professor Vilhelmine seemed to register what she'd been doing and flinched.
She yanked her hand back hastily.
His hair was already a complete mess.
"…A-ahem. There was something strange floating around you… I had no other intention."
"Ah… right."
Matyos answered with a blank look and smoothed down the hair she'd ruffled.
He couldn't very well come out and tell Professor Vilhelmine there was a spirit there.
Spirits had vanished from the world long ago. If Shu's existence became known, things would get complicated in all sorts of ways.
"I'm telling the truth. There really was something with blue fur. It had wings too. …But I suppose I must have been mistaken. My apologies."
Perhaps thinking he didn't believe her, Professor Vilhelmine launched into a desperate explanation. Even between professor and student, reaching into someone's hair without permission was hardly proper etiquette.
For his own part, he didn't particularly mind. He'd been patted on the head by so many people over the years that he'd grown used to it.
"I'm really fine. These things happen."
Matyos said it graciously, and Professor Vilhelmine visibly relaxed and stepped back.
The lecture hour was nearly over anyway, and she brought it to a close.
"Phew… every so often you get people like that."
Shu emerged from his hair and let out a sigh of relief.
"Is that what happens when someone's a genius? They can see things like you?"
"That's not genius. That person's soul is just unnervingly sensitive, that's all."
"I'll have to be more careful around her."
Matyos said his goodbyes to the people he knew and picked up the red cloak he'd set aside for training.
"Why are you putting your coat on?"
"Pardon?"
Professor Vilhelmine approached with her usual blank expression. Shu slipped inside the collar of his coat.
Matyos had been training every week. It hadn't even been a full month yet, but each time, Professor Vilhelmine would watch his training and occasionally offer a pointer.
"Ah, I have plans today."
It was his meeting with Yuri. They'd arranged to meet at the café near the hospital. That was today. The sword training would have to wait.
"…Plans."
Professor Vilhelmine was quiet for a moment.
She looked vaguely sullen.
"Then there's nothing to be done. But if you keep skipping like this, you'll stop coming altogether. Avoid it if you can."
"Understood."
Matyos gave a polite bow and set off toward the café where he'd arranged to meet Yuri.
* * *
When I arrived at the café, I caught sight of the person seated in a chair and had to blink twice.
"It's been a while, Moretti."
"…Sword Saint."
What on earth is she doing here?
A white-robed elder sat at the table.
She looked like a mountain hermit who had somehow wandered down from the peaks into a city café.
Yuri, ignoring a perfectly good empty chair, was perched on the Sword Saint's lap, contentedly sucking on a carton of chocolate milk.
Her expressionless face was absolutely brimming with satisfaction.
"You saved my daughter, so it was only right that her mother come to you in person. My sincere gratitude, Matyos."
Sword Saint Sharlot set Yuri aside into the empty seat, then rose and bowed to me.
It was not a light bow. I lifted myself from my own chair and returned it with a dip of my head.
"Please, don't mention it. It was only what needed to be done."
"Matyos is modest."
The Sword Saint smiled with easy warmth and settled back into her seat.
Then, as naturally as breathing, she lifted Yuri and placed her back on her lap.
Yuri went on drinking her chocolate milk without a care, the back of her head resting against the Sword Saint's chest — as though that was simply where she belonged.
"Is it good, Yuri?"
"Mm-hm."
"Heh heh, I'm glad."
A moment later, a server brought out two chocolate milks.
The Sword Saint gave one to Yuri and passed the other to me.
"Do you dislike chocolate milk?"
"Quite the opposite."
Chocolate milk was my favorite drink. I took the warm, freshly made cup with genuine pleasure and drank.
"How is your body holding up? I heard you were in quite critical condition…."
"Ah, yes."
Just thinking back to that crisis made my head swim.
The Great Spirit's Blessing had surged my strength to explosive heights, but my body couldn't bear it.
It was like a small child trying to swing a heavy iron sword and shattering their own arm in the process.
When it hurts, you should stop swinging — but I had kept swinging because I needed to survive.
My muscles had burned as though on fire,
and a sensation like melting from the inside had crashed over me.
Fortunately, I hadn't actually melted like ice cream dropped on summer asphalt. The damage had been 'minor' — surface tissue destruction.
…Even that minor damage had been agonizing beyond words.
That I'd been able to receive treatment and make a full recovery was nothing short of a miracle.
'If I'd used Muksong on top of everything else, I'd probably be dead.'
At the time, even if I'd wanted to use Muksong, I couldn't have.
When more than seventy percent of Muksong's mana is expended, the muscles begin to dissolve first, followed by the organs, bones, tendons, and brain.
My body was already wrecked from the Great Spirit's Blessing — if I'd added Muksong on top of that…
I probably would have turned into something resembling a slime.
Thunk.
Just then, the Sword Saint reached into her generous robes and produced a small vial.
"It's late, but consider it a get-well gift."
"This is…?"
"A medicinal elixir made from the crushed heart of an Iron-Plated Tiger. I caught one near my home three months ago, so it's quite fresh."
She extended it as though it were nothing.
Inside the vial, a milky elixir glowed with a soft, gentle light.
Good lord.
I was momentarily speechless.
The Iron-Plated Tiger. The sovereign of the rugged northern mountain ranges.
Its body was massive. Its hide was hard as iron plate, and its muscles were coiled and dense as twisted steel rods.
It had once been the nightmare that plunged the northern people into terror. Even now, folk tales with the Iron-Plated Tiger as their subject still circulated throughout the north.
And this elixir had been made from the crushed heart of that very creature.
"C-can I really take this?"
"If you don't want it, shall I take it back?"
The Sword Saint tapped the vial with a playful smile.
I snatched — both hands closing around hers.
"No, please! I'll take it with the deepest gratitude."
An elixir made from the crushed heart of an Iron-Plated Tiger.
'Something you'd only ever see in the back half of the story, and I'm getting it now…!'
The effects of the elixir were extraordinary.
First, it healed harmful injuries throughout the body. Then it fortified the muscles to be denser and stronger, and increased the density of the bones. It elevated all the senses — sight, hearing, smell, and more — by an entire degree. There was no raw-stat elixir that could match it.
I looked at the Sword Saint with overwhelming gratitude. She wore the fond smile of a grandmother pressing pocket money into her grandchild's hands.
'Still, I never expected to meet her face to face like this.'
She looked like a slightly peculiar old woman at first glance, but the Sword Saint was, without question, the finest blade in the empire.
The Emperor had made sluggish attempts to win her over, and failed.
He'd offered a ducal title and a choice estate, but the Sword Saint had refused all that wealth and glory and spent her days in the north, cutting down monsters.
She was also something of a recluse — not a single hair of hers appeared at social gatherings or political events.
And yet here I was, meeting her in an ordinary café.
We were in a private room.
"The Black Moon Pact."
The Sword Saint spoke abruptly.
Her serene smile remained unchanged.
"The attackers who came after Yuri and Matyos. They're an assassination organization called the Black Moon Pact."
"…The Black Moon Pact."
I already knew the name, but I nodded as though hearing it for the first time.
"I hesitate to bring this up, but Matyos was involved too, so you deserve to know. It would be a shame not to even understand why you were targeted, wouldn't it?"
"Why did they go after Yuri?"
"Her potential is what they wanted."
The Sword Saint gently stroked Yuri's hair.
"In truth, I have no biological daughter. No husband, no children of my own."
"Then…."
"Yes. Yuri is my adopted daughter. I once raided a Black Moon Pact branch, and I found her there. It was a miracle. Saying that meeting this child was a miracle doesn't even begin to cover it."
The wrinkled corners of the Sword Saint's eyes curved into a soft arc. Within them was an affection impossible to conceal.
Yuri had finished one carton of chocolate milk and was working through another, her gentle hands kneading the back of the Sword Saint's hand.
"I'd never felt such a powerful impulse before. I'd always lived with restraint — I'd never once thought about raising a child. But seeing Yuri changed that. I decided to become this child's mother."
Peck.
The Sword Saint pressed a light kiss to the crown of Yuri's head.
Then she raised her eyes to look at me.
"Matyos. I have nothing but boundless gratitude for you. You didn't only save Yuri's life. You saved mine as well."
"…That's a lot of pressure."
"But it's the truth. Even if it makes you uncomfortable, I am grateful to you. Truly grateful. Matyos. Yuri, you should say something too."
The Sword Saint gave Yuri's shoulder a gentle shake. Yuri pulled her lips from the straw and gave a small nod.
"Thanks."
"You should say 'thank you.'"
"Thank you."
"Please understand. Yuri isn't quite used to interacting with people yet. She says unexpected things sometimes."
"I see. That explains it."
"Matyos, if you ever need help, please say so. I'll assist you to the best of my ability."
A debt from the Sword Saint. Meaning she'd grant whatever I asked, within her power.
I'd already received the Iron-Plated Tiger elixir, and now I was getting a debt from the Sword Saint on top of it.
I was receiving so much that it was starting to feel like a burden.
The Sword Saint's influence was immense.
No title, no territory, no organization —
and yet she was someone who could have all of those things.
Not someone who lacked them. Someone who chose not to have them.
I thought for a moment, then opened my mouth.
"In that case, I would like…."
The instant she heard those words —
Sword Saint Sharlot's eyes went wide.