Chapter 12 – Job Hunting (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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One year was a long time.

It was long enough for Alon to go from heir apparent to fully invested count after the formal succession ceremony.

It was long enough for him to grow used to the work a count was expected to do.

But it was absolutely not long enough for a complete beginner with no knowledge of the sword to reach the rank of Master Knight.

“Evan.”

“Yes?”

“Master Knight means Swordmaster, right?”

“…More or less.”

Alon had read countless fantasy novels in his old life, and in many of them the title Swordmaster was not especially impressive.

This world was different.

Here, being able to form an aura blade was only the beginning.

A true Swordmaster had to awaken a unique ability called Derivation and become the sort of monster who could clear a city wall in a single bound.

In other words, Swordmasters here were not simply swordsmen wrapped in aura.

They were superhuman.

“So Deus became that?”

“Not exactly,” Evan replied.

“Strictly speaking, he’s just short of it.

He has been named a Master Knight, but according to the information guild, he still hasn’t developed a Derivation of his own.”

“Then he isn’t really one.”

“It’s probably because of the northern barbarians.”

At that, Alon understood.

“War?”

“Yes.”

Caliburn had been fighting the northern tribes for nearly ten years, and last year one of its five Master Knights died in that war.

“So they’re stabilizing public fear and declaring they’re still strong.”

“That seems to be the main purpose, yes.”

“Then Deus isn’t truly at the level of a Master Knight yet?”

“No.

He simply hasn’t developed a Derivation.

The guild says his actual ability is already at Master Knight level.

Apparently Fiola, the Fourth Sword and a Master Knight in her own right, lost to him in a duel.”

Alon let out a disbelieving laugh.

“How old was the youngest Master Knight before this?”

“Thirty-two.

Caliburn’s First Sword, Reinhardt.

At least until now.”

That made Alon’s laugh even drier.

He might not have cared much about Reinhardt’s fame, but he knew the man was absurdly strong.

In the game, Reinhardt temporarily joined the protagonist during the third main episode, and the accompanying narration went on and on about how he had begun swinging a sword at the age of five and possessed impossible talent.

Even that monster had taken over twenty years to reach the rank.

“And Deus did it in one…”

“Which is nonsense,” Evan said with open envy.

“Even gifted people take five years to awaken mana, ten to properly cloak themselves in it, and decades to develop a Derivation.

Deus cleared the first two in a single year.”

Alon rubbed his chin.

I knew he was talented, but this is absurd.

Still, it was good news.

The better Deus did, the more likely some of that success would eventually trickle down in Alon’s direction.

Though lately he was not so sure.

His eyes drifted to the letter from Yutia resting on one side of his office.

Over the past year, only Yutia had written to him directly.

The others still seemed to stay in touch with each other, since Yutia’s letters included occasional updates on them, but none of them had written to thank him.

He had even prepared personal gifts for all of them.

Of course, he understood the likely reason.

He had never shown his face at the orphanage.

From their perspective, he was probably no more than a generous noble who had once helped them.

Even so, a lack of thanks stung a little.

Then again, he reminded himself, the original goal had never been to earn the affection of the Five Great Sins.

It had been to keep them from destroying kingdoms.

And that goal had already succeeded.

If they’re living well, that’s enough.

* * *

In the southern district of Kirdam, the capital of Caliburn, there stood a grand mansion reserved for the kingdom’s high nobility and greatest warriors.

It was the residence of Deus Makalian, the youngest man in Caliburn’s history to receive the title of Master Knight and commander of the knight order known as Eclipse.

Seated in a stately office he had not decorated himself, Deus looked out over the garden through the window.

“Brother!”

At the sound of the cheerful voice, a small smile rose on his lips.

The girl waving to him from the garden had the same deep violet eyes he did.

His younger sister.

As he watched her, his mind drifted back to the events of one year ago.

Back to the day he received the Great Moon’s gift and found his supposedly dead family alive.

At that time, Deus had already been active within Blue Moon, but he had not yet worshipped the Great Moon with the same blind devotion Yutia did.

He knew the man had saved his life, certainly.

That alone had not been enough to make him offer his loyalty.

Back then, he belonged to Blue Moon for only two reasons.

First, because Yutia was training him.

Second, because the Great Moon had promised him revenge on the Black Goat.

When he lost the family that meant everything to him, rage and hatred were all he had left.

That was why, when this assignment first came, he had disliked it.

At least their previous work for Blue Moon had clearly involved fighting black things.

This mission had seemed unrelated and pointless.

Then he arrived in Caliburn.

He followed the Great Moon’s letter to a small inn in the southern district where his “gift” awaited him.

And there, alive and well, working at the inn, was the younger sister who should have been murdered by the Black Goat.

The memory still made his face burn.

The moment he saw her, he had embraced her and burst into tears on the spot.

After that, his sister Shili told him everything.

How she had been dragged into a dark place by the Black Goat and nearly killed.

How, just before death, she had been dragged back out in a flood of light.

How a man named Evan had rescued her when slave merchants tried to take her.

How the Count of Palladio had supplied precious medicine and continued to support her in secret until Deus arrived.

That was when Deus first began to wonder how the Great Moon could possibly know so much.

He had never spoken of his family to anyone in Blue Moon.

Yutia had only known that black things had hurt him.

She did not know the full story.

But after a while, he stopped trying to understand.

Instead, he remembered Yutia’s words.

He knows everything.

You’ll understand one day why I follow him.

What he had once dismissed as fanaticism no longer sounded so absurd.

For Deus, that gift was beyond precious.

The Great Moon had not only given him the chance for revenge.

He had returned the sister Deus thought he had lost forever and protected her in secret under his own name.

From that day onward, Deus resolved that no matter what happened, he would repay that grace.

Then he followed the Great Moon’s command and became a knight in Caliburn.

That, unexpectedly, had been easy.

He possessed astonishing talent for the sword, enough to shock even himself.

And by the time he entered knighthood, he finally understood why he had been sent there.

His duty was to build a guard.

Because of the war against the barbarians, Caliburn allowed anyone acknowledged by the king to form a knight order.

A Master Knight was even allowed to exceed the normal limit on numbers.

Which meant that instead of gathering thugs from alleyways, Deus could gather truly talented swordsmen who had come to Caliburn seeking knighthood.

“Commander. It’s time.”

Deus rose.

The knights of Eclipse stood assembled in black steel armor, ready to march north and fight the barbarians.

Looking over them from the review platform, Deus knew some of them would never return smiling.

That did not bother him.

The guard that would one day stand at the Great Moon’s side had to become stronger still.

He drew his sword.

“Under the moon, prove yourselves.”

With that quiet slogan of Eclipse, he set out for war.

He intended to forge the finest knight order in the world for the sake of the Great Moon.