Who was the strongest among the Mad Order of Knights?
It was a question Kraiss had thrown out one day. Enkrid, boiling stew, spoke as if adding seasonings one by one, explaining as he went.
"If it turns into a melee, there's no one who can take Rem down. His instantaneous decision-making speed alone is a threat, but when you imagine him widening the distance, casually hurling a sling, the conclusion isn't hard. Just thinking about it makes me want to smash that bastard Rem's head in."
"Ah."
Kraiss agreed at once. Enkrid's explanation was clear and vivid. The image came together easily in his head.
"That would piss them off."
From the opponent's point of view, it would. Rem was that kind of person. On the surface he looked like he'd just charge in swinging an axe, but he used his head well. He fought while exploiting his advantages.
"You're not thinking it's easy to gain the upper hand over a fairy in the forest, are you? A demon hunter who doesn't tire in the forest alone, uses vitality to launch invisible slashes, and now even wields spirits—do you know that name?"
Shinar Kirheis was a fairy, and fairies were born assassins. Meet Shinar in the forest, and she became the last nightmare anyone wanted. Now she had the ability to beat renowned monsters to death without trouble. And if she heard the word demon, rare for a fairy, she would express rage and fight more violently than ever.
"In a one-on-one, it's hard to imagine anyone beating Ragna. Limited to a frontal fight, Ragna identifies and breaks down his opponent's techniques in real time, then incorporates them into his own. You say he's a bastard? Everyone who's lost to him would agree."
"I never said bastard."
"Next is—"
His was swordsmanship advantageous when facing many alone with a heavy blade. But Ragna wasn't that. He was a master of one-on-one combat. No one was more adept at fighting. Talent, or instinct, guided him. Overwhelming skill that forced everyone watching to admit it—that was Ragna.
"In a fight where you get close enough to feel each other's breath, grabbing arms or wrists and hanging on, is there anyone who could beat Audin?"
Minor wounds healed through his innate divinity, and the cloth of his body, tempered beyond plate armor, didn't easily allow even that. Calling Audin's stamina monstrous still wasn't enough.
Whether melee or one-on-one, if he decided to drag things out and endure, Audin's combat power wouldn't waver even after three days.
Enkrid again recalled what he had learned from all of them. Every strength they had shown, he had reflected on, learned, and absorbed.
Thus he had an unfailing Will, could endure by substituting divinity through Uske, had sight that could run wild in a melee like Rem, and had learned from Ragna how to focus entirely into a single "moment" through point concentration. Learning something in real time the way Ragna did was difficult, but through repetition of each day, he realized things, thought them through even without repetition, and made them his own.
'And with the throwing-knife forms I learned from Jaxon, I have useful attacks even at distances a sword can't reach.'
He combined everything. Based on Valen-style mercenary swordsmanship, he learned tactics from Luagarne, learned from enemies, and learned even from those inferior to himself.
Enkrid always stood in the position of learning. That was his greatest strength.
"What about Jaxon?"
In the midst of it, Kraiss asked. The evaluation of one of the people who had made up the initial Mad Platoon alone was missing.
"Jaxon is at a disadvantage against anyone in a straight fight."
"But?"
Kraiss supplied smoothly.
"If he decides to kill, no one can feel at ease."
Jaxon didn't reveal his true self. And he had reached knighthood through killing techniques alone. Pure swordsmanship-wise, he was inferior to Knight Aisia—but did that matter? It didn't.
To him, things like non-lethal thrusts or sensory techniques meant nothing.
Can he kill by stabbing? Does he need to cut? Once he chose the method, he simply carried it out.
Even Shinar in the heart of the forest couldn't relax. Even Audin cloaked entirely in divinity couldn't afford ease.
Even Rem entering a melee would be staking his life on every blink.
If Jaxon decided to kill, he would never fight Ragna head-on.
If necessary, he would shoot arrows, use poison, wield invisible blades. Jaxon would do that.
There was something else unusual. He didn't carry an engraved weapon.
To him, everything in the world was a weapon. A broken branch was enough, if it could kill a person. Of course, he was also an expert at handling a variety of artifacts. To fight a knight, a branch alone would be insufficient.
"The captain is the most troublesome opponent of all."
That was Jaxon's own assessment.
He thought little of a fairy's sharp senses, but because he had taught Enkrid part of his techniques, he said Enkrid was the hardest opponent for him.
"I think so too."
All of them, in the kind of fight they specialized in, were not inferior to anyone. Jaxon's specialty was killing.
In conclusion: in sparring, Jaxon was the weakest; but once it became a fight to the death, no one could ignore Jaxon.
***
The shaman–mage who thrust his spear forward had his calf muscle sliced.
He didn't even realize when his leg had been cut. He felt a slight sting, then strength drained from his leg. Avoiding the spearhead, Jaxon cut the opponent's calf muscle with a blade hidden in the sole of his boot.
Lowering his posture, he extended his foot where the opponent would naturally evade. The mage pulled his leg back, and in that brief moment Jaxon accelerated the extended foot and sliced with the blade hidden under the boot.
Hiding weapons all over the body was basic among Dagger of Geor assassins.
Aside from the blade in his boot sole, Jaxon had hidden no fewer than thirty blades on his body.
"Tanun!"
Even as his leg gave out and he collapsed, the mage shouted a spell. It activated instantly—possible only because of the things he'd long done to his own blood.
Flames erupted from the blade attached to Jaxon's sole. As if he had always meant to, he naturally stripped off the boot. The boot resisted the heat for a moment, then caught fire and rolled on the ground.
Barefoot now, Jaxon planted himself on the ground. His posture was low, waist bent, head lifted to face forward. In one hand he held a blood-dripping dagger in a reverse grip; in the other, a long, sharp dagger.
Both were belongings he treasured from the Carmen Collection.
He wasn't someone who collected items for display. He collected them to use.
And how were the blades he used like that?
Just as expected—satisfying. A grip that fit perfectly in the hand.
The Invisible Blade—transparent blades that were not only unseen, but exceptional in strength and sharpness.
They would hold up even against most engraved weapons. That was why Jaxon loved the Carmen Collection.
Weapons imbued with various qualities, perfected even down to strength and finish.
Carmen. He truly was a genius. Jaxon admired him inwardly.
"Ghk—ghk."
Thud.
A spear with feather ornaments dropped limply in front of Jaxon. Its wielder had collapsed sideways. The spear lost its owner. A throwing knife was embedded in the fallen man's forehead. It was one of Jaxon's main projectile weapons, named the Silence Knife.
It was several times harder to make and harder to use than a Whistle Dagger, but to Jaxon it was not merely familiar—he could even juggle it.
When the opponent began chanting a spell, Jaxon flicked his left hand at high speed. Naturally, the dagger in that hand lodged in the target. He could hit things like that with his eyes closed.
"Tear him apart!"
The Blood Appraiser, the vampire mage, shouted, spreading his grasp. His reaction was first-rate. Even in surprise, he faithfully did what he should.
Guiding the blood left by the dead mage beneath his feet, he fired elongated projectiles formed of blood.
Jaxon began to "play" with the blades in both hands.
Clatter-bang! Clatter-clatter-bang!
There were twenty-six incoming projectiles, all of which he knocked aside with the two blades. His waist straightened and bent, his upper body left afterimages, and it looked as if he had become three people with six arms.
The vampire mage wasn't surprised by the sight. He had expected Jaxon to block them. Rather than panic, he prepared his next spells.
He stopped drawing in the blood of the dead beneath his feet and focused.
"O sleeper in the depths, rise and devour."
"Noctua's Gluttony."
"Surdus's Whisper."
The Blood Appraiser specialized in multi-chanting. He cast three spells at once.
Noctua was an owl that fed on light. It stole the light from its target's eyes.
Jaxon closed his eyes. He sensed the spell and reacted. Closing his eyes was enough to block it. In the first place, multi-chanting spells with such heavy consumption was difficult.
Noctua's vision-stealing was one of the common mage-hunting spells. That was why it wasn't hard to deal with.
Of course, that was exactly what the vampire intended. Closing one's eyes was no different from losing vision, wasn't it?
Then hadn't the spell effectively succeeded? While Noctua fixed its gaze on the target, opening the eyes would be impossible.
Surdus was a deaf beast, unaware of how loud its own voice was. This spell released a thunderous sound to affect the opponent's hearing—condensed sound waves fired to impact a single target.
Peee—eeeeeeee.
That was all Jaxon heard. Sound beyond a certain threshold slammed into his hearing.
This was a type of spell that couldn't be blocked without prior preparation. Jaxon was hit. He went deaf.
Eyes closed, ears silent—the two sharpest senses he usually relied on were sealed.
"Hk—cough."
The vampire spat blood. That was how much strain he'd taken on.
The third spell raised a great warrior from a vampire's corpse.
When vampires were corrupted and fell, they became monsters that tore at flesh rather than drinking blood. A twisted variant called a Gridir.
He opened a gap in his spell world and awakened one who slept below—a vampire who had once fought at the level of a knight.
It was a trump card he'd never revealed to anyone.
When the two other mages died, he'd sensed the threat and poured everything he had into it. A spell built quite literally on two sacrifices.
From the ground emerged a transformed vampire: a slick gray head, naked of clothing. Dark gray skin like storm clouds gave off a gloomy aura. It propped itself up on one hand and pulled its body free in one motion.
Jaxon still couldn't see or hear, but it wasn't a major problem.
'The stench.'
He could reconstruct situations by smell alone. A specialty of beastfolk—one he could imitate.
Feeling vibrations through touch was also one of his fortes.
Senses on a different axis let him hide from detection abilities that were at the level of ordinary knights.
To do that, you had to see what others didn't see, hear what wasn't heard, and feel what wasn't felt.
Jaxon did as he always did. He sensed the vibrations, identified by smell, and moved.
Spinning once on the spot, he kicked the head of the thing that had burst up from the ground with his bare foot.
Bang!
The sound was crisp.
Its neck bent sideways from the blow, but it didn't die. The dead didn't die so easily.
Jaxon tossed two daggers to a convenient height. At that sudden act, both the mage's eyes and the gaze of the creature crawling up from the hole flicked upward for an instant. In that gap, Jaxon lowered his body.
Lowering his posture, he launched himself into the opponent's blind spot. No sound, movement faster than a hunting hawk.
It was a technique called Owl Step—a gait with no sound and exceptional speed.
As the head-struck vampire's gaze dropped back down and its claws shot out to respond, two daggers glowing faint white were already in Jaxon's hands.
The mutant vampire was as large as Audin, but it didn't have Audin's techniques. Even when Jaxon exploited its blind spot and leapt back in close, hugging the distance, its response was slow.
If it had been Audin, elbow-and-knee combinations would have come nonstop before Jaxon ever reached that range.
'Slow.'
Relatively speaking. To an ordinary soldier, the difference would be hard to see.
Jaxon calmly drove the two daggers into the gray-skinned naked corpse's flank, then planted another dagger into its knee as it finally snapped upward.
Each time his hands brushed his clothes, new daggers appeared, all blades suffused with white light.
When Jaxon flicked his body sideways after embedding seven daggers into its flank, knee, chest, and shoulder, cracks split open with ripping sounds at each embedded point.
Former Saintess Seiki had personally infused those daggers with divinity. The daggers themselves had been collected for precisely this purpose.
The seven daggers that once held divinity were rechargeable. After two days the divinity dispersed—but that was enough.
The mutant vampire screamed, though the sound wasn't heard. It was felt as vibration.
Boom.
By feel alone, Jaxon sensed the air bursting. The creature's body was engulfed in white light and exploded, scattering blood and flesh in all directions. Blood splashed across Jaxon's face—thick, dark red, and foul-smelling.
He walked barefoot to the spear dropped by the one he'd killed earlier and picked it up. Then he opened his eyes.
The spell's duration ended. Whatever had been stealing light from his eyes scattered without taking form.
Jaxon's gaze turned to one side.
"...!"
The vampire tried to say something, bringing his hands together to form seals. All of it was painfully slow. Even if Jaxon's killing techniques had awakened him, on the surface he too possessed physical power at the level of a knight—strength far beyond an ordinary human. He drew the spear back and hurled it.
The spear flew with a bang, though sound still hadn't returned. It pierced the mage's head. There should have been the crunch of breaking bone. The vampire, impaled through the skull, charred all over before scattering and being blown backward.
If he'd dodged, Jaxon planned to follow up with a Silence Knife—but the vampire took it head-on.
More precisely, he could have dodged, but someone held him down from behind. So he was struck and died.
Behind the spot where the vampire had flown back, a man stood staring at Jaxon, holding a flail. He covered his ear and shook his head, as if asking whether Jaxon couldn't hear.
"Read the lips."
Jaxon said it, gripping a dagger hidden in his sleeve as he spoke.
"Ah, you can read lips? Figures. Stuff like this is easy for you, right?"
The man said it, smiling as he approached. His gaze never brushed Jaxon's sleeve, but Jaxon judged that he knew Jaxon was holding a weapon.
He strode closer. Within five steps. A distance enough for killing each other, if they chose.
"Let's start when you can hear again."
He said it with a smile.
"My name is Pustis. A member of the Mud Order of Knights."
Jaxon never thought he would say these words himself, but this time he opened his mouth without the slightest hesitation.
"Jaxon of the Mad Order of Knights."
That was his affiliation now. Not as someone who killed people, but as someone who protected everyone behind him.
A moment of greater devotion than ever.
Without realizing it, Jaxon smiled. Maybe this too had rubbed off on him from his captain.
It was embarrassing—but the devotion outweighed it.
"You're smiling?"
The opponent reacted when he saw that smile.