Bido pushed up the leather strap slung across her back.
The sword slid free swiftly,
letting out a low rasp of leather.
The first to react to that sound was the knight holding the spear.
He was gripping the spear.
It was still piercing Erdin’s thigh,
not yet pulled free.
He had not let go.
But he could not move either.
Something seeped down the knight’s spine.
Killing intent—
No.
It was rougher than that,
something inexplicable.
His gaze was drawn there.
Beneath the moonlight,
a black-haired girl was charging toward him with a sword in hand.
She was not threatening.
That was how she should have seemed.
Small,
a girl to whom even the sword still looked unfamiliar.
And yet—
The air was strange.
What was strange was not the sound or the light.
It felt as though the air itself had grown one layer thicker.
The spear-wielding knight instinctively drew in his neck.
The moment he inhaled,
he felt something cold slide all the way down into his lungs.
It was not the smell of blood, nor anything like killing intent,
but it was a scent that made his body judge first that he must not fight.
He could not tear his eyes away from Bido.
And with his gaze still fixed on her,
his legs refused to move.
A momentary halt.
In that single beat, Bido was already inside his guard.
The sword curved low.
Snap.
The spear shaft connecting the knight and Erdin was cut away.
The spearhead lodged in Erdin’s thigh was left as it was.
Now the knight, holding the severed shaft, staggered back.
“What—”
He did not finish speaking.
Erdin’s and Mendel’s eyes widened at the same time.
“Lady Bido?”
The reaction of the sword-wielding knight beside him was quick.
He instinctively changed direction.
The tip of his blade aimed straight at Bido.
But Bido did not stop.
She stepped as if gliding over the ground and dug in again.
Her sword flashed in a short blur.
The hand of the knight who had tried to block with the spear shaft cut through empty air.
Splinters of wood scattered once more.
The girl’s sword reached right before his eyes.
The knight was startled.
But he did not retreat.
He merely raised his eyes and looked straight at his opponent.
At that moment,
his breath caught.
Beneath the moonlight,
the girl’s face was visible.
Beneath both eyes, strange red scales had sprouted.
Sharp, as though pushing up through her skin.
The girl’s eyes were not trembling.
No—
They were far too still.
There, on the spot,
the knight froze for the briefest instant.
—
Both of Bido’s eyes were hot.
It was not a burning heat,
but a pressure pushing out from within.
It was different from when she had first drawn out the sword’s power on her own.
Now, something was colliding inside her.
The hand gripping the sword grew hot.
But it was not the sword that was hot.
It was beneath the back of her hand,
inside her skin.
Idrin would not be controlled as she wished.
She had no memory of drawing it up,
yet her heart pushed its beating higher on its own.
Bido tried to seize Mirkin.
But the boundary slipped.
Seizing it was not something done with the hands.
She clenched her teeth and seized her “breath.”
When she inhaled,
it was not her chest but something deeper within that swelled first.
When she exhaled,
it felt less like releasing and more like leaking.
Not a single breath closed properly.
Her heartbeat ran ahead of its rhythm.
Once,
and again.
Each time her pulse tapped at her fingertips,
the sword seemed to “answer” in time with it.
Bido tightened her grip on the sword.
But every time she put strength into it, the boundary slipped further.
It did not feel as though holding tight would make it connect;
it felt as though the very act of holding was wearing the boundary away.
And so Bido realized.
Right now, she was not using power.
She was struggling to slow the speed at which she was collapsing.
Once again, something tore through the inside of her body.
It was not pain that ripped flesh.
It was deeper.
The sensation of a boundary splitting apart.
Her breath grew short.
Her field of vision narrowed.
Sounds receded.
Erdin’s shout,
Mendel’s breathing,
all grew increasingly muffled, as though heard underwater.
Amid it all,
only the sword’s pulse became clear.
—
The sword moved first.
It was no longer Bido’s will.
The sword strike was ferocious.
The knight who had lost his weapon instinctively raised his arm.
He tried to deflect that strike with his armor.
But it was a misjudgment.
“Ugh...!”
With the sound of metal splitting,
a red line burst across his forearm.
Blood scattered.
The knight twisted his body in that instant, but he did not fall.
At that moment,
the sword-wielding knight beside him drove in toward Bido.
His blade came in low.
It blocked Bido’s sword.
Kakak!
A short collision.
The blades clashed, sparks flying.
In the meantime,
a change was spreading over Bido’s arm as well.
Red scales that had begun at her wrist tore through the cloth,
slowly climbing up her arm.
Roughly, as though pushing her skin aside.
The sword-wielding knight saw it too.
His eyes wavered for the briefest instant.
But he did not retreat.
He merely steadied his breathing
and took his stance again.
Calmly.
As a knight.
The tip of his sword pointed at Bido once more.
The sword-wielding knight sidestepped.
And he read the violent trajectory of Bido’s movements.
The angle of her slash was wide.
Her power was excessive.
Then there was an opening.
His sword tip drove in low.
He aimed for the wrist of the hand holding Bido’s sword.
It was a short, precise thrust.
Bido’s reaction was late.
No—
Her body was late.
The blade grazed her, scraping the scales on her arm.
The scales split, and a red line spread.
The knight did not stop there.
He followed up in succession with a second,
then a third attack.
They were accurate.
Even amid madness,
the skill of the trained could not be ignored.
Then—
Beside them, the river twisted.
Mendel rotated her body.
She gathered her remaining strength and compressed the water.
The water did not simply surge upward.
It curled into a round shape and gathered into a heavy mass.
“Now!”
The massive lump of water slammed into the sword-wielding knight’s side.
Boom—!
The knight was shoved sideways, his feet scraping the ground.
His armor rang, and the tip of his sword wavered.
And Bido did not miss that opening.
A sword strike like madness poured down upon the knight.
The knight reflexively raised his sword.
He could block it—
That was what he thought.
Kaang.
Metal collided.
And then,
a strangely brief sound followed.
Crack.
The knight’s sword split in the middle.
Fragments scattered.
“Damn it—!”
The knight immediately threw away the broken sword.
Then he lowered his body and widened the distance.
It was the movement of one who had trained countless times.
However,
the next trajectory was not what he expected.
It had been a violent slash,
then, in an instant, it bent.
It was not a straight line.
The sword changed direction as if it were alive.
For an instant, the knight could not read its path.
“Danger!”
Another knight beside him threw himself forward and shoved him aside.
Bido’s sword blade carved deeply across that knight’s side.
The silver armor tore apart helplessly.
Blood sprayed with the sound of metal splitting.
The armor lost all meaning.
“No!”
The knight who had been shoved aside gritted his teeth and threw himself forward.
And his foot flew toward Bido’s abdomen.
A dull impact.
Bido’s body was pushed back half a step.
For the briefest moment.
And in that gap,
the knight hoisted his fallen comrade onto his shoulder.
Blood flowed down the armor.
“We retreat!”
With that short shout,
they flung themselves into the trees.
The forest shook for a moment.
A little while later,
their presence receded.
The battlefield suddenly fell silent.
The silence was not peace.
It was the kind of silence that waited for the next sound,
as though the forest had briefly held its breath.
It took time before the sound of water could be heard again.
Because the clashes from just moments ago were still ringing inside their ears.
It seemed as though the afterimage of sparks thrown off when metal struck metal still remained beneath the moonlight.
Only now did the smell of blood rise thickly.
The blood of the enemies withdrawing,
the blood of the fallen knight,
and the scent of heat leaking from somewhere inside Bido herself.
As long as that scent did not disappear,
Bido instinctively knew
that the fight had not ended, only lost its direction.
She stopped there on the spot.
The sword was still in her hand.
Red liquid slowly dripped from its tip.
“Lady Bido...?”
Mendel’s voice approached cautiously.
Erdin also clenched his teeth and raised his head.
Beneath the moonlight,
Bido’s face was revealed.
Her eyes—
were stained yellow.
Her pupils were dim.
They only brushed past somewhere out of focus,
eyes that could not see anyone clearly.
Her chest rose and fell slowly.
However,
the hostility had not yet disappeared.
The tip of her sword moved,
ever so slightly, again.
—
It felt as though she were submerged underwater.
Bido,
right now,
could not even tell whether she was breathing.
Shadows rippled before her eyes.
She knew their shapes,
yet did not.
Enemy—
Erdin.
Mendel.
Must protect—
Such thoughts scattered away.
Her body would not listen.
—
“Er...din...”
Bido’s cracked voice leaked out.
“Men...del...”
The red scales were still climbing up her forearm.
Erdin’s eyes widened.
“Bido! Are you all right?”
Mendel took a step closer.
“Lady Bido, come to your senses!”
Bido’s head lifted very slowly.
Her yellow-stained eyes brushed over them.
They would not focus.
And yet—
The sword was still moving.
Very slowly.
It lifted.
The direction its tip pointed was between Erdin and Mendel.
That “between” was the problem.
Not because they were standing side by side,
but because the empty space left between them
was so clear, as though it were the place where the sword was meant to enter.
Erdin wanted to take a step forward.
The thought that he had to block Bido’s path came first.
But the instant he tried to step,
the premonition that the sword might follow that foot seized his ankle.
Mendel also raised her hand, then stopped.
She could twist the river again.
But right now, it was not the water but Bido’s gaze that was changing direction first.
At the same time,
the two of them calculated
whether a greater wound would be made if one of them moved first.
Before that calculation could end, the sword had already
begun choosing the next.
The sword trembled ever so slightly.
Now it seemed not Bido’s hand,
but the sword itself was choosing the direction.
Erdin swallowed his breath.
He could not take even one step closer or one step back.
The forest grew quiet.
Even the wind seemed to stop.
Bido’s sword rose higher.
Moonlight flowed along the blade.
And then,
its tip trembled ever so slightly.