Carr

This wasn’t a fencing match.

Fencing matches weren’t two on one and my arm didn’t decide to switch sides halfway through. This was something else, and I had no experience fighting whatever the hell this was supposed to be. Think, I told myself, what do you have to do if you have run out of plans?

My mind went back to my old coach. It was funny. You never really understand how a coach’s words can echo in your thoughts many years later, even in situations outside of the sport. Everyone understands how formative and important a lot of figures can be, but people underestimate how strong the bond between a coach and an athlete can be. I think even I underestimated it until way after he passed away.

If you don’t know what to do, my coach had said, then don’t commit to a course of action just yet. Don’t be passive, see! Be aggressive! But be thoughtful. If you lack information, then get it. Buy time. Use distance to your advantage. In a fencing match, this meant using footwork to keep yourself away from danger while figuring out a gameplan. Translating it to this situation, his advice would have likely been to…

“Run!” I told Isabella. “We’re fucking running!”

“The fuck?” Her voice was surprised and upset, but despite her tone of complaining she still ran after me as we could hear Martim coming after us. “I thought you were going to tell me how to beat that fucking guy, ‘the hell is this supposed to do anything?”

“We’ll figure it out!” My arm tried to rebel again, and I had to tighten my grip on it. Shit. This thing wants to kill me. “The bookshelves—they are still here!”

It was a nearly nonsensical thing to say but Isabella understood it. In this empty void, the bookshelves were nearly all that existed, and they were quite extensive. Running toward nowhere was just going to make it easier for us to be stabbed in the back. But the bookshelves were so numerous that they would function as hiding places well enough. Still, we aren’t fast enough to build enough distance between us and that guy…what should we do? There was one option, but we wouldn’t have enough time to discuss it. I would have to bet on her discovering it. Isabella. Please, understand what I mean.

“Split up!” I shouted.

We locked eyes for a single moment and there wasn’t even time for a nod afterwards—she and I each took off for different aisles, flanked by different sets of bookshelves. After a few steps down that path, I turned around and grinned. “Well,” I said, as my arm struggled to free itself, “seems like you chose to come after me first, eh? I feel so special.”

Martim stepped forward. “You are the most pressing issue right now. Lord Johan always told us to keep you alive, you understand. But he will never know what happens in the void…and sometimes we have to do what’s best for him.”

“Ah, goddamn it, Johan is bad enough already but he’s got undead zombies that think he’s being too chill? Fucking hilarious. Besides, gotta tell you my dude, you’re wrong.”

Martim took another step forward. He could likely reach me with a single motion now. “Wrong? No. I have thought about what would be best for Lord Johan more than anyone.”

His fencing stance…it’s just like Johan’s. Everything about the way he moved and stood was like Johan now. That dignified stance, the way his steps seemed to produce almost no sound, the way he accelerated out of nowhere…it was definitely Johan’s style, but it went beyond mere teaching. “That’s not what you’re wrong about, zombie fucker.”

He didn’t respond—he merely dashed forward. Like I thought…he’s avoiding using Swordsmanship now that it’s a limited amount. He’s going to save it for the killing blow. That’s good. It’s what we need. “The most pressing issue isn’t me!” I shouted.

Isabella shoulder tackled the bookshelves from the other side, knocking it on top of Martim and catching him mid attack. Any later and he would have caught me. Martim didn’t let go off his blade, but he fell to one knee propping up the bookshelf with his shoulders. An intrusive thought came to me as my arm nearly grabbed my own neck. Wait for him to stand back up. It’s against the rules to hit someone while they are down.

Another thought came to me. This isn’t a fencing match. He didn’t even let me have a weapon to fight him, there’s no referee, and he made my arm try to kill me. It’s fair enough to be a dickhead. Then, in a sudden decision, I took two steps toward him and kicked him in the face as if he were a soccer ball.

Here I learned that kicking someone is actually quite painful. I have done some martial arts when younger, but it had been long enough that I hadn’t really remembered the basics until pain reminded me. You see, kicking someone barefoot with your toes extended is going to hurt. It was lucky I didn’t break anything, but the impact wasn’t as intense as it could have been. From that position there were a few kicks I could have done without hurting myself, including raising my toes so they didn’t make contact in the motion—but it was too late for that thought.

Shit—it hurts, but I didn’t break anything. Good.

Martim stumbled backward and his one knee dropped as well, being momentarily buried by the heavy bookshelf. It was too much for a person to free himself from. But that’s not enough to keep you down, is it?

[Martim the Sinner]

[Swordsmanship]: 570 → 460

It took him his Swordsmanship to get himself out of that situation. And it’s not going to go back up anymore. “You troublesome—”

Guy was probably cursing me, Isabella or both. Didn’t really matter either way, I was already running down a different book aisle before he even started speaking. We just have to do this a few times. Burn his Swordsmanship until he can’t abuse his stats, then Isabella can fight him in fair terms. It was only too late that I realized a key problem with this strategy—namely, when I ran into her in one of the aisles. “The fuck are you doing here? Go to the other side!”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “I got here first!”

“You did not!”

“Listen—”

“No, fuck you, you listen to me, Carr!” Isabella looked like she was about to go on a rant when my arm’s sudden grasp of my own neck distracted her. It was absurdly strong, it felt stronger even than myself—and I don’t think I could have escaped that grasp without Isabella’s help. “So, your arm is still fucked, huh? Is that why you get injured so much? Teaching your body a lesson so it doesn’t try shit like this?”

“Very funny,” I grunted. “This is the weirdest feeling, being controlled like this…goddamn it, feels like a weird nightmare. You’re way too chill about this, actually, is this kind of fuckery normal in this world?”

Isabella shook her head. “I’m not chill, I’m freaking out too much to be loud. I promise I have never seen anything like this before.”

“Well, at least I’m unique,” I muttered. Wait…is that true?

Had we really never seen anyone be controlled before? No. That wasn’t true. We had seen many people being controlled before. The Majestic Theater...that guy controlled an entire crowd. “The guy who duelled against Valle,” I said. “He could control people’s bodies.” One thought led to another, but I couldn’t quite connect them.

“Valle killed him,” Isabella said slowly, meeting my wary eyes with a discerning expression of her own. “He doesn’t really fuck around. He just straight up killed him in one move.”

Our eyes both went wide as we both had the same theory. “He can move like Johan,” I said, “and I killed Johan. That’s how we both came here.”

“And,” Isabella began, “his Legendary Skill’s name is—”

Martim clapped sarcastically. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to figure it out.「Dead Man’s Knock」allows me to use the abilities of people killed by the person I cut once. It can also use the powers of people killed by those who you have clashed blades with in the last 48 hours, but the abilities are weakened in that case. That is why I can only control your arm right now. The more degrees my opponent is removed from the ability I want to use, the weaker it is.”

Isabella looked at me. “He’s telling the truth. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t deduce shit, I just looked at him and saw that he has the theatre fucker’s 「Fire, Burn!」Legendary Skill listed there, which he didn’t when we started this duel. I kind of just worked backward from there.”

That…is this new? Or did he already have this in place when he fought Fedal? But that doesn’t make any sense! That means he could have used the theatre fucker’s skill by then and killed Fedal. No, there must be more limitations at play here…things he isn’t telling us…

But did that really matter?

“Isabella?” I asked. “When was the last time you practiced against Valle?”

“I have no idea.”

“You have no—goddamn it, remember! We kind of need this information!”

“What, you prefer if I take a guess and get it wrong?”

“YES, ACTUALLY!”

“WELL FINE, THEN MAYBE 3 DAYS AGO?”

If that was accurate, then Isabella would be immune to Martim’s copy of but there was no reason for him to tell us the truth about his skill. There is no reason for him to tell us anything at all. Why is he doing this? There were so many questions…and I didn’t know the answer to any of them. Just thinking about it was making my head hurt.

Ah, fuck it.

“This shit is stressing me out. Let’s just kick his ass and let Celle figure it out later,” I said. “Let’s not sweat the details, so long as he doesn’t hit you he can’t trigger his ability anyway.”

“Sounds good to me.” Isabella fell into an en garde stance and pointed her sword at Martim, who mirrored her en garde stance. “Thank you for waiting, zombie fucker.”

Martim appeared unperturbed. “My father raised me better.”

Roger

Even now, I didn’t regret backing Johan. At the time the Emperor had decided to use its own people as fodder in a war only fought for the sake of his pride, and were it not for our intervention he would have killed many more people. Johan’s power was not to be underestimated. Cruel as he was, less people had died since he took over—uncrowned as he was, he effectively ruled after the late Emperor’s assassination—and Talia as well as França had started to give us better trade deals, fearing our improved military after the war.

We lose a few civilians, but it’s worth it. Johan didn’t kill people very often—he found murder distasteful unless strictly necessary. But the public would have found his tastes to be distasteful, so when he chose a new toy we had to often make them publicly dead so as to avoid questions when they returned to their daily lives. At first, I had thought he was merely like other nobles who enjoyed using their power.

It terrified me to realize it was far worse than that.

The man wasn’t easily bought with sex or luxuries. Coin mattered little to him, and while it would be wrong to say he was not interested in the flesh, it hardly kept his attention. What mattered the most for Johan was exercising his power. His face would fill with a childlike glee when watching people irreparably break their relationships with each other.

He refuses to kill either side because he wants to see them suffer.

It was why he had ordered troops to not kill Valente of Cresna when they marched out—he had hoped to capture the man alive, to destroy his relationship with his son.

And it was why Johan was torturing that pair of siblings right now. Minor nobles, but nobility nonetheless that Johan claimed were killed by a monster when coming to Arcadia. The beasts had provided him with ample opportunity to ‘disappear’ the few political rivals that remained. Those monsters…I have never expected them to be real. To be so frightening.

Yet, Johan felt scarier.

His fury had driven him to levels of malice I had not come to expect to be possible. “It is simple,” Johan muttered at the siblings. “I’m afraid only one of you can leave here alive. It is unfortunate, but our supplies are quite limited, and your father attempted treason.” Both of these statements were a lie, of course. Arcadia had stockpiled enough supplies to last nearly a decade-long siege. I should have seen it coming. Johan had been preparing to unleash the monsters back on this world for a long time. “But I am not so crass as to expect you to say so aloud. Each of you gets a vote as to who lives. Write it down, and I will come to collect your votes soon.”

Johan left the room and came to join me. He was breathing heavily, still exhausted, but the act of cruelness had given him some energy back. “They will vote for each other to live, of course,” Johan said, smiling. “But I will tell them that the other betrayed them. Then I’ll say this was all a joke I created to pass the time while waiting for a way to verify their identities—had to make sure they were truly the nobles they were—and that they are free to go. They will have to live with thinking the other would sacrifice them to live, though.”

“My lord, that is most reckless. Small influence as they might have, such a move will surely turn them into—”

“I heard Morto was attacked by beasts yesterday,” Johan said, smiling. “Tall walls weren’t enough to contain those creatures, and the casualties were in the hundreds. The City of Morto down south hadn’t recognized my rule yet, so we did not send them any aid. Today, a messenger told me they were ready to pledge their loyalty. They understand that they need me. I can do whatever I want right now, Roger. Remember that.”

This is too reckless. Johan wouldn’t be so reckless in the past. What changed? I knew the answer, and yet I couldn’t accept it.

The Referee.

Every day he fenced against Johan until the new god was on his knees in exhaustion before promising to return the day after to repeat the process. He is taking enough hours out of Johan’s day that he cannot increase his Swordsmanship to the degree he wishes he could, and running the Empire has suffered as well from his exhaustion. On top of that, Reven’s disappearance had meant his assets had become trickier to control and they were necessary for the sake of This wasn’t good. Johan was becoming more and more unstable.

I could see it in his eyes now.

There was no longer an attempt to hide his manic enjoyment of the siblings’ suffering behind a dignified smile. He was just grinning wildly right now, in a way that made me question if he was truly human. He will calm down once the referee duels are done, I told myself. I just have to make sure the Empire lasts until then. Just one year.

“Johan!” said a new voice. “I…I was told you wanted to see me.”

It was Carr—no. Carter was his new name now. He had shamed himself with defeat in that team match and it was more or less expected that he would see a measure of punishment now. Don’t get rid of him, I thought. Carter is an incredibly talented fencer. Don’t get rid of him after you spent such a long time creating him. “I already said it before but—I’m sorry, Johan,” Carter said, looking down and rubbing the back of his neck. “I let you down.”

“Kneel,” Johan replied coldly. “When you talk to your Emperor, you must kneel.”

Carter looked surprised, if not hurt, for just a singular moment before doing so. He stayed silent until Johan continued. “You did let me down,” he said. “And for that you must be punished.” This isn’t good. Johan’s current mindset isn’t stable. He can’t—

“That’s fair,” Carter acknowledged. “What have you decided?”

“I thought about executing you at first,” Johan said thoughtfully, “but I decided that would be a waste. I will send you down to Morto to collect their blacksmiths for me. You are not going to leave that city until you have collected every single blacksmith they have to offer.”

A banishment in all but name. Carter knew that too. Despite being a copy of Carr, he had learned much about this world thanks to the many tutors Johan had arranged for him. Morto was the Empire’s City with the greatest blacksmiths—it was where Reven had been born, even.

“I will do it,” Carter said promptly. “I will make sure to get them for you, Johan—”

“Your Majesty,” Johan cut him off. “You do not call me by my name. Carr is my friend, not you. If you wish to become my friend, prove yourself first.”

Carter grimaced. “Yes. Yes—of course. Your Majesty.”

Johan’s expression softened at this, and it unnerved me. “They have agreed to send me their blacksmiths in exchange for aid—they might change their mind once aid has been provided to them or if they find a way to defend themselves against beasts in other ways. I need you to make sure the blacksmiths are delivered to me.”

“May I ask,” Carter said slowly, “why you want their blacksmiths?”

“Because the world will be under siege by beasts,” Johan said. “And it will be a while until I can use my godly powers to control them. This cannot wait. Arcadia needs to be reformed into a more beautiful city, and no city would have handed me their blacksmiths before the death of stats—much less now when using their Skill will forever rid them of their livelihood. I suspect cities are having issues where their own smiths refuse to repair walls out of fear of losing their only leverage in this world.”

Carter nodded slowly. “I presume my job is just to get them here under the pretense of protecting them…assuring them that they won’t have to use their skill at all…and then you are going to use Nameless to brainwash them into fortifying Arcadia?”

Johan smiled again, and this time it was almost like his old innocent expressions. The thought appeared to genuinely brighten his mood. “No longer Arcadia, my friend. Once my reforms are in place, the city shall belong to the Bladewolves—to me. The only place in the world safe from beasts, where kings and beggars alike must pray to me for entry—the City of Wolfhaven.”