(TLO) Chapter 168: Not A Swordsman (Patreon)

Running through a mountain path was not as easy as people made it look. For Seth and his brothers, however, their training under the seminary’s rules made it easy. Unfortunately, whatever the silvers of the government had done to get here gave them the same poise and control needed to traverse rocky grounds.

They ran on, chased by silvers that counted more than ten in number. Seth’s minds assured him there were twelve of them.

Beside him he knew he was slowing his brothers down so that as he found himself beginning to pant, they lacked any loss of breath. [Quick Step] could take him far but his minds argued against it. Their argument, reasonable as it was, also stood questionable. In their own thoughts they believed a fight was inevitable just as a sudden fissure was possible, and he needed to save up as much reia as he could. Each argument was true but the skill didn’t take so much reia as to be noticeable. Still, there was something about their thoughts, something about the secrecy he realized they fought their best to hide from him, that bade him listen.

And he did.

So when his steps began to falter and his lungs begged him for reprieve, it was with significant sadness that he slowed, knowing he would not be the only one.

As he did, Timi came to a halt beside him. His brothers followed soon after.

“I always knew you’ll be the one to get us killed,” Forlorn snorted, turning to their chasers with halberd raised.

Fin chuckled darkly as twelve silver mages surrounded them. “You did promise you wouldn’t let them oppress him.”

“Not in those certain words.”

“But you did promise,” Barnabas said.

Seth laughed without mirth. “I really want to apologize but I’m not sure where to start.”

“Then use this time to think on it.” Jason stepped up beside him so that Seth stood between Timi and him. “When we get back home, you can do all the groveling you need.”

Each brother had said a word, a last touch of conversation before the carnage. All except Timi. Seth looked at the brother who was a friend, the one that would die for him any day.

As if feeling his gaze, Timi looked down at him, saw his expectations, and simply grunted.

Typical, one of Seth’s minds thought as he reached behind him and pulled his shortswords free. Now all he had to do was stay out of the silvers way while getting in the silvers way.

Without your skills. At least, not those ones.

“What?!”

Confusion filled his mind and his brothers prepared for battle. What did his minds mean? Did he have other skills he wasn’t aware of? He turned the thought over in his mind; questioned them. When the answer came, it was less than he’d expected. Had they somehow found a way to activate [Carnage]? He’d tried different techniques over time, even activating it the same way all skills were activate. All to no avail. But this would be the perfect time to release such a skill. it would be the perfect time to—

Not carnage, another mind answered, solemn. Aren’t you angry, Seth? Aren’t you tired of being used and watching everyone else suffer for it?

Seth’s mind delved deeper into the embrace of confusion. Within it was a subtle companion always lying dormant.

Tao Mei died because we were led to a nest we had no reason to go to.

“No,” he objected, refusing a responsibility he knew he shared. “The nest was their suggestion.”

His minds ignored his powerless disagreement.

“Not the time to go crazy, brother,” Barnabas whispered beside him, turning to keep an eye on one of the mages that moved.

And now our brothers are going to die because Dozie brought us to this mess.

While he shared the blame on this one as well, there was something in the way his minds were acting. Something off. He didn’t like it. Their blame game was wrong. They were not the type to blame him so blatantly, especially when they, too, were to blame.

True, another mind agreed. But we didn’t make you do anything. We may have made suggestions, but you carried them out all on your own.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, worried. “This isn’t like you guys.”

“What isn’t like—” Fin began, only to be interrupted by Barnabas.

“He’s not talking to us, brother.”

“He’s going crazy at this moment?!” Forlorn snorted. “Weak.”

The next voice to speak surprised him.

“Stand your ground, brother,” Timi said, placing a massive hand on his small shoulders. “You will not die today. Rumor has promised this.”

Seth looked into the black eyes of his brother and knew he believed it.

But rumors will not keep you safe. The thought slithered in his mind like something venomous. Will you continue to subject our brother to problems he shouldn’t have to deal with?

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, feeling each mind bend under the weight of an anger they summoned all by themselves.

It weighed down so painfully that it intruded on the solace of the only mind left to him. It stood on his mind like a Baron’s foot on his throat.

“Five swordsmen and one pole ax,” one of the mages scoffed.

Seth’s ears perked up at the voice. He knew it, recognized it. It was so surprising that even in the chaos of his minds’ own enforced self guilt he raised his head to look at its owner. When he saw his face, more deaths crawled into his thoughts. And though, they were not his fault, his minds laid the blame at his feet.

He stared at a head of dark blonde hair, fashioned in a perm of jerry coils and black eyes. He remembered his story and his anger kicked for reasons he didn’t care to know.

Nosam stared at Timi with a smirk. “You’re a big one, aren’t you? But I doubt two giants can take on all of us.” He spread his arms out dramatically. “Or what do you think?”

There it is, Seth’s minds thought, acting as one in one of their rare moments. Anger.

Seth balked at the thought. They were intentionally trying to get him angry. At what cost? What did they hope to gain from it?

There’s also guilt, they continued. Self-blame. Unfairness. Weakness. Disagreement. Fear. They will kill us most certainly.

“And Nosam won’t?”

Nosam’s eyes shifted to Seth with a frown. “Do I know you?”

Seth opened his mouth, thought better and closed it without a sound.

“Too scared to talk?” Nosam goaded.

You can’t afford to be ruled by fear.

“Not to spoil your fun,” Barnabas said. “But we really don’t have to do this.”

Nosam laughed loudly. “Am I hearing this right? Is a priest begging?” he turned to his colleagues. “You hear this, right?”

Each of them laughed. It was loud and hearty but there was a touch of awkwardness to it, as if forced. Each sound was tainted by a touch of fear.

Barnabas frowned. “We’re not—”

Forlorn took one hand off his weapon and cuffed him at the back of the head. “This isn’t the time to talk too much.”

Barnabas frowned but held his silence. His grumbling was done with his eyes.

They might kill us, Seth’s minds continued as Nosam and his brothers exchanged words, emphasizing on the word of possibility. But these will.

“And what would you have me do?”

“Nothing, really,” Nosam answered.

Get rid of them, his minds thought.

Seth’s growing anger was touched by confusion, then realization. Was this the reason they’d stopped him from using [Quick Step]? Just so they made sure he had enough reia in his core for this? Was this the secret they’d been trying to keep; the secret he’d been too busy to pry?

But what they wanted him to do had repercussions. He didn’t focus on the important things when he used it. People got hurt by the choices he made when he used it.

We’re sure this is an effect of all the culminations of the things you’ve done, they thought. But you’re not one who’s much for a conscience. And this is certainly not the time to grow one.

Four places removed from Nosam’s left, the mage holding a glaive twitched.

They’re getting antsy, his minds thought. You won’t have this time much longer. Use it now.

With an uncomfortable frown, he whispered the skill into activation.

[Heart of Winter].

Timi spared him a single glance before returning his attention to their opponents who’d braced themselves when he cast the skill. The absence of anything seemed to put them at ease all of a sudden.

“What’s that?” Nosam asked, smug. “A self applied skill?” he cocked his head to the side in thought. “You don’t look much like a tank to me, midget.”

Seth felt his emotions bleed out like blood from a cut wrist. He knew the feeling was eerie, always eerie, but he couldn’t feel it; couldn’t appreciate it. Even Nosam’s insult didn’t register properly. They were merely words with no necessity. However, there was a clue in everything, so he picked the words apart with a terrifying form of apathy.

The man was goading him and his brothers. Why? Was it his confidence? Looking at the man it didn’t seem like some empty bluster. He seemed to truly believe himself better. It was almost as if he didn’t believe himself capable of dying, at least not in this battle. The man seemed to think himself invincible.

Either that, or it was merely a ploy to make them lose their calmness, to grow livid and make mistakes they shouldn’t.

As practical as it was, it was unnecessary. His brothers would not make such a mistake. The only one who could was Timi, and such a mistake was only likely to cause Nosam and his team dearly. For their sake, they best hope he did not.

He panned his attention over their assailants and found they’d surrounded them on all sides; knowledge he already had. He watched and studied and learned and planned. All of it he did in the length of two blinks. But he hadnt learnt enough. Much was still lacking.

We know, his minds thought. Under different circumstances it would’ve startled him. But this was not one of such circumstances.

When they thought again, it was with an odd solemnity. A strange finality.

You know what you have to do.

He did. And before he activated his next skill, they gave their final thought. A dirge to what they knew was about to happen.

See you on the other side, Seth.

In a show of respect he did not understand, he nodded once, then activated it.

[Fractured Mind].

His attention sharpened, the scope of his senses widening. He saw everything clearer, felt everything better. He could see the mild trembling in Nosam’s hand. Despite his confidence, he was mildly scared. And rightly so. He disregarded the mage yet kept his eyes on him.

Slowly, with the disinterest of the tired, he eased his feet out of the shoe he wore, aiding the process over one foot with the other. While he did this, Nosam watched him with a new confusion. Seth knew the look. He’d gotten it very often in the seminary. It was the look they gave him when they thought him mad. On Nosam, it didn’t matter to him.

When the soles of his feet touched the dry, solid, cracking ground beneath him, there was a calming oneness to it. An acceptance. This was easily going to be his last battle. There was no point obeying words given to him in the sanctity of a forest he didn’t know years ago.

He slipped his twin blades back in their sheathes behind him to the derisory laughter of Nosam.

“A swordsman who won’t use his sword. Hilarious.”

Seth watched him but continued to ignore him. Standing in his cassock that was more stitches than cassock, his mind called up that solemn moment before joining the seminary and the words of a man with too much power. The words came easily.

“Weapons are nothing but tools,” Jabari had once said. “For you, they are things with which I teach you, guide you. With them I lead you on a path. But know this, it is the weapon of the weak. Which, for now, you are. But one day you will not need weapons. One day the seminary will make a weapon out of you. When that day comes, you’ll know that while you use swords as I have shown you, you are not a swordsman.”

In this moment Seth saw the truth in his words. Even amongst his brothers he couldn’t boast a position of power with the sword. He was merely better at it than those outside the seminary walls. Amongst his brothers he was merely good enough to be acceptable. His strength laid elsewhere.

He raised his hands, held them out before him with open palms. He bent his arms at the elbows and took a simple stance. It was a variation of Domitia’s teaching, one of many forms he’d scourged into their bodies. It was the one that suited him most.

Nosam frowned slightly meeting his gaze. “And what exactly are—”

“You’ve made one miscalculation, Nosam,” he interrupted Nosam, then activated [Quick Step].

His legs carried him across a distance as he always trusted them to. But he didn’t meet Nosam. He propelled himself to stop before a silver mage who’d possessed the most fear in Nosam’s group.

Everything else happened in a blur of motion. In three moves the man dropped to his knees and fell to the side with a thud.

Seth had intended on killing him but had failed. Still, unconsciousness was a better option.

He turned, empty of remorse or emotion, and looked at Nosam. His hands, held out before him, were broken and his fingers bent at odd angles. But his reia flooded them and they popped and cracked as they realigned themselves.

When he spoke again, his voice held a cold, neutral fury.

“…I am not a swordsman.”