[Torva's POV]
When I was first brought into this world by our great creator, I thought I should follow the blacksmithing and the swordsmanship of Pagma, the legend my King modeled me on.
Much later, I've come to realize that isn't the case.
Following Pagma's blacksmithing is fine. His techniques are miraculous, and I will keep learning from them until there's nothing left to learn. But his swordsmanship is lacking compared to my King's.
I've watched my King spar every swordsman in Khilux. I've watched him stand in one spot while four of us, Fenrir and the Princess and Crimson and I, threw everything we had at him, and I've watched him not move. I have studied Pagma's mural until I could draw it with my eyes closed. There's nothing on that wall I haven't seen my King do better, standing still, while explaining it to Crimson at the same time.
I asked him about it once, months ago, in the smithy, very late. I told him I was afraid that if I stopped following Pagma's sword, I'd stop being what he made me to be.
He was working on a golem's hand at the time. He didn't look up. He just said, "Torva, I made you to beat Grid. Grid follows Pagma. If you follow Pagma too, the best you can ever do is tie."
I've thought about that sentence every day since.
I didn't know, until this morning, that I'd already decided.
I was thinking about this while practicing in the training yard, with Crimson watching from the edge of the yard. Then the voice of the world spoke, and Crimson's ears went straight up. He heard it too.
[You have begun to diverge from your original path and carve your own. You have chosen the swordsmanship of the one you truly wish to follow.]
[You have obtained the Legendary class [Daz's Partisan].]
The moment I read it, it was like chains I hadn't known were inside my mind snapped.
I lifted my sword.
"Dazzle's Swordsmanship: Skyrise."
I swung upward faster than I ever had before. It made an invisible slash of air, and the wind it kicked up was strong enough to push Crimson back three steps. It didn't stop there. It destroyed every regenerating training dummy in the yard. Even the ones behind me.
Crimson stared with wide eyes at what I'd done.
I put a hand over my mouth, and to my great embarrassment, I started to tear up.
Finally. Finally, I can move ahead, and leave behind that waste of space who follows Pagma's teachings so blindly.
Crimson crossed the yard and put a hand on my shoulder, and very carefully didn't say anything about my eyes. That is one of the many reasons I love him.
"Again," he said instead. "Show me again."
My drive for swordsmanship was renewed. I started training harder than ever before. Crimson followed in my footsteps, and that inspired Fenrir to do the same. By evening there were forty swordsmen in the yard, and Jarn was running the drills, and nobody went home.
I found my King in his workshop that night. I meant to tell him calmly. Instead I walked in, and stood in the doorway, and said, "Praetor. I chose you."
He put down the golem he was working on. He looked at me for a long moment. Then he looked at my status, which I'd opened for him without being asked.
He didn't say anything. He just stood up, crossed the room, and patted my head. Then he kept patting it. For a long time. Longer than any head pat I've ever received.
I've had a great many head pats from my King. That one is the one I'll keep.
The next day, the Princess demanded a spar.
She'd heard about the training dummies, of course. Everyone had. Within an hour, half the city was ringed around the training yard, and Juliet was standing across from me with her Machina sword and a very determined expression.
I didn't win. Princess Juliet is a Magical Berserker, and she gets stronger the more you hurt her, which is a very unfair thing to spar against. But I lasted four minutes, and for one of those minutes, I had her on the back foot. She was so pleased about it that she hugged me afterward, and told me I'd finally gotten 'kind of good.'
Then Fenrir stepped into the yard.
I have sparred with Fenrir every day since before the kingdom rose. I had never once beaten him.
I beat him that afternoon. Once. Barely. With Skyrise, on a feint I'd learned from watching my King spar Jarn, and Fenrir was so surprised he sat down in the dirt and started laughing.
"Again," he said. "Show me again."
Crimson, at the edge of the yard, was grinning so wide his ears had gone sideways.
[Grid's POV]
Grid was in the smithy working on some items when a system notification interrupted him.
[A Legendary quest has been issued.]
Grid set down his hammer. Legendary quests were usually good news. Usually.
[An Unchained Rivalry]
Your rival has surpassed you in swordsmanship much sooner than expected, and plans to leave you in the dust now that she has chosen a new path. Challenge her to a duel and win.
The longer you take, the stronger she will become.
Optional Objective: Reach her level before you challenge her.
Rank: SSS
Rewards: Unknown
Time Limit: None
Grid started to sweat.
He knew exactly who the quest meant. He'd been trying very hard not to think about her since the day in the canyon, when a golden-haired woman in a red battle suit had looked at him, through her mask, like he was a nail she intended to drive.
The only thing that gave him more determination than fear was that it was only his swordsmanship she'd surpassed. That didn't calm him down much, though. He remembered how afraid he'd been the day he was first challenged, and turned it down. He'd known even then that he wouldn't just lose. He'd be humiliated.
Now she'd gotten stronger.
"No time limit," Grid muttered. "No time limit. That's fine. That's good, actually. I can take as long as I want."
The longer you take, the stronger she will become.
Grid picked his hammer back up, looked at it, and put it down again.
Then he went to find Piaro.
Piaro laughed for a full minute.
He was sitting on a rock outside his new quarters in Grid's territory, cleaning his sword, with Duke on his shoulder. When Grid finished explaining, he laughed so hard Duke had to flap to stay balanced.
"It's not funny," Grid said.
"It's very funny," Piaro said, wiping his eyes. "You turned down a duel with her once. I remember. You looked like you'd swallowed a frog."
"She has my class. My skills. My swordsmanship. And now she's better at my swordsmanship, and it's not even my swordsmanship anymore!"
Piaro stopped laughing. He looked at Duke. Duke looked back at him. Something passed between them that Grid didn't catch.
"My friend here tells me," Piaro said slowly, "that the woman you're talking about trains every day. With a wolf the size of a house. And that the wolf trains with the King. And that the King," he added, almost apologetically, "fought four of them at once last month, and didn't move from his spot."
Grid sat down very heavily on the ground.
"How does a bird tell you all that?"
"He's a very good bird." Piaro stood up and sheathed his sword. "Come on. On your feet. If you want to beat someone who learns from the Golem King, you'd better start learning from someone. You'll be terrible at it for a while. Don't let that stop you."
On Piaro's shoulder, Duke turned his head toward the west, where nobody else was looking, and very slowly blinked.
Somewhere in Khilux, in a workshop full of screens, the Golem King laughed so hard he fell off his chair.