I Pulled Out Excalibur Chapter 315

First Horn of the Empire (1)

The mont that decides the course of a life always cos without warning. There is no on, no lead-up. Everyone has such a mont, and even an old man who stood at the peak of the Empire was no exception.

"You're using a sword that doesn't suit you."

"Cut it out, brat."

"Keep flailing like that and you'll lose your head in an instant."

As that mory surfaced, Gerd's hand paused in the middle of polishing his sword. He silently looked down at the blade resting across his knees.

A sword engraved with the symbol of the First Horn.

His master had given it to him when he was a boy. More precisely, his master had mocked him and tossed him a leftover sword from the knight order. Back then, it had only been a sturdy longsword with a decent edge.

Not anymore.

Every blacksmith in the Empire had worked on strengthening it, and among them were several artisans from the Order of the Sword. What had once been an ordinary longsword had been reborn as a peerless blade, one of a kind in the Empire.

And yet its essence was still that of a longsword.

The very sword his master had tossed him.

Gerd looked at his face reflected in its edge. The boy who had first held this sword in delight was no longer there. That boy had beco a young man, then middle-aged, and now an old man.

The face in the blade was that of an old man worn down by age.

...A long ti had passed.

Now no one in the world could look down on him. He had climbed to the summit of the Empire, and even the Emperor respected his authority. There was nowhere higher to go.

First Horn of the Empire.

The boy who had beco an old man had reached the sa place as his master. Looking at it now, he felt he could finally understand, at least a little, what his master had thought and felt when he entrusted the Empire to him. Gazing at his carefully polished sword, the old man gave a bitter smile.

Even if constant wear had ground his emotions away.

In front of a sword, he was still that sa boy.

The boy stared into the blade and rembered the past. The mont his life's path had been set, the day he first held this sword, one day two hundred years ago.

2.

It was an age of chaos.

Large and small wars broke out across the continent, and the Empire was in turmoil both inside and out. Demons and fallen stars crossed over from the Outland without cease, the Alliance waged war, and rebellions rose from within the Empire itself.

It was truly a chaotic age.

It was disorder born from a snowball that had started in the reigns of the previous emperor and the one before him, then rolled and rolled until it grew beyond control. And chaos naturally gave birth to a hero.

Chaotic tis make heroes.

That hero's na was Aldaran Vasaglia.

With the knights who followed him, he crossed the entire continent. Wearing a golden horned helm, he stood at the front, battle standard flying, charging faster than anyone else. He suppressed the continent's chaos and brought the wars to an end.

He ended decades of turmoil and laid the foundation for new sprouts to grow on blood-soaked ground.

Gerd was born in that age.

The world was still in upheaval. The chaos was settling quickly, but many parts of the continent were still engulfed in war. The village where Gerd was born was one of them.

"..."

In a village reduced to ash, Gerd stared at his father's corpse. He had not been a good father. He was a man who swung his fists more often than he patted his son's head, who shouted far more than he ever said he loved him.

Even so.

He had fulfilled a parent's duty.

In his final mont, he died swinging his sword to buy his son ti to hide. Gerd took the sword from his dead father's body.

How was he supposed to live now?

He did not know. The future was bleak. But he did know what he had to do to survive right away. Gerd took up a sword at a young age and entered the battlefield as a rcenary. He was barely twelve.

The child soldier survived and turned sixteen.

Probably because he had so talent. Children without talent beca corpses before even a month passed. Those corpses were often used by necromancers, so he frequently t people from his childhood on the battlefield.

He swung his sword, then swung it again.

Living that way, he developed skill. He found a rough sense of how to wield a blade, and he began to understand how to handle mana. Around then, Gerd beca a fairly well-known rcenary.

He was only eighteen.

Then, on a battlefield like any other, Gerd t a wall. In a fight where a demon contractor ran wild, he was forced to realize that everything he had built was aningless.

His sword broke. The armor he had bought by scraping together coin after coin tore like paper. If that bastard's sword aura so much as grazed him, his body would end up no better than the armor.

Just as Gerd sensed death in front of him.

Flash.

He appeared like lightning. Literally, there was no better way to describe it. A flash crashed down from the sky to the earth. Gerd had no way of knowing that it had leaped dozens of ters and brought down a sword the instant it landed.

The demon contractor Gerd had seen as an unbreakable wall died in a single strike.

"Whew."

A knight stood on the demon-blood-spattered ground. He wore a golden horned helm. Gerd had heard rumors of him too.

The Empire's hero, Aldaran Vasaglia.

With a click, Aldaran removed his helm and looked at Gerd. His face was friendlier than expected. Not handso so much as rugged. Scratching his unkempt beard, he clicked his tongue.

"Well, look at this."

He laughed in disbelief.

"You're using a sword that doesn't suit you."

Aldaran walked over and bent one knee right in front of Gerd. Gerd was sprawled flat on the ground, and Aldaran tapped his forehead.

"Cut it out, brat. Keep flailing like that and you'll lose your head in an instant."

"Is there a problem with my sword?"

"A problem? There isn't a single part that isn't a problem. I don't know who taught you, but it's all nonsense. Charging in and stabbing first, what part of that is swordsmanship?"

"If I stab first, I win."

"Hah. Mouth still works fine for a kid."

Aldaran poured a potion over Gerd's forehead. It was a high-grade potion Gerd would have needed months on the battlefield to maybe buy one bottle.

As Gerd blinked, Aldaran jerked his chin.

It ant, pick up your sword and co at . Gerd did. Holding his broken sword, he rushed straight at Aldaran.

Then, thud.

The next mont, Gerd was facedown on the ground. It was not that his opponent moved too fast, nor that he threw him with absurd strength. The opponent had simply swung at the sa speed as him.

"See?"

Aldaran stood at a slant, resting his sword on his shoulder. For the Empire's hero, he looked surprisingly easygoing.

"Pathetic, right? Your swordsmanship is trash."

"Unlike you, Sir, I had nothing to watch and learn from. All I had was rcenaries hacking each other apart."

"You know who I am?"

"Aren't you the Empire's hero?"

"Well, yeah, I am."

He stroked his chin.

"So if you watch properly, you can learn?"

"Yes."

"Confident, aren't you. Well... my swordsmanship isn't really the kind you teach to others, but it's still better than that sloppy garbage you call swordsmanship."

Gerd had no way to know it, but Aldaran quite liked this insolent brat in front of him. Usually, rude ones were talented. To survive while being rude, you needed talent first.

If you had no talent and no manners, ten out of ten died.

On the other hand, if a rude little punk had survived to that age, it ant he had so talent. Aldaran, whose hobby was beating up rude bastards and shoving them into his knight order, smirked and raised his sword.

"Fine. I'll teach you."

Aldaran lifted his blade.

Before teaching swordsmanship, he needed to clear away the annoying pests first. He lightly swung his sword toward the magical beasts surging in from afar.

Slice.

In that instant, the horizon split diagonally. Dust shot up, and hundreds of magical beasts were butchered in a single blow. Gerd's eyes widened, and Aldaran grinned.

"Th-that swordsmanship."

Gerd suddenly asked the knight before him,

"What's its na?"

Aldaran answered.

Triumph Sword.

3.

Aldaran Vasaglia never taught his swordsmanship to others. He believed it was not the kind of swordsmanship one should teach, and even if he taught it, he did not think anyone could learn it.

So the fact that he taught Gerd might have been a small whim.

A whim to raise at least one disciple.

Their master-disciple relationship began on a whim, but Aldaran had no intention of being a halfhearted teacher. He taught Gerd not only the sword, but also wisdom for living.

"Tsk. Hey."

How dare you pick up your utensils before your heaven-like master? You're still not a proper person, so I guess I'll make you one first. While traveling with Gerd, Aldaran taught him manners.

In other words, he beat manners into him.

Mostly with a scabbard. Thanks to that, Gerd had two teachers. One was a longsword, and the other was the longsword's scabbard, which taught etiquette.

"Master."

"Why am I your master?"

Aldaran always denied being his master, but everyone saw Gerd as Aldaran's disciple.

"Ha, Gerd. Learn anything today?"

The Golden Horn Knights treated Gerd as the youngest, and each of them taught him pieces of wisdom for surviving in the world. It was not because they pitied a boy who had to hold a sword from such a young age.

All of them had held swords from childhood too.

So it was kinship. They saw their own past in Gerd. That was why they gave him the warmth they themselves had once wished for. They were good teachers, older brothers, fathers, and family.

"Gerd. I hope you can learn Ram Horn soon. When that day cos, I will teach you myself."

"Cut it out, Crunbelle. Who said this kid was joining the Golden Horn Knights? You can't put a weak brat like this in the strongest knight order on the continent."

"Haha, those words don't match your heart at all, Commander."

And ti passed.

"..."

"Commander."

"I know, Crunbelle."

Around the ti the chaos began to settle, the Dawn War erupted.

Aldaran, who had been preparing to leave for the Outland, dragged his worn body into the Dawn War. He had to end his lover, the core figure behind the rebellion, with his own hands.

"Gerd."

"Yes, Master."

"Final lesson."

Aldaran Vasaglia told Gerd to follow him and went to war. The rebel army collapsed in an instant when the Empire's hero, thought to have departed for the Outland, returned.

He struck like lightning.

He raced across the continent like a storm.

When the battle standard of the First Horn of the Empire, a standard that existed for him alone, snapped in the wind, he shone brighter than anyone else. Watching the back of the hero who carried the age forward, Gerd admired him. Chasing that back, Gerd ran and ran.

"You know, life."

Aldaran finally killed Serena Pendragon, the instigator who had started the rebellion. But his expression was far from relieved. With a bitter face, Aldaran dropped down beside Gerd.

"It feels like one long chain of weighing choices. You keep having to ask what to choose and what to throw away. The world is a damn ss like that. It never stops throwing questions at you."

He let out a long breath.

"Gerd."

"Yes, Master."

The usual "I told you I'm not your master" did not co this ti. Instead, Aldaran smirked and pressed down on Gerd's head.

"You'll get your own monts of choice too. They'll co all the ti. That's what life is."

So, he said,

"Live well, with no regrets. I don't know whether I taught you properly, but I think I taught you everything I could."

"..."

"The rebel leader is dead. The rebels will lose their center and scatter. I'd like to wipe them all out myself, but I don't have ti."

He had already overstayed the ti he could remain on the continent.

Looking at his own eroding hand, Aldaran spoke.

"So."

He stood.

Then pointed at Gerd.

"You do it."

"?"

"Yeah. It's your turn now."

The final lesson.

Maybe a request left behind by him as a master.

"This ti, you protect the Empire I protected."

On that day, in that mont, the direction of Gerd's life was decided.

"And when enough ti passes, when you've grown old enough, co find in the Outland. Not too soon. A hundred years? A hundred fifty? That should be enough."

Aldaran Vasaglia grinned.

"Then I'll grade you. If you fail to protect the Empire properly, I'll beat you till you die that day. Got it?"

Aldaran mid swinging a scabbard.

At that sight, Gerd smiled and replied.

"Yes, I will rember."

"Good, well..."

Aldaran Vasaglia waved and left.

"Work hard. And when you co find , it'd be nice if you ca carrying the First Horn of the Empire's banner."

That was the last image of his master Gerd rembered. Not long after, every record of Aldaran was erased from the world.

Gerd, done rembering, opened his eyes.

In the dream he had been a boy. In reality he was an old man. Looking at his own aged reflection in the longsword, Gerd slid the blade into its scabbard with a click.

A hundred fifty years had passed.

The thoughtless boy had beco an old man.

Had beco a Sword Master.

And, just as his master had wished, had beco the First Horn of the Empire.

"Only now can I finally hear your answer, Master."

Gerd draped the First Horn battle standard over his shoulder.

It was ti to receive the grading he had postponed for one hundred fifty years.