—Known as "The Praiseworthy,"
Survey the four great nations, and there was no shinobi who surpassed him—a reality that even Olbart, the Empire's most powerful shinobi, had to acknowledge with a bitter expression. Alongside the "Sword Saint," the "Mad Prince," and the "Blue Lightning," all considered his equals, he possessed accomplishments that put him among the strongest of any nation.
If there was one point where Halibel differed from the other three, it was that he belonged to no nation, claiming the status of a free wanderer.
The "Sword Saint," bound to his kingdom by treaty. The "Mad Prince," imprisoned in the northernmost tower as a national traitor. Even the "Blue Lightning," whose selfishness had become infamous across multiple nations—at least had a defined position.
Only "The Praiseworthy," Halibel, was a freeman—unburdened by any title.
Of course, Halibel himself felt gratitude and a sense of belonging toward his homeland, and when serious problems arose in Kararagi, he would sometimes accept requests to investigate or resolve them. But he could not stand the notion of his existence being owned by anyone or used as a bargaining chip in negotiations.
—He would aid those he wished to aid, and turn his nose up at anything that didn't interest him.
That was Halibel's creed as the strongest, and precisely because of his capricious nature, those who knew him were sharply divided in their assessments.
One group consisted of those who had been rebuffed with, "Even without me, you lot'll be just fine, how wonderful."
The other consisted of those who had been accepted with, "You can boss me around like this? That's amazing, how wonderful."
Regardless of which side they fell on, those he spoke to so casually and lightly would end up calling him "The Praiseworthy."
Of course, that wasn't the only reason for the epithet—but Halibel's way was to evaluate every person and every deed from an objective perspective.
And so— "What a nasty curse user we've got here. —No love in it, is there?"
Halibel exhaled smoke from the pipe clenched between his teeth, and in his voice, there was no praise.
His tone had dropped slightly, carrying a rough edge—anyone who knew him would have been shocked by the rare displeasure in his voice.
Halibel himself held no favorable impression of the undead, and yet he had been somewhat impressed by the sheer scale and effectiveness of the technique, and by the skill of the enemy caster.
But looking at the figure before him now, not a shred of admiration stirred in his heart.
"————"
Halibel cracked open his thread-thin eyes ever so slightly, fixing his golden gaze upon the person in question—Eugard, who had torn away his tattered outer garment and hung an unbelievable sword at his side in one hand.
This formidable foe, who moments ago had been locked in combat with Gruby—one of the "Nine Divine Generals"—carried a danger in his soul that went far beyond mere martial prowess.
Standing beside him, Gruby wiped his bloodied mouth with a hand.
"Oy, Ade..."
"Don't push yourself to talk. I can see the same thing. —From that kid, all I heard was stuff about leaving it to the curse specialist."
Stroking his chin whiskers with one hand, Halibel recalled the boy who had designated him to this fourth position.
The boy whom even Vincent held in high regard, whose judgment had earned the absolute trust of those around him. Even Anastasia had instructed Halibel to respect that boy's opinion as much as possible—he had been that highly anticipated.
And that boy had told Halibel, as someone well-versed in curse arts, that this opponent would determine the outcome of the imperial capital battle. Halibel had made bold promises to Anastasia too, and had been eager to demonstrate the full might of Kararagi's strongest.
"Well, this was outside my predictions..."
What caught Halibel's attention—having been taken aback—was the same thing that drew Gruby's gaze.
Both of their eyes locked on what coiled over Eugard's left chest, right where a human heart would sit: a translucent, venomous thorn identical to the "Thorn Curse" that had been indiscriminately scattered across the capital. The fact that it was consuming Eugard himself.
From that extraordinary fact, two possibilities emerged.
One was that the "Thorn Curse" was a truly indiscriminate curse, one that even ensnared its own caster.
But Halibel weighed the second possibility higher.
Namely— "—You there, demi-human. Answer my question."
Having finished testing the sensation of his regenerated right hand, Eugard cast his voice over.
As one would expect, the gaze that pinned him fell upon the intruder—Halibel. When Halibel pointed at himself with a "Me?", Eugard nodded deeply.
"If my judgment is not mistaken, you are a wolf person?"
"Ah, that's right. I'm a wolf person... The way Vollachia's treated us is so awful that we're in a dreadfully squeezed position all across the world. Feels like we'll go extinct any day now."
"I see. —I see."
It was a masterful extinction joke, but Eugard merely nodded quietly, as if confirming something, and the words fell flat. Looking puzzled at this reaction, Halibel heard Gruby let out a raspy "Oy—" beside him.
"That's why you can't push yourself—"
"Zoredokojade, guzo! Geigyogudeiha—!"
"—I hold no personal grudge against you."
Before Gruby's bloodshot voice could finish, the declaration took physical form and was unleashed.
The "Evil Sword's" slash, swung without care, shot forward in a rush of black—ignoring Gruby entirely, it aimed to split Halibel from between the legs to the crown of his head.
In the span of a blink, a Halibel bisected vertically stood before them.
"—!"
Struck speechless, unable to get a word out in time, Gruby could only stare—while Eugard, who had made the cut, remained in the raised posture of his "Evil Sword" swing.
"But your race once helped kill my star. Therefore, as with the equally guilty earth rat people, I shall exterminate you as a show of punishment."
"...Ah, I remember now. That old emperor guy—you're the reason we were on the verge of extinction, aren't you?"
"Mm."
Eugard furrowed his brow at the response from the one he had just cut down.
Before Eugard's eyes, the one who answered was the Halibel who had been sliced down the middle. As his body slowly began to separate left and right, Eugard blinked.
"You impress me. Even in that state, you still won't die—have you been tempered beyond all limits?"
"A rather delightful interpretation. But that's not it. —I'm simply not the real one."
The moment Halibel said this with a playful grin, his separating body collapsed simultaneously, and a flood of black fur scattered across the ground.
Just as this surreal spectacle seized Eugard's attention, from behind him— "Don't carelessly get behind me. I allow it from no one but my own star."
"Oh my, you're something else."
Behind the impact of the collapsing clone, Halibel—who had circled behind—had his torso cleaved in two by Eugard's right hand and the Sun Sword's renewed strike.
But the body that burst into flames—both the bisected upper and lower halves—was also not the original.
"!" Eugard grunted in surprise as his body abruptly sank.
The cause was a third Halibel who had grabbed his legs and dragged him down into the street. As this Halibel emerged from the ground, Eugard sank in up to his waist. Ideally, he'd be buried up to the neck, completely immobilized— "But things never go that smoothly, do they?"
The third Halibel muttered this as the second Halibel's burning corpse was shredded above him.
Slash after slash—vertical, horizontal, diagonal—cut his body into a lattice pattern, and when the pieces scattered, Eugard used the same strikes to cleave the ground and burst free from below.
Right hand: Sun Sword. Left hand: Evil Sword. He had returned to his dual-wielding combat stance.
As Eugard braced himself, wielding these supernatural demon swords with two hands, two more Halibels lunged at him from either side. In a way, it was payback for the endless onslaught of undead—but since it was Halibel who had multiplied, this was a far cry from ordinary corpses.
"You are a relentless threat."
Eugard calmly accepted the fact that Halibel had split into clones, and swung both demon swords simultaneously.
The demon swords posed lethal strikes against the Halibels approaching from both sides—but a third Halibel, appearing from behind, seized both his arms and held them in place.
"Sorry, but I've got enough for three."
With both arms restrained, the two Halibels who arrived late drove their hand strikes into Eugard's head and torso.
Halibel's piercing strikes, perfected through the "Flow Arts," were sharper than any half-decent blade.
They struck true, piercing Eugard's right eye and solar plexus with lethal force.
However— "Do not attempt to deceive me. It is discourteous to direct such things at anyone other than my star."
His unpierced left eye met Halibel's gaze, and in the next instant, the Sun Sword's radiance intensified. The following moment, the red glow became flame, and the entire area—including Eugard himself—erupted in a conflagration.
Caught in the explosive spread of fire, the three Halibels who had been in contact with Eugard were engulfed and incinerated.
Then, after a beat—as if an illusion, the flames vanished. The three Halibels were nothing but ash, and Eugard—equally scorched—repaired his burned surface and walked forward without a shred of unease.
He then rolled his golden eyes around the area—and noticed that Gruby, who should have still been there, had vanished.
"I didn't expect you to withdraw so politely. —What are you after?"
△▼△▼△▼△ "How annoying. Whatever we're scheming, he sees right through it."
Glancing back at Eugard from afar, having left the battlefield behind, Halibel shook his head in exasperation and sighed at the difficulty that went beyond mere swordsmanship.
Eugard was not led around by his powerful demon swords—he wielded them brilliantly.
On top of that formidable skill, he had the immortality of an undead and extraordinary perception. He had seen through the lie that Halibel's clones were limited to three, and his ability to respond to lethal situations was outstanding.
"Truly, he's the one who single-handedly turned the tide of an unfavorable battle. Isn't he a bit full of himself?"
"Talking... when... guzo..."
Halibel had Gruby in his arms, carrying him away from the battlefield, as Gruby thrashed about.
If he had left Gruby there, the final flames from Eugard would have swallowed him, leaving him in a state too terrible to look at—yet the man showed no shred of gratitude.
Of course, he understood that as a warrior, being carried away from a fight was the last thing anyone wanted.
"But any more and you'd die for real, wouldn't you? You're already forcing your body to move with poison... Recklessness does have its charms, I suppose."
Gruby, slightly surprised by the observation, watched as Halibel flicked his own nose.
The source of the faint, off smell mixed into Gruby's blood—any shinobi well-versed in poisons could imagine what it was. As for its use, it was something Halibel might have thought of but could never bring himself to try, and even thinking about it made him shudder.
"Really, the people of Vollachia are terrifyingly committed. Olbart-san too—isn't it crazy that he's still grinning without his right hand? And he's an old man who won't even admit defeat."
"What the hell... are you..."
"Hm?"
"The curse is getting worse—you keep talking normally, damn it... What the hell are you...!"
"That's... exactly the problem."
Gruby listened with a hoarse voice, responding to the throat injury with astonishing speed, and Halibel answered with a note of consternation.
The reason he was carrying Gruby away from the battlefield wasn't some dereliction of duty or a cowardly retreat from the capital—it was all part of the setup for victory.
Charging in blindly, without knowing the enemy, was the act of a fool. Against most opponents, Halibel could simply overwhelm them with raw power—but this time, it wouldn't be that simple.
Not because the opponent was a supreme-class combatant.
"Well, if we kept going like that, I'd probably come out on top. But—"
Merely defeating Eugard was not enough to complete the task Halibel had been assigned.
What Halibel had been tasked with was dealing with the "Curse" that would determine the outcome of the imperial capital battle. Defeating Eugard alone would not resolve it.
That was the biggest issue.
"Your thorns..."
"They've completely vanished. That's the second clue."
"...The first was that damn emperor's thorns."
As the agile Halibel kicked off the ground and ran, Gruby—carried in his arms—peered at his chest. The "Thorn Curse" that had been embedded in Halibel's chest, beneath his ill-fitting Waso garment, was gone.
That the thorn—which had been throbbing with pain—was considered the single greatest obstacle to eliminate in fighting the undead, Halibel could accept. However, he had not taken any active steps to remove it.
He had done nothing, and yet the thorn was gone. In other words, it wasn't Halibel who had removed it.
What that implied— "You bastard..."
"Looks like we've reached the same conclusion. If the 'Curse Artisan' agrees, that's reassuring."
"When shit combines with more shit, you get a shittier answer that makes your stomach churn!"
Gruby spat out the words, turning his aimless fury into curses.
Sharing Gruby's frame of mind, Halibel let his initial displeasure return and confirmed in his heart that the second possibility—the one born from seeing the thorn in Eugard's chest—was the correct one.
The logical reason the "Thorn Curse" coiled around Eugard's chest was simple.
"Those thorns weren't the emperor cursing everyone around him..."
"Lord Eugard got cursed by some piece of shit, and that piece of shit expanded all over the damn place."
△▼△▼△▼△ —Eugard Volakia, the "Thorn Emperor," had been cursed as part of a sabotage effort targeting the
In hindsight, it was no longer known which of the warring imperial siblings had ordered it, or how renowned a curse master had been involved.
But the cruel scheme—designed to thin the field of competitors for the coming Ceremony of Imperial Selection—had dramatically twisted the fate of the young imperial who would later become Eugard Volakia.
The "Thorn Curse" placed upon Eugard was horrifically cruel and simple in its design.
Namely: the binding of the thorns would inflict unbearable pain upon his heart.
And it would also apply to those around him.
When young Eugard cried out in pain from the curse, family members and servants would rush to help. But every person who approached would be caught in the curse's backlash, making it impossible for anyone to get close.
A curse designed to leave Eugard to die alone—in solitude and agony—that was the true nature of the "Thorn Curse" he had been afflicted with.
With this horrifyingly cruel "Thorn Curse," Eugard was never meant to reach the Ceremony of Imperial Selection, and was destined to end his short life as a tragic imperial. Those had been the intentions of whoever had ordered the curse.
But here, a massive, empire-altering coincidence occurred.
Eugard was born with congenital insensitivity to pain.
As a result, the constantly active "Thorn Curse" gave Eugard no pain whatsoever. Instead, it inflicted the thorns' pain on everyone around him—and in the end, he was left alone.
With even family and servants unable to approach, young Eugard spent his days in the estate he was given, with no opportunities to touch another person. He believed the reason his face had grown rigid was because of this—though whether it was truly his inborn nature or not was a fifty-fifty question.
Regardless, Eugard and the "Thorn Curse" had achieved a miraculous coexistence.
Though he minimized contact with others, there were still occasions where interaction was unavoidable. Each time, the people caught in the "Thorn Curse" naturally began to whisper that "it's Eugard who's cursing us"—and Eugard did not deny it.
In truth, Eugard himself didn't know whether the "Thorn Curse" had been placed upon him by others, or was something he had activated for some reason of his own.
Furthermore, the curse master who likely held the answer never appeared in Eugard's life afterward, and the identity of whoever had ordered the curse remained unknown.
And so, the "King of Thorns" walked on for a long, long time, never knowing the true nature of the thorns that followed in his wake.
Without anything out of the ordinary, that journey should have ended somewhere during the Ceremony of Imperial Selection.
The thorns had made Eugard alone, and the curse user's goal—though not in its intended form—had been achieved.
"Does counting the stars in the sky not bring more peace to the heart than staring into the darkness?"
—Except for that one encounter: the girl who had crossed his thorns to approach him.
△▼△▼△▼△ "I thought you might have actually run off, wolf person."
"That crossed my mind too... sorry, that's a lie. Not for a single second."
"Why did you attempt to deceive me?"
"Making jokes is a bad habit of mine. I'd appreciate it if you'd let me off easy."
"Deceiving an emperor is an act of discourtesy. However, I acknowledge that you admitted your fault promptly, and I shall overlook your earlier lie."
Halibel returned, and Eugard—facing him squarely—nodded with magnanimous composure.
That he showed no displeasure toward Halibel, who had once left the battlefield only to return, spoke to the imperial dignity in his bearing.
Setting aside his abilities, his presence was nothing short of what an emperor should be.
"You made someone who's already mad as lava even angrier—what exactly did you do to your ancestors?"
Halibel scratched his cheek at the unbreakable connection he had to this Eugard, the "Thorn Emperor."
For Halibel, as a wolf person, Eugard was an enemy of his entire race.
Across the world, wolf people lived squeezed into narrow corners. Even now, within the Vollachia Empire, anyone found to be a wolf person—or even a half-wolf with wolf blood—faced the death penalty with no reprieve. The one who had decreed this eternal law upon the Empire was none other than Eugard himself.
The wolf people and the earth rat people had been designated as traitors to the Vollachia Empire, and throughout history, countless of their kin had been killed and slaughtered.
That attitude likely would not disappear entirely anytime soon.
And so, for Halibel, it would only be natural to harbor equal hatred toward Eugard—but— "—That gaze. I will not permit you to direct it at me."
"What kind of face am I making right now?"
"The one my star occasionally showed. I will not permit anyone else to direct it at me. ...No. I dislike it."
Hearing an answer from Eugard—an answer devoid of deception or pretense—Halibel took a deep breath and struck his own left chest with his hand.
The "Thorn Curse" was not there. The curse had not activated against Halibel—against a wolf person, a being whom Eugard should have despised and loathed. And that fact stoked Halibel's fury even further.
"If that kid—reading ahead to where I'd feel this way—sent me here on purpose... Ana, I'm going to have to watch out for you."
With his eyes closed, picturing the girl he had known since childhood—who had never grown particularly tall—Halibel murmured those words and placed the pipe back between his teeth.
He lit the end, took a thorough drag, and exhaled.
He exhaled, and made his decision.
"It doesn't matter if you don't allow it, Emperor. Isn't that the kind of relationship we have?"
"What kind of relationship would that be?"
"A wolf person and the 'Thorn Emperor.'"
Beings who had every reason to hate each other, every reason to destroy each other.
Pointing to himself and then to Eugard, Halibel spoke these words. Eugard's expression did not change. Behind that unchanging expression, who knew how many things were locked away.
Who knew—yet Halibel had made his decision.
Merely defeating Eugard was not enough to fulfill his assigned role, nor his own resolve.
And so— "I'm going to free you from that horrible curse and make you a regular king, 'King of Thorns.'"