Menel dropped his tone slightly. “Telperion held his corpse and let out three long, sorrowful screams. The screams echoed around the forest, lingering long after they had ended, and the fae are said to have shed tears at the sound.”
There was a mystery-filled atmosphere about this story of the past, told in a storehouse lit by magical light as weapons with history surrounded us.
“And after Telperion spent seven months in mourning for his friend, he decided to set out on a journey. Shrugging off opposition from his elders, he donned his friend’s chain mail and took his silver-stringed bow in hand.”
Without having any idea what good there was in the outside world—
“He went in search of the indefinable ‘thing’ his friend had dreamed of.”
After getting that far, Menel looked back at Gus. “That’s as much as I know.
That, and he died hunting the High King. The elders in the Forest of Erin mourn
Telperion’s death even now. I heard it enough to make my ears bleed.”
“Hmm…”
“This is perfect, actually. I was thinking about asking you this anyway, Gus the Sage.”
“Gus is fine.”
“Old Gus, then.” Menel fixed his jade eyes on Gus and asked, “Did Telperion find the ‘thing’ he was looking for?”
Gus smiled when he heard that question, with eyes that seemed to look off into the distance, as though recalling a very nostalgic memory. “Mm, he did indeed. Telperion certainly did discover something wonderful!”
“I see.” There wasn’t much of a change in Menel’s expression, but his mouth turned up at the corners slightly. “That’s good. Glad to hear it.”
Menel didn’t ask anything more — not about Telperion’s answer, nor about the person himself. Instead, he lowered his eyes and fell silent, perhaps in prayer, then put on the gloves and took hold of the mithril string shining silver.
Gus laughed. “All that aside — Meneldor or whatever, can you handle that?
Mithril strings are a good match for fae, but it’s said that an average archer will lose fingers.”
“No problem.” He changed the string over to his own bow and drew it back a few times. The bow bent back like a full moon, and the string sang a beautiful note as it was stretched to its limit. Gus listened nostalgically to the bow’s prelude to battle.
“See?”
“So… aren’t you going to let it go?” I said.
“N-No, you idiot! Dry-firing damages the bow, don’t you know that?”
“What?! Really?!”
I didn’t use bows, so I had no idea. Ah, but now that I thought about it, that would mean that all the energy that would be used to fire the arrow would instead go into the bow. Yeah, that didn’t sound very good.
“I can’t believe the stuff you don’t know sometimes when you seriously know pretty much everything else.”
“It’s how I was educated.”
“Don’t try to push the blame onto me, boy.”
Al and the others listening to us laughed.
“Uh, guys,” Menel said, “we don’t have the luxury of using time like elves.
Quit looking at us and go find a weapon you think you can use. Go on!”
“I’m decided,” Reystov said, unfazed. “Don’t want one.”
“You don’t want one?” Menel said in disbelief. “They’re all pretty good weapons, brother.”
“Yeah, it’s a hell of a sight. But I don’t care how well a weapon performs, if I ain’t used to it, I can’t trust it,” Reystov replied pointedly. Gus and Ghelreis nodded in understanding.
“I guess.” Menel still sounded doubtful.
“Umm…” Al was tilting his head, so I decided to say something.
“Right… This depends a lot on your style. Menel’s style is tactical, I guess— he makes use of whatever’s around, so he can be more flexible with his weapons. He can always borrow the power of the fairies, after all. So long as he can disrupt the enemy with his feet, staying at medium-to-long range and attacking from there, he’s happy with anything.”
Even if Menel had to go defenseless through a wasteland with monsters roaming around everywhere, he’d probably do just fine by picking up rocks or something and calling to the fairies for help.
“In contrast, Reystov’s specialty is close-range fighting. When your thing is battles at a risky distance where a single moment can make the difference between kill or be killed, you can’t help being insistent about some things. It’s not like he can’t fight with a makeshift weapon, but he’s specialized for his current one.”
Reystov optimized his weapon for his body and his movements and made sure that he could unsheathe it in a split second if anything happened. He became one with his weapon. His modified sheath, the sturdy handle, his neatly trimmed nails — all of it was for that purpose.
“So he can’t swap his weapon for an unfamiliar one at the eleventh hour,” I concluded.
Reystov nodded and agreed. I could use pretty much anything as well, but when it came down to it, my mindset was closer to Reystov’s, so I understood well how he felt.
“Boring or not, I want to fight with a weapon I’m comfortable with,” he said.
Al blew out a puff of air, seemingly impressed at how Reystov could say that so firmly with all these incredible weapons in front of him. “That’s amazing.”
“That said, ah… Reystov. You know what you’re up against. Are you sure?”
Gus sounded apprehensive.
“Doesn’t bother me. But—”
“But?”
“Gus the Sage, I want to borrow your skill with the Signs.”
“Oh?”
“If you could carve some Words into my weapons and armor just so much that it still feels basically like what I’m used to, that’d be great. I could get used to a small change like that in a few days.”
“I see. Alright, let me have them a moment.” Using psychokinesis, Gus took
Reystov’s sword and leather armor. He took them apart effortlessly and examined them closely from all kinds of angles, beginning with the sword.
“Hmm. It’s ordinary, but… northern-style equipment, I see.”
“Yeah.”
At the foot of the Ice Mountains in the far reaches of the northern continent of Grassland, there was a group of warlike folk who continually forged steel in a canyon where freezing wind blew. They constantly fought against the evil gods’ minions coming down south, and they specialized in blades with the cold, crystal clarity of ice and robust, practical construction.
“Blood preferred the wider swords of the south. I haven’t seen a northern one in a while. Hmm, it’s a good sword. Well-used and cared for, even though it has been worn down somewhat.”
Swords couldn’t be used endlessly. If you gave them a proper sharpening, you would lose an amount of steel about the size of a small ring. Repeated enough times, the weapon would become thin and eventually either bend or break. However, at times, names given to swords survived longer than others, in just the same way as the names of old heroes — like Blood, Mary, and Telperion.
“One day, they will speak of this as ‘Reystov’s sword’ and not as an ordinary one.”
“Yeah.” Reystov nodded. “Hope so.”
After that, Al and Ghelreis upgraded their weapons and armor as well.
“Hmm. I will take these.” Ghelreis chose metal armor, a large shield, and a one-handed mace. The armor was large and rounded, and I got the impression that it was specialized for glancing off attacks. The shield was also large and sturdy, and I could tell that it must have belonged to a famous dwarven warrior.
And the mace, which was diamond-shaped, had a number of protrusions called flanges and looked like it would pack an incredible amount of blunt force.