Chapter 29 : Juggling Tricks
Chapter 29: Juggling Tricks
“The power you were curious about. What I’m going to tell you now was ‘killing intent’.”
After confirming once more that no one else was around, Mirian looked at Robin with worry.
“The name is intuitive. You can pressure someone with the desire to kill them?”
“It wasn’t simply the desire to kill. It was the desperate resolve to kill no matter what, even if all my limbs were shattered. You projected that conviction beyond your inner thoughts.”
Mirian’s explanation was simple yet difficult.
Wanting to kill someone wasn’t a hard thought to have.
When they encountered a monster, when Jeremy was stabbed.
Robin had harbored the same thought.
At that time, just having that feeling didn't bring about the power Mirian described.
“Then was that punk wetting his pants back then also because of killing intent?”
“Yeah. I only meant to scare him a bit, but I guess it came out stronger than I intended.”
“Hearing it like this doesn’t quite resonate. I didn’t even know it was possible to express the desire to kill.”
“It would be. Even among mercenaries, there aren’t many who can use this technique. I’ll let out just a little. That’s fine, right?”
Robin gave a small nod.
Mirian closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Slowly, the air grew heavy.
An intangible force pressed down on Robin’s body.
Breathing was difficult, but unlike before, he could still move.
Adjusting the killing intent to a level Robin could endure required an advanced degree of concentration.
By the time Mirian exhaled and retracted the killing intent, cold sweat was streaming down her forehead.
The pressure that had bound Robin vanished.
“…That’s incredible.”
“Once you get used to handling killing intent, you can control its intensity and range. The reason your arm stopped this morning was because I applied that.”
“Please teach me. How can I handle it like you do?”
Robin asked with shining eyes.
Mirian scratched her head with an awkward expression.
“Mm, right. Of course you’d want to use killing intent.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t really know.”
“What?”
“Once you use it for the first time, you can train it. But that first time is hard.”
In short, it was a technique with a high entry barrier.
“If you somehow succeed, I can teach you the training method. No, it’s not even a method. If you keep using it, you just naturally master it.”
“I feel like I’m being tricked.”
“It’s the truth.”
Mirian didn’t seem to be lying.
It was a technique hard to start but very useful once mastered.
Robin closed his eyes and focused.
The most despairing, frustrating moments of his life.
He recalled when Jeremy grew cold in his arms.
“…….”
Nothing changed.
He didn’t give up and tried again, but only silence lingered around him.
The times he was chased by monsters, moments his life was threatened, the days he was bullied at the orphanage.
Digging up the dark memories of his life wasn’t difficult.
Until he met Jeremy, his life had been shrouded in fog.
He reflected on his not-so-long life but still couldn’t draw out killing intent.
“It’s past dinner time. Let’s head back.”
“Let me try one more time.”
“Fine. Try once more. If it doesn’t work, we go.”
“No. Not me. You—shoot it at me, Mirian.”
“Let’s do that next time. I’m hungry.”
Srrng.
Robin drew his sword.
Ochs.
He raised the longsword beside his face, keeping it parallel with the ground.
He copied it after seeing Calimacos and Paul train.
Mirian’s lips twitched.
Whether mercenary, knight, or adventurer—there was an unspoken rule.
Drawing a blade toward someone was an act of hostility.
This wasn’t a sparring session. Mirian was not someone to let this pass.
Even if she doted on Robin like a little brother, he had crossed a line.
“Haha… I was happy to have a cute little brother. This is a bit unpleasant.”
“I want to get stronger, and I have a duty to. I know it’s rude, but if I want to draw out your true intent, there’s no helping it.”
Vom Tag.
A preparatory stance for a vertical downward strike.
It was a posture Calimacos practiced daily like warm-ups.
Robin had practiced it ever since picking up a wooden sword from Burt’s General Store, and it was the stance he felt most confident in.
“Block it. With killing intent.”
Robin swung down at Mirian without hesitation.
He believed she could block it without fail.
It could no longer be dismissed as the reckless gesture of a ten-year-old.
Robin’s swordsmanship was refined enough to compare with that of seasoned mercenaries.
Even so, Mirian remained unmoved.
She simply watched Robin with a blank face.
Saaak.
A pressure beyond comparison to earlier crushed Robin.
“Khggh!”
He bit his tongue, blood flooding his mouth.
The descending sword lost strength and fell to the ground.
Not only did his knees buckle—Robin was pressed flat against the earth.
Even then, he burned with determination, trying to lift his arms, but it was useless.
It felt as if gravity doubled upon only him—he couldn’t budge.
Splat!
A tear appeared on the taji wrapped around his arms.
The tear slowly grew.
As if a blade of wind swept across, the killing intent ravaged the taji on Robin’s arms.
Please… stop…
Breath choked in his throat. He tried to look up at Mirian but couldn’t lift his head.
His brain began to lack oxygen, consciousness fading, when a deep voice reached him like salvation.
“Mirian, what do you think you’re doing.”
Whoom.
A swing of an axe sliced through empty air like cutting a thread, dispersing the killing intent.
“Ah…?”
Mirian’s previously blank face twisted in bewilderment.
Torgen pulled her aside and helped Robin up.
“Robin, you all right?”
“Hahk! Hahk!”
Robin sucked in air with ragged breaths.
If it wasn’t for Torgen, I’d have been in danger.
“Mm… you saw that, Robin? Once you train killing intent, you can win before the fight even starts.”
“Were you trying to turn Robin into an idiot, Mirian?”
Mirian pretended to sound composed, but the end of her voice trembled slightly.
She was startled herself but tried to hide it.
Torgen’s voice carried a subtle anger.
“I’m okay. I attacked Mirian without saying anything, so this is my fault.”
“Robin. You almost ended up crippled just now. Do you get that?”
Torgen’s blunt words drove home how serious it had been.
The thought that he could have gained a permanent disability hadn’t occurred to him.
Mirian, shuffling awkwardly, checked on Robin.
“Luckily, you’re not hurt anywhere. Sorry, Robin. I went too far, didn’t I?”
“I was the one who asked to see your true intent. You don’t have any reason to apologize.”
“This is insane. Firing that level of killing intent at a kid—if the captain hears, this won’t be brushed off.”
Torgen scolded Mirian, who truly felt sorry and didn’t know what to do.
Mirian bowed her head deeply, blaming herself.
Robin instead felt sorry toward Mirian.
His desire to grow stronger had flustered her.
If Robin had been harmed here, Mirian would have carried that guilt for the rest of her life.
If Torgen hadn’t stepped in at the right moment…
“I’m really fine. Can’t we just pretend this never happened? There’s nothing good to gain from telling the captain.”
Steadying himself and standing on his own, Robin forced a cheerful tone.
His fingertips trembled from exposure to dense killing intent, but he hid them behind his back.
Torgen folded his arms, looked back and forth between Robin and Mirian, and sighed.
“Robin, you’re coming with me. Mirian, you come in thirty minutes.”
“Yeah……”
When Torgen began walking ahead, Robin had no choice but to follow.
Mirian couldn’t even look at Robin, weighed down by guilt.
Robin walked up to her and gave her a light hug.
“Robin?”
“I’m okay. S-sisterhh……”
Calling her sister is still embarrassing.
Leaving those words behind, Robin quickly hurried after Torgen.
Seeing her younger brother run away after giving clumsy comfort, Mirian burst into laughter.
“What a precious little brother.”
On the way back to the lodging.
Once they had put some distance between themselves and Mirian, Torgen, who had been silent, finally spoke.
“Mirian taught you killing intent, and that mess happened while you were learning it, right?”
“Yes.”
“Forget about learning that kind of juggling trick.”
Robin was surprised that killing intent—something capable of overwhelming an opponent with sheer pressure—was being called a juggling trick, and even more puzzled that he was being told not to learn it.
“Did Mirian tell you how she learned to use it?”
“She said once you use it a single time, it’s easy to train, but she doesn’t know how you use that first time.”
“Figures. I can’t use it either.”
Torgen couldn’t use killing intent.
It was unexpected.
Robin had assumed Torgen could use the techniques Mirian could.
“‘A sworn mortal enemy, the will to kill even if you burn yourself out, hatred so rotten it festers inside you.’ You need that kind of thing to use killing intent.”
Robin lost his words.
According to Torgen, Mirian was constantly sharpening a blade meant to kill someone.
“Anyone sane can’t use it. Do you know what killing-intent users all have in common?”
“What is it?”
“Madness. Those kinds of people are half-insane.”
“But Mirian isn’t insane.”
“No, she’s only suppressing it through training. Once that fire ignites, it’s not easy to put out. The reason she fired too much killing intent at you is because of that. Trying to draw out her true intent was a foolish choice.”
Mirian suffers from madness?
Robin had never once sensed that while traveling with the mercenary group.
She fit in well with others, had good rapport, and even in battle he had never seen her lose her reason.
Though Torgen had no reason to lie to him, Robin couldn’t accept it easily.
“And killing intent isn’t almighty. You saw me disperse it with my axe earlier, right?”
“Yes. You swung through the air and it vanished.”
“That’s because it only works on opponents weaker than you. A trained warrior can resist it.”
Torgen didn’t want Robin to learn killing intent.
Learning it meant slowly eating away at one’s own mind.
Mirian also didn’t want Robin to live with the same suffocating murderous resolve she bore.
Her offer to teach him was merely to let him know it existed.
Knowing meant being able to defend against it.
“So don’t get dazzled by things like that. There’s no shortcut to getting stronger. Train regularly, eat well, sleep plenty. That’s enough for you.”
“That’s sound reasoning.”
Seeing Torgen’s usual training routine, it had looked reckless, but it was actually systematic.
From an outsider’s perspective, the flaw was simply his excessive training volume.
“Then… how did Mirian end up able to use killing intent?”
“Her family was killed, and the culprit is still walking around free.”
Robin thought of the day Jeremy died in Stonegoth.
If the Red Dagger gang were still roaming the streets unharmed, he felt he would go mad too.
The difference between Mirian and Robin became clear.
Whether the enemy lived or died.
“You spent the whole day with Mirian. What were you two doing?”
“We decided to become sworn siblings.”
“So that was it?”
Torgen didn’t seem particularly surprised by Robin’s answer.
“Why’s that?”
“She probably made you her sworn sibling to suppress her madness.”
“What do you mean?”
“There aren’t only a few mad people in the world. Those kinds try to suppress their madness and create their own restraints.”
“You’re saying I’m Mirian’s restraint?”
Torgen continued in a calm tone.
“Yeah. A keepsake, a precious person, a being you have to protect. When they lose their reason, if the restraint intervenes, the madness can soften. Must mean Mirian really likes you.”
Robin didn’t like Torgen’s explanation.
It made him feel like he was being used as a tool.
“Does she see me as a tool?”
“Don’t misunderstand. Knowing Mirian’s personality, she didn’t do it just to use you. She truly sees you as a younger brother—that’s why she made you sworn siblings.”
“I’m going to leave eventually, so why choose me?”
“Did you two buy any souvenirs?”
Souvenirs? Ah…!
Mirian had taken the portrait drawn of the two of them.
That, too, was something containing memories.
I didn’t think she’d consider something like that.
“Don’t take it too harshly. You know she’s grown attached to you.”
A single question surfaced in Robin’s mind.
“If madness is an illness, what’s the cure?”
“I’ve heard it gets better if they stop using killing intent, but I’ve never seen anyone actually cured.”
Then she must have chosen learning to handle killing intent over curing the madness.
Killing intent was a double-edged sword.
It gave an advantage in seizing momentum, but the more you used it, the more fragile the mind became.
“Can someone resist killing intent just by getting stronger?”
“Yes. When the body strengthens, the mind naturally strengthens too. The more you train, the easier it becomes to resist it.”
“That means if someone stronger than you uses it, you can’t help but lose.”
“Well, there are a few more ways.”
Robin moved in close beside Torgen, clearly asking to be taught.
Torgen glanced down at him and continued.
“The first is exposing yourself to a lot of killing intent. Build up resistance.”
“The second is emitting killing intent yourself to counter it. They say you can even wrap it around yourself like armor.”
“The third is preventing your opponent from drawing out killing intent.”
Since Torgen couldn’t use killing intent, he must have used the first and third methods.
“The third method—how do you stop someone from drawing it out?”
“You overwhelm them before they realize it. Or you drive your attacks to exhaust their concentration. Or use drugs to dull their mind. Plenty of ways.”
“I doubt any of that would work against someone stronger.”
“Surprisingly, it works well. And even you have a method you can use right now.”
I can resist killing intent too?
Of course he wanted to know.
Robin tapped Torgen’s arm.
Torgen gave a faint grin and spoke.
“You’re doing it now.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
What Torgen said next made Robin’s expression twist.