Sorcerous Stabber Orphen: The Wayward Journey Volume 13

By Yoshinobu Akita and Yuuya Kusaka

Unable to decide where to go next on his journey, Orphen is still staying in Nashwater. One day, Claiomh gets drawn into a dispute between two sword dojos. The subject of the dispute is a sword, Freak Diamond, left behind by the late hero Beedo Crewbstar. Through the conflict, Claiomh comes to know an instructor at one of the dojos and the current owner of the sword, Lottecia Crewbstar. As Orphen finds himself investigating the two dojos, a red dragon assassin appears before him!

• Language: English
• Publisher: J-Novel Club
• Release date: Aug 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781718327245

Book preview

Prologue

She could clearly remember the words that her father had muttered when they’d left their hometown. Maybe that was just a ridiculous delusion—she knew she was just a child at the time, and there was no way she could remember such a thing.

But she was certain she knew. He had gazed back at their beautiful hometown with a strange expression caught somewhere between anger and sadness, shedding tears. His voice had been muffled, so quiet it seemed it might disappear with the wind. The surface of the lake had sparkled, smooth ripples moving across it, and the sun was gleaming brilliantly. The moss-covered trunk of a huge tree had sunk to the bottom of the lake, and countless silver fish had been swimming through its twisted roots. That vast body of water deep, deep in the forest had the beauty of a mirror, though it had looked cold as well.

That was a very sacred place, her father had told her years later. Perhaps she should say it had taken several years for him to be able to tell that to his daughter. In the end, she’d never managed to ask him what had caused his anger, or perhaps his sadness. He’d left her with many words unsaid, still hidden within his heart. Maybe he’d meant to tell her eventually. There was no way to know now just how much he’d left unsaid.

Their hometown—she’d never doubted the importance of the place to her father. She imagined he must have dreamed about the scenery there every so often. On the nights when they huddled together under one blanket to share warmth on a street that travelers never passed down, she imagined his recollections were particularly vivid. He would often stare at her, his daughter. It didn’t particularly bother her being watched like that. But she would ask the night sky what she could do to erase the sadness in his eyes.

Her father sighed a lot—even though she warned him over and over not to. He probably sighed knowing he shouldn’t. It was less like breathing and more like letting his vitality escape him, and as he sighed more and more as the long years went by, he eventually wore himself down. It became clear to everyone around him as he became skinnier than other men his age. He was sick.

His condition changed for both the better and for the worse, almost as if to test the reflexes of those treating him. Eventually, after half a year of him weakening and having attacks, he became unable to even wander through his memories. There was nothing she could do—nothing anyone could do, unless they had the ability to manipulate fate. Expensive treatment and life-extending measures ate through their savings in no time at all, and her father’s screams chipped away at her sleeping hours as well. We’ll have to tie him to his bed if this keeps up. One of the doctors had told her that while eyeing his broken glasses resentfully. She’d laughed. Tie him down? The eyes he’d stared sadly at her with were clouded and yellow now, wide open and swollen. Tie him down?

Two days after the doctors stopped visiting, her father died. His passing had been peaceful, either due to divine providence, or because he simply didn’t have the vitality left in him to have a violent fit. She didn’t care which one it was. Either way, she was thankful for the end of her father’s suffering. Maybe his sadness never came to an end, but this was a small mercy. If there was any meaning in her prayers, she was thankful for it.

His words on his deathbed had been quiet ones. He’d held his sword close and looked at her with those same sad eyes, the same look he’d had when they had left their hometown. She thought so, at least. She couldn’t help thinking the words he said then were the same as the ones he’d said when they’d left.

Her father, the great swordsman, left these words behind at the end of his life:

No one is qualified to inherit the way of life of their predecessor... And even if they were, they would have to inherit their sins as well. Those who bear those sins must bear them carefully...and only on their own back.

Her father’s eyes were no longer seeing anything at this point.

If you desire to abandon your master and live your own life, that is all you can do.

Chapter I: Dawn of the Sword

Mmmh...

Claiomh stretched, sucking in a breath that filled her lungs with the scent of morning. The fresh scent tickled her nose. She wiped a tear that had squeezed out of the corner of her eye with the back of her hand and leaned on the windowsill. The outdoor scenery she was viewing over her shoulder was completely dyed in the hues of morning. She could see a long line of light-colored roofs stretching into the distance, because the inn they were staying at had been built on a small hill.

She felt something squirming restlessly on top of her head. With a giggle, she picked up the lump of black fur—the creature resembling a black puppy—from her head and hugged him to her chest, looking back outside again.

The morning sun was shining, bathing the town in light. Claiomh felt sleepiness still remaining behind her eyeballs, so she stretched again, holding the puppy, to try to shake it off. The puppy didn’t seem to have noticed that he had been removed from her head, and he was reaching around sleepily with his front paws, eyes still closed. He was probably trying to find her hair. He pawed around for a little while longer and eventually settled on the collar of her pajamas. He leaned against her shoulder, pressing his nose to her, and began snoring once more.

Morning, huh...

She muttered something totally obvious.

Her long blonde hair fluttered in the morning wind, under the light of the morning sun. Watching it with half-lidded eyes, she enjoyed sunbathing for a little while. The town was dead quiet, as if some sort of solemn ceremony was about to begin. The streets wouldn’t be bustling with people for some time yet. If there were anyone about, it would probably only be people delivering bread, maybe.

I just kinda woke up... Claiomh muttered, taking a long breath. She wasn’t talking to herself. She looked down at the puppy sleeping in her arms. Even if you wake up early, there’s nothing to do staying in an inn like this... It’s not like I can borrow the kitchen to make breakfast. And Orphen and Majic probably won’t wake up until noon... What should we do, Leki?

She called out to the puppy-like creature, Leki, but he didn’t answer her, of course. He must have heard her though, because his ears twitched.

Puppy-like creature was no exaggeration—Leki really wasn’t a puppy. Though if someone asked her what he was then, Claiomh would have to say that she didn’t actually know. She’d never had to explain this to someone else, of course.

If she were to borrow Orphen’s words—for she remembered these, vaguely, at least—Leki was something called a Deep Dragon. She’d met him a few months earlier, in a forest. Adult Deep Dragons were huge creatures that stood with their heads some three or four meters from the ground, but Leki was still only as big as a puppy.

She didn’t really know why, but he liked her. Well, things like that didn’t really need to have a reason behind them, or so she blithely accepted.

Now that I think about it... She gave Leki a pat on the back and looked up. You’ve come a long way. This is the opposite side of the continent from Totokanta. We’ve just walked all the way to a place that would take a whole week on a steamboat to reach. You can brag to everyone when you get back, she said, a little exasperated..

Maybe because she’d patted him on the back, Leki had raised his face and was looking up at her blankly. In his vibrant green eyes was a faint glow that resembled the rippling of light off of water’s surface. She was reflected in those eyes...not that she could see that herself.

You brag to your mom about stuff, right? Claiomh asked Leki, giggling to herself.

She looked outside again. The light-blue waves of wind were cold to her skin. It was chilly, refreshing weather.

The weather’s nice.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The wind was clear enough that she felt like she could see the layers of air up above her.

Let’s go on a walk, Claiomh said, and nodded to herself. She pulled back from the window and closed it with one hand. Shutting the curtains, she set Leki down on the bed and clasped her hands, stretching once more.

She took her clothes out of the closet in the room.

This—everything up to this—was just another normal morning, the likes of which she’d experienced countless times before.

◆◇◆◇◆

...So, we’re still here.

Who’re you talking to, Majic? Orphen asked as the boy mumbled to himself out the window.

Nashwater was a quiet town. The sort of place where the chill in the morning air lasted until noon. It was small-scale as towns on the continent went.

Orphen raised his head. The black-haired, black-eyed, perpetually black-clad man sighed a meaningless sigh. He stroked his jaw, then closed his mouth, and shrugged his shoulders.

Well, what can we do? We don’t know where to go.

That being said... There’s no reason to stay here forever either.

Nashwater was the closest town to the Kimluck-controlled Gate Lock region. Of course, there was so little exchange between Gate Lock and the rest of the world that most people on the east side of the continent thought of Nashwater as the northernmost town. Having no particular sights to see nor any local specialties to sample, the town’s only lifeline was that it was near a tourism site.

Its population was slightly high for its size at a little over twelve thousand. Resting at the base of a mountain, some sixty percent of the town was on a slope, so it couldn’t be called a very easy place to live. But it was blessed by nature, and since it was close to the industrially poisoned Urbanrama, they tended to be compared to each other.

Majic turned to Orphen and frowned in frustration. The boy was about to turn fifteen, Orphen recalled. He’d always had a very expressive face, so he was easy to read when he was feeling any sort of negative emotion.

But it’s been two weeks since we came down from the Ledgeborne hot spring town.

So you’re just bored, Orphen thought to himself with a sigh as his apprentice pursed his lips and complained to him.

Orphen found himself reaching up to his chest. There was a familiar sensation where a metal pendant hung, a crest of a one-legged dragon curled around a sword. The