The Grandmaster stood with her hands clasped behind her back, gazing at the sword marks left upon the cliff.
As always, her posture betrayed not the slightest sign of agitation.
At the very least, that meant my senses could not distinguish truth from falsehood. Unless, of course, the old woman was telling nothing but the truth.
“I told you I don’t know…… Heh heh, how could I possibly know every secret of Heavenly Sword Mountain? Thousands of years have passed since the ‘Sword Circle’ gathered here.”
There was not a trace of hesitation in that hollow chuckle.
Still bewildered, I had no choice but to voice my doubts once again.
“How does that make any sense? You don’t even know what the ‘Heavenly Sword’ is, yet you treasure it that much? The mountain was on fire.”
“Would you ask a cleric the same thing? Whether they could give their life for a god they cannot even see?”
Put that way, I had nothing more to say.
Something still felt wrong, but there was no way to use mere intuition as logical evidence.
And so I bit my lip.
“It is the same for me. This is a ‘calling’…… What reason does one need to uphold a ‘duty’? Even if it kills me, I must protect this place.”
“You’re saying there isn’t a single clue? Over those thousands of years, how many people have challenged the ‘Path of the Heavenly Sword’……?”
“And yet not one has actually…