Blade and Poetry

Karajan called me into his office after the results of the theoretical round were announced.

"It's yours." He leaned against the table and threw the knife to me. "Ten days. If you are not gentle with it, I will know."

"So I am recognized by you now?" I said to him in a joking tone.

"Of course," he replied.

I've said things like "I really like you" to a lot of people, especially to Karajan.But at this moment, this sentence is just quietly buried in my stomach, hiding my voice-I realize that what I should say and what I want to say at this time should not be so easily measured by this sentence.

I just bowed to him.

It was a snowy day, but by the time it was all dark, the snow had stopped.Because the weather is clear, you can still see the moon hanging in the sky, and there are clusters of cloudy clouds floating in the night sky.

I am standing in a small clearing among the woods of the Freedom.I hold the knife in my hand—even though I have rubbed the handle many times, I am afraid to take it out and look at it as if I were timid during the day.

It is light golden in color, with delicate engravings and delicate small patterns on the handle. The lines of the blade are extremely smooth, and there are fine water patterns on the blade. Show a flaw.

I don't know why I was so eager to get it in the first place, maybe it was just for the moment of holding it in my hand.

Many leaves fell not far away with the cool wind.I kicked off my back foot in the snow, made a small arc forward, and slashed towards a spot in the snow with a knife.

"Shoulders, elbows and the body of the knife should be on the same straight line in this chop." This is what the knife master mentioned in the basics.

The snow in the snow field was stirred up by this wave of airflow, and many particles were rolled back into the air, hitting the fallen leaves that were originally floating, and sinking them to one place.

"Twelve pieces." I visually counted the number of leaves knocked down by the snow. "There is still a piece of slipping through the net here."

Accompanied by this thought, I shot the golden dagger at the leaf almost without thinking.The point of the knife pierced through the veins of the leaf, nailing it and its companions in the same shallow pit.

My eyes were fixed on the snow pit and the leaves inside, and my right hand trembled slightly.I can hardly imagine how my hand was holding the handle of the knife so forcefully, completing the last throw.

It's been a long time since I touched a real knife.

Has it been eight years? ...or should it be shorter?

These eight years are too short.Otherwise, like a prisoner on death row, he would know clearly the exact dates he spent; he would have carved them on the wall one by one.

"Generally speaking, few people can use a knife that doesn't belong to them freely." A familiar voice sounded behind me, a person came from the shadow of the moonlight, and made two lines of footprints in the bright snow.

"Yes, especially if that person is not a swordsman." I calmly added for him, facing his direction sideways, "Karajan, are you walking by in the middle of the night, or are you looking for me specifically? Take me back to my apartment to catch up on sleep?"

"It can be counted as the latter." He smiled, "I remember I said it? If you are not gentle with it, I will know. I feel the trembling of the sword soul."

His last sentence was very soft.

"I can't make Soul Blade tremble, Karajan," I told him. "I am a wizard."

He stared at me for a long time, so that I thought he would decide to leave with such confusion that would be buried—this is the etiquette of advancing and retreating, as most people here will observe.But after that he said: "Can you allow me to take you somewhere?"

I couldn't say no to him when he spoke in that tone.

We walked slowly in the snow; he couldn't use magic, and I didn't mention teleportation - I haven't learned the teleportation array yet.

He took me through the gate of the East Courtyard and came to a place similar to a planetarium.We passed through dusty astrolabes, charts, and models to a long sculpture in the open air.The metal rod on it is horizontally connected with round translucent spheres, forming a sharp blade hem logo as a whole.

This is the pattern of the swordsman's coat of arms.

"I know it." I said after facing the sculpture for a moment. "Even used it."

I put my hand where the pattern started and turned to look at his face.I was a little surprised by his expression—his gray-blue eyes never lack those vibrant emotions, but when I look at him now, I feel that there is nothing in his eyes except the reflected moonlight.

I snapped my fingers with the other hand, "The presentation is about to begin."

I moved a mechanism on the sculpture, and as if light was flowing from my finger, the translucent spheres were lit up one by one without haste.Until the light slowly diffused over the last pearl, the complete pattern of the entire coat of arms was strung together in a brilliant way.

"You have a full-level affinity with knives." Karajan walked up to me at some point, "But how can your magic power system make you a magician?"

"This is also a question I asked myself a long time ago, but I don't ask it often now." I withdrew my hand from the sculpture, and its residual warmth remained on my fingertips, making people feel that I was still holding a strand of that sculpture. A kind of warm light, "This is probably a bad joke made by God."

"Would you like to tell it to me?"

"'it'?"

"A story. Or whatever you wish to tell." He looked at me and said.

"It's not a story as you imagined—it's just a simple turning point. Compared with the interludes in the world, it's so short." I said, "A ten-year-old child has shown sword and martial arts since he was a child." With extraordinary talent, he started the most childish training according to various methods. Everyone thought that he would become a great swordsman like his father in the future. But the magic branch that appeared at the age of ten made him have to accept Such a fact: he will not have the soul of the sword at all, and there will be no sword that belongs to him. The previous preparations for this ideal—trying to envision it, train it, and endure it—are all a joke.”

"Not only that," Karajan said, "he loved it."

"Love, love is not enough," I murmured. "Isn't talent important?"

"The series of actions you performed tonight are extremely exciting."

"With that kind of intensity, I'd be sitting under a tree after 10 minutes of exhaustion. My arms would be numb and I'd be out of breath. This is a wizard's body, no one needs that Knife." I looked him in the eye and added, "No—I mean, even if it wasn't anything, I wouldn't need it myself. Maybe I should be a poet. You know, I love Those poems."

"But people nowadays don't need poets." Karajan looked at me softly, but said mercilessly, "Time creates poets, Vicente. Everyone in the golden age of war needs poets. Give them Inspire them, tell their pain for them, and arouse the resonance of the masses. The poet is the eyes, ears and mouth of the people, the weapon of the contestant and the hand that can reach far, and the most useful manipulation weapon of the bureaucracy when necessary. Poets are fearless in the era of war when they are highly praised. But when they are in a pool of warm water of peace, they have to worry about food and clothing, and stop at daily trivialities. If a person’s pen is not confirmed by the background, there is no What kind of words can prove its greatness. There are no poets anymore, poets are the past."

I've never felt such a thrill.

He stared at me intently; then the moonlight in his eyes became fragmented, quivering slightly with the shadows cast by his lashes.

"Do you wish to learn the sword from me, Vicente?" he asked me. "Even ordinary people can wield an ordinary knife."

"Are you taking pity on me?"

"Mercy!" he gave a little laugh; I heard his first laugh here tonight. "What's the use of pity?"

My eyes carefully traced his every subtle expression, and then I realized that his thoughts were exactly the same as what he said.

But now I'm afraid to return to that ardor; I can't face it, because it reflects my heart so clearly.

I loathe my cringe at this moment—but this kind of hope has tormented me for many years, like a person who is always on the verge of drowning and is sunk into the abyss again when the situation improves slightly.Even if a life opportunity is so clearly presented in front of me, I hesitate to reach out to touch it.

I opened my mouth, wanting to reply with a "no", but I didn't even have the sound to come out at this time, so I just twisted my neck as much as I could, and made a motion of shaking my head; perhaps so small that it was almost indistinguishable .

"Sufferer," Karajan suddenly mentioned the word I had written.He took a step closer to me and asked, "What are you afraid of? Because you are too familiar with the destruction of hope, you decide to let yourself feel ashamed? But even if it is destroyed again and again, the scars overlap, but it is not over. Until we At the end of life, it's not over." There seemed to be some kind of cynical sarcasm surfacing in his voice, showing a corner, "Because seeing the destruction of hope is the most interesting thing. And vice versa."

His eyes seemed to see through everything.

"Let me give you hope, Vicente."

Looking down from the rooftop, I seem to be able to see the flame-like Charon flowers blooming in the Literature Building in the distance.But I remembered that this was the beginning of winter; in such a heavy snowfall, there should not have been Charon flowers blooming wantonly.

I suddenly saw Goya's "Fighter" in the darkness.The man trapped in hellfire, clinging to his scuffed blade, uttered his passionate words:

[i] "Travel me in the dirt beneath your feet

Break my weapons, break my spine

Let me spit out the same curse

Manipulating my head, hooping my mouthpiece

I know you are always with me

Behind me, in front of me and in the distance

Maybe born powerless to cut you down

But before you die, you have to try it”[/i]

Amidst the man's cry, I heard my own voice say indistinctly, "Of course I'd be happy to."