Chapter 29 – Preparation (4)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Unsettling gazes surrounded me. Something mixed with jealousy and hostility.

The cadets’ friendly stared made the back of my neck sting. Voices laced with slander flew into my ears.

I kept my eyes on the Sword Emperor. His motionless pupils were honed sharp, as though measuring an opponent.

His muscles were drawn tight as if a worthy rival stood before him. In a steady posture, the Sword Emperor drew the hilt.

Kiri-ring.

A clear sword note spread out like dew at dawn.

Gasps rose from all around and filled the training ground. The cadets who had chosen swords looked back and forth between their own weapons and the Sword Emperor’s. Even the students from other classes watching from the stood opened their eyes wide.

It was definitely just an ordinary iron sword, yet the moment he held it, the blade glittered like a famous treasured weapon.

I closed my eyes once and opened them again. A man who stood near the very pinnacle of swordsmanship was looking at me. The air around us felt heavy in a different way. Even the flow of the wind changed artificially.

From the spacing of his feet, to the grip wrapped around the hilt, to the angle of the sword tip aimed precisely at me, there was not a single flaw.

The restlessness that not even Lee Won-bin’s attempts at control had settled fell silent in an instant. Everyone, myself included, drew in breath and stared at the Sword Emperor as if admiring a statue.

“Have your bones set a little by now, boy?”

The Sword Emperor’s voice snapped me out of my daze.

“Yes, well… I’m all right now.”

“Then take up your sword.”

I thought to myself that, sparring or not, this was wrong. It wasn’t because I’d only recently been discharged. My condition, after getting proper rest, was perfect.

And yet perhaps due to the Blessing of the Sword God, my instincts were crying out for a match. Still, the thread of reason I was barely managing to hold onto rejected that impulse.

My opponent was Sword Emperor Siegfried von Nibelung.

If I crossed blades with him, there was no way it would end at something moderate. At the very least, one of us would lose a hand if lucky, or a head if not.

On top of that, far too many eyes were focused on me and the Sword Emperor. Just thinking about the butterfly effect that would follow if I accepted the duel was already enough to make my head throb.

Let’s make some excuse and refuse.

After reaching that conclusion, I bowed my head toward the Sword Emperor and spoke.

“I am not worthy to stand as the Sword Emperor’s opponent. Please lower your sword.”

A snicker mixed with ridicule flowed through the cadets. Comments like I knew it, or he chickened out hard.

People like them really did have it easy, tossing around any words they liked because it wasn’t their problem. To be honest, if I swung my arm once, most of them would be saying goodbye to their heads and torsos.

I shifted my eyes just a little and checked the Sword Emperor’s face. Thick veins had risen at his temples, and the yellow light in his eyes flashed viciously. His face was filled unmistakably with anger.

“How long do you think you can live while hiding your strength? You don’t possess even a hair’s worth of respect for your opponent as a swordsman. What does it matter if your talent is great, when you are such a cowardly small man?”

His voice wasn’t loud enough to reach the cadets’ ears. He continued without mercy.

“Do you not even have pride as a blade-wielder?”

At those words, my right cheek twitched. The Sword Emperor clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction.

‘Pride.’

It was a word I had always engraved in my heart ever since winning the title of the nation’s greatest blade-wielder. Those two syllables were the reason I had never let go of the sword.

In the atmosphere sharpening by the second, sweat poured from Instructor Lee Won-bin’s forehead like a waterfall.

He clearly wanted to stop this, but since the opponent was the Sword Emperor, he could do nothing and only stamped his feet helplessly.

By contrast, the Sword Emperor kept staring at me without the slightest sign of backing down. Of course, I understood that everything he’d just said was only provocation to test me.

He wanted to judge how skilled I was by seeing my reaction. If I carelessly fell for that provocation, it was obvious I’d regret it for a long time to come.

I spread my fingers and clenched them again. Blue veins stood out across the back of my tightened hand.

Everyone’s gaze was fixed on me. Faces brimming with anticipation.

They were hoping only that I would disgracefully run away. And then, something hot surged up from inside my chest.

My hand clung to my waist as if drawn there by a magnet. My fingers found the hilt, then pulled it free.

Srrng.

The moment I gripped the sashimi knife in silence, every gaze converged. Their eyes looked, without exaggeration, about twice as wide.

Lee Won-bin started to run toward us in a panic, but the Sword Emperor stopped him.

“It seems your resolve has been set.”

One corner of the Sword Emperor’s mouth lifted faintly.

As though he had been waiting for my decision, the Sword Emperor raised his sword. Only then did he speak in a clear voice, bright with satisfaction, and offer proper courtesy.

“Sword Emperor, Siegfried von Nibelung. I ask for a lesson.”

I swept one foot across the dirt and took my stance. Then, when I flicked only my wrist, the sheath slid along the blade and passed free.

[The Blessing of the Sword God manifests.]

“Cadet Kang Geom-ma. I will receive your instruction.”

* * *

It was pitch black.

Standing within that blackened background, as seen through superhuman concentration, were two men holding blades.

Step, step.

The one who moved first was Siegfried.

Light footsteps, as if going to greet an old friend. His left hand held the straight sword firmly and true.

Hot blood was flowing through the heart that had only grown colder as it entered the twilight of life. The moment swords met, age was nothing but empty formality.

At the sensation of being alive, the stiffness in his face loosened, and a smile emerged.

Siegfried traced back a memory from his youth. It was something that had happened when the old man was still a boy. He was already past seventy, yet that moment remained vivid.

Back when he trained with the sword every day in the hills, he had once happened across a wandering knight. The man had only one arm, and his clothes were shabby and miserable.

But the path of the sword that knight had shown by way of demonstration had reached ‘that realm.’

‘Enlightenment through the sword.’

Siegfried focused on his opponent.

The boy he had been keeping an eye on since the class assignment test.

His body was still unripe, like a sapling only just sprouting left, but experience lingered in his gaze.

For an instant, Kang Geom-ma and that one-armed wandering knight overlapped in his eyes. Perhaps this was the clue that would lead him to an even higher level. That was what Siegfried thought.

His chest burned hot. His blade was cold.

For a swordsman, that alone was enough. So long as there was healthy flesh and solid steel, nothing more was needed.

As he faced Kang Geom-ma, Siegfried set aside the title of Sword Emperor. He wanted to stand before that boy as one warrior to another.

Tatadak.

Siegfried’s footsteps were as lively as a boy’s. He slid over the ground and lunged forward. The straight sword flashed like lightning and targeted the sashimi knife.

Pik!

The clean blade cut through empty air. Siegfried did not flinch. Quickly moving his eyes, he found Kang Geom-ma, who had leapt high into the air.

A faint smile spread across his wrinkled lips. Had the boy failed to show even that much movement, Siegfried would only have been disappointed.

Shrrk!

The straight sword surged upward from below. The blade play of an old master that bordered on pure art. Kang Geom-ma did not dodge and instead received the old man’s assault head-on.

Kang! Kang!

The clashing metal spat out rough, dull notes.

His arms felt lighter than ever. The momentum of his sword swings was excellent.

Already, Siegfried had forgotten that this was merely a sparring match.

Invisible silver trajectories crossed back and forth. The two blades met and parted again and again.

When the old man attacked, the boy received it. When the boy attacked, the old man batted it away.

Siegfried answered Kang Geom-ma’s acrobatic movements with skill that was itself an art.

From an unexpected angle, the pointed sashimi knife flew at him like a swallow. A possessed sword path curving inward. Siegfried received it through experience engraved into every bone in his body.

Every time their attacks interlocked, sparks burst violently like flames.

Within Siegfried’s blade was molten the fully bloomed talent and the life an old master had devoted to the sword.

Within Kang Geom-ma’s blade dwelled a mystical quality that seemed to have cast off the limits of humanity.

Through their swords, the two men continued a cold conversation.

It was only an instant of exchange, and yet it felt as if time itself had been artificially stretched out.

Even within that stubbornly lengthened time, only the sashimi knives moved with an alien sense of speed.

Kang Geom-ma’s hands were visibly growing faster by the second.

Even within a moment not yet one full minute long, the boy was growing. Each time his sashimi knives traced an arc, a sharp sound rang out as if space itself were being sliced.

It was enough to make a hollow laugh escape. Instead of laughing, the old master swallowed his breath.

‘Magnificent.’

Sword Emperor Siegfried smiled broadly, baring his teeth like a child.

Humanity’s strongest warrior. A title that every man dreamed of standing at the peak of. He had seized that honor at a young age.

For a long time now, those capable of receiving Siegfried’s sword had been rare. And even those few had eventually ended up kneeling before him.

That had been the case until half a century ago.

In the battle to exterminate Basmon, the Sixth Legion Commander of the Demon King’s army, he had lost three of his six companions. The outcome had been victory, but not one valuable enough to erase the price paid in their lived.

Even though Basmon had been the weakest of the six legion commanders, he had been absurdly strong. The seven greatest human powers had clung to him and fought for a full week, day and night. Looking back on it now, it was almost a miracle they had won.

He was called humanity’s strongest, yet before the legion commanders of the Demon King’s army, he would likely seem like little more than an insignificant insect.

Demonoids were absolute strong beings, and humans were weak beings forced to yield before them. The world was just that unreasonable.

That was why, after that day, Siegfried continued to train while recalling the sword path of the wandering knight. He moved the shoulders burdened with the weight of humanity’s hope and swung his blade.

And at last, by the age of seventy, Siegfried had finally begun knocking on the door of enlightenment.

Krrrk.

Having widened the distance, Kang Geom-ma bent at the waist and pressed his upper body down. It was a posture that looked as if he were barely restraining the power that wanted to surge forward. Like the body language of a beast just before it leapt at its prey.

The light in his narrowed eyes had gone beyond mere color and become a full radiance. As if intending to decide everything in this single exchange, he rotated both sashimi knives and took them in reverse grip.

Siegfried laughed shortly. Answering in kind, he wrapped his hand firmly around the hilt.

And manifested his blessing.

The Blessing of the Sword Spirit.

A spirit-tier blessing that drew a swordsman’s talent to its limit through concentration so deep it far surpassed ordinary perception. Even in the seven-hundred-year history of House Nibelung, only a handful had ever mastered it properly, one of the clan’s greatest secret arts.

A pale blue light seeped in and coated the blade. Blue flames began to burn upward from the base of the hilt. Pulling up the corners of his wrinkled mouth, Siegfried shouted:

“Come, Kang Geom-ma!”

At that vigorous cry, Kang Geom-ma launched his body forward.

Paa-bat!