Chapter 206 : Chapter 206
Translator: AkazaTL
Pr/Ed: Sol IX
***
Chapter 206. A drift (3)
Sword Expert. If Tom had been a normal Sword Expert, he would have stayed calm even if not three but ten Divine Beasts had swarmed him. Holy beings born from the love of the Seven Lords, the Nine Goddesses, and the kings of the Spirit World. Beasts that evolved in a sacred direction different from the Beastkin. They were certainly powerful, but nowhere near the power of a Sword Expert. No—beyond “not enough,” they could not leave even a single scratch on a Sword Expert’s body.
“…….”
A Sword Expert’s Armor was not something those beasts’ claws or teeth could pierce. And the sea itself would not be a constraint to a true Sword Expert. Dragons, rulers of the sky, might be a bit troublesome—but in the end, a complete Sword Expert would still sever a dragon’s neck.
That was what a Sword Expert was.
“Master.”
But. Tom was not a complete Sword Expert.
“Swim the other way and escape.”
The old steward had once reached a realm close to the end of the sword. But the moment he climbed there, he realized—he would never reach the true end of the sword in his lifetime. He realized he could climb no further. That the Armor he forged could never be complete.
“This old man will buy time.”
The reason was simple. Tom knew himself very well.
Therefore— He knew all too well.
“If someone must live… shouldn’t the young friend be the one?”
He knew. He could never become the human the Armor desired.
***
I saw Tom. Barely floating above the sea, flailing to stay up, Tom painfully drew his sword. The wounds he received in the Southern Continent while fighting the Sword Expert had not yet healed. Worse, since he had fought battle after battle with a broken body, Tom’s body was now severely damaged.
I could say with certainty. If left like this, Tom would die here. My old friend would vanish. Like my kind neighbor who left before me.
“Dragon!”
A cracked, worn-out metallic voice.
The old man’s shout echoed across the sea.
The rapier he raised glimmered like a jewel.
“Ruler of the open sky—!”
Bathed in light, Tom struggled forward through the waves. A griffin swooped toward him. Behind the griffin surged blazing red feathers. A phoenix. The burning bird that could set cities ablaze flew in. Two Divine Beasts of legend sung by bards—fantastical creatures—yet the old man did not retreat before them. He simply thrust his sword.
【……!】
CRACK-BOOM!—a lightning-like slash tore through the air. Lightning drew across the sky, and the griffin’s body BOOMED apart. The lion-like torso and eagle’s head separated as red blood sprayed. Beyond the scattering droplets, the phoenix split apart and dispersed before reviving again in the distance. One Divine Beast died, and the other fled. It all happened in an instant.
【The Armored human.】
【A dangerous human was guarding the descendant of Steel.】
【……Why?】
Tom breathed with difficulty. Amid the rumbling thunder, a faint Armor coated his body. The Armor wrapping the old frame was unlike those I had seen before. The Armor of the dwarven great general Dwight had been like a fortress. The Armor of Edan Rhapsody, second son of House Rhapsody, had been like the sea—something nothing could cut. But Tom’s Armor?
‘…Half-finished.’
There were many gaps in Tom’s Armor. The Armor he wore left the chest exposed, the flanks open, and did not look solidly forged. It resembled something crafted by a novice blacksmith still clumsy at making anything. It did not look as though it could shield his body properly.
「A half-finished Armor has no meaning.」
“……”
「A loose Armor loses its hardness.」
Panting, Tom opened his mouth and roared. As the old man’s howl shook the sea, the kraken and phoenix—two Divine Beasts—flinched.
「That old man was never destined to wield the sword.」
While the Divine Beasts froze, an arrogant lifeform unfazed by Tom’s momentum slowly raised its head. As the ruler of the sky beat its wings, the sea began to churn.
“A human who cannot fly.”
The heaving seawater surged into a wave and crashed toward Tom. The moment it touched him, the wave froze solid. The Mystery of a spirit. Pure natural violence only a dragon, beloved by all elements, could wield. Yet Tom, swept into the wave, simply shook his body once, inhaled, and broke free from the freezing torrent. The mysterious power of a Sword Expert’s Armor—the impregnable authority that repelled all harm.
“How long will you struggle?”
But Tom’s Armor was incomplete. He shook off the ice, but not all of it. The parts the Armor could not protect froze solid. Beneath the tattered clothes flapping loosely, I could see wrinkled flesh turned dead-white.
“How dare you defy the sky?”
The dragon paid no heed to the Armor blooming from Tom. It simply unleashed natural violence again and again with frightening ease. Each beat of its wings turned the sea into a weapon. The infinite seawater boiled, froze, and boiled then froze again. Like a child picking up an ant to play with, the dragon revealed its unhidden arrogance. It was truly terrifying.
A boy playing with an ant can crush the ant whenever his mood sours. And from what I saw, the dragon’s relationship with us was no different from that between a boy and an ant. The moment the dragon lost interest, we would die. Whether it froze the entire sea, erased the oxygen that fueled our swords, or breathed a flame that burned everything—whatever “powerful” weapon the dragon chose to pull out would erase us from this world.
“……Dragons, you haven’t changed at all.”
Tom could not be unaware of that overwhelming gap. Yet the old man did not bow his head.
“I dislike you.”
Instead, with his face lifted high, he stared straight at the dragon in the sky. The old man’s cloudy eyes still gleamed. Those shining eyes held the arrogant pupils looking down on us—and they sparkled clearly. Truly, very clearly.
“I truly dislike all of you.”
Tom’s eyes held complicated emotions. I had sensed it before, but now I was certain—Tom had a bitter, tangled history with “Dragons.” I had no way to know his story, and it felt too heavy to ask. But one thing was clear: the emotion Tom held toward the dragon was anything but ordinary.
『That thing is a monstrous creature unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my whole life.』
Tom’s eyes blazed. Once again, the sword’s voice echoed.
『But I still have to kill it.』
The sword’s voice sounded like a boy at times, a young man at times. In certain moments, it felt like a middle-aged man’s voice—yet at the next moment, it sounded like all three ages fused together. Strangely, there was something familiar about it. As the voice kept circling through my mind, I soon realized why that familiarity struck me.
『Still, isn’t it fortunate?』
At the final moment, the voice of the sword became that of an old man.
“Still, isn’t it fortunate?”
And then— that exact same voice rang out in reality. At the same time.
『Better than struggling to kill the stars.』
“Better than struggling to kill the stars.”
The two voices overlapped.
Only then did I understand. The voice echoing from the sword had been Tom’s. More precisely, Tom’s voice from when he had been a young warrior, not an old steward. The voice of the boy he once was, the young man in his prime, and the middle-aged man who slowly aged. Listening to the voice resonating from the blade, I looked at Tom.
「This is remarkable.」
“……”
「A truly, truly rare phenomenon.」
Tom looked different to my eyes now.
「A soul that has chased one thing for its entire life.」
“……”
「And among those souls, only a very rare few show this sign.」
Tom and the sword looked like one.
It wasn’t Tom holding the sword, nor the sword holding Tom. No—neither needed to hold the other. Because the two were one.
「That old man’s soul already dwells within the sword.」
***
Tom thought. Hateful dragon, so you truly intend to end this old man’s life. Just as you ruined me when I was young and small, now you plan to take even my final moment as I wither away.
Tom thought again. Perhaps you even have the right. Was it not you who let the small, weak Tom—who should have disappeared—live this long? Was it not you who fanned a spark that should have died long ago into a blazing flame? Perhaps it would be a fitting death. Better than growing old and dying pitifully in the Hall of Honor where no one visits.
Or— being swallowed by the sea might be better still. No one would see the pitiful corpse of an old man who died, withered. A death un-witnessed would be romanticized. Hadn’t he seen it endlessly in the Arena? Death was not beautiful. A head cleanly chopped off, bulging eyes staring from a severed face, a tongue lolling out—none of it was beautiful……
“Come.”
At the very least, the dragon was far weaker than the enemies Tom had fought all his life.
Loneliness, disregard, distrust, suspicion, and time itself. Tom had fought against time and the world to grow this old. His youth was gone, his sharpness faded, his face wrinkled, his limbs thin, his back bent.
How long had he been fighting? No one believed him when he said swords had souls.
No one wanted to listen when he said blades held spirits, memories, will. No one acknowledged that an old piece of steel was a trace of long-gone glory, the clearest remnant of those who once lived.
No one wanted to know. So sometimes he would grab passersby and ramble in excitement.
They would give him a few polite reactions, then soon click their tongues, openly bored. Their gazes were sharper than any blade, piercing harder than arrows, burning more painfully than fire.
Worst of all was the blade within his own heart. Am I right? Are my choices, the path I walk—right? At the end of this path I walk, is what I believe in truly there? He had wrestled with these questions endlessly. Long years of solitude, an unprovable belief, doubts he could never shake. Having lived this far by falling and rising again, the old man would stand once more.
“Come on.”
Compared to time and the world, you are not frightening at all.
“I will face you again without running.”
And……
“Come to this old man—”
Light burst.
“-?!”
The explosion of light soon shaped itself into a human form. A man with a loyal, steadfast impression. A man who seemed like the very definition of a Knight transplanted into reality—upright, rigid, unbending. Tom froze for a moment at the suddenness of it all, and the man’s firm hand reached out to him.
“You are…….”
Feeling the hand reaching toward him, Tom opened his mouth without thinking. But he closed it before he could ask anything. Tom knew this knight. He had never seen him, never heard of him—yet he knew. Because Tom had seen this knight’s soul. To be exact……
“Ah.”
This knight’s sword.
“Ahh.”
Without resisting the knight’s touch, Tom stared blankly at the scattering light around them. The light erupting from Arhan soon became countless people. Tom had never seen them, but he knew them. Because he had seen their lives. Because he had seen their swords.
‘Young master.’
Once, the old man had heard a strange name—Karavan. It was a small boy who told him some of the story. Under the night sky, the small boy once danced a modest sword dance. Under the moonlight, the dancing boy became a gypsy, became an assassin, became a knight, became an Orc with wild instincts, became the Light that illuminated the world.
The old man now looked directly at the unfaded lives he had once glimpsed. A dream he chased his whole life, yet saw only fragments of. Now, that dream unfolded before him. Because of the boy who proved his belief.
‘As I said before, young master wouldn’t know.’
The vast sea. Two Divine Beasts. The dragon is still glaring this way. The souls of swords transcending eras. And a young man and an old man.
‘How grateful I am.’
A man too old to chase romance and dreams now stood at the twilight of his life, meeting the dream he had pursued all his life.
‘How fiercely you make this old man’s heart beat.’
Just moments ago, he thought he could die gladly. He thought this death would be better than dying old and forgotten.
‘How much you make me want to live.’
But not anymore.
‘Why do you give this old man dreams again, young master?’
I want to live more. Even a moment longer. I want to stay in this world a little more. I want to witness the world you will create. I want to be a small piece, a small ornament, in the dream you will show someday.
‘Why do you keep giving this old man desire…….’
There was a boy. There were pale clouds.
“Elder, I like twilight.”
There was a departing sword.
There were heroes dreamed of in fantasies.
“When day ends and night begins, the whole continent turns crimson. I find it beautiful. Like humans who try to leave a mark before their brilliant youth ends and dark death approaches.”
And then.
“Your twilight is not over.”
There was the old man and the sea.
“So dream. As much as you wish.”