Chapter 18
Chapter 18
I raised my trembling hand and barely pressed accept.
At that moment, along with the sound of a snapped string, Tyrfing’s voice that had been stirring up my mind vanished without a trace.
“Whew······.”
It felt as if the fog clogging my head had cleared.
I didn’t even have the strength to twitch a finger, and as I let out a hollow sigh, the old man raised his thick hand and gently stroked my head.
“You’ve suffered a great deal until now.”
It was a warm voice I had never heard before, except from Parsi.
No—she hadn’t been able to empathize with my sorrow and pain either. But that voice, sounding as though it knew everything, made something surge up inside me.
Still, being a thirty-year-old man, it wasn’t exactly fitting to show tears in front of someone else, so I clenched my teeth and gathered up the fragments of my emotions.
“…Who are you, old man?”
After barely swallowing back my tears, I asked him in a brusque voice.
Perhaps despite my desperate effort I couldn’t hide my emotions, because he patted my shoulder with a benevolent expression.
“I am Yohanel, the one called the Sword Saint of this era.”
Sword Saint Yohanel.
A figure often spoken of as the strongest in this setting smiled at me.
“······.”
A training hall occupied only by darkness.
In its center, I sat slumped on the floor, staring blankly.
It’s late, so I’ll come again tomorrow. In the meantime, get yourself together.
Even as the situation shifted rapidly, I didn’t have a shred of energy to move.
If this scene were written as part of a novel, there would surely be malicious comments saying the protagonist was being dragged around by his surroundings, unable to act on his own initiative.
“…Haha.”
Whether it was my innate nature as a writer, or just habits left over from editing, most of my thoughts kept drifting in that direction. Even I found it ridiculous.
“Ugh.”
I couldn’t stay sitting there forever, so I got to my feet.
My body wouldn’t cooperate and I staggered several times, but I grabbed the wall of the training hall and barely managed to stand upright, then slowly started moving.
The scene of what had just happened remained vividly in my eyes and mind, but I didn’t have the composure to understand it.
All I wanted was to lie down on a soft bed, think of nothing, and fall asleep.
I walked down the quiet corridor and arrived at my room, the only place with a light still on.
When I opened the door and stepped inside, Parsi—who had been pacing back and forth in confusion—looked up at me with tearful eyes.
“Y-Your Highness. The book that was on the table suddenly tore itself apart.”
“What?”
At her words, I turned my gaze and saw that the old book Tyrfing had taken the form of was roughly shredded, as if a wild beast had raked its claws through it.
It still retained enough shape to be recognizable as a book, but it looked like it would rip straight through with just a little force.
‘Ah, I don’t know anymore.’
As soon as the bed came into view, nothing else mattered—not the book, not anything.
Telling Parsi it was fine and that she should go back and rest, I threw myself onto the bed.
As I buried my face in the soft pillow, she carefully pulled the blanket over me.
Soon after, the light went out, and she left my room with quiet footsteps.
Chirp, chirp, chirp.
How long had I been lying there?
By the time I came to my senses, dawn had already broken.
At the sound of a small bird chirping from a snow-covered branch outside the window, I lifted my head.
“Whew······.”
I didn’t know whether I had passed out or slept, but as if yesterday’s exhaustion had been a lie, my body was filled with strength.
Even so, a hollow sensation, as though something had been punched out of my chest, still lingered. I sat up on the bed, perched on one side, and retraced what had happened yesterday.
“Status window.”
[Status Window]
Name- Leios von Ribera
Race- Human
Religion- None
Titles
Third Imperial Prince of the Ribera Empire
Cursed Bastard
Child of a Prostitute
Martial Arts
Sword Expert (Highest / Deactivated)
Flower of Battle (Fiore di Battaglia)
Class 4 (Master / Deactivated)
Skills
Eye of Truth (A / Deactivated)
Super Recovery (A / Deactivated)
*You are afflicted with the Curse of the Veil.
Right, the Fiore Style.
While I was training it, the question of whether to activate the Fiore Style had suddenly appeared.
I accepted it just in case, but I never dreamed that it would become the root cause of everything.
When I placed the tip of my sword along the trajectory that appeared before my eyes, my body moved on its own along that flow, as if someone else were controlling it.
I slowly memorized that flow.
I tried to remember the sword being swung in beautiful curves without a hair’s breadth of disorder, as though displayed by a master who had reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship, and I focused on watching without even blinking.
But at some point, the momentum reversed.
What had been nothing more than simple swordsmanship began to shake my mind.
The boundary between the sword and myself grew hazy, and alien sensations enveloped my entire body.
If no one had stopped it then—
“······.”
A chill ran through me, and I reflexively rubbed my neck.
Shaking my head to chase away the feeling, I recalled the old man I had met last night.
Sword Saint Yohanel.
He was a figure always mentioned when one spoke of the strongest in this world.
Though his appearances weren’t especially frequent, he left a powerful impression with the episode that marked his end.
SSS-Rank Otherworld Absolute was composed of three parts.
Part One, which focused on the protagonist’s growth.
Part Two, where nations that had risen against the empire formed an alliance and the continent fell into war.
And Part Three, where the demon world invaded.
Sword Saint Yohanel appeared at the end of Part Two and the beginning of Part Three—the one who connected the two.
While the empire was locked in a bloody struggle against the alliance of kingdoms, he alone noticed the anomaly befalling the world.
Warping space, the shattering of a great covenant between exalted beings, and the demon world invading the material realm.
The place where that gateway opened was the empire’s border.
In the midst of the war against the alliance of kingdoms, the empire had no leeway to concern itself with that.
And so the Sword Saint went there alone, perishing together with the demon army and saving countless lives.
Leios looked upon that Sword Saint and sighed.
The Sword Saint was a hypocrite.
A hypocrite who threw away his life for his own sense of justice—what hypocrisy could be greater than that?
It was a statement riddled with contradictions, but I too thought there was no better way to describe the Sword Saint.
My favorite character was Leios von Ribera, but if I had to choose the single most iconic scene, it was the moment Yohanel stood alone against the demon grand duke and its army.
He sent all soldiers and people away behind him, and with a single sword in hand, walked toward that dark tide.
He swung and cut, thrust, and shattered.
Until my breath ran out.
Until my fate came to a halt.
Until my sword was stopped.
And he was victorious.
The Sword Saint, who single-handedly annihilated an army numbering in the tens of thousands, met mutual destruction with the demon grand duke at the very end.
After saving countless cities and tens, hundreds of millions of people, his sword finally broke.
When that fact became known, a wave of mourning spread regardless of nation or religion.
The ‘Church’ of the Holy Kingdom honored the Sword Saint’s sacrifice by venerating him as a saint of the era, recovering his remains and enshrining them to the right of the Holy Son.
The empire was able to halt its war with the alliance of kingdoms and prepare to face the demon world.
Honestly, when I read that scene, I cried my eyes out. Everyone has experiences like that, don’t they.
The Sword Saint’s calm monologue as he stood on a path from which he could not retreat, and his dignified resolve that did not waver even though he sensed his own end—it truly moved the hearts of many.
“Ah, I’m about to cry again.”
But there was something strange.
The Sword Saint didn’t truly step into the spotlight until after the Academy arc ended.
Before that, his role wasn’t that significant, so why had he appeared before me?
“…I’m the one who wants to cry.”
“What?”
At the sudden voice, I lifted my head, and a familiar figure greeted me.
“…Tyrfing?”
Sitting atop the table was none other than Tyrfing. However, her state was utterly horrific.
“Just what in the world······.”
Blood flowed from the countless gashes covering her entire body.
The largest among them were one passing across her left eye and another carved into her right side.
Cough.
She spat out blood.
It dispersed into the air without staining the floor, but perhaps it was my imagination—the metallic scent of blood seemed to sting my nose.
“That old geezer yesterday.”
She spoke while twisting her face, as if the wounds were painful.
“That old geezer did this to me.”
“What?”
Tyrfing was connected to me, residing deep within my consciousness. So how could someone have injured her?
“He must’ve mistaken the reason you went berserk yesterday for me. That damnable old man. Next time I see him, I’ll tear him to pieces.”
“······.”
At her words, I closed my mouth.
That sudden rampage—there had to be a clear reason for it.
And right now, the most likely culprit was Tyrfing. No, to be blunt, she was the only one.
“Hah, are you doubting me too? I did try to take over your body, but I don’t want that kind of forced awakening. That was the result of something that happened inside you—it was never my fault.”
Saying that she had tried several times to stop me, Tyrfing wore an aggrieved expression.
I wondered if she was lying, but among the many status window alerts that had appeared last night on one side of my vision were also mixed in her desperate warnings.
“If it weren’t for that old man, you wouldn’t have seen this morning. Still, I can’t forgive him. After all the trouble it took to recover, he turned me back into this state again.”
She grumbled that the Sword Saint had probably reacted to the demonic energy she possessed.
“You reside inside my consciousness—how was that even possible?”
“That old man is a monster. A swordsman who has reached the extreme can cut anything. Even things that can’t be seen. Even the mind.”
In other words, the realm of the mind sword.
I had seen it a few times in martial arts novels.
The ultimate swordsmanship that cuts down the opponent with the sheer intent to cut.
As far as I knew, it was a realm beyond even flying sword techniques—so the Sword Saint had reached such a level?
‘…Well, that’s probably how he could perish together with the demon army.’
“I’m going to enter dormancy for a while. In this state, I can’t do anything.”
“When will you wake up again?”
“Well, last time it took a little over a hundred years, so this time it’ll probably be similar?”
A hundred years?
It was an absurdly long time.
Without her, that meant the two awakenings that would occur in future crisis situations would go down the drain. If I failed to awaken, I absolutely wouldn’t survive the latter half.
“…There is a way to restore me.”
She began hesitantly, her face filled with indecision.
“Tell me.”
If it was like those heroic spirits from some anime, directly linking with their master to supply magical power, I was always ready.
“Find a dwarf named Diren who created me.”
“Diren?”
“Hundreds of years have probably passed, so he himself is already long dead. But among dwarf craftsmen, names are passed down through descendants. If it’s a descendant of Diren, there should definitely be a way to fix me.”
After saying that was the only way she could recover, she closed her eyes.
I wanted to say something more, but when I saw her hands and the tips of her feet crumble into powder and scatter away, I shut my mouth.
Shortly after, her entire form faded into the air, leaving behind only a single shabby iron sword lying there all alone.
I could feel neither the dignity befitting a demon-slaying magic sword, nor the power that could cut through anything.
“Tyrfing?”
I cautiously approached and tried to draw the sword, but perhaps because the blade was rusted, it was unbearably stiff.
When I somehow forced it out, a lump of metal too embarrassing to even call a sword greeted me.
“······.”
Looking at it, I couldn’t help but feel a strange emotion.
She had been desperate to devour me, yet when I was truly in danger, she didn’t hesitate to put herself on the line to block it for me.
Even though that had resulted in her taking deep wounds from the Sword Saint.
I was someone whose creed was to repay kindness twice over, and enmity tenfold. I had already received no small amount of grace from her. So repaying it was only right.
Knock, knock.
At that moment, I heard a light knock at the door. I returned the sword I was holding to its scabbard, hid it on one side of the bed, and then opened the door.
“Good morning.”
Wrinkles were deeply etched into his face and white hair flowed down, but his gaze alone was vigorous beyond measure.
As I stepped aside, the Sword Saint entered with a word of excuse.
“Are you feeling any better?”
He came carrying a bundle in his hand. Wondering what it was, I looked at it, and with a gentle smile he spread its contents out on the table.
“Potions?”
“After causing such a commotion yesterday, there’s no way your body could be fine. These are elixirs that restore depleted vitality.”
…Ah, I had another creed.
I don’t refuse kindness that comes my way.
Rejecting someone’s goodwill isn’t the right thing to do.