WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

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Chapter 77: I Proved It

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Ultimate Divine Sword was not a sword art that pursued fair and honorable combat. It was closer to a killing art that pursued extreme practicality.

Its foundation was speed.

Just like mine.

"Extreme Sword."

The first form of Ultimate Divine Sword.

A basic technique that united mind and body, condensing all of one's strength in an instant before unleashing it in a simple slash.

A killing blade tempered by regret carved a single line through the darkness.

Clang!

A heavy impact ran through the arm that had received the blow.

This was the third time I had crossed swords with Aren.

The first had been during the entrance exam.

Instant Kill had triggered because of the gap between our Shards.

The second had been on the first day of school.

Our two-on-two spar had fizzled out after our weapons broke.

And now.

Red-black energy rippled across Savior's blade.

It was an offense-focused setup that had gone all-in on at least Tier 3 Red and Black Shards.

Clang! Clang, clang!

Steel rang out as our swords collided.

Aren's voice overlapped the sound.

"Wouldn't it have been better to dodge?"

"Tell me about it."

I'd considered dodging.

With my Fluidity stat, I had more than enough room to avoid it.

But humans were creatures of habit.

I'd spent too long immersed in turn-based combat, and the very concept of dodging had long since vanished from my mind.

This world had gaslit me into believing it was more effective to take the hit and counterattack than to dodge and readjust my stance.

I knocked her sword aside and stepped back.

My arm tingled after barely blocking a single strike.

But Aren gave me no time to catch my breath.

She closed the distance again and swung her sword straight at me.

Second Form, No-Self.

Slashes with unpredictable trajectories surged in from every direction, becoming several afterimages.

'So this is Aren's Ultimate Divine Sword.'

There had often been events in the original game where you fought users of Ultimate Divine Sword.

One of the Bishops used it, and there were also events where you fought the knight commander or Master Jin.

But there had never been an event where you fought the protagonist.

Clang! Clang, clang, clang!

Even when I blocked one slash, the next slipped through the openings between them.

The more attacks I blocked, the more the shock building in my arms intensified.

'Dodge!'

I knew that rationally.

At this rate, my arms would break first.

But my instincts commanded something else.

'I have to take it.'

Everything Aren had.

I was the one who told her to prove herself.

She was trying to prove herself to me, so I had to prove the path I had walked as well.

The first thing I tried in Halibal Dungeon had been facing Varhatan's spinning strike head-on.

I couldn't use Just Guard against Varhatan.

What about now?

After dozens, even hundreds, of attempts, I had managed to block all five of Varhatan's spinning strikes with Just Guard.

Whoosh! Clang!

Drawing on that memory, I twisted at the waist and deliberately left an opening.

I set a trap.

Aren's slash slithered into the gap like a snake, as if it had been waiting for that exact moment.

I could clearly see the tip of the slash.

'Now!'

Clang!

A sharp crack rang out, and an ashen flash burst from the point where our swords met.

Just Guard.

Once the leading slash shattered, every afterimage behind it lost its force and scattered into the air.

"...How?"

Aren was flustered.

Now it was my turn.

Creak.

I compressed all the strength in my body into my thigh like a spring.

Chrono Dive.

Boom!

I kicked off the ground and charged toward Aren.

Gale’s Path.

Aren crossed her arms to block or deflect the whirling slashes.

"...Urgh!"

A groan escaped her lips.

But her confusion didn't last long.

She drew her right foot back and lowered her stance.

At some point, her sword had returned to its scabbard.

"You're strong after all. But I can't back down here. Never."

The sword within the scabbard roared violently, as though it would burst free at any moment.

"I'll show you. The sword I forged by staking everything I have."

Hummm!

The third form of Ultimate Divine Sword, and its only draw technique.

As far as I knew, it was the strongest Art Aren could use at this point.

"Deathblow."

Whoosh!

A single pure white line cut through the darkness.

With a chilling sensation as though the entire space had been split in two, everything along that line was sliced in half at once.

'...Insane.'

An involuntary gasp of admiration rose within me.

A perfect stance without a single wasted movement.

A strike that might have been even cleaner than the original Aren's.

In the original game, Deathblow had been an Art of limited use.

It was a charged technique, so it was difficult to use in boss fights. No-Self, the second form, was more efficient for clearing mobs, while Heavenbreaker, the fourth form, was better against bosses.

But now that I had both a player's eyes and a swordsman's eyes, I could see it.

Deathblow was the only technique among the Ultimate Divine Sword forms created without consideration for gender.

And the Aren before me had honed this one Deathblow to its absolute limit.

At the same time, I realized something.

This was a shackle.

A curse that made her desperately struggle to force herself into the prophecy, even while knowing she wasn't the Child of Prophecy.

I still didn't know why Aren was a woman, or why the prophecy had not changed despite that.

But her perfect Deathblow looked like a rope binding her entire life.

"This is the end, Halibal Velder."

A single sword line containing a lifetime of effort, the desperation to live up to expectations, and the sorrow of being denied.

The moment I witnessed it, a sensation I had never experienced before pierced my mind.

⁎⁎⁎

I saw a dust-covered storage shed.

Its door was securely bolted shut, showing no sign of opening no matter how hard I pulled.

I'd vaguely thought it might open if I entered a dungeon with Mine or Alicia.

Apparently not.

Crash!!

When Aren's Deathblow shattered the shed, a girl with a short black bob was crouched inside.

Her hands were covered in calluses.

Her skin was crusted with dried blood.

Even so, she was swinging her sword with trembling hands.

The girl's eyes overlapped with Aren's.

This girl must have been the shackle binding Aren.

I slowly held out my hand toward the crouching girl.

Only then did a faint light return to her empty eyes.

The moment her hand cautiously took mine.

[New Arts are unlocked as you grow.]

When I came to my senses, Deathblow was still flying toward me.

In that time that had felt like eternity, my body moved on its own.

I sheathed the sword I was holding.

Click.

I stepped back with my left foot and lowered my stance.

My right hand lightly brushed the hilt.

Carving Sword, Ashen Light, Gale’s Path.

All the Arts I had created so far were little more than improvisations, inspired by and mixed together from other people's swordsmanship.

This time was different.

Aren's stance was so perfect that I could clearly see the principles of swordsmanship contained within it.

The Deathblow I had used countless times in the original game overlapped with the Deathblow she had unleashed with everything she had.

And a new sword was born.

"Ultimate Divine Sword: Variant."

"You... Don't tell me...?"

If the protagonist was bound by something and couldn't move forward, then I had to overturn it.

Whether it was the prophecy, the protagonist herself, or anything else.

"Deathblow: Reversal."

The sword inside the scabbard let out a cry.

Whoosh!

At the same moment Aren's sword drew a white line, my sword was drawn as it traced an ashen one.

The two sword lines met at a single point.

Then they wound around each other like snakes before evaporating into thin air without a trace.

Only emptiness remained on Aren's face after she poured everything into that attack.

Was it the backlash from awakening a new Art?

My mental strength had been drained so severely that I could barely stand without leaning against my scabbard.

Still, I had something to do.

I walked toward Aren, who stood there blankly frozen.

That face.

She clearly hadn't come to her senses yet.

Her expression was stiff like a broken robot.

Usually, things like that start working when you hit them.

I clenched my right hand into a fist.

My eyes were fixed on Aren's face.

'Would this make three times?'

Just as I raised my fist toward her.

"...ful."

"What?"

"...You're awful."

Huh?

"You're awful, you're awful, you're awful, you're awful, you're awful, you're awful...!!"

"...Wait."

"Why? Why...! Do you know how hard I've worked?!"

All the tension drained out of me.

With those words, Aren burst into loud tears and buried her face in my chest.

"I... I gave up everything! I gave up living as a woman and swung a sword until my hands bled...! I believed only one thing, that I had to become the Child of Prophecy...!"

Thump. Thump. Thump.

She repeatedly struck my chest with her small fists.

It didn't hurt.

"But what are you? Why can you so easily do what took me my entire life to learn?! This is so unfair...!!"

"Hey..."

"If you're a man and you even take Ultimate Divine Sword from me... You're awful, you're awful, you're awful, you're awful, you're awful, you're awful...!!"

Aren went berserk.

In a somewhat different sense, she was pouring out all the resentment she had built up over her life.

The area around my shoulder grew damp with tears, snot, and saliva.

Ah, I'd only washed these clothes yesterday.

This was awkward.

I knew how to kill the Evil God, but I had no idea how to comfort the gender-swapped original protagonist while she was bawling.

Hmm.

"Waaahhh...!!"

I reached out and gently patted Aren's back.

"Waaaaahhh...!!"

Ah, that wasn't it.

Seeing her cry so sorrowfully made the thought of physical therapy disappear from my mind.

"H-Hold on. Stop for now."

"Hic..."

Her face was a complete mess, covered in tears and snot.

After a long while, she finally calmed down and went limp.

I handed her the water I'd brought.

"Actually... I've been jealous of you ever since I lost to you in the entrance exam. Even more so because you'd already cleared the Beast Dungeon by then."

"There were plenty of students like that besides you. It wasn't anything special."

"I wasn't like the other students. But I was fine until then. I was still the one who fit the prophecy's conditions best in the world."

Aren let out a weak laugh.

"But after you cleared the Doll Dungeon... I became impatient. Anyone could see you were getting ahead."

"It was only temporary. I got lucky too. There's no guarantee it'll stay that way."

She raised her head and looked up at the sky.

"Then we ended up in the same dormitory."

"...Sorry about that."

"Every day I saw you, I felt so twisted up inside that I thought I'd die. I tried not to show it."

Was that so?

I hadn't noticed at all.

If anything, I probably would have liked Aren taking care of everything for me.

"...But now even our qualifications are similar."

"What I used wasn't Ultimate Divine Sword."

"If the other senior disciples saw it, they'd all call it Ultimate Divine Sword."

"I didn't learn it properly, so I'm not a disciple."

"Who knows? That depends on Master's judgment."

'The heart of the prophecy is the Celestial Extremity God.'

Ultimate Divine Sword could simply be taught, but the Celestial Extremity God still dwelled within Aren's body.

So even with the variable of her being a woman, I still thought she was the Child of Prophecy.

If she wasn't...

"Could the prophecy itself be wrong?"

"That would mean Master was wrong. Master saw the principles of the world through the sword. That can't be true."

Her voice held absolute faith in her teacher.

I decided not to argue against that faith any further.

"What should I do now?"

"You should go apologize to Cecilia."

"I guess I should, right?"

"Yeah. Apologize sincerely. Leave out all the excuses and reasons, and just say you're sorry."

"But you know."

Aren turned to me.

"She hates me. Even before this incident, she's picked fights with me more than once."

"She has a strong personality."

"It's because of you. You live in my dormitory. I didn't know why she was so hostile to me before, but if she knew I was a woman... I finally understand."

She soon let out a deep sigh.

"Honestly, living with you has more downsides than benefits."

"Like what?"

"...Are you asking because you really don't know? You walk around the room naked all the time."

"Not completely naked. I wear pants."

"And when you come back after training, you smell horrible from all that sweat. For example..."

Aren suddenly buried her nose in my chest and inhaled.

Her hot breath brushed against my skin.

"...This smell."

"...If you know, why are you smelling me?"

"I'm telling you to be more aware of it."

After saying that, Aren fell silent for a while.

She simply rested her head against my chest.

Only after some time did she mutter, sounding somewhat relieved.

"In the end... I guess I failed to prove myself."

"No."

"What?"

"If your swordsmanship hadn't been perfect from the start, I wouldn't have been able to imitate it."

"...Do you really think so?"

She lifted her head.

Her eyes were already brimming with tears again.

How had someone who cried this easily managed to hide it so well?

"Yeah."

When I took Aren's hand, a faint hope appeared in her tear-soaked eyes.

She quietly entrusted herself to my touch.

Her hand was far from soft.

Like mine, it was studded with hard calluses like nails.

I took out what I had originally intended to give her and placed it on her palm.

[Abyss Core - Sun Shine].

In the original game, Aren wore this to overcome every crisis and eventually defeat the Evil God.

I had cleared that game over and over.

So I knew.

Even if her appearance had changed, even if her gender had changed, I knew better than anyone that Aren Bright had proven herself again and again.

"You proved yourself a long time ago."

The girl put down the sword she had been holding.

Footnotes:

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