WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Ryuu

Editor: Ilafy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 173

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About the First Horn (1)

The Empire’s First Pillar, Gerd Isabalt, an Imperial Sword Master. Records were lost to the flames set by rebel forces during the Dawn War, making it impossible to pinpoint his birth.

Estimates place him between a hundred eighty and two hundred ten years old, yet that very guess only created more confusion among Imperial chroniclers. Wasn’t it a rule of nature that, once a person reached 150, their body wore out, compelling them to leave for the Outland? Of course, there had been a few who defied that rule, but each was exceptional.

Yuel avoided the erosion of her soul by simplifying herself, erasing her own memories and emotions, reducing herself to a clear, straightforward principle of action. In so doing, she eluded the wear and tear of age.

The Lighthouse Keeper of the Starlight Order remained immovable. For long durations, he did not stir. By remaining outside the flow of time and subsisting on the faith his followers offered him, he endured.

What of Gerd Isabalt? The two other examples were virtually no longer human, their special circumstances make them poor comparisons. Meanwhile, Gerd remained human to the core—different from the other two.

What allowed him to last so long? Speculations abound, but only speculation. Countless scholars argued his aging might be connected, but that’s all it was—guesses, none of which could definitively explain him.

For nearly two centuries, or perhaps more, he served in the Empire. Though he attained Sword Mastery at an uncommonly late age, especially considering the exploits he’d shown as a Sword Seeker, after reaching the Transcendent realm, he never regained youth.

Suspicious indeed, but the value he pursued, ever since he first picked up a sword, had never once changed. Born in an age of chaos overrun by rebels, his childhood shaped by turmoil, he always remained loyal to a single cause.

“For the Empire.” The Empire’s First Horn, the Empire’s First Pillar. True to that title, Gerd protected the Empire. “The leader of the rebels is dead. They’ve lost their command and will soon scatter. Honestly, I’d prefer to sweep them all away myself, but I have no time.”

“That being the case, you take care of them.”

“It’s your turn now.”

No one truly knew that what Gerd sought to protect was not the Empire itself.

“Protect the Empire I’ve guarded.”

When Gerd said, “Empire,” he did not mean the Empire in simple, literal terms. In his Empire, a single line was always silently appended: “The Empire that he protected.”

Gerd was simply keeping a promise that he had not forgotten and that he would never allow himself to forget.

The tower belonging to Gerd Isabalt, the Empire’s First Pillar, stood silent.

Take Cipria Gachevskaya, the Empire’s Fourth Pillar—her Eternal Radiance Tower brimmed with subordinate mages; the other towers were hardly different. Each of the Empire’s Five Pillars wielded so much authority that not even the Emperor could easily cross them.

Power like that naturally attracted followers, noise and bustle inevitably followed.

Still, Gerd’s tower remained quiet. A place so barren that Najin thought it desolate. Climbing toward the tower’s uppermost floor, he felt that stillness—so utterly silent it was as though only Gerd himself lived there.

‘Gerd… The old Sword Master.’

Najin thought back on him. Information on the man could be easily found in any Imperial history text. After all, he had lived nearly two hundred years as a soldier and knight of the Empire.

Wherever great events arose, Gerd’s name was present. He suppressed Dark Mage Kefalon, defeated a Fallen Star that trespassed past the Outland’s borders, put down an uprising of dark mages, and took part in the Dawn War. His life was, in itself, the Empire’s history.

Tap.

At last, Najin arrived at the top of the tower. Beneath a vast sky for a ceiling, there stretched a wide grassy plain. Though it was his first time actually setting foot there, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

Long ago, when he was set to spar with Gerd, he had glimpsed a similar pasture.

Rustle.

Najin trod upon the grass as he moved forward.

“You’ve come.” An old man stood in the center of that field. He turned from gazing down at the Empire. His eyes were dry, stripped of obvious emotion. Though reminiscent of Yuel’s empty gaze, there was one fundamental difference: if Yuel’s eyes were blank from having purged all emotion, Gerd’s were those of a desert, parched from time and attrition.

His was a gaze worn down to dullness, yet when he looked at Najin, a spark of interest surfaced. His expression relaxed, if only slightly. “They say you’ve thrown the Empire into a stir with all your talk. The youngest ever Sword Seeker, and at that age, you already bear four stars. Quite a commotion you’ve caused.”

“It wasn’t my intention, but so it goes.”

“True feats seldom come from declaring, ‘I’m going to make a name for myself!’ They’re simply the result of living consistently until glory finds you.”

A rock lay perched amid the grass. Gerd, sitting on it, gestured at the stone beside him, the universal signal for “sit here.” Side by side, two flat-topped boulders.

Najin eyed them and felt a curious sense of familiarity. It felt like a campfire would fit perfectly between them.

The moment Najin sat, Gerd asked, “So, why have you come? You hold the right to ask anything of me. You earned that privilege on the day of our duel. Let me guess, you’ve arrived to exercise that right? Am I correct?”

“Depending on how our conversation goes, I may use that right, but it’s not what brought me here.”

“Ho…” Gerd narrowed his eyes. “You came to talk? You have something to say to me?”

“Yes.”

“The Empire’s First Pillar has precious little time. A private audience with me is even rarer still, though perhaps less rare than your victory. Either way, it’s not to be taken lightly.” Gerd motioned with his chin. “Speak. If what you have to say proves unworthy of my time, I’ll consider your request for an audience paid in full by the interest and goodwill I held for you.”

It didn’t seem like he expected much. He was a relic who had reigned atop the Empire for over a century, and he had experienced many things. Nothing anyone said was likely to surprise him anymore.

Those parched eyes. A dried-up man… He made a poor conversation partner, ready to respond to anything with a simple nod of “Hmm.”

Najin knew precisely the topic that would capture his full attention in a single stroke. “The Empire’s strongest warrior. The First Pillar. I’ve come to speak with you about the ‘First Horn.’”

“The First Horn?” Gerd’s eyes narrowed, sounding out his opponent’s words, trying to grasp their intent. “You mean me? You’ve come to discuss the Empire’s First Pillar?”

“No. Not the Pillar.”

A slight spark, like water in a dry desert. Even eliciting that minimal interest from Gerd was an achievement any Imperial diplomat would envy.

Najin had no intention of stopping at a mere spark. “I’ve come to talk about the Empire’s First Horn in its original sense. About the previous First Horn of the Empire—Aldaran Vasaglia. There’s something about him I need to discuss with you.”

The moment Najin let Aldaran’s name cross his lips—

Swish.

He felt as if, in the next instant, his head would tumble from his neck. In the past, such a sudden flash of danger would have forced him into a clumsy retreat, blade drawn, but the Najin of the present did not so much as flinch. He knew it was only a fleeting phantom.

The pressure Gerd radiated was so severe it forced Najin to envision that grim possibility, yet he calmly met Gerd’s narrowed eyes.

Gerd spoke, his voice as keen as the sword at his hip. “Consider this your only warning. If you speak that name for some trivial reason—to show off; to toy with me—then you’ll need that right you earned to keep your life.”

Aldaran Vasaglia, the former First Horn of the Empire… Thanks to Gerd’s personal efforts to record his deeds, many people knew the name. Over the years, not a few fools had attempted to win Gerd’s favor by carelessly invoking it.

No need to say what became of those fools. To Gerd, Aldaran Vasaglia was both sacred ground and his deepest vulnerability—a realm no outsider had any business profaning.

“Choose your words carefully before you speak.”

Even as Gerd issued that threat, Najin remained silent. He did not open his mouth at all. Instead, he stood.

From his belt, he drew a sword.

Gerd’s eyes narrowed further.

Najin was not pointing the blade at him but at empty space. Unsure what the young man intended, Gerd watched in puzzlement.

Then, the young man began to wield his sword. Step by step, sinking power into each footfall, he demonstrated the sword art he knew best.

Whish.

He was no diplomat or politician. He had no gift for persuading people with words alone. Najin was a swordsman, first and always.

Who else could speak through the blade, as a silver-tongued orator does with his words, as a novelist tugs at the heart with lines of text, or as a chronicler records history with a brush? A swordsman showed his truth with steel.

The sword style Najin employed was Imperial Swordsmanship, a perfectly textbook form of the Empire’s standard sword art. Any knight or swordsman in the Empire would recognize it as “Imperial Swordsmanship.”

There was exactly one man in all the Empire who would see the subtle difference in Najin’s blade. He alone would notice the raw, primal sharpness absent from standard Imperial Swordsmanship; the gap between it and what Najin was displaying.

Gerd’s narrowed eyes widened little by little. He was the only one alive who remembered that sword art, the ancient foundation of Imperial Swordsmanship. He had modified and refined it into the Empire’s modern style, determined that such a beautiful technique must never be lost.

A sword art lost 150 years prior… Gerd had only partly reconstructed it from memory: the sword technique of the previous First Horn of the Empire, the Triumph Sword.

There it was, resurrected at the tip of a young man’s blade. Gerd’s eyes grew wide. Where, before, he had only dryness, emotion came flooding in, like a desert rainfall. A heart that had gone quiet for a century thundered once more.

Then, thud!

Najin slammed his foot onto the ground. Steadying himself, he raised his sword high. In that instant, Gerd reflexively stood. Before his very eyes, a memory he kept locked in his innermost heart was unfolding anew…

The First Horn… Najin had promised just moments before that he was there to discuss the First Horn.

He had not lied. He showed Gerd evidence of the First Horn, right before his eyes. Surely. Gerd would recognize it, and surely, he would know what was coming next.

Indeed, Gerd stood, discarding all composure, eyes opened wide. The dryness was gone—he was staring with full attention.

Najin did not disappoint and brought his sword crashing down. He did not channel Sword Aura or push his body to its limits. Beyond the common-sense reason that unleashing such force in the heart of the Empire’s capital would be disastrous, there was also the simple fact that his physical condition wasn’t sufficient for the full manifestation of the Triumph Sword.

Still, in form, it was perfect.

Crrrk.

A single blade stroke scored the grassy field on the top floor of the Empire’s First Horn’s tower.

By law, defacing the tower of an Imperial Pillar was a monumental crime, punishable by death on the spot, but the one person who could enforce that law, the Empire’s First Horn, said nothing.

He merely gazed upon the mark Najin had carved and then turned his gaze on the young man.

Najin’s shoulder throbbed from the strain of conjuring even the outline of that technique. He gripped his healing wounds and met Gerd’s stare, smiling faintly.

“Didn’t I say so?”

Gerd’s eyes trembled. For over a hundred years, nothing had shaken him. No matter what calamities he had faced, he had remained unmoved. Finally, the Empire’s first pillar was clearly and visibly shaken.

“I came to speak with you about the First Horn.”