WeTried Translations

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ I Pulled Out Excalibur

Chapter 447

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Special Instructor (6)

"What are you doing?"

"Can't you tell? I'm closing the distance between myself and the sword. I can't close the psychological distance right away, so I should at least close the physical distance first."

"Even so, who slices open their own palm?"

"Someone right here."

Najin let out a hollow laugh watching Karon slash his own palm without a second thought. Eccentric behavior, literally eccentric. And yet, absurd as it was, it wasn't entirely wrong.

'He probably figured it out.'

The source of the gap between them. He had noticed it. Najin thought of the sword as an extension of his own body, but for Karon the sword was, at the end of the day, a sharpened piece of steel.

Karon swings his hand and swings the sword.

Najin swings his hand.

That was the difference between them. One step in the process was missing. A difference in speed was inevitable, and the naturalness of the movement went without saying. The rate at which understanding and proficiency built up, too, was overwhelmingly faster on Najin's side.

'Unity of Body and Sword.'

The state of making no distinction between oneself and the sword, treating the two as one. Looking at the state Najin had reached, Karon burst out laughing.

"So it actually exists, that?"

A state only a handful throughout history had ever achieved. Information about Unity of Body and Sword was vanishingly rare because of it. Even Karon, the Sword Saint, had encountered it only in records and tilted his head wondering, "Is this even possible?"

A state as fantastical as the Heart Sword, the Sword Order's greatest treasure.

Yet someone standing in that state was right in front of him. You find out whether you like it or not when blades meet. He had felt the actual gap firsthand.

"How did you get there?"

"Well. It feels strange to say this right after pointing it out, but I did something similar."

"Similar how?"

Najin pointed at Karon's hand.

"You gripped the sword until your palm tore open, held on until the skin melted and fused to the hilt, even reset broken knuckles to fit the shape of the grip?"

"Huh."

"After going through all that."

Najin spun the sword once in a slow circle and smiled.

"I started to get a feel for it."

It had begun by accident. Excalibur bore Najin's star, and his star was himself, so coming to think of Excalibur as part of his own body was how it started, and that was when he first caught a fragment of that state. But right now Najin was not holding Excalibur.

Even so, if what was in his hand was a sword, Najin felt it as part of his own body. It was a state he had completed through his battle with Siegfried, his fights against Galahad and Lancelot, and the bloody struggle with Mordred.

"So in the end it comes down to experience."

Karon gripped the sword harder. Blood running from the split palm soaked into the leather of the hilt.

"Are you disappointed that there's no special method or profound secret formula?"

"No? Not at all. If anything, this is better."

Karon smiled.

"It means the way I've been doing things isn't wrong."

Karon had always swung his sword hard and plainly, nothing clever about it. He was someone trying to climb the highest mountain by the most straightforward path. Knowing his method was not wrong, knowing that a swordsman who had gone further than him had done the same thing, filled Karon with satisfaction.

"Come at me."

"Come on, then."

Karon picked up speed. Every time their blades met, he felt the impact ring through his palm. His grip went from numb to stinging. The hilt drove itself into the split flesh, and sparks flashed before his eyes.

"Krgh."

Karon grew accustomed to that pain. If the sword was part of his body, pain had to come with it. It was a matter of perception, in the end. To tear down the wall that had stood his entire life separating himself from the sword, Karon swung.

And within that back-and-forth of blade against blade.

Karon felt joy.

As mentioned before, until Najin appeared, Karon had been the swordsman who stood at the highest state. He understood the sword more deeply than anyone and had mastered more sword techniques than anyone in the Sword Order's history.

'I learned swordsmanship from countless swordsmen.'

He went wherever guidance could be found.

'I abandoned the stubbornness that only my way was right.'

He corrected his form at any time. He accepted advice even from those who were not his equal. Sometimes the flash of intuition from a weaker practitioner turned out to be the right answer.

Tap.

Because of that, Karon had grown rapidly in the past. He had risen through states faster than anyone, reached the seat of Sword Master faster than anyone. Laughable as it was, that very fact was precisely why Karon had stagnated at a certain point.

He was still seeking out countless swordsmen, but that only widened his Breadth of Understanding. It did not deepen his understanding of the sword itself.

Wide. But shallow.

He wielded a thousand swords, yet paradoxically not one of them went deep. Many told Karon he had reached the pinnacle of the sword, but from where he stood, it was absurd.

'This is the pinnacle?'

No. Absolutely not. Karon knew the pinnacle. He had seen the sword marks of the first Sword Saint carved into the Sword Order's hall; he had seen the Sword Demon wandering the Abyss. He knew he had not reached the top yet.

The pinnacle was far, far away.

But Karon had not known how to get there. There had been no one to teach him.

Claaang!

There had not been.

Clang, scrrrrrape!

But not anymore. Before Karon's eyes stood a swordsman who had drawn close to Siegfried's level. Watching his sword showed Karon where his own path led. Feeling the Growth that had stalled finally starting again, Karon was more than pleased.

'Just a little more.'

Karon scraped his own bottom. Even when his reserves were showing, he dug his fingers into the ground and gathered up what little was left. Then he threw one more strike.

"Huh."

Najin caught that strike and laughed. He was surprised too. Receiving Karon's blade, his own had sharpened right alongside it.

Clang.

Sparks flew. Drops of sweat fell. A falling drop touched Sword Aura and evaporated with a hissing sizzle. Transcendents ordinarily did not sweat, but both had thrown aside even Body Control to swing their swords.

The sword duel continued.

The Transcendents watching from a distance stood with their mouths hanging open. Blades clashing several times every few seconds were hard to follow even for Transcendent eyes, not because of speed, but because the Trajectories the swords carved were impossibly complex.

"Insane."

The Transcendents who worked with swords let out hollow laughs. They too were swordsmen who had devoted their lives to the blade and reached the state of Sword Master, but they could not comprehend the sword duel unfolding before them. They understood the results but not the process.

Clang, clang, clang!

Minutes that felt like hours passed, each second dense as water. In that moment, Karon threw a Gamble Move. He stepped half a pace past his usual distance and swung, the Sword-Swinging Interval of someone throwing a punch, not a blade.

The kind of mistake only a beginner who had just picked up a sword would make. But when a Sword Saint who had mastered the blade used it, that mistake became a Variable.

The sudden close-in narrowed Najin's eyes. He reached for a counter immediately, translating thought into motion.

'Cut off the Trajectory first.'

Break the sword path. The moment he moved to do that, Karon's mouth curled up at the corner, as if he had anticipated it. Karon's sword shifted.

The shift was remarkable, but Najin smiled.

Is that all?

Maybe it was how much he was enjoying this duel. Maybe he had gotten too absorbed. Without realizing it, Najin released the limiter he had unconsciously been holding. His body accelerated in an instant. He noticed too late.

'Oh, wait.'

Too late. All he could do was kill the Sword Aura. He killed it in a hurry, but even so a longsword swung by a Transcendent body was a fine weapon.

"Oh."

"Oh."

Karon and Najin, both grasping what had happened, looked at each other. In the slow drift of that moment, both of them let out short, startled sounds.

Then, crack!

Najin's "oh" ended there, but Karon's "oh" changed its purpose and stretched itself long.

"AAAAAAH!"

Into a scream, that is.

Having been struck by his student's sword out of nowhere, Karon clutched his arm and rolled across the floor.

2.

"How is your arm?"

"Ah, I handed it off to a new era."

It was fine, of course. A few broken bones, but it was a Transcendent's body, and there were several Constellations here with strong healing magic besides.

"Joking. I'm fine."

Karon waved his arm with a shameless grin.

"It definitely helped, though. For the first time in ages, I feel like I'm actually growing as a swordsman."

"Haven't you been gathering stars steadily?"

"Not that kind of Growth. Output rising, range of cuts expanding, all fine, all good, but what I wanted was to grow as a swordsman."

That Growth had now come to pass.

Karon smiled contentedly and pointed at Najin.

"If I had my pick, I'd love to draw the Heart Sword and go all-out, but that would have the seniors screaming."

Just as Najin had not gone all-out, Karon had not gone all-out either. The outcome would not change, of course, but the sword duel would not end so emptily as this.

"You said you're going up against Siegfried."

Karon said.

"When do you plan to go?"

"That's not for me to explain. My guide will tell you."

Najin called for Merlin. Merlin, who had been sitting on a rock, trotted over to him. She held up a finger and began.

"There are a few things I need to explain first."

She spread her fingers one by one.

"Siegfried wanders the Abyss, but it's not completely without pattern. He goes everywhere, basically, but he does return to his own place at least once."

His own place. Where was that?

"Siegfried's Domain."

Or his tomb.

"But you can't wait forever, right? Nobody knows if he'll come today, or in a hundred days, or decades from now. So."

She placed her hand on her own chest.

"I'll draw him in. I have ways of doing that, so there's no need to worry about that part."

If Merlin said she could do it, she meant it. She told them not to worry about that piece of it, then continued.

"You asked about time."

She looked at Karon.

"Thirteen Days."

Ten days and three more.

"In thirteen days, Siegfried will definitely return to his Domain. Factor in travel time and you've got ten days from now."

Ten days was all they had.

"Pull your level up as high as you can in that time. The way I see it, you go in as you are now and Siegfried kills you."

Merlin's flat assessment made Karon smile bitterly. It wasn't wrong.

"Ten days..."

Karon had been in Stagnation for the past decade or more. Growth he had failed to achieve across those years, he had to manage in ten days. Karon nodded at that.

Not ten days.

It was about harvesting in these ten days what he had been building over all that Time. Crops take a long time to grow, but the harvest itself is quick.

"Can you do it?"

"You're underestimating me a bit there."

Karon grinned at Najin's question.

"Whatever I may look like, before you came along I was called an Incomparable Genius. I wasn't as fast as you, but I was the fastest after you. And unlike you, I have a fine reference standing right in front of me."

Unlike Najin, who had felt his way to that state alone, Karon had Najin right there as a reference.

"I'm in your hands, teacher."

"Looks like student and teacher have switched."

"Does it matter who's above or below when you're seeking guidance? And by rank and accomplishment you're above me regardless. Please accept your student's bow, teacher."

Karon made as if to actually bow, and Najin flinched back in alarm.

Ten days.

In the ten days ahead, Karon would have to hone his sword to the sharpest edge it could hold. That was what Karon himself wanted. And what Najin wanted, too.

'Because.'

Only then could the plan succeed.

3.

"Oh, by the way. Merlin-nim?"

Karon tilted his head.

"There's one thing I've been wondering about."

"What is it?"

"Unless I've got this wrong, Siegfried is drawn to anything related to dragons, isn't he? He moves toward them unconditionally."

It was well-known behavior for the Sword Demon.

"But."

Karon reached out his hand. He pointed toward the mountain range swelling and shifting far in the distance beyond the mist of the Abyss.

"Why doesn't he go after the Dragon of the Abyss?"

For the past thousand years the dragon had been sealed away, so one could say he could not get near it. But right now the Dragon of the Abyss had been freed from its seal. It had not yet crossed into the Outland, but it was slowly moving toward it.

And yet Siegfried.

The swordsman who had devoted his life to slaying the Dragon of the Abyss, for some reason, did not charge at it. That was the point Karon raised. Why?

"......"

Najin knew the answer. He had heard it from Merlin. Merlin let out a short breath and spoke.

"The Dragon of the Abyss is the horseman of death. And only the living can face death. The dead cannot stand before death."

A somewhat cryptic sentence.

"And Siegfried is not among the living."

Merlin added plainly.

"The dead cannot inflict any wound on the Dragon of the Abyss. They cannot even approach it. That's why Siegfried can't go after it."

Karon blinked. Not among the living? Was that a figurative expression, like calling him one of the dead? Merlin shook her head at the question in his eyes.

"No. Siegfried is a being who has already died once. He was swallowed by the Dragon of the Abyss."

The horseman of death, Leviathan.

A thousand years ago, Merlin said, the Dragon Slayer had ultimately been defeated by the Dragon of the Abyss and swallowed whole.

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