WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 12

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Sword Tower

The corridor connecting the Sword Peak Hall to the central hall was lined with portraits of past family heads. Kyle let the relatives' murmuring wash past him unheard, eyes fixed on Lucia's back as she led the way.

Eight years old. Small for her age, naturally, but not a sound to her footsteps. Every movement already under control.

Whether she was doing it consciously, he couldn't say. But at an age when a runny nose and the occasional sniffle would have fit perfectly, she carried herself like this. Honestly, it was impressive.

'Or maybe not? Maybe that's just normal around here?'

Kyle had been born into a mercenary band in his past life, running wild alongside kids his own age. But this wasn't some mercenary company. This was the Alastor family, the foremost martial house on the continent. The cousins he hadn't met yet might move just as precisely as Lucia did.

"Kyle-nim."

When they returned to the central hall, Lucia stopped. She hesitated a moment, then turned to look at him.

"Did you... really hold a sword for the first time today?"
"Yeah."

He could hardly explain about his past life. Kyle nodded.

Lucia's eyes wavered at the answer. Arian's oath had confirmed it earlier, but young Lucia simply could not bring herself to believe it.

"Today was... really your first time?"

Her world was crumbling. She didn't let the despair take hold. She bit her lip and steadied herself.

"Will you fight me again someday?"
"Sure."

Kyle answered with a grin. The fact that she hadn't crumbled pleased him.

Mindset and willpower matter just as much as skill in a fight. Fighting is a human thing, in the end, and a spirit like hers would only grow stronger.

"Seems like we'll be seeing a lot of each other. Why not drop the formalities?"
"I absolutely cannot do that. Kyle-nim is pure-blooded Alastor. And... we won't be seeing each other that often."
"Why? You live here too."
"The Sword Tower is far wider and more mysterious than you might imagine. And I... I am not in a position to seek out the pure-blooded members on my own."
"If we can't see each other often, we can't fight often either."
"..."

For all that she was older than Kyle, Lucia was still only eight. She didn't manage a reply. She just blinked at him, flustered.

"That's... yes. That's right."
"It's fine. I'll come find you."

Kyle laughed and stepped closer, extending his hand.

"Even if you can't come to me, I can go to you. Right?"
"That's... I'm not sure."

Lucia hesitated, glancing at his outstretched hand. She looked confused, unsure what the gesture was supposed to mean. Mildly exasperated, Kyle grabbed her hand and shook it up and down.

"Our relatives won't even shake hands with you?"
"..."
"Grandfather seems like a good person. Uncle Karthan too. Are they only good to me?"
"Both of them... are kind to me as well."

Lucia's voice dropped to a murmur.

"Katarina-nim is kind too. There are many among the pure-blooded who treat me well."
"Right, right."

Kyle didn't press further. Standing in the heart of the Sword Tower, where the direct-line members lived, there was no way Lucia would say anything that might reflect poorly on them. Unseen eyes were almost certainly watching the two of them right now.

"Ah,I should continue guiding you."

Flustered, Lucia released his hand and turned away. She scurried ahead, and Kyle followed at an easy pace.

He reached out with his senses as he walked, hoping to catch the gaze of whoever might be watching. Nothing. For all that he carried the soul of the Sword Demon, feeling the eyes of a hidden watcher through the body of an untrained five-year-old was simply not going to happen.

'Though if that were the case, no one worth worrying about could be stationed here anyway.'

Lucia stopped before a row of doors lining the inner wall of the hall.

"Why are there so many doors?"
"These are... elevators."
"Oh, so these are elevators!"

Five years spent entirely within the Manor of Roses, yes, but that didn't mean he had no knowledge of the outside world. Arian had filled his room with all manner of children's books from the time he could sit up.

Seeing them in person was another matter.

"Is this your first time seeing an elevator, Kyle-nim?"
"I know what they are. Magic or mechanical,they move you up or down between floors, right."
"These run on magic."
"Did the Alastor mages build them?"
"From what I've heard, they were a gift from the Dragon King."

The Dragon King.

The name said it all. King of dragons.

'Dragons...'

Kyle's eyes lit up. Five hundred years spent wandering every battlefield on the continent, and he had never once seen a real dragon. The legends had reached him since childhood, though.

The progenitors of magic. A great race.

"The Sword Tower itself is a gift from the Dragon King. A symbol of his respect and affection for the Alastor founding ancestor."

The Sword Tower was a massive artifact the Dragon King had personally come to the Blade Mountain Range to build, five hundred years ago. The tower itself was wrought from the Dragon King's magic, and within it existed countless mysteries beyond anything Kyle could comprehend.

"The Sword Tower has eleven floors, basement included."

Lucia pointed to the ornate door at the center.

"The only elevator that can reach every floor is this one, and it is reserved exclusively for the family head."

Beneath the Sword Tower lay the Sword Mound, where the blades of past family heads rested.

The first floor held the Sword Peak Hall, where the governance of Vigrid, the administration of Gladiheim, and family affairs were discussed. The tower's servants lived there as well.

The second floor housed a vast library. Sword techniques and other martial disciplines, mana cultivation methods, even grimoires, all kept there.

"All of it was written and collected by the ancestors of Alastor."

Lucia said it with pride, even without a drop of Alastor blood in her veins.

"Of course, some were offered as tribute. As you know, Kyle-nim, Alastor has been patronizing talented individuals for five hundred years. The true geniuses who emerged from that patronage eventually came to Gladiheim, while those slightly below genius stayed in Vigrid, honing themselves in hope of entering Gladiheim someday."
"..."
"All of them carry loyalty to Alastor in their hearts, and they dedicate the talent they've cultivated here. Dreaming that when they die, their beloved weapons will rest in the Sword Flower Garden and their techniques be preserved in the Sword Tower's library."
"..."
"Five hundred years of martial arts and magic, carefully curated. I haven't been inside myself, but Kyle-nim should be... Kyle-nim? Why do you have that expression?"
"No, I mean..."

Kyle hesitated, then asked in a small voice.

"What's a mana cultivation method?"
"Pardon?"

Lucia blinked at him. Then she arrived at what she figured was the answer.

A child who bore the Alastor name could not be permitted to hold a weapon or begin mana training until it had been confirmed that they were worthy of carrying that name. The fact that Kyle knew nothing about mana cultivation methods was almost certainly because Arian had never told him.

Knowing would only make him thirst for it more.

"Do you know what mana is?"
"Yeah."
"A mana cultivation method is, as the name suggests, a method for cultivating mana. A technique for guiding and controlling mana within the body."
"Guiding and controlling mana... inside the body?"
"Yes."
"And there's an actual technique for that?"
"Pardon? Yes. Of course there is."

Lucia nodded, a little bewildered.

Kyle felt it then.

Like being struck in the back of the head with a hammer. A mana cultivation method. A technique for guiding and controlling mana within the body.

Was that even possible? He stood there with his mouth hanging open.

Five hundred years ago. Mana had existed then, of course it had. But there had been no technique for guiding or controlling it.

Magic was unfamiliar in that age. It was considered, naturally, the domain of demons and elves and the other races. Their scholarship, not humanity's.

Even so, mages had existed. Just very few of them. Magic was treated less as a discipline and more as something bordering on a miracle. To learn it, you began by serving some wizened elder, and you served them for decades before you might be called an apprentice mage.

Even that was only if you had talent and things went well. Those who couldn't even sense mana simply spent their whole lives in service and died.

All of it came down to the same thing. Mana was invisible. Undetectable. There were stories of geniuses who could sense it from birth, but geniuses were not common.

So five hundred years ago, only a handful, true geniuses or those with close ties to demihumans, had any meaningful relationship with magic.

If even the so-called mages were like that, swordsmen and warriors certainly weren't about to have any expertise with mana. It was that unfamiliar.

Knights had it slightly better, granted. The condition for being dubbed a knight was itself bound up in some initial contact with mana, and even if it couldn't be clearly articulated, the accumulated experience of a knightly lineage counted for something. Still, in that era, there was no organized method for guiding mana into the body, controlling it, and putting it to use.

Kyle had been a mercenary. The Sword Demon. His father had been a mercenary. His mother a prostitute. His grandfather? Grandmother? He didn't know what they did.

Warriors like him just swung their weapons, trained hard, fought, crossed the line between life and death over and over.

They had to endure every kind of misery before they could barely grasp even a fragment of mana, that transcendent force existing beyond human perception. Those who weren't mages called it the Blessing of Mana.

The Sword Demon himself hadn't received that blessing until past twenty, after wandering countless battlefields and surviving more than a few life-and-death duels.

Receiving the blessing didn't make you fluent with mana. Something mysterious settled into your body, and you became stronger, faster, harder to exhaust.

A better fighter.

That was roughly it. To grow that power further, the only path was to keep doing what you'd always done. Swing the sword, swing it again. Fight, and fight again. Cross death's threshold, and cross it once more.

"If you learn a mana cultivation method... you can use Aura too, right?"

Kyle asked, stumbling over the words. Lucia didn't quite understand why he wore that expression, but she nodded.

"Of course. Even I can use it."
"Wh... what?"

Oh. Right. Kyle caught himself and looked at the single horn on Lucia's head. She was a half-demon. Demons, unlike humans, were born already attuned to mana.

"Not only me. Your relatives can use Aura as well, Kyle-nim."
"My uncles and aunts?"
"Naturally them, but their children too."

Kyle's legs nearly gave out.

'I didn't manifest Aura until I was twenty-one. And in this age, kids who aren't even ten are doing it?'

Five hundred years. Such a staggering length of time. Was this how a monkey felt, seeing fire for the first time? Dizziness hit him, and he grabbed Lucia's hand without thinking.

"Show me Aura."
"Wh... what?"
"Show me Aura. I want to see it."
"Kyle-nim, are you serious?"
"Of course I'm serious. I've never seen Aura in my life. Come on, show me."
"Ah, alright. I'll show you, so please let go of my hand."

Kyle let go immediately. Lucia glanced around a few times, then stepped back and raised her hand. Tsss...! A brilliant crimson light wrapped around it.

"This is Aura."

She spoke in her usual composed manner, but Lucia was still eight. She couldn't quite hide the pride beneath the words. She raised her Aura-wrapped hand a little higher than necessary.

"What do you think?"
"..."

Kyle didn't answer. He stared at her hand in silence.

Too shocked to speak?

Shocked, yes. But a slightly different kind of shock than before.

'That's Aura...?'

The mana had gathered densely enough to become visible. A hand sheathed in that light could shatter a boulder with a casual swing.

But it wasn't quite like the Aura Kyle knew, in several ways. Power? Nowhere near. That was expected. Half-demon or not, Lucia had only studied the cultivation method, and she was still only eight.

Still. Remarkable. Kyle let out a quiet breath, mouth still hanging open.

"Wow."

The world had gotten so much better. Something that five hundred years ago had demanded repeated brushes with death and enormous suffering to even approach, called a blessing for exactly that reason, could now be learned through a cultivation method. Just like that.

Whether it was truly that easy, he had no way of knowing yet, not having tried. But if Alastor children who weren't even half-demon could do it, the barrier to entry was clearly far lower than it had been five hundred years ago.

And on top of that. Aura, something that even after receiving mana's blessing had required years of near-death experiences to produce, was being produced by the small child standing in front of him.

Even accounting for the fact that Alastor was the foremost martial house on the continent, this was a child drawing out Aura. The world was almost certainly full of powerful figures who bore no resemblance to the ones he'd known five hundred years ago.

'Good.'

Kyle thought it.

'I'm really glad I was reincarnated.'

He meant it. When he first found out he'd been reincarnated, after Ruin Alastor had died, after Ruin Alastor had ascended, the regret had been enormous. That feeling was gone now.

In the five hundred years since the Sword Demon's death, the world had changed into something magnificent.

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