Reincarnation of the Sword Demon - Chapter 129

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Chapter 129: Bonus

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Kyle thought he was going to die.

It wasn't an exaggeration. He had felt closer to death than he had when fighting demons. Coughing violently, Kyle spat out the water that had gone down his windpipe.

"Is this intent training too, by any chance?"

His bronchial tubes stung. Shaking water from his soaked hair, Kyle turned to Helenas.

"I've never thought of it that way."

Unlike Kyle, who had been drenched and nearly waterboarded, Helenas's hair was barely wet. Only her clothes had gotten wet, clinging to her body.

"But now that you mention it, I think it could be used as intent training. If you regard breathing underwater as natural, perhaps you can force it to happen."

"Sounds like very helpful training."

Kyle smirked and dipped his head into the water. He tried to breathe underwater, but there was no way it would work immediately. In the end, he could only pull his head out after swallowing plenty of water.

"Turn around. I'll wash you too."

"Do I need to turn around?"

"Your hair is long. It'll be hard to wash it if we're facing each other."

"I see. I understand."

Despite saying that, Helenas only tilted her head and stared at Kyle. She did not turn around.

"What are you doing?"

"Your reasoning that it would be difficult to wash my hair while facing me is sound. But I want to look at you."

"I don't."

"You don't? Why?"

"Because it's embarrassing."

In his previous life, Kyle had done plenty and had plenty of experience. The problem was that Helenas had become far too beautiful.

"Why is it embarrassing? This isn't the first time you've washed me."

"You've grown too much compared to before."

Especially her body.

"I don't understand."

"Turn around."

With a deep sigh, Kyle took Helenas by the shoulders and turned her around.

It was true that Kyle held tender feelings for Helenas, but no matter how he thought about it, they were somewhat different from the feelings between a man and a woman.

'Of course they are.'

The Helenas Kyle remembered was a little elf girl from five hundred years ago. Those memories had continued to be layered over by their reunion after his reincarnation, but if he looked at it calmly, what the present Kyle felt for Helenas was closer to tender pity.

Pity for Helenas, who had been bound by fate and swung an uninteresting sword for five hundred years. Kyle himself was the one who had given her that fate, so before he could feel anything more for her, he needed to change her fate first.

That was the responsibility Kyle felt.

'I have to take responsibility for this.'

Swallowing another sigh, Kyle ran his fingers through Helenas's soaking hair. Unexpectedly, her hair was incredibly soft, with no damaged spots at all.

"Your hair is in great condition. Do you take special care of it?"

"The Fifth Apostle does it for me. She says appearance matters too."

"Then those people feed you pills for meals?"

"Do you think that's strange?"

"They say eating is enjoyable too. If you're going to live a long life, you should find enjoyment in all kinds of places."

"Eating with you earlier was rather enjoyable."

Helenas closed her eyes and whispered as she felt Kyle's hand stroking her hair.

"Usually, I only ate when I had to."

"I should feed you all kinds of food while I take you back."

Kyle let out another deep sigh.

"There are many enjoyable things in this world besides swinging a sword."

"You're not one to say that."

"The sword is the most enjoyable thing for me, but that doesn't mean I find no enjoyment in anything else. I enjoy lots of things too."

Rather than dumping water over her as Helenas had done to him, Kyle washed her hair with careful hands. He had not brought anything like shampoo, so he had to use only water. Once he had washed her hair as thoroughly as he could, Kyle led Helenas out of the lake.

"Jor."

Shaking his wet hair, Kyle brought Jor out. Helenas blinked at the sight.

"I sensed something else inside you, but I never expected you to be keeping a snake."

"She's not a snake, she's a Spirit. Not an ordinary Spirit, though..."

"My name is Jormungandr. Please call me Jor."

Jor swallowed hard and bowed her head to Helenas. She knew Kyle and Helenas's relationship well. She also knew that whenever Kyle faced Helenas, his heart beat fast in a way entirely different from usual, and different from when he fought.

How could she not? Jor was coiled in Kyle's Middle Dantian, right where his heart was.

[Shouldn't you call her sister-in-law?]

'Don't get ahead of yourself, Jor. Not yet.'

[Not yet? You said not yet?]

'You never know what will happen with people's feelings.'

[What about Lucia?]

'Why bring Lucia into this?'

[Master, you aren't going to tell me that you don't know something even a Spirit like me knows, are you?]

'Of course I know. But Lucia's feelings for me are a mix of admiration and various other things.'

In a way, Kyle felt they were similar to Helenas's feelings.

"Try making a warm wind."

"Me? But I'm a lightning Spirit..."

"You were a lightning Spirit, but that doesn't mean you're still only a lightning Spirit. I'll help you, so let's try it."

Kyle placed a hand firmly on Jor's head. At the same time, he focused on his Spirit Root and intent. When Kyle envisioned wind, that will flowed directly into Jor.

Jor's body trembled. The patterns carved into her scales stirred, and transparent wind rose around her.

'Don't make wind by pushing the air away. Mix warmth into it.'

He applied the deeper use of intent that Helenas had taught him to Jor.

'Maybe it's because she's a Spirit. This kind of elemental change comes more easily to Jor.'

Like his sword, Jor was also one of Kyle's weapons. If he actively made use of Jor's nature as a Spirit, he could build a different kind of strength from his previous life and employ a variety of tactics.

'When we get back to the Sword Tower later, go to Mother and learn some Spirit Arts.'

[What? Shouldn't Master be the one learning it?]

'You're different from ordinary Spirits. There's no need for me to learn it. If you learn it, you'll naturally know how to use it well. I'll also ask Nelia-nim at the Great Archive, so learn magic too. All right?'

[Don't you think you're working me too hard?]

'It's good for you too if you can help me. I'm asking because I trust you.'

Her master trusted her enough to make such requests. Deeply moved, Jor stopped questioning him and lowered her head.

The warm wind Jor gave off dried their wet bodies and clothes until they were soft and dry. Only then could Kyle face Helenas without feeling awkward.

"It's getting late. Let's sleep in the forest."

The sun had already begun to set. There was no reason to fear the darkness of night, but since they had decided to take their time returning, there was no need to rush enough to drive the carriage at night.

"I'm getting hungry too."

On the way back to the carriage, they caught several rabbits. Kyle had actually intended to catch fish at the lake, but when he asked what Helenas wanted to eat, she had answered, "Rabbit."

"You cooked it for me long ago."

That was the reason.

After building a campfire in front of the carriage and preparing the rabbits they had hunted, Kyle opened the bag Orban had packed for him.

The bag, which held most of the supplies needed for the journey, contained basic seasonings and several kinds of field rations marked with the Crows' insignia. With roast rabbit and field rations spread out before them, it made for a fairly convincing meal.

"Let's eat."

Neither of them had hands that would be burned by this much heat, so Kyle tore off a well-cooked rabbit hind leg and handed it to Helenas. She opened her mouth slightly and took a bite.

"How is it? Does it taste the same as when you ate it five hundred years ago?"

"It's different."

After swallowing the meat she had been chewing, Helenas smiled gently.

"It tastes better than back then."

"Hmm. It seems rabbits have changed along with the world. Or maybe salt has gotten better since then."

Kyle shrugged as he joked.

"Or perhaps I've simply gotten better at cooking meat than I was then. Either way, I'm glad it tastes better than it did five hundred years ago..."

Kyle abruptly stopped speaking.

Helenas had already stopped eating. She had turned her head toward the edge of the forest.

"Please."

A voice drifted in from beyond the forest. It was strange. The distant voice moved among the trees, growing louder and louder until it echoed through the entire forest.

"Please spare us some of your time."

It was a voice, yet Kyle could feel a gaze along with it. It was as if the voice had eyes and was searching through the forest.

'They can't find us.'

There was an open campfire and a carriage. There was no way they should have failed to find them, yet the voice and gaze continued to wander through the forest. Helenas had taken measures to ensure this moment would not be interrupted.

"Why would you, the Sword Church Master, a peerless powerhouse of this age, and Alastor's favored pureblood remain in such a humble forest? A place lacking nothing has been prepared. Please accept the invitation."

Kyle glanced at Helenas. Her narrowed eyes and furrowed brows made her annoyance obvious. It was only natural for her to be irritated when someone tried to intrude on a moment she did not want interrupted.

"Wait."

Kyle was quite irritated by it as well, but he was curious who would try to contact them like this. Rising to his feet, he spoke.

"I'll at least hear them out."

"Do we have to?"

"You're curious too, aren't you?"

Helenas looked at Kyle for a moment, then slowly nodded. Soon, the space Helenas had cut apart fused back together, and the wandering voice and gaze found them.

"Who are you?"

Kyle strode toward the direction the voice had first come from. Helenas silently followed behind him. The voice that had been watching them continued.

"I am a messenger of Branch Head Galea Rubalt of the Crow Company's Southern Branch."

So it was Duke Oun's eldest daughter.

'Galea Rubalt.'

Kyle recalled what Orban had told him during their last conversation about the Southern Branch. While the Central Branch, led by Aia Vernes, stood at the forefront of developing new magic-engineering technologies, the Southern Branch secured high-purity materials using the naturally blessed lands of the Avara Plateau.

At the same time, the South had long been a breeding ground for dark magic, in a different sense from the West. The dark mages who had flourished during the Dark Age split into two when Ruin Alastor brought that mad era to an end.

One side went west. The other went south.

[Sister... Branch Head Galea has joined hands with the Southern dark mages, whose lineage has endured for five hundred years.]

So that was why.

"I smell something I've smelled before."

The person standing at the entrance to the forest wore a black robe from head to toe, and their face could not be seen. The voice sounded male, but no matter how Kyle stared, the darkness beneath the hood did not clear. The longer he looked, the more it felt as if his consciousness would be sucked into that darkness.

"I'm not sure what you mean..."

The voice and gaze that had wandered through the forest withdrew. Spiritual energy became creeping darkness and returned to the figure. The man who called himself Galea Rubalt's messenger politely lowered his head and knelt on one knee.

"I serve the Branch Head, and today is my first meeting with Sir Kyle."

"The scent is similar."

Kyle smiled faintly and whispered.

"It's not the same, but it's very similar. Did you crawl out of the same belly?"

The man gave off the same unsettling feeling as the demon and the Flower Immortal. It was not identical, but the nature of that unease was remarkably alike.

[I don't know what the Southern Branch Head wants or gained by joining hands with dark mages. I do not know, but the classified information authorized for Sir Kyle should contain the headquarters' assessment of the Southern Branch's objective.]

Kyle had suspected something was rotten, but he had not expected it to be this rotten.

'Did they pull out those who had been inside the outer gods?'

Kyle narrowed his eyes at the man. The spiritual energy that had returned to him did not vanish. It lingered around him before being sucked into the ring on his finger.

'Ah, I see.'

Kyle understood why it was similar but different. The person before him was not an Ascendant that had crawled out of an outer god's belly. He was simply using that power through some unknown method.

'It's different from the Crows' artificial Boundary Realm, which used the remnants of an Ascendant. That power is closer to dark magic.'

It seemed certain that the Southern Branch, which had joined hands with dark mages, had found a different method from headquarters to wield power beyond Ascension.

Then why was the Southern Branch Head trying to meet with Kyle?

'Because I'm the Turning Point?'

Or was there another reason?

Staring at the messenger's shadow-covered face, Kyle asked, "What did you come here for?"

"This forest is too humble for two such distinguished people to stay in."

The messenger lowered his head.

"A place lacking nothing has been prepared. Please accept the invitation."

"If I go there, will I meet the Southern Branch Head?"

"Yes. The Branch Head is waiting there."

"Well, well."

Kyle chuckled and shook his head.

"Everyone keeps telling me to come here and go there. Now even the Southern Branch Head wants me to come. If she has business with me, she should come herself instead of vaguely sending a messenger. Hey, were those eyes watching me earlier your people's doing too?"

"I'm not sure what you mean..."

"Tell your master."

Kyle's smile disappeared.

"If she has business with me, tell her to come find me herself. And if she does come, she had better have something worth sharing my precious time for."

"..."

"I can roughly guess it. Anyone who isn't an idiot would have figured out that the Central Branch and I have joined hands. She probably wants to say I should let go of that hand and join hands with her instead, something like that."

"That's right."

The messenger's voice changed.

The body beneath the black robe twisted, and the darkness beneath the hood writhed before spilling out. Gulp, gulp. The darkness that fell to the ground pooled thickly, and a woman rose from its center.

Her gray hair was neatly combed back, and she wore a black feather ornament like a crown.

"I heard you'd thrown in with my foolish youngest brother, so I thought you'd be just as foolish. But judging by the way you speak, you don't seem quite that stupid."

Duke Oun's eldest daughter. The Crow Company's Southern Branch Head, Galea Rubalt.

If Orban had given the impression of a soldier, Galea looked like a witch from a fairy tale.

"Kyle Alastor."

Galea smiled faintly. The writhing darkness took the shape of a chair, and Galea sat atop it, resting her chin on her hand as she gazed at Kyle.

"I've wasted precious time as well, so how about we at least talk for a little while?"

"The scales are tilted too far."

Kyle gave a short laugh and looked behind him.

Helenas stood there, glaring at Galea with an expression far more irritated than before.

"The time you're trying to take isn't only mine."

"Oh my. I only need your time."

Galea snorted and glanced at Helenas.

"Even that magnificent Sword Church Master is nothing more than a bonus to the time I want to spend on you."