WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 133: A Stranger

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They left the forest where they had spent the night.

Even setting out from Avens, a city in the center of the continent, it would take several months by carriage to reach their destination, the Sword Grove in the west.

Even if they used the city's Warp Gate to travel to Karent, the city closest to the Sword Grove, it would still take a full ten days to get there.

The Sword Grove was that far away, and Helenas showed no sign of wanting to arrive quickly. If they truly wanted to travel fast, Helenas could simply carry Kyle and fly.

'This might take more than a month.'

When he left Gladiheim, he had said he would return within a month at the latest. Judging by the strength of Helenas's grip around his left hand, though, she probably would not even listen if he suggested using a Warp Gate.

'Not that there's any urgent reason to go back.'

The members of the Sword Wolf Knights were training in the Cultivation Floors, and he had sent them the training simulator he had extracted from the Central Branch. The knights of Gladiheim did have a duty to carry out their respective missions, but the Sword Wolf Knights were not the only knight order in Gladiheim. Julius would understand.

Besides, traveling with Helenas was a tremendous help to Kyle as well. His companion was the Sword Church Master, the strongest swordsman on the continent. Without exaggeration, traveling with the Sword Church Master and crossing blades every day would be a dream come true for any swordsman.

'I should at least send a letter when we reach the next city, just in case.'

Due to various circumstances, my return will be delayed. Please understand, and assign the missions meant for the Sword Wolf Knights to Uncle Roel. Also, if you have the time, please personally train the members in my stead.

"What are you writing?"

The sun hung high in the sky, so they had stopped the carriage to rest. As Kyle wrote his letter, Helenas tilted her head and asked.

"A letter home."

After finishing the letter to Julius, Kyle began another for his mother, Arian.

I'm doing well, so please don't worry. Give Kaya my regards too. And Father, don't just swing your sword alone at the manor. Please train the members in my stead as well.

As he wrote, he found himself worrying a little about the members, so he ended up leaving their training to Julius and Aslan. Was that all right? Why would it not be? Julius was free enough to sit in the Sword Hall all day, and Aslan was much the same.

"What are your family like?"

"All of a sudden?"

Helenas, who had been quietly watching Kyle write, abruptly asked.

"They're your family. They might become my family too."

"What?"

"I thought about it all night."

Helenas sat with perfect posture and stared at Kyle. When he first met her, her blue eyes had seemed faded, like an old color. Now they held a fairly vivid hue.

"If the pounding I feel when I'm with you truly is love, it means I want to become family with you."

"..."

"Elves do not have a strong concept of relatives or kinship. A child and a husband are everything. But you are not an elf. Then I, as an elf, should try to understand human relationships."

"Oh..."

Kyle set down his pen and applauded. The fact that Helenas could say something like that on her own was admirable.

At the same time, it was a little surprising. Helenas's change felt too fast. For five hundred years, she had swung only her sword without emotion. Yet after reuniting with Kyle, she was changing so quickly.

'Is this because I'm the Turning Point too? Or simply because I'm someone special to Helenas...?'

Whatever the truth was, Kyle considered Helenas's change a positive thing. She had already lived a long time, but she still had much time ahead of her.

"You've seen my grandfather too. What did you think of him?"

"Strong."

"Other than that, no impressions?"

"No."

"Hmm... Grandfather isn't very honest. He's actually very affectionate, but he doesn't express it."

"Why?"

"Because he's the Family Head of Alastor. He has so much to carry that he cannot show himself honestly. Though he has been showing it fairly often lately."

Kyle snickered as he compared his first meeting with Julius to the sight of him wearing a headband for Kaya.

"My mother is kind. She would do anything for me, so I would do anything for her too."

"..."

"My father... Rather than irresponsible, when something catches his interest, his vision narrows. I personally like that side of him, but I don't think it's a good personality for a father or husband. Honestly, Mother is too good for him."

"Then why did they marry and have you?"

"Because they love each other?"

"Love..."

Helenas murmured quietly.

"I have a younger sister too. She's three now... though she'll be four soon."

Kyle glanced up at the sky. It was already October. In two months, the year would change, and Kyle would turn sixteen. The center of the continent was warmer than the north, but if their journey went on too long, winter would arrive.

"I can't become family with you right now."

Kyle spoke as he gazed at the clear sky. Helenas's body twitched. The color in her eyes cooled as she stared at him.

"Why?"

"You aren't certain that what you feel for me is love. And I don't love you either."

"Why?"

"To me, you're the little elf I took in five hundred years ago. You lived for five hundred years after that, but I was dead for five hundred years. And... what I feel for you right now is guilt more than love."

Kyle spoke with a bitter smile. Just as Helenas had reflected on her feelings, Kyle had reflected on his own.

"I do care about you. But it isn't love. Before I can love you, I think I need to erase the debt I owe for this sin."

"Sin..."

"Helenas. You swung a sword for five hundred years because I planted that fate in you. So I'll change your fate. I'll make it so you can truly enjoy the sword, fighting, and even defeat."

"You're saying you will defeat me."

"That's impossible right now. But someday, it will be possible. When you lose to me, and smile because it is fun and disappointing and makes you want to fight again, I think I will be able to erase my guilt toward you."

"When that day comes, will you become family with me?"

"That... we'll have to see when the time comes. If you understand for yourself what emotion you feel, and I come to feel that kind of emotion too."

Kyle folded the finished letters and put them inside his clothes.

"When that happens, well... we'll talk to each other and meet each other's families. Let's do that."

"I understand."

Helenas slowly nodded. This was not drawing a line between them. These were feelings neither of them understood, and a future neither had ever considered.

"But if you married me, would the Sword Church be all right with it?"

"If I decide to do so, the Sword Church will follow."

After their rest, they climbed back into the carriage. Helenas naturally took Kyle's left hand.

"Come to think of it, isn't the Sword Church your family too?"

"Family?"

"You said you usually live with the Apostles."

"Living together does not make them family."

"That's true, but..."

"The First Apostle sometimes acts like a parent toward me."

Helenas tilted her head as she spoke.

"The Second Apostle is quiet. The Second Apostle does not speak to me first, and neither do I. When I begin swinging my sword, the Second Apostle watches for a long time, until I stop."

"What about the Third Apostle?"

"He is strict. He often talks to me about dignity. He often says appearances are important too. His role is to reorganize the doctrine of the current Sword Church and manage the Sword Church members."

"He must get angry when he sees you without a pauldron."

"He would not get angry, but he would lecture me for a long time."

Helenas's expression remained blank as she spoke of the Apostles. Kyle had wondered whether she held any special feelings for the Apostles who had served her for so long, but that did not seem to be the case.

'Then again, she must have sent off many of them by now...'

Human time moved quickly, while elven time moved slowly. Many Sword Church members and Apostles must have served Helenas over the years, but to someone who had lived five hundred years, they were not unique or special.

The only ones unique and special to Helenas were Raikal and Kyle, his reincarnation.

"The Fourth Apostle challenges me often. He has never defeated me, and I do not find anything special in his sword. But he has never stopped challenging me."

Kyle had heard about that Apostle from Isaac.

'He believes anyone who holds a sword is a Sword Church member.'

It was the most radical faction within the Sword Church.

"The Fifth Apostle is..."

Helenas stopped mid-sentence and looked ahead. She tilted her head slightly, then raised a finger and pointed forward.

"She's there."

"Huh?"

Kyle turned to look ahead, wondering what she meant. A tiny dot stood in the road before the carriage. When he narrowed his eyes and focused, the distant dot came into view.

A woman wearing a large silver pauldron knelt on the dirt road with her head pressed to the ground. Her face could not be seen because she had bowed so deeply, but her hair was pale green, just like Helenas's.

"That woman? What's she doing there?"

"I don't know."

"She probably came because of you. What should we do?"

"Ignore her and pass by."

Helenas narrowed her eyes. She did not want anyone interrupting the time she was spending with Kyle.

"She came because she was worried about you."

"I'm not weak enough to be worried about."

That was not the kind of concern Kyle meant. Still, he wore an awkward expression and continued driving as Helenas told him to. Clop, clop. The carriage did not slow as it drew closer and closer to the Fifth Apostle. She must have felt the vibrations through the ground, yet the Fifth Apostle remained motionless, her head lowered deeply.

At this rate, the carriage would run straight into her. Kyle was not insane enough to ram a defenseless person who had done him no wrong with a carriage. He subtly pulled the reins, turning the carriage aside.

They passed the Fifth Apostle. Even when the carriage went right by her, the Fifth Apostle did not move and kept her head bowed. She did not stand in their way or try to stop the carriage.

'What is this?'

Kyle tilted his head and looked back, then froze.

The Fifth Apostle, who had been kneeling behind them, had turned toward the rear of the carriage and was crawling after it on her knees. Her head remained pressed to the ground. She was clearly scraping herself along on her knees, yet she moved quickly enough to keep up with the carriage.

"She's following us? Ma'am?"

"Ignore her."

"Until when?"

"Until she gets tired and falls behind."

"No... You don't have to be that cold. She's an Apostle who serves the Sword Church Master. Why not at least talk to her?"

Kyle changed the way he spoke in case the Fifth Apostle could hear him. At the same time, he glanced cautiously at Helenas. He worried that using honorific speech might upset her, but...

Surprisingly, Helenas looked calm. In truth, she did not dislike Kyle speaking respectfully at all. Rather, hearing honorifics from that Raikal made Helenas's heart beat a little faster.

"..."

Helenas stayed silent for a moment as she fiddled with Kyle's left hand. The carriage continued onward, and the Fifth Apostle maintained her pace, crawling behind it on her knees.

'Family...'

Helenas recalled what Kyle had said earlier. She had never thought of Sword Church members and Apostles as family. She did not understand why she should.

In the past, that would have been the end of it. But Helenas was changing. She was feeling emotions she had never known before, emotions she had never even tried to understand.

"Stop the carriage."

After thinking for a while, Helenas spoke. Kyle gradually slowed the carriage. Before long, it came to a full stop, and Helenas rose while pulling Kyle up by the hand.

"I'll introduce you."

Kyle got down from the carriage with Helenas. The Fifth Apostle had stopped crawling and lay flat on the ground a short distance away. The silver pauldron symbolizing an Apostle of the Sword Church shone white, but dust covered the clothes beneath it.

"She is the Fifth Apostle of the Sword Church. Her name is Lamika."

The Fifth Apostle.

Lamika's body trembled. It had been so long since she heard the precious voice of the Sword Church Master she worshipped and adored, the Sword Church Master who was the true master of her life and the goal toward which she lived.

'And the Sword Church Master called my name...!'

Normally, Lamika had never been addressed by name by the Sword Church Master. Among the seven Apostles who attended the Sword Church Master closely, only Obion, the eldest First Apostle who had spent forty-five years in the Sword Grove, was called by name.

'This is the first time the Sword Church Master has called me by name... Oh, I could die today and be happy.'

If the Sword Church Master ordered Lamika to take her own life as the price of that summons, Lamika would do so without the slightest hesitation. To Lamika, the Sword Church Master was something closer to a god than a church master.

The faith of Sword Church members was divided in two. Some worshipped the sword itself, while others worshipped the Sword Church Master. Lamika was among the most radical devotees of the Sword Church Master, even among the Apostles.

"Lamika."

"Y-yes, Fifth Apostle Lamika is hearing the precious voice of the Sword Church Master."

"You may raise your head."

The command was given. Lamika immediately lifted her head and looked at the Sword Church Master.

"...?"

Lamika had waited for hours on the road the carriage would take. She had kept her head lowered the entire time, so this was the first time she saw the Sword Church Master's appearance.

'Why is the pauldron...'

The Sword Church Master was not wearing the black pauldron that represented both the Sword Church and its master.

'And... th-that...'

The hand that always held a sword was holding something completely different.

Kyle Alastor. The boy who had caught the Sword Church Master's interest and caused the Sword Church Master to leave the Sword Grove. He was holding hands with the Sword Church Master.

"Introduce yourself, Lamika."

Helenas spoke.

"This child's name is Kyle Alastor."

"Y-yes."

"He may become my mate."

Lamika's eyes flew wide open.

Footnotes:

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