Reincarnation of the Sword Demon - Chapter 14

WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 14

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The Sword Tower

The Great Archive on the second floor of the Sword Tower.

Kyle held Arian's hand as they stepped inside. Five hundred years of accumulated knowledge on every shelf. Only works deemed truly worth preserving had earned a place here: writings of those who had carried the Alastor name across the generations, records of loyal retainers, and the occasional outside tribute someone had judged worthy of keeping.

"The troublemaker's back."

Kyle was still staring out at the vast shelves stretching below the railing when the voice reached him.

"Auntie!"

Arian's face broke into a bright smile. A beautiful woman with orange hair, dressed in an old-fashioned robe, was smiling warmly at them both.

"Say hello, Kyle. This is Nelia Alastor. She's a family elder and the head librarian of the Great Archive."

"Hello, little one."

Nelia approached slowly and lowered herself to meet Kyle's eyes.

"So you're Arian's son. I hear you put on quite a show for the family head."

"Hello. I'm Kyle Alastor."

Kyle greeted her politely. Nelia smiled and ruffled his hair.

"I also heard Lucia lost rather decisively to you. How does a tiny thing like you manage that?"

"Should I call you great-aunt?"

"You're welcome to, but we're in the Great Archive and I'm the librarian here. For now, call me Librarian-nim."

"Yes, Librarian-nim. Did you also teach Lucia?"

"No. I'm better with magic than swords, so I didn't teach her."

Kyle had suspected as much from the feel of her hand on his head, soft and unweathered, nothing like a swordsman's. He nodded, looking up at Nelia with bright, curious eyes.

"Do I need your permission to read the books in here?"

"Permission comes from the family head, not me."

Nelia answered with a smile. Pureblood members of Alastor enjoyed many privileges, but that didn't exempt them from the rules.

Purebloods were bound up with the family's future and carried heavy responsibilities alongside those privileges. Living in the Sword Tower meant being constantly watched by the family head and the elders. That endless need to prove yourself could feel like sitting on a bed of nails, for some.

Kyle didn't see it that way. Prove yourself, and the perks were yours for the taking.

Living in the Sword Tower at all was an enormous privilege, for a start. The collateral branches and retainers living in Gladiheim probably struggled in all sorts of ways, without even the right occasion to prove themselves no matter how much they wanted to.

"What kinds of books are in the archive?"

"Swordsmanship texts, other weapon arts, and spellbooks as well."

"Are there mana cultivation techniques too?"

"Of course, but you can't study them yet. You haven't awakened your spirit root."

Five hundred years was a long time, after all. Kyle tilted his head at the unfamiliar term, and Arian stroked his hair and explained.

"The spirit root is an organ that helps you sense mana more clearly."

When a human child turned ten, their body developed a spirit root. It was an evolution humanity had undergone as magic became widespread and mana grew familiar to the world.

"Long ago, spirit roots were exceedingly rare, and there wasn't even a word for them. But when the Dark Age ended and a new era began, the world changed enormously. All of that is thanks to our founding ancestor."

Each new piece of information made Kyle's eyes shine a little brighter. Spirit roots and mana cultivation. The thought of how strange and formidable the powerful people of this era must be, shaped by such unusual practices, made his chest quicken with anticipation.

"Mom, I'm still five. So I don't have a spirit root yet?"

"Hm? That's right."

"But I saw a dokkaebi in Fenris earlier. That's not related to the spirit root?"

"Spirit affinity has nothing to do with whether you have a spirit root. It's an incredibly rare and special gift in its own right. After you develop a spirit root, though, your cultivation will benefit greatly from your spirit arts."

Arian moved her fingers deliberately, and a sharp gust of wind curled around her fingertips.

"Mom has a wind spirit root. So the first spirit I ever contracted was a wind spirit."

A person's choice of mana cultivation technique generally followed the nature of their spirit root, and all their training afterward became specialized to that element. If you had a flame spirit root, you studied flame-aspected cultivation, flame sword arts or flame magic, and your entire path of growth became tied to fire.

Arian had awakened her wind spirit root, contracted a wind spirit, and mastered wind magic. Born with a natural affinity for wind beyond what the spirit root alone could account for, she had accumulated mana and developed her magic at a remarkable pace.

"Kyle. You haven't awakened your spirit root yet, but you've inherited, well, more than inherited, my spirit affinity. You surpass me. I've never contracted a dokkaebi myself, but I'm certain your gift will be a tremendous help as you grow in the sword."

Kyle nodded along attentively. It was a shame he couldn't study mana cultivation without an awakened spirit root, but he felt no real urgency about it.

Still only five.

Mana cultivation was something he had never touched in his past life, and the curiosity was real. Then again, he had swung a sword just fine without any spirit roots or cultivation techniques back then.

Five years until ten wasn't so long, and pushing this small body too hard before it was ready could only damage it. He resolved not to rush. Build from the foundations up.

There was still so much about this era he didn't know.

Kyle and Arian left the archive and made their way up to the fourth floor, the residential level for purebloods.

He had heard that the Rose Mansion would be moved here in its entirety, but he hadn't been able to make sense of what that actually meant.

The moment they arrived on the fourth floor, he understood.

This was, without question, inside a tower. But the fourth floor was vast. The Dragon King's spatial magic had already impressed him on the first floor. The fourth was on another scale entirely.

An open meadow spread out before them. Hills and a lake shimmered in the distance, and several large mansions stood scattered throughout. No ceiling anywhere. Looking up, all Kyle saw was blue sky, clouds, and the sun.

"Is that... real?"

"Not exactly. Think of it as a very large lamp."

Arian laughed and pinched her son's amazed cheek.

"The sky looks real, but it isn't. When evening falls you'll see the moon and stars, and sometimes it rains or even snows. But make no mistake, this is still inside the Sword Tower."

The Rose Mansion had already been moved here whole. The servants who had cared for Kyle alongside Arian since his birth opened the mansion doors to greet him.

"Lady Arian, didn't you say you wouldn't be back for a while?"

Ceryl asked with a teasing smile.

"I didn't expect Father to tell us to move into the tower right away either."

The inside of the Rose Mansion was unchanged from when they'd left it. Of course it was. They'd moved the whole thing. Kyle stood there with his mouth hanging open while Arian and Ceryl talked beside him.

"What shall we do about dinner today?"

"I'd imagine the whole family will gather together."

She was right.

As Lucia had mentioned during the tour of the first floor, purebloods normally ate at their own residences on the fourth floor rather than in the great dining hall below. But on rare occasions, when something special happened in the family, everyone came together.

"Hello, I'm Kyle Alastor. I'm five years old."

He had already introduced himself at the beginning, but seated at the dinner table, Kyle introduced himself again in a composed voice.

"Uncles, aunts, I look forward to getting along with everyone."

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Applause answered him, but it didn't sound warm. Many of the relatives were watching him with barely concealed wariness.

Quietly, Kyle raised his head and looked around the dining hall.

Setting the adults aside, there were exactly four children staring at him. His cousins.

Karthan's two sons, aged thirteen and ten.
Barkas's son, aged ten.
Dante's daughter, aged seven.

And one more.

His youngest aunt, Erika Alastor. Only thirteen, and she was watching him with a distinctly crooked look. They hadn't exchanged a single word yet, but her expression made her feelings perfectly clear.

Kyle smiled brightly at her anyway, putting the old wisdom into practice, that no one can quite bring themselves to scold a smiling face. Erika clicked her tongue and furrowed her brows.

"Eat."

Julius spoke into the stiff silence. His cutlery moved first, and dinner began.

The banquet was lavish. The meal itself was silent. Everyone kept unnecessary words to themselves and focused on their plates.

Now I understand why they all eat at their own houses.

Family head Julius radiated immense pressure simply by being in the room. If even his own children couldn't hold their own in his presence, the young cousins had no chance. Sure enough, they were just pushing their food around.

Kyle ate without minding the atmosphere at all. Julius's pressure was real, but the force he projected wasn't the kind that intended harm.

Julius was a sword left lying still. A blade so sharp that just looking at it took your breath away, made you afraid of being cut for no reason at all.

If that blade had openly turned against you, that would be another matter. But a sharp edge was no reason to flinch on its own. Cousins, uncles, aunts, all of them pressed down by the weight flowing from Julius. Kyle just let himself be pressed and kept eating.

"May I have another bowl?"

The food at the Rose Mansion had always been excellent, but the Sword Tower's kitchen was something else.

Growing required eating, and eating plenty. His empty plate was taken away and a new one set down. Kyle went through four plates in total.

About then, Julius rose from his seat. The silent banquet was over. He turned to leave without a word, and Kyle sprang from his chair as though he'd been waiting for exactly this, sprinting after him.

Arian had no time to stop him. Barkas, who had just been quietly swallowing a sigh of relief, let his jaw drop. He wasn't the only one. Everyone stared at Kyle with the same stunned expression.

"Grandfather!"

Whatever everyone else thought, Kyle did as he pleased. The shout of his rushing grandson stopped Julius in his tracks.

"What is it."

"I came to play."

"To... play?"

"I asked you earlier, didn't I?"

Julius blinked and looked down at him.

"I asked if I could play with you too, Grandfather."

Julius had said something to the effect that if the boy proved worth playing with, he wouldn't refuse. This charming little grandson, however, seemed to have grasped neither the intent behind those words nor how elevated the family head's position actually was. Asking openly to play in front of all these relatives. That was something else.

"Hah..."

He could have scolded the boy for the impertinence. He had no desire to. If anything, this irreverent little grandson of his was rather endearing.

Had anyone ever said something like this to him in his entire life?

Six sons, three daughters. Before Kyle came along, three grandsons and one granddaughter.

Not once had any of them, children or grandchildren, ever asked him to play. Before he was a father or a grandfather, he was the strongest and most exalted family head Alastor had ever known, and his descendants had always treated him exactly that way.

Even Karthan, Katarina, and Barkas, born before he became family head, had been wary of him from a young age. That was the kind of father he had been.

"Haah..."

In the years before the title, when he was only a father, Julius had driven himself without mercy. He had fathered children and taken on the role, but he had always wanted to be Alastor's family head more than he wanted to be a good father.

After becoming family head, he drove himself harder still. The head of Alastor was master of Gladiheim, lord of thousands of knights and soldiers, and sovereign over the territory of Vigrid, where hundreds of thousands lived.

Alastor was celebrated as the greatest martial family on the continent. Countless eyes looked up to them, and just as many watched with envy or outright hostility. Julius could not afford softness. He had spent his entire life striving to be a hard, sharp blade.

Having lived that way, having worked so hard to be seen that way, he found his five-year-old grandson's words strange and disarming. And alongside the strangeness, a curious joy, the kind that had rarely visited him in all his years.

"All right."

He had no desire to dismiss that feeling, and no desire to look away from those bright, earnest eyes staring up at him. Julius smiled faintly and patted Kyle on the shoulder.

"I'll play with you. Where do you want to go?"

"The Sword Peak Hall."

No hesitation.

"Why the Sword Peak Hall? There's nothing there for a child to play with."

"There's a sword."

Kyle grinned. Right. The sword. Fenris, where that damned growling thing was waiting, was in the Sword Peak Hall.

"Hahh."

Everyone in the dining hall was in shock, but Julius just laughed quietly. He nodded and lifted his hand from Kyle's shoulder.

"Very well. The Sword Peak Hall it is."

His stride resumed. Kyle fell into step behind his grandfather's long strides, then spun and waved back at Arian.

"Mom! I'm going to play with Grandfather!"

"Wh... huh? Oh, okay... um..."