WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 23

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Sword Flower Garden

After leaving the Sword Peak Hall, Kyle debated between two options: the Great Archive on the second floor, or the Sword Flower Garden in front of the Sword Tower. He turned toward the main entrance.

He'd worked up a good sweat playing wooden swords with Julius, and cool air on his skin sounded like exactly what he needed. Three full days inside the Sword Tower without stepping outside once had started to wear on him.

'The fourth floor has something like a breeze, but it's still inside the tower.'

The Sword Tower's main gate was shut firm, but it slid open on its own the moment Kyle reached out and touched it. Outside, a pleasant cool wind swept across him and dried the sweat from his skin. He stretched, rolling out his shoulders, then headed toward the Sword Flower Garden, not far from the tower's base.

A graveyard of swords.
A flower field of swords.

Not every weapon planted there was a sword, strictly speaking, but swords made up the overwhelming majority. Kyle walked closer and let the sight wash over him.

Every one of those weapons had once been gripped in someone's hand and swung. Some had belonged to Alastor retainers who gave their lives in loyal service. Others had belonged to challengers who came, fought, and fell.

If he had to choose, Kyle sided with the defeated. He'd done the same himself, after all, challenged Alastor's founding ancestor and died for it. In a sense, Kyle, the Sword Demon, could be called the progenitor of this garden.

'Huh?'

He stopped.

Inside the garden, between the widely spaced weapons, a one-horned girl in an apron was bent at the waist, absorbed in something. Lucia. Polishing the weapons, carefully and without hurry. Kyle strode toward her and she lifted her head.

"Good day, Kyle-nim."

She straightened and gave a neat bow.

"What are you doing?"
"Cleaning, as you can see," Lucia said, in a composed voice that sat oddly on a girl barely eight. More composed, in truth, than Erika at thirteen.

"They don't look dirty enough to need cleaning."

Kyle looked back and forth between the cloth in her hand and the weapons around them. The cloth was spotless. The weapons showed no grime.

"This is the most honorable ground in Gladiheim, second only to the Sword Tower itself. The weapons here do not rust with time, and wind carries no dust to them."
"Then why polish them?"
"For discipline."

A quiet pride sat in Lucia's voice.

"I intend to become a knight one day and offer my loyalty to Alastor. And I will leave my weapon in this garden. Without fail." A pause. "I was taken in through the grace of the Family Head and the Elders. Since I was small, I have trained to keep the darker half of my blood under control. No matter how hard I train, though, the demon blood remains."

A burden too heavy for any girl her age. Her voice didn't waver.

"The weapons here don't need polishing. But when I polish them, I polish my own heart along with them."

Kyle put his hands together and clapped. Once, twice. Lucia glanced aside, a faint color rising in her cheeks.

"That said. Not everything here belonged to knights who served the family."

Some of the weapons in the Sword Flower Garden had belonged to enemies, to those who had threatened Alastor, who had come to challenge it and lost.

"That's... that's all right. Polishing their weapons too is part of the discipline."
"Yeah? Does it actually help?"
"It does."

The demon race had always held many advantages over humans. Five hundred years ago they were born already connected to mana, wielded magic as naturally as breathing, and surpassed humans in raw physical terms. The word they most enjoyed throwing at humans was "inferior species."

But that didn't mean demons were superior in every regard.

Two fatal weaknesses ran through the demon race.

Mana addiction and madness erosion.

Demons were born into mana, but those who pushed it too far found their bodies beginning to collapse from within. In moments of heightened emotion, or in the heat of battle, their rational minds slipped away from them.

The ends Kyle had witnessed for demons were, more often than not, both at once: maddened and rampaging without a shred of judgment, then self-destructing as mana addiction took hold.

The more dangerous of the two was madness erosion. A demon stripped of reason couldn't tell its own allies from its enemies.

Without those weaknesses, the continent would have been swallowed by demons long ago.

'Does being half-demon mean she carries those weaknesses in full, or only in part...'

If in full, Lucia had a hard road ahead. Living with a time bomb inside you, never knowing when it might go off.

He studied her face in silence.

Five hundred years ago, the demon race was the continent's shared enemy, an invading force that had exploited the chaos of the age. The Sword Demon had liked them anyway. They were good fights. That was true of all the demihumans, really: demon swordsmen, elf mages, orc warriors, beastkin fighters. There was something different about them compared to humans, and they had put him on the knife's edge between life and death more than once.

'Lost plenty of times too.'

Paid them all back eventually.

Kyle found Lucia interesting for all those reasons. Clear sword talent. The particular nature of being a demon half-blood. And young on top of all that. If she grew well, she'd become formidably strong.

"Kyle-nim? Is there something on my face?"

She asked carefully. He'd been staring for a while.

"Nothing."

He walked on into the garden. Lucia hesitated, then quietly stepped back.

"Keep going. You said it was discipline."
"Am I... not making you uncomfortable, Kyle-nim?"

A strange question. Kyle turned to look at her, head tilted.

"Didn't we get along fine three days ago? Sword fighting, touring the first floor. Why bring this up now?"
"At that time, Kyle-nim probably didn't fully understand what it means to be a demon half-blood."
"I did. I knew plenty."
"And... the tour of the first floor, that was because the Family Head gave the order. So Kyle-nim was also only..."
"No."

Lucia blinked rapidly. She couldn't find words. After a long hesitation, her voice came out small.

"Yesterday, Kyle-nim heard what Bruno-nim and Bekius-nim said, didn't you."
"I heard it. Nonsense. Not worth remembering."
"..."
"Is me being kind to you really that remarkable? The Family Head and the Elders look out for you. Katarina aunt looks out for you. And from what I saw yesterday, there's also Vivian, she was sticking close to you the whole time."

Kyle used Vivian's name without a title, though she was two years his senior.

"That's because, in the eyes of the Family Head and Katarina-nim and the Elders, I'm still... a negligible existence. And Vivian-nim is simply a very kind person..."
"I'm kind too."

He grinned.

"And. The way I see it, the reason the Family Head and the adults are good to you isn't because you're negligible. It's because of the family creed."
"..."
"I've only been here three days, but I can already see how this place works. Strength is everything here. Even if you don't have it yet, if you've shown the potential to become strong later, you get treated accordingly. Right?"

Lucia's mouth fell open.

"That's why I don't quite understand your attitude. Pure-bloods should be respected, sure. But does that mean you also have to take it from anyone who decides you're not worth respecting? If you'd punched Bekius in the face yesterday, that sly little snake, do you think the Family Head would have blamed you? Or blamed Bekius for getting hit and crying about it?"
"Th... that's..."
"And if Bekius ran to Uncle Karthan to tattle, do you think Karthan would have punished you? I don't think so. Here, being weak is the fault. If Bekius couldn't handle getting hit and acted pathetically about not having the strength to get revenge, grandfather wouldn't have forgiven him."
"That would be... too presumptuous. Not something someone like me should ever do."
"Sure, presumptuous. And yeah, you're living under someone else's roof, so it's not exactly the move. But the things you're not supposed to do are usually the fun ones. And once you go through with it, it's never as big a deal as you thought."

Kyle chuckled and turned back to the weapons.

"Anyway. I don't find you uncomfortable. I had far more fun sparring with you for a bit than I ever have with my big-bodied cousins, and I think you could become a better knight than Bruno someday. If you grow the right way."

The one saying all this was a five-year-old, three years her junior. Somehow, Lucia couldn't feel any gap between his words and the weight they carried.

"In any case, I'm not uncomfortable around Lucia, so there's no reason for you to avoid me. Or do I make you uncomfortable?"
"That's... no. Not at all."
"Then stop watching my every move and get back to your discipline. And let's spar sometimes too, going forward."
"But Kyle-nim is busy..."
"Busy or not, I can make time. I told you, playing with you was fun."

He couldn't go to Julius every single day going forward, anyway. There would be plenty to keep him occupied, but it wasn't a lie that he'd enjoyed himself with Lucia.

'She'll grow strong just following her own path. Raise her well, though, and she'd grow even stronger.'

There were many ways to build strength. The Sword Demon had built his through actual combat. Competition in particular accelerated growth faster than almost anything else.

Kyle wanted to raise this talented little half-demon well and make her into a sparring partner for later.

And increase his allies in the process.

The Sword Tower was, in a way, a world where the strong preyed on the weak. Erika, the youngest daughter, seemed to have no interest in becoming Family Head, but the others certainly would. They had to be wary of a five-year-old nephew who'd appeared out of nowhere and was already receiving too much of the Family Head's attention.

To avoid getting stepped on, he needed to grow large and heavy enough that no one dared try. Having reliable allies was another good way to go about it.

"I understand... I will."

A faint smile crossed Lucia's lips.

"Whenever you'd like to play, please call for me. I can't come looking for Kyle-nim on my own."
"Alright."

Kyle smiled back, then began looking around the Sword Flower Garden in earnest. Thirty-three weapons in total. Swords by a wide margin, but scattered among them were axes, spears, and even what appeared to be a mage's staff.

The swords drew his attention more than anything else. He stopped in front of a massive greatsword. A single glance made clear it was not sized for a human. The blade was wider and longer than two grown men laid head to foot. Kyle stared at it.

"That sword's name is Behemoth."

Lucia spoke softly from nearby, still moving between the weapons with her cloth.

"Three hundred years ago, it was the beloved weapon of Beast King Graf, who sought to conquer Gladiheim."

Next, a sword with a long curved blade caught his eye. The steel held a faint blue glow, beautiful and unsettling in equal measure.

"That sword is called Cheongwol. The beloved weapon of a knight who served Alastor two hundred years ago, a member of the Funeral Knights."

Many other swords pulled at his gaze.

Pulled at it. That was the right word. A faint but persistent pull, as though certain swords specifically wanted to be looked at, reaching for his attention. Like they were the ones doing the looking. Kyle felt it and let the corner of his mouth curl up.

He was certain now. Dokkaebi weren't unique to Fenris. But what he felt here was clearly weaker. Not the heart-hammering rush he'd felt approaching Fenris. Just a recurring tug on his eyes, and a faint tingling somewhere deep inside.

Kyle sharpened his focus and went through the swords again. One. Two.

Gazes. He could feel gazes from them. Only now did he understand the strange sensation he'd been carrying. He hadn't been the one to look at the swords first. The swords had looked at him. Those intangible, nonexistent gazes were stimulating the dokkaebi affinity that resided within him.

'Who's there.'

Thirty-three flowers making up the Sword Flower Garden. Kyle closed his eyes, searching for the one among them sending the most fervent gaze.

'Don't just stare. Make a sound. Let me find you.'

The tingling buried deep inside turned sharp, a cold shiver rolling through his entire body at once. And then, finally, one distinct gaze.

He opened his eyes and turned toward it.

A single sword stood there. Not double-edged. Single-edged, the kind commonly called a do. The ideal shape for cutting. Like a great cleaver in silhouette, but nothing meant for vegetables or cuts of meat. This one had been made to cut through a person whole. Vicious. Ominous.

Why hadn't he noticed something this vicious and ominous right away? Kyle strode toward it. Lucia followed in a hurry.

"Kyle-nim? What are you..."
"This one."

He raised a finger and pointed. Lucia's eyes went wide.

"What's its name?"
"Uh... um..."

She hesitated and couldn't answer. Her reaction puzzled him.

"I... I don't know. I've never seen a weapon like this in the Sword Flower Garden."
"Never seen it?"
"No... it wasn't there until just now. I couldn't see it before."
"Hmm."

Kyle tilted his head and looked back at the blade. Lucia's words sounded strange, but they also made a kind of sense. He himself hadn't noticed it the first time he'd come to the garden three days ago, nor when he'd been walking through it just now.

Was it just that he hadn't been looking carefully enough? That alone couldn't explain it. Something this vicious and ominous, shaped exactly like something made to kill, shouldn't have been missed.

"Its name is Baal."

A voice from behind him, sudden. He turned to find Katarina, Julius's eldest daughter, standing there.

"That's the blade that started the Sword Flower Garden."
"Good day, Katarina aunt."

Kyle greeted her politely first. Katarina gave a slight nod. Kyle asked about Baal.

"What do you mean it started the Sword Flower Garden?"
"Baal was the first blade planted here."

She answered plainly.

"Five hundred years ago. Before the founding ancestor ascended, the Demon King who had come to visit Gladiheim planted Baal in that very spot."

On do (도, 刀) vs. geom (검, 劍): Korean martial fiction draws a clear distinction between 검, a double-edged straight sword, and 도, a single-edged blade closer in form to a Chinese dao or a large saber. Baal is described as the latter. The comparison to a giant cleaver is Kyle's own impression, emphasizing its brutal, utilitarian character over any elegance.

On Baal (바알): The name shares its sound with the Semitic deity worshipped across ancient Canaan and Phoenicia, frequently referenced in the Hebrew Bible as the archetypal idol opposed to God, and later absorbed into demonological tradition. In that tradition Baal became a powerful demon prince. Given that this blade was left by the Demon King himself, the naming is almost certainly deliberate.

On Behemoth (베헤모스): A creature from the Book of Job, typically interpreted as a symbol of untameable earthly power. Its use here as the name of an oversized greatsword carried by a figure called the Beast King is a fitting choice.

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