WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 4

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Kyle

"Hmm."

Kyle turned before the mirror, tilting his head this way and that.

Well. Some things had to be acknowledged.

"Whose son could possibly be this handsome!"

He hadn't even finished acknowledging it when Arian's voice rang out and she pulled him into a fierce embrace.

"Tell me, my little angel! Who do you take after to be this gorgeous?"
"...You, Mother."
"Hey! I told you to call me Mom, not Mother!"

Any other day, that answer would have earned him a thorough ruffling of the hair, no mercy given. But Kyle had been carefully styled since early that morning, so Arian kept her hands off his head and settled for pinching his chubby cheeks instead.

"We're meeting relatives for the first time. Shouldn't I try to make a proper impression?"

He said it with the most dignified enunciation he could manage, cheeks still caught between her fingers.

A calculated move. He'd been quietly trying to shift from "Mom" to "Mother" for some time now.

"You don't need to make a proper impression! Your own mother is hardly a proper person herself."

Finding her son's response unbearably cute, Arian swept him up off the floor. She spun him around a few times, then pressed a rapid string of kisses to his face.

"Children are cutest when they act their age. If you go around being all dignified, the brothers in our proud and troublesome family will only get suspicious."

A chill flickered through her eyes as she said it, there and gone in an instant. Any ordinary child would have missed it. Kyle did not.

'As I thought. There's something behind all this.'

The story she'd told him: she'd gone back to her family in a sulk over her husband's closed-door training, and not wanting word to get out, she'd hidden herself in the Rose Mansion without even announcing the birth.

Kyle hadn't thought it was all a lie. But staying hidden, not telling anyone about something as significant as giving birth, that didn't quite add up no matter how he looked at it. There had to be another reason Arian wanted distance from her family, something she hadn't said.

'Still, it can't be anything too serious. She's bringing me to meet them in the end.'

Or maybe it was serious, and she'd pushed past it for her son's sake, because he'd said he wanted to meet his relatives. Privately, Kyle suspected that was closer to the truth.

If it really was, then Arian was, as he'd felt countless times before, a good mother. Having never known maternal warmth in his past life, he found himself sinking deeper into hers with each passing day.

Up until he was three, he hadn't been able to think of her as his mother in any real sense. She'd been younger than him in his past life, after all. So he'd gone through the motions out of something like guilt, playing the part.

Now it was different. Somewhere along the way, without quite noticing when, he'd come to think of Arian as genuinely his own mother.

"Mother..."
"Mom! I said call me Mom!"
"Mom, put me down."
"Are you going to keep speaking formally forever?"
"Mom. I'm five."

When he was younger, the words hadn't come out right, his tongue too clumsy for anything more than baby-talk. Five years old, though, and this small body finally did as he asked.

"Oh, is that so? My son is five years old? All grown up now, are we?"

To Arian, Kyle acting dignified was nothing but adorable. She kissed his forehead one last time and set him down.

"..."

Kyle wiped the lipstick marks from his face with a handkerchief, then looked at his reflection once more.

Anyway. He had to acknowledge it. Everything Arian had gushed about was true.

Kyle was handsome. Only five years old, and already it was impossible to miss. Arian let out a soft giggle at him staring at himself.

"They say the founder of our family had red hair and gold eyes. Five hundred years have diluted that blood quite a bit, but every now and then someone in the bloodline is born with the crimson hair and the golden eyes. Like you and me."
"Do Grandfather and the relatives also have red hair and gold eyes like us?"
"Grandfather and a few others. So some of the relatives never liked your mother much."

Seriously. Jealous over hair and eye color. Kyle asked, baffled.

"Who?"
"Mm, well, you'll meet them today anyway..."

Arian hesitated, then smiled and patted his shoulder.

"Do you remember how many siblings your mother has?"
"Nine."

Of course he remembered.

The current head of the Alastor family, Julius Alastor, had nine children.

First, Karthan Alastor.
Second, Katarina Alastor.
Third, Barkas Alastor.
Fourth, Jerard Alastor.
Fifth, Dante Alastor.
Sixth, Arian Alastor.
Seventh, Roel Alastor.
Eighth, Seros Alastor.
Ninth, Erika Alastor.

"Barkas and Jerard-oppa. And Roel. Those three never liked me much. After today, there might be more who don't."

Barkas. Jerard. Roel.

Kyle fixed those names in his memory.

"Then, Kyle, shall we head out?"

The faint, lonely smile at the corner of Arian's lips vanished.

"Seril, we won't be back for a while. I'm leaving the mansion in your hands."
"When do you expect to return, my lady?"
"Mm. I'd like to come back soon, but I honestly don't know."

After finishing her conversation with Seril, the head servant of Rose Mansion, the two of them stepped outside.

The Rose Mansion, where Kyle had spent all five years since his birth, was exactly what its name promised, a mansion full of roses in bloom. In those five years, Kyle had never once stepped past its gates.

Tall stone walls. Rose vines climbing every surface. The feeling of a world sealed away from the world. His heart quickened with something he could only call excitement as he took Arian's hand and held on tight.

"Mom. Are we going by carriage?"
"A carriage would take too long. A warp gate would be fastest, but at your age the mana sickness from one can be quite bad."

Arian looked down at him with a soft smile.

Five hundred years had passed since the death of the Sword Demon Laikal. The world had changed enormously from the one he'd known.

'Magic...'

Five hundred years ago, mages had existed, but they weren't common. Magic had belonged not to humans but to dragons, to elves, and to the demons from across the sea. A foreign discipline. Something borrowed.

Then came forty years of darkness, and through it, magic advanced at a rapid pace. Training a mage took far more effort than training a common soldier, but a mage, once made, more than paid her way.

As the demons pushed onto the continent, not only the elves locked away in their forests but even dragons, the stuff of pure legend, began showing their faces in the world. Magic became familiar to humans.

There was an old theory that humans first discovered fire when lightning struck a tree, that from handling that flame they learned to kindle it themselves, and from there refined their mastery of it. Magic had followed the same path. Five hundred years ago, mages were so rare and powerful they were almost never seen on a battlefield. Now they were common, and magical devices had spread alongside them. The warp gate Arian mentioned was one such device: a machine that sent you across vast distances in an instant, no horse or foot travel required.

He'd never experienced any of it himself. Everything he knew came from books and from Arian. But five hundred years was more than enough time to warp the world into something he barely recognized.

'Magic... magic...'

Kyle fidgeted with Arian's hand, thinking back to the mages he'd crossed paths with in his past life. Not opponents he'd ever looked forward to facing.

"So how are we getting there?"
"Heh."

Arian smiled, full of herself.

"Kyle, have you ever wanted to fly?"
"No."
"No... really? Why not?"
"Just because."

Truly, the thought had never once crossed his mind. Was the answer too lacking in childlike wonder? He glanced at Arian's expression.

"But now that you mention it, Mom, I'd like to try."
"Yes! Of course you would!"

Arian, who had deflated for just a moment, brightened right back up and tugged his hand forward.

"This mother of yours will make her son fly."

He blinked, trying to figure out what on earth that meant.

"Huh... wait? Wh, what,?!"

The two of them rose. Gently, steadily, the ground fell away beneath them. He looked around in surprise, and there it was, invisible to the eye but undeniable: wind, lifting them both skyward.

"Whoa!"

He hadn't actually expected to fly. A startled cry tore out of him.

"Mom! You're a mage?!"

He hadn't been entirely unprepared for it. He remembered the feel of the fingers that had cradled him the moment he was reborn into this world.

And it wasn't just that one time. Arian had touched him every single day without fail, five years of it, not one missed. Those soft, yielding fingers.

Not a callus on them.

Alastor was a martial family. The premier martial family on the continent, by reputation. For a blood daughter of such a house, Arian's hands were far too soft for someone who'd spent a lifetime gripping a weapon.

So now and then, he'd wondered whether she might be a mage. Not just because of her hands, but some instinct he couldn't quite name, a feeling that simply was.

'Yes. This is it.'

Eyes wide, Kyle took in everything around him. The wind carrying them into the sky, and the warmth coming from it, distinct from Arian's body heat or the warmth of her presence. A different kind of warmth entirely.

"Mm, well. Your mother is something like a mage, but not quite."

Arian laughed softly and touched his cheek.

"I'm a spirit mage."
"A spirit mage?"

Kyle's eyes went wide. Five hundred years ago, spirit mages had existed, but they were far rarer than ordinary mages. Even Laikal, who had roamed every battlefield the continent had to offer, had met exactly one in his entire life.

In this age of widespread magic, spirit mages were still rare. Spirit arts demanded an innate talent that far exceeded what ordinary magic required.

'Of course.'

Another piece clicked into place. No wonder Arian had been reluctant to return home. Born into a martial family and having taken to spirit arts instead of sword work or any other weapon, feeling like an outsider was only natural.

"If you could do something like this all along, why didn't you ever use a spirit in front of me?"

Pure curiosity. In five years, Arian had never once called on a spirit around him. She had always held him herself, bathed him herself, dried his hair herself.

If she could command a wind powerful enough to carry two people through the sky, she could have used it for all manner of small things in daily life. And yet.

"I never had a reason to."

She smiled and answered simply.

"My whole life is spent with you. What would I ever need a spirit for in a life like that? Everything that has to do with you, I want to do with my own hands."
"Ah..."

That stopped him. He had nothing to say to it.

"So the spirit is grumbling right now. Says it's been too long since I called."
"Really?"
"Mm. You might even be able to hear it. You are my son, after all."

At that, Kyle closed his eyes and focused, listening as hard as he could.

[...really... ...just so... selfish...]

A jolt.

Something deep inside him opened, and a shiver ran the full length of his body. Along with it came a faint voice, barely audible, threading through the sound of the wind.

"I think... I can hear something."
"Really?!"

Arian's voice burst with joy. She pulled him into a tight embrace.

"My son, of course! Well? What does it sound like?"
"It's too faint. I can't quite make it out."
"That's fine, that's fine! Everyone starts that way, well, actually, starting out and already hearing anything at all is remarkable. I've been told my own talent for spirit arts is genius-level, and even I couldn't hear a spirit's voice at first!"

The warmth drained from Arian's voice.

"Well. The family will have something to say about it, no doubt. But it doesn't matter."

Her tone was cooler than usual, but Kyle couldn't give it his full attention. Every bit of his focus was bent toward that faint voice still threading to him on the wind.

'In my past life I saw a spirit mage, but I never heard a spirit's voice.'

He thought of the elf who had lingered near him back then, in the days when he was the Sword Demon.

'How old was she then...'

He didn't know her exact age. That elves lived long was common knowledge. He set the thought aside and opened his eyes, looking down.

Far below, the Rose Mansion where he'd spent five years sat nestled in its gardens. Separate from it, spreading vast and wide across the Alastor family's domain, lay the city of Vegrid.

"That's where we're headed."

Even at this height, the wind wrapped warmly around them. No chill to speak of. Arian reached into her dimensional pouch and drew out a small robe, slipped it over Kyle, pulled the hood up to keep his hair from the wind, then pointed north of the city.

The Blade Mountain Range, its peaks sharp as sword tips.

"Gladiheim."

The Alastor family's castle lay within those mountains.

"Oppa" (오빠) is a Korean honorific used by women to address an older male, whether a biological brother or a close older male figure. Arian calls Jerard "Jerard-oppa," signaling their sibling relationship and age difference. This honorific is retained untranslated per the project's style guidelines.

The "Sword Demon" title (검귀, literally meaning sword ghost or sword demon) is a compound of 검 (sword) and 귀 (ghost/demon), a classical Korean literary device for naming martial arts prodigies or figures of fearsome power. The title evokes someone so devoted to the sword that they have transcended ordinary humanity, more ghost than person.

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