WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 50

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My Family Is Rich

"If you want to see a sword, by all means."

Kyle shrugged. The Julius he was seeing again after four years seemed even more mischievous than before. Instead of a moving reunion hug, he had told him to put on a show the moment he arrived.

Kyle didn't mind. He drew in a deep breath. For four years, he had smelled nothing but rot and brine, filth fouler than corpses rotting in the mudflats and the sea. The outside air he was finally breathing felt cool and sweet.

And it wasn't just the air that felt different. Even after getting used to them, the Cultivation Floors had mana hardening, but outside there was nothing like that.

Right now, mana was circulating through his whole body without any conscious effort, and it felt completely natural and free. His entire body felt light enough to fly. No, for a moment he even thought he might actually be able to.

So, just in case, he gave a light hop in place... but he still couldn't fly.

'Not quite that much.'

Still, his body and mana both felt incredibly, incredibly light.

[Outside! We are outside!]

Jor cheered loudly inside his chest. Kyle ignored him and looked around again. Julius had said today was the day he had gathered the younger ones because he wanted to see their swords.

Perfect timing. Thinking that, he was also glad he'd eaten, washed up, and changed into clean clothes before coming out. He'd ended up here because of Fragment's mischief, but if he'd dropped in unwashed and in ragged clothes like a filthy beggar, he would've made a complete fool of himself.

Kyle swept his gaze across the spectator stands around the training ground. Alastor's Knight Candidates, apprentices, and full knights. There were plenty of others too.

He spotted quite a few familiar faces. His other uncles and aunts were seated up on the high platform, but Erika was in the audience. Maybe she had graduated from apprentice status in those four years, because she was wearing the formal uniform of the Aurora Knights, staring at Kyle with wide eyes.

Kyle waved at Erika, then looked to the next familiar face. Bruno. He was still in an apprentice uniform. He'd already been built like a mountain four years ago, and now he looked even bigger, almost the same size as his father, Barkas. Kyle waved to Bruno too, who was standing there with his mouth hanging open.

Then Lucia.

Like Bruno, Lucia was wearing an apprentice knight's uniform, her eyes round with surprise. Kyle waved to her as well.

He also saw his cousins Cassius, Bekius, and Vivian in the crowd, but he wasn't close to them, so he didn't bother waving. After scanning the whole audience, Kyle looked back up at the high seat where Julius sat.

"...?"

Arian and Aslan were nowhere to be seen. Arian maybe, but Aslan, who had the epithet Sword Fool, would never miss a spectacle like this. Kyle found it strange, but asked Julius a different question.

"Who should I spar with?"
"Let's see. How about one of the two whose duel you interrupted?"
"Hm."

Kyle looked at the two swordsmen standing awkwardly. Their feelings had to be tangled. They had been fully absorbed in their duel, each convinced he'd win with just a little more. Then not only had their match been interrupted, everyone's attention had been stolen by Kyle, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Would either of you like to spar with me?"

Kyle decided to give them the choice first. Their skill levels were about the same. To be blunt, even if both charged him at once, it wouldn't be a problem.

But if he said that out loud, rumors would spread that Alastor's youngest young master was an outrageously arrogant piece of trash. Kyle himself had been cursed in all kinds of ways since his previous life, so he didn't care about being criticized for his personality. Still, if people started talking about family upbringing and aimed that at Arian, that would be a different matter, so he decided to be careful in a setting like this.

"..."

Neither swordsman stepped forward. They glanced at each other, feeling each other out. They were irritated and conflicted, but they couldn't just flare up.

Just moments ago.

Kyle had suddenly dropped from the air and redirected both incoming blades at once. Not ordinary blades either, blades wrapped in Sword Qi, and he'd diverted them without even holding a sword.

That alone showed the gap in skill... and now those golden eyes facing them felt too deep, too profound. They were only standing there with swords in hand, yet somehow they felt like lowering them, no, dropping them.

"I'm embarrassed for you."

A young man with blond hair tied back in a ponytail strode toward the training ground. He wore leather armor with no crest on it, not the uniform of any house or knight order. He sneered as he glanced at the swordsmen frozen in awkward stances.

"If you're scared, sheathe your swords and get off."
"W-what?"
"Who are you...?"

The two swordsmen shouted back, then recognized him and flinched, their shoulders shrinking.

"J-Jade..."

Rending Fang Jade. The mad dog said to dominate the western duel pits. He was a wandering knight licensed in Ransel, the so-called Kingdom of Knights, famous for taking money to settle other people's grudges or stand in for others in Ransel's duel trials.

Because of that life, people mocked him as vulgar, but no one could deny his blade skill. When the two swordsmen who recognized him fell silent, Jade snorted and drew his sword.

"I said get down."

What Jade drew was no ordinary sword.

One side of the blade jutted out like shark teeth, or a carpenter's saw, a deformed shape. A sword breaker, designed not to slice flesh cleanly, but to tear it apart and destroy the opponent's blade.

Kyle's eyes lit up. He'd seen plenty of people use sword breakers on the battlefields of his previous life, but this was his first time seeing someone use one in this life. It was practical and powerful but difficult to handle, and the way Jade drew it so boldly showed his confidence.

'Looks like it.'

Kyle wasn't deliberately releasing pressure, but unlike the swordsmen who couldn't even meet his gaze, Jade stared straight at him. Looking into the abyss-like depth in Kyle's golden eyes, Jade twisted his lips.

"Young master's eyes are real strange. How old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"How does a young master born into a great house and raised with all that love end up with eyes like that?"
"I've had a rough time lately."

Jade chuckled at the smooth answer. The other two swordsmen had already let their shoulders slump and left the training ground.

Ting! Jade flicked the saw-like blade with his finger.

"Young master, my sword has a nasty temperament."

Jade's gaze moved to Blood Fang at Kyle's waist. Its bright red blade looked unusual to anyone at a glance.

"That's a sword you can afford to break, right? Don't come complaining later..."
"I can't use this one."
"What?"
"It has a different owner."

As he said that, Kyle looked around the audience.

"Would someone lend me a wooden sword?"

Jade's brow twisted at those words.

"Young master. What did you just say? A wooden sword? You're going to take my blade with some wooden stick?"
"Even a wooden stick can be better than a famed blade, depending on who holds it."
"Hey, are you serious? If you don't have a sword, borrow another one. Not a wooden sword, a real blade. This castle is overflowing with swords."
"I'd like to, but the first real sword I planned to hold is already decided."
"I don't know what you're talking about. So you won't spar me unless it's a wooden sword? Even if you're Alastor's young master, this is still a spar. I won't go easy on-"
"Do you spar with your mouth instead of a sword?"

Kyle grinned.

"Why so many complaints? If you're only going to talk, why did you draw your sword?"
"..."
"I didn't want to take it this far either, but I don't have a choice. The first sword I decided to hold is..."

At that moment.

KWAANG!

Something flew in from far away, tearing through the sky, and crashed into the center of the training ground. Jade jumped back in alarm, but Kyle didn't move at all. He just stared at what had fallen.

A sword was embedded in the training ground floor with a thunderous impact. Rough in form, with no flashy decoration, and a black blade like a line drawn in ink.

The sword said to have been made by dwarves, the one he'd taken as war loot after finally completing the revenge that had felt so empty in his previous life as commander of the Crow Mercenary Band. The sword he'd cherished for eighteen years after that, the symbol of the Sword Demon.

The sword that had stayed with the Sword Demon to his end.

Kyle stared at Fenris with wide eyes.

He didn't know how Fenris, which had been stuck in the floor of Sword Hall, had flown all the way here. But one thing was certain.

Before Kyle could go find Fenris, Fenris had come to find Kyle.

"You bastard."

Still smiling, Kyle whispered and reached for Fenris's hilt.

"You finally recognize your master?"

When he first saw Fenris in Sword Hall and asked Julius to give it to him, Kyle had been five years old.

'Ten years.'

Ten years had been the deadline Julius set at first. Back then, he'd asked what if it took longer than ten years, because no one could know what would happen later. He had never expected to complete exactly ten years and be acknowledged by Fenris.

'Acknowledged?'

The thought left a bad taste in his mouth. The Sword Demon had always been Fenris's master, and Kyle was the Sword Demon's reincarnation. Dwarf-made or not, once kept by Ruin to the very end, five hundred years old with a dokkaebi dwelling in it, none of that mattered. No matter how extraordinary it was, Fenris was still a sword.

'A mere sword dares choose its master?'

Kyle's fingers clenched around Fenris's hilt. In that instant, black mist burst from Fenris, visible and tangible only to him.

"Stay down, you bastard."

Snarling at the black wolf trying to leap out of the mist, Kyle strode forward. With that step, the mist vanished, and Fenris pulled free from the training ground floor.

The brief resonance ended. Strangely, Kyle could feel emotion from the Fenris in his hand. It was deeply flustered.

'Act like a sword.'

The one holding the sword wasn't flustered, yet the sword was. How ridiculous. Kyle snapped coldly and pointed Fenris's tip at Jade.

"I was going to borrow a wooden sword and spar, but the real blade I chose as my first came to me."

Jade stared at Kyle with eyes wide in shock. A sword suddenly dropping from the sky was shocking enough, but what horrified him even more was the complete shift in Kyle's presence the instant he took a real blade in hand.

"I'll spar you with a real sword like you wanted, so come."

Don't approach. If you approach, you die. Feeling that chill, Jade swallowed hard. His mind and instincts screamed at him with everything they had, but he crushed that instinct down. He had survived countless real battles. He had never died, but he was used to killing others.

He had always known the day might come when he died too. But today? A tingling thrill ran through him, and his heart pounded as he kicked off the ground.

Fwaaaash! The saw-like blade of the sword breaker, gripped in both hands, wrapped itself in bright red Sword Qi, and savage slashes like the bite of a wild beast came crashing toward Kyle.

To face the dozens of frontal slashes, Kyle held Fenris sideways. Wooooong... A low vibration rang from Fenris's blade, and a dark violet haze coiled around it.

One strike.

One was enough. Compared to Jade's violent sword, Kyle's was quiet stillness. But it wasn't motionless. Whoosh. Not too fast, not too slow, Fenris moved.

Fenris burrowed into the violent slashes.

With a single swing, every savage slash was swept in and cut apart. At the end of a sword path completed while advancing without breaking rhythm, Fenris and the sword breaker met.

Chaeng!

A sound rang out like a pane of glass shattering.

"...?!"

Shock flooded Jade's eyes. He had clearly seen and experienced it, yet his understanding of what had just happened lagged behind. Sword Qi had been cut. How? Could Sword Qi woven from aura be cut that easily?

He shoved that question aside. Jade hurriedly twisted the sword breaker, trying to catch Kyle's blade.

He pulled on the hilt to do it, but what reached his hand was far too light.

Of course it was.

The sword breaker's blade collapsed into fine grains like sand and poured onto the training ground floor. What Jade had pulled and twisted was just a rod that had once been a sword, now stripped of its blade.

"That's a sword you can afford to break, right?"

Jade couldn't answer. He only stared blankly at Kyle with his mouth open.

"You told me not to complain, but you can complain to me."
"..."
"My family is rich."

With a blunt expression, Kyle lowered Fenris.

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