WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 67

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The Hut

“You’ve met the Sword Church Master before, haven’t you, Grandfather?”
“I’ve met her twice.”

Julius answered while fiddling with the ribbons hanging from his beard. He wanted to tear every last one of them off right then and there, but every time his fingers touched a ribbon, Kaya’s sharp gaze flashed toward him, and he didn’t dare.

“The first time was... before I became Family Head. Back then, I was wandering the continent to see whether my sword was worthy of that seat.”

Julius’s eyes drifted into a past from decades ago.

“The Sword Church Master is not a friend of Alastor. But she is an old senior who lived in the same era as our Founding Ancestor, and she was always mentioned whenever people spoke of the strongest swordsmen on the continent. So I went to find her.”

The Sword Church began five hundred years ago with followers of Sword Demon Raikal. That did not mean the entire Church was hostile to Alastor, but outside the branches the Master directly controlled, there were many extreme and violent factions. Even now, at Gladiheim’s entrance along Discard Path, several swords from Sword Church challengers were still stuck in the ground.

That was the relationship between them, and yet Julius, then a likely candidate for next Family Head, had gone alone to the Sword Church. Reckless, perhaps. Brave, perhaps. Either way, he went, and he met the Sword Church Master.

“Did you cross swords with her?”
“You ask nasty questions with such an innocent face. Do you want to see me lie to protect my dignity as Family Head?”
“That already sounds like an answer.”
“You little brat.”

Julius gave a grumbling laugh and answered.

“I lost.”
“...”
“It was a strange fight. The Sword Church Master’s sword was... hard to understand. The movements themselves were simple and obvious, but I could not respond to those simple, obvious movements.”

Simple and obvious. Hearing that, Kyle recalled the sword of Ruin Alastor he had seen through Fenris. A downward cut from above. A thrust straight ahead.

Ruin’s sword had been the pure basics, yet it had felt like a textbook, like truth itself. Was Helenas’s sword like that too?

“I lost to the Sword Church Master, but she did not kill me. She just sent me back. I returned... and became Family Head.”
“...”
“Do you understand what that means? Becoming Family Head of Alastor does not require many conditions. You only have to be stronger than the current Family Head.”

A bitter smile touched Julius’s lips.

If Julius became Family Head even after losing to the Sword Church Master, then even at that time, he had already possessed power worthy of the position.

“If the Sword Church Master had wanted to reclaim Fenris by force, Alastor would not have been able to stop her. But she never came. Not once, all this time, did she come demanding Fenris back.”

Julius rose from the throne and turned around. Behind him hung the portrait of Founding Ancestor Ruin Alastor. Beneath it, Fenris was displayed.

“Back then, I devoted myself to the sword while keeping guard for the day she would come. But decades passed, and she never did.”

Julius turned back again. His eyes settled on the Fenris hanging at Kyle’s waist.

“Do you think you could beat her now?”
“I don’t know.”

Julius answered calmly. There was no lie in his voice.

“The Sword Church Master is a strange person. She is not human, but an elf. For that race, time does not pass as quickly, fiercely, or intensely as it does for humans. Their perspective is fundamentally different...”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I met her twice in my life. Once right before I became Family Head. The second time was eighteen years ago.”

Julius’s wife had fallen into an indefinite sleep nineteen years ago after an accident in a Secret Realm. After that, Julius wandered the world himself for two years, searching for a way to wake her.

“The Sword Church Master has lived a long time. I thought she might know of illnesses or curses unknown to me, unknown to the world. So I went to find her on impulse.”

Julius shook his head, recalling that time.

“I gained nothing. Elves truly care about nothing beyond what interests them. But I did learn one thing.”
“What did you learn?”
“That my sword had gotten fairly close to hers.”

Julius’s voice remained calm. There was no swagger or arrogance in it.

“Ten years of me swinging a sword and ten years of the Sword Church Master swinging a sword are not the same. My one year could be ten years to her, and my ten years could be a hundred years to her. Of course, all of that can only be confirmed by crossing swords directly, but that is how it felt to me then.”

Considering Helenas’s talent with the sword, and the frustrating nature of elves who seek ‘understanding,’ Julius might have been right. Unlike Helenas, whose talent for the sword had once been abysmal, Julius had genius-level aptitude, enough to become Family Head of Alastor.

“Then now that another eighteen years have passed, do you think you’re stronger than the Sword Church Master?”
“Didn’t I already say I don’t know?”

Julius gave a grumbling chuckle.

“Each time I met her, I felt the distance between us shrinking. But what that distance truly is can only be known when both sides draw their swords. The Sword Church Master is an elf, and one who has lived for five hundred years. As far as I know, she has spent all five hundred years swinging a sword. What realm that is, how sharp her blade is, I can only confirm by staking my life.”

Kyle nodded. Helenas had swung a sword for five hundred years. If she had continued for all those centuries with the clumsy downward slash Sword Demon Raikal first taught her...

Kyle could not begin to imagine what her sword now contained, or where its tip was aimed.

“Why didn’t the Sword Church Master come and take Fenris by force?”
“When I met her the second time, I asked her that.”

Julius gave a bitter smile. He lowered his voice, as if embarrassed, or guilty.

“I should not have, but back then... if the Sword Church Master had demanded Fenris in return for answering my desperate question... I was prepared to hand Fenris over.”

That was how much Julius loved his wife. It was still true now.

“But she shook her head. She said she was not withholding an answer to demand payment, but because she truly did not know. And she said she had no intention of taking Fenris as payment.”
“She said she had no intention of taking it?”
“Yes.”

Julius laughed quietly.

“Five hundred years ago, the Founding Ancestor killed the Sword Demon and took Fenris, then kept it at his side ever since. The Sword Church Master was one of the followers who learned the sword from the Sword Demon. She came to the Founding Ancestor many times to reclaim Fenris, and failed. But after the Founding Ancestor ascended, she has never once come to Gladiheim herself.”
“...”
“Eighteen years ago, I naturally believed she desperately wanted Fenris. Before that, when I first met her, I thought she held a grudge against our house. She had lived through that era herself. But I could not read any grudge in her.”
“After five hundred years... maybe the grudge faded?”
“Who knows. I’m not an elf, so I don’t understand their emotions or values. But it is true that she has wanted Fenris for five hundred years. She regularly sends letters to Alastor asking after Fenris. And her followers come from time to time, saying they will reclaim it.”

But the Sword Church Master herself had never come to reclaim Fenris, even after confirming she was stronger than the current Family Head.

“Eighteen years ago, she said this about Fenris. She said she was not yet ready to reclaim him, so Alastor could keep displaying and storing Fenris as it always had.”
“...”
“But now Fenris is no longer a display piece. So the Sword Church Master will come to find you.”

Julius stared at Kyle. That gaze held less of a Family Head’s authority and more of a grandfather’s concern.

“You openly provoked the Sword Church disciples and sent your greeting to the Sword Church Master. If she comes in response, figure out what she wants.”

Julius already understood that she did not simply want to seize Fenris by force.

“The Sword Church Master is asking for a qualification other than strength to reclaim Fenris. She is not a fanatic like the organization she leads.”
“What if she does try to take it by force?”
“If she wanted that, she could have done it many times over these five hundred years. Honestly, I don’t know how she will act either. How could someone who has not even lived a hundred years predict the mind of a five-hundred-year-old elf?”

Julius grumbled and shrugged.
“But Kyle, what unfolds with the Sword Church Master is largely something you brought on yourself. You were the one who begged for Fenris ten years ago, and you were the one who provoked the Sword Church disciples, dueled them, and used them as messengers. So you must take responsibility for what you started.”
“Yes, I’ll take responsibility and die to the Sword Church Master.”
“I agreed to hand over my Fenris because I believe she is not that crude a person. But if you die to her, I will avenge you in the family’s name.”

The grandfatherly concern from earlier was gone from Julius’s eyes. In its place was the resolve of the Family Head. If, by some chance, the Sword Church Master killed Kyle and took Fenris, Alastor would stake everything to destroy her and the Sword Church.

“Come on, you don’t need to do that.”

Kyle smiled and stroked Kaya’s head. Unable to follow her brother and grandfather’s conversation, Kaya had been nodding off.

“I made this mess, so I should clean it up.”
“Not a wrong metaphor... but filthy. Show some restraint as an Alastor pure-blood. Kaya is listening too.”
“Poop!”

Hearing a word she knew, Kaya’s eyes snapped open as she shouted.

“Poop!”

Kaya shouted again and burst into giggles.

Why do kids like poop so much?

It was a mystery.

Though there was still time left in the Exchange Tournament, the Sword Church disciples led by Jenafelt left Gladiheim.

There was no point in staying. They had joined this Exchange Tournament to spread the greatness and strength of the sword taught by the Sword Church and to expand the faith, but Jenafelt, the strongest among them, had been utterly defeated by Alastor’s young master, who had not even held a sword.

“I must go to the Holy Sanctuary.”

At Vigrid’s Warp Gate, Jenafelt turned to the disciples and spoke.

“You should return to your posts and continue practicing the doctrine and spreading the gospel.”
“Jenafelt-nim. Are you really... planning to go to the Holy Sanctuary?”

Kroll asked hesitantly, worry on his face.

“The Holy Sanctuary is a place allowed only to the apostles and their disciples... isn’t it a place yellow pauldrons like us cannot even approach?”
“I know.”

Jenafelt answered calmly. The Holy Sanctuary was where the Sword Church had been born. Only the Master, the seven apostles, and the disciples directly taken in by those apostles stayed there.

“If you go there without permission... you will incur the apostles’ wrath.”

The Sword Church Master herself barely intervened in Church affairs. Having lived five hundred years, she was the Master and the symbol, while the apostles under her handled the actual operation of the Sword Church.

A symbol had to be revered and longed for by most disciples, an existence they could not dare approach. That was why most disciples could not simply meet the Sword Church Master because they wanted to.

Even Jenafelt, a yellow pauldron, had gone to the Holy Sanctuary only once, when she received that pauldron, and even then she had only seen the Sword Church Master from far away.

Even that one meeting was not truly a meeting. Their eyes had not met. The Sword Church Master had not come for the promotion ceremony. The ceremony had simply been held during the time she practiced her sword.

For that brief moment, Jenafelt was captivated by the Sword Church Master’s sword. Most Sword Church disciples were the same. The reason promotion ceremonies from yellow pauldron onward were held at the Holy Sanctuary, timed to her sword practice, at a distance where they could at least see her from afar, was simple.

It was to imprint the Sword Church Master’s sword onto the disciples, since she herself had little interest in the Church.

Disciples who vowed to devote their lives to the sword became entranced by the sword they saw in that moment. A yellow pauldron could glimpse her sword only briefly during the promotion ceremony. After that, the officiating apostle blocked the view.

With promotion to red pauldron, they could watch a little longer. With promotion to purple pauldron, longer still. And with silver pauldron, upon becoming an apostle, they could watch as much as they wished.

The Sword Church hierarchy existed because of the Sword Church Master’s sword.

Disciples entered for the sword, then became captivated by her sword and pledged loyalty to the Church. But they got only one chance to see her sword when promoting to yellow or above, so if they wanted to see more, they had to earn higher pauldrons.

To earn higher pauldrons, they had to go mad for the sword. That was how the Sword Church had sustained itself for five hundred years.

If just anyone could come and go from the Holy Sanctuary, that structure would collapse. If they could watch her sword whenever they wanted, there would be no reason to swing their own swords for promotion.

The pauldron hierarchy would collapse, the apostles’ authority would collapse, and eventually the Sword Church itself would collapse. So access to the Holy Sanctuary was strictly forbidden. This was not a law made by the Sword Church Master, but by the apostles.

The Sword Church Master herself did not care about such rules. She only swung her sword, and did not care who watched it.

The apostles were different. To them, her sword was both faith and the source of power.

There was no official record of what happened to disciples who entered the Holy Sanctuary without permission. The lack of records was the answer itself. No one had returned, so there was nothing to record.

“You are... prepared for that?”

Kroll asked in a low voice. It sounded less like a question and more like confirmation.

“There is nothing to prepare for.”

Jenafelt answered.

“I made a promise to Kyle Alastor. I said I would deliver his greeting directly to the Master.”
“But... Kyle Alastor probably did not realize what those words meant for you.”
“That does not matter. I did not refuse the duel. I made a promise, so I will keep it.”

Kroll said nothing more and closed his mouth. Leaving the disciples behind in silence, Jenafelt turned away.

The Sword Church’s Holy Sanctuary.

That place was a forest.

A forest with a hut where the Sword Demon was said to have lived for a short time five hundred years ago.

The Sword Church Master lived alone in that hut.

Unless one was royalty or a high-ranking noble, using a Warp Gate without reservations and procedures was impossible. Higher-ranked Sword Church pauldrons could ignore those procedures, but that was out of reach for Jenafelt, a yellow pauldron.

So Jenafelt had no choice but to wait at the Warp Gate lodgings until the next day, the earliest available slot. Then, the next day, after paying an expensive fee, she arrived at Karent, a small city in the western continent.

On the continental map, some places were marked in red.

Parts of the Western Demihuman Union’s autonomous territories. Any human entering without permission was judged under local law.

Parts of the Northern Sea demon territory. Since five hundred years ago, the continent and the demons had maintained friendly relations, and the northern sea islands, originally imperial territory, had been gifted to the demons as a token of goodwill. Even so, the demons themselves were highly warlike, and with the internal conditions of the demon realm Erebos on top of that, several northern islands had become strictly forbidden destinations.

Natural lands like the Southern Manroe Valley. There was no law forbidding visits to those places where sky and earth roared without rest and spirits and mana ran wild, but they were dangerous enough that visiting meant staking one’s life.

The entire eastern region, marked red since contact was severed three hundred years ago.

And in the west, Sword Forest.

These places shared one thing. They were dangerous enough to risk your life. If you visited, you alone bore full responsibility. No matter how impressive your backing was, it could not guarantee your safety.

Compared to the places above, Sword Forest took up a very small area on the map. It took ten full days on horseback from Karent, a small western city, to reach it. On the map, this forest looked no larger than a fingernail, just a small patch of woods.

Yet its name was painted blood-red.

At Karent’s Adventurer Guild, adventurers heading west were given three warnings.

Do not go near Sword Forest.
If someone wearing pauldrons approaches, treat them politely.
Do not ask about Sword Forest.

In front of Karent’s west gate, Jenafelt prostrated herself toward Sword Forest. She did not rent a horse. She was an ordinary Sword Church disciple heading to the Holy Sanctuary without permission; seeking comfort by riding was unthinkable.

So Jenafelt ran toward Sword Forest on foot.

On the second day, she felt eyes on her. Open stares that made no effort to hide. There was no killing intent, only surveillance. Jenafelt did not look around to search for them.

But she thought about it. Not one person, at least three, as far as she could sense at her level.

Jenafelt kept running as if unaware. What she had to do was visit the Holy Sanctuary and meet the Sword Church Master in person. She had come to do something her status did not permit.

Ten days on horseback. Jenafelt did not ride; she only ran at full speed. She had enough mana to bear the epithet Ten Swords, but running at full speed with minimal rest was harder than swinging a sword.

When her mana ran dry, she rested briefly, replenished herself with rare and expensive mana stones, spirit herbs, and Elixirs, then ran again. After a full week of that, the forest finally came into view.

The watching eyes had followed her for that entire week without making contact. That would change now. Jenafelt felt tension rise as she approached the forest.

At the forest entrance stood a large stone stele carved with Sword Forest. Jenafelt trembled faintly before it, dropped to her knees, and bowed.

At that instant.

A blade touched her left shoulder, another touched the right side of her neck, and another pressed against her bent waist. At the same time, multiple presences surrounded her.

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