WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 70

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How Many Times

"C-Captain."

Jade called out to Kyle, his voice tight with tension. Kyle was looking up at Helenas, overwhelmed with emotion and joy at their reunion, but the other members around him had all gone pale and couldn’t even dare raise their heads.

"W-what is this? What's happening right now?"

Bruno hunched his massive frame and stammered. Lucia covered her mouth and gasped, and Narua could only stare wide-eyed, trembling, unable to look at the sky.

Jade was the same. He couldn’t look up either, only stealing glances at Kyle’s face.

"W-what the hell is in the sky? Huh?"
"If you're curious, look for yourself."
"H-how can I? I can't... raise my head."
"Why not? I'm staring just fine."
"That's because you're a weird person, Captain...!"

Jade blurted it out in frustration. He wasn’t exaggerating. In this training ground, the four members besides Kyle were being crushed by the pressure of the transcendent beings standing motionless in the sky. They wanted to know what had appeared up there, but they simply couldn’t lift their heads to look.

"You won't die just from looking. Nothing will happen to your body."
"..."
"There's no killing intent or hostility up there. They're just sounding each other out. The reason you can't raise your heads is because you got scared first."

The members could all sense that unknown, unidentifiable beings were in the sky. But since they felt it with their senses before seeing it with their eyes, their bodies had stiffened on their own and stopped obeying them.

"If you freeze whenever you feel fear, you'll die young. Even if you know you'll die, if you can still face that moment with your eyes open and survive, that's how you grow stronger."
"Damn it..."
"I'm not telling you to look up right now, but at least try. Force that frightened body to move with your will."

The four still couldn’t raise their heads, but they began gritting their teeth and trying to move anyway. Bruno in particular strained so hard to straighten his neck that blood ran from his tightly bitten lip.

...

As Kyle said, there was no killing intent or hostility in the sky.

Sword Church Master Helenas, a monstrous elf who had lived for 500 years.

She could not be welcomed. The Sword Church Master was an uninvited guest. She hadn’t even sent word that she was coming. She had appeared without warning and crossed Gladiheim’s walls far too easily.

She was someone they should have been directing hostility toward. It had been 500 years since Gladiheim and the Sword Tower were built in the Blade Mountain Range, and since Alastor had reigned as the greatest martial family on the continent.

In those 500 years, Gladiheim’s walls had never once been breached. Even Beast King Graf, recorded as the greatest threat in Alastor’s history 300 years ago, had lost half his men on Paegeomro, lost the other half while breaking through the gate, and Graf himself had been defeated and beheaded in Hilt, Gladiheim’s lowest district.

And the Sword Church Master? She killed no one, took no damage herself, and reached Blade, the upper district. If she had wanted to, she could have reached the Sword Tower as well.

"Sword Church Master."

Julius spoke. Yellow eyes flashing like a beast’s, he glared at her, keenly aware of the hand gripping his sword.

"I expected you might come, but I never thought you'd come this recklessly."
"Thunder Emperor, how many years has it been since we last met?"

The Sword Church Master spoke. In the sky, where tension stretched taut, she alone seemed strangely detached. It was as if her very existence stood on a different plane from everyone else facing her under the same sky.

"Eighteen years."
"Not for me, but for humans, that's a long time, isn't it?"
"Usually, yes."
"You seem better than before, but for humans to pay such a long price for that time... it's a little disappointing. Is it because you're still human in the end?"

At the Sword Church Master’s murmur, everyone except Julius widened their eyes and began pouring hostility toward Helenas. She had arrived uninvited and now insulted the Family Head. Even if the opponent was the Sword Church Master, that remark was enough to make her feel like an enemy of Gladiheim.

Even as that suffocating hostility crashed over her, enough to choke anyone caught in it to death, the Sword Church Master’s expression remained calm. Julius gave a short laugh and shook his head.

"Do not waste your strength on pointless things. No matter how much pressure you put on her, the Sword Church Master feels nothing."
"But Family Head, that elf just..."
"I do not take that as an insult."

The moment he answered, something about Julius changed. The Elders behind him, and his children led by Karthan, all had their expressions shift. The same vague distance they felt from the Sword Church Master, that sense that she was clearly in front of them yet somehow blurred and far away, had settled over Julius as well.

"I judged wrong."

The Sword Church Master nodded.

"Eighteen years is a long time for humans. In that time, humans can achieve many things. A human like you can achieve far more than most. Thunder Emperor, you have not grown old."
"You... are almost unchanged from eighteen years ago. Was my reading right?"
"It was. I barely changed. Sometimes I wonder if I can change any further."

The Sword Church Master muttered with a blank face.

"When I was young, I heard endlessly that I had no Sword Talent. It took 500 years to reach this point, so eighteen years is too short for anything else to change. I'd probably need several times that."
"That is... unfortunate."
"Nothing to regret. I still have hundreds of years left, so what you cannot see, your descendants may see."
"There is one thing I want to ask."
"Ask."
"Within the lifespan I have left, do I have any chance of surpassing your sword?"
"Who knows. You are not old right now, but one day you will be. You're human. Right now, you feel those eighteen years as long and use them well, but when you've grown old, you won't."
"..."
"I don't know how much life you have left, but most humans die before they reach one hundred. You'll probably live longer than most... hm, this kind of talk is pointless. You only know by trying. That's what I learned."

The Sword Church Master paused for a moment, then tilted her head.

"I've talked with you for a long time. I didn't come here to talk with you."
"So after all, you came to see Fenris's owner? Honestly, I didn't expect you to move this quickly."
"You sent me a greeting. That greeting made me interested."
"Interested..."
"A small interest."

The Sword Church Master added that, then swept her gaze over Julius and everyone standing behind him.

"I'm late to ask this, but did you come out here to stop me?"
"Depending on what you do."
"I don't understand. You greeted me first, so I came. Why stop me?"
"That greeting was my grandson acting on his own."
"So I came on my own too. Let me tell you this, you'd better not stop me."
"Will you take Fenris?"
"If I wanted to take it, I could have done it centuries ago. You know that."
"Haha..."

Julius gave a low laugh and shook his head.

"My grandson sent that greeting on his own, and you came on your own, I understand that. But I am the lord of Gladiheim and the Family Head of Alastor."

Julius slowly raised his left hand, the one not holding his sword. At once, a raging torrent of mana burst from him and shoved the Gladiheim martial artists behind him far back.

"You ignored Gladiheim's gates and jumped over its walls. Sword Church Master, I have too much to protect to simply respect your position."
"Ah, I understand."

The Sword Church Master nodded.

"So you're going to stop me."
"You understood correctly."
"Why does it have to be that way? Thunder Emperor, you know it too. Your sword still cannot break me."
"There is the face of a lord to keep, and the authority of a Family Head... but as a swordsman, I also want to cross blades once."
"Ah, I see."

The Sword Church Master’s eyes gleamed.

"You want to show my sword to many through your own sword. Right?"
"They say elves take no interest at all in what doesn't interest them. Your insight is unexpected."
"If an elf lives five hundred years, different perspectives naturally appear. Thunder Emperor, for that reason, I will cross blades with you."

Nodding, the Sword Church Master raised her sword.

"I am not stingy about teaching the sword, nor do I find it troublesome. That's why the Sword Church exists. Sadly, I have no talent for teaching, so all I can do is show it."

From the moment she arrived in the sky, the Sword Church Master had already been holding her sword. But now she was no longer merely holding it. She had become a swordsman.

That changed something. The high sky still held sun and clouds, but the moment the Sword Church Master became a swordsman, all of it seemed to fade from view. Those standing in the sky, except Julius, felt their breath catch and dropped a little lower.

A chill ran through Kyle, and without realizing it he gripped Fenris tightly. It felt as if Helenas’s very level had risen to an even higher place.

"You'll regret it if you don't watch that."

Kyle muttered with a shiver and a grin. Narua, who had been trembling, found an answer. She dropped flat on her back and grabbed her head with both hands so it wouldn’t turn away on its own.

"Narua! You're a genius!"

Kyle shouted in sincere admiration. Seeing Narua, Lucia, Bruno, and Jade instantly lay down too.

"...What are all of you doing?"

Right then, Arian and Aslan came down to the training ground. Arian looked completely baffled, and Kyle answered calmly.

"You could live your whole life and still never see something like that. It'd be a waste to miss it."

Arian parted her lips but couldn’t answer right away. Aslan looked at Kyle with moved eyes. Soon, Aslan nodded firmly and drew his sword.

"Son, you're right. What we're seeing now... this is a truly rare sight, worth risking your life to witness."
"Arian, Aslan. Because of your damned son, you'll get to watch the Family Head taste defeat today."

With an angry voice, Barkas descended. He glanced at Bruno lying on the ground, then hardened his gaze and glared at Kyle.

"If you say that, Uncle, Grandfather might be disappointed, since he's the one who drew his sword to show us."

At that answer, Barkas tried to snap back, but found no words and only ground his teeth. Then he drew his greatsword beside Aslan, lifted his head, and glared up at the sky.

"Don't miss a single thing. Even if you don't understand it, just watch first."

Those words were aimed at Bruno, but everyone present needed to take them to heart. Even Arian summoned Zephyros, and the squad members were able to look at the sky with less strain than before.

Julius waited until his audience was ready.

His emotions were complicated. Julius himself knew well that he still could not reach the Sword Church Master. But as he had said, now that she had come this recklessly, Julius had to draw his sword.

'How long has it been since I felt this way?'

After becoming Alastor's Family Head, Julius had never been defeated. The one who had handed him his last defeat now stood before him again.

And Julius would lose to that same opponent again. Even knowing that, strangely, he felt neither discomfort nor resentment. Instead, the tension and excitement he was feeling for the first time in so long were genuinely enjoyable.

Julius wanted to share that feeling with his audience. A Family Head was not just someone who sat on a throne and displayed dignity. When needed, he had to set that dignity aside and pass on teachings that could help the family advance further.

Those standing here today would witness the Sword Church Master’s sword, which existed on a completely different level. What better lesson could there be for members of the greatest martial family on the continent?

'And I will learn something too.'

The Sword Church Master said she had no talent for teaching others the sword. All she could do was swing it. If someone wanted to learn from her, the only way was to watch and take something from it with their own ability. Julius was curious what he would see today, and what he would gain.

Julius moved. Purple lightning exploded where he had been standing, and that lightning itself was Julius.

The sky split. A violet rift opened where the lightning passed. The world’s neutral mana resonated with Julius’s very existence and turned into purple currents.

In an instant, the sky was dyed violet. Lightning energy boiled across not just Gladiheim, but the entire sky of the Blade Mountain Range.

Lightning shot upward into the violet sky, then plunged down toward the Sword Church Master. Like a thunderbolt falling from sky to earth, from above to below. Lightning energy condensed into Julius’s sword and detonated with his slash.

The Sword Church Master did not move.

Even as lightning fell over her head and Thunder Energy surged at her from all directions, she did not shift even an inch from where she first stood.

The Sword Church Master’s old sword moved. Against the lightning dropping from above, she cut upward from below.

The lightning split in two and flowed past both sides of her. Julius’s descending sword was blocked by the Sword Church Master’s blade, wrapped in thin white radiance.

The Sword Church Master’s hair swayed. One upward slash that looked like anyone could do it. Her sword did not overturn the sky like Julius’s, yet that single motion turned every attack into nothing.

Julius’s body was swallowed by lightning again. With a flash, the retreating lightning split into hundreds of streaks and rushed the Sword Church Master. Every one of those streaks was Julius’s sword.

The Sword Church Master’s blade, after that one movement, was left pointing upward. Naturally, because she had cut upward. And after that obvious truth came another.

The Sword Church Master’s sword dropped. She cut from above to below. Kyle’s eyes trembled. Five hundred years ago, that exact motion was the first thing he had taught Helenas.

Cut from above to below. This is the easiest. Easier than cutting from below to above, easier than thrusting at a single point.

The elf girl 500 years ago could not do even that easy thing. But the Sword Church Master now, Helenas’s sword now, split hundreds of lightning streaks in one stroke.

'How many times did she repeat it?'

In Raikal’s memories, it was hundreds of thousands of times. And 500 years had passed after that, so she must have repeated it literally too many times to count.

'Your sword already surpassed mine. And yet you still keep swinging it.'

Elves are captured by fate. The Helenas of 500 years ago was captured by Sword Demon Raikal’s sword.

Now Helenas had surpassed the sword that captured her. Yet she was still swinging. For what? Kyle clenched his fist without realizing it.

[Anyway, do it a lot.]
[Until you're having fun.]

Words from a distant past echoed in his head.

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