WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 73

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Promise

"..."

Helenas couldn't say a word. She just stared blankly at Kyle's face.

The voice was the same. Unlike when they'd spoken earlier, now it sounded achingly familiar.

Even his way of speaking had changed. Helenas understood now that the boy in front of her wasn't truly just a boy.

She didn't understand how such a thing could happen. She didn't try to understand it, either. In the past, Helenas, as an elf, would have needed long reflection and endless questions before accepting something she couldn't grasp. But five hundred years had passed. She was no longer a little girl.

"You are..."

Helenas spoke in a trembling voice. It made no sense. She would not try to make sense of it. It wasn't simply because five hundred years had gone by. Put simply, the reason didn't matter to her at all right now. What mattered was that she had met her fate again, the fate that had once seized her whole being.

"You are someone I know."

Kyle brushed Fenris at his waist and gave a bitter smile.

"I told you. I'm not going to remain only as someone you know. That wouldn't be good for either of us."
"And after that."

Helenas shook her head.

"I said you are not someone completely different from the one I know."
"Right. I can't deny that part."

Kyle went back to the rock and dropped onto it.

"Helenas."
"...Yes."
"I still find the sword fun."
"..."
"How did the sword I just swung look to you?"

At that question, Helenas hesitated instead of answering right away.

"I couldn't understand it."
"Why?"
"Because I felt that you could use the sword better. So I couldn't understand. Why, when you can use it better, do you choose not to?"
"I already answered that."
"You're saying the sword you just swung is more fun for you than the sword you originally knew how to use?"
"Yeah."

Kyle nodded and continued.

"I like winning, but sometimes losing is enjoyable too. If I fight again later and win then, it's even more fun."
"..."
"Helenas. Did you feel fate in my sword just now?"

Helenas did not answer at once. That short silence was enough of an answer for Kyle.

"So you didn't."
"..."
"If I swing a different sword, will you feel fate in my sword again?"
"I would feel longing."

Helenas smiled. It was a lonely smile.

"Yeah, I figured. That's why I didn't show it."

Kyle looked straight at her smile. In the end, he was human, and he had not lived five hundred years. So he could not fully understand what Helenas felt now, or the confusion inside her.

"The sword you showed just now was different from the sword I know."

Still wearing that lonely smile as she stared at him, Helenas spoke.

"Your sword was immature."
"Yeah."
"It was incomplete."
"Right."
"And yet you were smiling."

Kyle did not answer. She likely already knew why he had smiled in that moment.

"You were smiling even while swinging an immature, incomplete sword. If you are the one I know, then that sword is only a part of what you can do. Yet you smiled."
"..."
"I do not understand you. I could not understand you five hundred years ago either, or the things you told me then. But I understand you even less now."
"Because you're different from me."

At Kyle's answer, Helenas slowly nodded.

"Yes. I am different from you in every way. I wanted to become like you, I wanted to smile like you, but I am still different from you."
"You don't need to become like me. Your fate isn't about becoming me."
"I don't understand."
"Then don't."
"Elves can't do that."
"You learned to cut down many things, and yet you still can't cut the curse that binds your own existence."

With a long sigh mixed in, Kyle whispered. Helenas stared at him blankly.

He looked different.

The man Helenas remembered had black hair streaked with gray and black eyes. He wore a rough beard too. He was taller, and old scars covered his body, including his face.

The boy before her had red hair as beautiful as roses. His eyes shone like gold. His skin was pale and soft, without a single scar.

He looked different, but inside him was the person Helenas remembered. The person she had thought she could never meet again, someone she could only meet in memory. Helenas parted her lips.

"I want to call your name."
"My name is Kyle Alastor."
"The name I know is different."
"That person is dead."
"He is before my eyes."
"What you're seeing is a phantom of the past. If that's what you want from me, I refuse. I don't want to become a ghost too."
"You are..."

Helenas wore a faint smile.

"You are a cruel person."
"I'm a selfish person too."
"If you had not shown me your sword, I would not be feeling this way now."
"After hearing your story, I couldn't hold back. I never thought you'd become this twisted."
"..."
"One thing already ended, and I got a chance to start over. So I'm moving on to what's next."

Next.

In a small voice, Helenas repeated the word.

"If you leave like that, what am I supposed to do?"
"Who knows."
"You're irresponsible."
"Do I have to take responsibility for you?"
"Yes, you do. Because you made who I am now."
"That's true too."

Kyle smiled bitterly and stroked Fenris.

"The bastard you remember is an idiot."
"..."
"Nothing that great about him. Helenas, your sword already surpassed that bastard."

If someone else had insulted him like that, Helenas would have drawn her blade. Elves were not heartless, only dull in emotion.

But now, Helenas could not draw her sword. He was calling himself an idiot. That only confused her more.

"I said I'd save you and teach you the sword, then I died before teaching you to the end."
"..."
"Five hundred years is a long time. I'm not stronger than you anymore, and I can't swing a sword like you can. If anything, I've reached the point where I should be learning about the sword from you. Even if I don't want to."
"Rai..."
"Right now, I'm Kyle Alastor."

Kyle shook his head and cut her off.

"And you are the Sword Church Master-nim."

He drew a line. He separated Raikal of the past from Kyle of the present, who had died and reincarnated.

Helenas felt that line, but she could not understand it. She did not want to understand it either. Still, she tried not to understand. After hesitating for a moment, she let out a long sigh.

"How cruel."

Looking up at the sky, Helenas murmured.

"But a little... just a little, I understand your heart. You are... thinking of me."
"Yes."
"I still don't find the sword fun."
"That may change from now on."
"How would it change? You said it yourself. You are now... weaker than me."

Helenas lowered her gaze from the sky. The eyes that had held loneliness and longing had already returned to the faded, emotionless eyes of the Sword Church Master.

"I left your sword in memory. Whenever I looked back, it was always beautiful and lovely. Back then, I could not properly swing a sword."
"..."
"But now it's different. As I kept turning over your words and trying to understand them, I reached a conclusion. Child. Even if you show me your sword from the past, I will feel nothing but longing."

Just as Raikal became Kyle, Helenas became the Sword Church Master. She was no longer the little elf brat of the past. Before someone who had held a sword for five hundred years, not only Kyle but even Raikal was a child.

"But I still love those memories, and I can love your sword, and you. Maybe that's why, right now... I feel desire. If I keep you by my side, maybe these five hundred years of loneliness will be soothed."
"Wow, that's a scary thing to say."

Kyle chuckled.

"I'm that desperate. I loved it because that sword I saw in the past was beautiful. For me, that sword is still fate. Even though my sword has surpassed the sword I saw then, I am still trapped by fate."
"Yet Sword Church Master-nim, you feel no joy in swinging your own sword. Why do you think that is?"
"Because I am not you."
"Sword Church Master-nim, you said it yourself. Even Ruin Alastor never spoke of the 'fun' of the sword."
"I did."
"You also said that in all your five hundred years, you've never seen someone who held a sword purely because it was fun, because they liked it, because they loved it."
"I saw plenty of liars."
"I'm not a liar."
"I know."

With a faint smile, Kyle rested his chin on his hand.

"Then Sword Church Master-nim, you've lived for five hundred years, and still... you've never fought someone like me, have you?"
"..."
"Right now my sword looks incomplete and immature to you. My old sword would too. But someday, it will become strong and beautiful enough that even the Sword Church Master-nim won't be able to deny it."

Helenas's eyes began to tremble.

"How many times have you been defeated in your life, Sword Church Master-nim?"
"Too... many. I never counted."
"Which defeat do you remember most?"
"When I lost to Ruin Alastor."
"Was it fun then?"
"No, not at all."
"If you lose to me, it might be fun. Come to think of it, we never even sparred in the old days."

Kyle raised his little finger for her to see.

"So let's make a promise. Someday, I will teach you the fun of the sword."
"By... defeating me?"
"Yes."
"I don't... understand. Why is it fun if you've lost?"
"Don't try to understand. Sometimes you just have to feel it, beyond understanding. And, well. Isn't it a bit funny for someone as much weaker than you as I am now to lecture you about the sword?"

Kyle waggled the little finger he had raised.

"But later, once I beat you, even if you say the sword isn't fun, I'll be able to say a thing or two."
"..."
"What are you doing? I said let's make a promise. Sword Church Master-nim, do you not want to make one with me?"

With trembling eyes, Helenas stared at Kyle.

Those words were arrogance itself. No matter how talentless she might have been, the Sword Church Master was a monster who had swung a sword for five hundred years. Just today, the Thunder Emperor, Family Head of Alastor, had lost to her.

And to that Sword Church Master, this boy, who declared that incomplete and immature sword as his own, said that someday he would defeat her with it. And even then, if the Sword Church Master still did not understand the fun of the sword, he would personally lecture her on it.

"Ahaha..."

Laughter slipped through her trembling lips. From an elf's perspective, those words made no sense. In five hundred years, Helenas had suffered countless defeats. But not once had any of those defeats felt fun.

If she were defeated by the boy before her, would she understand the fun of the sword? An elf's perspective would never try to understand that assumption. Yet strangely, right now, Helenas went beyond understanding and imagined that someday in the future the boy spoke of.

Maybe, just maybe.

That defeat might be fun.

"Child. You said the fate that trapped me for five hundred years was a curse."

In a softly smiling voice, Helenas whispered.

"If, truly if, someday your sword defeats me, and that is how I come to know the fun of the sword, then your future sword will surely trap me as a new fate. Do you plan to carve a new curse into me?"
"Ah, hell, that's the problem?"

Elves were a damn troublesome race. Kyle truly thought so and frowned.

"Well, I'll think about that when the time comes. So what, you're refusing the promise?"
"Can you stay by my side and wait for that someday in the future you speak of?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because beside you, Sword Church Master-nim, I can't swing my sword as I please."

At that answer, Helenas could only laugh again.

As she laughed, tears gathered in her trembling eyes.

"Of course."

Helenas smiled with tears running down her face. A smile she had almost never worn in five hundred years. Beautiful, sad, lonely. And yet carrying a small hope.

"You are that kind of person."

Whispering in a small voice, Helenas stepped toward Kyle. Close enough now, she raised her little finger and hooked it with his.

"So small."

Kyle's reflection was visible in Helenas's eyes.

"Small, and fragile."

Most beings would look that way to the Sword Church Master. In her faded sky-blue eyes, some feeling began to ripple. Kyle felt a chill run down his spine. The one before him was not the little elf brat from five hundred years ago, but a monstrous elf who could butcher him with just the little finger intertwined with his.

"I know for sure now."

Helenas spoke gently. Tears still ran from her eyes, but she did not wipe them away. As if she had forgotten to, even while knowing they were falling.

"With who you are now, you can give me no fun at all. Even if I kept you by my side, you'd be nothing but an ornament that only makes me remember longing... the way Ruin Alastor adorned Fenris."

Cruel words, but Helenas did not know how to lie. Elves could not dress up their emotions. They spoke what they felt.

"Probably."

Kyle smiled. A smile without hurt.

"For now."

He spoke not denial but delay, not impossibility but incompletion.

"So, later. That's a promise, right?"
"Yes."
"Can you wait for me?"

For a long time, Helenas stared at Kyle. No more tears flowed from her eyes.

"I'll wait."

Helenas answered. Her little finger, still linked with Kyle's, tightened around his a little more.

"Just don't make me wait too long."
"Why?"
"Because I have no patience."

Someone who had swung a joyless sword for five hundred years saying she had no patience. Was that an elf joke? If it was, he would laugh with her, but Helenas's eyes were serious. The same eyes that had just been full of tears now felt desolate.

"Then I guess I'll have to work hard so you won't wait long."

Feeling that chill down his spine, Kyle muttered.

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