WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 81

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Lizet Beliar

She was a woman. Tall, a full head above Lucia, by the look of it. Her neatly cut hair was black, and above each ear grew a pair of horns that curved back behind her head.

The woman's red eyes found Lucia. More precisely, they found not Lucia's face but the single horn sprouting from the left side of her head.

"..."

The woman stopped walking. Silence stretched. Her gaze did not leave Lucia's horn. Lucia could barely draw breath. It was as though her heart and lungs had seized under the weight of that stare.

"Hff... hff..."

Forcing air out, Lucia met the woman's eyes. She had seen the Demon Tribe for the first time today, and she had also learned for the first time today what a single-horned Half-blood was called among them.

Mongrel.

The demons Lucia had killed, the black mask, all of them had called her that. Naturally, the same word would come from this demon woman's lips too.

"A single horn."

The woman spoke. There was no contempt in her voice.

"You drew demon blood into an inferior body. Enough that a horn grew."

The red eyes looking at Lucia curved into a smile.

"You have been graced with honor. Take pride in the half of the blood that flows through you."

Lucia's eyes wavered at those words. Honor? No one had ever used that word about her horn. Not the demons she had met today, and not anyone in Gladiheim either. Even there, the half of her blood and the horn had been nothing but objects of disdain. Even when she had revealed her sword talent and placed first among the trainees, her Half-blood lineage and her horn had only ever made her someone to be kept at arm's length.

The Elders who had taught Lucia the sword had never called her horn an honor. In the Sword Tower, honor lay only in strength, and the blood in one's body did not matter. Kyle had said as much ten years ago.

Yet this demon woman spoke of honor. The eyes that curved into that smile held not a trace of mockery.

"Step aside."

The woman said. She looked past Lucia's shoulder and murmured.

"Half-bloods like you are rare. I have no wish to hurt you."

Just as when she had spoken of honor, the woman's voice carried sincerity.

Lucia did not step aside. Struggling to steady her quickening breath, she opened her mouth.

"Who... are you?"

She asked without lowering Blood Fang.

"Lizet Beliar."

The woman answered. Lucia's eyes trembled. Lizet Beliar. The name she had heard from Bruno and Jade earlier. The eldest daughter born of the Demon King's twenty-seventh wife. The one called the Fist Demon.

Lucia swallowed.

"I cannot step aside."

Her voice no longer shook.

"I have orders to guard the entrance. Lizet Beliar, do you have entry clearance?"

"..."

"I am carrying out the mission of the Sword Wolf Knights. I cannot comply with the demands of someone whose purpose I do not know."

Lizet watched Lucia quietly, then gave a small nod.

"A fine knight."

Again, Lizet meant it.

"If you won't step aside, then there is nothing for it. I will pass through on my own."

Lizet stepped forward. As she had said, she moved to pass around Lucia herself. Her gaze no longer rested on Lucia. She made no effort to shove her aside by force.

Blood Fang moved. Not swung to attack Lizet, only to block her path.

Whoosh!

Lizet's hand pushed Blood Fang aside. Lucia's body was shoved back along with it. There was no time to brace and resist. Lucia stared at Lizet with wide eyes.

The arm holding Blood Fang went numb as though struck by lightning. Her fingers loosened on their own. She forced them closed and kept her grip. Seeing that, something shifted in Lizet's gaze.

"You have loyalty."

Lizet murmured. Lucia moved Blood Fang again, trying to block her way.

"And spirit."

Lizet closed her fist. The instant Lucia saw it, instinct told her one thing: dodge. But dodging meant giving up the path. Her orders were to guard the entrance.

Blood Fang blazed with scarlet Aura. The Aura became Sword Force in an instant. The blade moved not to block but to cut. Lizet's fist changed in kind, no longer a push, but a strike. By Lizet's standards, that was all it was.

The moment it connected with Blood Fang, black Aura flashed from Lizet's fist. Boom! This time Lucia had braced from the start, determined to hold her ground, but it made no difference. To keep from being swept away, she would have had to let go of Blood Fang.

She did not want to let go. Lucia's feet left the ground. As she flew backward, her back met something.

Kyle. He had broken away from his standoff with Azel and Ruzan to catch her. Only then could Lucia breathe again, deeply.

"K, Kyle-nim?"

Embarrassment came next. She had tried to hold the path and failed. Pain followed. A lightly thrown fist had shattered her Sword Force. The backlashing mana thrashed through her body, and her broken right arm throbbed.

"I did tell you to guard the entrance."

Kyle let out a short sigh and ruffled Lucia's hair.

"I never said put your life on the line."

"I was only following orders."

"From now on, follow orders with some flexibility. Risk your life when I tell you to risk your life."

"Yes, understood."

Lucia answered with a faint smile. Kyle released her and fixed his eyes on Lizet.

A chill ran through him. Lizet looked at Kyle for a moment, then lifted her gaze past him.

Ruzan's shoulders trembled. Lizet Beliar. Among the Demon King's many children, one of the most fearsome. Why was that monster from Erebos's Colosseum here of all places?

"N, noona!"

Azel's face lit up. In this Secret Realm full of nothing but enemies, Lizet was unambiguously on his side.

"It has been a while, Azel."

Lizet spoke. She had left the Beliar family and shut herself in the Colosseum for training some ten years ago. She studied Azel, who had shot up considerably in that time, then turned her gaze to Kyle.

"An Alastor pureblood?"

"As you can see."

Kyle pointed at his red hair with a finger and smiled. Lizet took a moment to study Kyle's golden eyes, which held not fear but delight.

"My younger brother has caused trouble. I would like a word, if you do not mind."

"By all means."

Kyle shrugged and stepped aside to make room. Lucia stared with her mouth hanging open, clearly not having expected Kyle to yield so easily.

"Thank you."

Lizet walked slowly toward Azel. The corners of Azel's eyes reddened. The exhaustion and fear of the past several days came crashing down all at once.

"I heard from Nasdel."

At that name, Ruzan's shoulder flinched, but he could not bring himself to speak to Lizet. The weight of her presence pressed down on him.

Not only Ruzan. The three Red Masks who had been squaring off against Jade, Narua, and Bruno shrank into themselves, bodies trembling. It was not aimed at the Demon Tribe members alone, Lizet's aura spilled over to the members of the Sword Wolf Knights as well.

'A different level entirely...'

Jade thought, his face drained of color. He had heard stories of Erebos's Fist Demon from western demons more than once. A fighter who had walked into the life-or-death Colosseum of her own will and survived for ten years. Lizet was projecting neither killing intent nor hostility, and she was still bearing down on everyone.

"I heard you collapsed during a banquet Nasdel hosted."

"Y, yes."

"That you received an Inscription."

"Yes... y, yes."

"Then you know what that means."

Lizet's voice was calm. Azel hesitated, then dropped his gaze.

"That I... became a successor to... the Demon King."

"You understand well."

"B, but, noona. I am not suited to be a successor... And for multiple successors to be chosen like this, in the first place..."

"Unprecedented."

Lizet did not hurry her steps. That frightened Azel. The noona who had lived with him in the Beliar family before leaving for the Colosseum had been gentle but strict. From childhood, Lizet had never let his mistakes slide.

"I... I am sorry."

Azel said in a subdued voice. Lizet stopped walking at those words.

"Tell me what you are sorry for."

"Even after receiving the Inscription... I did not announce it, and I... ran..."

"So you did. What will you do now?"

"N, noona. I do not want to be a successor... If I become a successor, do I not have to fight against noona as well...?"

"You do."

"How could someone like me ever fight noona? And if I were to become the Demon King... I would stop being... me..."

"Azel."

Lizet spread both arms wide and called her brother's name.

"You are still a coward. Come closer. I will embrace you after all this time."

Azel hesitated, then stepped forward. Lizet wrapped both arms around him.

"Your body has grown."

"..."

"The Inscription must have been a shock. Frightening."

"Yes..."

"So you ran all the way here."

The hand rubbing her brother's back moved up to his head.

"Shamefully so."

Crack!

Lizet's hand clenched around Azel's head. Azel recoiled in panic, shoving against her and thrashing to break free of the grip on his skull. But Lizet's fingers did not release him.

"Receiving the Inscription was an honor."

Lizet whispered.

"Running was a disgrace. Azel, you have shamed the name of Beliar, and you have shamed our father's blood that flows through us."

"N, noona? Noona!"

Azel's feet left the floor. Lizet hoisted him high and continued.

"There is no need to beg forgiveness now. I came to kill you from the start. Whatever you might have said, Azel, it would have ended this way."

Lizet drew back her fist toward her struggling brother.

"Disgraceful little brother. Your body has grown, but your mind is still a child's. Still weak, still pathetic."

"N, noona, noona! Please..."

"Even at the end."

Crack!

Lizet's fist caved in Azel's head.

The headless body dropped to the floor. Lizet looked for a moment at the hair and scalp left on her fingers.

"Huh."

A surprised sound escaped Kyle's lips as he watched. Lizet Beliar. Azel Beliar's older sister.

He had naturally assumed the older sister had come to save the younger brother. Whether to let them go was a separate matter entirely, but he had let them talk, partly to get a clearer read on the situation.

But Lizet had killed Azel. Kyle stood there for a moment, working out how he felt about that. And in the same breath, he found himself thinking, freshly, that he really had been born into an upright, kind, and fortunate family.

"Hound."

Lizet, still looking at the hair and scalp on her fingers, opened her mouth. She shook the mess loose onto the corpse and turned to look at Ruzan.

"Nasdel is dead."

"...!"

Ruzan's eyes went wide.

"Nasdel, the Golola family, and every hound they raised, all dead."

"Wh, what are you..."

"I went to Nasdel and asked whether he knew anything about Azel's disappearance. Then I killed him."

Ruzan's body shook. He had been raised from childhood as a hound bred for loyalty to the Golola family, the house that had given birth to Nasdel. And now Nasdel, and the entire Golola family, were dead.

"You no longer have any orders to follow. The one who commanded you, Nasdel, is dead."

Days spent pursuing Azel, then slipping into an island under the Empire's jurisdiction and Alastor's protection, then two more days facing off against Azel. If the order had been to kill him, it would have been over long ago, but it was a capture-alive order, and so all that effort had gone into it.

And now Azel had died before his eyes. Nasdel and the Golola family had already died before that. Ruzan's eyes trembled, and black darkness began seeping in around their edges.

"Ugh... ugghh..."

During the fight with Kyle he had managed his emotions and kept the madness at bay, but now he could not. Nasdel and the Golola family were everything to Ruzan. He had just been told all of it was gone. How could anyone hold their emotions steady after that?

Rumble...! Black Aura swallowed Ruzan's entire body. Reason was eroded by madness, and the runaway collapse of Mana Addiction began.

"H, how, how dare you, Nas, del, Prince!"

Aura surged violently, tossing Ruzan's hair and sending his tattered mask tumbling to the floor. With a twisted face, he threw himself at Lizet.

"I like those with loyalty."

Lizet murmured.

"I like those with spirit too."

From behind Ruzan, jet-black Sword Force erupted. With a shriek, blades of Sword Force launched toward Lizet.

"Even if those things belong to a nameless hound."

Lizet's foot pressed into the ground. Boom! Black flashed, and Ruzan's body hit the floor face down. His body had no head. Even driven mad, even spiraling into runaway collapse, Ruzan's entire life had not been enough to weather a single punch from Lizet.

The plaza fell silent. The surviving Red Masks shook for a moment, then suddenly raised their hands and drove them through their own chests.

"Long live Prince Nasdel! Long live the Golola family!"

The hounds cried out for their already-dead prince and family and drove their fists through their own hearts, meeting death themselves. Lizet looked at the dead hounds for a moment, then turned her head.

At the far end of the Secret Realm, Jor lay coiled, the core clutched in its maw. Tension ran through Jor's eyes as it watched Lizet.

Crunch.

Lizet began walking toward Jor. Her business here was done. The family's shame, one who had refused an honorable thing and fled, her one younger brother, had been executed. There was no reason to remain.

"Stop."

A voice came from behind her. Lizet stopped.

It was not the voice that stopped her. Something seized her, an instinct that said she had to stop, had to turn and look. Lizet knew this feeling well.

The kind of instinct that said if she did not comply, she would be in danger. She turned her head and looked back.

Kyle was walking toward Lizet, Fenris in hand.

Azel Beliar was dead. A disgraced younger brother had been punished by his older sister. A bit excessive, perhaps, but there were families like that in the world.

Kyle glanced at Azel, whose head had been caved in. Strange, the body lying in that pool of blood still faintly held mana.

Next he looked at Ruzan's corpse. Ruzan had been killed by Lizet, but the other hounds had killed themselves. In a way, Lizet had done the work that Kyle and his members would have had to do.

He was not grateful.

Kyle frowned and looked at the Red Mask corpses. They had had a role to play. The kind of role that gave the members experience and confidence. Narua and Bruno in particular had needed the experience of fighting those ones and winning.

But because of Lizet, they were all dead, and that role would never be filled.

"You walked in on your own terms, did as you pleased, and now you plan to leave on your own terms. Someone watching might think you had the right."

"I had reasons."

"You had your reasons, and I have mine."

"Reasons."

Lizet spoke. Until now she had only turned her head, but now she turned her whole body and faced Kyle.

"Alastor pureblood. What is it you want to say to me?"

Julius had permitted Kyle to claim everything obtained in this Secret Realm. Demon Tribe members without entry clearance were no different from monsters or objects as far as Kyle was concerned.

But everything he was supposed to claim had been killed by Lizet. Every thought he had had while fighting Azel and Ruzan was now meaningless.

Thinking it over, there were reasons to be annoyed at every turn, and yet Kyle smiled.

"Lizet Beliar."

Fenris pointed at her.

"Did you obtain entry clearance?"

"No. I did not."

"So you are an Illegal Entrant."

"For entering illegally, I will send an official dispatch to the Empire in due form."

"They say it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I am not particularly interested in forgiving."

"Your forgiveness is not needed. If I choose to leave, I can leave."

"Come to think of it, there is no reason to talk."

Kyle nodded.

"If I attack, you will fight back."

"I suppose I will."

"Then that settles it."

Kyle's stance shifted, and his aura changed in an instant. Whoooosh! The surging pressure made Lizet's eyebrow twitch. She opened and closed her hand and murmured.

"Neither killing intent nor hostility. This is... Killing Intent. Alastor pureblood, how old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Killing Intent this strong at fifteen. You were born with it. Even in Erebos's Colosseum, Killing Intent like this is rare."

"Not entirely unheard of, though."

"That place is somewhere fighting to the death is enjoyed like daily life. Like entertainment."

"Sounds like paradise."

Kyle said it sincerely. Lizet heard the sincerity in that answer too. A thin smile touched her lips.

"I did not come here to pick a fight with Alastor. I have no further business here. But if you do not consider this a fight, I think I can afford to play a little."

"I like playing too."

Kyle felt his mouth going bone dry with anticipation and excitement. Lizet laughed softly and raised both hands. The black bracelets clasped around her wrists gleamed, and both her hands were covered by jet-black gauntlets.

'This is not a blade to face barehanded.'

She had not crossed swords with it yet, but that blade was sharp. Lizet knew it by instinct. To feel this from a fifteen-year-old human. She slowly worked the gauntlet-wrapped fingers and closed her fist.

Kyle tightened his own fingers around Fenris. His excited heart beat fast. The Lizet standing before him was not his "family." She was an enemy he could fight freely, nothing like Azel or Ruzan, a powerful foe against whom even going all out gave no sure sense of victory.

Kyle and Lizet studied each other. Deciding who would move first, whether to strike first or hold back, reading those questions against each other. They searched for openings. Ignored the openings that were offered, read each other's eyes, and mapped the flow of the fight in their heads.

Then something unexpected happened.

"Ah-ahhhhhh!"

A sudden scream snapped Kyle's head around. It was a true, unintended opening, but Lizet did not lunge for it. She was a fighter who understood honor.

It was Lucia who had screamed. She had been sitting on the floor, managing her wounds and watching the standoff, and now she was face down on the ground, body twisting as she screamed.

"What, what's suddenly wrong? Lucia, Lucia!"

Jade, who had been setting a splint on Lucia's broken right arm, cried out in alarm. Narua and Bruno also sprang forward in shock, grabbing Lucia's flailing arms and legs. Kyle sprinted over and reached her side.

"What happened?!"

"I, I don't know! She was just sitting there and then suddenly she started screaming..."

"Ah, ahhhh! Aaaaagh!"

Lucia's screaming did not stop. Kyle set down Fenris and gripped her shoulders with both hands. She was seized by something like convulsions, twisting her whole body and refusing to be still. The strength behind it was no small thing. Kyle poured mana in to hold her down and looked straight at her face.

"Lucia, Lucia! Snap out of it! What's wrong all of a sudden?!"

Lucia's red eyes had rolled back until only the whites showed, and around their edges, black was slowly creeping in. A sign of Madness Erosion. Why? Kyle bit his lip. Had the emotions she had been suppressing during the fight suddenly triggered all at once?

"Ah... ahh, ahh...!"

Lucia's body shuddered and went limp. Then she twisted again. Arms that had been flailing wildly flew to her chest.

"Hot-hot, it's hot...!"

Lucia gasped and moaned. Pop, pop! Her hand tore at her shirt buttons and pulled the fabric open.

In the center of her pale white chest, a black stain was spreading. Kyle's eyes went wide. The stain, which looked almost like a birthmark, rippled and pulsed, then slowly shifted into a shape.

The stain became an inverted pentagram. Kyle stared at the black mark now drawn at the center of Lucia's chest. He could not make any sense of what was happening.

"...!"

Lizet, watching from a distance, also stared in shock, her eyes gone wide. She whipped her head around and looked at Azel's body. She crossed to it in a single step, tore open the front of the corpse's shirt.

Azel's chest had nothing on it.

"This cannot be..."

Lizet breathed in surprise and looked back. Since the inverted pentagram appeared, Lucia had stopped screaming, but she had lost consciousness and gone limp.

"What... is this?"

Had Lucia always had something like this on her chest? He had never seen this area of her skin before today, so he could not be certain, but it did not seem like something that should have been there. Why had something that was not there suddenly appeared? Was it the unusual environment of the Secret Realm? Or was it that Lucia was a Half-blood, and encountering the Demon Tribe for the first time today had somehow triggered it?

Kyle ran through the possibilities and pressed two fingers to Lucia's pulse. Her body was hot, and the flow of her mana was violent, but not enough to damage her body. Her face was soaked in cold sweat, but Lucia was now asleep.

"That."

Crunch, footsteps approached from behind. Kyle turned to look. Shock still lived in Lizet's eyes.

"It is an Inscription."

"An Inscription? What is that?"

Not a word he had never heard. Azel and Lizet had been talking about it earlier. But exactly what it was, Kyle did not know.

Until now he had had no need to know. It had been something he could afford to be ignorant of. But now that this Inscription had appeared on Lucia, he needed to understand.

"It is proof of becoming a successor to the Demon King."

Lizet composed herself and pointed at Azel's body behind her.

"The Inscription carved into Azel appears to have... transferred to that Half-blood."

Even Lizet did not know everything about the Inscription, but this was a deeply strange thing. Under normal circumstances, Azel's Inscription should have vanished with his death. Lizet had done nothing to transfer it.

"...Wait."

Kyle frowned and rose to his feet.

"The Demon King's successor? What in the world are you saying? Why would Lucia become the Demon King's successor? She would never have met the Demon King once in her life."

"This generation's successor selection is a special case with no precedent."

Lizet answered calmly.

"The current Demon King, my father, conducted no separate selection of a successor. The previous Demon King had designated my father, and that is how he became the Demon King. But this time is different."

"No, I understand it is different. I have heard that this time is unprecedented. But this makes no sense. Lucia has nothing to do with the Demon King. She is not a pure-blooded demon, and she has lived in Gladiheim since she was five years old. So how does she become the Demon King's successor? And who would acknowledge a successor like that?"

"Alastor pureblood, to become the Demon King, no one else's acknowledgment is needed. Do you know how the succession of the Demon King of Erebos works?"

Kyle shook his head. He was already busy studying this era's law and martial arts and swinging his sword. He had had no time to look into something like the Demon King succession happening far across the sea.

"The Demon Tribe senses the end of their lifespan. The Demon King is no exception. Because of that, the Demon King chooses a successor before reaching the end of life."

"..."

"That successor need not necessarily be of the Demon King's blood. The most important thing for becoming the Demon King is not bloodline purity or one's own strength. Those are not bad to have, but if the most important condition is not met, succession cannot occur."

"And what is that important condition?"

"Suitability for the Throne of the Demon King."

"And what is that?"

Kyle frowned.

"The Throne of the Demon King is the resting place of the souls of every Demon King throughout history. To succeed as Demon King means not a succession of the crown, but a succession of souls."

Kyle's expression tightened.

"That is why bloodline purity and one's own strength are unnecessary for becoming the Demon King's successor. Succeeding the Throne and succeeding the souls means the memories of every Demon King in history flow in."

"...Wait."

He could not just listen to this. Kyle looked hard at Lizet.

"You succeed the souls of every past Demon King? Then what happens to the person themselves?"

"They become the Demon King."

"What happens to the person themselves?"

"Did I not say. They become the Demon King. They succeed the souls, and become a being whose memories are all mixed together."

Pop. Lizet undid her shirt buttons and bared her chest. At the center was the same inverted pentagram that had appeared on Lucia. Lizet looked down at her own Inscription with an expression of pride.

"Is this not an honor beyond measure."

To Kyle's ears, it sounded like madness.

Becoming the Demon King means ceasing to be yourself. The words Azel had spoken, trembling all over, before Lizet killed him finally made sense now. He had not been running only because he feared the succession struggle.

Even if he survived the struggle, becoming the Demon King would mean no longer being entirely himself. Inheriting the souls and memories of every past Demon King? It sounded plausible enough said aloud, but it was no different from a spiritual death. Hundreds, no, thousands of years' worth of memories would pour in. How could anyone maintain their sense of self through that?

"This generation's successors were not designated but selected. Myself included, dozens of Demon King successors have appeared across Erebos. The Inscription is the proof of a successor."

Lizet, who had been looking down at her Inscription with a proud face, lifted her head. Her gaze moved to Lucia.

"Half-blood she may be, born of an inferior race, but she drew demon blood into that body, she is a child of honor and spirit. It seems the past kings saw some kind of possibility in that child."

Warmth lived in Lizet's eyes as she looked at Lucia.

"The Inscription is connected to the Throne of the Demon King. Through this Inscription, the past kings resting in the Throne judge who is suited to be the next Demon King."

"..."

"The mere fact that the Inscription has been carved means there is suitability for the Throne. What we successors must do is prove that we are the most fitting for the Demon King. Killing all the other successors would be one fine way to go about it."

Kyle stepped forward and put himself between Lizet and Lucia.

So Lizet could no longer look at Lucia.

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