WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 9

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Fenris

What the hell is that.

Kyle stood there, staring blankly at the wolf.

He cast his mind back.

Fenris. The spoils of his last battle as captain of the Crow Mercenary Company, won when he wiped out House Robert. The head of the house, face drawn with grief, had said it was a sword forged by dwarves.

Whether that was true or not, he'd never sought out a dwarf to ask. But Fenris had been sharp and sturdy enough to make the claim easy to believe.

Unaided by aura, it could cut through a decent knight, armor and all. Likewise, without calling up aura, it could trade blows with aura-clad weapons. It had even stood up against magic, which had been rare five hundred years ago. Fenris was, without question, a masterwork blade.

But that was the extent of it. Nothing else. No special ability of any kind.

Even in that era, enchanted blades had existed, though rare. Fenris was not that kind of sword.

Just a sharp, sturdy blade. The one he'd carried for eighteen years. Through the brutal, relentless grind of daily battle, it had never once broken. Save for the clash with Ruin Alastor, it had never lost.

'We got our revenge even after that loss.'

Anyway, that's what the sword had been. Not like this. Not some useless trick where black mist billows out and a wolf comes lunging free.

'Or maybe... did it pick up some ability I don't know about, over these five hundred years?'

He was thinking that as he moved toward Fenris. The black wolf stepped in front of him, growling.

"..."

A wolf, yes, but what stood before him looked nothing like a normal one. What covered its body wasn't fur but jagged blades jutting in every direction, and its long-slitted eyes were savage and cold. Its mouth, open in a snarl, held not teeth but what looked like inverted blades hanging down, and its claws were blades too.

In short, what stood before Kyle was a mass of blades wearing the shape of a wolf. He'd never seen a creature like it, not as Kyle, not as Rykal five hundred years ago. He stared at it, still.

"What are you?"

He opened his mouth and asked, then felt something off. He was sure he'd spoken aloud, but it hadn't felt like he'd made a sound. Like speaking inside a dream.

"What are you, and why are you attached to my sword?"

He asked again anyway. Whether or not the damn mutt understood human speech, it was blocking his way to Fenris, and the irritation was rising fast.

"Grr..."

The mutt growled again, scraping its blade-like claws against the ground.

"Get out of my way, you mutt."

He said it and stepped forward. The mutt kicked off the ground that instant, leaping, jaws stretched wide, going for him.

Kyle tried to dodge, but the thing moved faster than he could track. No, it wasn't just speed. The movement wasn't that of a wolf. Impossible as it sounded, what Kyle felt in that motion was a sword strike.

Crunch!

The mutt, the sword, bit into him. He looked down at the thing clamped around his torso, eyes wide. Those blades, far too vicious for the body of a five-year-old to endure, were buried in his chest. No blood came.

The pain, though, was real. Terrible. For a real five-year-old, it would have been enough to kill outright, not just to make them scream. Kyle didn't scream. Five years of being cherished by Arian hadn't softened that part of him. His mind still knew this kind of pain well.

"No way."

The words came out through a mouth held open by agony. Impossible as it seemed, he spoke the thought aloud.

"Are you Fenris?"

In that sword-like movement, he'd felt none other than his past self. The Sword Demon Rykal. But Rykal was Kyle himself, which left only one conclusion.

"Grr...?"

The wolf gnawing at his torso lifted its eyes. Every movement of those jaws sent a strange ache through him. Less like flesh being chewed, more like his soul being gnawed at. Maybe it wasn't just a feeling.

The ferocity faded from its eyes as it looked up at him. They went wide, and it released his torso. In biting and tasting, it had apparently worked out who this soul belonged to.

"You are Fenris!"

Still impossible, he thought. But when he really considered it, was this any more impossible than reincarnation? Kyle grinned wide and called out.

"You little bastard! What happened to you? Why the hell did a sword turn into a wolf?"

The wolf backed away slowly. The hostility was gone from its eyes, but the wariness wasn't. It held its blade-edged tail straight out, stiff, ears pricked forward, watching him.

"Hey! You don't know who I am? I'm..."

He caught himself mid-shout. Introducing himself as Rykal would cause problems. But looking around, neither Arian nor Julius was anywhere to be seen. Kyle stood alone at the center of the black mist, facing the wolf.

'What is this... some kind of magic?'

He tilted his head and looked down at himself. His torso bore several ragged holes from the wolf's jaws, but no blood, no exposed flesh. This body wasn't his real one. The dream-like dissonance still lingered. A mental attack of some kind, maybe. With that thought, he dropped down and sat.

"Hey, Fenris. Come here."

Dogs were useful animals in all sorts of ways, and he'd kept plenty of them back in his mercenary days. The first thing you had to do to connect with a dog was get down to its eye level.

"You don't seem to recognize me. If you're not sure, come sniff me. You can bite gently, too, if you want."

He stretched his arm out toward it, but the wolf didn't come. Its expression was unreadable, but the mood told him enough. It wasn't that the wolf didn't recognize him. It just wasn't certain.

His face scrunched up. He got to his feet.

"Fine. If you won't come to me, I'll go to you."

He stepped forward, and the wolf's tail bristled, ears flattening back. Its lips peeled up, baring those sharp blades.

"Grr..."

Hostility so obvious even an idiot could read it. Kyle thumped his chest in frustration.

"What is your problem?"

He reached out anyway. The wolf moved. That sword-like motion struck his outstretched hand with brutal force.

Slash!

No. Severed. He watched his right arm come off, helpless.

"You little..."

Bark!

The wolf barked before he could finish the curse. The black mist surrounding them surged and roiled, his vision twisted, then collapsed.

"Son of a..."

Thud.

His body gave out entirely, and he dropped straight down onto his backside.

"Kyle!"

Arian's frantic voice cut through the ringing in his ears. She rushed over and pulled him into her arms.

In the warm, soft embrace of his mother, Kyle's first instinct was to check his right arm. Still there, intact. The holes chewed into his torso were gone too. He blinked and looked ahead.

Fenris stood planted in the floor of the training hall, and beside it stood not a black wolf but Julius.

"What did I... just do?"

"You were walking toward Fenris, then stopped on your own," Julius said.

His golden eyes, carrying a trace of surprise, glanced toward the sword.

"As you approached, Fenris resonated with you, trembling on its own. Then you just stood in front of it, still, for several minutes. When I tried to approach, Arian stopped me. Said I shouldn't touch anything."

"I don't know what happened to me."

"Arian would know. She raised her voice at her own father, after all."

At Julius's grumbling, Arian cleared her throat and hugged Kyle tighter.

"Kyle. I have an idea of what might have happened, but I can't be certain without knowing what you experienced. Can you tell me?"

"I saw... a wolf."

"A wolf?"

"Yes. I was walking toward Fenris, and suddenly my heart started pounding, and black mist flooded in. Then a wolf appeared."

Kyle described everything as fully as he could. Julius's eyes filled with surprise again, while Arian's face lit up with joy.

"Oh my goodness, oh my goodness...! Kyle, you just... made contact with a spirit!"

"A spirit...?"

"Yes! I know it's hard to explain, and even harder to believe, but listen, Kyle. Spirits don't only take root in elements like wind or water or flame. They can be born in old objects too, ones that were cherished or revered, or that carry strong, deep emotion."

Arian looked so utterly overcome with adoration that she pulled Kyle's head against her chest.

"A spirit that dwells in an object is sometimes called a dokkaebi, and they're even harder to communicate with than the spirits people normally think of. They're fiercely independent, and forming a contract with them is incredibly difficult..."

Her voice trailed off mid-stroke.

"Mm... honestly, I'm not even sure a contract is possible with those kinds of spirits. I've been told I have extraordinary talent as a spirit summoner, but I've never communicated with a spirit dwelling in an object, not once. Even just now, I had no idea what was happening when you made contact with it."

"..."

Kyle blinked slowly and looked over at Julius.

"Earlier, when you picked up Fenris, Grandfather. Did nothing happen to you?"

Instead of answering, Julius walked over and pulled Fenris from the floor.

"Nothing at all."

He said it, and planted the sword back down. Kyle stared for a moment, then wriggled free from Arian's arms.

"Mom, let me go for a second."

Free of her, he walked back toward Fenris.

Zing...

His skin prickled and his heart thudded, just like before. Kyle ignored it, keeping his gaze fixed on Fenris as he approached. This time, no black mist appeared. No wolf.

That settled it. Focus on the sensation, and communion began. Ignore it, and he could walk right up to Fenris without triggering a thing.

"..."

He stood in front of Fenris for a quiet moment, then reached for the hilt.

-Grr...

A low growl curled at the edge of his hearing. He wasn't in communion and still heard it, which made the answer clear enough. It really did not want to be picked up.

"..."

He stared at Fenris, at a loss. This black blade was far too large for a five-year-old. The blade alone was as long as Kyle was tall.

"Mom. The wolf. When I got close, it bit me. What does that mean?"

"Mm..."

Arian tried to choose her words carefully to spare her young son from hurt. But Julius, standing beside Fenris, let out a short laugh.

"It doesn't seem to want to be held by you."

"Father!"

"Why are you being so careful about it? If something is true, you say it plainly."

He chuckled and placed his hand on Kyle's head. A swordsman's hand, nothing like Arian's, roughened with years of calluses, ruffled through his hair. Arian, who had been on the verge of protesting, found she couldn't stay angry at the sight of it.

Her father, who had always seemed rigid and unapproachable, was ruffling a child's hair. It was a shock not just to Arian but to Karthan as well.

But Kyle himself had no room to enjoy it.

'You don't want to be held by my hand? You?'

He hadn't really needed to ask Arian to have it confirmed, but hearing it from her directly, a spiritist's own judgment, left him shaken.

Fenris was the Sword Demon's blade.
Kyle was the Sword Demon's reincarnation.

Fenris must have felt it. And yet. And yet, Fenris had rejected his touch.

What could that possibly mean?

'Are you saying I don't deserve to hold you as I am now?'

He clenched his jaw, eyes hard, and glared at Fenris.

"..."

Looking up at a sword taller than himself, Kyle decided, for now, to accept it.

The body of a five-year-old was just too small to hold Fenris.

Fenris: The sword's name is a direct reference to Fenrir, the monstrous wolf of Norse mythology bound by the gods until Ragnarok. Given that the spirit inhabiting the sword manifests as a wolf covered in blades, the naming is almost certainly intentional on the author's part, playing on the duality of blade and beast.

Dokkaebi (도깨비): A figure from Korean folklore, roughly analogous to a goblin or trickster spirit, though the comparison is loose. Traditional dokkaebi are mischievous, strong-willed, and not easily bound by human will, which fits Arian's description of object-dwelling spirits perfectly. The term has been kept untranslated here to preserve the cultural specificity, as no English equivalent captures it cleanly.

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