WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reincarnation of the Sword Demon

Chapter 92

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I'll Allow It

"..."

Kyle stared at Julius, caught somewhere between disbelief and embarrassment.

He had gone in with the mindset that forgiveness was easier to get than permission, so he had been prepared to just pull Baal out first and deal with the fallout later. Even so, objectively speaking, what he had done was not something easily forgiven.

Baal was a sword worth that much. A sword gifted by the Demon King. The sword that had started the Sword Garden.

He had planned to pull Baal out, and knowing that "I'm doing this for Lucia" alone might not be enough, he had even prepared other reasons. But Julius had said it first, before Kyle could even make his case.

"Isn't that a little too easy-going, sir?"

Kyle blinked, then asked.

"You said you needed it, so I'm giving it to you. What's there to complain about?"
"It's not a complaint, it's just... I didn't think you'd hand it over this easily."
"It only sounds easy because we already discussed everything beforehand. It was not an easy thing to say."

Julius's gaze moved to Akarion.

"The Lastea Tower Master told me. It wasn't that you were being swayed by Baal's will, Baal was the one pleading with you."
"That's how it was."
"And when you gripped it, you suffered no mental erosion, I was told."
"It felt the same as always."
"The Elders pushed back, but a sword is truly valuable only when used for the purpose it was made for. Those are your own words, from some time ago."
"So Baal is needed as a sword now?"
"Baal is a cursed blade. Do you know why?"
"I was told it's a sword that severs and destroys the soul."
"The day when that ability is needed will come."

Kyle's eyes lit up at those words. Until now, Baal's "purpose" for the Alastor Family had been as a symbol of the Sword Garden and a symbol of the goodwill the Demon King had shown five hundred years ago.

But the incident on Beltua Island had brought the family into conflict with the Demon King's royal house. The intentions of the current Demon King, Babelio Erebos, were impossible to know, and a Demon King succession struggle without precedent had already begun.

The political landscape of the continent was about to change.

"...Of course, Baal carries symbolic meaning for our family, so you cannot own it. Like Fenris, I am only lending it to you for a time."
"Wait, you're not giving this to me?"
"When you die someday, Fenris will go back to hang in the Sword Hall."

Julius said it with a dry smile.

"Baal is the same. When you die, it goes back into the Sword Garden."

In other words, while he lived, he could use it however he wished.

"Sir Kyle."

Erdera, the Association Master of the Mage Association, had been listening to the exchange between grandfather and grandson while idly running a finger along the arm of her glasses. Now she spoke.

"I hear you encountered an apostle of a sky god in the Secret Realm. What did it look like?"
"A single blue eye, with wings made of white feathers surrounding it."
"I was told Sir Kyle returned from this Secret Realm subjugation with quite a few spoils."

Erdera's gaze settled on the bracelet on Kyle's arm.

"That bracelet alone is a high-grade Out-of-Place Artifact. Something you absolutely cannot obtain from a mere grade-four Secret Realm. Sir Kyle, would you be willing to show us what you brought back?"
"Of course."

It was not a difficult request. Kyle raised his right arm, and the space around the bracelet split open with a crack, disgorging its contents. Erdera's and Akarion's eyes lit up at once. Neither mage spared a glance for the gold and gems. Their gazes fixed on the four swords.

"Hm. Not Out-of-Place Artifacts."

Erdera murmured, studying the rewards in silence for a moment.

"But the quantity is unbelievable for spoils from a grade-four Secret Realm. Clearly... that being showed Sir Kyle a great deal of generosity."
"It seemed to find me cute."
"Find you cute..."

Erdera laughed softly.

"For beings like that, we may well feel like small, adorable creatures. But granting wishes isn't something that happens simply because something is cute."
"It's because of his unusual Spirit Root."

Akarion spoke up.

"At the very least, I have never seen a Spirit Root like that. People born with Multiple Spirit Roots are rare, but they do exist. Sir Kyle's Spirit Root, though, it isn't that there are several. It's one Spirit Root with an enormous number of things mixed inside it."
"Julius-nim. Why did you not tell us about Sir Kyle's Spirit Root?"

Erdera turned to Julius.

"Because there was no problem."

Julius answered with a composed expression.

"If a problem had arisen, I would have asked for your help."
"..."
"To me, it was simply that my grandson had exceptional talent. I had no reason to go out of my way to announce it."
"I understand."

Erdera nodded slowly.

"An unusual... no, a special Spirit Root. And I heard he consumed the flesh and blood of an outer aberration. Were you aware of that?"
"Since when did this become an interrogation of my grandson?"

Julius tilted his head as he asked. Crack! Purple currents of electricity crackled around his shoulders. Julius was not the only one making his displeasure plain. Everyone at the table except Erdera and Akarion stirred their mana and fixed the two mages with cold stares.

"I apologize if I gave offense."

Erdera bowed her head.

"It is simply such a strange and unprecedented matter that my curiosity got the better of me."
"Satisfy your curiosity elsewhere. I invited the two of you because I had a favor to ask, but that child has nothing to do with my request."
"Yes, I will refrain from personal questions. Let us proceed with the official purpose of this meeting. Sir Kyle, the apostle of a sky god called itself an angel, did it not say whose angel it was?"

Erdera asked again.

"Does it matter whose angel it was?"
"It does. Secret Realms are fragments of a Heavenly Domain distinct from the open sea. There is no record of anyone making contact with an apostle of a sky god inside such a place. There would be no reason for them to appear there at all."
"I understood Secret Realms to be spatial rifts connecting to other worlds."
"That's not wrong. That's how it's commonly known. But Sir Kyle, you came into contact with a Divine Mystery, didn't you? You have the standing to speak here, even if you haven't yet reached the Extreme Boundary."

Only then did Kyle realize what everyone seated at the round table had in common.

He had assumed at first that it was only the knight order captains, but Roel of the Sword Spirit Knights was absent, and Dante, the vice-captain of the White Night Knights, was sitting in his place.

Everyone seated at this table had reached the Extreme Boundary. They all had the standing to discuss matters of Divine Mystery.

I see.

Only then did Kyle understand that this gathering was not simply about receiving permission to pull Baal, or about reporting what had happened in the Secret Realm. If that were all it was, there would have been no reason to sit at the round table. He could have just stood before it, listened, and given his report.

Behind her glasses, Erdera's eyes narrowed.

"A Heavenly Domain is, for the most part, something that cannot be perceived. It belongs to this world and yet is not of this world, you could call it the world's reverse side. The places where those connect to the world through rifts are Secret Realms... well, this too is only conjecture."
"Only conjecture?"
"I can only call it conjecture because the truth isn't known. What Sir Kyle experienced is an extraordinarily rare Divine Mystery. Those... apostles of sky gods regard us as small and cute, but they do not speak with us."

Julius had said the same. He had met apostles of sky gods before, but he hadn't known whether conversation with such beings was even possible.

"We can try to speak to them, yes. But they do not answer. To them, we are too small and insignificant. Unless you have reached the Extreme Boundary and earned the right to stand beneath the sky, it is impossible to even be perceived by beings of that caliber."

That was precisely what made Kyle special. He hadn't reached the Extreme Boundary, and yet he had met an angel and even held a conversation with it.

"Please understand why I take such a keen interest in you. The knowledge surrounding these Divine Mysteries is mostly conjecture, not truth. Even the Secret Realm Faith, which venerates Secret Realms as divine grace, worships the phenomenon itself, those among them who have actually made contact with a sky god or an apostle are extremely few."

Erdera smiled wryly.

"Or rather... I'm not even sure they've made contact at all. From where I stand, the Sword Church, which venerates an elf who has lived five hundred years, feels more credible than the Secret Realm Faith."
"Hm... our grandfather has donated quite generously to that Secret Realm Faith."

Erdera had been wearing an expression of open contempt, and she flinched at that, glancing at Julius. Julius's own expression was unbothered.

"I was grasping at straws. Now that Lavian has woken, I won't be donating any further."
"I apologize for the rudeness."

Erdera swallowed a quiet sigh of relief and bowed her head. That struck Kyle as a little unexpected. Mages were creatures steeped in a sense of privilege.

Times had changed, and now everyone in the world could sense mana, so naturally there were far more mages than before. And yet the head of the Mage Association, the organization that united all mages, was being extraordinarily deferential toward Julius.

Even looking at Akarion, who spoke down to Erdera without a second thought, it was clear the seat of Association Master was not a position of unchecked power.

"I didn't hear it say whose angel it was, but I did hear other things."

Erdera, who had been bowing her head, looked up at Kyle immediately.

"The Demon Tribe are born strong but die consumed by that strength."

Thinking it over, the angel's words were true.

Demons were born already able to sense and wield mana. Their bodies reached their peak and held there until death, and those bodies were incomparably stronger than a human's.

But overusing mana led to addiction and physical collapse. Losing reason meant being consumed by madness. At the tail end of their Lifespan, the awareness of when death would come drove them slowly mad with fear.

"The elves live through eternity but cannot choose the shape of their lives."

Elves were said to live a thousand years, but their lives were dragged along by a fate they had no hand in choosing. They could not determine their own destiny. Just like how Helenas had swung a sword for five hundred years with no real interest in it.

"The dwarves craft all things but are never satisfied."

Kyle had never met a dwarf. But he knew they were the greatest craftspeople in the world when it came to making things. Fenris itself was a sword said to have been made by dwarves, and the craftspeople of Gladiheim were compared to them.

What did it mean to never be satisfied? That no matter what they made, they always wanted to make something more? Or that even when they produced a masterpiece everyone admired and praised, it looked inadequate to their own eyes?

Either way, it was a curse.

"The orcs multiply endlessly but kill as much as they multiply."

He had encountered plenty of orcs five hundred years ago. In the chaos of the Dark Age, the orcs living on the continental frontier had pushed inward with the aim of building their own kingdom at the center.

But they never managed it. Being stopped by human armies was part of it, but the biggest reason was that internal strife had broken out among the orc tribal coalitions. Orcs were a mad species that would devour even their own offspring.

"The beastkin desire a pack but cannot truly bond."

He had met beastkin five hundred years ago as well. Both orcs and beastkin were races that gathered on the western frontier. At least the beastkin were better than orcs. They had used the Dark Age as an opportunity and founded a Demihuman Alliance in the west.

But according to the angel, they could not truly bond. He could guess why. Even within the beastkin there were many different kinds. Some resembled lions, others rabbits.

Could a lion and a rabbit truly bond?

"The aberrations seek the Source but can never become the Source."

He didn't know exactly what the angel meant by aberrations. There had been no such race five hundred years ago. But now, he had an idea.

Akarion Lastea. A vampire, once considered a monster five hundred years ago, now sat at the round table with glinting eyes.

"The dragons were granted greatness and therefore cannot betray that grace."

He had no idea what this meant. Who had granted them greatness, what did it mean to be in their debt, and what did it mean to be unable to betray that grace? He would have liked to ask the Fragment, a remnant of the Dragon King, but the thing started gasping for breath like it was dying every time anything important came up, so asking was out of the question.

"..."

Akarion rested his chin in his hand and regarded Kyle quietly. Then he smiled and nodded.

"Interesting. The angel said that?"
"Yes. And there was one last thing it said."
"What?"
"Humans are freer than any other race, but the most fragile."
"Hm... I'm not sure I agree with that one."

Akarion shrugged.

"The others all ring true to me. But humans being fragile? I can't think of anything that really qualifies as a weakness."
"Apparently it used to be that way, but it changed."
"Changed?"
"Yes. Because a human Ascendant rewrote the law of the species."

Akarion's smile went rigid. Erdera's eyes went wide and she shot to her feet.

"An Ascendant..."

Julius murmured, his voice shaken.

"Did it not say which Ascendant did such a thing?"
"No. I asked whether it might have been the Founding Ancestor, but I never got an answer."
"Association Master Erdera."

Julius's gaze moved to Erdera. She flinched as he turned to her and sat back down.

"Yes."
"How many human Ascendants have the Empire and the Mage Association identified in total?"
"Officially... hmm, the answer may not be meaningful. The only complete, near-complete, Ascendant is Lord Ruin Alastor."

Erdera hesitated, then continued.

"All Ascendants after him are incomplete. They only walk the path he blazed... and those of human origin are especially so."
"Then do you believe the Ascendant the angel spoke of, the one who rewrote the law of the human species, is the Founding Ancestor of Alastor?"
"I believe... that is likely so."
"After ascending, he bestowed grace upon our entire race centuries later."

Julius murmured.

There was a faint bitterness in his voice, though Kyle couldn't quite pin down why.

"Kyle. Did the angel say anything else?"
"At first I asked it to erase the Demon King's brand carved on Lucia, but I was told it wasn't possible."

Not a domain in which it could interfere.

The brand was part of the law the Demon Tribe was in the process of rewriting, so it would not interfere.

"..."

Erdera clutched at her hair with a troubled expression. Akarion's smile was still stiff.

"Why didn't you bring up this important matter yesterday?"
"I was in a hurry to see my grandmother."
"I'll allow it."

There was no choice but to swallow the reprimand he had been about to deliver.

"Was there anything else it said?"
"No."
"Today, you heard a great many things you should not yet be hearing. No, that's not quite right. Most of it wasn't things you heard, but things you conveyed. Even so, among what we discussed, there are likely many things you're left wondering about."
"The Founding Ancestor especially. And the Ascendant."
"I can't tell you everything right now."
"Because I haven't reached the Extreme Boundary?"
"That's right. All of this is too early for you. In truth, even those who have reached the Extreme Boundary don't necessarily need to know any of this. I haven't told Aslan yet, either."

Julius put his hand on Kyle's shoulder, his expression bitter.

"But you... are Alastor pureblood. And on top of that, you've had a Divine Mystery experience none of us have ever had. In our blood, there is a burden we will someday know and must someday bear, a duty. So for now, just think of it as getting an early look, and set reaching the Extreme Boundary as your goal."
"Yes, sir."

If Julius went that far in saying it, then this was clearly something Kyle truly should not yet know, something he had encountered too early. He nodded and didn't push further.

Too many idle thoughts and the sword tip wavers.

Sky gods, Ascendants. Kyle would have been perfectly happy just swinging a sword.

"Lastea Tower Master."

At Julius's call, Akarion turned his head. The rigid smile was gone, replaced with a different one.

"Thunder Emperor. What is it?"
"We'll end the meeting here."
"Understood."

Akarion nodded and rose to his feet.

"Let's go break the seal on Baal."

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