WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 15: A Severed Tie

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“You’re this country’s hero, aren’t you?”

“I ‘was’ a hero.”

Weren’t you the one who called me a traitor?

Having silenced Kang Jeong-su with that sarcastic remark, Rimon let out a dry chuckle.

“And what if I was a hero? Did you think I’d go easy on them for the country’s sake at a time like this? On bastards who ignored my warning and came at me trying to kill me?”

“...”

“Crazy bastard.”

Kang Jeong-su could not say a word.

Truthfully, Kang Jeong-su had expected as much.

No, more precisely, Kang Jeong-su had not expected this much damage.

All Kang Jeong-su had considered was how to clean up after killing Rimon. Kang Jeong-su had never imagined failure.

“And watch your words. You’re not worried about this country’s future, are you?”

Rimon held out a hand.

Then, grabbing Kang Jeong-su by the collar and forcing him to meet his eyes, he said coldly,

“You’re worried about your pathetic little power and political standing disappearing because of this.”

“Urgh...!”

Kang Jeong-su gritted his teeth.

Rimon had hit the mark.

The burden Kang Jeong-su had taken on to carry out this plan was considerable.

Kang Jeong-su had gone out of the way to gather high-level players despite being mocked for burning down a house just to catch a bug.

Still, if Kang Jeong-su had killed Rimon.

If Kang Jeong-su had managed to forge a connection with the Infinite Monarch.

Kang Jeong-su could have gained an even greater political foundation in the long term.

But now it was over.

Failing to capture Rimon was the least of it.

Kang Jeong-su had lost dozens of high-level players.

Rather than keeping the position as PAB Director, Kang Jeong-su would be lucky not to end up in prison after taking all the blame.

“Do you think you can get away unharmed after doing this?”

“And why wouldn’t I?”

“There are countless reasons! Starting with the guild leaders of [Stardust] and [Cheonjong], who just fled. They’ll spend the rest of their lives hunting for your head!”

Kang Jeong-su shouted with bitter hatred.

The two Grand Duke-rank players he had prepared as his trump cards.

When Mira and An Dong-gwon had suddenly fled, Kang Jeong-su had gritted his teeth at their shamelessness.

But now, they were all Kang Jeong-su could rely on.

They had lost the core raiding party, and after fleeing while their guild members were slaughtered, they would not simply back down.

They would seek revenge by every means available.

And with the Infinite Monarch’s power added to that, even Rimon would die.

“Hm?”

As though he had heard some absurd joke, Rimon wore an odd expression.

Then he tilted his head and asked, as if confirming something.

“They fled? Who did?”

“I told you. Stardust and...”

“No, I mean.”

Rimon nudged something along the ground with his foot.

“If you mean those two who tucked their tails and ran after abandoning even their subordinates, they’re right here.”

“What kind of nonsense is...?”

Kang Jeong-su had been about to laugh at that absurd statement.

But the next moment, Kang Jeong-su froze.

The thing Rimon had kicked.

Kang Jeong-su sensed something strangely familiar in the head whose gouged-out eyes had horrified them moments before.

It was difficult to recognize because the eyeballs were gone and the expression was horribly twisted.

But that face was unmistakably...

An Dong-gwon!!!

The guild leader of [Cheonjong], a massive guild with more than dozens of small and medium-sized guilds and subcontractors under its banner.

One of fewer than a hundred Grand Duke-rank players in the world.

But seeing the face, all that remained of its owner now, Kang Jeong-su began to tremble.

“H-How? I saw him run away!”

“Jeong-su, you pathetic idiot. Did you really not know? Or did you know and choose to ignore it?”

Looking down at Kang Jeong-su as though Kang Jeong-su were a stupid but adorable young relative, Rimon wore a gentle, cheerful smile.

Yet cold contempt filled his golden eyes as he asked quietly,

“Didn’t your grandfather ever tell you that no one can run from a Swordmaster?”

“...”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Kang Jeong-su’s face twisted.

Kang Jeong-su’s grandfather had fought alongside Rimon in several wars. There was no way he had failed to tell Kang Jeong-su even that basic fact.

Kang Jeong-su had simply dismissed it as an exaggerated boast.

Idiots.

No one could run from a Swordmaster.

Ever since Rimon had chased a fleeing Demon God around the Earth thirty-seven times in ancient days and finally driven a sword through its heart.

It had become common knowledge.

That knowledge had faded as the times changed.

Even so, anyone who had looked into Swordmasters at all would not have tried to flee from Rimon.

They would have either dropped to their knees and surrendered from the start.

Or fought to the death until the end.

In the end, they had come to capture Rimon without investigating Swordmasters in the slightest.

Or perhaps they had known and laughed it off, just like Kang Jeong-su.

Clicking his tongue at their foolishness, Rimon said to Kang Jeong-su,

“If there’s anyone else I need to kill, tell me now. That way, you’ll have less to resent when you die.”

“Y-You mean to kill me?!”

“Yeah.”

“I was only doing as I was told!”

“... You fucking bastard, is that really what you have to say right now?”

Rimon was dumbfounded.

There were limits to shamelessness.

Considering the subordinates who had died fighting Rimon on Kang Jeong-su’s orders, it was the one thing Kang Jeong-su should never have said.

“T-That was... a mistake.”

“A mis... Never mind. Forget it.”

Rimon shook his head.

Then he released Kang Jeong-su’s collar and drew his sword.

Only upon seeing that blue blade did Kang Jeong-su seem to realize that Rimon was serious.

Rolling across the ground, Kang Jeong-su hurriedly clung to Rimon’s leg and pleaded.

“Sir, no, Uncle! Please spare me! For the sake of your relationship with my grandfather, please...!”

Rimon abruptly stopped.

The moment he heard himself called Uncle, Kang Jeong-su’s image overlapped with another.

A child who had wet themself in terror the moment they met, then always hid behind their grandfather and peeked at Rimon.

Yet whenever the child was given even a single snack, they would toddle over, accept it with a bright smile, and run away again.

“Besides, if you kill me too, you’ll be branded a traitor for certain! You’ll have nowhere left in this country!”

Perhaps taking Rimon’s silence as an opportunity, Kang Jeong-su desperately shouted everything he could offer in exchange for his life.

Rimon looked quietly at Kang Jeong-su, now balding and potbellied, who had grown accustomed to trickery and betrayal despite never being satisfied with the power gained.

“Jeong-su, I have never once feared becoming a traitor.”

“... What?”

“On the contrary, it was this country that feared me becoming one.”

“What does that...?”

Slice.

Kang Jeong-su had not even finished his question.

Kang Jeong-su could only stare at Rimon with wide eyes before clutching at their blood-spurting neck and collapsing.

“Ghk, ngh... glug!”

Perhaps because Kang Jeong-su was armed with every kind of item befitting a PAB Director.

Even with their artery severed, Kang Jeong-su remained conscious and struggled.

Watching Kang Jeong-su, Rimon muttered lazily,

“I told you. If you wanted to live, you should have groveled and begged for your life.”

Rimon had already warned them.

That he would show no mercy to those who stood against him.

The moment they ignored that warning, they had kicked away their final chance to survive.

“Though I was going to kill you anyway.”

“Ghk... huff!”

“Do you feel wronged? Well, what can you do? Na-gyeong must have felt terribly wronged too. At least if you join her, it’ll comfort her spirit.”

As Kang Jeong-su writhed and poured blood from his throat, Rimon sat lightly beside him.

Then, looking up at the star-filled night sky, he spoke.

“Do you remember?”

“The time your grandfather begged and begged until I went with you to watch a meteor shower.”

“You had big dreams even then. You saw the meteors and immediately wished to become president.”

“Your grandfather bragged that you were destined to become a general.”

“I clicked my tongue, thinking it was a bad sign that a child was already chasing power.”

As though telling an old story to his nephew.

Rimon spoke to Kang Jeong-su in a calm voice.

Without even looking at the man bleeding to death beside him.

Kang Jeong-su’s limbs, which had thrashed in pain, began to convulse.

The bloodshot eyes lost focus.

The blood that had spurted out finally stopped.

Rimon kept talking about old memories while watching the stars, only stopping once Kang Jeong-su’s body had gone completely limp.

Then he looked down with lonely eyes at Kang Jeong-su, whose eyes remained wide open until the very end.

In the end, it happened like this again.

Rimon did not regret cutting Kang Jeong-su down.

Kang Jeong-su had no right to feel wronged.

And he had cut down children he had watched grow up more times than he could count.

Still, Rimon felt regret not for Kang Jeong-su, but for Kang Jeong-su’s grandfather.

“Myeong-jin, your promise did not even last a hundred years.”

The man who had sincerely said that his family would serve Rimon as their benefactor for generations, something others could not have said even as a joke.

The old man who had kept his word throughout his life, then left it behind as his final instruction before closing his eyes.

Remembering Kang Myeong-jin, Rimon gave a brief sigh.

“Then again, after being cast aside by this country once I was no longer useful, I suppose it would have been more surprising if your promise had endured.”

Whether Kang Jeong-su had planned this.

Or Lee Cheon-gi, the Infinite Monarch, had.

Without the government’s tacit approval, they could not have blown up buildings in the middle of the city.

Gathering this many high-level players was itself enough to be charged with the crime of insurrection.

Above all, Unit 909 could not undertake any operation without the commander-in-chief’s authorization. Its presence alone proved that the government had actively participated in this.

The country Rimon had protected by devoting most of his long life had ultimately chosen to discard a hero who had fallen behind the times.

Under the pretext of national interest, just as Kang Jeong-su had betrayed him to grasp hold of a monarch.

“Still, come on. I protected this country for hundreds of years, and they throw me out just thirty years after the times changed? Heartless bastards.”

Rimon gave a dry laugh.

He knew this would happen someday once Swordmasters came to be regarded as obsolete.

He knew people forgot everything.

That no promise lasted forever.

That faith could be broken.

He had lived long enough to know all of that.

Even so, Rimon had formed bonds he knew would someday break, trusted people, and continued striving to protect this country.

Rather than resist the changing times, he had tried to become part of them.

But that was over now.

Once the country had abandoned him, Rimon no longer owed it any loyalty.

Whether these people had truly tried to kill him of their own accord, he did not know.

Rimon glanced to the side.

At Kang Jeong-su’s corpse lying amid its own pool of blood.

No, more precisely, at the shadow of a one-eyed old woman beside it, her head split open as she melted away.

Kang Jeong-su would never know.

That before Kang Jeong-su had even started crawling across the ground to flee, Rimon had cut down the old woman’s shadow as it tried to abandon Kang Jeong-su and run.

That amid this landscape of corpses and blood were not only two hundred bodies, but also two hundred shadows cast by starlight.

That Rimon’s warning had not applied to humans alone.

That not only humans, but even beings who stood in the positions of Great Stars, could not escape from a Swordmaster.

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