Solo Swordmaster - Chapter 22

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 22: Your Name

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When one person fought many,

few people called it a battle.

A battle, by definition, was a fight between armies.

A single enemy could not be called an army, and it was difficult to call a one-sided slaughter or suppression by superior numbers a battle.

By that standard,

what unfolded at the Blue House was not a battle.

Yet at the same time, it was a war more like a battle than any battle.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Tens of thousands of bullets raked the ground.

Boom!

A Humvee firing its machine gun flipped over.

“Argh!”

“Medic! Medic!”

“Fuck! When are the reinforcements coming?!”

Blood, screams, and curses swept through the scene.

It was the sort of desperate sight one would see only on the front lines of a real war fought with a nation’s fate at stake.

There were three problems.

This was a fight against an individual.

A one-sided slaughter was taking place.

And the one carrying out that slaughter was the individual, not the many.

“Die already! Just die!”

A white-haired man strolled slowly through the center of that battlefield as though he were taking a walk through a garden.

Someone fired their rifle wildly at Rimon, screaming in desperation.

But the result was the same as before.

No matter how wildly they fired, the bullets only struck the ground. They could not kill Rimon, or even brush the hem of his clothes.

“Why the hell can’t we hit him?!”

That cry represented the feelings of everyone there, regardless of whether they were soldiers or police, their affiliation, or their abilities.

If he had used some kind of skill.

If he had dodged the bullets at high speed.

Or if he had deflected them with his body.

They might have understood.

In this Iron Age, filled with all sorts of Players, superhumans unaffected by guns were not rare.

The problem was that Rimon was not using a skill, nor was he making any apparent attempt to dodge or block the bullets.

The bullets simply flew elsewhere, as though they were avoiding Rimon.

They felt as though they had been possessed by ghosts.

Those normally confident in their marksmanship, especially, looked as though they were about to go mad.

Rumble.

“Reinforcements!”

Three tanks appeared, shaking the ground.

It was understandable that they cheered as though they had met their saviors.

Even if a tank shell missed slightly, it still had more than enough power to blow away a single person.

Yet Rimon did not so much as twitch an eyebrow at the sight of the massive tanks.

If anything, he only looked disappointed.

“What a bunch of idiots...”

Three tanks blocked his path.

Rimon watched calmly until they turned their cannons toward him.

Only after the tanks fired their shells did he slowly swing his sword.

It was an incredibly slow stroke.

It was a movement so sluggish that even a grub seemed as though it could see it coming and get out of the way, incapable of blocking or cutting anything.

But once that sword trajectory was complete,

the result was astonishing.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“...What is that?”

“D-Duds?”

“All three of them? No, even if they were duds, does it make any sense to catch them like that...?”

They stared blankly at the three shells resting lightly on the tip of Rimon’s sword.

They were not butterflies landing on flowers.

The shells had been fired at supersonic speed, yet he had caught them like that.

It was something they could not believe even as they watched it happen.

“Here. Take them back.”

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

No one knew what he had done.

The instant Rimon lightly flicked his sword, the shells flew back in the exact opposite direction without exploding and lodged precisely in the turrets of all three tanks.

Rimon clicked his tongue at those staring dumbly at the tanks that had been disabled the moment they arrived.

“You idiots, try thinking for once. Do you really think these piles of scrap, which can’t even catch a high-level player, are a match for me?”

They had nothing to say.

It was a sharp point.

High-level players were superhumans capable of smashing tanks apart with their bare hands.

That was why each one was treated as an irreplaceable asymmetric asset of national importance.

But Rimon was a PAB agent who specialized in hunting high-level players.

Even here and now, several high-level players who had used skills to attack him had already been beaten unconscious.

A mere few tanks could never pose a threat to Rimon.

“H-How can an ordinary person do something like this...?”

“Damn it! Nobody told us Rimon Aspelder was a high-level player!”

That was why,

the longer they fought Rimon,

the more they were driven mad.

They could not understand how someone who was not even a Player could do such things.

By their standards, a Sword Master was merely an ordinary person who was “a little” good with a sword.

Clang!

“Is this all you’ve got?”

Rimon did not bother explaining in detail what a Sword Master was.

He merely asked calmly as he cut apart a sniper round that had flown in from somewhere.

“A traitor has attacked the heart of the nation. Is this really all you can do?”

No one answered that question.

Only a frantic barrage of bullets answered in their place.

That told him enough.

At least for the moment, no more reinforcements, support, missiles, or air strikes would be coming.

Those bastards didn’t even request reinforcements properly.

Rimon let out a hollow laugh.

Yes, he could understand.

They could not mobilize the entire military and request help from civilian guilds just because one person had attacked.

It would hurt their pride.

Even if the country were truly overthrown because of it, they would cling to their pride until the last moment.

Just like people these days.

Peace has lasted too long.

Rimon inwardly lamented as he leisurely walked forward, avoiding the torrent of bullets simply by moving.

In terms of pure military strength,

this country was certainly stronger than it had been in the past.

Modern firearms had replaced the old rifles that broke down at the slightest provocation as standard equipment.

Most ordinary soldiers had become Players, possessing abilities incomparable to those of soldiers from the past.

There were even many guilds, private military organizations, with strength beyond the national armed forces.

But the country had grown even more complacent than it had grown stronger outwardly.

A military that had never experienced real combat.

Commanders who valued their pride over the nation.

Guilds that moved only after weighing the profit.

Even citizens crowding the windows of high-rise buildings, filming with their phones as though the Blue House collapsing were some spectacle.

Could this truly be called progress?

Or had the country instead declined?

Is this what an age that does not need war becomes in the end?

Rimon gave a bitter laugh.

From the Bronze Age to the Age of Heroes,

in those times when blood and violence never ceased, peace had been what everyone dreamed of.

Yet why did the peace they had finally gained feel so hollow?

Carrying a question he could not answer even himself, Rimon left the hail of bullets behind and finally stepped into the Blue House’s main building.

“Stop him! If you can’t stop him, at least buy time!”

“Hyah!”

Was this the final line of defense?

Agents in suits had blocked the stairs with barricades and tried to stop Rimon by unleashing all kinds of skills.

Some launched mental attacks with illusions.

Others manipulated blood flow to target his heart.

Others fired beams of unconditional petrification.

As befitted presidential guards, every one of them was a high-level player, and their skills were certainly powerful.

Even a grand duke-class player above level 90 could be killed in an instant if they reacted too slowly.

There was only one problem.

Their opponent was Rimon.

Slash!

“What...?!”

“H-He cut the skills?”

The agents were horrified as they felt their skills being severed by a single sword cutting through the air.

Rimon did not even give them time to be surprised.

He simply struck them down with light taps from the flat of his sword, then calmly walked up the stairs.

But when he reached his destination,

Rimon had no choice but to stop.

He had come all the way to the president’s office, yet only an empty desk greeted him.

The important part was missing.

“That bastard really ran.”

Rimon clicked his tongue.

His subordinates were risking their lives to defend the Blue House while he had slipped away alone.

Well, it was a wise decision.

The nation’s commander in chief staying until the end just to save face would only be a nuisance in every possible way.

Though it lacks dignity.

Even so, did the escape seem so undignified to him because he was a man from another age?

Or because the coward had waited until Rimon entered the Blue House’s main building before running away, watching the situation until the end?

“What an idiot. If you were going to run anyway, you should’ve run much earlier instead of hesitating.”

Rimon gave a brief snort of laughter.

Then he walked to the center of the office and muttered quietly to himself.

“Though the result would have been the same.”

As though gauging something invisible, he narrowed his eyes and examined the air for a moment.

Then Rimon gripped his sword with both hands and slowly raised it above his head.

He aimed at a point in empty space and brought the sword down vertically.

Crash!

“...?!”

At that instant,

the intact air split apart to either side.

Through the gap in space appeared the shocked faces of an older man who was about to board a bulletproof limousine, along with his aides.

They froze as though they had seen a ghost.

Before they could regain their senses, Rimon reached out.

He grabbed the older man by the collar and pulled him through the rift in space in one motion.

Thud!

“Cough...!”

The older man rolled pathetically across the floor like a fish tossed onto the ice after being caught through an ice-fishing hole.

Even then, President Han Jeong-guk asked in shock.

“H-How? You can’t use Spatial Movement.”

It was a natural question.

If Rimon could use spatial teleportation, then Yoo Na-gyeong, a rare spatial teleportation ability user, would not have been assigned as a member of his team.

“You didn’t know?”

Perhaps he could not accept it.

Or perhaps he was panicking.

Rimon chuckled at President Han, who prioritized his question even in this situation.

Then he crouched before Han, meeting his eyes as he grinned.

“No one can escape a Sword Master, little one.”

Though Rimon had kindly answered him,

President Han looked even more confused rather than understanding or accepting it.

But Rimon did not bother explaining.

Those who did not know what a Sword Master was would never understand, no matter how long he explained it.

More importantly, Rimon had matters to settle first with this scatterbrained head of state.

“So, to celebrate our meeting, I’d like to ask a few favors...”