WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 31: Qualification
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“Cough.”
The moment he opened his mouth, bright-red matter and fresh blood came pouring out.
Proof that he had suffered internal injuries severe enough to threaten his life unless he received treatment immediately.
Yet Lee Cheon-gi paid it no mind.
Not merely because he had expected this outcome from the moment he committed the madness of stacking a thousand skills beyond the limits of 【Overlord】.
There was a far more important question.
“What... was that?”
Lee Cheon-gi slowly raised his head.
He stared with bloodshot eyes at the white-haired man standing before him.
Rimon.
Then he ground out his question.
“What was that?”
What he had seen before collapsing.
The power that had melted away a thousand skills, each pushed to its limit, like dew in the morning sun.
That light, neither fast nor powerful, yet impossible to evade or block.
What exactly was that trajectory, so beautiful it was almost entrancing?
Rimon answered.
“The Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.”
“Do not lie to me. The Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword has no such swordsmanship!”
Lee Cheon-gi retorted angrily.
Through 『Skill Acquisition』, he had learned not only the original Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword, but even some of the swordsmanship Rimon had improved upon.
That was why he could say it with certainty.
What Rimon had just used was not the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.
The Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword had no such absurd sword form, and even Rimon could not possibly create one in that brief moment.
Rimon sneered as though he could not believe what he was hearing.
“You talk as if the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword were your swordsmanship.”
“Other than you, I know that swordsmanship better than anyone.”
“Well, when it comes to the swordsmanship itself, perhaps you do.”
Rimon did not deny it.
Even if it was only thanks to the cheat skill called 『Skill Acquisition』, Lee Cheon-gi had indeed stolen and learned his swordsmanship properly.
With one small condition.
“Only the swordsmanship itself, that is.”
“...What do you mean by that?”
As if he had caught the subtle implication in those words, Lee Cheon-gi asked again, even as he vomited another mouthful of blood.
Rimon took a step toward him.
Then he slowly bent down and picked up the treasured sword Lee Cheon-gi had dropped when he fell.
“Honestly, I was a little impressed. It has been a long time since I saw someone steal my swordsmanship after seeing it only once.”
“There have been others capable of that?”
“Look at this arrogant bastard. Did you think nobody else could do what you can?”
“...”
Lee Cheon-gi frowned as though he had been struck where it hurt.
Rimon smiled mockingly.
Lee Cheon-gi’s unique skill, 『Skill Acquisition』.
It was certainly an impressive skill, capable of stealing any technique.
But while others might find it strange, having his swordsmanship stolen was nothing new to Rimon.
“Well, people like that are rare. Only a few among those called geniuses could manage it.”
There were always geniuses who transcended common sense, regardless of the era.
Sword geniuses in particular all sought out Rimon at least once, and some had learned the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword in a single go.
“So when you started copying my swordsmanship, I was a little curious. I wanted to see how properly you could steal the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.”
Before Constellations appeared in the world.
In the age when Sword Masters were absolute.
Many had wished to learn the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword, and Rimon had taught them without holding back.
It was his duty as the master of Sword Tower, the sanctuary of Sword Masters.
But after the Iron Age began, Sword Tower went bankrupt under operating deficits.
Those who sought his teachings disappeared as well.
There were even few who remembered that Rimon’s swordsmanship was called the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.
And yet, a Monarch of all people had deliberately used a skill to steal his swordsmanship.
It was deeply ironic.
It was also nostalgic.
Nostalgic enough that Rimon had returned to being the master of Sword Tower for the first time in a long while, revised his swordsmanship, and given a lesson.
Though the result had been disappointing.
“In the end, though, you never understood the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.”
“What is it about the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword that I do not understand?”
“What is it you do not understand...? The way you ask, you sound as though you know my swordsmanship inside and out.”
“Of course I do.”
Lee Cheon-gi answered without hesitation.
『Skill Acquisition』 was an absolute skill.
Having learned the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword through it, there could not possibly be a sword form he did not know.
“Oh, really?”
Rimon gave a quiet laugh.
Then, as he examined Lee Cheon-gi’s treasured sword, he casually asked:
“Then do you know the principles of the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword?”
“What principles?”
“I mean, do you know why it is wielded with one hand? Why learning it lets you read your opponent’s movements? Why you must hold and swing the sword at certain times and in certain ways?”
“Well...”
Lee Cheon-gi found himself speechless.
『Skill Acquisition』 had taught him everything about the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.
But only which sword forms to use and when.
He did not know why.
If it had been ordinary swordsmanship, he could have analyzed it with skills like 『Swordsmanship Theory』 or 『Polymath』.
But the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword was far too profound to be understood through such trivial skills.
“Then what about the meaning of the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword? Do you know who created it, for what purpose, and through what history and effort it was completed?”
Once again, he could not answer.
Before learning it through a skill, he had not even known Rimon’s swordsmanship was called the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.
There was no way he could know such details.
“Why are you talking about things unrelated to swordsmanship?”
In the end, all Lee Cheon-gi could do was ask stiffly.
His words contained an objection, telling Rimon not to change the subject.
Rimon answered calmly.
“Because that is why, even after stealing the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword, you can never rise beyond imitation.”
“...You are saying my swordsmanship is nothing more than imitation?”
“Yes.”
Rimon nodded.
Then, as if comforting an injured woman, he slowly stroked Lee Cheon-gi’s treasured sword with his fingers and spoke lazily.
“If you understood the principles of the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword, you would not have needed to steal it again every time I revised the swordsmanship tens of thousands of times.”
It was like scholarship.
No matter how a shape changed, one could calculate its area if one understood the formula.
No matter how substances were mixed, one could predict the result if one understood chemistry.
Swordsmanship was ultimately only a form.
If one understood the principles contained within, a single swordsmanship could take a thousand forms and stand against ten thousand techniques.
“And if you had read the intent contained in that swordsmanship, you would have known at a glance that my final strike was the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.”
The dragon-killing sword created by the first Sword Master, the Sword Emperor, to slay the Seven Dragons.
The swordsmanship Rimon had refined over long years and completed after a desperate battle against the Demon God.
The culmination of humanity’s desperate resolve to bear the fate of the world and defy transcendent beings, of bitter grief and great will.
The Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.
Anyone who neither knew its meaning nor felt it even after seeing it could never wield this sword properly.
Rimon spoke evenly, then smiled coldly.
“Swordsmanship without Sword Principle or Sword Intent is nothing but an empty shell. So what else could you call it but imitation?”
Lee Cheon-gi had certainly learned the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword.
And its effects had made him far stronger.
But from Rimon’s perspective?
It was like giving a smartphone to a primitive man, only for him to use it as a mirror and marvel at it.
No, that was too pitiful. Let us call it a shiny rock instead.
Either way, the point remained the same.
He did not know its essence or principles, or even how to use it properly.
That was how enormous the gap was between the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword, imbued with Sword Principle and Sword Intent, and swordsmanship without them.
Yet a Monarch, the ultimate authority of this era, did not even understand that and spoke as if he had mastered the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Killing Sword completely.
Rimon could not help but be disappointed.
“Then again, you people have always been like this.”
Lee Cheon-gi was not unusual.
Most Players were the same.
“You think skills are everything and neglect all else.”
They dreamed of becoming swordsmen, yet rather than learn swordsmanship, they contracted with Constellations that granted swordsmanship skills.
Even when they felt their swordsmanship was lacking, rather than train by swinging a sword themselves, they sought better swordsmanship skills.
When they lacked strength, rather than build muscle, they cleared Dungeons to obtain equipment that increased their Strength stat or tried to level up.
They believed skills and levels determined a person’s worth, making the acquisition of better skills and higher levels their goal in life.
They took what was given to them for granted, never wondering where it had come from or when and how it had been created.
They treated that as common sense, refusing even to understand what did not fit their standards and mocking it as outdated.
At least, that was how the Players Rimon had known behaved.
“In that sense, you are at least a flexible bastard.”
It was not sarcasm.
In this era, Rimon was seen as a washed-up relic.
For a Monarch, the pinnacle of Players, to attempt to learn his swordsmanship was an extraordinary idea in itself.
If others knew, they would see Lee Cheon-gi as an eccentric testing whether dog shit could be used as medicine.
Rimon gave a quiet chuckle.
Lee Cheon-gi groaned as he asked:
“Do you... deny the existence of Players?”
“What good would denying the changes of an era do?”
Rimon shrugged.
He had no intention of denying skills or Players.
Just as democracy had appeared when monarchies fell, and cars had been invented to replace carriages.
He considered the appearance of Players to be part of the flow of the times.
If he were to deny every change like that, even cutting himself off from modern technology and culture to live in some remote folk village would not be enough.
“I am only saying that you do not have the right to dismiss old things without question either.”
They belittled swordsmanship earned through blood-vomiting effort because it was not a skill.
They mocked the Sword Emperor, who had sacrificed himself for humanity’s liberation, saying he had died because he was weak and not a Player.
They laughed at titles passed down for centuries to honor heroes, including the Sword Emperor, calling them adolescent fantasy nonsense.
They disregarded a hero who had saved nations and protected the world time and again as an outdated relic from a bygone era.
In the past, such things could have overturned a country.
Internet or whatever.
Those insults would have been paid for in blood.
Especially after hearing similar words hundreds of times, even to his face.
“If you truly want to do that, it is none of my concern.”
But Rimon did not.
He merely took his fingers from Lee Cheon-gi’s treasured sword and continued calmly.
“Still, even knowing this will sound like nothing but an old man’s rambling, let me say one thing.”
Crack.
The moment Rimon spoke, a single crack appeared on Lee Cheon-gi’s treasured sword.
The crack that began at the tip spread across the entire blade.
In an instant, the beautiful sword turned into fragments of metal and scattered to the ground.
As though looking upon the remains of a pitiable woman who had given everything to protect her lover, only to be abandoned, Rimon gazed sadly at the shattered sword.
Then he finished speaking.
“I do not think bastards like you, so controlled by skills that you cannot even hear your own sword scream, have any right to judge my swordsmanship.”
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