WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 32: Monster, Player, Human

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“...!”

It was neither criticism, mockery, nor even an insult.

The moment Lee Cheon-gi heard Rimon’s words, which were closer to lamentation than anything else, he felt something surprising.

Shame.

He had never known shame before.

In this Iron Age, a Monarch was an absolute being, entitled to act with confidence no matter what he did.

But this time, he could not.

“You may take pride in it. Your swordsmanship is worth more than a thousand skills.”

“Oh? When did I ask you to evaluate my swordsmanship?”

“This is not an evaluation. It is acknowledgment.”

“Since swordsmanship alone cannot defeat me, you intend to mobilize every skill you have?”

“Because you are worthy of that.”

He had evaluated Rimon.

He had acknowledged Rimon’s sword.

He had discussed whether Rimon was qualified to fight him.

Every word he had spoken to Rimon so naturally, every thought he had taken for granted, now returned like blades and stabbed into his heart.

Only now did he understand.

How arrogant those words had been.

Before judging someone, one first had to consider whether one was qualified to do so. Before acknowledging another, one had to be acknowledged by them first.

Lee Cheon-gi had done neither.

He had judged Rimon without knowing anything.

He had believed himself qualified to do so.

But Rimon had shattered Lee Cheon-gi’s arrogance to pieces.

With a single swing of his sword, he had proved his own qualifications and shown Lee Cheon-gi that he had never possessed such qualifications in the first place.

Above all, Lee Cheon-gi’s treasured sword, which had broken apart in Rimon’s hand, proved that fact.

The Immortal Sword Arondight.

The reward he had received for reaching Level 100.

One of only ten Monarch-class items in the world.

Among them, Arondight, with its 『Unbreakable』 attribute, was the only weapon capable of withstanding even a thousand, no, ten thousand skills unleashed at once.

If Arondight had shattered like glass, there could only be one reason.

It had to be because of Rimon’s final sword strike.

To destroy equipment with the 『Unbreakable』 attribute in a single blow.

That alone showed that Rimon stood in a realm Lee Cheon-gi could not dare evaluate.

That was why Lee Cheon-gi had no choice but to ask.

“Why... have you hidden such power until now?”

“Hidden my power? Me?”

As though he had just heard the most absurd thing imaginable, Rimon stared at him.

Then he flared his eyes and snarled.

“Hey, you crazy bastard! I fought the Seven Dragons Society tooth and nail for centuries, and I beat the Demon God to death all by myself! What more do I need to do to show my strength?”

Lee Cheon-gi found himself speechless for a moment.

Thinking about it, Rimon was right.

Rimon Aspelder was humanity’s guardian deity.

He was a hero who had stopped world-shaking crises time and again, saving more nations than one could count on all their fingers and toes.

Before the Iron Age began, he had even reigned as an absolute being.

In other words, he was a great man who had spent centuries displaying his strength as much as anyone possibly could.

To ask such a man why he had hidden his power?

Even Lee Cheon-gi found the question absurd.

Still, there was a reason he had no choice but to ask something so strange.

“Those are all things that happened long ago, are they not?”

Whether it was the Seven Dragons Society’s rampage or the Demon God’s descent.

Those were incidents from decades, even centuries ago.

In an age with few means of keeping records, there was no way Rimon’s great deeds could have been preserved accurately.

At best, they had been passed down through written records and stories.

And since every account sounded so fantastical, it was only natural for people of this age to regard them as the exaggerations typical of old records.

“So what?”

“I mean, why have you never shown such power in this era?”

Just once.

If Rimon had shown his power even once, Sword Masters would not have fallen so far.

No matter how much the Iron Age revolved around Players, no fool would ignore a monster capable of bringing down even a Monarch.

So why had he silently accepted his downfall?

Rimon’s answer was clear.

“Because there was no need to use it.”

“...What did you say?”

“I said I hadn’t had a proper fight in decades, you bastard. The Demon God was beaten long ago, and the wars were over. What was I supposed to use power like this for?”

“That...! Cough! Cough, cough!

Perhaps because the answer was so absurd, Lee Cheon-gi began coughing blood again after barely managing to stop.

He demanded an answer.

“Do you think that makes any sense?”

“And if it doesn’t?”

But Rimon remained utterly confident.

No, he looked at Lee Cheon-gi with a confidence laced with ridicule.

“Are you saying I should have gone around beating up you Monarchs just to prove I was strong?”

“...”

Lee Cheon-gi was speechless again.

Rimon could not enter Dungeons, and he had no Levels. The only way for him to prove his strength was through actual combat.

And the only way to do that was to fight a Monarch to the death, like he had today.

No, perhaps even that would not have been enough.

Lee Cheon-gi had heard that Rimon had wiped out 150 high-level Players, including two Grand Dukes, yet he had still believed Rimon was no match for him.

Even if Rimon fought and defeated a Monarch, many would call it a coincidence, luck, or cheating.

No matter the evidence.

No matter the records left behind.

People believed what they wanted to believe.

For Rimon to overcome that disbelief and prove himself?

He might have needed to wipe out all ten Monarchs.

“Do you know what they call going around beating up pushovers just to brag about how strong you are?”

Lee Cheon-gi could not answer.

Looking at him, Rimon spoke mockingly.

“They call it thuggery, you errand-boy bastard.”

“Are you seriously calling Monarchs pushovers?”

“I am not comparing you to anything. I am being direct.”

“...”

Rimon openly ridiculed him, as though calling pushovers pushovers could not possibly count as a comparison.

Lee Cheon-gi could not deny it.

The way he had been toyed with and utterly defeated was proof enough that Rimon’s words were no boast.

Still, he could not have felt good about it.

Seeing Lee Cheon-gi’s deeply furrowed brow, Rimon gave a quiet snort.

“My straightforward way of speaking doesn’t seem to sit well with you, so I’ll add a metaphor, just as you want.”

“...How very gracious of you.”

Whether Lee Cheon-gi expressed thanks as stiffly as if he were reading from a textbook did not matter to Rimon.

He simply opened his mouth in a lazy voice.

“Suppose there is an incredibly powerful bomb. Let us say one with the force of ten million tons of TNT.”

“Do you even know how much that is?”

“Shut up and listen, bastard.”

Cutting off Lee Cheon-gi’s reasonable objection that no bomb could possibly exist that would more than wipe out an entire city, Rimon continued.

“You have the switch to that bomb. But the snot-nosed brats in the neighborhood don’t believe a bomb like that exists. Instead, they look down on you and pick a fight.”

Rimon crouched in front of Lee Cheon-gi.

Meeting his eyes, he asked in a lazy voice.

“Would you set it off in front of the kids just to prove that the bomb exists?”

Lee Cheon-gi’s expression hardened.

Only then did he understand.

Rimon was asking what the difference was between rampaging to prove one’s strength and detonating a bomb.

“...Who would do something so insane?”

“You think no one would? Really?”

“...”

“What I learned while working as a PAB agent is that you people treat power too lightly.”

Swordsmanship, psionics, magic, spirit arts.

There had been many powers that ruled the world in the past, but none had been as easy to obtain as skills.

That was not necessarily bad.

The problem was the side effects that came with it.

“Because you gain power easily, you use it easily. Instead of considering whether you should use it, you think only about how to use it to gain more.”

There was no master to teach them the meaning of power.

There was not even time to build pride and conviction.

They were desperate to show off the power they had gained.

Just as anyone would want to boast after suddenly obtaining a powerful item or earning a high score in a game.

“Then again, it can’t be helped.”

Rimon was not condemning that fact.

He was simply acknowledging it calmly.

“You are Players, after all.”

For the first time, Lee Cheon-gi understood.

The title everyone in this age desperately wished to attain, a title regarded only as a symbol of success.

It could also be a contemptuous name for those who lived as though the world itself were a game.

“Well, actually, even that doesn’t matter. Power gained with difficulty is not always used properly either.”

As Lee Cheon-gi wondered why Rimon had used such an analogy, Rimon suddenly asked him.

“Have you ever heard this saying? With great power comes great responsibility.”

“I have heard something similar.”

Lee Cheon-gi tried to answer calmly.

High-level Players played important roles in this age.

There were many catchphrases meant to inspire a sense of responsibility and encourage their voluntary activities.

So he thought Rimon was about to say that restraint was also part of responsibility.

“That is complete bullshit.”

But Rimon declared otherwise.

He said that believing nonsense like that would ruin one’s life.

“Power comes with no responsibility. No one gets punished for misusing power. The more irresponsibly you use it, the more you benefit.”

There had always been talk of noblesse oblige and the responsibilities of the powerful.

But few had truly upheld such responsibilities, and those rare people who had tried usually fell into ruin.

Speaking from experience as a man whose life was nearly the history of humanity itself, Rimon stated flatly.

“Because the world is unfair.”

“Are you trying to spread pessimism?”

“No. I am telling you how easily power can be abused.”

Since responsibility did not naturally come with power, when and how it was used was entirely up to the person who held it.

And as far as Rimon knew.

In every era, those who gained wealth and glory were the ones who realized that fact early and skillfully abused their power.

“As you say, there is nothing stopping me from showing off my strength. One act of thuggery would bring me wealth and glory, and make everyone crawl before me.”

For others, perhaps that would not be the case.

But for Rimon, it really would have been easy.

If defeating one Monarch did not convince them, he only had to keep defeating Monarchs until they were convinced.

But Rimon sneered at that easy path and added a few more assumptions.

“But what happens after another thirty years?”

“What if the next generation forgets my power and lifts their heads again?”

“That one act of thuggery, which I thought would happen only once, would need to be repeated in a mere thirty years. And it would have to be bigger and flashier than before.”

It was a point Lee Cheon-gi had never considered.

Players already had Dungeons as stages upon which to prove their strength. They had no need to consider what would happen decades later.

But Rimon was different.

He was a man who knew nothing but swinging a sword.

A man who had to fight to prove himself.

A man who had lived long enough to call thirty years a mere span of time, and would continue to live that long.

Rimon smiled coldly.

“Do you know what happens when you use power that way?”

“You become a monster.”

“A monster who commits slaughter for no reason other than to display their strength.”

“A monster who never grows old and dies, never yields, holds power forever, and one day might destroy the world just to relieve their boredom.”

“...”

Lee Cheon-gi fell silent.

Rimon’s voice carried an unwavering certainty, as though he had seen such a monster himself.

More than that, his golden eyes, cold to the point of utter impassivity, made it impossible for Lee Cheon-gi to say anything.

“That is why I did not do it.”

Rimon spoke calmly to him.

He gave the one reason he had not displayed his power, even as he lost everything and fell from grace, living in accordance with the flow of the age until he was falsely branded a traitor.

“Because I am human.”

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