WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 52: A Sense of Discomfort
──────
Rimon’s eyes snapped open.
At the same time, he drew the sword by his pillow.
Keeping himself poised to respond to an ambush at any moment, Rimon spoke in a low voice.
“Who is it?”
It was less a question than a warning.
Anyone who dared approach carelessly had better be prepared to be cut down by his sword.
They were the words of a Sword Master, steeped in a chilling killing intent that even a Monarch could not ignore.
The answer from the other side of the door was simple.
“Room service.”
“...Room what?”
“Room service. I’ve brought your breakfast.”
Rimon blinked blankly at the unexpectedly courteous reply beyond the door.
Then he looked around.
A huge bed, an even larger room, a carpet spread across the floor, paintings hanging on the walls.
After slowly taking in the interior, which practically radiated luxury at a glance, Rimon finally relaxed.
Ah, right. This was the Leviathan Hotel.
Habits really were frightening.
He had already stayed at the Leviathan for several days, yet he had woken with his sword drawn again. Rimon sighed at his own idiocy.
He knew this place was safe.
But after spending so many years fighting the Seven Dragons Society, his body had registered this place as the heart of enemy territory.
“May I come in?”
“Ah, sure.”
Clink.
After Rimon put away his sword, Youin entered, pushing a cart as if he had been waiting for permission. The elderly general manager in a suit showed no reaction whatsoever at the sight of Rimon holding a sword in one hand.
Perhaps he had gotten used to it by now.
He merely set out breakfast on the table with perfect composure.
He laid out silverware wrapped in napkins, set down steaming pumpkin soup and toast topped with bacon and sunny-side-up eggs, then poured lemon water.
It was like watching a muted video.
Watching Youin prepare breakfast without making the slightest sound or giving off the slightest presence, Rimon clicked his tongue.
No wonder I can’t help being on guard.
Someone who did not know better might simply be impressed.
They might call those neat, noiseless movements an example for everyone in the service industry to follow.
But Rimon knew better.
That silence was not for the guest’s convenience. It was the result of training meant to conceal their presence completely, approach a target, and eliminate them.
Of course it was.
This was the Leviathan Hotel. Before it was the finest hotel in the world, it was a place like the Black Dragon Clan’s nest.
That was why Rimon took a bite of toast and spoke mockingly.
“Is it really all right for a hotel’s general manager to be doing room service personally?”
“Providing special service to special guests is also part of a general manager’s duty.”
“What an honor.”
“The honor is mine.”
He had never expected to receive Rimon as a guest.
Was he being sarcastic, or sincere?
Rimon could not tell through Youin’s polite manner. After shooting him a glance, he grumbled inwardly that the Black Dragon Clan was hard to deal with after all and swallowed the rest of his toast.
“Well, I don’t know whether it’s special service or whatever, but I’ll admit the food is good.”
“Thank you for enjoying it.”
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to the chef who made it.”
“That is why I should thank you.”
“Huh?”
Rimon blinked once.
Then he looked back and forth between the empty plate he had cleaned and Youin with an uncertain expression.
“Don’t tell me you made this?”
“As I said, providing special service is also part of a general manager’s duty.”
“...
Damn it, a general manager only needs to run the place well. Why are you so good at cooking too?”
Rimon frowned without realizing it.
The crispness of the toast.
The golden softness of the sunny-side-up egg.
Even the delicate touch of salt.
Precisely because it involved no elaborate preparation, the exquisite skill behind the toast stood out all the more. It was unmistakably the work of a first-rate chef.
Youin did not look proud.
He only answered calmly, as though this were a trivial talent.
“Live long enough, and you pick up all sorts of skills.”
“...
Are you mocking me? Calling me an old man who’s lived this long and learned nothing but swordplay?”
“How could that be?”
“Sure it couldn’t.”
Rimon snorted at Youin’s words. Even his sarcasm was courteous, just as one would expect from a general manager.
Still, he raised the cup of pumpkin soup and slurped from it.
It rubbed him the wrong way a little, but unless it was poisoned, there was no reason to refuse a meal that had been laid out for him.
After finishing his simple breakfast and cleansing his palate with lemon water, Rimon suddenly asked,
“Where’s the princess?”
“She has gone out.”
“It’s only six. She’s busy from early in the morning.”
“Thanks to someone, the matters she must handle urgently have increased.”
The remark pointed out that Li Qing-yu was busy because of him.
“Maybe you should have trained your people better. If there were people she could entrust things to, she’d have an easier time.”
The cutting remark pointed out that Li Qing-yu was running around personally because she could not trust Youin.
“I regret that as well. But there are matters concerning the clan that Her Highness must resolve herself.”
The pointed reply said that an outsider like Rimon was in no position to say such things.
“That’s unfortunate. If we had at least held the ceremony, I could have helped.”
The cold fact was that if he married Li Qing-yu, he would outrank Youin.
It was truly a clash of dragons and tigers.
Neither had drawn a sword, but neither hesitated to drive the poisoned barbs hidden in their words into the other.
Yet despite their fierce exchange, the atmosphere between them was not hostile at all.
No, it was incredibly peaceful.
Rimon and Youin were both veterans of the martial world.
They had experienced countless real battles where one’s neck could be severed in the blink of an eye, until they could smile while driving a blade into someone’s heart. To them, this level of argument was merely light banter.
After they chatted so amicably for a while, Rimon finished eating. Youin cleared away the empty dishes and asked politely,
“What would you like to do today?”
“What schedule? It’s not like I have much to do here.”
Rimon gave a light snort.
Then he voiced the only thing he had repeatedly done over the past few days.
“I should go do my morning training.”
* * *
He swung his sword.
Slow rather than fast.
Softly, as though pushing aside clouds.
Yet heavily, as though gripping a boulder.
It moved so slowly it seemed completely still, yet it never stopped for an instant, flowing on without interruption.
It was practically a work of art.
It was the Slow Sword, containing the beauty of slowness brought to its ultimate extreme, impossible to look away from once seen.
“Ah, fuck.”
But the owner of that sword.
Rimon had silently swung his sword for a full four hours since breakfast, only to stop with a curse.
He carefully put away his sword, wiped away sweat with a towel, and pulled a deep scowl.
“Looks like this won’t work either.”
That was unusual.
Not the fact that he was training with his sword again.
Sword training was part of Rimon’s daily life. Unless he was exceptionally busy, he had trained for several hours every day.
The problem was Rimon’s expression.
It would be one thing if he felt refreshed.
But it was rare for him to be irritated after sword training.
There were a few exceptions, such as when urgent business forced him to stop in the middle of training, or when he disliked the path of the sword he had created for himself.
Of course, no one had interrupted Rimon.
Nor had his sword path been poor.
Yet there was one reason he was irritated.
He had achieved no results.
“What the hell did that snake leave inside me?”
Rimon clicked his tongue.
The reason he had devoted himself to sword training these past few days was not merely because, as a traitor, it was difficult for him to wander around outside.
It was because of the sense of discomfort he had felt in his body since cutting down the Serpent That Joins the Ends.
At first, he thought it was a curse.
He had experienced plenty of insignificant bastards leaving curses behind before dying, and if it was a Constellation, that level of final struggle would not have been strange.
But Rimon soon realized it was something far more troublesome and unwelcome than a mere curse.
It was the remnants of starlight that had shattered and seeped into him after he cut down the snake.
“Damn it, what the hell are Constellations made of? Why do these bastards keep spilling one thing or another into other people’s bodies every time I cut them?”
There had been signs long ago.
The fact that he could see Constellations after regressing.
The System messages that appeared whenever he cut down Constellations, saying something had been absorbed.
Looking back on those, it was easy to infer that something was being absorbed into him every time he cut down a Constellation.
The problem was what that something was.
It seems useful for now, at least.
If what he had absorbed was the power of the Constellations, and that was why he could see them, then it was not exactly welcome, but it was not necessarily bad either.
It was convenient to see what he needed to cut.
Perhaps he simply had not realized it yet, but he might be able to use this power in other ways.
But what if it was not just power?
What if other things were mixed into that starlight?
What if he had absorbed the personalities of the Constellations too?
What if, as a result of cutting down Constellations and absorbing their fragments, he instead began to become like them?
“It doesn’t sit right with me.”
Rimon clicked his tongue.
It might just be needless worry, but he could not help being wary.
Especially after seeing Park Hyeon-gun get devoured by the snake after thoughtlessly gulping down whatever power a Constellation offered.
Even this sense of something foreign within him was proof of that.
Foreignness meant a different nature.
The fact that he could feel it within himself could not be considered right.
It could just be indigestion, but...
Before his regression, he had cut down three.
After defeating Lee Cheon-gi, one more.
Rimon had cut down parts of Constellations, even if only body parts, and absorbed their fragments before.
Yet he had never felt discomfort before cutting down the snake. Considering that, perhaps he simply felt bloated because he had absorbed too many fragments of the snake.
Or perhaps it was only a matter of compatibility.
Maybe he would naturally adapt with time.
I can’t just assume it’s indigestion, only to develop symptoms of heavy metal poisoning later.
But Rimon did not simply think optimistically.
The possibility that things might improve naturally also meant they might worsen naturally.
Especially for Rimon, who did not know when he would fight Constellations again or how many he would have to cut down, he could not just leave everything to time.
Besides, even if the discomfort disappeared, that would not solve every problem.
Power one cannot control is bound to cause trouble someday.
Even the power Rimon had gained to see Constellations was not something he used by choice.
It activated whenever it pleased.
But what if he gained a power that petrified anyone who met his eyes, or killed anyone who heard his voice, and it activated on its own?
It would cause a terrible disaster.
At the very least, I need to be able to control it...
That was why Rimon had immersed himself in sword training until he sweated for the first time in a while.
As a Sword Master, there was no better method than swordsmanship for observing and controlling his own inner self.
The problem was that the result had been quite poor.
Whether he trained using a different sword art.
Whether he swung his sword all day.
Even if he tried meditating.
No matter what method he used, he could not control the power that let him see Constellations. He could not even activate it.
It was not that he had made no progress. The discomfort had lessened somewhat, but the pace was so slow that at this rate, he would have to swing his sword for ten full years.
No wonder he was annoyed.
“Hmm, should I look for another way?”
Rimon scratched the back of his head.
He was a swordsman, but that did not mean he believed he could accomplish everything through swordsmanship alone.
Swordsmanship was ultimately for fighting. There were people who specialized in dealing with complex problems like this.
The problem was that he did not want to borrow their help.
Of course, now that he had joined hands even with the Seven Dragons Society, once his sworn enemy, there was no reason he could not borrow anyone else’s help as well...
“...
Fine. I’ll put it aside for now.”
Rimon organized his thoughts.
He had only trained with his sword for a few days.
It was too early to conclude that there would be no results, and this was not a situation where he could carelessly go around meeting others.
“Anyway, I need to resolve this damn treason charge before I can do anything.”
Clicking his tongue lightly, Rimon looked at a calendar as something suddenly came to mind.
Come to think of it, was that today?
He counted the dates for a moment.
After searching his memory and confirming he was not too late, Rimon left the training room while muttering to himself.
“Let’s see. Going all the way back to my room just to watch some TV is a hassle. Somewhere decent to watch it...”
As he walked on, Rimon narrowed his eyes and turned toward one side.
“Ah, there was that place.”
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
