Solo Swordmaster - Chapter 76

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 76: Wanna Bet?

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After the Iron Age began,

Rimon had grown used to many things.

Brats who had never even held a sword puffing out their chests and calling themselves swordsmen because they had learned a Swordsmanship Skill.

A way of thinking that judged and understood everything through Skills, and a world built around it.

“H-hey! What the hell are you saying?!”

“Hm? Did I say something I shouldn’t have?”

“You just asked whether we can’t even control our shit and piss!”

Even so, at that moment,

Rimon could not contain his irritation.

“Well, you said every performance by someone without a Music Skill was noise, so I assumed anyone without a Defecation Skill couldn’t control their shit and piss.”

It was so unlike him that he had not only turned back after starting to leave, but was even mocking young men he had never met.

[Boss? What’s gotten into you?]

Just hearing Yoo Na-gyeong’s flustered attempt to stop him from above his head made that clear.

But Rimon did not bother holding back his irritation.

The moment he heard them casually call the performer’s song “noise,” the stress that had built up from listening to performances that relied on nothing but Skills, along with the dark envy he had felt while listening to the performer just now, burst out all at once.

“I suppose food cooked by someone without a Cooking Skill is all dog food to you lot. And students without Learning Skills are all failures.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

Rimon sneered at the indignant trio.

“Why? It’s still better than saying people without Skills should not be allowed to sing.”

“That’s completely different.”

“How is it different?”

“Being bad at cooking or studying is a personal problem, but a terrible performance in a public place inconveniences everyone else.”

“Then why do you get to decide what counts as a terrible performance?”

Perhaps they finally understood why Rimon was picking a fight with them.

The trio sighed.

“Sir, we apologize that what we said was a little careless.”

“A little?”

“Maybe calling it noise was too much, but surely a performance by someone with a Skill is better than one by someone without one.”

Without a Music Skill, one was just an ordinary person.

Compared to a Player with a Music Skill, was an ordinary person’s performance not practically noise?

The trio argued in what they thought was a logical manner, following what they considered common sense.

Rimon only smiled coldly.

“Hey. Wanna bet?”

“What kind of bet?”

“I’ll put on a performance without using a Music Skill.”

The trio looked suspicious at the sudden proposal, so Rimon laid out the terms.

“If you can say the same thing after it ends, I’ll politely apologize for my rudeness. And I’ll repay twice the money you paid to register here.”

“And if we can’t say the same thing, you want us to give up this performance spot?”

“No. Do whatever you want.”

“What do you mean, do whatever we want?”

“Exactly that. Apologize or don’t apologize, it’s up to you. I’ll still pay you back twice what you spent.”

“Then why make the bet?”

The trio looked dumbfounded.

Under those terms, they were the only ones who would decide the result and the only ones who stood to gain.

Yet Rimon remained entirely casual.

“If you’re scared, forget it.”

“...

Fine. Go ahead and do whatever you want.”

In the end, the trio accepted Rimon’s bet.

They had nothing to lose, and it would be even better if the performer decided to leave on their own.

Once they had settled things, Rimon let go of their shoulders and addressed the performer.

“Hey, friend.”

The performer had apparently finished the song and had stopped singing, blankly watching what was happening.

At the unexpected address, they tilted their head.

“Why?”

“Lend me that guitar and your voice for a moment. I’ll make it so you can put on a more interesting performance.”

The performer’s eyes widened at the sudden offer.

Rimon grinned.

Perhaps it was his confident smile.

Perhaps it was because he had taken their side.

Or perhaps it simply sounded fun.

After staring blankly at Rimon for a moment, the performer finally smiled and nodded.

“Sure, friend.”

That answer was not merely verbal.

Without the slightest hesitation, the performer thrust the guitar toward Rimon and stepped aside.

Taking the guitar, which was heavier than it looked, Rimon gladly sat where the performer had been. He plucked the strings one by one as he spoke to them.

Ding.

“What song?”

“Let’s do the one you were singing earlier.”

“Don’t Look at Me? That’s my own song. Can you play it?”

“I heard it once.”

“Really?”

The performer did not find it ridiculous that Rimon claimed he could play a song after hearing it only once, something most people would dismiss as nonsense.

They only looked interested, as though eager to see how far he could go.

Yoo Na-gyeong was the one who was flustered instead.

Ding.

[Boss, what on earth are you thinking?]

‘What?’

[Everything, from beginning to end. You usually don’t get involved in things like this.]

Though people called him a mad dog, Yoo Na-gyeong knew that Rimon unexpectedly respected social norms and unwritten rules.

Unless he knew someone, she could not understand why he was helping a person he had met for the first time today.

Ding.

‘Think of it as a whim.’

[Are you some teenage girl, Boss? Just acting on whims whenever you feel like it?]

‘Even I get frustrated sometimes.’

[...]

[Fine. Giving you every benefit of the doubt, let’s accept that as a whim.]

Yoo Na-gyeong nodded for the moment.

She knew how dissatisfied Rimon had been lately after going around listening to various performances.

But even taking that into account, there was still something about his behavior that she could not help finding baffling.

[But you don’t know how to play the guitar! Why are you suddenly saying you’ll perform on one?]

‘It’s fine. I learned how to play the guitar.’

[When?]

‘Just now.’

[What does that even...?]

Ding.

Yoo Na-gyeong suddenly fell silent.

Even while talking with her, Rimon’s fingers had been lazily touching the guitar strings.

As their movement gradually quickened, the barely audible guitar sounds became clearer and clearer.

The thin sound grew louder.

The slow tempo grew faster.

And when the separately ringing strings finally began to connect,

the sounds Rimon had been plucking had already become a distinct performance rather than simple notes.

Ding, diring.

“Huh?”

“When did he start?”

The few spectators who had been watching with interest ever since the trio and Rimon stepped in were confused.

They had been watching with their eyes wide open, yet none of them realized when the performance they were hearing had begun.

That was only natural.

It was the technique of a Sword Master.

A move containing the principle of drawing and cutting down an enemy before they could realize the sword had been drawn, an instantaneous draw-cut that surpassed even the ultimate form of striking second and arriving first.

But those wondering how and when the performance had begun soon forgot all about it.

Diring, diring, diriing.

‘What is this performance?’

‘Is this really that song we heard earlier?’

Rimon’s fingers moved rapidly across the guitar.

Though it was clearly the same song as before, the melody they produced caught the audience’s attention because it was strangely easier to listen to.

‘This is...?’

The most surprised person was the performer.

It was not only because the performance somehow sounded awkward, yet was incomparably better than their own.

As the composer, they had noticed that Rimon was rearranging their song on the spot.

‘This guy’s out of his mind.’

Playing a song he had just heard for the first time was not enough. He was revising it while preparing to perform it immediately.

Either his confidence was sky-high,

or he was simply a little crazy.

Either way, it was not something an ordinary performer would do. Especially after asking a complete stranger to lend him not only their song and guitar, but their voice as well.

But that was precisely why the performer grinned.

They drew in a small breath, then opened their mouth in time with Rimon’s playing.

“Don’t look at me...”

“...!”

At that moment,

the trio and the other spectators unconsciously held their breath.

The husky voice layered over the cleanly ringing guitar, and suddenly it felt as if every hair on their bodies stood on end.

But that was only the beginning.

Didididing.

“Don’t look at me like that...”

As though it had been waiting for the song to begin,

the guitar suddenly roared more fiercely, like a racing car accelerating without warning.

And rather than being swallowed by that performance, the singing rode the melody and dug in with even greater intensity.

Together, they were drilling something unknown out of the audience’s hearts, beyond simple goosebumps and with a chilling thrill.

‘This is the same song as before?’

The spectators who had heard the performer before the trio arrived were stunned.

When the performer had sung while playing the guitar, it had certainly not been a bad song.

But now, with the song laid over Rimon’s dazzling guitar instead of the original clumsy accompaniment, it was on an entirely different level.

‘How?’

‘A Skill?’

‘Or were they deliberately holding back before?’

They did not know.

They did not know that although technically unpolished, the performer’s singing had potential that Rimon considered comparable to Julia, the Violin Witch.

They did not know that a monster existed who could perfectly imitate Julia’s performance after watching it only once, and who had been told after mere months that there was nothing more to teach them technically.

And they did not know that this monster was now using every sense of a Sword Master solely to support the performer’s technical shortcomings.

The result was this.

The passersby had all disappeared, and in their place the street was filled with more than several dozen spectators.

‘I usually don’t watch street performances.’

‘If I’m late for my appointment... Ah, fuck it. I’ll just be late and buy them dinner.’

Those hurrying along.

Those who had originally come to watch other performances.

Those with no interest in music at all.

Nine out of ten people who heard even a passing fragment of the performer’s song hesitated, then ultimately joined the crowd.

“Don’t look back...”

Sometimes splendid, sometimes quiet, but always cold and precise, without the slightest disruption.

Above it, a song that sometimes wavered and sometimes crumpled, and therefore rang out even more hotly.