WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 8: You Don’t Know
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“You don’t need me to see you out, right?”
“No.”
“All right, then. Take care. The door’s busted and doesn’t close well, so make sure you shut it tight behind you.”
Li Qing-yu bowed politely to Rimon, who waved without even looking back, then left the house.
She walked on in silence.
Because Rimon’s home stood in such a remote alley, the surroundings were not merely bleak, but downright eerie.
Yet she did not hesitate in the slightest.
As if she were taking a stroll through a garden, she naturally made her way out of the maze-like alleys draped in darkness.
“Was this truly necessary, Your Highness?”
A voice spoke at that moment.
Li Qing-yu stopped when she saw a masked figure in black martial garb kneeling in the darkness, though she had no idea how long Chao had been there.
“I told you not to follow me, Chao.”
“Yes. That is why I waited.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant.”
“...”
The masked warrior called Chao fell silent.
Whether Chao admitted it or denied it, either answer would have been a lie to Li Qing-yu.
Of course, remaining silent was rude as well.
Li Qing-yu did not press the matter.
She merely sighed and asked.
“Do you disapprove of my decision?”
“How could I dare question Your Highness’s actions...?”
Chao lowered their head even further.
After hesitating for a long while, Chao bit down hard on their lip and continued.
“But I cannot understand this one matter.”
At any other time, Chao would never have done something so presumptuous.
Chao’s role was only to guard and serve Li Qing-yu. They had neither the right nor the wisdom to interfere with her actions.
But this time, Chao could not endure it.
“Why him of all people?”
“Is it so surprising that I proposed to him?”
“It is more than surprising. The elders of the clan will never permit it.”
The elders would foam at the mouth if she merely took someone outside the Seven Dragons Society as her prince consort.
And if that person were Rimon Aspelder?
They might come running with swords in hand the moment they heard the news.
The bad blood between the Seven Dragons Society and Rimon ran that deep and heavy.
“Will they really?”
“...?”
But Li Qing-yu did not agree with that obvious fact.
She only gave a faint smile.
Having served her for so long, Chao understood the meaning of that smile and could not hide their confusion.
Li Qing-yu calmly asked the flustered Chao.
“Chao. What would you do if someone in your family picked up a jewel abandoned on the road?”
“I would investigate it thoroughly. If there were no problems with it, I would present it to Your Highness.”
“That is not what I meant.”
Li Qing-yu looked troubled by Chao’s immediate answer. She could not tell whether it was stubbornness, loyalty, or simply both.
“Still, you would not get angry and tell them to throw the jewel away, would you?”
Only then did Chao understand Li Qing-yu’s comparison.
But Chao could not agree.
“...Would it not be too generous to call someone like him an abandoned jewel?”
At that moment, Li Qing-yu’s expression changed strangely.
As if she had heard an absurd joke.
She stared at Chao with an indescribable look before suddenly asking.
“Chao, you are twenty-seven, correct?”
“Yes.”
“You truly were born in the Iron Age.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not blaming you, Chao. It is simply that your generation sees the past as nothing more than the past.”
“...?”
Li Qing-yu gave a soft smile as Chao looked puzzled by her incomprehensible words.
“You are not the only one who thinks that way. Many people probably think the power of Sword Masters means nothing.”
Even most people born near the end of the Age of Heroes would likely think so.
Several decades had already passed since the age changed.
Constellations and Players had become the mainstream long ago, while the previous era had long since become the past.
“That is why you can call him ‘someone like him.’”
Chao shuddered.
Not merely because they could not understand their beloved princess’s words.
It was because of the deep, murky gleam in her beautiful obsidian eyes, as deep as a swamp.
“But Chao, you do not know.”
Eyes too dark for a girl.
“What sort of beings Sword Masters are.”
Chao stiffened as though they had seen some incomprehensible mystery.
Leaving Chao behind, Li Qing-yu slowly raised her head.
Looking up at the full moon in the night sky, she spoke quietly.
“If you knew what Sword Masters truly were, you would not hold such a ridiculous misconception.”
“A misconception...?”
“The misconception that Sword Masters lost their glory and declined because Players appeared when the Iron Age began.”
“...Are you saying that is a misconception?”
“It is not entirely wrong. Players are one of the reasons.”
Players were remarkable beings.
They could use mystical abilities without special training and obtain all kinds of resources from Dungeons.
“If Sword Masters could enter Dungeons, they would not have declined this far.”
In that respect, Li Qing-yu was right. Sword Masters being unable to enter Dungeons was reason enough for people to dismiss them.
“But the greatest reason is that this is an age of peace.”
Even so, Li Qing-yu could state with certainty that Players and Dungeons were not the real reason Sword Masters had declined.
“After the Iron Age began, the world grew prosperous. People became drunk on the wealth and progress Dungeons brought, and forgot about war.”
In truth, after Dungeons appeared, small international disputes remained, but wars and incidents where blood washed blood had nearly vanished.
Even the Seven Dragons Society, once the most active force in overturning the world, had come into the open and joined the age.
That was how great the benefits of Dungeons were.
Great enough to intoxicate people into forgetting the past.
“So people began to think human weapons like Sword Masters were no longer needed.”
Players gave people countless benefits.
Sword Masters knew nothing but fighting.
The more people compared the two, the more natural it became for them to treat Sword Masters poorly.
“Without realizing how foolish that thought is.”
This was an age of peace, so Sword Masters were unnecessary?
To Li Qing-yu, that was no different from arguing that armies should be abolished because war would never come.
Without preparing for the possibility that it might.
Only people so steeped in peace that their heads had turned into flower gardens could think such things.
Of course, there was not no contingency plan.
“But there are Monarchs, aren’t there?”
“Monarchs... Certainly, they too have reached the limits of humanity.”
The ten Monarchs who had reached Level 100.
Their power was on an entirely different level from other Players.
Any one of them could decide a nation’s rise and fall. With ten such Monarchs in existence, people had turned away from the outdated relic called the Sword Master.
If both were superhumans, it was only natural to prefer those who brought immense wealth and prosperity over a washed-up has-been who knew nothing but swordplay.
“But can they truly take the Sword Duke’s place?”
“...The Monarchs are superhumans.”
That was Chao’s entire answer.
No matter how strong a Sword Master was, Chao believed they could not be as strong as the Monarchs.
Having witnessed the chilling power of a Monarch once, that was only natural.
“That is why I said you do not know what Sword Masters are.”
As though she had expected that answer, Li Qing-yu smiled bitterly.
Then she added quietly.
“But you will learn soon enough.”
Why Sword Masters could not enter Dungeons.
Why only thirteen Sword Masters had been born in nearly a thousand years.
Why the Seven Dragons Society, which had fought Rimon for centuries, called him the Sword Duke with reverence.
Why she had risked danger to seek Rimon out herself at such a time.
Why, even after falling so far, Rimon still sought to remain the last shield protecting the world.
How absurd it was to compare Monarchs to Sword Masters.
Who their true enemy was.
Few knew those things.
But many would learn them from now on.
No, they would have no choice but to learn.
“An awl in a pocket will poke through, and the Yangtze’s latter waves can never push aside the sky.”[1]
That was why Li Qing-yu had come here.
The only way for her, caught in such a complicated position even within the Seven Dragons Society, to escape her predicament was to win Rimon’s heart.
And only now was that possible.
“...What kind of beings are Sword Masters that you can say such things?”
Chao still could not understand why Li Qing-yu was so certain.
Hearing Chao’s question, asked with a conflicted expression, she turned around.
Thinking of Rimon’s house at the end of the alley she had walked through, she quietly opened her mouth.
“Sword Masters are...”
* * *
“Yaaawn.”
After yawning so widely his mouth seemed about to split, Rimon turned off the television he had been watching for ten straight hours.
He rose from the sofa and scratched the back of his head.
“Ah, fuck. I’m bored to death.”
It had already been several days since he met Li Qing-yu.
Since then, all Rimon had done was binge dramas, watch the news, and read comic books.
In other words, he had spent all his time lounging around the house.
It could not be helped.
If he had friends, he would have gone to visit them, but most people Rimon could call friends had been buried in graves long ago.
Nor did he have the money to go shopping or travel.
Games?
Those were boredom itself.
With a Sword Master’s dynamic visual acuity and reaction speed, playing any game only became a simple task of winning.
“Should I go see that bastard Seo Yong-chan?”
Going to see the victim after being suspended for assault.
If Kang Jeong-su found out, they would not only be horrified, but cling to Rimon’s pant leg.
Of course, whether Kang Jeong-su cried or not, Rimon had no intention of caring.
His priority was finding out whether he would see that cow head again when he visited Seo Yong-chan, and how that cow head would react to him.
If Kang Jeong-su developed stress-induced gastritis in the process, that was a minor problem.
‘Ah, should I just make Jeong-su do it instead? If I tell them to investigate Seo Yong-chan or I’ll go find him and turn him inside out myself, it might work.’
Rimon was still lost in thought when...
Footnotes:
[1] The latter image reverses a familiar proverb that later Yangtze waves drive away earlier ones, meaning younger generations supersede their predecessors. Li Qing-yu insists they cannot displace the “sky.”
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