WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Pushover Young Lord in a Romance Fantasy Won't Take It Anymore ◈

Chapter 11: Have You Decided to Teach Me Now?

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At the outermost edge of Cardenos territory, where even sunlight could not reach.

I made my way through a slum thick with stale dampness and filth.

"Ah, what a familiar smell."

Battlefields had toughened my stomach, so it almost felt nostalgic.

Add the stench of blood, smoke, and gunpowder, and I might even get homesick. Yeah, right.

Step. Step.

Footsteps followed behind me.

Muddy puddles filled the ground, and vagrants lay sprawled throughout the alleys.

Hunger had driven them mad, greed gleaming in their eyes.

The ones creeping after me stopped at a single glare.

They must have had enough survival instinct to sense killing intent.

Living so close to death, that was only natural.

I searched through every corner of the slum.

With barely any sunlight and its dreary colors, it looked like a maze at first glance.

I retraced my steps, turned back whenever I reached a dead end, and repeated the process.

All the while, I swept my gaze sharply across every back alley.

'Found him.'

One vagrant caught my attention.

A figure crouched beneath a crumbling wall.

It was a man draped in scraps of cloth, worn thin as rags.

His empty right sleeve fluttered lightly in the wind.

His hair and beard were tangled into a shaggy mess, as though he had not washed in ages.

Layers of dried dust and filth covered him so heavily that he looked less like a person and more like a clump of fur.

A chipped bowl sat alone before him. He was the very picture of a beggar.

Even the few vagrants passing by covered their noses and hurried on.

That old man was still as filthy as ever.

More than half his face was covered by hideous body hair, yet I recognized him at once.

"Me? I was hiding in your territory until then. You know that sewer-like slum on the outskirts? That's where."

Hendrickson, the One-Armed Sword.

At present, only two Swordmasters on the entire continent had linked seven rings.

One was an old man already crushed beneath the weight of time, retired with all fighting spirit drained away. A living corpse who did nothing but breathe.

Hendrickson was different. He was a knight ready to return to the front lines at any time.

Bang! Bang!

After noticing me, he struck his bowl. He wanted money.

So that old man had ended up like this. Living twice really did let one see everything.

"Milord, please spare a coin. I haven't eaten anything in days."

"Sir."

Ting!

A coin traced a graceful arc through the air.

Ting, tiiing.

It dropped straight into the old bowl.

"Oh, milord. Thank you..."

The beggar's groveling voice abruptly stopped. What I had thrown was no ordinary coin. It was a gold coin.

No mad noble would give a gold coin to a beggar in a slum.

He, too, realized this approach had a clear purpose.

His head slowly tilted upward, as though creaking on rusty hinges.

His eyes appeared through the shaggy hair. A distinct light had returned to his clouded pupils.

"Who are you?"

He gripped his cane. More accurately, a sword fashioned to resemble one.

Eyes gauging the reach of its blade. Silence that pierced through my intentions.

This man could kill me in the blink of an eye.

He was judging whether I was worth killing.

Clink!

Instead of answering, I tossed what I held in my hand into the bowl.

It sounded different from the clear chime of a coin. What rolled to a stop inside the bowl was an Obsidian Signet Ring.

An Obsidian Signet Ring embossed with a mighty black lion.

It was the family seal only direct members of the Cardenos bloodline could possess.

"Astin von Cardenos."

A faint ripple passed through Hendrickson's pupils.

"I'm the son of your disciple."

"Ha!"

He threw back his head and laughed.

"Cardenos? Did you think I'd welcome you just because you said that?"

Who knew. Of course he would hate it.

I slowly stepped forward and sat down beside Hendrickson.

"Doesn't it get lonely being by yourself?"

I glanced at the old gourd flask by his side.

The sour alcoholic scent unique to cheap rotgut drifted past my nose.

* * *

"I guarantee it. You will be the first to link the final ring."

"If it's Hendrickson, he can surpass the old lineage!"

"Sir Rickson. Allow me to congratulate you in advance on the birth of the eighth ring."

The Swift Sword of the Unexpected, the Formless Sword, the Invisible Hand.

Hendrickson was once called the continent's strongest sword, a Swordmaster who had illuminated Solar's golden age.

His fame had never been hollow.

Every knight praised Hendrickson's name, and even the Imperial Court placed its hopes on him alone.

Yet the sun that had seemed eternal set with shocking speed.

"We must admit it. The age of rings is over."

"The young ones are already nipping at our heels. I suppose we've become relics now."

"It's the natural course of things... It's time to put out the flame."

It was a great upheaval, where the tide changed at a furious pace and the paradigm was overturned.

Rather than endure decades of bone-grinding asceticism, knights opened Heart Paths and gained power quickly and easily.

Young knights advanced rapidly, while ring knights could not even maintain their standing and fell behind.

Sometimes, the times left people behind.

"No. I cannot accept that."

Hendrickson stubbornly rejected that grotesque upheaval.

A shortcut like that could never overcome the weight of time.

A sword needed the hard-earned trials of time and accumulated experience steeped deep within it.

"I challenge you to a duel with real swords."

A wandering swordsman came to the man who held such unwavering conviction.

A Grand Swordmaster who had opened eight Heart Paths.

The nameless man raised his sword at Hendrickson.

Hendrickson did not avoid him. If anything, he wanted to prove himself.

He had tempered his Sun Rings in silence for sixty years.

A shortcut that had not even taken ten years could never compare to him.

He believed the insight gained from a duel would allow him to link the final ring.

The result was a defeat that gained him nothing.

He barely escaped with his life, but Hendrickson had to sacrifice the right arm that had held a sword for his entire life.

"Even the mighty Hendrickson could not handle someone who opened eight Heart Paths."

"Wouldn't even being a Swordmaster be impossible now? He lost his dominant arm."

"Ha. The Invisible Hand? Looks like the name fits perfectly!"

His right arm was not the only thing he lost.

His name, reputation, courage, glory, status, and home. Everything he had enjoyed for decades vanished overnight.

The epithet "Invisible Hand" became a mark of disgrace in an instant.

Even with one arm, Hendrickson was still strong. He could barely maintain seven rings.

But it was nowhere close to the prime he had once enjoyed. The pain of falling from the summit cut deeper than any wound.

The pitying looks poured upon him every day and the voices he could hear even when he covered both ears tormented him, along with the phantom pain in his missing right arm.

The Swordmaster who had once dominated an era abandoned his sword and concealed himself. He chose to stagnate in a foul-smelling slum and cut himself off from the world.

Even so, he never abandoned his Sun Rings.

They were the conviction of his entire life, more precious than life itself. Giving up the rings meant denying sixty years of his life.

"Give it up, Sir Rickson."

The comrades who had stood with him became traitors. They chose the shortcut and extinguished the embers of the rings.

Hendrickson continued his lonely training, tending those embers alone.

Before long, the disparaging epithet One-Armed Sword was attached to him.

A one-armed sword. Or perhaps a lone sword.

'Fools.'

Go ahead and point fingers, calling it a deluded obsession. Curse me for burning away the rest of my life.

The warmth of my rings will cool only when my body does.

"Astin von Cardenos. I'm the son of your disciple."

When the young man who had suddenly appeared introduced himself, Hendrickson felt nothing but contempt.

The Grand Ducal House of Cardenos.

A den of traitors who had chosen that path despite living through the glorious age of rings.

And Astin was young blood.

The upstarts in power regarded ring knights as defeated relics left behind by the times.

The direct heir of Cardenos would be no exception.

"Doesn't it get lonely being by yourself?"

Astin calmly sat down beside him. Hendrickson glared at him and waved a hand dismissively.

"Your father and I do not share pleasant memories. You're making my head hurt, so leave."

"Didn't I give you a gold coin earlier? Consider it payment for your time."

His shameless expression made his impudent intentions plain.

There were occasionally knights who came all the way to the slum, recognized him, and approached him.

Every last one of them was a Luna knight who had opened Heart Paths.

Their purpose was always the same. They wanted him to teach them the sword, not rings.

Idiots who wandered down an easy path, then searched for an even easier one.

They called his stubborn conviction narrow-minded, then asked him to teach them swordsmanship?

He would rather end this wretched life.

"Actually, I came because I want to learn from you."

Just as expected.

The words Hendrickson had expected came from Astin's mouth.

"I'm sick of it. How many pieces of trash like you do you think I've seen?"

Hendrickson snatched up the gourd flask beside him.

Gulp. Gulp.

His Adam's apple bobbed, and droplets gathered in his shaggy beard.

"Khh."

A hot breath reeking of strong liquor escaped in a heavy sigh.

"Seeing snot-nosed brats like you makes me want to vomit."

Young people these days were all a problem.

The biting buzz of alcohol pulled the resentment knotted deep inside him to the surface.

"You're all so weak that you only chase easy paths. You don't want trials that cut away at your own flesh, you don't want hardships that grind your bones!"

He was not speaking only about the young man before him.

He was condemning the misguided tide of the era that included him.

"You fools who know nothing! You open a few Heart Paths, then arrogantly act as if your way is the only right answer."

They knew nothing of pride, yet treated old knights as washed-up relics.

Contempt that divided generations, beyond even social standing, lurked throughout this empire.

If they had shown even the bare minimum of respect, he would not have needed to condemn them this fiercely.

"Idiots content with growth that comes without growing pains. You aren't worthy of holding a sword. Only strength earned through hardship is real strength. Only then can you truly claim that power as your own!"

How foolish they were, knowing nothing as they marched down the road before them.

A castle built easily was no more than a sandcastle. Another tidal wave would sweep it away.

"Before long, you'll realize that the end of the shortcut you're walking is a cliff!"

Hendrickson panted heavily. Once he caught his breath, he spat out his words like a curse.

"When that day comes, beat the ground in bitter regret. You'll only hurt your hands, tch..."

Whoosh!

The gourd flask flew through the air toward Astin's head. Astin made no move to avoid it.

Thud!

With a dull sound, the flask rolled across the ground.

Hendrickson bared his yellow teeth in a sneer.

"Now that you've seen this old man's foul temper, get lost. I don't even want to look at you."

"...."

Astin rose from his seat with a hand on his knee.

Hendrickson continued to glare at him fiercely. Then he clicked his tongue and curled up to lie down.

"That brat has ruined my mood."

Those damned traitors of Cardenos. If he'd acted on his temper, he would have done more than just talk and straightened them out long ago.

He had only sent Astin away unharmed out of consideration for old ties.

The moment Hendrickson turned onto his side toward the wall, heat assaulted his back without warning.

Whoosh!

Light spread through a cold, sewer-like corner where even sunlight could not reach.

Hendrickson flinched and immediately looked behind him.

An unbelievable sight filled his eyes.

"You...!?"

A red-gold circle flickered at the base of Astin's heart.

There was only one, yet it burned fiercely.

A Sun Ring.

"Have you decided to teach me now?"

Astin looked down at Hendrickson, whose mouth hung open, and raised one corner of his mouth.

Footnotes:

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