Chapter 121
Chapter 121
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 121
Chapter Title: Resolve (2)
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Kyle had been splitting the ground with sword strikes since the old days.
It was in 5 Zone where the ground split.
So does that mean Kyle is in B-5 Zone right now?
“Hilde, sit.”
Ami grabbed my arm and yanked it down.
Her grip had some real strength, so I reluctantly bowed my head.
But I didn’t sit. Instead, I met Ami’s eyes while standing.
“Did you see that attack too, Senior?”
“Yeah. I’ll show you, so sit.”
“Huh?”
How’s she gonna show me?
Puzzled, I finally sat down. She pulled a phone from the pocket on her pants.
The senior tapped the earring clinging tightly to her ear.
“This earring’s a body cam.”
Ami explained to me as my eyes went wide.
“It’s a bit dizzying, but it’s recorded clearly.”
Ami was right.
It was like watching footage from a black box— the recorded battle played back. The earring’s feed projected onto the phone screen.
She moved around a lot, so it was disorienting, but I could grasp the situation.
The battle in B-5 Zone replayed.
It was on a scale incomparable to this place. Tons of Creatures, tons of Badgers. Unlike the chaotic melee in 7 Zone, they even had proper formations. They’d divided into units, and from the opposite direction in the footage, a couple Badger units charged into the Creatures.
Badgers who had seized the momentum.
The camera captured Chen aiming at a Creature.
A massive, grotesque limb taking up half the screen.
I wasn’t sure what it was, but something green and writhing. Just as Chen was about to fire his bazooka at it, the sword strike flew in.
[What the?!]
Something like a white wave split the ground.
[Dodge!]
KABOOM!
What was that?
“We never figured out who launched the attack.”
Ami muttered beside me.
I pulled my head back in. Then I lifted my chin to scan the surroundings. Before I knew it, the seniors had gathered behind me and Ami, peering at the footage.
A thick shadow fell over me and Ami.
I quickly turned back to the footage.
In the video, the shocked Badgers, their disrupted stances as they searched for the attacker. I observed the chaotic scene.
Then I pointed at the screen.
I rewound to the moment the attack began.
“You couldn’t find who launched this attack?”
“A portal happened to open right then.”
Richard gave a heavy reply to Yoon’s question.
“So we focused on retreating. That was the plan. And the attack didn’t repeat.”
“Yeah.”
Ami spoke as she watched the footage I had on loop.
“We even checked from up in the sky, but couldn’t find the attacker.”
It was definitely Kyle’s doing.
He’d probably hidden somewhere. He knew full well there was no point in showing himself. With the portal open and Badgers fleeing, exposing his face gained him nothing.
But there was something odd.
This was unmistakably Kyle’s sword strike, and that’s why it was even stranger.
What the… .
I tuned out the conversation from the seniors behind me and focused back on the footage. I lost track of time, oblivious to anyone calling me, looping it over and over. From when the sword strike appeared until it vanished off-screen. I kept replaying to confirm what I’d seen.
But no matter how many times I watched, I was right.
Maybe my fatigue-blurred eyes were playing tricks.
No matter how I looked, this was….
…Huh.
What.
What is this?
“What’re you staring at like that?”
Reality yanked my mind back.
The one who spoke was Walker, who’d been standing silently beside me. He’d probably been watching me glued to the footage.
Ricardo had half-turned his back to me, but I could see he was listening for my response.
I’d been acting weird, sure.
But I didn’t have the headspace to explain properly.
Kyle’s sword strike had me so fixated that I barely felt the pain. The fatigue wrapping my body, the cold making me hunch my shoulders—gone.
I met the seniors’ eyes roughly, then dropped my gaze back to the footage.
“I was looking at the attack.”
“What’s there to look at?”
Walker asked lowly.
I rewound to the moment the attack started.
“So….”
It was really bizarre.
“The path isn’t straight.”
Ami turned her head toward me.
Yoon, Richard, and Tvein stopped talking and looked down at me. Jonathan Kudo, who’d been tending his sword beside Ricardo, and Aki, who’d been lounging next to Ami blowing a whistle—they all froze.
But I ignored everyone’s reactions.
I played the footage at 0.5 speed.
“Can you see how it’s all wobbly?”
“No.”
“If you look closely, you will.”
Walker didn’t seem interested in looking closely.
I ignored that. It was crystal clear in my eyes anyway. An attack that should’ve gone straight, jaggedly tracing tiny sawtooth patterns.
Like a rough cut surface left behind.
Like the edge of paper snipped with dull scissors.
“That scatters the energy uselessly, weakening the power. It gets progressively weaker toward the end.”
At my added explanation, people leaned in to scrutinize the footage.
My back grew heavy. Even the drained 7 Zone seniors stretched their necks forward.
I couldn’t wait forever for them to spot it.
Inevitably, I skipped ahead, ignoring Tvein muttering, ‘What the hell’s this kid on about?’
I had more to say.
“And look at the end of the footage.”
This was even more shocking.
“The attack splits in two.”
“Huh, it does!”
This time, the reaction was immediate.
Ami’s eyes went wide.
“It splits like a whale’s tail!”
“That means almost no effective hits.”
Unlike Hecate’s attack, which split into six branches.
That one had been designed to split from the start. To make it impossible to dodge.
But this was a technique meant to start as one and end as one.
Yet….
“It means the technique wasn’t executed perfectly.”
“Ooh, amazing. But is that important?”
“Doesn’t yours do that?”
I lifted my head at Aki’s question.
The senior dangling her legs beside Ami had a sharp gaze.
“Wasn’t it similar to the one you launched last time? Or not? Sorry, but.”
“Uh….”
She’s basically asking if this is even a sword strike….
I stared blankly at the face of the sharpshooting genius.
Then, sensing the piercing stares boring down, I quickly schooled my dumbstruck expression.
“My skills are lacking right now too, so if you recorded mine, it’d split even worse.”
It used to boast perfectly smooth cuts.
Honestly, I had no confidence in producing such a clean sword strike now. As Yoon said, the cost of not training for so long was huge.
Lately, I’d been putting effort into swordsmanship to regain my former level. To deliver clean, refined attacks. Recalling the times I’d sparred with Kyle.
The moment you perfect a flawless, refined sword strike, you reach Swordmaster realm.
It wasn’t just about launching sword strikes to call yourself a Swordmaster. A Swordmaster perfected the sword strike. One that stayed true to its trajectory, didn’t scatter power, and after slicing the target, faded beautifully without splitting.
The moment you achieved that, your swordsmanship advanced a level.
The exhilaration I’d felt reaching that realm.
Now, recalling it just made me realize how much my skills had declined.
But fine for me—why had his declined?
I figured he’d recover his true level soon, and it didn’t seem as dropped as mine right now. Still, I’d keenly sensed his regression.
Impossible not to. From that moment we faced off in the training grounds, we’d been rivals. Kyle and I pushed each other, trading leads, fueling each other’s growth.
Even back on Earth.
In that vast white expanse, until we pointed blades at each other.
“You use a sword?”
Kudo’s voice pulled my mind from the memories.
I saw the Badger’s face bathed in pale dawn light.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t know~?”
“Hilde’s amazing with a sword!”
Ricardo let out a hollow laugh, and Ami craned her neck.
“You two should spar sometime!”
To be precise, I was just a moron who could swing a sword.
Tvein voiced the awkward sentiment I was about to. Richard piled on nagging about whether my shooting skills still hadn’t improved.
With so many people, conversation sparked right up. I let out a resigned chuckle and listened as those I’d run missions with talked.
It was roughly about my skills.
I dazedly absorbed the mix of nagging, teasing, and praise until the talk veered elsewhere.
“What happened to the stage-9 Creature?”
My breath caught.
A stern-faced man asked Yoon.
“It definitely came this way.”
My Master didn’t spare me a glance.
Instead, he rolled his eyes to meet Richard’s. Master stood crookedly on the overturned asphalt, cigarette lit between his lips.
“We lost it.”
That’s what he spat after a brief silence.
“Foolishly so.”
“You know this isn’t a trivial matter.”
Richard whispered ominously, arms crossed.
Heads turned his way. Richard Green had the power to naturally silence a room and command attention.
“It’s the first sighting of such a perfect humanoid Creature since the First War.”
“Well, officially, yeah.”
“And lately, more Creatures resembling humans have appeared.”
Richard finished and picked up the white bundle on the ground.
He hadn’t even registered I was there.
It looked like it could hold a basketball.
Richard shoved his hand in and pulled something out.
“This is one of those Creatures.”
The contents spilled out under the whitening dawn.
My yellow gaze locked onto it.
“The main body was too big to bring. We’ll analyze it at the lab, right?”
A head where half the face was covered in dead wood.
A head shriveled gray and twisted.
A head severed below the neck.
I recognized the uncovered half of the face.
“Did you crucify it or something?”
The moment Yoon scoffed, I shot to my feet.
Then I staggered to the ruins, buried my face, and vomited once.