Chapter 57
Chapter 57
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Path of the Sword King (1)
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With a flash of blue light, the dragon vanished, replaced by a black-haired man who looked to be in his mid-thirties.
“Are… are you really Lord Bio?”
“It seems my appearance has changed a bit.”
Bio snapped his fingers, and his clothes changed into the shabby attire seen in the companion recruitment video from before.
His face seemed a bit younger, too.
“It really is you, Lord Bio. I never dreamed I would see you again here…”
He bowed his head repeatedly.
“Hey, Bio? Do you know this… dragon?”
“Just a passing acquaintance from long ago.”
“Passing acquaintance, Lord Bio? Our relationship wasn't so trivial… More importantly, how do you know this human?”
“This is Hyeon-ung. He's my summoner.”
The dragon's eyes widened like saucers.
“He summoned you, Lord Bio?”
“He's slippery and doesn't listen, much like you in the past.”
“What? When was I ever…”
“Have you forgotten the past? Shall we recount it, one story at a time…?”
“Uh… I remember everything perfectly, so you don't need to say another word.”
They seemed incredibly close.
This wasn't what I had expected…
I was planning to defeat the dragon and get a reward. Ah, but of course, it's too early to be disappointed.
After all, I got an item from the 9th-floor secret dungeon without even beating the final boss.
“Good timing. Arpeus, do you remember the training I gave you long ago?”
“Huh? Training…? Ah, yes, I do.”
“Good. Looking at this space, it seems we have about three days. During that time, I want you to teach Hyeon-ung here.”
Teach me?
“What?”
“I've told him time and again, but he still can't shake his reliance on items.”
“Hey, Bio?”
He stared at me intently, as if asking if I was going to deny it, and I couldn't say a word.
“Uh, Lord Bio, I understand what you're saying, but it's been a long time since I learned, and it would be better if you taught him yourself…”
“I've forgotten.”
“What?”
The Demonic Dragon looked utterly baffled.
“It was a necessary part of the process to overcome a wall. You haven't been practicing diligently, have you?”
“That's not it…”
“Oh, have you forgotten that I hate excuses more than anything?”
The Demonic Dragon was completely frozen.
“No…”
“Arpeus, you're talking back to me. It seems a lot of time has passed.”
Bio's face was full of mischief, but the Demonic Dragon's complexion had turned deathly pale.
He looked terrified, as if Bio was his personal bully.
“T-talking back? Not at all. I understand. I may be lacking, but I will do my best to teach him.”
“Hyeon-ung won't try hard without a reward, so give him something if he meets your standards.”
“Ah, yes. Understood.”
“Good. Get to it.”
Bio patted Arpeus's shoulder a couple of times in encouragement, then turned to look at me.
“You work hard, too. You could say Arpeus is my disciple, so he'll be a great help.”
A dragon is his first disciple?
“Wait a minute, so what is this dragon supposed to teach me?”
“What else? How to get stronger. By yourself, without relying on equipment. Oh, and your sword is finished. I'll return it after this training is over.”
With those words, Bio vanished like smoke.
Hey, wasn't he supposed to just give the sword back?
He took my sword and is acting like he's doing me a huge favor by returning it…
“Your name is Hyeon-ung, was it? First, I apologize for attacking you.”
Arpeus said, holding out his hand.
“Well, I didn't know you knew Bio either. So we're even.”
I took his hand, but I felt a sense of unease.
“I like your straightforwardness. Then let's head down for now.”
“Huh?”
“It seems your companions are still trying to attack.”
I looked down and saw my companions gathered, pouring mana into Herti.
We descended to the ground and I briefly greeted my companions.
At first, everyone was extremely wary, but they relaxed when I told them he knew Bio.
“Ppoyo! Ppoyo!”
“Not just a bird, but a divine beast with the power of a god.”
“Kkyuing!”
“Oh, you have a golden dragon with you too? You're quite lucky.”
“Um, you said your name was Arpeus, right? How do you know Lord Bio?”
Hanna asked, her eyes sparkling.
It seemed she wanted to know anything and everything related to Bio.
“Lord Bio is the savior of my draconic life.”
“Savior?”
“What did Lord Bio help you with?”
“Hmm, it's a rather long story. Is that alright?”
I was curious too, so I nodded.
“I have no parents.”
I asked for his story, and he starts with a self-roast about his parents?
“What?”
“What do you mean, you have no parents…?”
“Does that mean you were born from yourself?”
“Not exactly. My mother died from wounds sustained while fighting the Demon King, right after giving birth to my sister and me. My father died long before that.”
The atmosphere suddenly grew solemn.
“Furthermore, my mother was corrupted by the Demon King's demonic energy before she gave birth to us, so my sister and I were born with demonic energy in addition to our innate mana.”
Ah, so that's why he became a Demonic Dragon.
“Thanks to the blood of the Black Dragon from my father's side, I was able to control the demonic energy to some extent, but my sister, who inherited our mother's blood, could not…”
Arpeus's sister, Ardi, was said to have been incredibly powerful since she was young.
Not only was she a Red Dragon, the strongest of all dragons, but she was also born with far more of the Demon King's demonic energy than he was.
During their hatchling days, other dragons looked after them, but as soon as she grew out of that stage, she began to rampage.
“It started with her tearing apart the neighboring Green Dragon who cared for us, and then she destroyed two kingdoms. She killed every dragon that came to stop her.”
So it was no joke.
“She even tried to summon the Demon King by sacrificing the humans of the vanished kingdoms.”
“Isn't the Demon King your parents' enemy?”
“She probably intended to summon him just to kill him.”
…She really was a completely insane dragon.
Ah, wait. Then the crimson dragon from the video I saw when I drew Bio's companion card must have been Arpeus's sister.
“Lord Bio was the one who stopped her. He gave my sister peace.”
“But doesn't that make Lord Bio your sister's killer?”
Just as Rina said, it seemed impossible for them to be close…
“Killer? Please. My sister crossed the line long ago, starting when she tore apart the Green Dragon who cared for us as hatchlings. If I'd had the power back then, I would have stopped her myself.”
So he doesn't resent him at all.
“On top of that, after my sister returned to nature, dozens of other dragons, including their Lord, came to kill me, claiming that as her twin, I would also rampage. Lord Bio was the one who stopped them.”
He stopped dozens of them, including the Dragon Lord?
That Bio guy was no joke in the past either.
“Truthfully, the dragons who came for me weren't wrong. I was in danger of being consumed by the demonic energy that grew with my age. Lord Bio taught me how to control it. And that is what I will teach you.”
As Arpeus spoke, he snapped his fingers, and a sheet of parchment, glowing with a purple light, appeared out of thin air.
Purple light… could it be?
“Is… is that for me?”
“It is.”
It floated slowly toward me, and the moment I reached out for it, I was stunned.
[Tome: Path of the Sword King (Mythic)
A tome containing the essence of a being known as the Sword King, one of the seven absolutes of a certain dimension.]
He said Bio taught him, so was Bio once called the Sword King?
“You don't look very happy.”
I couldn't be. As expected, it was a Mythic item, but it was just a description. There was nothing about it raising my stats, attack, or defense.
“How am I supposed to use this?”
“I'll help you with that.”
Arpeus snapped his fingers again, and the tome glowed purple, dissolving into particles that burrowed into my mind.
[You have acquired the EX-rank Trait: Path of the Sword King.]
So it gave me a new trait.
I was about to open my status window to check the trait's information, but Arpeus took a step toward me.
“Now, let's begin your training immediately. Draw your sword.”
“Wait, hold on…”
“There's no time. I'll teach you the same way Lord Bio taught me, so it's better for you to experience it directly.”
Feeling uneasy, I drew my sword, and a system window appeared.
[The Path of the Sword King trait is activating.
Moving to the training space.]
My vision suddenly changed.
A transparent, white space, completely empty.
My companions who had been beside me were gone, leaving only Arpeus and me.
“Where is this?”
“This is a training space only accessible to those who walk the Path of the Sword King.”
[The current time dilation in the Sword King's Training Space is 100x.]
“Time dilation?”
“It means 100 seconds here is 1 second outside.”
Arpeus was holding a tree branch I'd never seen before, but that wasn't what was important right now.
[Item effects do not apply in the Sword King's Training Space.
In the Sword King's Training Space, stats are limited according to your level of swordsmanship.
Current level for Hyeon-ung: E-. All stats are reduced by 80%.]
“Wait a minute, no item effects and stat restrictions…?”
“Should you rely on the power of equipment for training? Your stats will return as your skill improves, so work hard.”
As he spoke, Arpeus dashed toward me.
*Thwack—*
“Agh!”
I thought the branch was going to split my head open.
I tried to block, but with the stat restrictions and lack of item effects, my body wouldn't obey.
“Your skills are pathetic.”
“Hey, if you're going to suddenly drop my stats like this, you should at least give me time to adapt. Besides, calling this 'training' and then just beating me up without any explanation is a bit much.”
Even when I learned the sword from Hanna, and when Bio first taught me how to imbue my sword with mana, they explained things first.
“This is how Lord Bio taught me. Here I come again.”
Just because he learned the hard way, he's teaching the hard way too…
*Thwack—*
Almost as he spoke, his branch came crashing down on the crown of my head again.
“Agh!”
“Didn't I say I was coming?”
Fortunately, the pain didn't last long, but getting hit over and over was starting to get on my nerves.
How is this supposed to be training…?
“Tsk, tsk. It's been 700 years since I last held a sword, yet you can't even block a single hit. Just how much do you rely on your equipment?”
He looked like he couldn't understand, but I was the one who couldn't understand.
Aren't my equipment and stats part of my strength, which I worked hard to obtain?
“…You don't have any restrictions, do you?”
“Not as much as you, but I have restrictions too. I'm only using enough power to match your level, so the conditions are the same.”
He was right. His movements weren't so ridiculously fast that I couldn't follow them with my eyes.
But I couldn't predict the movement of his sword at all.
“Let me give you one piece of advice: watch the trajectory of the sword until the very end. You can't block or dodge because you're just guessing.”
“I know that, but if I wait until I see it to dodge or block, it's too late.”
“Then you have to see and dodge, or see and block, at the same time.”
…He makes it sound so easy.
“Alright. Let's go again.”
I got hit again not even a few seconds later, but a sense of stubbornness took over, and I kept trying.
Strangely, as I kept getting hit, I started to figure out his patterns, or maybe I was just adapting to my new stats. I managed to dodge or block once or twice.
*Thwack—*
“Agh!”
Ah, of course, that was the limit. I could only dodge or block twice at most, and attacking was completely out of the question.
After fighting nonstop for about two hours, I could now dodge or block one more time—a total of three.
“You adapt quickly.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Of course. My opponent was Lord Bio, but I couldn't dodge or block a single time for a whole week.”
So this guy had it rough too.
“Let's take a short break.”
Thank goodness.
Maybe it was an effect of the training space, but my body wasn't tired. The mental fatigue, however, was no joke.
“Can I really get stronger by just getting hit like this?”
“You will. Ah, and Lord Bio told me earlier to give you a reward if you meet my standards…”
Arpeus thought for a moment before taking an orb from his robes, and I was truly shocked.
“Can… can I just see the item information?”
The orb Arpeus had taken out was glowing with the same faint purple light as the Tome of the Sword King I had absorbed before coming here.