Chapter 47
Chapter 47
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Chapter 10 Dragon Sword Duke (4)
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“My teachings to my disciple are coming back to bite me. Fine. What do you want in exchange for that knowledge? You don’t seem like the type to crave wealth.”
“Tell me about that sword.”
Azel pointed at the two swords hanging from Kairen’s waist.
Kairen’s expression grew peculiar.
“That’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
“You’re getting the short end of the stick here. But fine, I’ll accept. No take-backs.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s information anyone could uncover with a little digging. It’s cheap compared to what you’ll tell me.”
The reason Kairen was nicknamed the Dragon Sword Duke was the twin swords he favored. They were so well-known that there were no real secrets about them.
Azel gave a wry smile.
“I don’t mind.”
“Very well, then. These swords are Dragon Swords.”
“Dragon Swords?”
“They’re magic swords forged entirely from materials extracted from a dragon’s corpse, and tempered with my own blood.”
“That’s why I sensed dragon demon power from them.”
“Indeed. Is that what caught your interest?”
“Yes. It’s the first time I’ve seen swords imbued with dragon demon power.”
“That makes sense. There are only a few in the world. I restored them based on ancient records.”
“Ancient records?”
“Records from the Dragon Emperor War.”
“What?”
Azel looked puzzled. In his era, weapons like Dragon Swords didn’t exist.
Kairen continued.
“They weren’t described in detail, but I found mentions that the heroes of that time used weapons that emitted dragon demon power to combat the Dragon Demon King’s forces. However, no one knew what they were or how they were made. After collecting and studying damaged records over many long years, I discovered that dragons had to be slain to create those weapons. I surmised that the Dragon Slaying Ritual was part of that process.”
And so, Kairen had killed a dragon and, with his collaborators, researched ways to use its corpse to create weapons imbued with dragon demon power. After more than thirty years of study, the two Dragon Swords were born.
“……”
Azel was at a loss for words.
‘Not only has knowledge of the Dragon Slaying Ritual been thoroughly forgotten, but so has everything about Dragon Demon Armaments...’
During the Dragon Emperor War, Azel wasn’t the only one who used Dragon Demon Armaments. Including those who perished, there must have been at least twenty. Yet every record of them had the parts about Dragon Demon Armaments erased?
Even accounting for the chaos at the end of the Nadik Empire and the Great Darkness, it was unnatural. His suspicions deepened that the Dragon Demon Worshippers had worked in the shadows of history to sever that knowledge.
‘To recreate Dragon Demon Armaments like this, though... impressive.’
If Kallos were alive, Azel would have loved to hear his thoughts. Even Kallos back then had dreamed of mass-producing grand and beautiful magic tools, but never considered replicating Dragon Demon Armaments, flawed copies or not. It was an attempt born of an era where knowledge of Dragon Demon Armaments had been lost.
Kairen spoke up.
“Now it’s your turn.”
“Do you know what the ultimate secret all mages pursue?”
“I do. To claw the world with a great secret and leave an eternal scar.”
All mages desired it. To change the world with their magic.
It wasn’t metaphorical. Mages truly believed magic could alter the world. Not just people’s minds or behaviors, but the very laws of the world itself.
Azel said,
“You like poetic expressions.”
“My mage friends’ bravado is almost pathological. It’s a tradition from Archmage Kallos’s time that exceptional mages must satisfy the public’s expectations with grandiose boasts... Hm? Why the strange look?”
“...No, it’s nothing.”
Azel nearly choked for a moment. What Kairen described was exactly what Kallos used to spout when showing off.
‘No, the Dragon Slaying Ritual and Dragon Demon Armaments are forgotten, but nonsense like that survives—not just survives, but becomes a tradition among mages?’
It was truly horrifying. Azel shuddered and said,
“Mages seriously believe it’s possible. And the Dragon Slaying Ritual is proof.”
“Hm?”
“In ancient times, a great mage brokered a mutually beneficial deal between humans and dragons. Humans craving power, dragons craving wisdom—they wagered what the other desired and performed the ritual.”
It was a pact between two races, and at the same time, a law imprinted on the world.
Unlike humans, dragons do not pass down knowledge. Yet all dragons—even those newly hatched—know of the Dragon Slaying Ritual.
Kairen’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Where does such an absurd tale come from?”
“Even so, it’s the only answer I can give to the doubt you raised, Duke.”
“Hmm...”
Kairen frowned. It sounded like wild delusion, but the problem was there was no basis to refute it. Azel had drawn the earth dragon’s attention by mentioning the Dragon Slaying Ritual, and the Dragon Demon Worshippers obsessed over that fact.
Kairen asked,
“So anyone can approach a dragon, propose the Dragon Slaying Ritual, fight one-on-one, and if they win, claim the dragon’s power?”
“Not anyone. Only humans. Ah, Dragon Demon Hybrids can too. It seems they barely qualify as parties to the contract.”
“So I can’t test it myself?”
“Yes.”
“Hmph... Hard to believe.”
Kairen grumbled but didn’t press further. After pondering for a moment, he stood.
“That’s enough for today.”
“For today?”
“Indeed.”
Kairen said no more, returned to his spot, and lay down. He fell asleep almost immediately.
Azel watched him for a bit, then turned his gaze back to the campfire, lost in thought.
‘The Dragon Slaying Ritual...’
A past conversation suddenly came to mind.
5
He had a dream.
A memory from an age the world now considered distant antiquity.
‘Ah, it was exactly this moment.’
Advanced Spirit Order practitioners could not only lucid dream at will but also manipulate the dream’s content as desired. They honed the skill of reconstructing memories from desired points into dreams during mental training.
Azel used that technique to recreate a moment from the past as a dream.
“Someday, I’ll change the world.”
There was a friend who always said that.
If it had been anyone else, Azel would have laughed and thought, ‘The kid’s still too immature.’ But because it was Kallos, Azel recognized it not as the delusion of an ignorant fool, but the dream of the capable.
So Azel asked,
“How do you want to change it?”
“Hm. I haven’t thought that specifically yet. What I want to do and what I can do don’t match up.”
“What if no more Dragon Demon Hybrids were ever born?”
“If that were possible, this damned war would end. But the birth of Dragon Demon Hybrids is the result of magic altering the world—reversing that might be impossible. Worth exploring, though.”
Mages viewed the birth of Dragon Demon Hybrids as the product of great magic. It was the first magic imprinted on this world, and thus the first Dragon Demon Hybrid—the Dragon Demon King Atein—might be the progenitor of all mages.
Azel chuckled.
“Don’t take it seriously. Turning an entire race into eunuchs? As if that could happen.”
“...You can interpret it that way? I guess I need to drop the prejudice that swordsmen are simpletons. That’s pretty extraordinary.”
Kallos stuck out his tongue in admiration. Then, as if struck by a thought, he said,
“Still, it might be possible another way. For example, like the Dragon Slaying Ritual—if we could set new relational terms between humans and dragons...”
“The Dragon Slaying Ritual. I’ve often wondered what that mage was thinking, creating it.”
“You’ve benefited from the Dragon Slaying Ritual more than anyone—how can you say that?”
“That’s separate from me profiting. Even so, how could they pit humans and dragons in one-on-one death matches? Did they think it was fair?”
“I think that mage was ridiculously romantic, believing goodwill works on everything in the world.”
“What?”
Azel stared at Kallos as if he’d heard something utterly bizarre. Kallos gave a wry smile.
“I know it sounds strange, but I really think so. That mage was blinded by romance.”
“Where’s the romance in that?”
“The era when the Dragon Slaying Ritual was created was far more barbaric than now... and the relationship between humans and dragons was completely different.”
Dragons live in places humans can’t reach and rarely show themselves. But from studying ancient records, Kallos found that dragons before the Dragon Slaying Ritual were entirely different.
“Back then, dragons were tyrants of the natural world with no natural predators. They expanded their territories without restraint and killed humans on sight.”
And humans of that time couldn’t stop them.
“Through the Dragon Slaying Ritual, those dragons finally came to respect humans as worthy opponents. And back then, they didn’t reason things out like we do now. That guy killed your family? Here’s the right to stone him to death. Got a problem? Duel to the death, winner’s right. That was the way.”
“Not much different now.”
In Azel’s era, lords waged petty wars over who was right, and knights dueled to settle disputes.
Kallos smiled wryly.
“Well, it was far worse back then. At least winners don’t claim the moral right to drag off the losers’ women and rape them, child or adult.”
“Some places in the world still do.”
“That was the norm everywhere back then. In such an age, dramatically changing relations between two races without a common language—through one-on-one combat for what each coveted—would have been impossible without goodwill on both sides.”
“So, goodwill tailored to that barbaric era’s common sense?”
“Yeah. Their mindset was different from ours.”
“I find that interpretation overly romantic... Whatever, fine.”
During the Dragon Emperor War, Azel had needed greater power to defeat the enemy, so he challenged dragons via the Dragon Slaying Ritual and seized their strength. Having taken it through blood and slaughter, he couldn’t agree with Kallos’s view.
“If I ever change the world...”
Kallos gazed into the distance and said,
“I want to do it with goodwill, not malice. Once this damned war ends... maybe I can change the world for someone’s sake.”
“Save that line for gazing soulfully at your lover.”
Azel grumbled.