The Sword God Becomes an Elf
Kim Jayeon, human, age 26.
I was the Sword God.
Why would a mere human ever earn such an absurd title?
Simple.
No human was stronger than me.
The Lifespan Shop. An ability that let me sell my lifespan to buy talent.
That was my power.
If an ordinary person had been given this ability, they would have said the same thing right away:
“How am I supposed to use this? I’ll just end up old.”
But the world had forced me into a situation where using it was unavoidable.
It had held out a choice, and I had chosen.
The result was the title I bore now, and this body of an old man.
Fifty years of my lifespan, traded away for talent.
Fame, earned through that talent.
The Sword God.
I had cut down the Demon King that came for the world.
But there had been more than one Demon King.
My physical limits, and the time I never had enough of, had clung to my ankles, and there was a ceiling to what an old, worn-out body could do.
In the end, the horned bastard with his body painted purple had muttered,
“If you had been born an elf instead of a human, like your name suggests, the outcome would have been different.”
I agreed.
But awakening was the sole privilege of humans.
It was impossible.
Though if I’d been a half-blood, maybe things would’ve been different.
Then I thought of the elves.
And somehow, just thinking about them pissed me off.
Those bastard elves… even with the world in this state, they’re still only huddling around the World Tree?
Crazy sons of bitches.
Elves. The children of the World Tree.
To explain these insane vegans, I had to go back into the past.
In 2000, the world came to an end.
A phenomenon known as the First Apocalypse occurred.
The First Apocalypse was largely populated by species commonly called goblins and orcs.
In the middle of that crisis, humans awakened abilities known as Traits one after another.
Using those special Traits, humanity survived the apocalypse.
Humans experienced their first peace.
But only for a moment.
Then came the emergence of new races.
That was the beginning of the event known as the Great Cataclysm.
The new races were mostly friendly toward humans,
and they recognized humanity as the rulers of Earth.
Humans, exhausted by war, accepted them.
In the end, a multi-racial society formed—humans, elves, dwarves, dragonians, and more.
On the surface, it looked beautiful and peaceful.
But of course, once multiple races gathered, discrimination was bound to follow.
Humans discriminated against each other already.
So what about other races?
Crimes against humans, crimes against other races.
Whether human or nonhuman, resentment kept piling up on both sides.
And in the end, a small incident sparked the flame.
The leaders of the races tried to suppress it, but once a fire grew that large, it was impossible to control.
Things spiraled beyond recovery, and several people, or several races, became the core of the chaos.
They rose up, declaring that Earth had to change.
And the result?
War.
Of them all, the kingdom of the elves, who boasted of having only long lives and of how beneath them it was to fight, was the first to fall.
They barely managed to protect the World Tree. Their territory vanished.
That’s why they locked themselves away and never came out. Idiots. Is that damn tree really that important?
The dwarves were much the same.
Their weapons helped in war, but for their own race, they were a double-edged sword.
And in the end, the dwarven kingdom was destroyed by humans.
It was the result of their extraordinary craftsmanship.
The surviving species alliance, humanity, and the dragonians—the sovereign race of magic—formed a three-way war.
The alliance compensated for each race’s weaknesses with the strengths of the others, while the dragonians held the upper hand in battle with their innate magical talent and powerful physiques.
Humans changed the course of war through the endless appearance of newly awakened talents.
The Traits that had been thought lost after the apocalypse had taken root completely in the human soul.
Without exception, every human awakened at the age of twenty. The same went for mixed-blood half-breeds.
After roughly ten years of war, the three groups agreed to a ceasefire.
At last, peace was coming.
That was what everyone thought—until, in that very moment,
-Kraaaaaaah!
The Second Calamity
Someone’s scream had tightened the tension that had only just begun to loosen.
Black-skinned beings with horns and wings had appeared.
They slaughtered without caring what race their victims belonged to.
At first, people saw the horns and wings and assumed they were dragonians,
but the power radiating from them was entirely different from draconian magic.
“The emergence of a new race.”
The unified government publicly announced their existence.
Just as new races had once come to Earth, this time demons had arrived.
Humanity was enraged.
“What the hell! Is Earth really that easy, huh?!”
Humans, the alliance, and the dragonians cooperated.
The newly formed racial alliance and the demons went to war.
The beginning of a war that would never end.
I was a human born in the middle of that war.
At the time of my awakening, every human in the world turned their eyes toward me.
Partly because my father was the Sword Saint and my mother the Sage,
but also because of my Trait.
The first awakened one after the original awoken—
the first SSS-rank Trait user to appear.
The one who would become the full stop to the war. The seed of possibility.
I had a lot of nicknames.
But my ability was ambiguous.
The Lifespan Shop, where I sold lifespan to buy talent.
It could teach me new talents,
and it could also grow talents I already possessed.
The advantage was also the biggest drawback.
A human only lived up to, at most, about 120 years.
That meant the talent I could buy from the Lifespan Shop had a limit.
So the best scholars among humans, elves, dwarves, merfolk, dragonians, and every other race gathered to deliberate.
Which talent should I obtain in this limited situation?
The elves argued for spirit arts.
“If you summon a Spirit King, it’ll be a tremendous asset in the war against the demons!”
The dwarves argued for blacksmithing.
“No, no! As expected, you pointy-eared fools don’t know anything! If we make an ultimate weapon and smash those bastards, problem solved!”
Humans and dragonians argued for raising both magic and swordsmanship.
“In the end, what matters is killing power. It’d be best to train him as a magical swordsman by teaching him half magic and half swordsmanship, since that would help most in battle.”
The decision was mine.
“So, Jayeon, what will you choose?”
No matter what their opinions were, my choice had already been decided.
The sword.
“I’ll learn the sword.”
My father was the strongest swordsman in humanity. My mother was the strongest mage, of course, but still.
For me, the sword was the best.
There was no back as broad as my father’s, standing on the front lines and fighting.
The moment I chose the sword, all those old-timers grew restless.
Had one measly option called swordsmanship looked that poor to them?
Well, I’ll admit it.
It wasn’t especially versatile.
And it wasn’t exactly an effective solution against a large number of enemies.
Still,
I lifted the corner of my mouth and grinned at them.
Heh.
“My father became the strongest with the sword, didn’t he? So I’ll walk the same path.”
What was there to say to that?
Anyone who entered Earth was granted a status window without exception.
Among them, only humans or half-breeds received Traits.
Kim Jayeon [20]
Body: 34
Mana: 30
Trait: Lifespan Shop [SSS]
Swordsmanship Talent: 5
Magic Talent: 4
Blacksmithing Talent: 3
Spirit Arts Talent: 4
.
.
.
The rule that all living beings could only raise their talent up to 9.
I could break that law with my ability.
That was why I chose the sword.
The price of my ability was lifespan.
The maximum I could use was 50 years.
Anything beyond that would affect my ability to fight.
So I had to invest in the talent with the highest value.
And that was swordsmanship.
A talent of 2 or 3 meant average.
4 meant somewhat clever,
5 meant the level where people would say you had talent at all,
6 meant a genius who came around once a year.
After that, you entered the world of real monsters.
A talent of 7, in magic terms, was the equivalent of the 7th Circle—
a talent fit for the very top of the towers.
If you had a talent of 8, you were a genius who could understand something after seeing it just once.
People said someone like that appeared once every hundred years.
What about 9? There was no need to even ask.
It was the greatest talent in an entire race.
They called it the best under heaven and earth.
My father belonged to that category.
Then what about talent level 10?
I paid fifty years of lifespan to raise my swordsmanship talent.
To a level that surpassed the greatest talent of any race.
Using 50 years of lifespan, Swordsmanship Talent has reached Level 10.
My spine straightened, and my eye level rose. Wrinkles appeared on my hands.
My firm skin loosened.
I had become a seventy-year-old body.
But none of that mattered to me now.
“Ah.”
I could see the world’s grain.
My hand moved by instinct.
The sensation of following the rough lines that existed in the world.
Swish—
It was such a light gesture.
But the result was anything but light.
“Wh-what…!”
The space along the path of my hand split apart.
As I flailed my hand again, as though trying to sew the tear shut,
the rift in space healed.
And then I immediately ran out of stamina and collapsed as if fainting.
“W-what was that? Did everyone see it?”
Everyone who saw that scene was thrown into confusion.
It was impossible.
No matter that he’d been directly taught swordsmanship by the Sword Saint. That made no sense.
A twenty-year-old who had only just awakened had split space apart.
That day,
one proposition was carved into everyone’s brain.
Talent level 10 isn’t a human realm.
From that moment on, I was called this:
Jayeon, the Sword God.
After that, I stood on the same battlefield as my father.
It was because no one except the Sword Saint could teach me.
My father, too, after seeing my talent, gave his approval.
For days and nights on end,
I followed my father and cut down demons.
Most demons weren’t my match.
My father would occasionally look at me and throw out a mischievous jab.
“Heh, I’m starting to think I should be the one calling you Father.”
“Then go on. Try it.”
Wham.
Every time he did, I’d strike a pose and he’d flick my forehead.
Aside from the fact that we were always swinging swords around, we weren’t all that different from any other father and son.
At first, compared to my father, I lacked sword skill and physical ability.
To build up my strength, my father deliberately arranged one-on-one duels with high-ranking demon officers.
How was that possible?
You just say, “If you don’t fight, I’ll kill you.”
My skill kept rising.
As time passed,
no one could withstand my sword.
Five years later,
I surpassed my father.
And aged that much more, too.
By now, I was plainly an old man.
“Son, if someone flicked you, wouldn’t you just topple over?”
“Haha, want to try it?”
“No? I don’t want to die.”
I had overtaken a man at level 9 who had spent thirty years swinging a sword—in only five years.
I wasn’t particularly happy about it.
My physical age was now about seventy-five.
Romance and marriage were little more than dreams to me.
At this rate, would I end up falling apart?
At least it was a relief to have my father beside me.
“Father, what are you going to do when the war ends?”
My father wore a faint smile.
“Hmm. A school. I’d like to build a school. Watching you be taught made me realize it’s surprisingly fun. And I’d like to see my grandson, too… though that might be a bit much.”
“That’s probably going to be difficult. Still, I do think building a school would be nice. A school….”
I’d never attended one, so I didn’t really know.
I had dreamed plenty of dreams, but given the situation, school had never been one of them.
“This is the end. Let’s take that bastard down and go back home, and for once, let’s set out a proper meat feast together at the table.”
“Sounds good. A luxurious goal, but a perfectly ordinary one.”
The Demon King was stronger than I’d expected,
but he was no match for the two of us.
We took some injuries,
but our limbs were all intact.
In the end, we cut the Demon King down and the war was over.
“Phew… Shall we go home, son?”
The fight was over.
Or so I thought, and the moment I let my guard down,
my senses rang the alarm.
I immediately drew my sword and cut away the wrongness.
In an instant, my blade blocked an arrow.
An intangible arrow, one that had not taken physical form.
“Father!”
Clang—!
My father reacted as well, somehow.
But it was too late.
“Kuhk!”
An arrow filled with profound darkness pierced my father’s heart.
Instant death.
My father’s breath left him.
I swallowed the surging emotions and turned my head.
Who the hell is it?
What, a corpse’s greed? Ha! So you were bragging that loudly, and this is all you amount to.
A coquettish female voice drifted to my ears.
—And yet he succeeded in bringing all of us here.
A deep male voice.
“Wha… t?”
The Demon King was not one.
—There’s still one left. Focus. To react to that attack just now… those monsters….
—Still, one of them’s already been taken care of, so that’s enough, isn’t it?
They had recognized me.
And I had done the same.
The surging wrath, turned ferocious, wrapped itself around my sword.
“You vermin dare….”
I unleashed emotions I had never shown before.
Thick, disgusting emotions.
Something I had never even wanted to imagine was happening right before my eyes.
My father’s death was far too meaningless.
He was not a man who should go like this.
But if I let myself be swallowed by emotion here, then my father’s death would be dirtied even further.
If I couldn’t bring him back to life, then I’d at least take revenge.
And my target was spread out right before me.
The six Demon Kings who had newly appeared.
“I’ll cut you all down…!”
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