The Sword God’s Rebirth
2.
When I looked only at the result, I had lost.
That said, was it a one-sided defeat?
Not a chance.
—I’d heard the stories, but is that really a human…?
Blood and flesh were scattered across the ground.
Some of it was probably mine, but most of it belonged to those bastards.
It was the kind of battle you’d call a chaotic melee.
Even so,
“If only I were younger… damn it!”
My reactions had grown half a beat slower because of my aging body.
At least five opportunities slipped through my fingers because of that.
“We’ve already identified your trait. To think you climbed this far on nothing but a human lifespan… If you’d been an elf with a longer life, you might have even reached those beings.”
“Is that your idea of an insult?”
“Of course not. It’s admiration.”
The bastard shook his head.
“Puhahaha!”
“Why are you laughing? Have you finally gone insane?”
“Of course not. I’m laughing because it’s absurd. Absolutely absurd.”
Why had humanity ever assumed there was only one Demon King?
No, that wasn’t even the real problem.
The immense demonic energy that poured out when those things died—
that was a calamity no one could possibly answer.
Fuck, what the hell are those things?
If not for “those,” my victory would have been far more likely.
Still, meeting them had given me an answer.
A way to sever the fetters of this world.
The great chain that included lifespan, race, morality—everything.
The thing that allowed me to be me.
But if I cut those fetters, then I would no longer be myself.
A road no one had ever walked.
A task only I could do. A path I would have to carve open myself.
I have to do it.
The last piece of the puzzle began to fall into place.
Swish—
—Huh. The final resistance is weaker than I expected. Have you given up?
“Hm? Give up? Don’t be ridiculous.”
My will began to break free of my body’s limitations.
It tangled, unraveled, and bound itself again. In the end, it took shape as one thing.
A sword.
In the end, my beginning and my end had always been the same. To cut, and to be cut.
Shhk—
The sound of something being severed.
The very instant I threw off the fetters of this world,
it was also the moment I broke past the limits the world had decided for me.
I stood.
My lower body had been gone for some time already, and yet I rose anyway.
I could feel a lower half that should have been missing.
I stood tall again, just as I had back when my body still had a lower half, and faced them.
The Demon Kings’ faces twisted. They looked as if they’d seen something grotesque.
“Puhuh.”
Ah, laughter was just spilling out of me.
To think those pretentious faces could be crumpled like that.
—What did you do, human!
“Oh, nothing much. I just cut away a few fetters.”
I had cut the laws that bound me.
And in that instant, a few pieces of information were forced into my mind.
There were three choices laid before me.
First.
“I kill you.”
Second.
“I go back to the past.”
What people usually called regression.
Third.
“A new possibility.”
New wine in a new vessel. In other words, reincarnation.
They were called choices, but the answer was already decided.
Even if I killed them, this situation wouldn’t be over. So the first was out.
The second?
At my current level, I understood.
Even if I went back and became stronger, a human lifespan alone would never be enough to defeat the beings who served beneath them.
So,
“The third.”
The third choice meant cutting away morality, which was why I felt sorry for my family.
Because I had to die for it.
Unfilial sons leave first.
All I could do was apologize to the mother who would be left behind.
I brought down my will-forged sword against the ground.
Slash— slash—
—One hundred years.
With that, I had left behind a foothold for the future.
Through the record I carved into the earth, I should be able to look into the past.
If it was my mother, she’d be able to do it.
All that remained was the time needed to reach that future.
Even if I’m reincarnated, if those bastards keep running wild, then everything I did will be useless.
So come with me, too. Into the future.
I looked at the Demon Kings before me with cold indifference.
In the altered atmosphere,
they sensed that something was wrong.
From the withered old man who looked as if he’d collapse if you poked him, an exalted, transcendent air began to pour out like that of a sage.
—What is this? What the hell is this? I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if…!
It was just like our master.
—Kill him now!
Some chanted spells, and some rushed toward me.
“Too late.”
I swung my one remaining arm. My target was their time.
“Let’s go together.”
What I would sever was their possibility.
Exactly one hundred years’ worth of possibility. That should be enough.
That would buy me the time to be born again.
In the end, I had committed an unfilial act, but still…
humanity would be given another chance to stand back up.
All remaining lifespan will be consumed.
My remaining lifespan was for me.
With this, I would be born with the same trait in my next life, too.
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to use it until after awakening… but even so.
This was enough.
The result I had gained by spending every last year of my life.
All preparations were complete.
—What did you do!
“For the next hundred years, you won’t be able to do a damn thing. You’ll sit there like vegetables.”
All the magic they’d been preparing was canceled.
Even their mana no longer obeyed their will.
—D-damn it! Retreat!
A massive gate formed beneath their feet.
An artifact, huh.
Tch.
It was unfortunate that humanity wouldn’t be able to secure their bodies, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
I couldn’t even move my fingers anymore.
Haa, haa.
My lungs failed to take in the air, spitting most of it back out again.
Soon, this body would die.
But
I wouldn’t die.
The gate slowly began to absorb the Demon Kings’ bodies.
Since they couldn’t do anything to resist, the process was agonizingly slow.
—What do you think you’re doing? That won’t change anything!
At those words, I let a faint smile touch my lips.
It would change.
Definitely.
“See you later, you purple freaks.”
When the Demon King saw my crooked grin, he ground his teeth.
—I’ll kill you. I swear it.
Heh.
Try it.
Now even my tongue was stiffening like stone. It was over. This life was ending here.
“Come on then, give it your best shot, Demon King….”
My eyes closed. I could no longer hear anything.
The Demon Kings, too, could feel their lives fading away. All five senses were being cut off. As the natural life activity of the world came to a halt, time for the Demon Kings also stopped.
In the end, the site of the final battle was left with only two corpses.
A middle-aged man and an old, twisted body missing half of itself.
A mage arrived at that place.
“What in the world….”
The Star Mage, or perhaps the Sage.
Stella, Mother of Nature.
She carefully laid a hand on the withered corpse.
She had confirmed her husband’s body.
Then this must be Nature, whose lifespan had finally run out.
“N-Nature? Open your eyes. Please… please….”
Tap, tap.
Her delicate fingers touched Nature’s rigid cheek.
Cold, hard skin.
Stella, the mage known as the Iron-Blooded Mage.
Tears fell from her eyes.
Her vision slowly reddened as it blurred.
“Why.”
Using each other’s strengths, she had taken the battlefield while the two of them handled the Demon Kings. It had been the best possible division of labor.
She’d thought her son and husband would be enough.
No, they’d been overpowered. She had never, ever worried.
When the war was over, she had rushed here with joy in her heart.
And yet why. Why was it not her husband’s and son’s smiles that welcomed her, but only these cold corpses?
“W-what on earth happened….”
They looked like mummies.
Even if they had died of old age, they shouldn’t have ended up like this.
Most likely, they had burned through every last year of their lives in a moment when death was right at their doorstep.
“This is…?”
—One hundred years.
There was a mark before her son, as though it had been carved there.
He had tried to get that single message to her by any means necessary.
“One hundred years?”
What on earth did one hundred years refer to?
Stella thought about her son’s intent.
She could not let it be in vain.
“Mana, show me what happened here.”
At her will, mana spread through the air and recreated the events that had taken place here.
Stella became a spiritual body and experienced the events from when Nature was still alive.
She saw her son. She felt his pain.
And she understood his intent.
“A-ah… ahh….”
So that was it.
Her son had chosen sacrifice once more for the sake of humanity.
The one hundred years were the time it would take for those monsters to return.
Once she understood her son’s will,
there was no time left for grief.
Grit.
Stella bit down so hard her gums bled.
“I have to prepare.”
She had to open the path to a future in which humanity could stand against the Demon Kings who would awaken in one hundred years.
No one was allowed to learn of her son’s reincarnation. Humanity could no longer win by depending on him alone.
“No one can be allowed to know what was recorded here.”
Stella used the strongest magic she could wield.
SUPER NOVA.
Light ignited.
Everything around her was pulled into that radiance.
It all began to gather, little by little, until it formed a single point.
Whoooosh—
Grit.
If I had arrived just a little faster, would the result have been different?
If so,
would their smiles have welcomed me instead of these bodies, already cold and gone?
Meaningless thoughts like that changed nothing.
It had already happened, and all she could do now was what needed to be done. The red liquid spilling from Stella’s eyes ran down her cheeks.
The moment the spell was complete,
the world lit up white.
KWAANG!
She didn’t bother checking the result of the magic. Stella carefully lifted her son’s body from behind her.
Like lifting a dandelion flower. Like lifting something that would vanish the moment she let go.
Carrying the bodies of her husband and son, Stella’s form shot into the sky.
She immediately returned to the Alliance.
She laid the corpses to rest in the Alliance’s care and gathered all of humanity together.
Because there were words she had to tell them,
she spoke for all to hear.
“We have defeated the Demon King.”
At those words, humanity erupted in cheers.
—Waaaaaah!
Stella neither raged nor wept at the sight.
She simply spoke, cold and flat, like a robot.
“However.”
However?
Questions rose in people’s minds.
What was she about to say?
Stella opened her mouth with calm composure.
“In this war, humanity has lost the Sword Saint and the Sword God.”
The atmosphere, hot with excitement, turned cold in an instant.
“The Demon King is not one. There are six more. And they will come again in one hundred years.”
And behind that, there was something else. That much she deliberately did not reveal. That information was too early for humanity now.
What?
The crowd erupted into confusion.
A man asked Stella,
“What in the world happened?”
In that instant, sorrow filled Stella’s eyes.
The precious chance her beloved son had created.
“It was a precious opportunity created by my son. That is all you need to know.”
Her son had opened the future, so the survivors had to prepare, hadn’t they?
That was what Stella said.
“We will create an institution. A place that can systematically raise heroes. And we will integrate every military force in the world into that institution.”
Everyone focused on Stella.
“Not some stale academy-like training ground. Everything will be done systematically. The war is not over. We must prepare.”
It would one day be called the world’s largest military organization and training institution.
Thus began humanity’s greatest force.
Jayeon Academy.
That was how it started.
About eighty years later,
Nature opened his eyes inside a woman’s womb.
Where am I?
It felt like floating in water.
In the darkness, only a little light existed.
It didn’t fail, did it?
I might have died and ended up drifting through outer space. I realized that wasn’t the case almost immediately.
Twitch.
I can move?
Very slightly, but my body moved.
It was short and plump.
And there was a strange sensation in my abdomen.
Nutrients were being supplied through that place.
Then where is this?
Thump.
I could hear a heartbeat.
And then,
thump-thump-thump.
Another heartbeat.
My mother’s heartbeat.
I wasn’t talking about Stella.
There was something I needed to check first: did my trait still exist?
Focus.
My consciousness locked shut and sank inward, as if I were falling into the deepest dream. Deep within me, my sleeping talent revealed itself.
A beautiful ruby-red jewel appeared before me. The Lifespan Shop.
Good. It’s still there.
Only one thing remained to be checked. My race.
There was no way to confirm it in my current state.
When am I being born?
That wasn’t something I needed to worry about. It was now.
Kugugugugu—
The world warped.
Kuuuuuuu—
Pressure beyond imagination bore down on me.
At the same time, pain came rushing in.
W-what is this—! Aaaaaagh!
It felt like I’d been twisted into a wet rag.
It was more painful than when the Demon King had split my body in half.
Someone seemed to grab my head, but I couldn’t spare any attention for that touch.
This time, it was my whole body being squeezed out.
Aaaagh!
I just wanted this to end as quickly as possible.
My vision grew hazy and bright, and the pain I’d thought would last forever finally came to an end.
Fah.
Fresh air rushed into me, and I let out a deep breath.
It was impossible for an ordinary baby, but
for me, breathing through my lungs was more comfortable.
That sight made the doctors’ eyes go wide.
“Wait, the baby’s breathing on his own with his lungs? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“Is that bad??”
A young man’s startled voice. My father, maybe.
“No, not really. Still, congratulations. It’s a boy.”
“Oh! Ohoho! A son! It’s a son! Our baby’s a boy! Hahaha!”
I couldn’t see very well, but instinctively I knew the owner of that voice.
New parents…
The thought of my old parents made something inside me ache with a strange sadness. I’d never see them again.
“Please hold your baby for a moment, ma’am.”
Ah…
I was gathered into my mother’s arms.
They were warm.
That warmth washed the sadness away.
I had been given a new life.
I had to send the old one away.
Like setting a boat loose on a river, I let my former life drift off.
Goodbye, my first life.
And hello, new life.