The Sword of Twelve Souls
“…What is this?” I was utterly bewildered by the sudden phenomenon. As I drew the sword, mysterious voices flooded my mind. There were many of them. The names of the voices and their owners surfaced in my consciousness simultaneously. It was a sensation entirely different from hearing with my ears. I felt as if I had grasped a strange blade. Was it magic? Or was I hallucinating?
“Hallucinations?” Or perhaps a haunted sword. Something like that. The fact that a sword was stuck in the middle of the forest to begin with was strange enough. The voices inside the sword answered my muttering immediately.
We were actually communicating. Souls of swordsmen trapped in a sword? It really was a haunted blade.
The voice came the moment I thought it. I flinched. Could these souls inside the sword read my thoughts?
“Ah. Hah… Hah, I see.” I gasped, answering out loud. It was a relief that my thoughts weren't being read. Come to think of it, they said I was the 12th user. That meant there had been 11 others before me.
The voices echoed chaotically in my head. The ghosts were giggling among themselves, finding something amusing. Meanwhile, I was still being chased by goblins. I was so out of breath that it was hard to even speak to them.
The savior was the ghost named Lasu Speedwagon. He cut off the idle chatter of the other spirits.
“Hah, hah… I have never swung a sword in my life.”
The sword’s spirits clicked their tongues at my words. I didn’t know what kind of situation this was. I had to deal with those goblins first. Should I just fight with this sword? I gripped the hilt tightly and looked back. Goblins, standing as tall as my waist, were following me while drooling.
The spirit called Emperor Augustus shouted loudly. Goblins were indeed weak monsters. Had I been too afraid? Then Lasu Speedwagon spoke again.
He said if I fought blindly, I’d be severely injured. That was also true. Then another spirit shouted to just fight, while someone else said I should fight carefully, and another said a spear would be nice. I just cursed and stopped. My head hurt from all the voices echoing inside.
“I’ll just fight. I can’t run anymore anyway!”
Lasu Speedwagon quickly explained the strategy. Fortunately, goblins were among the weaker monsters. He said that even a civilian like me could cut them down in one strike if I swung properly.
Lasu Speedwagon’s words continued. The speed was incredibly fast, but I understood everything. Plant your lead foot firmly and pull up the rotational force. Keep your arms slightly bent and fixed, and rotate with your torso. If you set your stance properly and swing, cutting the necks of two goblins at once is easy. The ghost’s teachings entered my head in an instant. In a fleeting moment, a scene of swinging the sword appeared in my mind. I gripped the hilt tightly and waited for the goblins to enter my range. The sight of the charging goblins was repulsive. I had to cut those two down at once.
While I gripped the sword and waited for the moment of battle, the ghosts were still chattering among themselves in my head. Even in this urgent situation, I was getting used to it. The ghosts each had distinct personalities, making it easy to process their words. Synthesizing them, the dominant opinion was that I wouldn’t be able to swing the sword properly. But it was also true that if I just swung it as Lasu Speedwagon said, I could win without injury.
Tight… I tuned out the voices in my head and gripped the hilt tightly. Now was the time to focus on the sword. “Kieeeek!” The two goblins were now within arm’s reach. I began to act just as Lasu Speedwagon had instructed.
Crunch! First, I planted my lead foot firmly. Supporting the ground strongly with my lower body, I rotated my body starting from my ankles. Next, I transferred that force to my waist. Receiving the force firmly from the center of my body, I transferred it all to my arms. My arms remained fixed, slightly bent. The force received was transferred directly to the sword. Finally, I connected all that power together like flowing water. But the flow was like a rough current. Gripping the sword tightly, I rotated so that all my strength became one. The twist of the ankles traveled up my legs to my waist. The twist of my waist traveled up my torso to my shoulders. The twist of my shoulders traveled up my arms to the sword. The force gathered from the tips of my toes was transferred to the sword through my arms. It felt as if a key had perfectly fit into a lock. The sword, having received all that power, touched the goblins’ necks. The sword spread its wings with a shhh- sound. Blood splattered along the trajectory of the blade. I extended my left arm to an angle where it couldn’t rotate any further. My left arm lacked the muscle strength to withstand the remaining rotational force. At the last moment, I lost my grip, and the sword spun and flew far away.
“Oh no…!” I felt a sense of panic at having dropped the sword. But as I saw the scene unfolding before me, my tension vanished. The heads of the two goblins, which had been darting their tongues and charging at me just moments ago, were cleanly severed and rolling on the ground. With that single horizontal swing, I had decapitated both goblins at once.
The souls in my head let out cries of astonishment. Each expressed their disbelief in their own way. “I think… I succeeded.” I said in a dazed voice. I was wondering what had just happened myself. I had the will, but I couldn’t believe that I, a first-time sword wielder, had actually cut down two monsters in one strike.
The ghosts, who had been stunned for a moment, bombarded me with questions. Their reactions were different from before. They had said I would take a lot of damage even if I won, so they were reacting as if they couldn’t believe I was really a beginner since I had finished it in one blow. “I just swung it as Lasu told me to.” I had only swung it as instructed. It would have been strange if I couldn’t do it when they had explained every single joint movement.
“Lasu, you explained it so thoroughly, didn’t you?”
“Was what I did that much? I just swung it normally…”
“Yes. It’s my first time holding one. I’ve seen them before, but…”
The ghosts’ reactions narrowed down to the fact that my talent was incredible—a talent hard to believe. For me, it was just bewildering. Was swinging a sword sideways such a surprising thing? To the ghosts, my posture must have looked as perfect as a textbook. I couldn’t see myself, so I didn’t really know. Anyway, it was fortunate that I had killed the goblins and survived. But the problem remained. Having calmed down a little, I asked the ghosts, “So, what exactly are you all? You said you were the souls of swordsmen trapped in a sword.”