Chapter 209
Chapter 209
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: 209. The Weight of the Sword
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Dark clouds blanketed Rustium.
The atmosphere turned gloomy, as if rain would fall at any moment.
“Sir Veil, your smile is sly in a way that doesn’t match your skill.”
Lin spoke in a calm voice.
The overcast weather made her dark circles appear even deeper.
“However, I won’t ignore the kindness you’ve already shown.”
As expected of a knight order captain.
Lin the Knight Captain chose victory for her lord over her pride.
“I too promise not to use black mana, no matter what happens.”
The knight captain raised her sword before her face.
Already injured, with her innocent features to boot.
Seeing her like this made me look like the villain who’d been causing chaos until now.
“Ooh…”
“That’s definitely the real captain, yeah.”
The male spectators nodded unconsciously upon seeing her face.
Then the women sitting nearby jabbed them hard in the sides.
“Are you defending a knight order guilty of misconduct right now?”
“Ow… It’s still just suspicions…”
Indeed.
The Lin standing before me felt utterly different from all the black knights I’d faced so far.
Her lifeless eyes clearly belonged to someone who had slain countless foes.
Yet unlike the fake captain just moments ago, there was no madness in them.
Her aura wasn’t black mana in disguise either.
Rather…
――――――.
It was a radiant golden hue, just like the other captains’.
Her black pupils were dyed with its beauty.
“Aw, come on. You’re making such a solemn declaration about something that’s obviously forbidden.”
I narrowed my already thin eyes as I looked at her.
Then shrugged with a sly grin.
“Isn’t it banned in spars by default?”
“I know. I just said it to reassure you.”
Every time Lin exchanged words with me, she felt her hard-won resolve waver.
“Fine, fine. I won’t use Grand Aura either.”
On top of that, she watched me casually dispel the white mana rippling around me.
It made her feel like the only one taking this fight seriously—like a fool.
“…”
Her soft lips pouted, as if hurt.
Seeing that, I tilted my head innocently, like a fox playing dumb.
“Are you sulking?”
My narrowed eyes widened like a small animal’s.
Lin snapped at me in a cold voice.
“No. Let’s just start.”
*She’s sulking.*
We raised our swords from our positions across the deep pit between us.
Then performed a brief salute.
“Alright then, let the match begin!! The duel between Black Knight Captain Sir Lin and defending knight Sir Veil!!”
The referee shouted loudly, and majestic orchestral music blared.
This time, though, it was even louder and longer.
As if announcing the finals.
“I’m coming.”
I bent my knees.
Then kicked off hard enough to crater the arena floor and leaped over the pit.
“…!”
Lin’s body darkened in my shadow.
But her pupils still gleamed.
She stared straight at the enemy charging toward her.
Chaaang!!
The two knights’ swords clashed fiercely.
But it wasn’t the clear ring from previous matches.
It was the desperate grind of two soldiers crossing rusted blades in war.
Kagak――――!!
Was it the chipped edges?
Our swords shuddered wildly against each other.
“…”
Yet Lin unexpectedly held her own against my blade.
Even though it was a one-handed overhead strike, her bandaged arms remained steadfast.
*She’s definitely different.*
This wasn’t just relying on mana to endure.
When defending my sword, she lowered her stance and gripped the hilt as short as possible to minimize power loss.
It felt like a real battlefield clash after so long.
And it was quite enjoyable.
“That’s a look that underestimates me, Mikhail.”
Lin glared at me with sharp eyes.
Eyes like a crow on a corpse-strewn battlefield.
“Let’s see how long you can keep smiling.”
The black knights, elites among elites.
This young woman who led them twisted her elbow to deflect my blade.
Then twisted her other elbow, swinging her rapier like a zweihänder.
Just like I had against Gilbert.
“Impressive.”
I fluidly twisted my sword wrist.
And slipped slyly past her Iajizandah strike.
Kikik―――――.
Our swords shuddered wildly again.
The moment we separated…
“Hyah!!”
She thrust her rapier at my face like a black hawk diving for prey.
I barely dodged by shifting my head.
――――――!!
With one arm sealed.
Against the strongest knight I’d ever faced.
But that didn’t mean despair.
If the environment was unfavorable, just change it.
I pulled my left knee back sharply.
Then took large steps, thrusting my sword swiftly.
“Ugh…!!”
Lin twisted her waist on instinct.
A few strands of her hair were sliced off, but she barely evaded.
“To think you even know fleuret…”
She’d assumed I’d grown up in harsh conditions like her.
Now she breathed raggedly at this sudden elegant one-handed fencing.
“Yes, someone needed teaching.”
Back when I was the imperial princess’s guard.
She’d watched my sword practice intently from afar.
With round puppylike eyes full of curiosity.
She’d wanted to learn swordsmanship too, not to be a burden.
But battlefield techniques were too harsh for a delicate princess.
So she’d asked noble-born juniors and eventually taught Irina herself.
“I learned properly, to teach her as gently and thoroughly as possible.”
I stepped lightly and nimbly, like a woman dancing, and thrust again.
When she parried with her rapier, I snapped my wrist, painting arcs in the air.
Deflect diagonals, dodge thrusts.
A single misstep in response…
*Shield or no, it’ll pierce flesh!!*
“Veil…!! Do your best!!”
Irina from the referee stand.
She cheered me on with clenched fists.
The princess who’d preserved every memory of my lessons.
She shyly pumped her fists, mimicking jabs.
“You have to win!”
The referees stole glances at the excited Irina, unlike their usual cold stares.
But the princess didn’t care to hide it anymore, shouting with a bright smile.
“Hmm. He’s definitely lasting longer than anyone so far?”
Lydia with her twintails spoke from the VIP seats.
Arms crossed alone, she wore the triumphant look from our first knighting ceremony.
“So, you think Veil’s going to lose?”
Leah sat beside her.
Legs crossed to show off her ample thighs, she eyed her half-sister maturely.
“As if.”
Lydia smirked.
Then gently stroked the ring on her slender finger.
Like taming a pet.
“…”
Leah watched the fight coldly, as befitted an imperial commander.
Lydia glanced up slyly.
“What? Do you think our Veil might lose?”
“No.”
Leah narrowed her eyes, staring down at me intently.
More precisely…
“I just need to see him right after it ends.”
At the sweat-soaked dress shirt clinging to my skin beneath my uniform.
“Before he washes up…”
Lydia frowned at her sister’s suggestive smile.
Leah ignored her, merely smirking.
「…」
But not everyone was smiling.
Rozanna and Leon beside the emperor.
They grew anxious as Lin fell back.
“Damn… Even with one hand, that level of skill…?”
Leon had hoped to muddle the duel by playing up injuries.
But my brute-force self-handicap drew a sigh from him.
“We should withdraw for today, Leon.”
Rozanna too.
Having already witnessed my skill through my memories, she closed her eyes impassively.
As if realizing the weight of my sword.
“Haa… Haa…”
Lin’s breathing grew ragged.
She’d fought countless battles, but they usually ended in a few exchanges.
Few could match her evenly.
But her eyes were starting to sense it now, from the man before her.
That she couldn’t win.
“Still, I can’t give up.”
Lin bit her swollen lip hard.
Forcing out blood to snap her fogging mind awake.
A special field technique.
“Planning to give your life for the crown prince?”
I asked the desperate woman.
No matter how I looked at it, she was the chivalrous type.
I couldn’t fathom why she served the vile crown prince so loyally—they seemed total opposites.
“No choice.”
Red blood dripped from Lin’s small lips.
She wiped it with the back of her hand, soaking her white bandages.
“Her Imperial Consort cares for my little sister. Having received her grace, I’ll serve until it’s repaid.”
As the situation tensed, she switched to informal speech.
“Even if His Highness’s orders are sometimes dubious, my sister comes first…”
She unwound her frayed bandages.
Wrapped them around her hand and hilt, igniting her will.
*So she has a backstory.*
Even as captain, she’d spent her life on battlefields, ignorant of Leon’s deeds.
She’d just gotten hurt and used for her sister’s sake.
“To you, this might seem like a game, Mikhail. But not to me.”
Golden aura swirled in Lin’s pitch-black eyes.
A realm too advanced for a woman in her early twenties.
Most past captains reached it only in their thirties, after countless wars.
“The weight of my sword is different.”
A sword to protect someone.
Like mine once was.
“You should use that white aura this time.”
Having bet everything, Lin advised me kindly.
Then she raised her rapier skyward, infusing it with a swordmaster’s unyielding will.
Everyone in the circular arena beheld that radiant gold.
Bright enough to illuminate the emperor’s deep eye shadows.
「Behold, Leon.」
Leonhardt spoke flatly to his son while watching.
「How brutally you’ve trampled true knighthood.」
The emperor, having decided Leon’s fate, no longer spared him a glance.
「Use this chance to realize and reflect.」
He merely gave his final lesson.
“…”
Golden currents wrapped the shabby female knight’s body in splendor.
Then she bent her knees.
“Hup…!!”
She gripped her rapier two-handed like a greatsword.
The moment she coiled her body like a spring…
Bwooom――――――!!
She unleashed the condensed swordmaster’s golden aura.
*Brandish…!*
Myriad crescent blades surged toward me like a tidal wave.
No flashy magic technique.
Just crudely blasting aura into the air.
Pure battlefield basics—slashing—honed to the extreme and unleashed at full power.
“Truly different.”
I witnessed the Black Knight Captain’s will firsthand.
Her sword truly one of noble protection.
It let me resolve.
To abandon my sly facade and save her.
“Dodging a technique like this would be rude.”
I placed my fist over my left breast.
Then unleashed my swordmaster aura strongly.
“I’m coming, Captain Lin.”
I charged straight into the golden tidal wave.
“V-Veil…?”
“You’re not going to dodge?”
The previously relaxed princesses and Rozanna.
Their jaws dropped at me heading into the blade storm.
Kagak―――――!!
My mana shield shuddered wildly around me.
Each clash with the blades boomed lethally.
But I didn’t stop.
I pressed on through the blades toward the unrelenting young knight.
My dress shirt tore in places.
A shallow cut appeared on my cheek.
Still, I ran toward Lin, steadfastly unleashing her brandish.
The moment my skin burned from her fervor…
“!!!”
I finally absorbed all the blades with my body and reached Lin.
“How…!”
The flustered Black Knight Captain.
Toward her, I condensed the mana shield that had guarded me into my held sword.
“You just said it was the weight of your sword.”
Red gashes began appearing all over my body.
But I paid them no mind.
“Mine is no light thing either, Captain Lin.”
All my golden aura concentrated into my downward old sword.
Heat haze rippled, making the edge waver beautifully.
“My sword now surpasses one person…”
Raised in my mother’s twisted rage.
Shunned for commoner blood.
Despised for different hair and origins.
Even a foreign princess sacrificed to others’ greed.
All the empire’s people with their tragic tales.
“It guards everyone.”
With one hand, I unleashed the gathered blade upward with all my might.
Teeth gritted so hard they chattered.
――――――.
I hadn’t even activated Grand Aura.
Yet the golden aura turned brilliant white and…
Shattered all of Lin’s oncoming blades.
“Impossible…”
The radiant strike pierced the captain.
The moment it hit the arena’s sturdy back wall…
Kwaaang―――――!!
The Rustium outer wall shredded like clawed by a massive beast.
But the blade didn’t stop, soaring straight into the sky.
And then.
――――――.
Even the murky clouds shrouding the circular arena split apart.
A massive hole yawned between them.
“…”
Silence fell over the vast Rustium arena at the sight.
Everyone simply faced the radiant sunlight pouring down on them.
“Th-the clouds…”
Dust floated in the hot rays.
Only then did the spectators sense it wasn’t an illusion.
「…」
The emperor closed his eyes at the scene.
Feeling the sunlight on his aged, wrinkled skin.
“…”
Rozanna too.
The imperial consort gazed intently at the emperor’s serene face.
―――.
I exhaled raggedly in my blade-releasing stance.
Then casually dropped it to the ground.
Kaaang…
The sharp clang of metal falling.
Pathetic for a sword that had cleaved the heavens.
“…”
But as the sword fell, my opponent before me—Lin—collapsed to the floor.
She touched her throat, realizing the blade had pierced her.
“To think the gap was this wide…”
Lin savored the sensation of being alive with trembling hands.
I approached her slowly.
“Didn’t you say earlier you’d risk your life for your sister?”
“…”
The young captain looked up at me blankly.
Seeing my massive shadow, she nodded quietly.
“That medicine… I might be able to provide it.”
I rummaged in my tattered uniform jacket’s inner pocket.
Pulled out a glass vial cracked from Lin’s brandish.
“What… is that…?”
Lin squinted in the blinding sunlight.
“Got it from someone I know… well, not a person, a wolf.”
I offered her my hand.
Slipped the medicine secretly into her bandaged arm.
“They say it fills anyone with vigor…”
“…”
Lin swallowed hard at me giving medicine to my defeated foe.
“What about you…?”
She pointed at my gashed body.
But I smirked and waved it off.
“I’ve got so many scars already—this won’t even show.”
*Well, the werewolf did say I’d need it eventually… Should be fine.*
I gazed at her trembling hand.
Afraid she’d drop the precious vial.
Suddenly anxious, I clasped both her hands.
That instant.
「Waaah―――――!!」
A roar hit us so hard we both flinched.
「The moment the new empire’s greatest sword is born!!」
Sunlight poured down.
I raised my head within it.
In my past life, I’d lived as one woman’s guard.
In this life…
I’d become protector of all.