Chapter 154
Chapter 154
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 154
Chapter Title: 48. The Seventh and Eighth (2)
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The light vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.
She staggered.
I quickly supported Adelia, who looked ready to collapse at any moment.
She stared at me, her lips parting and closing several times. It was clear she had a lot she wanted to say but couldn't find the words.
I took her small hand, which gripped the sword tightly.
And guided her.
Following my lead, she unwittingly raised her sword.
Adelia looked at me. I nodded silently.
After a moment's hesitation, she gripped the sword with both hands.
Hummm.
The sword hummed.
In that instant, a dazzling flash erupted from her blade.
A concentration of energy so dense it dwarfed even sword aura.
It was an Aura Blade.
"Ah..."
Adelia let out a gasp of awe.
"You did it. And..."
Her eyes flicked between the Aura Blade and me, tears quickly welling up and clouding her vision.
"Congratulations on becoming a Swordmaster."
The tears hanging in her eyes finally spilled over.
At the same time, the Aura Blade gathered on the blade dispersed.
She dropped the sword with a clunk and looked up at me.
"I... I..."
She struggled to continue.
Emotions had overwhelmed her.
I silently stroked her head.
It was quite some time later that Adelia, half-buried in my arms and breathing heavily against my shoulder, finally pulled away.
"Are we pulling an all-nighter here?"
Ilai's snide voice startled her, and she scurried back.
Adelia bowed her head deeply, her ears burning red.
She must have been embarrassed about acting spoiled.
"S-Sorry."
She apologized to me belatedly.
"Tch."
Irritated by her cowed demeanor, I clicked my tongue and glared at Ilai.
"What's your problem?"
Couldn't even offer congratulations.
Ilai poured out his complaints at my words.
"My stomach hurts. We went through the same hell, but one becomes a Swordmaster and the other doesn't. My stomach hurts so bad I can't stand it."
His unexpected honesty left me speechless.
I'd witnessed the births of countless Swordmasters and seen innumerable people hide their envy and sense of deprivation behind words of congratulations.
But I could say with certainty that none had ever put it like Ilai did.
Stomach hurts.
For a reaction to witnessing a Swordmaster's birth, it was overly childish and crude.
Which made me like it even more.
"Honestly, shouldn't I be next after Lady Arwen?"
Childish whining without basis or logic.
"Everyone but me is becoming a Swordmaster."
I couldn't help but burst out laughing.
**
Even after becoming a Swordmaster, Adelia hadn't changed much.
She still hesitated before fights and teared up after.
The only difference was that her hesitation no longer stemmed from fear.
Her hesitation was mercy toward her foes, and her tears were pity for the dead.
I didn't rebuke her fragility.
Her mercy meant mercilessness to enemies—the swiftest, most painless death she could grant them.
The pinnacle reached by a timid madwoman was that paradoxical.
And at the same time, perfectly harmonious.
The murderous intent and madness from her traits, innate kindness and compassion.
In battle, a blood-mad berserker; in peace, a gentle, warm-hearted woman.
The ideal knight as the world imagined.
Though the shift was perhaps too dramatic and extreme to call merely ideal.
A Swordmaster was just a term for those who reached completion, not flawless perfection.
I was quite satisfied with Adelia's form of completion.
"From today, train on your own."
Having roughly grasped the shape of her achievement, I excluded her from combat.
Now was the time to restrain energy emission as much as possible and fully assimilate the remaining awakening power into her body.
"Thank you for your consideration, Your Highness."
Adelia readily followed my orders.
Leaving her to her own time, I took Ilai and the Gawain trio toward the floodplains.
We trained like mad. Ancient trees, beastkin—nothing was off-limits.
We fought everything in sight, sometimes from sunrise to sunset.
The knights grew quickly.
But that was only on the surface.
They'd merely grown accustomed to fighting floodplain monsters, their sword tips a bit sharper.
Their growth was purely technical and physical.
They were like ring knights.
Drawing mana from the heart, but that was it.
They knew no way to weave new war poems.
Even the heir of the Ilai family, who clung to Mana Heart even as their house fell, remembered old traditions but was ignorant of creating new verses.
"It's not just about being sharp and fast!"
"Infuse your will into the sword!"
"Reflect on what you've done and what you intend to do!"
I shouted in frustration, but the knights didn't understand.
"What the hell does that even mean?!"
Ilai protested, exasperated.
"Listen. I'll explain simply."
Confirming the knights' full attention, I slowly explained the basic principle of weaving a war poem.
"Engrave your deeds in your heart and swing the sword with will. What you've achieved is karma; what you aspire to is aspiration. Easy, right?"
A concept old knights grasped before even picking up a sword.
"I get the gist of karma and aspiration. But how does that create a war poem?"
Yet Ilai and the Gawain trio still didn't get it.
Not even Gawain.
I still vividly remembered the moment during our imperial journey when Gawain unwittingly wove the first line of some verse.
But the verse's owner hadn't even realized it had begun.
A sigh escaped in futility.
[How can they not grasp even this basic truth? It's utterly baffling.]
I empathized deeply with Agnes's words.
[Will is aspiration, and the path and completion to it are karma. Explain it this way.]
Her instruction wasn't much help.
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
[That fool's so ■■ he can't understand! What a ■■ idiot! Back in my day, I'd have taught that ■■■ a lesson myself!]
I barely calmed her raging outburst.
"Four hundred years. Feels like forever."
I sighed again and looked at the knights.
They weren't stupid. Quite sharp, in fact.
Ilai, heir of a prestigious house, was a genius; the Gawain trio, rigorously selected by the royals, were flawless talents.
It was just that what was as natural as breathing to me and the old knights was unnatural to them.
Whether piling mana in rings or hearts, they were no longer the knights I knew.
I had to accept it.
Denying change, clinging to old ways and concepts wasn't wise.
One bleeding lesson from such arrogance and ignorance was enough.
"Let's head back for now."
I led the exhausted knights, drained from monsters and my nagging, back to camp.
Holed up in my tent, lost in thought.
Pondering how to make them understand karma and aspiration, engrave it in their hearts.
My head throbbed.
But I had to find a way.
Becoming a Swordmaster without weaving war poems meant nothing.
I tried everything. Even sought out the Sky Knight Doris left to guide our return.
But the Sky Knight was little different from my knights.
He'd inherited fragments of old lore and merely used them.
Doris, with Azure Lord's blood, or the king might know the answer.
But they weren't here, and knowing it didn't mean they'd share.
Back to square one.
I racked my brains again.
Meanwhile, Ilai and the Gawain trio continued training the floodplains fringes on their own.
Four days passed without breakthrough.
Ilai hadn't surmounted his wall or learned to weave new war poems.
The Gawain trio even less.
If I had to force a gain, my once-flabby heart had firmed up considerably.
Enough to fill the empty vessel, if careful.
I gathered mana without delay.
In less than half a day, my heart brimmed with it.
Now for a decision.
Ideally, make Ilai a Swordmaster here, teach him war poems, turn the full moon clan into lyrics.
But I couldn't wait indefinitely.
I decided to return to the kingdom as is.
But then, that night, as I prepared to announce the return, Gawain burst into my tent, wildly excited.
"I get it! Finally!"
Forgetting our awkward rapport, Gawain was thrilled.
"Watch."
Gawain drew his sword.
And declared dramatically, like a stage actor.
"I have been broken. I have lost the light. Thus, I shall become the sword in the darkness and follow."
A crude string of words, as rough as the mercenaries' "Song of the Sword."
But laden with unyielding will.
Whoosh.
A wave rippled out. Simultaneously, Gawain's sword turned pitch black.
Not ominous, just dark and shadowy.
Like a shadow itself.
Gawain swung the blackened sword down.
No flash, no ring, no presence.
His strike silently cleaved the air and vanished.
Though the rhythm was crude and the words gloomy.
It was unmistakably a war poem.
"See? See?!"
Gawain laughed heartily. I gave him a thumbs-up and laughed along.
Then awkwardness hit, and we stopped simultaneously.
"Ahem."
Gawain cleared his throat, calming his excitement belatedly.
I asked the poem's name.
He hesitated, then said,
"Called it 'Shadow's Poem.'"
A decent name.
**
Starting with Gawain, his comrades soon wove their own war poems.
[Shadow's Poem], [New Moon's Poem], [Night's Poem]
All verses short of extraordinary, uniformly dark and somber in wording.
Owing to pasts of despair and defeat, and their craving for light while unready to face the world.
Setting aside our relations, I congratulated and encouraged them sincerely in that moment.
"So how'd you do it?"
After the three demonstrated, Ilai hesitated long before asking.
They said they'd simply reflected on the past and suddenly realized.
"That's it? You don't even know how."
"No, we do. Can't explain it."
Ilai scowled. I was disappointed too, having hoped they'd define karma and aspiration for this era's knights.
**
That evening, Ilai entered the floodplains and didn't return.
His destination was obvious.
Adelia was a Swordmaster; the Gawain trio had each woven a war poem.
Being the only one stalled must have been unbearable.
Still, I went searching with Gunu, just in case.
Finding him was easy.
Ilai was battling monsters alone on the forest edge.
His body was a wreck.
Fortunately, no beastkin wounds.
I hid in the shadows and watched.
"Gale-like sword! I am the wind!"
"Fallen castle, stolen glory—I shall reclaim all I lost!"
"Sever the wolf's head and offer it to the full moon!"
Ilai muttered nonstop like a madman.
"Damn it! Why won't it work?!"
He'd been yelling long before I arrived; his voice was ragged.
"Why only me?! What's so great about this crap?!"
I couldn't bear watching his desperate struggle and turned to leave when familiar presences approached from the side.
Gawain and his comrades.
Unaware of me, they peeked from the bushes, watching Ilai.
Comrades after all, venturing into the floodplains at night.
I quietly withdrew.
**
Ilai didn't return the next day, or the one after.
Gunu confirmed he was alive sporadically.
On the fourth day, Ilai returned.
"Get up! Everyone out!"
Appearing at night, waking the Gawain trio, bursting into my tent—his state was gruesome even in dim light.
Body scratched and torn to shreds, eyes bloodshot.
Yet he grinned.
Shing.
He drew his sword.
A brilliant flash burst from it.
Rumble.
A thunderous roar echoed through the tent moments later.
Unmistakably an Aura Blade.
The kingdom's eighth silver lion was born.
"That's not all."
Before I could congratulate him, Ilai boasted arrogantly.
And muttered in his raspy voice.