Chapter 20
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Sword and You (2)
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Soliet Arkne leaned against the balcony railing, blinking in surprise. She'd just witnessed something intriguing, but she instinctively stepped back when their eyes met.
"Who you choose matters too."
That's when she heard someone speaking as if addressing her directly.
"...Hm?"
Soliet turned to look.
It was Elise. She approached, flapping the report in her hand.
"It's efficient to pick someone with the skills to produce good results, so your analytical abilities shine through as much as possible when you write up the report."
"Ah... Thank you."
Soliet bowed her head politely.
Elise asked dryly,
"Are you feeling better now?"
"..."
Soliet didn't respond.
Elise pressed,
"Must be boring. A class like this, for you."
"Not really."
The conversation cut short. It was hard to keep it flowing, one fragment at a time.
This sometimes made Elise wonder.
Back then—really, long ago—were we ever actually close?
—Whoa. Gerkken's killing it. We could sell that form as-is.
—That's improvised, right?
—Genius, I tell you. I'm so jealous.
Just then, a commotion broke out somewhere. Naturally, it was from Gerkken's balcony. Thirty out of the thirty-five students were crowding around him. Even Kain and Esher.
"Do you know him?"
Soliet asked. Elise turned to her.
"Gerkken, you mean?"
"Yes."
"I know of him. Not well."
"What about over there, then?"
Soliet pointed elsewhere. Elise glanced over and immediately furrowed her brow.
It was Sion Askal.
"Do you know him?"
"...I know of him."
Elise added with a small laugh,
"He's a lunatic. A failing student."
Soliet nodded calmly.
"I see. He just performed a sword dance."
"Sword dance?"
Elise raised an eyebrow.
A sword dance meant 'performing swordsmanship in a refined and fluid manner, perfectly executed without pauses or hitches.'
It was a realm achievable only after sufficiently mastering a particular sword art.
"Yes. That person."
"..."
Elise pondered for a moment.
Was it a joke? Or just a prank?
Soliet was so humorless it fit. No, the Arkne family itself had a reputation as the famously boring no-fun clan.
"...Heh."
Elise forced a laugh. Soliet gave her a puzzled look, as if asking why she was laughing. Elise's eyes narrowed.
"What kind of punchline are you waiting for?"
"Punchline? It's true. It really was a sword dance, but it was ordinary."
Ordinary.
For Sion Askal's pathetic life, even calling it ordinary would be high praise.
"Take a look."
Soliet said as she pulled gum from her pocket.
"Video recording. It works with your student ID."
There was a viewing room in one corner of the balcony. If you wanted to watch a senior student's swordsmanship video, you just tagged your student ID and borrowed it.
Elise pouted.
"I know. It logs your name when you play it."
"I'll lend you my student ID."
She chewed her gum with wet smacks.
Elise's eyes darkened.
"Ah. Sorry. Quitting smoking."
"...Forget it."
Elise shook her head and forced another faint smile.
It was understandable enough. After the major incident she'd been through, she still bore deep scars on body and mind.
"I'm heading to the break room."
Soliet slapped something against Elise's chest.
It was her student ID.
"I said I don't need it."
Soliet shoved her hands in her pockets and left without a word. Elise looked down at the balcony.
There was the yellow buzzcut Sion.
"Sword dance..."
It sounded absurd, but coming from Soliet, she couldn't dismiss it outright.
Elise glanced back at the video archive room.
Then down at Soliet's student ID in her hand.
"...Tch."
Clicking her tongue, she headed to the archive room.
No particular reason. Just curiosity. Not about Sion Askal, but whether Soliet was telling the truth.
—Five minutes left. We'll switch in five, so keep at it till then.
Five minutes before shift change, in the private training room.
I replayed the video on the tablet atop the desk—the swordsmanship I'd just personally recreated.
"...Not great."
I let out a sigh.
It was a clean motion, refined to perfection, but it stirred no emotion like my father's swordsmanship did. The Askal sword art had always been utterly ordinary, both then and now, and Father's talent was no different.
Even the 'family sword' I now held was ambiguous.
The Askal blade was a long sword at 1.5 meters, quite lengthy for a battlefield weapon, but it fell short of leveraging reach advantages. At just 1.5 meters, it was only a bit longer than an average longsword—and far shorter than a spear.
In simple terms, a colorless, odorless long sword with no standout strengths or weaknesses.
A sword like my father.
Before regression, I'd even discarded this sword art myself. During my underworld days, with no time to spare, I'd just swung whatever was at hand.
To be cold about it—the Askal sword art was trash, naturally doomed to fade away.
If it had been impressive, Father wouldn't have been a low-rank knight.
"Whatever."
Even so, I wouldn't discard this sword. I wouldn't sell it off like before.
The Askal style.
Even calling it a 'style' felt awkward, but I'd take this deficient, shabby thing as my root.
A tree without roots can't grow.
"Just tweak the forms a bit."
But I had no intention of blindly following the family forms. To avoid repeating Father's future, to avoid becoming a man like him.
I loved and cherished Father too much, but I could never respect him.
—Thirty minutes up. Time to switch.
Right on cue for the shift.
I left the training room and headed to the balcony. The students there filed into the training room in turn.
I stood at the railing, clutching a report and pen instead of a sword.
Plenty of people worth watching.
Elise, for one. Ten years from now, she'd be both mage tower lord and university board chair, but her sword talent was overflowing too.
Kain and Esher were knights-in-training anyway, no need to elaborate.
—Ooh. He's going. He's going.
—He's just standing there?
—Shh. Watch quietly.
But one spot was especially mobbed.
I headed there too.
"..."
As expected, it was Soliet Arkne.
She stood motionless, gripping her sword.
After a long pause—whoosh—she swung. Lines of mana rippled like waves. From there, she unfolded her swordsmanship.
A simple form of seven or eight strokes woven like a net, yet more than enough to draw gasps of awe.
—Ooooooh.
The gallery cheered. Already movements hinting at grabbing waitlist tickets for the archive room.
But for some reason, I sank into deep thought.
"...Definitely different."
The current Soliet and the future Soliet were worlds apart.
Not in skill or growth.
This Soliet was half-heartedly going through the Arkne sword art motions. Just fulfilling the 'curriculum' her family had laid out.
I knew the Arkne Secret Sword Art roughly. I'd faced it firsthand.
In brief—the Arkne style was largely 'Chain Sword.'
From the first form and foundation, Eight Swords, to the second, Energy Flame Sword, and so on... eleven forms in total completed the Arkne Secret Sword Art.
For reference, forms sit between sword arts and techniques. Too much like a full sword art to be mere techniques, yet not independently complete as sword arts.
The Arkne Secret Sword Art chained these forms together, ultimately converging into one.
Hence, Chain Sword.
When the eleven forms linked into a single thread, the entire sword art blazed like flames. By then, it no longer looked like a sword—it surged as a true fire demon. Ironically, Soliet's nature was the polar opposite.
She was 'Severing Sword.' Eschewing rigid sword forms, she judged by pure instinct in the moment.
Severing Sword was common yet rare.
A clamshell that was also a pearl.
A flawed Severing Sword was a street thug's wild slash; perfected, it was an immortal's gesture.
At its peak, Severing Sword cut all bonds.
It shattered sword arts and severed karmic ties.
But 'Severing Sword mastery' bordered on impossible; even those who wielded it decently could be counted on one hand across the continent.
Yet in the near future, Soliet had perfected that elusive Severing Sword. At least touching the threshold of Beyond Heaven.
I still remembered her greatness from that time.
"...Wait. Remember?"
But the word 'remember' snagged oddly.
I alternated glances between the sword at my waist and the report in my hand.
No intention of spoiling her future Severing Sword.
Quite the opposite—I hoped this life's Soliet never realized it.
Her Severing Sword was a calamity born of her despair. It would drag her into the mire and ensure her misery.
"Severing Sword..."
Even so, I empathized. I coveted it. Greed welled up.
Could I somehow graft a piece of that Severing Sword onto the Askal sword art?
Add a bit of the Soliet from my 'memories'?
I'd gladly embrace even the curse everyone despised in the Arkne sword itself.
—Whoaaaaa. Did you see that?
—Insane. Totally insane.
Amid the echoing admiration, I quietly turned away.
Leaning on the railing with report in hand, lost in deeper thought...
After Swordsmanship Studies class ended, in Elise's private quarters.
High-end apartment 「Presidium」 in Edshilla.
"Miss~ What snack would you like~?"
"I'm managing my weight."
"Aw~ You don't have any fat to lose~"
"By the time it starts sticking, it's too late."
Elise answered the maid while checking her laptop.
[Sion Askal]
A video played on the laptop. Borrowed under Soliet's name from the archive—the footage where Sion Askal supposedly performed a 'sword dance,' per Soliet.
She'd already watched it once; now she rewound and analyzed it again, again, again—twirling her pen.
"I get it."
She could see why Soliet took interest.
First off, it was a sword dance.
By the dictionary definition: 'fluidly performing any sword art without flaw.'
However, it was poor swordsmanship. Even low-rank knights would cringe at the manual.
Yet Sion had mastered it.
Not just mastered—perhaps reached its 'end.'
"Jeez..."
How much effort did it take to refine this mediocre sword art to such precision and smoothness? How much poured into a bottomless bucket?
Beyond pathetic—it was pitiful.
Elise closed the laptop. She smirked, twisting her lips.
"What an idiot."
She now understood her earlier spirited mood a bit better.
You put in this much effort, huh.
For this trash sword art, to perfect it like this—how much effort?
"It's your birth that was the problem."
Wrong direction. Vector misaligned.
Sion Askal had no talent.
If he truly had talent, even wielding low-grade swordsmanship, he'd have shown a flash of brilliance at least once.
But Sion Askal just executed the forms. Mindlessly.
As if swapping endless free time for effort—but how?
Effort without talent was simply 'wrong.'
"Libra's Guardian Knight... You think you can make it like this?"
Elise muttered mockingly, then erased Sion from her mind entirely.