Chapter 7 — Oppa, How on Earth Did You Do That?
Chapter 7 — Oppa, How on Earth Did You Do That?
Translation: GodTL
After a quick lunch, we arrived at the D-rank Gate we planned to clear that day. The recommended party size was two, and it was an ordinary D-rank Gate known to contain lizardmen.
"Sia, do you have any equipment?"
"Yeah! I've got plenty in my Subspace. Why? Did you forget yours, Oppa?"
"No, I brought mine. I was asking in case you didn't have any."
Not much had changed for me since a year ago, so the equipment in my Subspace would still be there. But Sia was different. After being reincarnated, she'd probably lost both the Subspace she'd used in her previous life and everything inside it. I'd assumed she had no equipment, but she was already prepared, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Except...
"...?"
The first thing Sia drew from her Subspace was a sword. The moment it appeared, my eyes stopped on it. It wasn't merely expensive-looking or well made. Even sheathed, the weapon possessed a strange presence, the kind that made every ordinary sword I'd ever held feel like scrap metal by comparison.
Still, I glanced at her, a little puzzled. For Sia, a Dragon, to draw a weapon at a mere D-rank Gate was absurd enough. But more to the point, wasn't Sia a mage? Shouldn't she be using a wand instead of a sword, if she meant to keep pretending she was a D-rank mage?
While I was still trying to make sense of why a Dragon mage had produced a sword, Sia turned and held it out to me.
"Here, Oppa. Use this."
"... Huh?"
"It's a present from me. I thought it would suit you."
For a second, I simply stared at her—and then at the sword. I hadn't expected a gift, much less one that made the air around my hand feel subtly different before I'd even touched it.
"Don't you like it? Should I give you something else?"
"No, no, of course I like it. If it's from you, Sia, I'd be happy with a toothpick. I'm just a little stunned. Thanks. I'll put it to good use."
"There's more, Oppa."
"Huh? There's... more?"
"Yeah. Just wait a second."
As if the sword had been only the beginning, Sia began pulling all kinds of equipment from her Subspace: armor, a helmet, a cloak, accessories, and more. Judging by the caliber of the sword she'd just given me, I doubted any of it was ordinary. And sure enough, when I put the pieces on, I could feel something extraordinary emanating from each one.
"Thank you, Sia. I'll put them to good use."
"Hold on, Oppa. There's still a lot more."
She kept drawing artifacts from her Subspace. She'd told me Dragons filled their lairs with treasure, but this was beyond anything I'd imagined.
"Sia... does this sword have a name?"
The other equipment was absurd enough, but the sword kept drawing my attention back. The instant my fingers closed around its hilt, a faint vibration ran through my palm. It was almost like recognition. I had never held this weapon before, yet the balance settled into my hand with an unsettling familiarity, as though some part of me already knew it.
Sia blinked, visibly surprised by the question. "It's... a Dragon Bone Sword."
A Dragon Bone Sword. The name alone should have sounded ridiculous. Instead, the moment I heard it, the weight in my hand seemed to deepen. This wasn't simply a fine weapon. Something inside it was answering me.
Still, to carry all this absurd equipment just to kill a few lizardmen... That felt strange in its own way.
Anyway.
Once I was ready, I stood with Sia at the Gate entrance, my heart pounding. I was nervous about clearing a Gate again after so long, but memories of how we used to be together filled me with emotion.
Then a thought struck me.
Is Sia... okay?
I looked over at her. I'd briefly forgotten that a Gate was where she'd once met a terrible death. It might have been 2,500 years ago for her, but didn't Dragons remember everything? After all the trauma I'd suffered over the past year, perhaps she had some of her own about Gates, even if she hadn't said so.
"Are you okay?" we asked at the same time.
The moment I asked Sia, she asked me the very same thing. We smiled at each other.
"You were worried I might have trauma too, weren't you, Oppa?"
I gave a small nod. Perhaps touched by those few words, Sia suddenly kissed my cheek.
"I'm really fine, so you don't need to worry about me at all. More importantly... are you okay, Oppa? After what happened...?"
"Yeah. I'm fine too. I was worried, but I didn't expect to feel this okay."
To be honest, I'd been a little nervous before entering the Gate. But the moment we stepped inside, the trembling was strangely gone. Far from feeling any trauma, I even found myself looking forward to what came next.
"I'm glad. Let's finish up quickly and go get mala tteokbokki for dinner!"
From the sound of it, we might have been out for a stroll around the neighborhood instead of inside a Gate. Then again, Sia was beside me, and with the artifacts she'd given me, I didn't feel tense at all. It practically felt like a date.
We walked slowly through the Gate, waiting for monsters to attack. Before long, a few lizardmen appeared at our ten o'clock. They made their distinctive cries and watched us warily.
"Oppa, over there."
"I see them!"
"I'll watch from here. You can handle that many on your own, right?"
"Of course. I'll be right back."
Sia wished me luck and said she'd help if it looked as if I might be in danger, unlikely as that was. I doubted I'd need her. The difference in strength was just too great.
Unlike us, the lizardmen seemed to sense danger. They shifted from wary vigilance to a fighting stance.
A shrill, grating cry burst from the creature.
The instant the lizardmen entered range, the sword gave a low, pleasant hum through my palm. I moved before I had time to think about it.
The blade flashed through the air with a thin, vicious hiss.
One lizardman's head separated from its body before the creature even seemed to understand that I'd swung.
I had expected my instincts to be rusty after so long away from combat. They weren't. If anything, the world felt sharper than I remembered. I could read the lizardmen's steps, the angle of their shoulders, even the paths their crude weapons would take before they finished moving. The sword wasn't merely following my hand. It felt as if it were urging me forward.
I kept cutting. One step, one swing, one kill. The old me would have needed several exchanges to bring down even one of them. Now the lizardmen collapsed so quickly that the fight barely had time to become a fight at all.
"Phew."
I'd expected things to be somewhat easier with equipment this good, but not this easy. I turned toward Sia. What was so impressive about killing a few lizardmen with such an incredible weapon?
Yet she was staring at me in astonishment.
"Oppa, that was... incredible."
"Oh, come on. It wasn't much."
To a Dragon like Sia, killing a few D-rank monsters couldn't be a big deal. I thought she was only saying it to boost my confidence, but...
"I'm not just saying that, Oppa. I mean it."
I could hear it in her voice. She was genuinely, purely impressed by what I'd just done.
What? Is she serious?
The sword Sia had placed in Min-jun's hand was no ordinary weapon. A Dragon Bone Sword was exactly what its name implied—a blade fashioned from Dragon bone, carrying traces of power that no human-made weapon could imitate. She had expected the sword itself to overwhelm D-rank monsters. What she had not expected was Min-jun.
He had drawn out the power sleeping inside it.
Not consciously. Not skillfully. Barely even a trace. Yet that was precisely why Sia's eyes widened. A Dragon Bone Sword did not reveal itself to just anyone. The fact that it had answered him at all meant far more than the amount of power he'd managed to draw out.
Dragon Bone Swords were said to recognize the potential of whoever held them.
In Sia's old world, they had another name: swords that found their owners. A common soldier had once become a Swordmaster after taking up one. A king from a dying nation had gone on to unite an entire continent. Wherever those swords appeared, history had a habit of changing around the people they chose.
Could Oppa become someone like that?
Imagining Min-jun leaving his mark on the pages of Hunter history, Sia smiled softly.
But there was one fact even Sia did not know. Long ago, the person who had drawn out more of a Dragon Bone Sword's dormant power than anyone else in history had become a name Dragons themselves no longer spoke aloud.
As they gathered the spoils, Sia told Min-jun the sword's secret: that he'd drawn out a little of its dormant power, and what those who had drawn it out in the past had accomplished.
It was a startling story for Min-jun.
"So what you're saying is, the sword you gave me isn't just any sword—it's something much more special... and I drew out the power hidden inside it?"
"That's right, Oppa."
Even after hearing her explanation, Min-jun still looked stunned.
"I had a talent like that...?"
His muttered question carried another, obvious one: If I have that kind of talent, why am I still only at this level?
It hadn't shown up during his rank assessment. And why would he have been born with such a strange talent in a world without Dragons to begin with? Having a talent was clearly a good thing, but Min-jun couldn't help feeling bewildered.
"At this rate, my Oppa might become a ranker in less than a year!" Sia said playfully.
Despite her teasing tone, she took the possibility quite seriously. Even before this, she had believed Min-jun could become a ranker if she gave him her full support. In fact, she'd planned to do just that. But if Min-jun had this much potential of his own, he might be able to achieve something that great without her help at all.
Not that it would be easy.
"If you believe in me that much, Sia... I guess I'd better try."
"How can my Oppa be so dependable?"
He was dependable, but that only made him all the more adorable to her. Sia ruffled his hair.
"Sia, you're messing up my hair."
"That gives you a whole different kind of charm."
Looking embarrassed, Min-jun covered his face with one hand and pushed hers away with the other. Sia only enjoyed his reaction, smiling fondly at him.
"Well, let's go!"
It was time to move on and hunt more lizardmen. Feeling as if they were on a date, Sia and Min-jun wandered slowly through the Gate. After a while, they spotted a group of lizardmen heading somewhere. Watching them, Min-jun prepared to ambush them.
If this sword has that kind of power... I'll use these guys to get used to it quickly.
He hadn't known about the sword's power when he'd first swung it. Now that he knew he could tap into its potential, he couldn't just swing it without thinking.
Forget everything else. Focus on drawing that power out.
Of course, deciding to do it wouldn't let him draw out more of the power dwelling in the sword right away. He still didn't know what it felt like to draw it out, or even exactly what that power was.
But...
Visualization matters for this sort of thing.
Now that he'd discovered the possibility, he had to develop it somehow. Min-jun toyed with the sword's hilt until the moment was right, then sprang toward the group.
The creature answered with a startled screech.
While the lizardmen reeled from the sudden ambush, Min-jun quickly swung at the one in front. His body felt light, and he could see the lizardman's movements clearly. But he couldn't feel the power Sia had described.
I don't get it.
Again. This time, too, his sword struck true, piercing a lizardman's chest.
What exactly was Sia talking about?
He still had no idea what energy he'd supposedly drawn from the sword, or how he'd done it. Not even as he tried swinging it in different ways. Not even as the lizardmen fell helplessly before it.
And yet, to Sia, it was clear that Min-jun was drawing out the potential within the sword—just in a slightly different way from other Dragon Bone Sword users.