Chapter 293
Chapter 293
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 293
Chapter Title: The Prophecy Points to Death (5)
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◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Guarder Kalt.
The man who rose to the head of the Hounds in recognition of blocking three disasters also happened to be a Sword Superhuman.
Sword Superhuman.
Those who could read Sword Paths (??), predict the future based on given information with Foresight, and possess Super Senses. Though still inexperienced, Kalt was undoubtedly one of them.
There was no way he couldn't read the sword path swung by some novice. No way he couldn't predict the result it would create.
He should have been able to.
He definitely should have...
But an unexpected result occurred. Kalt stared at Rak with his eyes wide open.
"...What the hell?"
The sword swung by this boy smashed the tree right in front of him. It was less like striking with a sword and more like chopping firewood with an axe.
That single blow left a mark on the trunk before his eyes.
A deep dent proved it. A small mark for a swing of a famed sword among famed swords. Yet that same mark lingered on a tree far in the distance.
"......"
Kalt silently glared at the distant tree.
A tree uprooted and shattered into pieces.
Approaching it, Kalt examined the mark on its trunk. Identical. A long scar as if struck by an axe.
A bit larger, more vivid.
Kalt stroked his chin.
It defied common sense. He struck the tree in front of him, yet a distant one suddenly toppled? And the trees in between were unscathed, without a scratch.
Yet it was hard to dismiss as coincidence.
"Rak, did you use magic?"
"Pardon? No, I didn't."
Lania was just as dumbfounded.
No magical interference whatsoever, yet this bordered on a magical phenomenon. Lania clicked her tongue and called out to Kalt.
"Kalt."
"...Yes, Senior."
"What is this? Can you do something like this with a sword?"
"If this were possible, Sword Superhumans wouldn't be called Sword Superhumans—they'd be Sword Mages."
Kalt let out a hollow laugh of disbelief.
"You there, Rak."
Kalt handed the sword back to Rak.
"Try it again. I'll watch properly this time."
Rak blinked before gripping the sword again.
Lania, standing beside him, offered advice. Swing with all his might, the best he could manage.
"Alright then..."
Rak lightly thumped his chest.
At that instant, a hissing sound rose as heat emanated from his body. It was the activation of Heating, a physical enhancement spell he could now control perfectly.
"Oh..."
Kalt, watching, let out a short exclamation of admiration.
He knew that spell well. And how difficult it was to handle.
Yet this boy wielded it with ease. Something even seasoned warriors of decades couldn't achieve, done by a boy who hadn't even undergone his coming-of-age rite.
There was no time to marvel at that fact.
With a crunch, Rak gripped the hilt. Veins bulged on his forearms as he seized the hilt with both hands and swung the sword.
Whoosh!
The blade traced a silvery trail.
Kalt watched every moment with bulging eyes, then reached the same conclusion as before.
'His body is perfect. Strength beyond imagination. But it doesn't suit the sword.'
No talent for the sword.
Definite. His stance, breathing, the arc of the blade—all screamed a lack of sword talent in this boy. It couldn't be corrected, nor was there need to.
This boy had already made axes his weapon.
When he swung an axe with that monstrous strength and agility, the destructive power in each blow was impossible to ignore. He simply lacked talent for swords (?).
Just as Kalt reaffirmed this...
Thump, thump.
Rak's heart pounded fiercely.
Blood pooled in his heart surged through his body, something within it compelling his movements. The erratic sword path grew wilder.
Like a beast's claw.
The moment the beast's claw met the trunk, the air warped with a deep dent. Like space tearing. Mass rushed to fill the rift, creating a momentary vacuum.
Krraaaash!
The raging mass savagely clawed the area. The struck tree snapped and crumbled with a deafening roar.
Thud.
The tree toppled.
What remained wasn't a sword slash. It was the mark of a massive beast mauling it.
"......"
Silence fell.
Kalt couldn't comprehend this bizarre phenomenon. He hadn't predicted it. Neither had Lania. But she had seen something like it before.
'This is...'
Lania muttered blankly.
"What Ganikalt did."
Ganikalt van Gallatrik.
The first Sword Saint—his "sword" (?) cleaved space itself. Each swing tore space, mass flooding in to fill it, generating temporary vacuums.
Of course, the scale dwarfed Rak's. The power incomparable. Ganikalt collapsed canyons and shattered final walls in one blow.
'And Ganikalt's wasn't this rough. His felt more contained...'
Ganikalt's sword drew perfect lines.
Rak's was crooked.
Yet essentially the same.
Lania and Kalt turned wide-eyed stares to Rak, demanding an explanation for that strike.
"...Huh?"
And Rak.
"H-Huh, wh-what..."
Was alternating glances between his hand that swung the sword and the blade lying before him. As if his body had moved on its own.
"P-Professor."
Rak pointed at the fallen tree ahead.
"Wh-what is this?"
That was what Lania and Kalt wanted to ask.
2. They ran a few more tests after that.
The same didn't happen immediately, but after dozens of swings, the bizarre occurred once every so often. A distant tree denting, or space in the area caving in—low-probability events.
"I really have no idea."
Kalt dragged a hand down his face.
"His form is a mess. Not sword form at all. It's axe form, and perfect axe form at that."
Yet, yet...
Muttering, Kalt spoke with grievance.
"The result it produces is something even I can't do. Even if Master Kuntel came back from the dead, he'd shake his head and say, 'Eh, this is a bit much.'"
It was enough to drive him mad.
Swing a sword and space splits? Not cleaved, but split. Like an axe chop.
"He held a sword, swung a sword, yet the result is an axe chop. Does that make any sense?"
"It doesn't?"
"That's why mages...!"
Kalt thumped his chest.
"It's like if Senior threw a fireball and the target froze solid!"
"Make some sense. How is that possible?"
"That's exactly what's happening now...!"
Kalt whipped his head toward Rak.
"When did this start? Why pick an axe over a sword? Are you a Superhuman too?"
"Pardon? Oh, no."
Rak blinked.
"As a kid, I tried holding a sword following the warriors, but nothing like this happened then. Even recently when I used one..."
Nothing like this then either.
Forcing a trigger to mind, only one came.
"Since the Holy Grail Trial, my heart sometimes pounds hard. When I swung earlier, it suddenly throbbed hugely and..."
His body moved on its own.
So testified Rak. Indeed, gripping the sword made his heart race louder. As if the blood in his body reacted to something.
"Rak."
Lania, listening quietly, spoke up. Stroking her lips, she said,
"No matter how I look, your family ancestor is kinda weird? Not in a bad way... anyway."
"...Huh? Lady Grace?"
"Yeah. Looks like we need to investigate."
Muttering, Lania turned her gaze.
Swish—to Kalt.
"Kalt."
"Why call me? Sounds like you're about to give me work."
"You know it."
Lania beamed.
"Grace family founder. Gather all records on him."
"...Which era?"
"Hundreds of years ago? Founding era?"
"...Founding era means barely any records left—you know I'd have to scour forbidden texts blindly?"
"I do."
"And still?"
"Still."
Kalt laughed.
Rubbing the shadows under his eyes from nights of all-nighters, he grinned brightly.
"Can I quit then?"
3. Kalt spread the materials he'd gathered.
With the related legends Rak had requested from the Northern Duke laid out, I began checking them one by one.
"Belnoa inherited the line of shamanism."
Shadow Dragon shamanism.
In the past, the shaman Belial wielded it, and Belnoa inherited that lineage. Belial's will, infused into the system of shamanism, was his arrangement for the future.
I'd heard that from Cardi.
So what about Rak?
Ganikalt van Gallatrik appeared in Rak's trial. There had to be some connection between them, but all I knew was that Grace was Ganikalt's direct disciple.
Grace.
I opened Kalt's compiled documents.
Grace, the man who unified the north in the founding era hundreds of years ago and became its lord. Discoverer of Byakuya Castle, founder of the northern holy site.
Grace was a Sword Superhuman, but few tales remain of how he wielded the sword.
True enough.
The legends from the Northern Duke's side also described his swordsmanship as astonishing. Bizarre. Only such stories survived.
Tales of Grace were all like that. An inscrutable man. Somehow strange. An eccentric who enjoyed oddities, often vacating his throne for journeys.
Flipping through records, before I knew it, I reached the part about Grace's final whereabouts. It overlapped with a tale of the first prophet, from centuries ago.
'The first prophet.'
Whether she was truly a prophet or just a liar remains debated... but there was a story linked to her.
The first prophet foretold that the Sword of Death would appear in the northern Kennel Tundra. Grace trusted the prophet's words.
No one else believed it.
But Grace did, and headed to the Kennel Tundra that day. They say it was the first time he drew his sword before his warriors...
"...A massive greatsword riddled with holes."
I had a hunch.
I read on.
With that, Grace vanished.
Kalt's info ended there.
But the northern legends had a bit more epilogue. I read it.
On a deep night with a full moon, deafening roars echoed several times from the Kennel Tundra. No warrior dared approach, but those watching from afar spoke in terror.
There.
Death was there.
Grace fought against Death.
In the end, he lost—yet also won. Grace sent the Death that came to the north back whence it came.
The legend spoke of Death's presence.
And in centuries of history, embodied Death always pointed to one being.
"The Sword of Death, Ganikalt."
The debate over whether the first prophet was real or false stemmed from this. Historians argue that if the Sword of Death truly appeared in the north, it wouldn't stand intact today.
No matter the Sword Superhuman, Grace alone couldn't have repelled the Sword of Death.
Thus, this tale was a distorted legend from northern sanctification of Grace's disappearance or death. Historians proclaimed as much.
"Prophet, Sword of Death, and Grace."
As I murmured those three keywords, bang—someone kicked the door open. Narrowing my eyes, I looked at the intruder.
An unexpected figure.
Someone who shouldn't be here stood there.
"You."
Pale pink hair, green eyes.
The Saintess, Sara.
My shitty old comrade, who should be on the battlefield, approached with clicking heels. Stopping before me, her eyes peered hollow through cascading hair.
"What the hell are you?"
"I need to talk."
"I don't. Get out—"
"Raniel."
I narrowed my eyes.
About to snap how she knew, if she'd figured it out then, I froze rigid at her next move.
She knelt before me.
For the first time, bowing her head to me.
"I'm sorry."
I couldn't keep up.
Blinking, doubting my ears, Sara slammed her forehead to the ground.
"I'll apologize. I'm sorry. I've been wrong about everything until now. Since I was wrong, I'll do anything you say—just grant me one request."
She begged me.
"Don't go north."
On her knees, head bowed in supplication.
"Don't face the Sword of Death."
That was when.
The communication magic tool, the letter linked to the Knight Commander, the shared tool with Kalt—all blared raucously.
"Please, don't go."
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