Chapter 135
Chapter 135
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 135
Chapter Title: 14. To the World of Agriculture! (4)
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#3 Their Circumstances: The Circumstances of an Old Man.
“Eit!”
“Uwaaaah!”
The silver-haired girl slashed through the air with her hand, and the pink-haired girl twisted her entire body to dodge the attack.
“Excellent!”
Even I was impressed by the flawless evasion, but the pink-haired girl didn’t seem satisfied.
“Sis, Sis! Dad’s asleep now… Can’t we stop?”
“No, we can’t! Bad kids need to be punished!”
“Sis, I hate you!”
“Hahaha!”
I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched the kids running around full throttle.
If I hadn’t been obsessed with the sword and had gotten married and had kids, I might have adorable grandkids like that.
But no matter how much I regretted it, it was already too late.
The past couldn’t be changed.
I had already dedicated my life to the sword.
Not just my life—I’d cut ties with my family and lived solely for the blade.
Believing that one’s own skill was everything when it came to the sword.
A year passed, then ten, then thirty.
Before I knew it, I was known more as the Sword Saint than by my name, and I gained conviction that my belief was correct.
Right up until the title was nearly taken from me.
I never could have imagined it back then.
That a mere swordsman in her mid-twenties—a woman, no less—would steal the title of Sword Saint from me!
I still vividly remembered the battle with the current Sword Saint.
It was a grueling fight that lasted a full week.
She was strong.
Strong as a swordsman, and her innate mana was powerful too.
But I was stronger than her.
I had wielded the sword for longer than she had been alive, and that time had become experience, lending power to my blade.
But there was one thing she had that was far stronger than mine.
And that single difference led to my defeat.
The difference of the sword itself!
No legendary blade is useful if the wielder is incompetent.
That was my belief.
So I thought that for a swordsman, as long as you had the skill, any sword would do.
Then what was a sword?
Looking back at human history, the sword was a weapon for humans to protect themselves.
From beasts stronger than them, from monsters, from the demon tribe.
Humans were weak, so they picked up swords to defend themselves.
At first, they used sticks.
Then they attached stones to sticks and sharpened them.
Later, they melted bronze to make sharper blades, then steel to make them tougher.
Once they discovered magic, they imbued swords with it, and to gain even more, they used rare metals like mithril.
Yes. Tracing it back, humans fought to protect themselves with nothing but a wooden stick.
With that in mind, I treated a long stick I picked up along the road as my sword.
Anything more was a luxury.
If I had the skill, I could hold the title of Sword Saint with a mere stick!
That belief had some basis in reality.
Every challenger before the current Sword Saint had fallen to my blade.
But in the battle with the strongest challenger of them all—the current Sword Saint—my sword ultimately snapped.
No matter how much mana I poured in to reinforce it, a wooden stick was still just a wooden stick.
No matter how superior my skill, the moment my sword broke, the tide turned.
I could still hear her words echoing in my memory as she watched my sword shatter.
She definitely said:
[A mithril sword is the best after all!]
And with that, I lost. The title of Sword Saint was taken from me.
If I’d collapsed from depleted mana, or been overwhelmed by skill!
No, even if I’d lost to her youthful body, I wouldn’t have let go of the sword I’d clung to my whole life.
But in our duel, it was the pure difference in weapons that decided victory and defeat.
Even though my skill was superior, even though I understood the sword more deeply!
Just one weapon cost me the Sword Saint title I’d built over a lifetime!
After that, I wandered aimlessly without even contacting my family, trying to quell the unrest in my heart, but even now, I couldn’t pick up a sword again.
Nearly twenty years had passed since then.
All that remained of the once-mighty Sword Saint was an old man named Steon brewing ale in a quiet village.
But every time I drank like this, regrets and old memories resurfaced.
No, not memories—obsessions, perhaps.
For a swordsman, was skill paramount?
Or was the weapon?
Was there anyone who could give me that answer?
Would the Sword Immortal, whose sword skill touched the heavens, know?
Or the master of the continent’s strongest sword clan, the Keshar family—the Sword Sovereign?
“It’s empty.”
I tried to pour beer into my empty glass, but the keg was already dry.
“Tch.”
The chicken and potato dishes made by my neighbor Melren had all vanished too.
I was pretty full, but still a bit short.
“Grandpa.”
“Hm?”
I was gazing longingly at the table with Melren passed out drunk and the empty plates when Ellis approached from the side, tilting her head at me.
“You finally escaped.”
“We made a deal to play tomorrow! Oh! Shh, it’s a secret from Dad!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Before I knew it, my hand was petting Ellis’s head.
She was such a cute kid—she’d break plenty of hearts when she grew up—and Melren had raised her well; her personality was excellent too.
“Right, Ellis. What’s up with this old man?”
“Oh! Right. Grandpa, do you have worries?”
“Worries?”
“Yeah! You were sighing into your drink like someone with big troubles!”
“Heh heh, you caught me.”
Looking up at Ellis’s worried eyes, I felt a twinge of embarrassment.
To think a child like her had noticed my sighing.
I really had become just a village geezer.
“Yeah, I’ve got worries.”
“Then ask Dad! He knows everything!”
“Does he?”
“Yeah! Dad’s amazing!”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at Ellis nodding and pointing at Melren.
A daughter who trusted her dad completely, and a dad who earned that trust.
What an enviable sight.
“So, if I asked Melren, I might get an answer to my worries?”
“Yeah! Dad takes on any worry. I always ask him when I have them, and they all get solved.”
“Is that so? Guess I should consult him sometime.”
That must have been the trigger.
That one casual remark from Ellis.
That single little sentence.
-The weapon really is the best!
Led me to the realization that the weapon was supreme.
***
“Huh?”
Was I still drunk? Or were my ears playing tricks?
“I was the previous Sword Saint.”
For a second I thought I’d misheard, but the old man repeated the exact same words.
“The Sword… Saint?”
I’d heard plenty from village elders about their wild adventurer days in their youth.
But the Sword Saint?
Normally, I’d chalk it up to senility from old age.
‘Is it real?’
Those perfectly sculpted muscles bulging from his clothes made the absurd claim believable.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”
I bit my tongue to avoid blurting out that his body left no choice but to believe.
“Are you drunk?”
“Yup, totally wasted!”
The way he raised his hand, reeking of booze, made me flinch.
Was this drunken sincerity, or just ramblings from a drunk fool?
Tough call!
“See, I was the Sword Saint. But I got beaten by that young whippersnapper, the current one, all because of a single sword.”
The current Sword Saint wasn’t some old maid, but if this old man really was the previous one, then yeah, she’d have been young.
I’d heard she became Sword Saint in her twenties.
“I always believed that for a swordsman, you just use a weapon that matches your skill. But in the end, the difference in weapons cost me the title.”
“I see.”
“Yup. Her mithril sword smashed my beloved Little Wood to bits.”
Little Wood? Small wood?
“Were you using a wooden sword by any chance?”
“Nah, just a stick I picked up.”
I’d heard the previous Sword Saint fought with a stick like a madman… Was it true?
The neighbor was really the previous Sword Saint?
What kind of novel protagonist nonsense was this coincidence?
The princess?
Was this the princess’s scheme after all!
Was our peaceful life just a hidden camera, and now the princess would pop out yelling it was all a prank!
“With my weapon smashed, I had to fight barehanded. If the opponent was weak, maybe, but I was a Sword Saint who’d defended the title for years. Naturally, as time passed, I started losing ground, and eventually fell.”
“I see.”
Assuming this old man was truly the Sword Saint, enduring that monster’s attacks barehanded was impressive in itself.
“I’ve seen you swinging a sword every dawn. Your form’s pretty good.”
“You flatter me.”
“No, no. Even if I’ve forsaken the sword… I can still recognize effort.”
It was the warm gaze of a senior watching a junior.
Was he… really the Sword Saint? For real?
My skeptical heart started tilting toward belief that he was the previous Sword Saint.
And with it came overwhelming dread.
In this vast continent with hundreds of millions of people, what were the odds my neighbor was the previous Sword Saint?
And what did that mean for my fate!
“Ellis said you’d answer anything if I consulted you.”
“H-ha… Well, to a daughter that age, Dad’s the greatest thing ever.”
That’s why he was raising her strictly now.
Before puberty hit and she started rebelling with “I hate Dad most!”
God, I hoped she wouldn’t turn into some delinquent with a pipe.
“A bit awkward to say, but… as one swordsman to another, I want to ask. Between the weapon and sword skill, which is more important?”
Weapon and sword skill?
Common sense said skill, obviously. Give a noob any legendary sword, and they’d still lose.
But.
“The weapon, obviously.”
“R-really?”
“Yes.”
The old man looked a bit flustered at my firm answer.
“As a swordsman… isn’t relying on the weapon shameful?”
“No, the weapon is part of your skill. Just like training swordsmanship takes effort, acquiring a good weapon does too.”
“Still…”
Hey, old man.
He’d explained it himself but didn’t get it.
“Didn’t you say it? Why you called a stick your sword. Humans progressed from sticks to stone, bronze, iron blades.”
“That’s true, but.”
He frowned, still not understanding.
“Why go against that? Humans didn’t advance to the iron age because they were idiots with sticks. They did it because metal was more convenient and stronger.”
“That’s true, but…”
“That’s human effort too. Sure, dwarves pioneered it way earlier… Even if we haven’t caught up, humans’ efforts built the continent’s strongest power.”
“What’s that got to do with a swordsman’s weapon?”
“Same with weapons. Using something better and stronger is obviously superior, right?”
“But as a swordsman…”
This old man was frustrating.
“Want to spar with me now?”
“With you?”
“I’ll solve your dilemma simply.”
I headed to Ellis’s room, leaving the nodding old man behind.
“Daddy!”
I petted the head of Ellis, who ran over beaming, then reached out to the smirking iron pipe.
“I’ve got something to do with Sis, so wait here.”
“Quick?”
“Uh… Probably?”
“Okay! Hurry back, Sis!”
“Yeah, I’ll be fast!”
The iron pipe smiled warmly at waving Ellis.
Slam.
“Heh… heh heh…”
The door shut, and she flashed a wicked grin.
“My first party time in forever!”
“You know what we’re doing, right?”
“Of course!”
The iron pipe’s hand in my right melted gooey.
Soon revealing a stylish silver sword.
-This form should do.
-Looks like a good sword.
As His Retired Majesty Xreid, founder of his kingdom, once said:
-Item power is truth.
-Was there such a kingdom?
-In a novel.
Following Retired His Xreid Majesty’s wisdom, I’d make the previous Sword Saint realize item power was truth.
-Attack an old man?
-It’s elder respect. Solving the worry he’s harbored for years!
And please, let him gain that realization, leave this village.
No former hero ever ended well—what chaos would a former Sword Saint bring!
-The owner seems more likely to cause incidents…
-N-no!
I planned to live peacefully here till the end!
And the first step:
Giving enlightenment to the previous Sword Saint geezer.