Chapter 135
Chapter 135
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 135
Chapter Title: The Gift of the Sword
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The viscount couldn’t believe it.
A single strike.
In that one strike, the captain’s head flew off.
In the next, the knights’ bodies all burst apart.
Hundreds of soldiers.
Dozens of knights he had painstakingly raised.
All dead in just two moves.
‘How could this be...’
He had thought him a mere pilgrim.
Some worthless lackey.
But he was not.
And what he wielded was a sword.
Sword Pilgrim.
For such a man to operate openly in the Empire meant he was that confident in his skills.
‘How, with that pathetic trace of holy power...’
Had he been hiding his divine power?
A pilgrim capable of that much.
No.
Far more likely a master masquerading as a pilgrim.
‘Gehalt, think. You have to think. Or you die right here.’
Flee right now?
Or try talking.
If he was truly a master, fleeing meant instant death. Dismissed.
Talking would be pointless too.
The man had drawn his sword.
Daring to draw steel within the Empire and reveal his identity.
He wouldn’t even respond to words.
That left only one option.
Grip.
Gehalt’s hand tightened on his spear.
If death came either way, blocking a master’s strike once would be a great honor.
“Come!”
Click.
He resheathed.
Then drew.
‘I’ll give him one arm.’
Sacrifice flesh to shave bone.
Whoosh!!
His spear was one bestowed by the Empire.
It lacked for nothing.
Gehalt’s spear tip glowed red.
Light coiled around his arm, muscles bulging grotesquely.
He pulled the spear to his side and thrust from a single point.
At the same instant, Kallias drew again. Gehalt thought.
In that first draw, he hadn’t seen the sword to its end.
The same would hold now. So the moment to thrust was right here.
“Hraaaah!!”
Muscles swollen like a full-grown man’s torso rippled as he thrust.
Bang!
It cleaved the wind.
A single thrust piercing the air.
With this, he could withstand one strike.
So he was certain.
Schwick.
A chilling sound, and Gehalt blinked once.
Somehow, his gaze was fixed on the ground.
The spear he had thrust was neatly bisected, its mouth gaping wide.
“Ah?”
Sliiiide. Thud.
“How...”
Gehalt’s body fell apart as it collapsed.
A small spear fragment clutched in his left hand, but it meant nothing.
Crunch.
With Gehalt crumbling to dust, the Empire’s forces were annihilated.
“Haa...”
Kallias exhaled a long breath, and his sword slid back into its sheath.
Click.
Rustle rustle rustle.
Kaboomaaaah!
The spear pavilion burst into flames and collapsed.
Standing before the crumbling, burning pavilion, Kallias gazed at Chris.
A long silence stretched between them.
Just as Chris opened his mouth to speak.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh thunk.
The sword Kallias tossed spun through the air and planted itself at Chris’s feet.
A superbly balanced masterwork blade.
One of the unremarkable swords Kallias carried.
Unthinkingly, Chris gripped the hilt, captivated by the blade’s allure.
‘Heavy.’
Though his body strained under the weight, his heart pounded fiercely—he wanted to swing it right away.
He had just witnessed swordsmanship like a dream.
Anyone would feel the same.
For Chris, spears and maces had long faded from his heart.
“Ah, mister! Your name? What’s your name!!”
He shouted at the man’s vanishing back. The man turned his head slightly and replied.
“Find out.”
Then he vanished into the darkness.
The pure white pilgrim clutching his sword.
Chris stared at his retreating figure for a long time, swallowing tears.
“Sword Pilgrim.”
Muttering it like a mantra, Chris clutched the oversized sword unfit for his childish frame. He gazed at the burning pavilion and the path where the man had disappeared, then looked up at the sky.
The stars twinkled especially bright.
* * *
Bump.
“Hey! Go slower!”
“B-bandits are chasing us—how am I supposed to go slow?!”
“Ah, don’t worry about it.”
Thunk, thunk thunk! Ting.
Arrows stabbed into the carriage.
Philomatur flicked them away irritably, his face twisting in annoyance.
“Serena! Aren’t you gonna catch those guys?”
“Kallis said to wait.”
“But how long...”
An open-top carriage without a roof.
At the rear, Kallias sat with eyes closed, gripping his scabbard.
He maintained perfect balance amid the jolting ride.
“Probably practicing some swordsmanship. He’s been at it lately.”
“That hundred-something thing?”
“Hundred Cuts Blossom. Don’t pollute his noble sword art with that filthy mouth of yours.”
“What the...”
That was when it happened.
Kallias’s eyes snapped open.
He drew and swung in one fluid motion.
Slash.
A crescent of sword qi flew out, cleaving the bandits in two.
“Ooh.”
“Whoa, cool!”
“Impressive.”
Their earlier complaints vanished into thin air.
Now they praised Kallias like it was nothing. But Kallias himself looked dissatisfied.
“What’s wrong?”
“Hard to use from atop a carriage.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“It’s not.”
True swordsmanship.
Meant wielding it perfectly anytime, anywhere.
That was why Kallias trained to use it from any stance, in any situation.
Hundred Cuts Blossom was an iai technique requiring prolonged focus.
Of course, that was only because his mastery was still low.
It wasn’t meant to be that way originally.
Kallias had been practicing Hundred Cuts Blossom whenever he could since leaving the kingdom. He had reached a certain level, but it was still imperfect.
“But the kid—he okay? His mom asked, right?”
It was Aldu.
He asked while tending to his hammer.
Kallias handed his Predatory Sword to Aldu as he replied.
“I did enough.”
There were many with tragic tales.
Dragging them all along would keep him from his goals.
He was a hunted man to begin with.
A child who couldn’t fend for himself would only be baggage.
So Kallias had given him one sword.
A commonplace one to him, but not to Chris.
If Chris embraced that sword and resolved to walk a harsh path.
Then that one blade was hardly a loss.
If it became the boy’s dream.
Then the sword had served its purpose.
“Did you really need to go that far? You even left money for Veronica.”
“I already got something else in return.”
When Philip’s sword dissolved into light.
Kallias had received ample reward.
[Faith +2]
Thanks to that, Kallias’s Faith now stood at.
「Kallias von Jervan」
「Title」 - Hero of the Nation’s Salvation
「Occupation」 – Pilgrim
「Divine Power」 – Grade 3
「Holy Power」 – 15703/16934
「Talents」 – 【Bard’s Blessing】 【Instinctive Intuition】
「Traits」