Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: What Does the Sword Cut? (5)
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"......What is it that no one has ever cut?"
"Nothing comes to mind?"
"No, too many things come to mind."
Ban looked up at the sky.
"No one has cut the sky."
"No one has cut the sea either."
"No one has cut the world."
"And no one has cut me right now."
No one had cut the coins in his pocket either. Ban quietly gazed at Ropo. He could understand why the old man would leave him with such words.... But even so, he still couldn't grasp exactly what Ropo wanted.
"What do you want me to cut?"
"You can cut the sky, the sea, the world, and even yourself...... If someone stronger appears, you'll be cut too. So then, no matter how strong you become, what is it that cannot be cut by strength alone?"
Ropo's question wasn't directed at Ban. He looked down at his wrinkled palm and murmured quietly.
"Whatever it is, I want you to cut it for me."
"......For your revenge, old timer?"
"No."
Ropo answered.
"For my dream."
§
The rain didn't stop for days. For a sudden downpour, it was unusually long. And the life with the vampires, which he thought would end soon, showed no sign of conclusion.
"You must have a lot to say."
Whenever he looked toward Ustain's Forest, Ropo would murmur in a voice tinged with quiet satisfaction. Even knowing that the end of those stories meant their own end, Ropo and the vampires showed no anxiety or fear. Some of them, with ribs visible from wounds inflicted by Ban, even greeted him with smiles.
Perhaps that's why. At some point, Ban alone feared the end of this precarious peace at the cliff's edge. Ban looked at Ropo. He was pruning branches in the apple orchard. Ban stared at him in disbelief.
"Do you really feel like pruning branches right now?"
"I've thought about it for a very long time. If I could taste the apples on this tree...... I even thought I could give everything for that moment of joy."
Ban looked up at the apple tree. The clusters of fruit hanging from it seemed unripe at first glance. Ropo murmured.
"If the curse is lifted, in that moment when time rushes back at us...... Even if just for a brief while, we might be able to eat something."
"You're planning to eat those apples then?"
"I've watered them every day for that. Watering them let me escape all my worries. The time spent anticipating the taste of the apples...... But perhaps...... whether I eat them or not isn't so important. Can you understand?"
"I wanted to cut the sky."
Ban added.
"But that doesn't mean I didn't feel alive in every moment I held the sword, just because I couldn't cut it."
Ban drew his sword. It was Ropo's Bamboo Sword.
[You have gripped the Bamboo Sword of the 'Swordsman Who Cuts Nothing.' ]
Material: Steel
Quality: Relic
Owner: Ropo (7-Star)
Memory Preservation Rate: Medium
Note: Originally an ordinary sword, it transformed into a relic through the long training of its former owner. It does not rust or get dirty. When chasing the former owner's memories, you might glimpse the flow of time and space.
"Ropo. If you'd wanted to, you could have killed me back then."
"Probably."
"It would have been impossible for me to hold you back for so long."
"......Are you mocking me or resenting me?"
"No. I want to witness it. Your true power, Ropo."
Among those he had crossed swords with, the highest was Lucas. He hadn't held Lucas's sword himself, so he couldn't say for sure...... but Lucas was probably 6-Star. And Ban hadn't even drawn out that full 6-Star level from him.
If he included sword memories, Wilrn, the owner of his short tachi, also possessed 7-Star skill, but he couldn't fully peer into that either. Ban gripped Ropo's Bamboo Sword and looked at him. His gaze held undisguised respect and affection.
"Will you teach me?"
"......Your greed is excessive. As a man of the Seonwoo Clan, just having my sword means you'll eventually possess everything I have."
Though he said that, Ropo's expression wasn't displeased at all. He grinned and picked up a branch from the apple tree. Instead of swinging a sword, he quietly began a story.
"I once had a time like yours. I wanted to be the greatest swordsman in the world. I hoped there would be nothing in the world I couldn't cut...... And then, one day, I realized. No matter how fast I became, no matter how sharp my trajectory, no matter what I cut, my thirst would never be quenched."
"......What thirst?"
"The same thirst you have."
Ropo glanced briefly at the apple tree and asked.
"Why did I pick up the sword?"
Ban's fingers twitched. And in that moment, Ropo's sword moved. It was a movement incomparable to when he had faced Ban before. Jaw. Cheek. Temple. Throat. Shin. Thigh. Armpit. Second and seventh ribs. Lower back and shoulder blade. Cuts and thrusts from impossible angles struck and passed over Ban's body.
"Ugh.......!"
Ban recoiled in shock. He thought he had grown since their life-or-death clash, but when Ropo revealed his true power, that sword was beyond anything he could even fathom.
'If that had been a branch instead of a sword......'
He would have been shredded beyond recognition as human by now. Cold sweat dripped. His heart pounded wildly, but for some reason, his blood felt colder than usual.
Ropo continued swinging the branch. Leaves that occasionally fell shattered into powder upon touching his blade and drifted to the ground.
Incredibly fast? No, it wasn't a matter of dimension like speed. His blade wasn't strong because of speed.
As the Voice of the Sword had told him, his sword moved unbound by 'time and space' for an instant.
"......A swordsman who can create his own law will one day...... even ignore the laws of the world."
Ban recited a lesson he had learned at Citadel Academy long ago. A realm even professors couldn't reach. The power of 5-Star is to infuse one's own 'law' into the world. Those who cut steel with branches after long training are exactly that. Their cuts, empowered by law, follow a different trajectory from ordinary ones.
And according to the swords Ban had read so far, 6-Star involved embedding one's own 'concept' that rejects the world's common sense within that law. A sword that inevitably rots flesh upon contact. A punch that electrocutes without touching. In a way, 'White Flame' that burns whatever one desires could be seen as fundamentally 6-Star power.
Then what about 7-Star?
"I want to see your domain manifestation, Ropo."
5-Star: Inserting one's law into the world's laws.
6-Star: Forcing one's concept that ignores even the world's laws.
Then what is 7-Star?
Ropo laughed.
"You've been in my domain for a long time already."
Ban slowly lowered the bamboo sword. Every drooping tree around him pointed its branches at him like sharp blades. He could instinctively feel it. The moment he willed it, these apple trees would become hundreds, thousands of blades slicing him apart in an instant.
One who reaches 7-Star, who reaches 'domain manifestation'...... can turn part of the world into their own domain.
"......This apple orchard is your domain, Ropo."
"Funny thing. When I obsessed only over the sword...... I didn't know how to have my own world, or even what it was. Even after becoming a wretch living on the lady's gifted life because I feared dying without becoming a stronger swordsman, I still couldn't have it...... But once I set the sword aside and started watering the trees, it was given to me."
Ropo said.
"Ban. Only after setting down the sword did I hear a voice. I want you to find it."
"......Is that just simple kindness too?"
"I've already asked one favor. To cut what no one in the world could cut."
"I don't even understand what that is."
"Not understanding doesn't mean you don't know."
Seeing Ban's confused expression, Ropo laughed.
"You already know the answer."
"......I hate koans."
"That's a shame."
Ropo shrugged.
"I like them."
§
The longer he spent with the vampires, the heavier Ban's heart grew. They weren't the wicked ones sucking innocent blood and cackling evilly as he had imagined. They quenched their thirst with animal blood, but what difference was that from humans eating meat?
They were generally indifferent to Ban, but when they met face-to-face, they offered quiet smiles. Facing those gentle smiles without resentment or reproach made Ban feel awkwardly as if cursed with words he couldn't express, and he would slip away.
'......I've gotten stronger.'
Ban swung the bamboo sword in the apple orchard. Ropo's thoughts and memories slowly flowed into him. Ropo's perspective, peering beyond time and space, sometimes gave Ban the illusion that he could turn a single cut into dozens, but it always ended as an illusion.
But slow progress wasn't what tormented Ban. What truly tormented him...... was none other than his own powerlessness.
'What was this training for?'
He wanted to cut the sky.
......Was that the only reason he wanted to become a swordsman?
No. That's not it. When he dreamed of Sword God Ban, his heart had been filled with inexpressible joy and awe. The figure in his dream wasn't just someone who cut the sky. It was someone incomparably...... truly cool and magnificent, someone he couldn't help but admire.
But had he become that swordsman now?
He recalled his graduation from Citadel Academy. He was top of his class, but at the same time, nothing. Jeo moved to protect Ustain's Forest, Anya to light the lighthouse, Yeoryeong to guard the Cho Clan estate...... Each had their own dreams and goals.
At that time, Ban had no such goal. Becoming the world's strongest wasn't a goal.
'I didn't want to be tied to any one place.'
Looking back now, how pathetic those proud words were. What difference was there between the back of a swordsman who didn't know where to point his blade and the back of Sword God Ban?
Ban's sword slashed more fiercely through the air. He cut every visible raindrop, but in the end, some wetted his nose bridge, eyebrows, shoulders, and back. As his clothes grew heavy with wetness, his heart sank with them.
'Where should I go?'
Ban's sword stopped. Where to go? The moment he thought that...... many places came to mind. But that's why he couldn't go anywhere. Since any path could be his, none seemed like a place he could step toward.
Ban let his shoulders slump. Yeah. Let's find Ropo. Rely on his wisdom. He might torment him with another incomprehensible koan, but sometimes answers lie within koans, right?
Look. Even the storm clouds are parting now. Like all rain eventually stops, his worries would too......
"Huh?"
The rain was stopping. The storm clouds were clearing. The sun, which he couldn't even remember the last time he saw, followed behind......
Ban's face went pale.
"Ropo."