Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 75
Chapter Title: What Does the Sword Cut? (6)
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Watching the dark clouds dissipate, had there ever been a time when he felt such a chilling sensation?
Ban ran frantically, as if possessed by something. He didn't know what he was thinking. He was running too busily and desperately for even his thoughts to keep up.
'I don't want to part like this.'
He wanted to hear more stories. He wanted to receive teachings. When Ban looked at him with those deep eyes that seemed to know everything, even if that gaze stirred his inferiority complex... still, Ban had felt a strange comfort somewhere.
He couldn't welcome his death.
He couldn't accept that a man who had simply devoted himself to the sword had to meet such a futile end.
And at the end of that path in his heart, Ropo was looking at Ban and smiling.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Ban."
"R-Ropo... sir. Are you alright? Surely, the blessing has ended..."
"Hmm, it seems that way. Seeing how that sunlight no longer torments me."
Ropo gazed at the sunlight falling on the back of his hand with a strange look in his eyes. For hundreds of years, it had only felt like it was burning his skin, so he had thought sunlight was inherently merciless...
"To think it could be this warm."
"...Ropo sir."
"Don't worry too much. The years I've postponed aren't easy. It'll take some time to catch up. Hmm... yes. That sounds good. Ban. Get up. Let's go."
Ropo smiled.
"I want to eat an apple."
§
If there was something Ropo hadn't expected, it was the relentless rain that had poured down until now. Properly ripened apples among them were rare, and most had fallen to the ground and rotted.
Yet there were some that had endured that rain. Ropo picked up a half-reddened apple and looked at it with a peculiar gaze. To fully savor its ripened taste, he would need to give it time under the sun to firm up its flesh... but sadly, he had no time left.
"The time I've spent tending this apple orchard is longer than the time I've held a sword. So then... will I die as a swordsman? Or as a farmer?"
"...Ropo sir is the greatest swordsman among all those I've seen."
"A great swordsman... Well, can a swordsman even be great?"
Ropo muttered as he bit into the apple. His teeth pierced the soft flesh, tearing the skin. Before the fresh, sweet juice that filled every corner of his mouth—something incomparable to blood—Ropo closed his eyes, unable to speak.
Ropo cried.
A man who had lived for hundreds of years, too long to even call him a grandfather, was shedding tears like a child. And only then did Ban think he understood what Ropo had said: 'Cut what no one can cut.'
No matter how strong he became, even if he could cut the sky, the moon, and the sun.
His sword would never make Ropo cry.
It could never be sharper than this apple.
Ban looked down at the rotten apple at his feet. Ropo had asked if he would die as a farmer because he had set aside his sword to tend the orchard. But that wasn't true.
Because he had set aside his sword, he had obtained a sword no one else could imitate.
"...Ban."
"Yes... Ropo sir."
"Could you support me a bit? Standing... it's a little... hard..."
Ropo couldn't finish his sentence and staggered. Ban reflexively rushed forward and supported him. Ropo smiled faintly and said,
"I thought I'd have a little more time."
"...I can't accept this. Why you, Ropo sir. Why. Why..."
"Asking for reasons in this world is a bad habit. You'll only get anger instead of answers. Yes. Instead... think about what to do. Where to walk, what to look at, how to live..."
The years Ropo had held back were now visibly passing over his face. Ban opened his mouth with a hardened expression.
"I'll take you to the castle."
"No, no. I've been in that castle too long. I wanted my final moments to be in this field... under these trees."
"Then, at least the people..."
"It's fine. The farewells were done over a hundred years ago."
Ropo replied. His voice was mixed with ragged breaths. Each word, each breath was growing harder. Ban helped Ropo to sit under the apple tree. Ropo looked weakly at the apple in his hand. Hundreds of years of effort ended with one bite. But he had no regrets. This half-rotten apple was worth pouring hundreds of years into.
"My sword... was one I could never teach anyone. It had to be that way. No one understood what I said, no one saw what I saw. But in my final moments, you, who carry the blood of the Seonwoo Clan... appeared before me. The one who will leave my sword in this world."
"Ropo sir."
"One more time, I ask... you, Ban."
Ropo's gaze could no longer follow Ban.
"What I tried to cut, please... with my sword."
His breathing grew labored. Fierce yet fragile. As if it would stop, yet it didn't. His mouth, opened with effort as if to say something more, ultimately failed to close.
The dark clouds had completely cleared. The pure white sunlight gently caressed the end of a man who had once pursued the pinnacle of the sword and later tended apple trees. Ban looked at the corpse with an expressionless face. He watched as it turned to dust without even leaving bones and scattered away.
"...I'll honor your last words."
Nothing would change.
He had always wanted to cut anything, after all.
§
—I don't resent you.
—Young friend, the world is far more complicated than you think.
—It was something that had to end someday.
The vampires had all vanished without exception. Among them, there were some who had shared memorable conversations with Ban, if not as much as Ropo. But now they were gone. He couldn't know what expressions they wore at the end. Maybe it was better not knowing.
Ban couldn't easily leave the now-empty castle. Every day, he went to the apple orchard. He drew Ropo's Bamboo Sword and assumed a stance as if to cut anything, but in the end, he never swung it once and sheathed it.
It's not your fault, Ban.
Yuri whispered. Ban leaned against an apple tree, catching his breath. Even without swinging the sword once, sweat poured from his body like rain. It made sense. Not moving his body didn't mean he was 'still.' His nerves were constantly trying to follow Ropo's sword, only to realize they couldn't and fall dormant.
"It's not about whether it's my fault or not."
The castle's people said the same. Even without you, we would have faced this moment someday, and we had even hoped for it.
But what truly frustrated Ban was his disappointment in himself. Had he thought he had become something just because he could cut steel, or half a river?
If this was the swordsman he was going to become, it would have been better back in those days peeking at the training grounds.
—No one starts out perfect.
"And I thought I was at least moving toward perfection."
—And now you've realized you're not.
Yuri spoke in a calm voice.
—It's not too late for someone your age. And above all, you're alive. Isn't that enough?
"...Senior."
—It was a short life, but I saw my share of swordsmen. And this is my guarantee: whatever swordsman you want to be, you'll become it in the end.
"Because I'm of the Seonwoo Clan?"
—No.
If Yuri had arms, she would probably be hugging Ban's shoulders right now.
—Because you're someone who walks toward your dream.
"That's the reason?"
—Many people dream. But few try to achieve it. Especially if that dream is something absurd like becoming the world's strongest.
Yuri's laughter came through.
—That's why I can't imagine you ending up as a pathetic swordsman with such an absurd dream.
His face grew hot. Ban searched for a reply, but anything he said would just feel itchy, so he stopped. Instead, he drew the bamboo sword. He faced Ropo's sword, which was still hard to even comprehend.
"I'll keep the promise."
He cuts what cannot be cut.
Chewing over those words that were hard to grasp at first glance, Ban watched the apple orchard Ropo had cultivated. And then, his sword, which hadn't moved even once for days... finally began to move.
'A swordsman who cuts nothing.'
It was ironic. Ban, who wanted to cut everything, felt the strongest pull toward a swordsman who cut nothing. He chased its trajectory.
Standing in the apple orchard, Ban tried to understand Ropo's thoughts. The thoughts of a swordsman who could cut more things than he couldn't, if he just willed it. The thoughts of a man who hit a wall and set aside his sword to raise apple trees.
'I don't get it.'
In the end, Ban wasn't Ropo. All he could do was swing his sword tracing the exact trajectory Ropo had drawn. Of course, his sword was still busy just drawing a single trajectory, let alone dozens.
'What have I been cutting all this time?'
Thinking about it, what he had cut most was empty air. Even while cutting nothing, he could tell how his strikes were improving. He had clearly cut the air, yet that blade tip aimed at the moon, the sky, the sea.
What had Jensen seen while cutting the air?
Days passed. Ban immersed himself in training, forgetting even to return to Erok and reclaim his reward. He couldn't even digest Ropo's sword or Wilrn's sword yet—what would receiving the Guardian's sword change?
'I'm weak.'
But that's why he could become strong.
The sense of defeat gradually faded. The gloom left. And filling that void was an intense thirst. With those two eyes, he
had seen the form of a swordsman who reached the pinnacle. The apple orchard bristling, the form of a swordsman who had conquered the world from the tip of his sword.
And that swordsman had left him a legacy. To cut what he couldn't.
How could he end the day in laziness?
Amid falling leaves, amid rotting apples, Ban didn't let go of the bamboo sword from his hand. As if the moment he stopped, Ropo's will would break... by the end of his day, the faint scent of bamboo lingered on his hands.
When the rain had passed and the sunlight approached, as the apples ripened firmly.
"...Did I reach it?"
Ban's sword split into two branches.