Chapter 84
Chapter 84
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 84
Chapter Title: Voice of the Sword (2)
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"......!"
When he woke from sleep, Ban's body was drenched in sweat. He let out a cold breath and looked down at the dagger gripped in his hand.
"…I'll ripen you."
The 'wave' that had crashed over him afterward was truly something beyond what the current Ban could even imagine. A wave of memories. Or perhaps a wave of souls. The lives of thousands of swordsmen who had wielded thousands of swords. When those lives poured into him all at once like a hammer blow, Ban felt both ecstasy and terror simultaneously. Clearly, countless memories were being offered to him—ones he could reach out and grasp to advance to the next level.
And yet, Ban couldn't even properly glimpse their cross-sections.
'What was that…?'
If he didn't know the answer, what could he do? He had no choice but to train.
But he couldn't keep doing the same training forever. There was an inevitable limit to training that amounted to saying he wouldn't swing a sword while holding one. In the end, Ban truly had to put down the sword—physically.
"……You want me to teach you metallurgy?"
"Yeah. Even if it's not related to swords, that's fine. If you can read memories from a hammer like I do, then your skill in that area is beyond doubt. You seem like you'd make a pretty good apprentice."
"It won't be easy, though. They say blacksmiths have harder days than swordsmen. If you quit midway because it's too tough…"
"Don't worry. Once I start learning something, I have to see it through to the end or it doesn't sit right with me."
"Well, if you're that determined…"
Yujin smiled faintly and handed Ban an axe. Looking at his dazed expression as he stared at her, she spoke as if asking what he was gawking at.
"We'll start by gathering firewood, shall we?"
§
Of all places, there was a pretty decent mountain near the Seonwoo Clan's temporary residence.
"……How did a Guardian like you end up coming to a place like this?"
"No need to speak so formally. You look quite a bit younger than me."
"A Guardian deserves the Seonwoo Clan's respect regardless of age. Especially someone like me, a half-baked Seonwoo who can't even hear the 'voice'…"
"My master was a Seonwoo who couldn't hear that voice."
Ban added one more thing.
"And originally, normal people don't hear that voice."
Seonwoo Jeonghyeok. The man who couldn't hear the voice simply stared at Ban in silence. Ban watched his mouth, expecting him to smile, but his expression remained stiff.
"I don't know why you've come all the way here, but at least do the job you've taken on properly. You need to fell fifty trees today."
"Each one?"
"I'll be watching."
Jeonghyeok said in a stiff voice.
"I was told to keep an eye on you."
He didn't know who had given that instruction, but it didn't matter. Felling fifty trees—what could be so hard about that? After all, this was a man who could even bisect Gong. Even if not all of them, at least half like Ban.
Ban gripped the axe. No voice came. Even with a blade attached, he could only hear voices from 'swords.' And among those, only swords as weapons.
'……Using qi won't be easy.'
Of course, even so, chopping trees wasn't all that difficult.
Since it wasn't a sword, he couldn't layer his qi onto it, so Ban had to use his body's strength with even greater precision. The axe's center of gravity felt completely different from a sword, so the blade's trajectory differed slightly from what he was used to drawing… but even so, he struck the tree trunks with a cleanliness that no beginner could match.
The ground was covered in fallen leaves. Every step he took, his feet slipped slightly on the rotten leaves coating the sloped mountain path. Just when he thought he'd grown accustomed to one stance, felling the next tree forced him to adapt to a completely different posture and balance.
As he swung the axe, Ban realized anew how accustomed he had become to his own strength. He felt puzzled that a single axe blow didn't shatter the tree. Normally, trees shouldn't shake easily even after several strikes. That was the world most people lived in. But Ban lived in a completely different world.
He was running toward the pinnacle in that world.
What kind of world lay at that highest peak? A place in an entirely different realm, where he couldn't meet anyone's eyes, looking down on other worlds from there—what sort of life would that be…?
Whoosh! Thud. The sound of the axe echoed hollowly. Whether this was the first tree or the tenth, how many swings this one took, how many more it would need— all of it blurred beyond his consciousness, overshadowed by the throbbing in his muscles and stray thoughts.
—You're not ripe yet.
The shadow said the same thing. And it bestowed the same baptism of memories. Beyond the waterfall of cascading recollections, Ban desperately reached out to grasp even one, but all he could feel in the end was how narrow and limited the time he could endure truly was.
"You're getting clumsier as time goes on."
It was just another day of axe work. Ban lifted his sweat-matted hair and turned to Jeonghyeok. Jeonghyeok leaned against a tree, gazing at him with an indifferent expression.
"The first time I saw you, Guardian, your axe work lacked experience… but you were clearly focused on it. But now, it doesn't seem that way."
"……What are you talking about?"
"A tree like this… it's lived at least twenty years."
Jeonghyeok placed a hand on the fir tree beside him.
"What were you thinking when you felled it?"
"All sorts of things… I don't have a better answer than that."
"Were any of those thoughts about the tree itself?"
Ban didn't respond. He didn't remember clearly, but if he'd thought about the tree at all… it was only things like, 'When will this one fall?' or 'This'll take ten swings.' Jeonghyeok spoke.
"I assume you came here to see and feel a world without holding a sword."
His gaze fixed on Ban's hand.
"That hand may be holding an axe, but you're still a swordsman, Guardian."
Ban had no reply.
That night, Ban went to sleep clutching not the previous Guardian's dagger, but Ropo's Bamboo Sword. He didn't even hope to meet and converse with her in dreams like with Yuri. At least, like with the previous Guardian's memories—as a shadow, even a half one-sided conversation would be nice.
All Ban could do was peek into Ropo's life. He sat down beside Ropo as he tilled the soil to plant saplings.
"Ever since I met you, Ropo, I've felt like I've been lost the whole time."
Ropo didn't answer. He furrowed his brow, glanced up at the sun, ignored his sizzling skin, and resumed digging. As the pickaxe created a pit bit by bit with each swing, Ban continued quietly.
"I'm not saying you made me lost, Ropo. I only realized after meeting you that I'd been walking a path I didn't even know from the start. So I thought… if I follow your path, maybe I'll figure out what I want to become, what I need to become."
In the end, Ban couldn't even imitate properly. Training without a sword. He hadn't succeeded even once. His body might not have held a sword, but his mind and spirit always had.
"Just stay a little longer. Why do you have to…"
He knew it wasn't Ropo's fault, but Ban muttered bitterly anyway. Every sword in the world could be his master. So he thought he didn't need a practical teacher. But he learned otherwise—too late, in a somewhat regrettable way.
Ban watched Ropo for a long while. Ropo's memories shook unbound by time's axis. At times, before starting his apple orchard, he became the Sword Ghost Ropo and cut down his enemies; at others, he smiled contentedly at ripe apples. And sometimes, he shattered the trees he'd carefully grown and wept bitterly. His sorrow and anger flowed straight into Ban's heart, and Ban cried, laughed, and raged alongside him.
And then, at some point.
'……What?'
Ban stared quietly at Ropo. A strange feeling came over him. What was it? It was as if Ropo was meeting his eyes…
"Who are you?"
"……R-Ropo?"
"You know my name. How in the world…?"
The moment Ban shot to his feet and tried to approach Ropo. The apple orchard warped. A sign it was shifting to another memory. Ban asked urgently.
"Ropo! Tell me—what must I cut down!"
No answer came. Before he knew it, Ban was beside Ropo, who stared blankly at caterpillars clinging to an apple tree. With an entranced expression, Ban gazed at Ropo and endlessly mulled over the memory from moments ago.
'……Did he see me?'
Was it an illusion? Ban had no way to confirm. Actually, there was one way. To keep dreaming of Ropo's life until he'd scoured every unexamined corner.
"The memory preservation is only 'medium,' and you had a conversation? Hmm… Well, I've never experienced that, but I'll ask the other adults."
"The other adults said they've never had that either. They said only 'Goblin'-level memories allow for conversation…"
"You really talked to him?"
Ban averted his gaze from Yujin's puzzled look.
"No. It must've been my imagination."
"……If you're doing this because you want to quit the axe work…"
"It's not that. Right. How many trees today?"
"You can stop now."
"......Huh?"
"I said the axe work is done. I just wanted to check your basic mindset. From today, I'll show you how a blacksmith handles iron. Watch and learn carefully."
"Ah, okay…"
He felt a twinge of regret at not seeing Jeonghyeok anymore. He wasn't great company, but his occasional words often left a big ripple in Ban's mind.
Ban watched Yujin select iron, melt it, hammer it, quench it, and melt it again. How many times did she fold and refold a single ingot? Yuri smiled faintly and said.
"Iron gets stronger the more you fold it. Just like our lives. Every time we face hardship and rise above it, we become someone entirely different, right?"
It was a common saying, but a good one. Ban watched how long it took Yujin to forge a single sickle that day. Even a lowly farm tool dismissed as cheaply bought at market required love, care, and a vast amount of time to be born… He hadn't thought of that before.
'What does a sword give birth to?'
Death? Pain? Maybe. The sword he'd imagined was something more profound, more magnificent—something worth staking his life on.
Night fell, and Ban went to meet Ropo again. Ropo, too, was experiencing night in his memory at that moment. Watching Ropo gaze at the empty wasteland, Ban felt a momentary puzzlement.
"……You haven't started the apple farming yet?"
"! Who goes there!?"
"..Huh?"
It was then. Ropo leaped from his spot in alarm and glared at Ban with terrifying eyes. Ban looked at him in bewilderment. Ropo laughed as if he'd lost his mind. The Sword Ghost Ropo was utterly different from the Ropo he remembered. His eyes, filled with venom like a wounded beast, fixed on Ban.
"Kehe… hahaha, still not satisfied, huh? Giving you a cursed life wasn't enough to quench your thirst? So you've come here to kill us too? Fine. You filthy kingdom dogs. Come at me!"
Ropo's bamboo sword shook. Ban reflexively reached for his waist, then realized he held the bamboo sword in his hand. As a strange flicker crossed Ropo's eyes, Ban's gaze grew calm instead.
If Ropo's bamboo sword shook, Ban's scattered. By the time shock filled Ropo's eyes, it was already too late. Hundreds, thousands of sword lights were already converging on Ropo.
"Wha— guh…!"
"……I wondered what you'd say if we met again, how I should greet you. I've been thinking about it nonstop. I never imagined it'd be like this."
Ropo paled and patted his body. He should have been cut—must have been cut—yet he was unscathed. He looked at Ban with eyes demanding an explanation. But Ban was just as clueless. He smiled quietly. There was one thing he'd always wanted to say.
"It's an honor to meet you like this. Master."