Chapter 85
Chapter 85
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 85
Chapter Title: Voice of the Sword (3)
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What should I say when I meet Ropo?
For now, I'll call him Master.
He had thought that once.
"Master? Why on earth would I be your master?"
"You may not have intended to become my master, but you gave me so much guidance."
"A guy I've never even seen before suddenly shows up... What the hell are you? A wraith? Or am I hallucinating? Have I finally lost my mind?"
"You're not crazy."
Ropo looked confused. Even he, who had always been as steadfast as a rocky mountain, had such an incomplete and unripe phase. That gave Ban a subtle sense of comfort.
Ban felt the world distorting. But he didn't panic. Ban asked once more.
"Master. What is it that cannot be cut? What exactly must I cut?"
Before Ropo could answer, the world shifted again. Ropo gripped his sword with the same hopeless gaze as always. Ban spoke to him, but Ropo couldn't hear.
Then Ban would sit beside Ropo again, listening to his quiet screams forever.
Ban dreamed only of the day he could talk to Ropo again, throwing himself into Ropo's memories time and again. But memories weren't something you could easily retrace. The fact that he had never spoken to him before and now heard his voice twice was already remarkable.
*...How is this even possible?*
Ban asked everyone he knew about his experiences. The best part of coming to the Seonwoo Clan was this. There were people to ask about the "Voice." Compared to the old days when he had to guess roughly on his own, having advisors was a huge change.
Still, no one could explain Ropo's memories. Unless you're a goblin, two-way conversations with voices are impossible. That was their answer. Even "communing" meant becoming one with that voice, not conversing.
But it was a fact that Ropo had heard his voice. Ban pondered deeply. If it wasn't conversing with Ropo's memories, what other possibility was there?
*...It's not a miracle from the "Voice of the Sword."*
That was the only conclusion. It wasn't Ban's power. It was Ropo's. His gaze unbound by future or past, his perception, had momentarily... met the existence of Ban who read Ropo from a distant future.
Ropo had probably finished all conversations with Ban long ago. In his youth, in his old age.
*Maybe... he already knew about me?*
The thought suddenly struck Ban. If so, it made even more sense why Ropo had spared Ban and taken him as a disciple.
Ban lived waiting only for the nights he dreamed. During the day, he visited Yujin and hammered by her side, eating just enough to stave off hunger. Yujin seemed worried about such a Ban. When Ban finally got decent at hammering iron, Yujin slowly spoke.
"Uncle."
"Yeah?"
"Do you like swords, Uncle? Or do you like swinging them?"
It was a question he hadn't considered. Ban asked back.
"Not sure. What about you? Do you like being a blacksmith, or do you like the hammer?"
"If I had to pick... among blacksmith work, hammering is the best part."
"For me... I think swinging the sword is better than the sword itself."
But truthfully, when reading a sword's voice and hearing the stories within, he sometimes felt affection for the sword itself.
"Watching you train sometimes makes me frustrated for you."
*...That bad?*
"It's not like you look happy. Trying to grasp happiness while moving forward might be greed... but isn't all this ultimately for happiness?"
"Probably."
"Are you happy, Uncle?"
That, too, was a question he hadn't considered.
In the end, Ban couldn't answer that one.
That evening, Ban climbed the mountain where he had chopped wood. Jeonghyeok was just returning with his cart loaded full of logs. Ban glanced at them and said.
"You had me chop dozens of trees, but it looks like you barely chopped ten."
"Chopping a lot isn't always the answer."
Jeonghyeok said, reining in his horse.
"What brings you here? You don't need to chop wood anymore, I hear."
"I came to borrow some wisdom."
"I have none."
"Then consider it borrowing some time instead. I brought good makgeolli."
Ban grinned, holding up the gourd bottle of liquor.
"You're really sending me back like this?"
There were no side dishes. But makgeolli was perfect for the moon as anju anyway. They each found a stump about the size of their rears and sat. Dew had already fallen, making the stumps damper than expected.
"I'm no good influence for the Guardian to be around."
"Is there someone who is?"
*...Even young Seonwoo, far junior to me, has more memories than I do. That's the power of voices. They grant experiences that would take hundreds of lifetimes in one. Even the Guardian's memories from swords so far must outstrip his own life's memories.*
"Still, I feel too young."
*...A wrinkled old man facing his last morning would probably think the same. We all die as children. But that doesn't mean the Guardian's experience is shallow.*
"I wouldn't know how to say that."
Ban shrugged.
"You could say I came to hear exactly those words."
Jeonghyeok didn't argue further. The makgeolli was too sweet for idle chatter. Ban slowly looked around his cart and asked.
"You always chop wood?"
"Sometimes I clear snow. Sometimes I build walls or gather herbs. There are places too trivial for Seonwoo hands, and I must always be there."
*...Then why stay here?*
It might have been a sensitive question. Only after asking did Ban realize what answer he wanted from this old man.
He wanted an answer. Ban had learned how to swing a sword but not where to swing it toward, while Jeonghyeok knew where to aim his axe. He knew where to drive his cart, where to lay his weary body.
"Even as a half-baked Seonwoo, I'm proud to be one."
*...Even if the other Seonwoos don't value you properly?*
"The Seonwoos valued me properly."
So I'm this old yet still with them, he implied.
Hearing that, Ban sensed Jeonghyeok took pride in his life more than expected. It was odd. The Seonwoos he'd devoted his life to saw him as mere errand boy, yet he cherished the blood in his veins.
"They trust me. Whatever task, in all things beyond their reach, they believe I'll do it perfectly."
Jeonghyeok quietly gazed at Ban's sword.
"I hear no voices of swords, scythes, axes, books, or anything. But because I hear no special voices, I see the world straight. I feel the firewood I chop will warm the scribes who write. The soil I dig will become pottery, the sand I gather bricks. I won't leave a single line in this world, but every line the Seonwoo Clan leaves will bear my trace."
"......."
Hearing Jeonghyeok's heart, Ban was speechless. It wasn't the Seonwoo Clan ignoring him that belittled him—it was Ban himself who hadn't recognized him more than anyone. Ban quietly bowed his head.
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine."
Jeonghyeok still didn't smile.
"You're a good man, Guardian. So whatever your worries, you'll find the answer in the end."
"Is there a link between being good and finding answers?"
"Anger, sorrow, resentment, hatred. Evil emotions not only drag you into mire but blind your path."
Why did Jeonghyeok seem to wear a faint smile despite that?
"Don't seek answers from others. Sages' wisdom and elders' experience can err, justice can breed evil, but goodwill never fails. Don't lose the light in your heart. Answers always lie at goodwill's end."
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*'Goodwill,' huh.*
He'd learned knightly codes, but they'd never been his principle. He had no intent to live wickedly, but nor did he wish to lean solely on goodwill. He'd lived greedily, feeling life each time his greed was sated.
"Did you plant trees out of goodwill, Master?"
Ban asked. Ropo didn't answer. Too vast a time separated them for Ban's voice to reach. Ban hoped daily his master would see past the years, but such moments were rarer than he'd thought.
Still, those rare encounters helped stack Ban's questions one by one.
"For what must I wield the sword?"
"Do we raise swords to cut people, or just because we like swords?"
"What is a sword?"
Ropo couldn't answer them all. Even when Ban's voice reached, answers varied by Ropo's state. Sometimes irritable, sometimes ignoring Ban's existence. Yet Ban never stopped asking. He knew someday Ropo would shed those thorns and bear fruit.
That memory was on a clear day when apple fruits bloomed like flowers.
*...You again.*
Ropo looked at Ban and smiled.
"I still don't get you. Why call me master? Why keep asking those questions? Are you ghost, angel, demon, or figment of my madness?"
Ban didn't reply. Ropo slowly surveyed his apple orchard.
"I've tended this field a very long time. Never planned to originally, but from the moment you asked if I still wasn't growing apples,
it became my life's mission to do so someday. I chewed on your questions my whole life. Funny thing. Only after setting the sword down did I reach what I sought."
"It must have been a long time."
"Yes. Long indeed. Yet you haven't aged a day... A vampire? No, the sunlight suits you too well. Doesn't matter now. You were my guide. Each question you asked became tasks soothing my years."
Ropo's words rang strangely. Ban saw Ropo as guide, yet Ropo saw Ban as such. Their lives made each other answers and questions. Ropo spoke.
"I swung the sword to stop swinging it."
"Loved it so much I had to hate it,"
"Nothing to cut, so I thrust at everything."
That was Ropo's answer. But it still wasn't Ban's. Then Ban realized: it wasn't something explained in words.
*...One regret: nowhere to leave this sword... But if you see it.*
Ropo drew his bamboo sword. And then— like leaves falling in wind, his blade danced, piercing everywhere. Between leaves and branches, sky and earth, stag beetle legs, passing wind's tail. Countless strikes, yet his blade cut nothing.
At some point, Ban realized he saw it all from Ropo's view. Through Ropo's eyes, where his blade touched. The swordsman's fate: compelled to grip sword yet desiring to cut nothing.
A blade touching all without cutting any.
—*And with my sword, cut what no one in this world could.*
His hand became Ropo's hand. His sword, Ropo's sword. Not just seeing, hearing, from his view. From heart to mind, in that instant, Ban was Ropo.
And Ropo answered himself, Ban answered Ban.
"......."
Awakening, Ban's body wasn't sweat-soaked. His eyes were clear, his mind clearer. Ban set down the bamboo sword in his arms and gazed at the Guardian's dagger.
No one had told him directly, but the young swordsman finally knew he had ripened.