Chapter 10: Seong Si-woo (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 10: Seong Si-woo (3)
I am the protagonist.
[You are the protagonist of this world.]
[Realize justice.]
When I first saw those words appear, I had no idea what they meant.
I was only ten years old. I couldn’t even grasp the meaning of the words themselves.
“Protagonist…? Justice…?”
No matter how I mulled it over, I didn’t get it.
It just sounded like something out of a fairy tale or a comic book.
At my school in a frontier village, the teachers would smile whenever they saw me.
“Si-woo, you’re the best.”
Girls my age would blush beet-red whenever they looked at me.
During recess, I was always surrounded by a crowd of people.
I was the center. I was the standard.
This entire environment engraved the fact that I was special into my mind, day after day.
[You are the protagonist of this world.]
Of course I am.
It had to be true. In looks and in skill, I was superior to everyone.
This was my destiny.
Realize justice?
I was justice.
Ten years passed like that, and I graduated at the top of my class from the Officer Academy. I couldn’t afford to lose first place. Nor did I have any doubt that I would.
Then, an invitation arrived. It was from Gaon Academy.
This is it.
I was just starting to get sick of this small, stagnant pond.
A rural village like this wasn’t where I belonged.
Gaon.
Gaon, the world’s greatest academy, was a place that suited me perfectly.
So, naturally, nothing should have changed after I enrolled.
However.
[Seong Si-woo]
[Ranking: 42]
This is insane…
This is me? It can’t be.
There has to be some kind of mistake.
I wasn’t anxious. But my surroundings kept provoking me.
This is how we’ll do it.
Unit practice.
When I presented a strategy, everyone was supposed to follow.
That was the natural order of things.
“Uh… but doesn’t that seem really inefficient?”
I had laid out a perfect plan, yet someone was refuting it.
At first, I was offended and argued back.
Before, if I said something, everyone would have just nodded and stepped aside.
But they didn’t back down so easily.
Instead, they pushed their own arguments more forcefully.
“Well… that’s just, like, your opinion.”
It was strange.
The fact that I wasn’t at the center of everything.
The fact that people weren’t moving according to my standards.
What… went wrong?
The more I thought about it, the more suffocated I felt.
I had the sense that something was terribly askew.
And I found a target for that suffocating feeling.
“Hey, friend. How about a little spar?”
Jung Hae-in.
Perfect timing. For some reason, the guy had been getting on my nerves.
He would make a perfect outlet for my frustration.
*
Wow, look at that glare.
That’s the look of someone who wants to kill me.
In the original story, there were some differences between players…
But the fundamental nature of the protagonist, as dictated by the scenario, never changed.
He’s supposed to be devout and righteous.
Right. Maybe Seong Si-woo is like that on the inside, despite his outward appearance.
There must be a sliver of a righteous heart in there somewhere.
…Please.
The instructor’s signal to begin hadn’t been given yet.
There was still some time before the hall was completely full.
Maybe I should try asking.
It might be possible to solve this with a conversation.
“My friend.”
‘Any chance you’re thinking of throwing away that sword?’
I rehearsed the line in my head as I carefully spoke to him.
He stood silently before the start of the duel, as if in meditation.
“Who are you calling friend?”
…Never mind.
Honestly, if some guy you’ve never seen before walks up and tells you to throw away your sword, anyone would get pissed.
To a hero, their weapon was an incredibly sensitive and important matter.
Still, I had no choice. The fate of the world was at stake here. I’m not kidding. For real.
I guess I’ll just have to do what I originally planned and let our bodies do the talking.
In the meantime, the hall had filled with people.
In one corner, Yu Hana and Cheon Yeo-wool were standing face-to-face.
It seemed they were each other’s sparring partners.
That looks more interesting.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to watch their duel.
“We will now begin the duels.”
The instructor’s permission came abruptly.
With that single phrase, a palpable tension instantly filled the hall.
I gripped my weapon lightly and looked up at Seong Si-woo.
His sharp gaze was still fixed on me.
Seong Si-woo closed his eyes and slowly began to draw out his energy.
Golden mana flowed along his body and began to envelop his great sword.
Sword Qi.
Sword Qi bloomed along the great sword, but its form wasn’t smooth.
It was jagged and unstable—a sign that his control over his mana was incomplete.
Someone else watching this might have been impressed.
After all, Sword Qi wasn’t something just anyone could use.
But I could tell.
I could tell if someone was just executing techniques they had learned, or if they were truly using the ‘sword.’
Seong Si-woo was definitively the former.
The protagonist’s naturally gifted body possessed abundant mana, so creating Sword Qi itself wasn’t difficult.
But the process was nothing more than forcefully channeling mana into the sword.
It was the pinnacle of inefficiency, an act that showed a complete lack of understanding of the sword.
After raising his Sword Qi, Seong Si-woo studied my expression.
I was just watching him, not raising my own aura.
Seeing my reaction, he smirked.
“Scared? Looks like this is your first time seeing Sword Qi.”
His voice was brimming with confidence. My reaction seemed to have assured him.
He even looked relaxed as he flared his Sword Qi more intensely and faced me.
“Here I come.”
I didn’t answer.
Thump!
Seong Si-woo charged forward as if his eyes were on fire. His sword cut through the air, flying at me ferociously.
Clang!
A simple horizontal slash, swinging from left to right.
It had a fair bit of power behind it, but it was simplistic. I tilted my own sword slightly, deflecting the impact.
Clang! Clang-clang!
Seong Si-woo kept pressing his attack. A continuous series of slashes and thrusts.
I slowly steadied my breathing, taking in every one of his attack patterns.
So this is how he fights.
His swordsmanship could be described in a single word.
Crude.
He was just trying to overwhelm his opponent with brute force, with no technique, no principle, no sense.
The only thing emanating from his sword strikes was a forced, clumsy power.
“Haaah!”
He roared, raising his momentum and swinging his sword with even greater intensity.
But my response remained the same.
I just made minute movements with my sword, deflecting the shock.
This repeated several more times.
Amid the repeated exchanges, his breathing grew more and more ragged.
Perhaps because he had been recklessly drawing out his mana, he looked completely out of breath.
Unaware of even that, he spoke with a mocking smile.
“Hah… How long… are you going to keep running?”
I lightly rotated my sword, pushing his away.
Time to wrap this up.
“Do you know what Sword Qi is?”
I asked him.
This wasn’t a duel.
It was more like a lesson.
“What?”
At my sudden question, Seong Si-woo frowned and shot back.
“Everyone has their own opinion, but this is what I think.”
“When we draw mana from our bodies, we form a kind of channel.”
I raised my sword. Slowly, directly in front of me so he could clearly see every movement.
“It’s no different for a sword.”
“Think of the sword as an extension of your body. When you channel mana into it, it must be steady and uniform. You don’t just pour it in recklessly.”
As I spoke, I slowly drew up my mana. I closed my eyes and focused.
The sensation of my body and the sword becoming one. It was different from a spear, but the essence was the same.
I constructed a channel for the mana to flow, as if opening a path in a completely new part of my body.
And then, slowly, I sent it flowing through, perfectly uniform.
Finally, a faint light began to bloom from the tip of the great sword, soon enveloping the entire weapon.
Gray mana gently coated the blade, transforming into something like solid armor.
“Some people call this Sword Qi Manifestation…”
Seong Si-woo’s expression twisted. It was a look of bewilderment and rage that was hard to put into words.
“…Looks like you know it, too.”
“Bullshit!”
He roared in disbelief and charged again.
I broke the defensive stance I had been holding and took a step toward him.
Seong Si-woo’s sword came at me in a diagonal slash.
I lightly extended my great sword to meet the path of his blade.
I didn’t even need much strength.
“But this isn’t Sword Force, or anything like that.”
Sshhhk—
The moment his Sword Qi touched my own, it vanished without a trace, as if it had been completely sucked away.
“This is just… real Sword Qi.”
The instant his blade met mine, it offered no resistance at all before being sliced cleanly in two.
Clang!
“So, if you don’t think you can do it.”
I met his eyes and slowly lowered my sword.
“Throw it away.”