The Essence of the Demon Sword
“I'm telling you — your essence was never the sword made to slay dragons!”
This was how Scáthach, the Dragon Demon Sword, awoke from sleep every time — to the same old lecture.
It was a rebuke from Rian she could never forget, no matter how sick of hearing it she became.
Starting the day with a scolding would sour anyone's mood, but Scáthach was different.
Master, thank you for today as well……
Even in her dreams, she was genuinely grateful to Rian for speaking such harsh truths on her behalf, day after day.
And with good reason — he was the only person who had ever truly seen through to her essence.
Fantasies of my master are no longer enough to satisfy me……
She cherished her memories of being Rian's sword, and yet at the same time she hated them so fiercely she wanted to tear them to shreds.
True to the word "love-hate," there were times when recalling the past made her giggle like an idiot — uhehehe — and other times when she slammed her forehead against the wall in frenzied madness.
It would be no exaggeration to say she had already gone completely insane.
The reason a once bright and cheerful demon sword had broken down so thoroughly lay in what happened after she was sold away by Rian.
“You stupid master! Did you really think you could live in peace after selling me off?!”
The moment the Dragon Demon Sword Scáthach appeared at the auction house, she drew an explosive reaction.
The starting bid alone shattered every record in the auction house's history, and from there the sums being called out climbed at a geometric rate.
A sword coveted by everyone — a blade forged from the remains of a dragon, mightiest of all species. It was only natural.
That's right, it's me! I'm receiving the treatment worthy of the world's finest sword!
Feeling her popularity firsthand, Scáthach naturally began to preen.
Behold! Doesn't everyone here need me?
And she genuinely sneered at Rian, who had claimed he would sell her off anyway, thinking him a true fool.
And so Scáthach was sold for a sum large enough to found a small kingdom.
The man who won her was a wealthy magnate who had risen from a humble merchant all the way to a noble title.
He gripped his newly acquired Scáthach in his hands and wore an expression of deep satisfaction, and Scáthach began to hope.
He wanted me badly enough to spend an absolutely staggering fortune. That has to mean something!
Fantasies began to bloom in her mind.
Roaming the world with her new master, battling monsters wherever they went.
Traversing wild wastelands, crossing mountain ranges, watching her master grow stronger step by step.
And in the end, a final clash against a vicious dragon — the two of them standing together atop its corpse.
Even imagining it made her shiver with excitement, and Scáthach waited only for the day her adventure with her new master would begin.
But Scáthach's fantasy never once became reality.
“Rest it safely in my collection room!”
“As you wish, my lord.”
Her new master, the wealthy magnate, had not the slightest intention of setting out on any adventure.
He had spent a fortune on Scáthach not to wield her himself, but out of pure acquisitive desire.
In the end, aside from the single moment he took her into his hands at the transfer of ownership, the magnate never touched her again.
Scáthach was left abandoned in a cold, dry, empty space.
Even so, she refused to lose hope.
She chose to believe the magnate was in the process of creating a body for her, so that he could use her properly.
But no matter how much time passed, the magnate never appeared before her.
The only human touch she ever felt was a maid who came by to wipe her down and tend to her upkeep.
It was enough to make her wonder whether the maid, not the magnate, was her real master.
How long am I supposed to wait before I can finally be used as a sword?
Idle time passed mercilessly, and before she knew it, a full year had gone by.
Then, at last, the magnate came to the warehouse where Scáthach was kept.
He came back!
Scáthach was overjoyed.
Even though she had been left lonely and neglected for a year — even though the magnate's body had grown far more corpulent than before —
the mere fact that her new master had come to see her again moved her to tears.
If they set out on an adventure starting now, she was prepared to forgive the days he had left her gathering dust.
But as visitor after visitor streamed into the warehouse, Scáthach's joy quickly faded.
They were guests visiting the magnate's estate, every one of them dressed in dazzling, opulent finery.
To these people, who seemed to advertise their own nobility, her new master introduced Scáthach.
A sword made from the body of a dragon. A sword once favored by the Sword Emperor. A demon sword with the power of self-restoration.
Each new epithet drew gasps of admiration from the crowd, but Scáthach felt no joy whatsoever.
When she had been introduced at the auction house, she had trembled at the feverish cheers.
Because so many people had seemed to need her.
Only now did Scáthach finally understand.
Of all those countless people, almost none had needed her as a sword.
To them, Scáthach was nothing more than a symbolic ornament.
The moment that truth settled in, she could no longer bring herself to be happy.
No matter how popular she was, she had always believed her worth lay in being a sword.
Will the day ever come when I can roam the world again, like before?
From that point on, the face of Rian — her former master — began to haunt Scáthach's mind.
The days when they wandered the world with no destination, fighting side by side whenever an enemy appeared.
She had assumed such a life was simply the natural lot of a sword, but she had been wrong.
Scáthach came to realize that even a sword could be reduced to a tool for flaunting one's wealth.
Just wait. If I keep waiting, maybe the moment of freedom will come someday.
Three years later, the moment of freedom she had longed for finally arrived.
Through the machinations of rival nobles, the magnate was dragged away on charges of plotting treason.
His assets were confiscated by the Margal royal family — and Scáthach was among them.
Thus Scáthach escaped the frigid warehouse and was moved to the royal capital.
A chance to meet yet another new master had come, but before that could happen, her fate was decided for her.
The mages of the Magic Tower — an institution that maintained close ties with the Margal Kingdom.
They had cast covetous eyes upon Scáthach.
Owing the Magic Tower no small debt of gratitude, the Margal Kingdom handed Scáthach over without hesitation.
Isn't the Magic Tower famous for having no interest in anything but magic?
Dread closed in around her.
The Tower, which dismissed swordsmanship as a brutish technique, regarded swords as nothing more than crude tools for the lowborn.
Scáthach was called a demon sword, but that name did not mean she was a sword that manifested magic.
And so there was nothing anywhere about her for the Magic Tower to cherish.
“So this is the sword they made by grinding up an entire dragon?”
“I still don't understand it. How could anyone look upon the sublime dragon and decide to make it into a sword instead of a staff?”
“Such trivial matters are not worth our attention. Move the demon sword to the testing platform.”
“Yes, sir!”
Scáthach was placed at the center of a wide, open ground enclosed within barrier magic.
Before her, countless mages were already chanting their spells.
Just as her unease swelled beyond bearing, the voice of the man who had ordered her moved rang out.
“From this moment on, in place of a live dragon, we shall use the Dragon Demon Sword Scáthach to verify the practical efficacy of every spell.”
They could hardly cast magic at a living, breathing dragon — and so they intended to run their experiments on Scáthach instead.
The mages, who held the value of swords in contempt, began relentlessly unleashing their spells upon her.
They burned her with fire, blasted her with high-pressure water, and beat her mercilessly with conjured rock.
Each time, Scáthach screamed in agony, wracked with pain.
Ah, it hurts! It hurts! Stop it!
Had she been an ordinary sword, she would simply have shattered halfway through. But Scáthach possessed the power of restoration.
No matter how grievous the damage, she would be restored to pristine condition before long.
A miraculous ability that required no repairs whatsoever.
Yet in this moment, it was less a blessing than a curse.
Ugh! It hurts…! How long do you intend to keep beating me?!
Watching Scáthach spring back to wholeness no matter how ferociously they attacked, the mages grew irritated.
They knew perfectly well about her regenerative ability, and the sight of a demon sword that would not break embittered them.
They cranked their output higher and higher, firing spell after spell of ever-greater power.
Please, just stop…!
But no one heard Scáthach's pleading.
Among mages there was no one who could hear the voice of a sword — and even if one existed, no mage would ever grant a sword's request.
Scáthach had no choice but to endure until every last mage's mana ran dry.
And even when she endured, the next morning brought the hellish hours all over again — she could never escape the yoke of her torment.
Reduced from an ornament to a target, Scáthach was living a life too pitiful to behold without tears.
By day she served as the test subject for the mages' spells; by night she was left abandoned on the proving grounds.
As those days piled one upon another, Scáthach's mind was driven to the very brink of collapse.
And just as her heart began to slowly break,
through the haze of fading consciousness, Scáthach suddenly remembered a distant past.
“Hey! Scáthach! How many times do I have to say it before it gets through that thick skull of yours? Your essence is NOT the sword made to kill dragons!”
“Hmph! What a joke! Where else would you find a sword so perfectly suited to dragon-slaying as me?”
“Then let me ask you this. What exactly about you makes you so suited to killing dragons?”
“You don't even know that, Master? My hard, sharp body can pierce a dragon's scales, and my superb regenerative power exists so I can withstand a dragon's breath!”
“Wrong. No matter how tough you are, dragon scales are the kind of thing you can't pierce without striking the same spot over and over. If anything, a dagger with an unusual shape — like Icle and Lips — can slip between a dragon's scales the instant an opening appears, making it far easier to carve out the flesh beneath.”
“But Icle and Lips are fragile! And neither of them has regeneration like mine!”
“There's no rule saying you can't block an enemy's attack with your blade, but your essence isn't a shield, is it? You can't fully block a breath anyway. And besides…….”
“Besides what?”
“You're secretly sensitive to pain, remember? Not long ago you whined and writhed after getting zapped by a thunder bird's lightning — and you really think you'd block a dragon's breath?”
“Th-that wasn't whining! I was just startled, that's all!”
“Yeah, yeah, of course you were, Your Highness.”
“Ihhk! I'm telling you, it's true!”
“Look — your hardness is a power meant to break through opponents so solid they have no gaps to exploit, and your regeneration exists to keep you in peak condition through a long, drawn-out melee. That's what I'm telling you: those powers were never meant for killing dragons.”
A memory now faded and distant.
Scáthach began to ache with longing for those days.
He was the only one.
He alone had seen her as a sword.
His tone was teasing, yes — but he had worried for her.
Once she understood that, the spells raining down on her no longer hurt at all.
Instead, every time she thought of Rian, her heart began to ache as if it were being torn apart.
A fireball struck her dead-on.
The memory of how she had once flared up in fury and snapped at Rian gouged at her heart.
Her blade froze stiff in an ice spell.
The past, when she had responded coldly even at joyous moments and wounded him, tightened like a noose around her throat.
Rock, iron, lightning strikes — even as countless spells pounded every inch of her body, Scáthach suffered thinking only of Rian.
Come to think of it, Master always dodged first rather than blocking with me, didn't he? And that was all for my sake — and all this time I never even realized it…?
As the finale, the highest-tier spell of all came crashing down upon her — and even that was meaningless.
Compared to the pain of knowing she had never managed a single word of thanks to Rian, that agony was nothing.
Atonement. She needed atonement.
She had to find him, confess every one of her sins, and show him how sincerely she repented.
But how…?
As a sword, she was not free the way humans were free.
She could not even walk on her own two feet — and Scáthach laughed bitterly at herself.
The world's finest? What a pathetic joke. I couldn't even recognize the one master who truly saw me! What kind of "world's finest sword" can't even find her way to him?
The emotions surging up inside her could no longer be held back, and at last they burst.
I was the fool! The world's most foolish sword…!
Scáthach wailed, drowning in self-reproach.
Had she possessed vocal cords, she would have wept herself hoarse.
I want to see Master! I want to apologize! It's so late, but I want to tell him thank you too! But I can't do anything… not a single thing!
Not once in her existence had Scáthach ever resented being born a sword.
Yet for the first time in her life, she despaired of the very fact that she was one.
I…!
Cursing herself as a worthless sword, Scáthach spent nearly two years suffering within the Magic Tower.
All of this is my own karma, and every spell those mages cast is divine punishment.
Thinking this, she began to accept all of the pain.
She had come to believe that even hope was a luxury she did not deserve.
By day she repented through her suffering; by night she wept in sorrow, thinking of Rian.
She genuinely prayed for the restoration power she had once worn as a badge of pride to abandon her entirely — to let her simply break.
So even death is a luxury for me…….
Fate did not grant Scáthach the mercy of an ending.
As if to declare her suffering must not end in death, her self-restoration only grew stronger with every passing day.
Scáthach cursed fate as cruel, yet she never once turned her eyes away from the pain.
My mind… is growing hazy…….
She no longer dreamed.
But one day, Scáthach abruptly lost consciousness and fell into a deep sleep.
Even in dreams she could never be happy.
The events of her days returned as nightmares to torment her.
Still, Scáthach endured to the very end — and when at last the dream reached its conclusion, she came face to face with the man she had longed for so desperately.
Rian — her former master — was always there at the end, extending his hand to her.
Scáthach hesitated for an instant, but an emotion she could not contain made her seize his hand.
“You dummy! That's exactly what I meant when I told you — you're not a sword made for killing dragons!”
Shattering her expectation of tenderness, Rian fired off another of his scoldings.
It caught her off guard — and yet Scáthach received his nagging with pure joy.
A single tear traced down her cheek.
As the realization that she had returned to his side washed over her, Scáthach smiled for the very first time.
She knew it was a dream.
Even so, she resolved that at least here, before her master, she would smile happily.
“It was a dream…….”
The radiant time came to its end, and Scáthach's vision went dark.
When she opened her eyes again, the familiar sight of the testing grounds spread out before her as always.
“So I really am……huh?”
Scáthach noticed something subtly different.
Moisture from her tears was still clinging to her cheeks.
But wait — since when did a sword have cheeks?
Puzzled, Scáthach reached up and touched her face.
A soft, yielding sensation met her fingertips, and she began to doubt her own senses.
“Arms and legs?!”
And when she flexed the tingling muscles of her back, enormous wings unfurled behind her.
At the sight of wings so like a dragon's, she immediately pinched her own cheek.
“Ha…! Haha…!”
The stinging pain in her cheek told her this was no dream — it was real.
Only then did Scáthach truly understand.
She had become a being of both human and dragon.
It made no sense whatsoever, but Scáthach decided not to dwell on it.
What mattered was what she could do with this body.
“So this is the final chance at atonement I've been given.”
She had legs to run to Rian.
She had arms and wings to fly straight into his embrace.
It meant she could go to him, any time she wished.
All that's left is…….
Scáthach approached the wall, drew a deep breath, and clenched her fist tight.
Then she hurled her fist at the wall with all her might.
BOOM—!
Unfortunately, the barrier magic covering the entire testing grounds held, and the wall did not break.
But Scáthach did not despair.
“Master taught me! My hardness is the power to break through the most solid of obstacles…!”
BOOM BOOM BOOM! CRASH—!
The result of hammering the testing grounds' wall again and again without surrender.
Her fist pierced clean through the barrier magic and tore the wall completely apart.
“Who's there?!”
The mages came rushing headlong toward her at the commotion.
Scáthach turned her head toward the people who had inflicted endless suffering upon her.
Despicable, every last one of them.
Yet she spared them no interest.
Even the time it would take to waste words on them was too precious to spare.
Turning her back on them all, she spread her wings in a blaze of brilliant light against the night sky and soared out of the Magic Tower.
“This time, without fail…!"
She swore she would never repeat her old foolish mistakes.
Scáthach flew high into the sky, searching for the place where she truly belonged.
And the very next day, rumors spread across the entire world of a dragon that had taken on human form.
Some who heard the story claimed the Magic Tower had merely mistaken a demonkin who had come to reclaim the Dragon Demon Sword.
Others insisted it must have been the work of a polymorphed dragon.
And still others went so far as to propose the theory that Scáthach herself had transformed into a human.
The controversy became the talk of every nation — yet no one ever uncovered the truth, and the news simply cut off.
After that, only a single dragon-related rumor ever circulated again.
And even that one was almost too incredible to believe: that countless dragons were roaming the skies, searching for someone.