[The proofreader (for consistency checks) had to leave due to a family emergency. They will proofread the rest of tonight’s chapters when they get back in a few hours. I will be asleep by then; however, for those who don’t mind, I will upload the pre-proofed chapters for 25 cents each.]
134
Mercenary of the Twin Swords (1)
The world split as the tip of my sword cleaved into it. The sky and earth were both cut atwain. There was no dust: Everything caught in the sword’s arc froze.
In the middle of it was Sigrun, and the sword that the faeries had forged for their noble was half-broken, while her grass-green cloak was torn into rags.
Her mysterious-looking silver hair was in disarray while her body was half-frozen, frosty.
Sigrun put her hand to her forehead and then stared at the blood that came upon it.
Then suddenly, she frowned, and it was an unfamiliar expression for her to have.
At first glance, it seemed as if she didn’t understand the situation, and when she glanced at the hand again, she seemed truly lost. Both states were true.
Suddenly, Sigrun started to laugh as he pressed her hand to her forehead once more.
“Oh, really. This is the best.”
Her voice sounded as if she was truly having fun, and then I felt it: A great energy began raging around her. What was in that terrible madness? A monster that has finally reached the level of [mythic] after living for a thousand years.
Her great presence pressed in on me.
“Wow…”
As I turned my head, I saw Gunn’s face, her eyes wide. The swords-elf that was prepared to die no longer existed; all that was left was a poor half-elf, terrified as she watched the terrible battle. Her face was tear-filled and her nose running, and she trembled. Her shaking became even more desperate while she still tightly clung to the hem of my shirt.
I stepped forward in silence, and a great energy arose from my body. It was the gift of my true body that I had borrowed after giving it a portion of my life.
The [myth] of the faerie and the [myth] of the magic sword shook, clashed as we sought to crush one another.
‘Laugh for now. It won’t last long.’
Unlike the Elder High Elf, who has fully developed her [mythic] power, mine was only being borrowed from Dragon Slayer for a while.
“Run away,” I ordered Gunn as I fixed my sword.
Today’s fight was between Sigrun and me, and I would not be deterred.
Gunn stumbled back.
Sigrun’s laughter suddenly stopped, and her unsmiling face and snake-like eyes swiveled as they turned towards Gunn. I stepped up and blocked Sigrun’s view.
“Was there any intention of keeping your promise from the start?”
The covenant between the Elder High Elf and me was about equal cooperation. Sigrun violated this and tried to keep me, posses me, so she had no right to ask anything from me any longer.
“The covenant is broken,” I declared.
That single statement was enough. Her superiority over me had been undermined. When I started to press in on her with my power, she started shaking. This was a fitting price for one who had forsaken the covenant to pay.
“Go back, elf,” I declared, for this was a legitimate right given to those who were party to the covenant. Sigrun’s outing was over, yet she didn’t answer.
She just lifted her broken silver sword.
And at the same time, her energy became more unstable. Nonetheless, her presence was still overwhelming; she was still looking down upon the world from a high point. I now knew that her powers had given her the confidence to break the covenant without hesitation.
She had been willing to pay for some of the thousand years of her life; she had obviously thought that I was worth it.
And it was true: Sigrun was capable of it- If the covenant she would break was only the one between the two of us.
“The faeries go to into the forests, and the dwarves enter the world below.”
I recited part of the Declaration of the End of the Great War, proclaimed before the dwarves and elves. Sigrun still had no answer. Rather, she approached me with long strides.
Yet, she was only able to take three steps when she was forced to a stop.
I looked at her and said coldly, “Go back to the forest, faerie.”
Sigrun looked at me, and her eyes were full of surprise.
And at the same time, her power became insanely unstable. As if it was building up momentum to scatter at any moment.
“How?” the Elder High Elf asked as she looked at me, unsure as to how I had bound her with such unprecedented force. Instead of answering, I told her to leave once more.
“This is not where you belong.”
I didn’t ask her that as a favor or as the human Adrian Leonberger. I did it as the observer who had seen the beginning and end of the Great War. An order had been given to the faeries by me, the observer, and they had pledged to abide by it at the war’s closing.
“Go into the forest.”
At that moment, she looked anxious. She gripped her sword and roused a wave of energy, but something happened before she could even react to it.
‘Zeng!’
The sword in Sigrun’s hand was smashed into hundreds, thousands of fragments that scattered away. Yet, there came a surge of energy and the fragments spun toward me. It was too abrupt a thing to block, and they were too spread out and close to dodge.
I was defenseless, exposed to the hail of fragments from Sigrun’s sundered sword, and as I felt the first of the silver fragments penetrate me, Gunn blocked them off. She had jumped in front of me.
“Ahhhh…”
Blood poured from the half-elf that embraced me.
“Why, Gunn!?”
Her face became even more drawn and tired. My eyes hurt as I saw the contrast of crimson blood flowing down her pale face, and she gazed at me with that red visage.
The abominable voice of Sigrun spoke up.
“Hey, what did you think would happen when you broke my sword like this?”
My anger was extreme, and I swung my sword at her with all my might.
‘Qluap-‘
At that moment, my stomach wound that had been frozen, sealed, opened up.
My damned body, my damned body… Betrayed me.
But in the end, I still managed to swing my sword all the way. That was it.
I lost consciousness, and when I awoke, I was in the royal palace.
* * *
I sighed as I looked at Gunn.
It was said that the search team had found me in a crack under a pile of stones somewhere on the plain. I presumed that even with her lethal wounds, Gunn had desperately dragged me away and hidden me, fearing that Sigrun would change her mind. Maybe there was a rockfall after that.
I did not witness it, but the fear that Gunn felt at the time must have truly been great.
“Hufoo,” I sighed. To be honest, I wouldn’t have faced the worst eventuality, even if the swords-elves did not intervene. I had set enough contingencies in place.
However, the half-elves had not known that, so they had given their lives to protect me.
It was a pity.
I didn’t know their names, and I never knew their faces. I had always only seen that part of their faces not obscured by their hoods. I couldn’t be sad, I couldn’t mourn them as individuals – And that troubled me the most.
I could not properly mourn those who had freely given their lives for me, because I never knew them. I looked at Gunn again. They say that her wounds are serious, and even if she wakes up, she might never wield a blade again.
I couldn’t even dare to guess how she would feel once she awoke.
I had merely done what I had to do, but I was determined to do my best so that the half-elf could live only for herself for the rest of her life.
I decided I would call in the four swords-elves who had been tasked to watch Montpellier.
I looked at Gunn in silence and then told the maid beside her, “Take care of her with great diligence, and when she wakes up, give her this message … “
When I was done, I headed to my room with Adelia’s help.
A day passed, and Gunn had still not wakened. The four half-elves who had watched over Montpellier came to me, and I gave them the news of the other swords-elves’ fate.
They said nothing, merely listening intently.
It seemed that the half-elves, who had lived their lives like livestock under Sigrun, did not know that they should mourn the death of their comrades. Only their somewhat altered rate of breathing showed me that they were slightly agitated.
“Can you show me your faces?” I said with a sigh, asking them to remove their hoods.
They flipped the hoods off their cloaks without hesitation.
“Ah…” I sighed.
They had different hair colors, different faces – not one looked the same. They were true individuals, yet I had never thought of them like that. I just saw their green hoods and cloaks.
I asked them their names, and they looked at me with distant gazes.
It was because they did not know how to reveal their names: Their tongues had been cut out. They could not speak.
“Even if you just shape them with your mouths.”
As they heard me, they started moving their lips.
The half-elf with the lively expression was Yonaen.
Gionne was the one who looked so calm.
The half-elf named Harun had light brown hair and a young face.
Ibir had pale-golden, curly hair and an ivory face.
“Yonaen, Gionne, Harun, and Ibir.”
When I spoke their names, the half-elves looked away with awkward faces. I quickly told them, “You guys are now free. If there is anything I can do for you, tell me now.”
But those who had lived as slaves for all their lives had forgotten how to decide for themselves.
They looked at me with depressed faces, as if I had abandoned them.
It seems like they needed some time. They had to become human again after they had lived like slaves, cattle, and daggers in the dark.
It wouldn’t be impossible. If a guy like me managed to live as a person, there was no reason that they couldn’t.
After I had asked for the names of the half-elves who had died for me, I told them that they could take an indefinite period of rest.
The surveillance of the Marquis of Montpellier would be left to someone else. It wouldn’t be possible to have him watched as covertly as before, but it would still be enough to prevent the marquis from wandering away. Once the half-elves left me, the Marquis of Bielefeld came.
We spoke for a while until we chanced upon the topic of the half-elves.
The marquis said he would commission a monument to be erected with the names of the fallen half-elves to commemorate them. He went on to say that this would become a symbol for the remaining half-elves that we would fully support them so that they could start their lives anew.
“Thanks.”
The Marquis of Bielefeld, while not a swordsman, had taught me much about things that I did not know of. As I lay on my bed, I bowed my head to him in gratitude.
The marquis laughed, saying that he understood it all too well, as he had four pretty daughters who he had raised.
Since those events, I have been lying on my bed, dedicating myself to recovery.
Soon afterward, Gunn woke up, and I gave her her freedom.
Yet, she stubbornly endured by saying she would remain with me.
Fortunately, she had recovered well and had no crippling injuries, so I knighted her in short order. And I said that she no longer had to cover her face; she could now proudly walk around as Sir Gunn.
It was very awkward for her at first, baring her face, but she quickly adapted to it and began following me with that unique, expressionless face of hers.
In fact, not one of us had changed much from before our meeting with Sigrun. All that I guessed had changed was that Gunn had shown her face and now served me in another capacity.
Yet, the difference proved bigger than I thought.
When I had placed Gunn in the care of Adelia, so that she could get used to her duty as a knight, the palace knights made fun of it. They said that it was like a duckling waddling after a mother duck.
I was having such a peaceful time, but an emergency soon reared itself from outside the capital.
“The Imperial Army has attacked the border fortress of the Dotrin Kingdom!”
By that time, all the unclean energy left in my body had disappeared, and the wound in my stomach has healed considerably.
There was no reason to hesitate, so I shook myself, got up from the bed – And I was ready.
Then I went to the king and told him, “I’ll be back.”
The king almost backtracked on his permission and tried to persuade me to stay several times for some reason, yet I endured, stubborn.
I realized it after my desperate confrontation with Sigrun: I was still weak, and there was a great need to grow further. I had to make sure that the evil Elder High Elf paid for the blood of the swords-elves. Next time, I didn’t want to borrow the power of my true body in exchange for my blood.
“This is the last time I allow you to leave the borders.”
In the end, the king allowed me to go to Dotrin.
“I thought you would wait until the war was over,” Jin Katrin whispered to me, figuring that we might be too late. I told him that I had to go somewhere first, making us even later.
Jin almost jumped and asked me if I thought his wyvern was a stagecoach.
While shamelessly swearing, he finally accepted my request.
We flew to the north, returned to the capital, and then headed for Dotrin.
“We’re here.”
I looked down as I heard Jin say this.
The sky was covered with dark clouds, and the visibility was bad. All I could see was a hazy world, which was occasionally revealed under hazy clouds.
Yet, I still knew: We have reached the battlefield.
The faint scent of blood mixing with the wind tickled my nose.
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