Kays Translations

Chapter 37 – The Sword Demon [Part 3]

The Sword Demon had not fled. It had been driven back.

Licia’s flash had forced it away, followed by the inferno Ren unleashed while she was unconscious.

Ren heard the creature trying to rise.

Another divine statue had collapsed from the impact of the Sword Demon’s crash. Even as it knelt and used a greatsword to ward off the falling rubble, its posture made one thing clear: it still intended to fight.

Protecting its body, which had been pierced by light, it slowly stood.

“…At least let Ren make it out safely.”

Those were the words Licia had spoken when they fought the Mana Eaters beyond the forest, in the hills—when Yelquq forcibly broke his own seal and the Mana Eaters regained their true strength, overwhelming them.

They had almost found themselves in that same situation again.

Ren had sworn to become stronger, yet he could not help feeling ashamed of himself.

“Licia, please wait here.”

He was not arrogantly claiming that he would defeat the Sword Demon alone. Licia had only just awakened, and he wanted to ease her burden, even if only a little.

Still, that did not mean he had abandoned the thought of finishing it himself.

The Sacred Magic filling his entire body was stronger than before, and its power stirred his heart.

Ren summoned the Iron Magic Sword rather than the Flame Magic Sword.

It was the weapon he found easiest to handle when using the Mighty Sword Style.

“Will you trust me and wait there?”

The answer had been decided long ago.

Ever since she and Ren had begun their flight together, there had never been a moment when Licia had not believed in him.

Facing his back, she said,

“I’ve trusted you in everything for a very, very long time.”

No words could have encouraged him more.

The Cage of Time had already weakened considerably, and the fog had grown much thinner. The moment when the seal would break was fast approaching—and with it, the moment when the two of them could escape.

“Don’t complain that it’s two against one. This is a battle for our lives.”

Memories of Ren’s academy life raced through his mind.

Perhaps it was only to be expected, but events like this occurred again and again in the world where he lived.

He did not wish to spend all his time throwing himself into such battles. Unfortunately, he had begun to feel that the person he was in the midst of them was the person most true to himself.

“His… Majesty…!”

The Sword Demon had already lost one arm, and its armor was in tatters.

Yet it could not be underestimated. Like Ren, the former general of the Demon King’s army was tenacious and refused to abandon the fight. As though to prove it, the Sword Demon charged. It raced across the stone pavement faster than ever, throwing up a whirlwind. More ferocious than any dying monster, it poured every last reserve of strength into the aura surrounding its greatswords.

Sparks burst with every collision of steel, while scattered mana filled the air with dazzling light. The Iron Magic Sword showed no sign of breaking.

“I’ve wondered before… what if the end of the path I walk with my sword is the title of Sword King?”

Ren had first spoken of it with Lessard at the Clausel mansion. Later, after he began living in the Imperial Capital, he had discussed it with Radius as well. On every occasion, the most he had been able to say was that becoming one might be nice.

He had held himself back, convinced that he would eventually reach his limit.

By saying only that he hoped it might happen, he had built himself an escape route before he ever tried.

“The essence of the Mighty Sword is what the Lion King proclaimed upon the battlefield: ‘Shear Away the Stars, and Gaze upon the Black.’ If you wish to become a Sword Saint, strive never to forget it.”

Estelle had once told him those words.

A greatsword sliced easily across Ren’s cheek. He gritted his teeth.

He drove his mastery of Mantle to its limit until he could wield it freely, without conscious thought.

“—!?”

That was the moment Ren first forced the Sword Demon back.

Sacred Magic was strengthening him, certainly. But Ren himself was also growing within this fight to the death.

The attacks came without even a moment to breathe. A faint veil of black mana began to surround the Iron Magic Sword.

“I’ll keep going, no matter how far the road takes me. I’ll do it to become stronger.”

“Ooooooh!”

“And that is why I’ll win.”

He raised the Iron Magic Sword, now shrouded in black, above his shoulder and aimed its point at the Sword Demon.

Ren turned. The Sword Demon turned as well, visibly stunned.

“Right now, I don’t feel as though I can lose.”

“…!”

The Sword Demon’s bearing changed at his words.

The boy before it had been weak—or at least no true enemy in its eyes. Yet now he radiated the presence of the strong.

The awakening unfolding before the creature was no ordinary event. Even a monster that had once served as a general of the Demon King’s army could recognize that.

“To His Majesty’s—”

It possessed pride: an unyielding conviction that it would serve none but the Demon King.

“—side!”

It cried the words it had repeated throughout the battle and wrapped every greatsword in violent waves of power. Unlike before, even the strength it had used to reinforce its armor was now devoted entirely to the attack. It no longer resembled a mere monster. It looked almost like a knight fighting for its honor.

And the one waiting for it was no ordinary boy.

(Let’s go, Ren.)

Ren drew a deep breath, holding the Iron Magic Sword above his shoulder with its point directed at the Sword Demon.

For an instant, it appeared that Ren and the Sword Demon had simply passed one another.

Then the scene changed.

With a metallic crash, one armored arm and the greatsword it held fell onto the stone pavement. In that single instant of crossing, the Iron Magic Sword had cut through both with astonishing ease.

The Iron Magic Sword itself remained whole in Ren’s hand.

“…I still don’t have enough power.”

He had pictured that strength with absolute clarity and made it manifest.

Among every combat technique Ren knew, one attack stood beyond all others. It was the unreasonable might at the heart of the Mighty Sword Style. Unlike Mighty Sword Art: Star Slaying, it possessed no special property. The style had been founded upon one concept alone: overwhelming strength. What a true Sword Saint displayed was absolute destructive power.

It was the Proof of the Sword Saint.

Ren could not yet control it. He had revealed only a fragment of that power for a single instant. Even if he tried, he could not reproduce it, and the black mana surrounding the Iron Magic Sword had already vanished.

But it was enough.

One look at the Sword Demon made that certain.

The creature that had seemed almost immortal was finally approaching its end.

“—I offer… my body.”

Though grievously wounded, the Sword Demon seized a greatsword with its two remaining arms. With a shout, it drove the blade deep into the stone pavement.

Light spilled from beneath the shattered stones, and cracks raced across the entire area.

Roses Caitas began to collapse. Just before the ground vanished beneath him, Ren rushed to Licia.

“Licia! Take my hand!”

“…Yes!”

He caught her hand and tried to escape, but the pavement collapsed together with the land beneath it. The power released in the Sword Demon’s final act tore ever deeper into the mountain, and Ren and Licia plunged far below.

The Sword Demon remained kneeling above, its greatsword embedded in the floor, watching them fall.

Even then, it swung its arms in an attempt to finish them. It manipulated the surrounding rocks with Nature Magic—the same power that had prevented them from escaping the seal—and sent them hurtling downward.

Lightning danced among the debris, and Ren cut it apart as they fell.

“I’m all right now. Please let me fight beside you.”

“…Are you sure?”

“I am. I wouldn’t lie here and make things harder for you.”

Ren studied Licia’s face, then nodded.

“…Understood. But you must not push yourself too far.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Neither of them considered what would come after the battle. For now, only one thing mattered: bringing their fight with the Sword Demon to an end.

As they prepared for the true and final clash, a voice reached them.

“Ash… ton!”

“What… What did you just say!?”

Ren had never introduced himself. Yet the Sword Demon had begun to say Ashton, leaving both of them stunned.

There was no time to question it. Ren fixed the fact in his mind and tightened his grip on the Iron Magic Sword.

Still falling, they kicked aside the debris controlled by the Sword Demon and closed the distance.

The Sword Demon no longer relied on its blades. It attacked with an immense quantity of raw mana, but even that was nothing more than a desperate last struggle.

When Ren and Licia reached the space beneath it, the creature raised one massive arm. Licia stopped it.

Before it could lift the other, Ren roared.

“Haaaaah!”

He drove the Iron Magic Sword through the Sword Demon’s chest. From inside the armor came the sound of magic stones shattering.

Even with its magic stones destroyed, the Sword Demon drew the surrounding rubble toward Ren, determined to kill at least him.

“I-It can still move!”

“It looks that way! But this has to be its limit!”

“Y-Yes!”

One of the greatswords that had been floating in the air moved under the creature’s mana and pointed itself at Ren. Its remaining arm stretched out, trying to drive the blade into his back.

Then the Iron Magic Sword was engulfed in brilliant light.

Ren had been too absorbed in the battle to notice the motes of light flowing into his bracelet.

• Mithril Magic Sword (Level 4: 1900/6500)

It had absorbed the Sword Demon’s magic stones and evolved.

Its name and form changed before it returned to Ren’s hand.

Light from the surface shone upon the blade. The black iron hue of the old sword had become a beautiful deep blue reminiscent of lapis lazuli.

“Ren! Together!”

A monster that had once served as a general of the Demon King’s army was about to fall to one boy and one girl.

“This is the end, Sword Demon!”

“This is the end, Sword Demon!”

Ren raised the evolved Magic Sword, and Licia readied Byakuen.

In its final moment, the Sword Demon weakly reached toward them.

“Descendant… of the Divine Child…”

It vanished without leaving even its armor behind, and the meaning of those last words remained a mystery.

With that, the battle at Roses Caitas came to an end.

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