Chapter 114: In Your Hands, Your Eyes 2
*
Only the distinct awareness that I had been thinking something truly terrible remained.
Does jumping in there always make most of your memories vanish, is it just how it works, or is it because my skill is lacking?
Either way, I wondered if it was really okay for my memories to vanish so readily like this as I slowly turned around.
My head throbbed as if it might burst at any moment, and my nose bled in time with my heartbeat—a sight that would genuinely make me want to kill myself if Erika saw it, but I didn’t release my Physical Enhancement yet. I was seriously glad I had the Mask on.
Erika was nearby. I couldn’t expose the same pathetic display of fainting as I did in the Forest of Fools.
Thankfully, my body seemed to have acclimated somewhat, so it wasn’t as agonizing as before—no, that’s a lie, if I were alone, I’d be crying from the agony.
Well, but still, yeah, the Azure Flame really is flaring intensely, I thought as I turned and swung my sword, scattering the flames.
Lines of Azure Flame, clinging to the Dragon’s black physique and tracing the path of my movement, dispersed.
Looking up at the Jewelhead Dragon’s broad “back,” I returned my sword to its sheath.
It wasn’t carelessness, nor conceit, and certainly not resignation.
Simply put, a certain outcome existed within my chest, accompanied by conviction.
Or rather, if this didn’t work, then anything else I tried now would likely be futile.
Hmm, perhaps it really is resignation.
Even as I thought that, I savored the lingering sensation in my hands of having “cut through everything.”
Most of my memories were gone, but some remained.
The trajectories of the dozens of sword swings I’d made were burned into my body.
I was a little, just one step, closer to Erika. Spurred on by such pride, some pointless words slipped from my mouth.
“Sorry for making you stick around so long. I couldn’t cut corners on the jewel for the ring I’m giving my wife.”
It wasn’t as if the words got through, but the Dragon seemed to stir for just a moment.
A dry crack sounded.
It was the sound of the Mask, which had, one way or another, been through thick and thin with me, breaking.
As if its role was finished, the Mask shattered, and before its fragments hit the ground…
The Jewelhead Dragon crumbled into Magic Stone Fragments.
Strangely, what welled up in my chest wasn’t relief or joy, but an emotion closer to loneliness.
Tucking away my own strange, hard-to-control emotions, I slowly walked towards the remains of what was once the Dragon.
My head wasn’t working at even half its normal capacity, and my footing was unsteady.
Wiping my blood-streaked face with my sleeve, I advanced with a strangely clear conviction.
It’s definitely there. Conviction naturally turned to relief, and upon finding it atop the sand-like Magic Stone Fragments, I—
Collapsed to my knees on the spot.
*
Erika Solntsalri, having already given up on even lying to herself, had to admit she loved the boy.
When he leaped alone towards the calamity that was the Blackened Dragon, at a speed that defied even the perception of a warning sign…
Erika Solntsalri felt relieved.
While simultaneously despairing at her own wretched feelings, she simply felt relieved like a child, knowing she wasn’t alone.
A single sigh-like sound, “Ahh,” escaped her lips.
She no longer felt the kind of loneliness where one drowns in the expectations placed upon them.
Because the boy—Shin Longdagger—had shown her.
Each and every trace of his wielded sword told her that she was not alone.
“Did you see that? Shara.”
Therefore, the question she posed sought empathy, not confirmation.
She wanted to share the sheer magnificence of that swordplay with someone.
“I’m not enough of a monster to see something like that!?”
Erika ignored Shara’s words.
“I couldn’t tell what happened when he entered the Dragon’s shadow, but at the very least, no fewer than two hundred sword strikes were unleashed in that instant. After the ‘Third Round Trip,’ even my eyes could only follow it roughly.”
Erika was grateful she had maintained her Physical Enhancement at maximum strength, ready to rush in at any moment.
Otherwise, she would have missed it.
“Shara, that swordsmanship is unsurpassable. It is the kind of swordplay that we will likely never witness from anyone other than him in our lifetime.”
Dammit! Gushing about him again!?
Shara’s cry didn’t reach her ears.
What was truly astonishing wasn’t the speed.
Well, the speed was incredible too, but that wasn’t it, Erika thought.
Did Shin realize? The nature of the sword he had wielded.
To cut things beyond the sword blade itself.
That is the dream of a swordsman, a desire bordering on delusion and obsession.
Some achieved it by extending blades of wind from their sword.
Others achieved it through the miracle known as a Skill.
Still others achieved it using Magic Tools, like the Solntsalri House.
The Solntsalri House realized it by having Rainivati create Magic Tools in the shape of swords.
Five Magic Swords crafted by the peerless Magic Tool creator, Rainivati.
One of those, the one Erika currently carried, was a sword, but its essence was that of a Magic Tool.
A Magic Tool solely for controlling Space-Time Magic, which even Erika deemed uncontrollable and thus didn’t use.
A technique achievable only by using Magic Tools that that madman Rainivati had deemed not worth the effort and only made five of, tools still impossible even to imitate after more than a hundred years, temporarily activating the magic that cuts space.
That is the swordsman’s dream.
Yes, ignoring sharpness, range, and method, the swordsman’s dream is not particularly rare nowadays.
However, the sword Shin wielded was fundamentally different from those.
A Supreme Skill achieved by only three people in all of history: cutting things beyond the sword using Magicka itself.
All current swordsmanship techniques that cut beyond the blade are merely imperfect imitations of this.
Magicka alone cannot accomplish anything.
Only by passing through a Magic Circle and taking the form of magic does Magicka manifest as a phenomenon.
However, there is an exception.
When Magicka is ultra-pure and ultra-dense, like Shin’s Azure Flame.
Ultra-pure, ultra-dense Magicka becomes magic simply by existing.
Normally, like Shin’s Azure Flame, it spontaneously becomes the phenomenon of magic and is extremely unstable.
But what happens if one can control it?
The answer to that was the sword Shin had wielded.
“Do you understand? Shara.”
Cheeks flushed with excitement, relief, jealousy, and emotions she herself couldn’t identify, Erika asked the question.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Shin’s figure slowly turning in the distance.
“The fact that Magicka, Magicka itself, causes the phenomenon of magic means… it cannot be obstructed by the Magicka of others.”
Magicka that has become magic is affected by the Magicka of others.
Just like how Elza the Impaler cannot create stakes within the body of a Dragon possessing vast Magicka.
“Do you understand? Shara.”
She repeated the question, not expecting an answer.
The remnants of the Supreme Skill, the Azure Flame, danced in the air and vanished.
“Cutting with unhindered Magicka means that, theoretically, nothing exists that Shin’s sword cannot cut.”
“Uwah,” Shara groaned.
What do you mean, “uwah”? Shouldn’t you be saying “Shin-san is amazing!” there?
“Shin can now cut even gods.”
“Are you saying that to a Sister of the Church!?”
Shara’s shouted words did not reach Erika’s ears.
She was already running—towards Shin, who had powerlessly collapsed to his knees.
All she felt was urgency.
She had to get to his side. There was no way such a Supreme Skill came without any cost.
She resented her own foolishness for having watched so nonchalantly, thinking how amazing it was.
She had to hurry.
She had to reach him before that woman.
Erika ran with unladylike form, kicking up chunks of earth as she went.