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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: You Don't Know.
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"No need to see me off, right?"
"Yes."
"Alright, then take care. The door's busted and doesn't close properly, so make sure to slam it shut on your way out."
After giving a polite bow to Rimon, who waved without looking back, Li Chingwei stepped out of the house.
She walked on in silence.
Rimon's place was in such a remote alley that the surroundings felt not just dreary, but downright eerie.
Yet she didn't hesitate for a moment.
As if strolling through a garden.
She effortlessly navigated the labyrinthine alleys shrouded in darkness.
"Was this really necessary?"
A voice rang out at that moment.
No one knew when he'd been there.
Spotting the masked figure in black warrior garb kneeling in the shadows, Li Chingwei halted.
"I told you not to follow me, Chao."
"Yes, so I waited."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"..."
The man called Chao fell silent.
Affirming or denying it would amount to lying to her.
Of course, staying silent was rude in its own way.
But Li Chingwei didn't press the issue.
She merely let out a sigh and asked,
"You don't approve of my decision?"
"How could I dare question the princess's affairs...?"
Chao bowed his head even lower.
After a long hesitation, he bit his lip and continued.
"But this time, I just can't understand it."
If it were any other occasion, Chao would never have been so insolent.
His role was solely to protect and serve Li Chingwei; he had neither the right nor the wisdom to interfere in her actions.
But this was one matter he couldn't stomach.
"Why him, of all people?"
"Is it that surprising that I proposed to him?"
"Surprising doesn't even begin to cover it. The elders of the clan won't stand for it."
They were already frothing at the mouth over taking an outsider to the Seven Dragon Society as a consort.
Let alone if that outsider was Rimon Asfelder?
They might grab their swords and charge over the moment they heard.
The grudge between the Seven Dragon Society and Rimon ran that deep and heavy.
"Would they, really?"
"...?"
But that obvious fact? Li Chingwei didn't affirm it.
She only wore a faint smile.
Having served her for so long, Chao understood the meaning behind that smile, and he couldn't hide his bewilderment.
Li Chingwei calmly asked the flustered Chao,
"Chao. If your family picked up a gem discarded on the roadside, what would you do?"
"I'd investigate it thoroughly, and if it proved fine, offer it to you, princess."
"That's not what I meant."
Stubborn, perhaps.
Loyal, maybe.
Or both. Li Chingwei looked troubled at Chao's immediate reply.
"You wouldn't throw it away in a rage, at least."
Only then did Chao grasp the metaphor of the gem Li Chingwei had brought up.
But he couldn't accept it.
"...Isn't calling him a discarded gem too generous for someone like that?"
That was the moment.
Li Chingwei's expression shifted subtly.
As if she'd heard an absurd joke.
She gazed at Chao with an indescribable look before suddenly asking,
"Chao, you're twenty-seven, right?"
"Yes."
"As expected of someone born in the Iron Age."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not blaming you, Chao. It's just... your generation sees the past as nothing but the past."
"...?"
Li Chingwei smiled softly at Chao's puzzled expression over her cryptic words.
"Not just you—plenty of others think the same. That a Sword Master's power means nothing."
Even most born at the tail end of the Heroes Age would agree.
Decades had passed since the era changed.
Constellations and Players had become the mainstream, and the previous age was long buried in history.
"That's why you can call him 'mere' anything."
Chao shuddered.
Not just because he couldn't comprehend his revered princess's words.
He saw it in her obsidian eyes—the deep, murky gleam like a swamp.
"But Chao, you don't know."
Eyes too dark for a girl her age.
"What a Sword Master truly is."
As if beholding some incomprehensible mystery.
Leaving Chao rigid, Li Chingwei slowly raised her head.
Gazing at the full moon in the night sky, she murmured on.
"If you knew what a Sword Master is, you wouldn't harbor such ridiculous delusions."
"Delusions... you say?"
"The delusion that Sword Masters lost their glory and fell because the Iron Age opened and Players appeared."
"...Is that a delusion?"
"Not entirely wrong. Players are one reason, after all."
Players were astonishing beings.
They wielded mystical powers without rigorous training and harvested all sorts of dungeon byproducts.
"If Sword Masters could enter dungeons, they wouldn't have fallen like this."
In that sense, as Li Chingwei pointed out, inability to enter dungeons was reason enough for Sword Masters to be dismissed.
"But the real biggest reason is that this is a peaceful era."
Even so, Li Chingwei declared it firmly.
The true cause of Sword Masters' fall wasn't anything like that.
"After the Iron Age dawned, the world grew prosperous, and people, drunk on the wealth and progress from dungeons, forgot about war."
Indeed, since dungeons appeared.
There were minor international skirmishes, but bloody wars or incidents had all but vanished.
Even the Seven Dragon Society, once the most aggressive force, had come aboveground to join the era.
The benefits of dungeons were that immense.
Immense enough to make people forget the past amid those benefits.
"So they started thinking: we don't need human weapons like Sword Masters anymore."
Players who brought vast benefits.
Sword Masters who only knew fighting.
The comparison made people disdain Sword Masters—it was inevitable.
"Without realizing how foolish that is."
No need for Sword Masters in peacetime?
To Li Chingwei, it was like saying disband the army since war won't come.
With no preparations if that 'if' ever happened.
It was the kind of thought only those whose minds had turned to flower fields from peace could have.
Of course, countermeasures weren't entirely absent.
"Instead, we have the Monarchs, don't we?"
"Monarchs... True, they've all reached human limits."
The ten Monarchs who hit level 100.
Their power was on another league from other Players.
Each could decide a nation's fate,
And with ten such beings, people naturally ignored relics like Sword Masters from a bygone age.
If they were superhumans anyway, better the ones bringing wealth and plenty than some outdated sword-slinger.
"But can they truly replace the Sword Duke?"
"...Monarchs are superhumans."
Chao let those two words stand as his answer.
No matter how strong a Sword Master, they couldn't match Monarchs.
To Chao, who'd witnessed a Monarch's terrifying power once, it was obvious.
"That's why I'm saying it. You don't know what a Sword Master is."
As if she'd expected that reply.
Li Chingwei gave a wry smile.
Then quietly added one more thing.
"But you'll find out soon enough."
Why Sword Masters can't enter dungeons.
Why only thirteen were born in nearly a millennium.
Why the Seven Dragon Society, after centuries fighting Rimon, calls him Sword Duke with reverence.
Why she, in this era, risked coming to him herself.
Why, even in decline, Rimon strives to remain the world's last shield.
How absurd it is to compare Monarchs and Sword Masters.
Who the real enemy they should fear is.
Few know that.
But soon, many will.
No, they won't have a choice.
"A needle in a pocket will poke through, and the waves of the Yangtze never yield to the sky."
That's why Li Chingwei came here.
For her, in a complicated position even within the Seven Dragon Society, escaping the palace meant winning Rimon's heart.
And that was only possible now.
"...What makes a Sword Master worth such words?"
Chao still couldn't grasp it.
Why she was so certain.
So when he asked with a conflicted face, she turned back.
Thinking of Rimon's house at the end of the alley she'd come from, she quietly spoke.
"A Sword Master is..."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Yaaawn."
After yawning wide enough to split his jaw.
Rimon turned off the TV he'd been staring at for ten hours straight.
He sat up on the sofa, scratching the back of his head.
"Ah, fuck. Bored to death."
It had been days since meeting Li Chingwei.
All he'd done since was binge dramas, watch news, read comics.
In short, lounging around the house.
No helping it.
If he had friends, he'd visit, but most he could call friends were long buried.
Shopping or travel? No money.
Games?
The epitome of boredom.
With a Sword Master's dynamic vision and reflexes, every game was a trivial auto-win.
"Maybe go see that bastard Seo Yongchan?"
Visiting the victim while suspended for assault?
If Kang Jeongsu heard, he'd freak out and cling to Rimon's pant leg.
Of course, whether Kang Jeongsu cried or not.
Rimon didn't care.
He just wanted to see that cow-head again.
And gauge how it reacted to him. That came first.
Kang Jeongsu getting stress gastritis was a minor issue.
'Ah, should I just have Jeongsu handle it? Tell him to investigate Seo Yongchan or I'll go rip him apart myself—might work.'
Rimon was lost in such thoughts when...