Chapter 051: At the End of the Subjugation
The girl Jewelina fell into deep sorrow.
As soon as she returned home after school, she found her beloved dog, Haro, collapsed in the yard.
With its tongue hanging out long and its eyes still open in death, the shock was even greater.
It was a dog she had raised since a time so young that her memories of it were faint.
For Jewelina, it was the first farewell she had faced in her nine years of life.
‘I’m sorry. I think it’s my fault.’
It was that morning, just before heading to school.
She had noticed Haro making sickly sounds and wondered if she should take it to a physician.
After much deliberation, Jewelina chose to go to school.
For Jewel, nothing was more terrifying than demerits, and the penalty for unexcused tardiness was significant.
She had thought it would be fine, but she never could have dreamed that such a careless decision would lead to this outcome.
“Jewel.”
A warm voice came from behind.
Gently placing Haro’s head, which had been resting on my knees, onto the ground, I slowly stood up.
“Dad.”
The tears I had been holding back burst forth.
The young Jewelina threw herself into her father’s arms and explained everything.
“Jewel, listen carefully.”
Pascal knelt on one knee, meeting his daughter’s eyes at her level.
“Haro was a very lucky dog. He had you as his master. There are many dogs in this world, but not all of them are fortunate enough to have a master as good as you.”
His large, rough hand enveloped her small one.
Jewel stared quietly at that hand.
The calloused, coarse skin felt oddly soft today.
“You gave Haro priceless happiness. So, what did Haro give you?”
“Does Haro have to… give me something?”
A sudden wave of grief surged within her.
She suppressed the urge to cry out, but she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.
“Then, Jewel, why did you love Haro?”
“Because he was my friend, obviously.”
“That’s right. Haro, who couldn’t even speak, taught you what a friend is.”
Pascal stood up and gently placed his hand on Jewel’s head.
“You made a good trade.”
His thick, drooping mustache hid his smile.
“Jewel, let me introduce you to a new friend.”
This time, not a dog, but a person.
* * *
‘Imperial Swordsmanship’ is not limited solely to techniques for wielding a sword.
As one’s mastery grows, the impurities accumulated in the body—commonly called turbid qi—are expelled.
When this self-purification process reaches its peak, it goes beyond mere cleansing and begins to enhance physical functions, much like sharpening a blade.
Thus, Imperial Swordsmanship encompasses training to adapt to enhanced physical organs, methods to utilize them, and techniques to integrate these into swordsmanship.
What separate methods of utilization are included?
They range from basic uses of physical organs, such as eye techniques and hearing techniques, to applied skills like fist techniques, kick techniques, and footwork, covering an extremely broad spectrum.
Pah!
It was the first time since reaching the peak that I had unleashed my movement techniques at full force.
I had never encountered an opponent formidable enough to make me focus on footwork, nor had there been a need to dash at such breakneck speed.
Pah!
I frantically kicked off the ground.
The shapes of the terrain and objects blurred rapidly at the edges of my vision, creating the illusion that I was entering a subspace.
‘…!’
Chiiiiik—!
I stopped abruptly and turned around.
At the end of a long trail carved into the dirt path, someone lay collapsed.
“Huuu…! Huu, huu…!”
The face was familiar.
I couldn’t recall the name, but it was a mercenary I had seen at the barracks.
I heard he was a mage.
Compared to the mercenaries I saw at the gathering point earlier, his mental state seemed relatively better, but regardless, he was panting as if his breath would give out any moment.
“Hey, can you stand?”
As I supported the back of his head, the mage’s robe slipped off.
My eyes widened.
Blood was streaming from both of his ears.
The mage grabbed my wrist, his trembling pupils barely meeting my gaze.
“M-my ears… are they still, still attached? Huh?”
“Yeah. Though they’re pretty much useless now.”
“Answer me! Huup…! Hah, hah. Damn it. Why, why do I keep hearing it… Why!”
“…”
“C-cut off my ears! Hurry! The voices, they keep coming…!”
So, he harmed himself because he couldn’t endure the hallucinations.
These creatures were far more sinister than the ones I encountered in my past life in Tristan.
“Just hold on a little longer.”
He probably couldn’t hear me, but for now, this was the best way to offer some comfort.
Pah!
I left the screaming mage behind.
The hallucinatory symptoms would be resolved once the mandrake, the primary source of dark magic, was dealt with.
I had to hurry.
If I was even a moment too late, the mercenaries who had barely escaped might all lose their minds permanently.
Not long after…
“Haaaagh—!”
A scream.
It came from beyond the bushes.
I stopped completely and steadied my breathing. It wasn’t far.
‘Alright, let’s do this.’
The weeding I couldn’t finish in my past life—I was finally doing it properly now.
Could this be called karma?
‘Last time with the wendigo, it was different, but this time, it’s my choice.’
I exhaled deeply.
My Ghost Eye flared up in an instant.
As the colors of the surrounding scenery grew sharper, the noise faded away.
With heightened saturation and refined vision, I began to distinguish every dark and blue detail of the shadowy forest.
By the time the moisture on the bark of an old tree came into view, my ears had already lost their function.
I submerged.
Sinking into an endless abyss, as if entering a vacuum…
A world of complete silence.
·
·
·
An eye technique that temporarily seals hearing to enhance vision.
Even I found this technique bizarre.
It had first manifested unconsciously when I fought the alpha wendigo.
Back then, I barely noticed it.
The moment was so fleeting that I couldn’t fully perceive the sensation.
Now, I could feel it completely.
Perhaps it was because it was my hearing.
The sensation of one physical organ shutting down was… how should I put it?
It felt like being isolated from the world.
I clearly existed in this world, yet it felt like I was being denied.
As I delved deeper, my vision was entirely tinged with purple.
The dark magic emanating from the mandrake.
In other words, from here on was its true domain.
It brought back memories.
In my past life, I had recklessly charged in and suffered greatly.
I stepped into the purple, arch-shaped barrier, reminiscent of the waves emitted by the alpha wendigo.
Its form became clearer.
From the weeds sprouting across the soil, mana rose in thread-like tendrils.
The mana, gathered like fruits, formed this vast domain.
It wasn’t something that could be cut or slashed away with a sword.
It was fortunate that the medium inducing hallucinations was merely sound.
I stopped walking.
Should I call this a sword graveyard, or a ruin just swept by the bloodstorm of war?
Either would be correct.
Amidst all sorts of weapons scattered haphazardly on the ground, mercenaries were mixed in.
Some lay as if slammed into the earth, others rested with peaceful faces as if asleep, some curled up and screamed incoherently, others wept, and some staggered like drunkards before collapsing… My gaze stopped at one spot.
Thanks to the distinctive attire I had noticed earlier, I recognized him.
It was Clyde, kneeling and frantically digging at the ground.
I approached and grabbed his shoulder.
He turned around.
His bloodshot eyes were completely wet, and his hands were caked with blood and dirt.
…, ……! ……! …, ……, ………!
He was sobbing and shouting, and I understood he meant Bonnie was down there.
Amidst this chaos, it was surprising that Clyde was relatively unscathed.
Upon closer inspection, I saw his ears were plugged with what looked like glue-like stoppers.
Had Bonnie prepared a countermeasure for her partner and sacrificed herself?
That’s when it happened.
A weed suddenly shot up, exposing its roots.
No, it was more like a tentacle.
It wriggled toward a nearby fallen mercenary, resembling a giant snake seizing its prey.
I swiftly swung my sword and severed the tentacle.
It writhed left and right before retreating back into the ground.
I grabbed Clyde’s shoulders.
Looking into his eyes, I mouthed clearly, word by word:
Go back and wait. I’ll save Bonnie.
Love for his wife seemed more potent than dark magic.
He refused to budge.
The illusion of being detached from the world due to the absence of sound began to morph into another form of hallucination.
I felt that staying in this state any longer might dull my emotions.
Looking down at Clyde like an emotionless observer of the world, I suddenly shifted my gaze to the side.
A cluster of tentacles had pierced through the ground.
Had it sensed a predator entering its domain?
I pushed the disobedient Clyde aside and drew my sword.
I had already planned how to deal with it on the way here.
It was simple.
If it was underground, I’d just drag it out.
I plunged the tip of my sword into the ground.
Quake Earth.
The heat surging from my Ghost Eye was palpable.
It felt like a stern warning for overusing something other than mana.
In my past life, I was half-blind.
I knew well how much imbalance the absence of a single sensory organ could cause.
Perhaps I couldn’t control it properly, or maybe my emotional agitation had intensified because of Bonnie.
Either way, I had put in too much force.
At this moment, I was almost glad I couldn’t hear.
The phrase “the heavens and earth shaking” was apt.
My vision blurred wildly, and my head felt like it would explode.
Ah, now I finally felt one with the world.
I could almost hear the screams of the mercenaries who hadn’t completely lost their minds and the shrieks of the mandrake, hiding somewhere deep underground.
Clyde would be fine.
He wasn’t the type to faint over something like this.
The cracks that started from where I plunged my sword spread rapidly.
In an instant, the ground split apart, and unable to withstand the vibrations, grains of soil and pebbles surged upward.
The floating dust began to swirl.
I braced myself to avoid being swept away.
My long, untrimmed hair whipped around, obstructing my vision.
In a moment that felt eternally long…
The ground heaved like waves crashing.
The moment I turned my head back, having averted it to avoid the fierce dust storm blowing head-on…
My eyes finally opened wide.
As the earth overturned, the exposed roots bore human-like facial features.
Every weed root in the area was the same.
Cocoons dangled from them, numerous like the eggs of an insect.
That’s how it turned its captured prey.
I kicked off the shattered ground in a single bound.
Seeing its true form for the first time, I hadn’t expected it to be such an ordeal to face the mandrake screaming with its eyes and mouth wide open, right in front of me.
At a glance, it resembled the wooden totems common in the Empire’s remote mountain villages, but its grotesqueness was beyond comparison.
It was as if a mad sorcerer had soaked a tree root in a venomous brew for millennia.
The root strands with human-like features were countless, but in truth, these weren’t separate entities—they were all part of one body.
In other words, this tangled mass of roots and tentacles was the entirety of a single mandrake.
If I hadn’t known, I would have struggled immensely.
This knowledge came from Griem Igraine, the commander who, unable to stand by, personally eradicated the mandrakes of Tristan.
Yes, the same transcendent swordsman who took my life and Hermann’s in my past life.
The irony that my past life’s enemy was aiding me in this life.
Amidst the tentacles lunging from all directions to bind my limbs and the thick dust… I was desperately struggling to find the main body, equivalent to a human heart.
I swung my sword frantically.
From a distance, it might look pitiful.
Griem probably didn’t struggle this much.
If I had reached the mid-peak stage earlier, I could have swept away this vine beast with a single sword aura.
While lost in pointless thoughts, I was cut in several places by the whip-like tentacles.
Unable to hear and with my vision impaired, there was little I could do.
I resolved to give flesh to take bone.
My vision was red—whether from flowing blood or the glow from the creature’s pupils, I couldn’t tell.
If I hadn’t sealed my hearing, I was certain I would have gone mad by now.
Or perhaps, having willingly entered this hellish abyss, I was already insane.
When this fight was over, I would make Eugene pay.
My life, too, was on the path of honor.
What shines, shines.
Even if it’s the light of blood.
My limbs and torso were tightly bound.
I couldn’t move an inch.
The mandrake’s main body was right in front of me.
If I extended my sword, I could pierce it.
Its mouth gaped as if tearing apart, likely screaming.
I couldn’t hear the roar, but the fierce shockwave hit my face directly, clearing the surrounding dust.
I bit my lips hard.
If this was to be my second grave, I’d go mad with resentment before dying.
I absolutely could not die.
Not until I made Jayden of this life an honorable knight.
Not until I met the Jayden of my past life again.
Now, I stood tall.
I was no longer a foolish swordsman.
I thrust my sword into the creature’s maw.