Chapter 18: The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword (1)

“Hahaha.”

Darenberg let out a hollow laugh as he gripped his beloved weapon tightly.

Cold sweat drenched his entire body, and even the hand holding his weapon was so slick that it was difficult to keep his grip.

Darenberg stood at 2.2 meters tall, while Duke Helpion was 2 meters.

Although Darenberg was a bit taller and bulkier, it was Duke Helpion who overwhelmingly dominated and encompassed the space.

The appearance of Duke Helpion was nothing short of a disaster.

Literally, in the blink of an eye, dozens of his subordinates had lost their lives.

By the time he barely managed to gather his wits,

He realized he was the only one left alive.

Darenberg believed that even this was only because the Duke had shown him mercy.

If the Duke had targeted him first and swung his sword, he couldn’t be sure he would have survived.

If he wanted to live, he had to do something—anything.

Darenberg’s gaze deepened, and his massive frame sprang into motion.

His weapons were two axes, each larger than his own body.

The right axe swept horizontally, while the left came down vertically as the attack began.

“Uoooooo!”

The twin axes struck out in all directions, mercilessly, yet never once interfering with or interrupting each other’s paths, continuing in perfect harmony.

Facing the immense flow of the axes that seemed to suck in the very air around them, Duke Helpion raised his beloved sword.

The most famous magic sword in the world, the very sword that had even beheaded the Demon King.

Its name was Stormbringer, the sword that commands the storm.

With a single swing, his sword erased the false storm from the world.

Bang!

With a tremendous crash, both axes were shattered in an instant. Darenberg’s body was mercilessly flung, bouncing across the ground.

“Ugh…”

The sound that escaped Darenberg’s lips wasn’t even a proper scream.

‘What is this…’

He knew the Duke was strong, but still, twelve years.

He thought he might have caught up at least a little, but what was this mess?

All he could do was crawl at the Duke’s feet, pathetic as a newborn, bleeding from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

“Heh, heh heh… I was greedy. Didn’t even realize it was greed, just blinded by my own desire—how laughable that must have been.”

With just one move, Darenberg’s body and spirit were broken, with no energy left to even attempt a second strike.

Yet, despite the desperate situation, a faint sneer played at the corner of Darenberg’s lips.

“Duke, did you know?”

The Duke’s movement was swifter than Darenberg could have expected.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve always traveled with two trusted men all my life. Do you know where one of them is now?”

A swift step isn’t always the right one.

In fact, the very fact that the Duke was here—

It was so ironic that Darenberg couldn’t suppress a laugh.

“I gave him one order. At the very least, if I have to die, I need to take that bastard down with me, so I can die with no regrets.”

Having said this much, Darenberg couldn’t control his emotions and burst out in wild laughter.

At this, he thought at least the Duke had been caught off guard, so he looked at the Duke’s face.

But what he read in the Duke’s expression was ‘pity’.

“How pitiful.”

Perhaps it was the Duke’s cold expression,

But Darenberg felt a chill run down the back of his neck.

“What’s so pitiful! You’re just going to dismiss the death of your steward with a single word of sympathy?”

“You’ve misunderstood the subject.”

“What?”

“It is your subordinate I pity. If he’d died by my hand, at least he could have kept his honor. Now, on his way to death, he’s become nothing more than a tool to elevate your steward.”

“W-what…”

Suddenly, a scene from the Mage Tower flashed through Darenberg’s mind.

‘Hey, what’s with your wrist?’

‘What is this? Blood? Where did I get scratched?’

‘You idiot, say something that makes sense. Is your body the type to bleed from a mere scratch?’

In the end, he couldn’t figure out anything.

But for some reason, a sense of failure, and slowly, despair, began to creep over Darenberg.

“The twelve years we spent together have just been summed up as your last words.”

The Duke’s cold voice fell like a death sentence.

Everything ended.

The mansion of the Duke, now abandoned by all, was so silent that one could exaggerate and say you could hear even the air moving.

That was why even the slightest sound could quickly alert one to the presence of an intruder.

Standing in the middle of the training yard, I held the sword the steward Apel had given me, waiting for my opponent.

At first, I wondered if it would be better to hide in some corner of the house so the enemy wouldn’t find me.

But the steward insisted that standing in the open training ground, with nothing to hide behind, was actually safer—there was no risk of being ambushed.

“You bastard! Waiting to die in such a perfect place, aren’t you!”

It was that damned gorilla who had been standing behind Darenberg at the Mage Tower.

His bulging eyes looked as if they would pop out, bloodshot with rage, and foamy spittle flecked his mouth in his excitement.

“Because of you, because of you, everything is ruined!”

I don’t know this man’s name. I don’t know his life.

So I have no reason to feel any sympathy.

Reminding myself of that, I gripped my sword.

What was it that the steward and the Duke said again?

‘The steward has a strange talent, so just trust yourself and swing your sword.’

‘You’ll do well. Just let your body follow where it wants to go.’

I don’t know what kind of message my body is trying to convey, just as they were so sure, but for the past few days,

There has been a memory stuck in my mind, ever since it burned itself into my eyes.

The line the Duke had drawn.

I’ve tried to imitate it thousands of times, but could never quite reproduce it.

I recalled that line as I raised my sword.

“You think the likes of you—!”

The mercenary charged at me at speed, swinging an axe as big as himself.

I met him, lowering my sword, drawing a line.

Compared to the Duke’s line, my attempt was so clumsy, but for a moment it flashed across the air.

“This… can’t be…!”

His last words were left unfinished as his body collapsed to the ground.

The axe slipped from his hands and clattered onto the silent training ground, its metallic ring lingering like a death cry.

It really worked.

Just as the steward and the Duke had said, I simply moved as my body wanted.

Five years in the Akashic Record.

And the training I’d done here with the steward.

All those things I once considered useless were making me stronger.

My body remembered.

I didn’t know how strong this mercenary had been…

But he had been a member of the renowned Grizzly Mercenary Corps, so his ability couldn’t have been weak.

How strong had I become now?

Just as that man’s final words implied, had I really become a master?

Suddenly, the word Swordmaster came to mind.

Duke Helpion said that if I continued to swing my sword like this, I could reach the level of Intermediate Swordmaster.

If that’s true, could I take down Deon Craphy?

It wouldn’t be easy. I was just a commoner, while Deon Craphy was a noble of the Empire.

To oppose Craphy was to challenge the Empire itself.

And the Empire had a staggering twenty-one Intermediate Swordmasters.

No matter how skilled I became, I could never withstand a joint assault by twenty-one of them.

I stood there in the center of the training ground, sword in hand, endlessly pondering my next steps.

My reverie was broken when the Duke entered the training yard.

“You’ve come.”

“You won.”

The Duke left it at that, simply looking at me.

His face wore an ambiguous expression, neither a smile nor a frown.

And it seemed I had the same look.

“You don’t seem very happy.”

To think the Duke would worry about me like this.

“I feel a bit uneasy. I can’t help but wonder if I didn’t just come here and stir up people who were living peacefully, making them shed blood that didn’t need to be shed.”

“Do you regret it?”

I shook my head.

Because I’d already thought about this question before the Duke arrived, I could answer immediately.

It’s not that I don’t regret it.

But there’s nothing to regret yet, since nothing has been decided.

If I can bring dazzling achievements to this Duke Territory from now on,

If I can make the Duke Territory flourish and, with this power, take revenge on that bastard Craphy,

Then perhaps, though it might be selfish, I will have no regrets.

But if I achieve nothing in the Duke Territory,

Then I will surely regret the blood that was shed in vain, and the souls I have killed with my own hands.

“I regret it a little.”

“That you accepted me into the Duke Territory?”

“No. This is a personal matter.”

The Duke gazed at the distant moon in the sky.

The moon, as if it too knew what had happened today in the Duke Territory, was quietly shining behind the clouds.

“Do you know how long it took me to defeat the Demon King?”

“You led the Demon King Subjugation Force and fought for a year, right?”

“No. It took twenty years. I picked up the sword from the moment I was old enough to understand, and wielded it every day. I had no particular goal. I just enjoyed the feeling of growing stronger each day.”

He reminisced about those days.

“I defeated the Demon King simply because I was the best sword wielder in the world. Back then, I was the only one in the world with the title of Grand Swordmaster. And for twelve years… I barely grew. Progress was almost nonexistent.”

The wind blew and clouds drifted by.

The once quiet moonlight now settled on the Duke’s shoulder.

“I kept thinking—maybe the reason I couldn’t grow stronger was because I’d already defeated the Demon King. Maybe my growth had been a gift from the gods, just so I could defeat the Demon King. And if that’s true, then maybe I was too hasty in defeating him.”

There was a deep regret in the Duke’s upright words.

“When I reached that conclusion, I began to resent everything. Even the Mercenary Band that followed me, even the Duke Territory I was granted for slaying the Demon King.”

“That’s too much, my lord.”

The Duke gave me a faint smile at my clumsy attempt to comfort him.

“I know. If I keep thinking this way, I’ll fall into inner demons. So, to forget everything, I immersed myself in training. Foolishly swinging my sword, stupidly focusing only on physical training. I think I was too indifferent to the people around me.”

I don’t know what kind of history the Duke had with the Grizzly Mercenary Corps.

Nor what stories he had shared with Darenberg, or what thoughts he had in those moments.

But there is a way to hear such sentiments.

“My lord, why not write a letter yourself this time? Pour your current thoughts and feelings into it.”

“You mean, write it myself?”

“I think now, my lord, you are more than capable of doing that.”

I added nothing further, and the Duke didn’t ask again.

The next evening,

The Duke sent me three letters he had written throughout the night, and I corrected only minor typos and awkward phrases before sending them to the Squaret Family.

I had no way of knowing who this letter would bring to the Duke Territory.

“What is Titania doing?”

“The young lady is in the training yard again.”

“My, so persistent.”

Duke Squaret shook his head.

Lady Titania was twenty-five years old.

She was slightly past the usual age for marriage.

The reason she was still unmarried was because her ambitions were so clear.

To become Chancellor like her father, and leave her name in the kingdom’s history.

She had turned down all the marriage proposals that poured in, and devoted herself to her studies at Delphi Academy.

But then,

Suddenly, she caught a late wind and insisted on wielding a sword.

Thinking it was just a passing hobby, the Duke had allowed Titania to do as she wished.

With time, however, he realized how mistaken he was.

Titania had started swinging her sword in earnest, five or six hours a day.

Duke Squaret tried to trace the cause of this change.

Before long, he discovered that, starting about a month ago, she had been exchanging love letters with a thunder-brained fighting idiot.

‘What on earth does she see in a brute who only knows how to fight and train his body?’

The shocking part was that Titania seemed to be looking forward to the Duke’s letters.

Duke Squaret wanted to get to the bottom of everything.

“Did a letter arrive today?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring it here.”

Such stubbornness eventually led him to secretly read the letters addressed to his daughter.

And today,

Upon reading Duke Helpion’s letter, which openly confessed his heart for the first time,

“Steward, prepare the carriage. I must go to Helpion Duchy myself.”

Duke Squaret began to move.