Chapter 49
The hilt of the Holy Sword that the Keeper abruptly thrust toward me. I stared at it with a blank expression.
She had appeared out of nowhere and was telling me to take hold of the Holy Sword.
The reason she had left the church and come all the way to this distant land.
The rough outline of this surreal situation was beginning to fall into place.
'Honor and glory.'
It must have been because of the keywords I'd written in the notice.
For nearly a thousand years, she had wandered the continent in search of the Holy Sword's master.
That was the Keeper of the Holy Sword's duty—and the reason she had been created.
"Take it."
The Keeper thrust the Holy Sword's hilt closer.
The Holy Sword's master was bound to have honor and glory. They also had to possess Sun Rings.
It was certain.
The Rings I'd shown in my duel with Bagot must have caught her attention.
'I have a feeling nothing will happen even if I take it.'
In my previous life, I had failed to qualify for the Holy Sword.
It would probably be the same this time, but one could never be sure.
To test whether someone qualified for the Holy Sword, they first had to possess a 'Sun Ring.' In other words, they had to live a life accompanied by hardship.
If that had been all there was to it, I would have taken hold of the Holy Sword long ago.
The task one had to shoulder in order to wield the Holy Sword.
Some called it a prohibition, while others called it a tenet.
Lucia had called it a tenet.
—I heard there were originally five tenets, but I was so compatible with the Holy Sword that there were seven for me. Apparently, the two extras were there to suppress my desires. What bullshit.
An expression like she'd swallowed meat she'd only half chewed.
I couldn't forget the look on Lucia's face as she remembered her painful past.
"What are you hesitating for?"
The Keeper offered the hilt again.
There was not a trace of compromise in her red-gold eyes. I barely suppressed the sigh rising within me.
In my first life, I had failed to qualify for the Holy Sword. It had been a blessing in disguise.
But now?
Having taken on the task of saving the world, would I qualify for the Holy Sword?
Clench—
The Keeper clenched her fist.
'Crazy bitch.'
I'd been beaten by her a few times in my previous life, so my instincts sounded the alarm.
I had no choice but to reach toward the hilt, secretly believing that I didn't qualify.
"Heat the Ring."
The test for qualifying as the Holy Sword's master was simple.
Touch the hilt and activate Solar. That was it.
I rotated the Sun Ring embedded in my core.
High-purity Solar flowed along my arm and seeped into the hilt.
If I were the Holy Sword's master, it should produce a resonance like an earthquake and emit a dazzling radiance at this moment.
Please, please, please.
I silently begged dozens of times for it to stay quiet.
One second.
"……."
"……."
Three seconds.
"……."
"……."
Even after five seconds passed, the Holy Sword remained unresponsive.
Even the slightest vibration soon ceased. No radiance or resonance occurred.
Phew—
A sigh of relief escaped between my teeth.
"Hmm."
The Keeper quietly retrieved the Holy Sword and sheathed it.
There was no sign of disappointment. She probably regarded it as one of the countless failures she had experienced tens of thousands of times.
With practiced hands, she wrapped a bandage around the hilt, then strapped the Holy Sword across her back.
She lightly hopped down from the field and walked into an empty tent, where she plopped down.
Her thoughts were written all over her face.
She intended to sit here and wait for the master to appear someday.
"Hey. Isn't that thing that woman's holding the Sun Holy Sword?"
Talk of the Holy Sword belatedly began to spread through the crowd.
"Then is that woman the Keeper of the Holy Sword from the Sun Church?"
"Why did the Keeper come here? To conquer the Ashen Forest?"
"No way. The Keeper can't use her power for personal purposes. That's what the tenets say."
"She came looking for the Holy Sword's master. Looks like another wasted trip."
The appearance of the Holy Sword and its Keeper, which people had only heard of in legends. It would have been stranger if it hadn't caused a commotion.
Those who knew the Keeper clicked their tongues, saying that she had wasted her time again.
But I knew.
There were only two people who could become the Holy Sword's master.
By coincidence, those two people were here right now.
One was Lucia, watching me and the Keeper alternately from afar.
In my first life, she was chosen by the Holy Sword when she forged five Rings.
In other words, that future was still far away for Lucia as she was now, since she had not forged even a single Ring.
She wasn't someone who 'had' the qualifications for the Holy Sword, but someone who would 'come to have' them.
Then who was the other person?
I didn't know whether that person possessed the qualifications right now, had possessed them from long ago, or would gain them in the future like Lucia.
Even I, a regressor who had lived through a previous life, couldn't know for certain.
That person was sitting alone, far away from everyone else.
'The Keeper herself.'
Everyone in the world saw her only as Solari's symbol, the one who guarded the Holy Sword.
The person who believed that most fervently was the Keeper herself.
A paradoxical existence who stayed close to the Holy Sword all her life, and for that very reason became distant from it.
'If not for the destruction, I would never have known.'
Only at the very end of the destruction did the Keeper realize it by chance.
That she was not an accessory to the Holy Sword, but its master.
That was the turning point that changed the Holy Sword's master from Lucia to the Keeper.
I wanted to tell her the truth right now, but……
—Still, the Holy Sword did help us. Without it, I wouldn't have even dreamed of forging seven Rings. We wouldn't have made it this far.
The order of becoming the Holy Sword's master had to be Lucia first, followed by the Keeper.
The Holy Sword was necessary to complete the protagonist's story.
***
In the center of the training grounds, where the heat had yet to dissipate.
The atmosphere had grown chaotic because of the duel with Bagot and the Keeper's intrusion.
I sheathed my cumbersome sword and looked around at the crowd.
The murmuring crowd fell silent like an ebbing tide, and the distrust and mockery had long since vanished.
I raised my chin and opened my mouth.
"From this moment on, we begin the first interview."
The warriors answered in their own ways.
Some adjusted their weapons, while others loosened their muscles. Every one of them was bracing themselves.
I felt oddly sorry, as if I had thrown cold water over them.
"Put your weapons away. The first interview is very simple."
I raised a fingertip and pointed toward the old knight standing some distance away.
Hendrickson, the one singled out, grinned and exposed his yellow teeth.
"This is the first test. Overcome a Sword Master."
Three seconds of silence followed his words.
Murmuring began among the crowd.
"What the hell, we're supposed to beat a Sword Master? Is this a joke?"
"There seems to be another meaning to it……."
Anyone capable of fighting and defeating a Sword Master would have no reason to crawl under someone else's command.
"As I said, I don't mean that you must defeat one, but 'overcome' one. It's very simple. All you have to do is withstand a Sword Master's killing intent to pass."
Only then did those who understood let out quiet exclamations.
"You get the gist. The high-ranking demon beasts of the Ashen Forest wield an innate Fear."
It worked on the same principle as a dragon's Fear.
Once someone reached the rank of Sword Master, they could control that Fear freely. Sometimes, it even became visible to the naked eye.
"No matter how ironclad your body is, if your mind is weak, you'll be nothing but baggage. What the expedition needs above all is the mental strength to endure fear."
After speaking, I gave them half a breath's pause.
I glanced toward the cavalry horses tethered in one corner of the training grounds.
"By the same token, you won't be riding horses while clearing the forest. Beasts, horses included, have no resistance to fear."
I could see bewilderment appear on the faces of some in the crowd.
The reality was that they would have to traverse the demonic realm on foot alone.
The Ashen Forest expedition wasn't merely a battle against demon beasts.
It was a battle of endurance and time, no different from an ordeal that scraped away everything down to the very bottom of human nature.
"I trust everyone understands by now. Those without confidence can leave even now."
Perhaps they really were veterans, because not a single person turned away.
Having said all I needed to say, I stepped down from the dueling ground without hesitation.
Hendrickson filled the vacant spot with a leisurely stride.
"What a spectacle."
A satisfied smile hung at the corners of Hendrickson's mouth. He clenched one fist.
Thud! Thud—!
Like beating a war drum, he pounded his chest with his fist.
Goooooo—!
Taking the blows as a signal, the seven Sun Rings around his chest began activating one after another.
The air throughout the training grounds warped and heated intensely. Killing intent rose around him like a heat haze.
"Three minutes. If you can't last even three minutes, bite your tongue and die."
His remark was a little too violent.
***
Outside the tent, screams and the sounds of retching erupted. Every so often, the sound of someone collapsing joined them.
Julian and Jenkinson were standing ramrod straight, saying they'd try to endure it, though I had no idea if they'd manage.
I didn't bother stopping them and entered the tent with Lucia and Celine.
"Young Master. When you held the Holy Sword earlier, you seemed reluctant."
"That's right. I was afraid I might actually end up with the Holy Sword."
"Isn't the Holy Sword a good thing? If it were me, I'd want to have it."
At that, I turned toward Lucia. She really looked as though she was asking out of simple curiosity.
If it had been her, she would have wanted it.
A wry smile spread across my lips.
—Astin. Never touch the Holy Sword.
—Why?
—Just don't, you fucking bastard. Smoke a cigarette instead.
The current Lucia was a young noblewoman who didn't even know what the tenets were.
Celine stared at me, curious as well.
It was not ignorance, but simply the natural progression of generations.
Since the current generation had no interest in Solar, its interest in the Holy Sword had naturally faded as well.
"The Holy Sword isn't simply a good thing. If you qualify for the Holy Sword, you'll also have to bear its tenets."
"The tenets……?"
"Would you call it the world's corrective force, or a binding of the soul?"
"Ah. I get it. It's a compulsion that prevents you from taking certain actions."
"Not exactly. You can take the action, but you'll pay a price commensurate with it."
In my first life, Lucia had violated a tenet exactly once.
She once complained to me that she had nearly died then.
"The moment you break a tenet, lightning may strike from a clear sky, the ground beneath your feet may collapse, or heaven and earth may suddenly be remade. At that point, it would be fair to call it divine punishment."
"Holy crap."
"Wow……"
Their shocked expressions were identical. They were practically mirror images.
Tenets were shackles that came with wielding power capable of twisting the foundations of the world.
In other words, the Holy Sword wasn't the only thing that brought tenets into being.
'I must have tenets too.'
I myself was already bound by tenets.
Hadn't I defied causality by reversing time? There was no way I didn't have tenets.
I was almost certain that mine was 'Leakage of Heavenly Secrets (天機漏洩).'
That was exactly why I had never revealed the truth about my regression.
Lucia, you sent me to the past with Deus's time magic.
-She'd naturally believe me if I told her that.
But the moment I did, the backlash of the tenet would kill me.
Even if that wasn't the case, it would be a tenet worse than the Holy Sword's, and I wasn't confident I could bear it.
"What exactly are the Holy Sword's tenets?"
Lucia's curious question was unusual enough to feel fresh.
Looking beside me, I saw that Celine was curious as well.
She waited for me to open my mouth, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape.
"For starters, the Holy Sword has more than one tenet. Usually, there are five, and if you're highly compatible with the Holy Sword, there are seven."
Lucia's mouth fell open.
She looked like she couldn't even dream of a future in which she had seven tenets.
"The first tenet is also a condition of ownership. The user must be chaste, without exception, and must remain so in the future."
Lucia's shoulders flinched.
When I stared at her, wondering what was wrong, Lucia managed to open her mouth.
"Young Master, have you never been with a woman?"
"Yes. That's why I was scared I might qualify for the Holy Sword."
"No, how can you have a face like that and—!"
Lucia, raising her voice, flinched and cut herself off. Carefully watching my reaction, she added,
"The rumors said—erhem—that you had seduced several women and gone around with them……?"
"I was a wastrel, but not a womanizer. It was a distorted rumor."
"That's right. Big Brother is completely devoted to one person. If he has someone he loves, he gives all his love to that person."
"Well said, my soft, chewy rice-cake young lady. I'll shower you with your big brother's love."
"Ugh…… It's too much……."
It was at that moment, while I was kneading Celine's cheeks.
Phew—
A low sigh reached my ears.
Glancing sideways, I saw Lucia stroking her chest.
"What a relief……."
She probably thought I couldn't hear her.
I had heard it all, but tactfully pretended not to.