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Dense layers of fog would travel down the mountains that were as tall as the clouds and drenched the lands with the aura of Yin that attracted the demons. The mountain ranges used to have a harmonious balance of territories, starting from mere beasts to the demonic monsters that ruled over their regions.

But from a certain point in time, that balance had been broken but that wasn’t because of the old swordsman living on top of a tall mountain, who was using the bones of a demonic beast as a toothpick.

He didn’t bother tidying up his long but unkempt jet-black hair, and his martial clothes were in tatters without the semblance of their previous dignity.

The old swordsman, who was walking on his bare feet in the forests filled with sharp twigs, poisonous plants, and venomous serpents, said after opening his mouth.

“No matter how tall the mountains are, they are still lower than the heavens; how can you dream of swimming through the sea of skies without even climbing the mountains?”

“…”

While stroking his shortened beard, the old man gazed down at the fiend that was staring back at him with a ferocious pair of eyes.

The monster’s legs were as thin yet muscular as a leopard’s, and its bones were protecting its shoulders like plated armor. Meanwhile, its arms each had five fingers.

It was a rare humanoid demonic beast, that looked more like a human than a beast. The reason they weren’t called demi-humans was that, unlike demi-humans who were born as humans, they were born as a beast with beastly instincts and tendencies.

However, their wisdom and adaptability were no different from a human’s.

“Tch tch. Pretending like a real human now, aren’t you.”

The monster was holding a longsword with a cold blade. Despite having its weapon broken time after time, it somehow seemed to have an endless supply of swords, which was probably because it raided a weapon merchant or something.

– Click!

Even though it was acting like a human, the fiendish monster moved with a noise that was far different from those made by humans.

“So, did you heal your collarbones back up?”

The old man, Garrand Arden, asked while using the collarbone he took from the fiend to scratch his teeth. Then, he picked up one of his own swords.

That sword was called the Mountain-Crushing Sword, a heaven-defyingly excellent sword that could crush through everything in existence. When used by the swordsman who was stepping into the realm of gods, it resulted in a marvelous outcome that was soon revealed for the world to see.

………

……

…

A cluster of dirt drenched by the fog crumbled down the crevice. The magnificently clean cut created in the middle of the forest continued all the way down to the next mountain.

The slash created a wound on the world that was as straight as if it had been drawn with a ruler, and cut not only the mountains but also the sky.

It was just from one attack.

The fact that this was the result of one swing of a sword was impossible to accept with the common sense of normal people. They would be too dumbfounded to explain that the reason there was only one mountain remaining behind in the mountain range was because of the sword slashes of one swordsman.

“Tch tch tch. I ended up destroying nature again.”

The old man acting like a mysterious hermit clicked his tongue at the sight of the crack in the sky and the mountain range. Instead of looking back at his own actions however, he inwardly blamed the weakness of nature.

“What a stubborn fellow.”

There was a new monster who appeared like a supernova and crushed all the harmonious balance of the mountain range. He had been expecting many things from the new monster after seeing it kill all the so-called rulers of the forest one by one.

If not for the request of the druid he was long acquainted with, he would have gladly watched over the growth of this fiendish demonic beast.

However, no matter how strong of a demonic beast it was, it didn’t stand a chance before the Sword Emperor Garrand Arden, who had stepped into the realm of gods.

The first time he realized its talent was when he fought against it with a light heart and took one of its bones out.

Talent.

The inborn talent of having the ability to take a step forward in a suspended world.

Seeing that unpolished gem that had so much potential, Garrand Arden was awestruck and ended up letting the monster go. He was in the middle of blaming himself for being too old but that was when the demonic beast picked a fight with him again.

Despite constant repetitions of defeats and escapes and defeats and escapes, the monster did not give up.

Sitting on the hills of countless bones, the old man was reminded of his granddaughters after seeing the unending challenges of the fiendish monster.

One of them was talented but didn’t have the spirit, while the other had the spirit but no talent to back it up.

And after seeing the perfect form of talent that had both the spirit and innate talents, he couldn’t help but eye for it.

“Kukukukuk… No wonder it looked different today.”

Turning around, he looked at his swords that were sticking into the hill.

Out of the five heavenly swords, the dual sword – Dual Dragon Sword was gone. He did think that the monster looked slightly different today, and that must have been because the swords had been its objective from the very beginning.

“I see. The reason it was twitching all the time whenever I used my dual swords was because of its interest in those swords, huh.”

It was very interesting to see that a demonic beast was showing intrigue in swords.

That was probably because of the Sword Emperor himself though. After hundreds of consecutive defeats, the monster must have realized that it needed a better tool to kill the Sword Emperor.

“Right. Swords… Swords, huh. A demonic beast learning swordsmanship.”

A proper guardian with a sense of duty would have beheaded the monster immediately to get rid of any future trouble.

However, he was the Sword Emperor; a fiend of swords. He naturally couldn’t make himself kill a demonic beast that was rapidly becoming stronger through swordsmanship.

The challenges and defeats continued without an end. Several days went by with the Sword Emperor being the only one who thought of their relationship as that of a master and a disciple.

He personally gave a name to the demonic beast and called it the ‘Sword Fiend’.

“Make Alicia Arden the captain of the 5th Sword Squad. No objections will be permitted.”

That was before he came down the mountain.

****

It was already the 9th day after we arrived at the main headquarters of the Arden family, which in turn was the start of a new year.

“Huaaahm~”

A green-haired girl gave a big stretch with an exhausted look on her face even though it was already past noon.

“You look tired.”

“It was a while ago that I last attended a new year’s event.”

Last night, we attended the New Year’s Ceremony that took place at the Arden family. It was similar to the ones that you saw on Earth.

“Both of your clothes looked nice. I guess it was worth spending money for them,” I said.

“Really? It felt a bit heavy for me though,” replied Yuel.

By the way, the traditional clothes of the Arden were the same as Korean ones, except they were fancier and had more skin exposure. Thank you Korean Devs! I know it’s just a strategy to make players buy transmog¹Transmogrification (commonly referred to as transmog, tmog, xmog or simply mog) provides the ability to replace the appearance of your armor and weapons with those of other items, or to hide certain pieces of armor packages, but still!

“More importantly, Yuel. Did you hear something from the forest?”

“I was actually just about to talk about that. A spirit came over just today.”

The reason we had come to the east in the first place was to visit Findias, the secret land of druids. However, Findias was past the borders that were under Arden’s jurisdiction, and we had to go through various procedures before crossing borders.

“Mr. Korin, we are almost finished with all the preparations. I said to the Eastern Guardian Alliance that we were going there to investigate the organisms of the mountain ranges beyond the borders!”

The land past the eastern front of the kingdom was a broad landscape of nothing but nature. They were untouched pieces of lands with a bunch of demonic beasts and mountain ranges that rarely saw any human visitors because of just how dangerous they were due to the sheer number of monsters there.

We had to cross the borders though, so we needed to receive permission from one of the border ministers of the kingdom or the one in charge of this side of the kingdom’s border.

“Our family is in charge of looking after this side of the border after all! All we need to do is get our permission slip signed!”

“Oh, really? Who do we need to get it signed by?”

………

……

…

“No you cannot.”

It was rejected immediately.

“Uh… umm.”

The one in charge of the eastern border was none other than the strongest contemporary knight of the east in front of us, the likely future successor of the Arden family, Lunia Arden.

“I didn’t know you were in charge of the borders as well.”

“This royal family does not like looking after these bothersome lands of demonic beasts; not that they can either.”

The royal family took charge of normal borders but it was a different story for this side, because the eastern front was directly connected to hordes of demonic beasts, and was one of the only two places in the entire continent that had a risk of ‘monster waves’.

They were so tough that the player even had to protect the Northern and the Eastern front from monster waves with all their fully-nurtured party members near the end of the main storyline.

“Why are you even trying to cross the border in the first place?” Lunia asked.

“U, umm… To investigate the life-cycle of demonic… beasts?”

Seeing Alicia reply with hesitation, Lunia heaved a sigh before tightly pinching her by her cheeks.

“If you are going to tell a lie, straighten your back and be proud like you are telling the truth. If you cannot, then make it into a situation where they have to accept it even if they know you are lying.”

“Auhh, okayy…!”

Her hands rose up so high that she almost picked Alicia up from the ground. She soon let her go but Alicia still looked like she was about to tear up while patting her swollen cheeks.

“So Korin, why are you trying to cross the border?”

As expected, she had figured it out.

“There is the hidden land of druids beyond the border. My plan is to go there and as for the objective, that will have to come with a fair bit of cost.”

Considering her dry and business-like personality, she probably wouldn’t mess with us but we were still trying to get our hands on one of the 4 great treasures. Besides, there was no telling that her subordinates would stay quiet even if she herself didn’t mind.

“Well, fine. However, you are still underage and you need 2 more years till you turn into adults. Although you are guardians, it is not right to send teenagers across the border without any supervision.”

“Are you coming with us?”

“Well, my fiancé is the one going, so there is nothing stopping me from being the guardian.”

“What about your subordinates?”

“Hoh. Did you want it to be just the two of us?”

“That’s not bad either, but what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want our numbers to go up unnecessarily.”

It wasn’t a bad story for us. Hua Ran and Marie had yet to arrive, so having Lunia, who was almost around their level, joining us would be a huge plus to our combat potential.

Most half-assed guardians would only drag us behind in the mountain range of demonic beasts though, so it was better off for us to keep our numbers low. That was something I realized through first-hand experience last iteration when going out on expeditions.

“Then that will be the…”

“S, Sister…!”

“Mhmm?”

It was rare for Alicia to raise her voice, but she carefully continued her words while unconfidently keeping her eyes low as usual.

“I think you should… avoid using words like a f, fiancé.”

“Why is that?”

“Like, umm… the people around you might not like that…”

“The opinions of other people do not really matter to me.”

“You’ll put Mr. Korin in a tough spot as well…”

“That is not for you to worry about.”

“I… am his friend though. There are strange rumors spreading about Mr. Korin already…”

Well, even though I wasn’t really going to marry Lunia, there were talks about how I was a smooth-tongued gold-digger who deceived Lunia in a flash. That might be nothing strange though, because the story of an Academy freshman suddenly seducing the future successor of the Arden family was an appealing story for many.

Alicia seemed to have been discontent by such rumors. She was a very nice girl as always.

“S, Sister…! Y, you’re not going to take responsibility for him anyway, so I think it’s not right for you to interfere… with his marriageeee…”

For a split second, Lunia’s eyes flickered with a sharp light. Instead of hostility, those looked like the eyes of a predator that was seeing something unexpected.

“Sure, I shall refrain myself. More importantly, ready yourself for the journey. We will cross the border with a small number of us.”

In spite of promptly following her suggestion, Lunia was wearing a rather… crooked smile on her face.

****

Inside a building located at the center of the Arden’s headquarter, an elegant lady sitting on the floor of the living room poured tea from the teapot to a cup placed on the small table.

Sophia Arden, the wife of the current family head, Jade Arden, who was famous as the greatest swordswoman of the east during her youth, offered tea to her one and only daughter.

“There you go, Lunia.”

Unlike her, who was sitting down in a comfortable posture, Lunia Arden was sitting on her knees as she carried her cup of tea to her mouth. After taking a small sip, she slowly put it back down on the table.

“I heard you are spending a lot of time with a certain boy these days.”

“He is someone I have fortunately come across.”

“You could have left the night amusement for later.”

“…”

Sophia scolded her for finding someone early before getting herself a marriage partner. It was questionable whether that should be called an open or a wrong view of marriage.

She seemed to have pretty much given up after the extramarital affair of Lunia’s father, Jade Arden.

The undeniable proof of dishonesty – Lunia’s younger sister was like a thorn in the eyes of Sophia. Although her father never had any other illicit affairs since that incident, it was such a shocking event to Sophia and one that crumbled all the trust she had in her spouse that it ended up changing her entire view of marriage.

“Lunia. A man is nothing but a tool that increases the status of the family. You must pair yourself up with the one who will give you the most in return.”

“I am somewhat in agreement with your words, mother.”

“Somewhat?”

“Yes. Surely you would not have been so overconfident that I would be 100% in agreement with your opinion.”

“…”

Sophia indifferently accepted Lunia’s argument. That was her opinion and the wisdom of an adult as one who wished the best for her daughter, but also understood that it was possible for her daughter to have a different opinion for herself.

Even so, the one thing they had in common was that both of them were extremely certain that they were more correct than the other.

“You do not need to worry about it. I am certain that he is a lot more valuable of a warrior than the random nobodies on the pamphlet of marriage partners.”

“Hoh… Is he that much better?”

Sophia was also one of the strongest swordsmen of the east in her era. Her standards weren’t too different from Lunia’s either.

“He entered the Domain at the mere age of 20. His talent as a warrior does not fall short even when compared to grandfather.”

“…Lunia. Your grandfather’s talents…”

“Yes. I am aware that his talents are otherworldly, but that is the same for him. His skills are not only limited to destructiveness and have reached the Domain… Most importantly, he has a miraculous talent for leading fights to victory. That is the type of talent he has.”

Sophia was sincerely moved by Lunia’s acknowledgement. She wasn’t expecting there to be another one with such talents in this world.

Garrand Arden had an exceptional talent that was incomparable to anyone despite Sophia having seen countless warriors during her 50 years of life. He was the pinnacle of a generation who had even stepped into the realm of gods.

Sophia also had a great amount of trust in Lunia’s eyes and if Korin Lork really had that level of talent, she wouldn’t even care about families that could give diamond mines for Lunia’s hand in marriage.

“And…”

“And?”

It was very rare for Lunia to slur her words so Sophia focused on her upcoming words. Those next words, however, made her doubt her ears.

“He is handsome.”

“…Sorry?”

“I like his face. And besides… there is also the excitement of stealing what my younger sister wants.”

“????”

Sophia was puzzled and confused after seeing this side of her daughter for the first time in her life and didn’t know what to say in response.

“Umm… I do not believe it is morally correct to steal someone else’s lover.”

The words that she barely managed to forge out were extremely sensible words as a parent.

****

Yuel, Alicia, Lunia who was here as our guardian, and me – the four of us crossed the border and headed into the mountain range but the journey through the mountains wasn’t as bad as I thought.

“Thank you. Would you like some snacks?”

Yuel said while carrying a cookie in the air. The cookie disappeared as if it had been eaten by a spirit as Yuel flashed a faint smile in response.

“It is surprising that we are not losing our bearings in this sea of forests. It is definitely very convenient with the help of a druid,” remarked Lunia.

Wherever Yuel the druid was going, even the branches made way by moving out of her path. The dangerous roads weren’t even in consideration, and the spirits guided us down the safe path.

That was truly the one who was loved by nature from birth, but that goodwill of nature was only because they were grateful for the consistent hard work of druids to protect and maintain nature.

“I am only being guided and it is thanks to the spirits. We’ll be there very soon.”

After walking for who knows how long, we made our way into places that normal people wouldn’t even be able to find, and finally…

—————

For a split second, I felt something off. It was clear that I had entered through some sort of boundary.

“…I see.”

Turning around, I couldn’t see Alicia, Yuel, or Lunia anywhere.

“It is a common trick, but…”

It was an illusionary trick that dazed and confused people upon entering it, and it was similar to the Eight Gates Formation that we experienced at the festival.

I guess it was natural for there to be a deterrent spell like this for a secret land that was being protected by a druid sage. Even demonic beasts would probably be dazed and returned to other places.

However, this was probably a different application of that same formation.

As proof of that, my party members were nowhere to be seen. If their plan was to simply daze us and make us go away from their village, there was no reason for them to mess with our sight.

This was a kind of test – one that tested whether those accompanied by a druid had the right to enter the secret lands or not.

‘I believe these generally test one’s fear, trauma or conviction…’

Since I had gone through several similar experiences in the last iteration, I steeled myself and looked around. I didn’t rely on my five senses. The only thing I could trust was my sixth sense – instinct was the only thing I could rely on.

“Come. I will be fine with anything, whether it be illusions or monsters or…”

Bro

– Holy shit!

I felt goosebumps immediately crawling up my skin.

Footnotes:

• 1Transmogrification (commonly referred to as transmog, tmog, xmog or simply mog) provides the ability to replace the appearance of your armor and weapons with those of other items, or to hide certain pieces of armor