Sword Master With One Strike Kill - Chapter 211

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

One-Strike Kill Swordmaster Episode 211

Episode 211. Dementia Patient, Lizard, and Fanatic (1)

Murmur murmur-.

The voices of the Sword Masters mixed together, filling the room. But all that noise didn’t reach Mangnyeom.

Mangnyeom had been sitting in a corner of the meeting room since earlier, staring down at her notebook, lost in thought.

“Hmm….”

A blackened cover. Yellowed pages densely filled with all sorts of notes.

That old notebook, bearing the traces of time, was her only memory storage.

And on its last page was a particularly eye-catching passage.

『Eliminate the danger around Vilopozy ─ All members of the Sisterhood of the Forsaken』

Unlike the other writing in the notebook, this single sentence was written large and bold enough to fill an entire page.

With asterisks and underlines, it was clearly very important content.

‘But….’

Mangnyeom slightly furrowed her brow.

Something stirred deep in her brain.

There were fragments of memory trying to surface, albeit faintly, but they kept slipping away from her fingertips like oil droplets floating on water.

She couldn’t recall it well.

However, she vaguely remembered that it had been quite an important mission.

When she received the revelation from The Great Ones, she had even worried about whether to continue this mission or depart for the Holy City.

And….

─Do you remember the Sisterhood of the Forsaken?

…The question Gaon had asked her just a few minutes ago also crossed her mind.

‘Sisterhood of the Forsaken.’

The strange sense of déjà vu she felt when she heard that name.

The familiar feeling, as if she had heard it somewhere before, still lingered in one corner of her heart.

‘What is it? Were they connected to me somehow?’

It was the moment when Mangnyeom was struggling to recall something forgotten while tracing those hazy memories.

“Hey.”

Tap tap-.

Right then.

Someone called Mangnyeom while lightly tapping her shoulder.

When she turned her head, some black skull was standing behind her.

At that moment, all the thoughts swirling in Mangnyeom’s head disappeared cleanly. In an instant, like fog scattered by wind.

“Death Knight?”

Shing-!

Mangnyeom drew a black rapier from her waist while tilting her head as if puzzled. A question crossed her expressionless face.

“Death Knights are targets for elimination, right? Why is a high-level undead wandering around the Holy City?”

“No no no! Wait a minute!”

Heukgol frantically waved his hands while shouting.

Whoosh-!

Mangnyeom’s rapier flew at him menacingly.

Heukgol, who barely avoided the attack, quickly retreated backward.

“What the hell! Why has this guy’s dementia gotten so much worse!”

In his urgency, Heukgol rushed over to Pean and shouted loudly.

“Is she crazy? She used to recognize fellow Sword Masters!”

“The restrictions have gotten quite severe lately. Yesterday she couldn’t even remember me.”

“Anyway, try to stop her! She’s trying to kill me right now!”

Heukgol’s voice became urgent.

Normally, he would have welcomed a sparring match.

But today was different. He was afraid that if he fought with Mangnyeom unnecessarily, Gaon would come and scold him.

That was absolutely out of the question.

More importantly, Heukgol had several things he wanted to ask Mangnyeom.

“What are you doing! Hurry!”

At that desperate cry, Pean stepped forward.

“Mangnyeom, please calm down.”

“Huh? What’s wrong, Anpea?”

“…It’s not Anpea, it’s Pean.”

“Huh? What’s wrong, Pean?”

Mangnyeom tilted her head while holding her rapier.

With an expression that seemed unable to understand why he was stopping her.

“Why are you stopping me? Weren’t Death Knights who destroyed the cycle of life and death always targets for elimination?”

“In general cases, yes. But he’s not an ordinary Death Knight, he’s a Sword Master chosen by the great Elder.”

“…?”

“Don’t you remember Heukgol?”

Pause-.

Hearing those words, Mangnyeom tilted her head for a moment.

She stared intently at Heukgol with an expressionless face, then gradually showed signs of something coming to mind.

“Ah.”

Shing-.

She fumbled to sheath her rapier at her waist, then struck her palm with her fist as if remembering.

Still with an expressionless face.

“I know. It’s written in my notebook. The idiot skeleton who couldn’t even draw a single divine weapon from the Forge of the Single Flame despite being a Sword Master.”

“Hey!”

At the sudden slander, Heukgol burst out shouting.

The other Sword Masters just chuckled at those words.

“We’ve been through thick and thin together for hundreds of years, so why do you remember me for something like that? I’m not the only Sword Master who failed at the Forge of the Single Flame! This is ridiculous!”

“There’s no point in arguing with me about it.”

Mangnyeom shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t remember anything. That’s just what’s written in my notebook.”

“That, that’s….”

Heukgol, who was about to argue something, soon let out a deep sigh.

Whoosh-.

Right.

What meaning would such a conversation have?

Mangnyeom’s amnesia was already a fact known to all the Sword Masters.

There was no point in arguing with her about it.

‘This isn’t what’s important anyway.’

Heukgol composed himself and began asking questions in earnest.

“First, Mangnyeom.”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you get that black rapier? I’ve never seen it before.”

His gaze turned toward Mangnyeom’s waist. He could see the rapier neatly inserted in a black leather sheath.

A slender and elegant blade. A delicately carved handle.

At a glance, it was an extraordinary weapon.

“Wait a moment. Let me look for it too.”

Rustle-.

Then Mangnyeom briefly flipped through her notebook and nodded.

Soon, she casually answered while quickly turning several pages.

“This is amazing. I got it from the Anvil of the Single Shoe.”

“…?”

Upon hearing those words, Heukgol’s jawbone gaped awkwardly.

“Wh-what are you talking about? Last time what you drew from the Anvil of the Single Shoe was a greatsword as big as your torso!”

Heukgol’s voice was full of conviction.

He remembered that day’s events clearly.

After completing the sacred covenant, Mangnyeom finished her meeting with The Saintess and immediately headed to the「Anvil of the Single Shoe」.

“I remember it the same way.”

Tyrant Dragon also nodded as if agreeing with Heukgol’s words. He was the Tyrant Dragon who had followed Heukgol to Middle Temple and witnessed the birth of the twelfth Sword Master.

However.

“Are all of you misremembering things like me?”

Mangnyeom instead began treating the others as if they were strange people.

“I’ve never had such a sword. The sword I drew from the Anvil of the Single Shoe is this rapier, my first and last.”

“…?”

“…?”

* * *

Thud, thud-.

Having finished his meeting with Gaon, Arwen was heading down the corridor toward the meeting room.

However, his steps were much heavier than usual. The burden he carried in his heart was weighing down his body.

“….”

Pause-.

Arwen suddenly stopped walking and looked out the window.

The beautiful scenery of the Holy City spread out before his eyes, but that landscape didn’t properly enter his vision.

The dark thoughts filling his mind were making everything blurry.

‘The Saintess is a finite being.’

This was a cruel truth that anyone among the high priests of Middle Temple knew.

Each time she delivered oracles and revelations, The Saintess’s holy power was gradually chipped away. In the process of conveying the will of The Great Ones to the Lower Realm, her life was slowly consumed.

Like a burning candle, burning herself while giving light.

The moment her holy power was depleted, The Saintess could no longer become a ‘vessel’ to contain the divine.

Her body, unable to withstand the immense divinity, would collapse and lead to death.

‘When The Saintess dies, the next generation’s Saintess will be born.’

The Saintess’s mark would transfer to another girl. A new chosen one would appear somewhere on the Continent.

However, that process was never smooth.

Middle Temple had to thoroughly search the vast Continent to find the girl bearing the mark. It was a daunting task that sometimes took months, sometimes years.

During that gap period, no oracles would be delivered. The link connecting The Great Ones and the Lower Realm would be completely severed.

‘Of course, in most cases, such an interval might not be a major problem.’

But….

What if a situation arose where urgent revelations needed to be delivered precisely during the period when there was no Saintess?

What if missing that crucial moment led to an irreversible catastrophe?

For such reasons, Middle Temple had no choice but to want to reduce that gap by even a single day.

‘Project Seraphim.’

That horrific human experimentation that had continued for hundreds of years was devised precisely to solve that problem.

Artificially replicating The Saintess. Mass-producing them like objects so that when one died, the next Saintess could be immediately supplied.

It was a desecration beyond imagination, treating a sacred being as a tool.

‘Damn….’

Arwen’s brow furrowed deeply.

‘…How on earth did a proposal to carry out such experiments get approved?’

It was unbelievable that the Traditionalist Faction had stepped forward to conduct such experiments, when even the radical Reformist Faction would have vehemently opposed such a thing.

What was even more incomprehensible was that they had been able to commit such atrocities in Dawnguard while penetrating Middle Temple’s internal checks and surveillance network.

No matter how strong the Traditionalist Faction’s influence was, handling something of that scale in complete secrecy wouldn’t have been easy.

‘Anyway.’

When Arwen dispatched the Investigation Team to Dawnguard for the Puppet Master Batu incident, he had also instructed them to look for traces of Project Seraphim.

However, no traces of the experiment could be found anywhere.

According to secret documents, that experiment had already ended in failure decades ago. The test subjects had escaped en masse and destroyed the facility.

‘But….’

Those test subjects would still be alive somewhere on the Continent.

There was no telling what kind of malice those who had been subjected to horrific human experimentation might harbor toward Middle Temple.

They might side with the Evil Gods out of burning desire for revenge, or they might band together and watch for an opportunity to attack Middle Temple.

‘Since they are cloned humans specially created to handle holy power, it’s impossible to predict what dangerous powers they might possess.’

That’s why Arwen had honestly confided all those concerns to Gaon.

And….

─I’ll take responsibility for it myself.

…As always, Gaon answered without hesitation that he would step forward to solve the problem.

He provided no further explanation or specific plan. He simply received the secret documents and left only the instruction to call Tyrant Dragon next.

‘Now we have no choice but to entrust everything to The Protagonist.’

Middle Temple had no other options. Nothing but to silently support him from behind.

Creak-.

Just as Arwen returned to the meeting room and was about to call Tyrant Dragon.

“This is unfair! This is too unjust! How does that make sense! Someone is dying of sadness for not having a divine weapon!”

Pause-.

As soon as he opened the door, Heukgol’s wailing pierced his ears.

“I want to get dementia too!”

“…?”

“How does it make sense that you can retake the test if you have no memory of entering the Anvil of the Single Shoe!”

* * *

Thud, thud-.

How many minutes had passed since sending Arwen away?

With heavy footsteps, Tyrant Dragon entered the room.

His massive frame filled the doorway. For some reason, he was continuously letting out hollow laughs as if he found something absurd.

I asked a question.

“What happened in the meeting room?”

“Well, nothing… It’s not big enough for you to worry about. I just learned one absurd fact.”

If it wasn’t a big deal, there was no particular need to worry about it. I brought up the main topic immediately, even before Tyrant Dragon sat down.

“Tyrant Dragon.”

“…?”

“Didn’t you kill a Saintess decades ago?”

“What? That’s….”

Pause-.

As soon as he heard my words, Tyrant Dragon’s massive body instantly stiffened.

He furrowed his brow deeply as if just remembering it was unpleasant. Then he soon muttered in an irritated voice.

“…Damn, that clueless priest must have spouted that nonsense again.”

Suddenly, an incident from a few months ago came to mind.

When I first headed to the Underground Shrine for an audience with The Saintess, the warning that Amond von Goldhart had given me.

─Ah, and you must never try to fight The Saintess. According to records, in the past, one of The Protagonists tried to test how strong The Saintess was by suddenly challenging her to a fight… and something quite ‘terrible’ happened.

The culprit was Tyrant Dragon.

The moment he saw The Saintess, he charged at her recklessly, and The Saintess met a terrible death without being able to resist at all.

But…

There was one hidden truth behind the incident that everyone believed to be true.

“What I killed in the Underground Shrine wasn’t something like The Saintess.”

Tyrant Dragon’s voice sank low.

“It was a monster wearing her shell.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————