The Dragon Slayer Who Regressed After 1,000 Years - Chapter 43

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Dragon Slayer Who Returned After 1000 Years — Episode 043
Heintz, the head merchant of Karvan Trading Company, was in a foul mood.
It was because of a mage from Esthar who had visited him recently.
“That damned bastard…….”
It was unpleasant enough that he’d stormed in while Heintz was in the middle of enjoying time with a woman, but what truly grated on him was the mage’s insufferable arrogance.
Mages were known for their swollen pride, but this one had not a shred of courtesy in him.
“Goddamn mages all of them…… They treat me like I’m some fool. What business did he leave with me anyway? Thugs, the lot of them…….”
He had to curse them out like this or he’d burst from frustration.
Though next time they met, he’d surely grovel before them again, no doubt.
“Just let him show up again! I’ll kill every last one of those mage bastards——”
Then the door burst open.
Heintz’s jaw dropped as he looked up to see who had the audacity to enter without knocking.
His heart sank into his stomach.
“M-M-Mage Lady……?”
Erika produced a credential without a word.
The moment Heintz saw the credential bearing the seal of the Esthar Magic Tower, his face went pale.
“M-Mage Lady from the Magic Tower, no less?! P-Please, sit right over here!”
Heintz anxiously guided Erika to a seat, desperately hoping she hadn’t heard what he’d just been saying.
“May I offer you some tea?”
“No need. I’m here on business only.”
Erika sat arrogantly in the chair and looked down at Heintz.
“What of the item I mentioned before? How is it progressing?”
“Do you mean the Black Dragon’s Poison Sac?”
At his nod, Heintz’s expression became troubled.
“Well…… I’m afraid I need a bit more time.”
“Haven’t I given you enough?”
“No, but just hours ago someone from the Magic Tower came pressing me about it, and with all due respect, that puts me in a difficult position…….”
“……What do you mean, just hours ago?”
“Didn’t you send a mage from the Magic Tower?”
“Who sent anyone?”
Erika’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Heintz’s face went ashen.
“Oh no…… What have I done……!”
“Are you telling me someone other than me came looking for the Black Dragon’s Poison Sac?”
“Y-Yes, that’s correct.”
“And you mistook them for someone I sent and leaked information?”
“…….”
Heintz could not bring himself to answer.
The mage’s expression had turned terrifyingly cold.
“What did you tell them.”
“Th-That is…….”
“Tell me everything — the circumstances, every word of the conversation. Before I burn this place to ash with nothing left but bones.”
“Ahhh! Y-Yes, understood! I’ll tell you everything!”
Heintz racked his memory and spilled everything from start to finish.
Throughout his account, Erika’s expression showed no sign of improvement.
“So what you’re telling me is that someone we don’t know — someone who had no business knowing — has now learned that we’re searching for the Black Dragon’s Poison Sac.”
“Y-Yes, that’s c-correct…….”
Crash!
Heintz’s body was slammed to the floor by an invisible force.
Erika leaned over him where he lay pinned, and whispered.
“Right now, I want to slice your blubbery flesh into strips and obliterate this trading company without a trace.”
“P-Please! I-I’ve made a terrible mistake……! Have mercy…….”
“But I won’t. I’m a rational person, after all.”
The force released him, and Heintz lay gasping harshly on the floor.
Erika’s voice was glacial as she issued her command.
“Find the item and find this person. Spend whatever money you must, deploy whatever people you need — I don’t care about methods. You have ten days. If you fail to find them by then, your company will be erased from history.”
“Y-Yes! I’ll remember this……!”
Erika left the trading house, leaving Heintz still prostrate on the floor behind her.
She was turning over what Heintz had said a moment before.
‘Someone impersonating us was looking for a Jewelry Box?’
Why would she search for something already stored in the Magic Tower?
Erika tilted her head in puzzlement, then moved forward to apply pressure to the merchant guild.

* * *
Ragged breaths escaped continuously from Valensyus’s lips.
He had been striking with his sword for three hours straight.
Sweat sprayed in all directions, but he had no time to mind such things.
He swung the blade while concentrating solely on controlling his breathing.
Dmitri’s footsteps halted as he passed by.
He found himself drawn to watch the figure, unable to look away.
‘Remarkable. How exactly has he been taught that a person can transform so thoroughly?’
It had been three months since Valensyus arrived with the delegation.
In that time, he had not only surpassed the 1-Star threshold but now wielded his sword with far greater stability than before.
Such change in merely three months suggested his instructor possessed no ordinary skill.
‘His breathing is steady, his form unshaken.’
That nothing had changed from three hours ago was proof that both his stamina and Breathing Method had become second nature to him.
As someone responsible for training knights, Dmitri felt intensely curious about Cain’s teaching methods.
‘I’ll have to ask him when Master returns.’
Dmitri departed without disturbing the training further.
Unaware that he had been observed, Valensyus continued swinging for two more hours.
Only then did he cease his movements.
“Hahhhhh…….”
When he came to his senses, darkness had fallen.
Only now did he realize that sweat poured down like rain, and his entire body was drenched and heavy.
‘Has Master still not returned?’
Cain had given him an assignment: to perfectly master all the techniques he had been taught before the master’s return.
So as not to disappoint his master’s expectations, Valensyus swung his sword day and night without rest.
He might have grown weary of repeating the learned movements until he perfected them, but a burning desire to grow stronger drove him forward.
His enthusiasm bore no comparison to what it had been before.
Moreover, with his body obeying his will, there was joy in it as well.
‘Meeting Master was a stroke of fortune.’
Had he not met him, he would still not have awakened his Aura.
He would still not have understood what it felt like to have Mana flow into his body.
‘Thank you, Master.’
His teachings were rough around the edges, perhaps, but they were genuine.
They became bone and sinew, guaranteeing real and tangible growth in strength.
For this reason, Valensyus held him in esteem despite his youth.
His reverence went beyond mere admiration.
‘He truly is a remarkable man. To think he could hunt a dragon alone…….’
He should have recognized it when Cain cleaved Tendra in two in the Monster Forest.
That his master possessed the skill to hunt dragons as well.
‘How can a 7-Star hunt alone?’
But what confused him more was what had happened in Harzan Village.
‘That dragon was actually eating people…….’
Of course, he did not think all dragons were like that.
He believed it to be the doing of only a few inconsiderate dragons.
As someone raised in a house that taught dragons were saviors, Valensyus could think no other way.
‘So it was true that dragons threaten humans?’
In the world at large, dragons were spoken of ill; in his house, they were worshipped as saviors.
He did not know what to believe.
Valensyus shook his head as if to cast off the intrusive thoughts and rose to his feet.
He could not allow such distractions to take hold.
He grasped his sword once more and began to swing.
An hour passed in this manner.
Valensyus’s eyes widened in astonishment.
Two distinct stars, vividly felt within his heart.
‘2-Star? I’ve become 2-Star……?’
His shock transformed instantly into a smile suffused with joy.

* * *
In the secret study where not a single flame flickered, Alton gathered his thoughts in silence.
There was only one being who occupied his mind these days.
Cain of Asel.
‘The Lord wishes to meet this man Cain. But…….’
How was he to arrange it?
That question circled endlessly in his head.
‘Should I have him abducted?’
Kidnap a 7-Star Sword Master?
It was not as difficult as it first seemed.
With the spies he’d planted in Asel, it could be handled easily enough.
‘If need be, I could simply overpower him.’
Though they were only one star apart, the chasm between a 7-Star and an 8-Star was as vast as heaven and earth.
If he himself, an 8-Star Grand Sword Master, stepped forward, subduing the man would present no difficulty.
‘The problem lies in what comes after.’
Bringing Cain to the Dragon of Time by kidnapping him?
Being of royal blood, King Adriel would not stand idle.
It risked damaging the Empire’s prestige itself.
Above all else, Valensyus weighed on his mind.
‘He seems to regard him as a true master…….’
Alton found himself acknowledging Cain’s merit as well.
However the young man had managed it, he had mended the tangled circuits and even awakened Valensyus.
Moreover, word of this young Sword Master had already reached the ears of the Imperial Knights.
The matter had grown far too large to eliminate without a trace.
‘How then should I handle this?’
The Dragon of Time’s command was absolute.
He needed to arrange a meeting with that being, yet the method eluded him.
Every approach left only collateral damage in its wake.
‘Still, there is one method.’
To bring Cain into the Imperial Knights.
The Imperial Knights were already watching him closely, and with his influence applied, placing the man among their ranks would be no difficult task.
‘Then I could monitor him from nearby. Cassius belongs to the Imperial Knights as well.’
Use his second son to keep watch, and when the moment was ripe, have him abducted?
That would allow him to arrange contact with the Dragon of Time while keeping the aftermath clean.
‘Once he enters the Empire, he’ll have already slipped from King Adriel’s grasp.’
The only problem was lacking sufficient justification.
A twenty-year-old Sword Master alone would be reason enough to recruit, but the Imperial Knights held themselves in high regard.
As they styled themselves the continent’s mightiest, they rarely extended their hand first.
‘Even with my backing, the pretext remains insufficient…….’
He could emphasize that Cain had awakened Valensyus, but would the Emperor be swayed by that alone?
‘If only there were some other accomplishment…….’
Alton had heard the recent news that Cain had hunted Glacioneu.
For slaying a dragon his own house revered, Cain was as much an enemy as anything else.
Yet paradoxically, the achievement of being a Dragon Slayer could serve as just the credentials needed to recommend him to the Imperial Knights.
As his thoughts deepened, light from the Crystal Orb pushed back the darkness.
Recognition of the mana pattern brought a smile to Alton’s face.
“Valensyus.”
―Yes, Father. I trust you have been well.
“What is it? Do you have a report?”
Alton’s expression hardened at once, as if he had never smiled.
He could not afford to show personal feeling before the son he had sent as a spy.
―Not a report, but good news.
“Good news?”
―I have become 2-Star. Haha!
Alton’s eyes widened in shock.

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