The God-Possessed Swordsmanship Genius - Chapter 29

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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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Chapter 29: The Swordsman Touched by God

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Late evening.
Iorga, who was guarding the study of the Gajujeon, received an unexpected visitor.

“Grand Chief Hyren?”

Grand Chief Hyren.
He had come to the Gajujeon alone.

“Long time no see, Iorga.”
“What brings you all the way out here?”
“Do you think I came to see you? I came to see the Lord.”

Saying so, Hyren held up a bottle of liquor in both hands.
He had clearly already had a drink or two, for the smell of alcohol clung to him.

“Tell him I’ve brought good liquor. And some interesting news, too.”
“The Lord is busy with his duties right now. If you’ll leave a message, I’ll pass it along later…”
“Let me in.”

Perhaps he had been listening to the conversation outside, for Axion’s permission came from somewhere inside the study.
Iorga stared at the bottle Hyren had brought, let out a heavy sigh, and stepped aside. Hyren chuckled, pushed open the study door, and walked in.
Hyren set the bottle on the central table in the study and sat down.
Skipping all formalities, he poured a drink first thing.

“I came for a drink, Lord. You like this one, don’t you?”
“You’ve come late.”
“Wasn’t there someone who came even later than this, once?”
“Fair enough.”

Axion didn’t scold him for his rudeness. As if he’d expected nothing less, Hyren let out a snicker.
There was something the family members didn’t quite know.
Just how utterly indifferent Axion Bishuken was to etiquette, and how little he cared for empty ceremony.
Only a very small few within the household knew this, Hyren among them.
The two of them drank without a single side dish.
After sharing several glasses of the strong liquor, Hyren finally brought up the real matter.

“I met Allen.”

Axion’s hand, raised to his cup, froze in mid-air.

“To be honest, I didn’t expect much. The last time I saw him, a few years back, that brat was an absolute mess.”
“And now?”
“He exceeded my expectations.”

Hyren grinned slyly.

“The little ones of Bigeom Squad 2 were testing their new squad leader. There’s a custom called the Initiation Rite, where the squad members take turns testing the leader…”

Hyren began recounting what he had witnessed during the day.
Axion, the taciturn one, sipped quietly at his drink and simply listened.

“…So I just couldn’t hold back.”
“And if you hadn’t held back?”
“I made a wager. Staking Griffin on it.”

At those words, Axion’s gaze slid down to Hyren’s waist.
The sword hanging there was not the one he usually carried. Axion could guess how the wager had turned out.
Under that look, Hyren scratched the back of his head with an awkward grin.

“That’s right. I lost. I had to use my mana, and my clothes got cut to pieces.”
“He must be strutting around by now, not knowing you went easy on him.”

Had Hyren truly shown his full strength, no matter how much Allen twisted and scrambled, the boy would have never stood a chance against him.
After all, Hyren was one of the very few swordsmen Axion would openly acknowledge.

“That’s the funny part.”

Hyren thought back to the look in Allen’s eyes after their bout had ended, when the boy lay sprawled on the ground, worn out.

“That kid still looked thirsty, if you ask me.”
“Thirsty?”
“Yes. Even after winning the wager, he seemed reluctant to let it go.”

Even with a famous blade of legend in hand, Allen had been dissatisfied. If his forms had been deeper, if he had been stronger. That thought was written plainly across his face.

“Isn’t it ridiculous? Some mere squad leader, who won a wager against the Grand Leader and walked off with a legendary blade, and he still isn’t satisfied.”
“Greedy boy, isn’t he.”
“Yes. A truly avaricious one.”

Hyren downed the rest of his liquor in one gulp and spoke.

“Looks like he really means it, that talk of surpassing the Head of the House.”
“…Whether he has the ability to do that remains to be seen.”
Heh. Will the busy Head of the House even have time to watch? Now that he’s joined the Sword Corps, it’s my job as Grand Chief to keep an eye on him.

Before long, Hyren had emptied his cup and rose from his seat.

“You look busy, so I’ll take my leave for today. I expect I’ll be visiting often for a while, anyway.”
“Seems you’ve taken a liking to that boy.”
“I think watching him will be quite entertaining.”

Hyren bowed his head and was just about to leave the study, his face flushed red, when—

“So, how was it?”

The moment Hyren grasped the door handle, Axion spoke.

“Compared to that fresh-faced brat from before, how does he measure up?”
“Did you actually take my words to heart?”
“I took them as something you wanted me to keep.”
“Hahaha.”

Whatever thought had struck him, Hyren grinned broadly once more.
Axion in his youth and Allen.
The faces of the two men, bound by blood, seemed to overlap.

“Like father, like son, I’d say.”

* * *

The next day.
Bigeom Squad 2, gathered once more at the Training Ground, could only stare in bewilderment at what had happened the day before.

“Did we… all lose?”
“…I think so?”

They had been defeated in the blink of an eye.
Those who fought near the end had a rough idea of how it ended, but the ones who fell early had no idea what happened afterward.
Bigra’s confusion was the greatest of all.

“We lost? All of us?”

The first to fall, he went from one squad member to another, peppering each with questions.

“What happened, exactly?”
“What do you mean, what happened? We got smashed, that’s what.”
“All of us? Did you get paired one-on-one like I did?”
“No. Just like they offered, one person came out against you first, then two, then four. And every single one of them lost.”

The one speaking was a member who had gone up against four of them.

“We didn’t stand a chance. They couldn’t use mana, sure, but the swordsmanship was the real thing.”
“That’s—!”

Bigra thought back to his sparring match with Allen.
The way Allen effortlessly caught his blade and then drove a wooden sword straight into a vital point—it had been flawless, without a single wasted movement.
Even so, for four of them to fall at once…

“I still refuse to accept it.”

Bigra ground his teeth.

“No matter how good his swordsmanship is, what’s the point if he can’t wield mana? This doesn’t count!”
“How shameful, Bigra.”
“What?”

It was Plio who pushed back against Bigra’s words.
He had held on until the very end of his match with Allen, and in his heart, he had already acknowledged him.

“We were the ones who proposed the Initiation Rite. The squad leader even set terms that were worse for himself. Still, not one of us was seriously hurt, and that’s purely because his skill was overwhelming.”
“If he had used mana, the outcome would’ve been different.”
“What’s the point of that assumption? Seven of us came at him all at once, and we still lost. If anything, I respect the squad leader for winning under conditions like that.”
“…Wait. Seven?”

Why not eight?
At that question, Plio’s gaze drifted to one side.
It was toward Mary, who as always had been first out on the training ground, swinging her sword.

“The deputy squad leader fought separately.”

Even as the others made a fuss, she carried on exactly as she always did.
No, if anything, she seemed to be giving off even more heat than usual.
Enough that no one dared to approach her.

‘Did she lose?’
‘Seems like she did.’
‘Is she angry?’
‘Doesn’t look like anger, though.’
‘Somebody go ask her.’
‘Who?’
‘Hey, youngest!’
‘Huh? Me?’

The squad members’ whispers faded after a moment.

“Vice Squad Leader!”

In the end, it was Bigra, the one least able to hold back his curiosity, who approached Mary.

“What happened to the Vice Squad Leader? I heard you fought separately at the end.”

Pak!

Mary’s sword, which had been slicing through the air, came to a halt.
She caught her breath for a moment, then turned her head to look at Bigra.
Sensing that every eye was on her, Mary answered.

“I didn’t fight.”
“Huh?”

Bigra, caught off guard by the answer, blinked in surprise.

“Wait, why didn’t the Vice Squad Leader fight?”
“…There was no point.”
“What are you talking about? No point?”

Mary wondered how on earth she was supposed to explain this.
To make them understand, she would have to explain the Grand Chief’s visit and the sparring match at the very end, and that was something she could not do.
After tossing Griffin to Allen, he had pressed Mary and Lucas with a stern warning.

“Let me be clear. I was never here. So don’t go running your mouths about pointless nonsense.”

Allen, who had finished his bout with the Grand Chief, was in no state to fight any further.
All his strength had drained away, and he was utterly spent. The way his hands trembled as he drew the sword he’d been handed showed he had wrung every last drop of energy from his body.
Carrying on the Initiation Rite with Allen in that condition was out of the question.

‘Not that I’d have won anyway.’

Even without having fought, Mary had already conceded defeat in her heart.
She simply had no confidence that she could so much as brush the hem of the Grand Chief’s robe.
But the squad members, who had no way of knowing that, could only feel frustrated.

“Vice Squad Leader, what’s going on?”
“Did you really concede without even fighting?”
“Is that kid’s swordsmanship really that good?”

Protests from the squad members refusing to accept Allen poured in.
A few even shot resentful glares at Mary, who had acknowledged the opponent without ever throwing a single strike.
Mary lowered the sword in her hand and let out a long, heavy sigh.

“I acknowledged the Squad Leader.”
“…You acknowledged him?”
“Vice Squad Leader!”
“Ahem.”

The squad members reacted to Mary’s words in a dozen different ways.
Some grew angry, as though their opinions differed, while others nodded and seemed to accept it.
On the whole, the further back a person had been knocked down, the more inclined they were to accept Allen.

“What exactly happened?”

Mary shook her head at Bigra’s question and gave her answer.

“Better you see it for yourselves than hear a hundred words about it.”
“Don’t be like that, just give us a straight answer…!”
“Did everyone get some good rest?”

Amid the restless atmosphere, Allen appeared on the training ground.
Mary straightened abruptly and turned. Her gaze settled on the faintly green sword at Allen’s hip.

‘So he really brought it.’

One of the 32 Swords of the Continent, Griffin.
The famed blade once wielded by the Grand Chief was now the sword of their squad leader.

“Are you feeling all right?”
“Quite well, thank you for asking. Did anyone get hurt yesterday? Please check on that for me.”
“We’ve already checked. No one was injured.”
“Is that so? Good. I didn’t receive a proper handover yesterday, so… I hear the previous squad leader’s post was vacant.”
“If you have any questions, you may ask me.”

Unlike the other squad members, Mary was extremely warm toward Allen. After what she had witnessed and experienced yesterday, every prejudice she’d held was bound to vanish.
The squad members exchanged puzzled looks at Mary’s attitude.
Sure, they had been thoroughly crushed during the Initiation Rite, but they couldn’t understand how the deputy leader’s attitude could change so quickly.

“What does Squad 2’s daily routine look like?”
“Mornings are usually for group training, and afternoons are for individual training. The exception is when we have missions.”
“How does group training usually proceed?”
“Normally it’s conducted under the squad leader’s command. Since the post has been vacant until now, I’ve been leading the training.”
“I see.”

At Mary’s answer, Allen nodded and glanced around.
The looks the squad members cast his way were complicated.
Some still clung to their pride, while others seemed to have accepted him as their leader after yesterday’s events.

‘Fifty-fifty, then.’

It seemed the Initiation Rite had made some difference. Half of them, at least, now acknowledged him as their squad leader.
He had no intention of exerting himself to win over the remaining half.
After all, that was a problem time would resolve on its own.

“I have plenty I’d like to say, but I’ll save it for later. I won’t bother asking what your relationship with the previous squad leader was, either.”

Allen yanked off the clothes he’d come in wearing and tossed them aside.
As Allen stripped off his shirt and changed into comfortable training gear, the squad members wore puzzled expressions.
Just as they wondered what on earth he was doing mid-sentence—

“Start by running.”

Allen launched into training without warning.

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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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