The God-Possessed Swordsmanship Genius - Chapter 6

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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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The Sword Genius Blessed by a God, Chapter 6

The weight of the sudden question was far too heavy.
Clan Head.
Lukas was speaking of the Clan Head of Bishuken, of all things.
If I were the Allen of my past life, I might have misread this question.
That the brother, having seen me overcome the curse, had begun to watch me warily. That he might now regard me as a rival and push me aside.
But Allen could see it.
What lay in Lukas’s eyes as he looked at him was, if anything, worry.

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll get hurt?”

Just as expected, Lukas’s expression wavered visibly.
It was the face of a man whose secret had been struck.
But hiding that inner thought, Lukas countered.

“That’s a strange answer. Shouldn’t you be thinking that I’m wary of you, in a situation like this?”

It was a perfectly natural question.
And if I were to answer it honestly, it would go like this.

‘Because you, Brother, withdrew from the race for the Clan Head on your own.’

About five years from now.
Lukas chose to step away from the race to become Clan Head of Bishuken of his own accord.
Then again, when I think about it, Lukas never once actually competed.
He never built a faction of his own, nor did he ever dabble in politics. He simply devoted himself to carrying out missions as a swordsman of the family.

In the end, the seat of Heir Apparent of the Clan remained empty for a long time.
Allen, cursed as he was, and Lukas, who had given up the Heir Apparent seat himself. Neither one of them ended up becoming the heir.
But that was not something that could be said here and now.

“Is that so? Come to think of it, does becoming Clan Head mean I’d have to fight you?”
“So you do have a desire to become Clan Head.”
“It’s not that I have none at all.”

Allen sipped the wine again, which tasted nothing but sweet.

“I still… want to become a swordsman greater than Father.”

Even now, when I close my eyes, that time comes drifting back.
The day I first gripped a sword, when I boasted that I would become a swordsman just like my father, the child I once was.
The dream of a young swordsman who painted a shining future beneath a night sky scattered with countless stars.
There was a time when that dream meant so much to me that I could not even imagine it failing to come true.

“Becoming Clan Head isn’t the goal. It’s just something that lies along the way. As long as I can get that far, I don’t care whether I’m Clan Head or not.”
“Not the goal but the path, you say?”
“Sounds arrogant, doesn’t it?”

Allen smiled sheepishly.

“I’ve been tormented by the Curse of Bima for so long that my dreams have only grown bigger. Just take it as something I’m saying because the mood has gone to my head, not the wine.”
“So you do know your place.”
“I know my standing well enough. I know how the family looks at me.”

It is a vague dream. A long and distant road with no destination.
Even without reaching it, just being able to walk it was a road that made my heart pound and my chest feel as though it might burst.

But.

‘Before that, there’s something I have to do.’

A hideous face floated up in the clear liquor.

‘The Demon King.’

The demon host that had crossed over from the Demon Realm, the Demon King leading them, and the Demon Followers who served them.
If no one stood against them, dreams and family and everything else would mean nothing.
It lay in a distant future from where he now stood, yet for Allen it was also something that had happened only a few days ago.

He had returned to the past and broken free of the Curse of Bima. Two miracles, arriving all at once.
Allen did not believe this miracle had simply happened on its own.

‘If I have to pay a price for this miracle, then I’ll pay it by stopping those bastards.’

His grip tightened around the cup.
Allen emptied the glass in his hand, one after another.
Just as the liquor on his empty stomach began to sting a little, the side dish arrived.
Perhaps not wanting the conversation to grow too grave, Lukas changed the subject.

“You suddenly went hunting for a spirit elixir, and now I’m curious. How did you find out the curse had lifted?”
“I had a good dream. No, wait, maybe it was a bad one?”
“A dream?”
“A dream where I died once and came back to life. When I woke up, it felt like the curse was gone. So I figured I’d check, just in case.”
“You pinned your hopes on that kind of superstition, did you?”

Allen gave a sheepish grin at Lukas’s remark. Thinking back, his excuse had been rather half-hearted.
Still, whatever he had said aloud, Allen knew very well why the Curse of Bima had lifted.

‘It’s probably thanks to this System.’

[Mana: 2]

A number that was no longer zero.
Even now, every time he saw that figure with his own eyes or felt his mana stir, a grin crept across his face.
And the only reason he had been able to obtain this System was the question mark he had seen in his dream.
What exactly was that question mark?
Unless one were a god, turning back time and lifting the Curse of Bima should be impossible.

“Once you return home, I imagine there’ll be quite an uproar.”
“You think so?”
“Lifting the Curse of Bima is unprecedented. The way people look at you is bound to change a great deal.”
“I’d rather it didn’t change too much. Not yet, anyway.”
“Then why not keep it a secret?”
“That’s difficult. Father won’t be fooled in any case. As for Brother, maybe, but I can’t ask Father to keep it from anyone either.”

The greatest swordsman on the continent, Axion Bishuken.
Their father would recognize the change in Allen at a glance. No matter how tight-lipped Allen was, deceiving his father was impossible.

Besides, your only rival, your brother, has already found out.
“Do you actually think of me as a rival?”
“Rivalry between brothers is always fought behind each other’s backs, isn’t it? Behind the back, we’re rivals; to each other’s faces, we’re brothers.”

Allen picked up a bite of the side dish, then poured his last drink. This time he didn’t simply drink it, but held the cup out in front of him.

“So this toast isn’t between rivals. Let’s call it a toast between brothers.”

Clink.

Allen clinked his cup against Lukas’s. Lukas, now that he was sitting down to a toast, admitted the man had a point and drained his drink.
The drinking didn’t last long.
Allen grew cheerful and was drunk in no time, and the two of them ended up staying one more day.

* * *

Bishuken’s main stronghold sat in the northern part of the continent. Bishuken’s territory covered more than half of the North Continent, out of the Four Continents.
Not that its influence stopped there, of course.
Bishuken’s reach extended across all Four Continents, and its strength and power rivaled that of the Empire itself.

Allen and Lukas traveled by carriage for three days straight, moving swiftly.
Time had already been lost along the way, so they switched horses at each stop and kept the carriage rolling.
And so they raced on, until, far ahead.
A banner came into Allen’s sight.

Flap-.

Above a vast, towering fortress, a banner stitched with the blue emblem of a sword snapped in the wind.
As though no rival to Bishuken existed on this continent, the main stronghold stood tall, its outer walls left unbuilt.
Along the road leading to the castle stood bronze statues of Bishuken’s Clan Heads, past and present.

The Path of the Sword.
This road, bearing the history of every Clan Head before him, was the very symbol of Bishuken.
Seeing it, a thought surfaced in Allen’s mind, one he hadn’t expected.

‘I’m back.’

Back home.

Allen’s gaze drifted toward the far end of the row of statues. Then he pictured his own statue standing there.
The mere thought of it made his heart swell.
To become Clan Head of Bishuken was to become the greatest swordsman on the continent, after all.
But that feeling lasted only a moment.

“Aren’t you coming?”

Lukas, who had been striding ahead along the Path of the Sword, urged Allen on.
Allen did not follow.

“I’ll go around and enter from the back.”
“Go around?”
“I don’t have the right to walk this road.”

Only swordsmen who had completed their missions and returned could come back to the family by walking the Path of the Sword.
Those who had failed their missions were bound by an unspoken rule to go around to the far side of the Path.

“That’s not some written regulation. And you didn’t fail the mission.”
“Didn’t succeed either, though. Besides, how could I break a rule even the junior swordsmen of the family follow?”

As if he had no intention of giving an inch, Allen circled wide around the path.
Lukas let out a sigh at his stubbornness and fell in behind him.

“Why are you coming too, Brother?”
“Bringing you back safely was my mission. Did you think I’d let you wander off on your own now?”
“Oh, right. That’s what you were doing.”
“Honestly, you and your pointless stubbornness.”

The two of them made their way around to the back of the Path of the Sword.
A few swordsmen who ran into the two returning from their mission startled and bowed in greeting.

“Welcome back, Young Master!”
“We’re glad to see you’ve returned!”

Their greetings were directed at Lukas. Allen stood right beside him, yet only Lukas received any respect.
It was only natural.
The cursed one, struck by the Curse of Bima. The weakling who had failed even the family’s first mission and let himself be captured by bandits.
To the family, Allen was little more than a ghost.

“This is your position in the family now.”

Lukas reminded him of the truth once more.

“You aren’t even acknowledged as a swordsman, let alone as a Clan Head candidate. Strip away the Bishuken name, and nothing is left of you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“About nothing being left, I mean.”

The family spread out before Allen’s eyes.

‘So much is still here, isn’t there?’

Compared with the future where he had lost everything, everything was still here.
The family, his kin, the blue sky overhead, his very life.
All of it remained intact. Allen had no thought of gaining anything new; he only wanted to protect what he had.

Lukas studied Allen with a fresh look.
There was no doubt his younger brother had changed.
It wasn’t simply a change born of overcoming the Curse of Bima. He hadn’t just returned to the brother he used to be; there was a depth to him now, something that had grown within the person himself.

Allen and Lukas headed straight for the Clan Head Hall.
Swordsmen in white robes stood in formation before the hall. Dozens of them, all dressed alike and not moving so much as a muscle, looked like a magnificent painting.
As he walked toward the Clan Head Hall, Allen greeted one of the swordsmen.

“It’s been a while, Uncle Iorga.”

Iorga, captain of the Changryong Corps, who guarded the family and escorted the Clan Head.
He was one of the most skilled swordsmen in the family and also Axion’s bodyguard.

“I’m glad to see you safe.”
“Thanks to the family’s concern.”
“We could hardly let a direct descendant of Bishuken be killed by bandits.”
“Thank you. I nearly didn’t make it out alive.”

At Allen’s reply, Lukas wore a puzzled expression.
By the time Lukas arrived, Allen had already knocked down most of the bandits. He hadn’t suffered any serious injuries, so he could very likely have escaped on his own.
If he had been left to it, the suppression mission would have been a success.

Yet Allen didn’t bother to reveal that.
As if this misunderstanding didn’t matter in the slightest.
Seeing that, Lukas could tell the greatest of Allen’s changes.
Hard as it was to believe.
This was closer to the composure of a strong man.

Allen looked up at the closed doors of the Clan Head Hall.
As his gaze fell on the door bearing the family crest in great detail, emotion surged in his eyes.

‘Father.’

Father, whom he was seeing again after decades.
The thought of seeing him made his heart swell to bursting.

Thud.
Thud, thud, thud.

A heart beginning to race, faster and faster.
Even so, am I really trembling like this?
Just as I began to feel that this strange sensation was a bit much.

[‘The Heart of ??’ encounters a new fragment.]
[‘The Third Fragment of ??’ has been witnessed.]

The System, which had been dormant, delivered a new message.

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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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