The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 52

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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 Imperial Commander Has Returned Episode 52

[Bistarche Locad]
He was the eldest son of the Iron-Blooded Sword Family Bistarche.

His rank was that of an Intermediate-rank Knight.
He’d been at the Intermediate grade for quite some time now.
With a bit of luck, he had the skill to aim for High-rank Knight status.
Much like his sister, one might say.

But there was the rub.
Locad possessed talent befitting a descendant of a renowned house—exceptional, even.
Yet he could not match Rubian, who was only three years his senior.
He was merely on par with his younger brother, who was five years younger still.

Such comparisons among the three siblings were frequent.
They reached Locad’s ears often enough.
Yet he paid them no mind.
His father believed in him, and that was enough.

—Locad? That boy will grow far greater than Rubian. Not just idle parental talk—he’s slower, yes, but he’ll go the farthest of all.

The Patriarch’s words had proved true.
Locad’s true strength lay in his character.
Like an ox, one might say.
Once a goal was set, he charged forward without glancing left or right.

Stubborn meant steadfast.
Steadfast meant earnest, meant incorruptible.
So he was rarely shaken, and he could always see what truly mattered.

That same Locad found himself astonished now.
Watching the boy—no, Baron Delram—before him.

‘So Rubian was telling the truth.’

He’d heard talk of his prodigious talent dozens of times over.
He’d even examined the revised Mana Formula firsthand.

Yet he hadn’t blindly believed it.
He thought there was always a reason behind what defied common sense.
And by nature, he trusted only what he’d seen with his own eyes.
But he was wrong.

“Hah.”
“…….”

The Training Grounds held nothing but silence.
It was extraordinary.
Clearly, Delram and his father were sparring before his eyes.
They even moved violently, swords drawn and clashing.

…….

Yet it was utterly quiet.
There should be the ring of metal as blades met.
There should be the shout of effort as strength was channeled.
None of it reached his ears.

Only two sounds filled the Training Grounds.
The frantic footfalls of Delram and his father striking the floor.
And someone’s gasp of astonishment.

There was nothing strange about it, really.
When swordsmen of true mastery clashed, it always looked like this.
It was the Reading Combat at work.

It was like this:
[Do I really need to swing a blade? Not necessarily.]
[I watch my opponent’s stance, see their attack coming—and the outcome writes itself.]

So both fighters flinched at each micro-adjustment.
One revealed the path of his sword, the other reacted, and the first changed tactics in turn.
It was combat on an entirely different plane.

“This is insane….”

His father’s performance was unremarkable.
A Highest-Rank Knight fighting like that was only natural.
But Delram—the man facing him—was barely an Intermediate-rank Knight, wasn’t he?
And his rank was lower still than his own.

The real problem was that he himself couldn’t do this.
Maybe three or four exchanges, but they’d been at it for five minutes now.
Didn’t that mean Delram was a genius who transcended rank itself?

That was when Delram finally stopped.

“That is the limit of my Swordsmanship.”
“Hmm.”
“Now I shall show you something more… creative.”
“I have been waiting for this.”

Father and Delram exchanged words with practiced ease.
Then Delram pushed off the ground and exploded forward.
This time—a relentless, aggressive assault!

“What—!?”

Bistarche Locad’s eyes went wide.
The speed alone was unthinkable for an Intermediate-rank—no, for anyone of his supposed rank.
But what truly shocked him was the weapon in his hand.

The Greatsword he’d been wielding until moments before was gone.
As if by magic, he now held a Rapier instead.
And the technique that followed defied Locad’s every expectation.

Ting-ting-ting-ting!

Could this even be called Swordsmanship?
No curves, no arcs—only straight lines. Straight line after straight line after straight line!
Each straight thrust wove into the next at ever-changing angles, building into devastating speed and completely unpredictable timing.

Clang-clang-clang-clang!

That was when it began.
The moment his father’s blade truly engaged with Delram’s.
Steel met steel a dozen times in quick succession.
Sparks erupted across the Training Grounds like a shower from the Smithy.

“Hah!”

That was when Delram released the Rapier from his grip.
Masterless, it shot forward, carrying its momentum with it.

The Patriarch stepped back and batted the Rapier aside.
He thought it was over, but Delram’s display was only beginning.
A new weapon had materialized in his hand—a Halberd.

The distance between them was precisely two meters.
Perfect for thrusting the weapon forward with a lean of the upper body.
Delram lived up to the moment, launching a storm of thrusts.

Whish-whish-whish-crack!

The Halberd’s blade tore through the air, descending like a nail driven home.
Yet this was no simple thrust.
Just before the attack landed, Delram’s hand had moved with subtle precision.

Those minute variations—up, down, left, right—cascading from that initial shift.
Small changes at the starting point became large ones at the point of contact.
Large enough to pierce the space where the Patriarch held his Greatsword flat in defense.

“Hmph!”

The Patriarch fell back with a sharp retreat.
He could have pressed forward, but tradition demanded withdrawal.
Against a Halberd, the correct approach was to keep distance through evasion or defense, then close in decisively to neutralize the threat in a single stroke.

Delram’s hand moved as if it had been waiting for exactly this.
The Halberd vanished, replaced by a bow.

The distance between them had grown to ten meters.
The moment the Patriarch saw the bow, he charged.
Delram pushed off the ground to retreat while drawing the string taut.

Swish-swish-swish!

Three arrows flew at once.
Then, charging forward and rolling through the air, gathering centrifugal force to its maximum, Delram’s hand now wielded a long Halberd….

* * *

The match had been going on for thirty minutes now.
Bistarche Locad’s impression, having watched it all, was simple.

“It’s almost dizzying.”

There was no way Delram could be considered lower-rank.
His Rank was clearly below his own, yet… something was different.
He couldn’t articulate it exactly, but there was unmistakably something else about him.

Alongside admiration came a sense of defeat, impossible to suppress.
The saving grace was that others felt similarly.

“Didn’t you say he was only fourteen?”
“How many weapons does he even use anyway….”
“It’s insane. Absolutely insane.”

Locad heard Delram mutter something absurd near his ear.
The family’s knights were clicking their tongues in disbelief.

The Iron-Blooded Sword Family Bistarche.
With the family tradition itself bordering on obsession with the blade, not just the knights but most of the trainees were fanatics when it came to training.
That’s why they sparred often, and watching those bouts to find something worth learning was simply part of daily life.
Much like now.

But whether there was anything to learn was another question.
Look at those attacks covering near, mid, and long range.
How could anyone possibly replicate them?

By that point, the bout was racing toward its end.
Delram’s Mana was running dry.
After launching his final attack, Delram spoke between ragged breaths.

“Goodness, I’m exhausted. Shall we call it here for today?”
“…Impressive. Had I been careless, your blade would have left its mark on me.”
“Surely not. I heard from Rubian that you’re someone who can’t tell a lie, yet here you are speaking one?”
“Ahem! That bastard talks too much. Fine, you’re sloppy.”

The Patriarch cleared his throat.
In truth, Delram was right.
No matter that Delram had undergone a Return and was a Weapon Master, before his death his rank had been merely High-rank Knight at best.

The Patriarch, by contrast, was Highest-Rank.
A Highest-Rank Knight was a grade so rare the continent had scarcely any.
Delram fumbling with multiple weapons wasn’t going to bridge that gap.

Which was precisely why Delram had requested this sparring match.
There was simply so much to learn from such an opponent.

Before the Return, Delram had harbored two major regrets.
One was learning the Mana Formula far too late.
And even what little he had learned was of terribly low caliber.

The other was the absence of a proper master.
There had been people who taught him, but most were beneath his standard.
More than that, they weren’t even true connections—merely business partners.
Arrangements like: I’ll teach you the blade if you teach me the Halberd.

In that sense, the Patriarch was an excellent teacher.
Seemingly pleased with Delram, he would receive his attacks and counter while subtly pointing out his shortcomings.
There was much to gain from such mentorship.

“You seem to be in good spirits. Did you see something?”
“I lack talent, so only a little. Just wondering how I might sharpen my blade a bit more… that’s all.”
“…Don’t say such things again. It makes me want to hit you.”
“My apologies.”

Delram scratched his head.
In fact, the surrounding knights’ faces had flushed red.

Fourteen years old, and it had been merely two years since he’d first picked up a sword.
There were plenty of knights weaker than him.
And he spoke of lacking talent?

“In any case, thank you for your consideration. I imagine it must have vexed you to see me handling various weapons.”
“Hmm! At first, I thought you disliked learning the blade and dabbled with other weapons out of stubbornness. But after sparring with you, I see it now—it’s not mere dabbling. You’ve truly bled and sweated to master them.”
“I’ve worked at it some.”

Fight like you’ll die today, train like you’ll die tomorrow.
That resolve flowed through every ounce of Delram’s martial technique.
So how could he not feel drawn to such a spirit, fellow knight to fellow knight?

“Right then, let’s go have a drink! A proper drink!”
“I’m fine with it, but I don’t think the Patriarch will be available.”
“What do you mean by that?”

Delram answered by tilting his head toward the back.
Had the duel between the Patriarch and Delram fired them all up?
The knights were watching the Patriarch with blazing eyes.
It looked like the Patriarch would be sparring all day.

“Keep your turns in order!”

Hearing the Patriarch’s voice, Delram found himself thinking.
What is a Sword Master, really?
In this life, I’m going to reach for it too.

* * *

“My younger brother barely trains at all! He just keeps company with mages! Locks himself in his room with nothing but books!”
“I see.”
“I thought my sister was at least reliable, but what? She leaked our Secret Technique? Turns out she’s the craziest of them all!”
“That must have been difficult.”
“Damn right it’s difficult. Do you know how much… ugh.”

The man stopped mid-complaint and crashed his head onto the table.
It was Bistarche Locad, the eldest son of the Bistarche Family Estate.

Delram rang the bell beside the table.
A group of three came with practiced ease and carried him away.

‘What a handful.’

Once Locad had vanished, Delram let out a sigh.
It had already been a week since he arrived at the Bistarche Family Estate.
Somehow he’d grown quite close to Locad, the eldest son.
He’d expected wariness, but Locad had approached him first instead.

The first conversations had been tedious.
The sort of talk you’d expect from nobles his age—politics, hunting, fashion.
Unlike the Patriarch or the Daughter, he’d been quite bureaucratic.

But that was only until alcohol loosened his tongue.
Delram had had a drink to be polite, and Locad had transformed into this.
The worst part was that he wouldn’t remember any of it the next day.

“Why do I have to put up with a man’s drunken rambling?”

He grumbled like that, but every time he couldn’t bring himself to refuse.
It was because of what he remembered from his previous life.

‘Because I’m the one who sent Locad away back then…….’

How had Rubian died in his past life?
Delram himself had cut off his head, naming him a traitor.

Locad had been caught up in that same chain of events.
He accused Delram of killing his sister and obstructed everything he did at every turn.
Slander was just the baseline—he sabotaged operations, and worse besides.
Not lethal, perhaps, but extraordinarily tiresome.

At the time, Delram wasn’t yet a commander.
Bistarche Locad, meanwhile, was the heir to a prestigious house—even if a tarnished one.
An ill-fated heir, certainly, but still a nobleman with some standing.

In the end, Delram’s solution was to tell the Emperor.
Since his target was the Emperor himself, the results were spectacular.

Bistarche Locad ended up demoted to a minor tax collector, or so the story went.
After that, he drank himself to death, or so Delram had heard.

The Patriarch met a similar fate.
When his eldest son fell like that, the Patriarch half-lost his mind.
He began seeking out only the harshest battlefields, like a man bent on suicide.
Eventually, he lost his life.

‘Though to be fair, I didn’t deserve that either.’

Because truthfully, wasn’t it his fault?
If he’d minded his daughter better, none of this would have happened.

In any case, Delram had unintentionally brought down an entire family.
For that reason alone, he couldn’t bring himself to turn Rubian away coldly.
Especially since the man called him “brother” and treated him warmly—it only made it harder to refuse.

Delram’s nature had always been this way.
If someone didn’t deserve his dislike, he wouldn’t manufacture reasons to despise them.
But when someone approached him with such kindness, he couldn’t steel himself against them.

“Still, there’s a difference when you’re the eldest son of a wealthy house!”

Of course, he wasn’t suffering entirely without reward.
Delram hummed to himself, eyeing the table before him.

Sitting atop it were a Greatsword and a Rapier.
Rubian had given them as gifts when Delram mentioned his weapons were damaged.

The Bistarche Family Estate apparently had its own Smithy.
A master craftsman ran it, and the reputation proved well-deserved.
Each blade had been carefully forged from alloy with such skill that their potential was remarkable.

Thump.

After storing the weapons in his Subspace, Delram lay down on the bed.
The Separate Quarters the Bistarche family provided wasn’t lavish.
But it had plenty of racks for storing weapons and armor, and most importantly, it came with a fairly spacious training ground attached.

‘Is this the seventh day now?’

Delram sank into the soft wool, letting his body relax.
He was exhausted from sparring but couldn’t sleep.
A friend was coming back soon, and he needed to meet them.

‘Owl.’

At Delram’s call, something stirred against his chest.
The pale green creature was the Owl.

-Squawk!

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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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