The Swords I Raised Are Too Strong - Chapter 61
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 61. A Reversal (1
)
“Senior, we should still plant the Korean flag before we leave, right?”
Patriot was more cautious than I expected.
“We’ve taken the North Korean capital—wouldn’t it feel incomplete to just leave?”
If we were going to push all the way to Mount Baekdu immediately, the next logical step was to station our South Korean Military as an occupying force in Pyongyang.
But the South Korean Military was nothing more than a ragtag group of Awakened Guides and ordinary civilians, wasn’t it?
“Can ordinary people even survive here?”
“This fortress is absurdly sturdy, isn’t it?”
However, I came to realize that Patriot’s words held merit.
At least, assuming the fortress built here would serve as a stronghold.
The fortress Muratan created was genuinely formidable.
‘He used to gather all sorts of people here under the guise of being too lazy to care.’
It was a sight I’d seen often in Sword Raising.
There were cases where people living in fortresses actually prospered.
There were other reasons why Patriot’s argument seemed reasonable.
“The number of Corrupted Beasts has definitely decreased.”
“That’s thanks to you killing that red bastard, Junior!”
I had killed the Necribas sleeping in Pyongyang.
And I had also killed the Eye that appeared when Necribas offered itself.
As a result, the darkness spanning from Pyongyang to South Korea had grown murky, and the Corrupted Beasts had noticeably diminished.
To be precise, the ones regenerating from Patriot’s bombardment had vanished.
“The South Korean Military needs something to do as well.”
Patriot possessed an unexpected side.
Before I transcended, I thought he was shouldering everything alone.
That’s why I believed his mind had broken and he was meddling with everything, reshaping matters to suit his whims.
But the Patriot I faced as a Transcendent was different.
“If we push into China, who knows what might happen! The important thing is to establish the front lines as far from the South Korean mainland as possible.”
We were pulling the front lines that had been near the 38th Parallel all the way to Pyongyang.
Distance was no obstacle.
“That Japanese elf—if she sets up a portal, we’re done, right?”
“….”
It wasn’t entirely baseless reasoning.
It just sounded crude because of his excessively rough phrasing.
‘He’s not completely thoughtless after all.’
But that didn’t mean I found his proposal to bring all the South Korean Military here convincing.
There was something more to it.
“What’s the real reason?”
“You wouldn’t understand yet, Junior. You’ve only recently transcended.”
Patriot spoke.
His past suddenly flooded back to him.
“People need work to live. I know this well—I used to drift between construction sites and manual labor, and when the Gate erupted, I became unemployed—.”
“Pardon?”
“Junior, people die without work!”
A Transcendent—the very embodiment of this nation—that was me and Patriot.
Being in such positions meant we had to concern ourselves with the employment of ordinary citizens as well.
“That’s why I donate all mysteries to the nation!”
I purify the sea with mysteries.
Then fishermen get work.
“When fishermen get work? Do you know what happens next?”
“The region prospers?”
“Wrong! Damn distributors and other bastards swarm in and slash prices at auction.”
Patriot’s Distribution Act.
A very famous civil welfare bill.
The kind of law that prevents vegetables worth 100 won from being marked up to 5,000 won in supermarkets after passing through nine layers of distribution.
“Execute the distributors and normalize fish prices. Then I get work too.”
The people’s work becomes the Transcendent’s work in return.
I don’t quite understand the logic, but….
“Look at my Achievements!”
In the same vein, Patriot had meddled with agriculture and livestock as well.
Recounting old stories seemed to have heated him up considerably, his speech growing quite rough.
“Junior, Korean beef was the most infuriating thing to me.”
Patriot spoke.
“There’s no other country in the world where domestic beef is the most expensive!”
“Korean beef was certainly pricey.”
“I only ate it twice before becoming a Transcendent!”
Korean beef was expensive.
Before Patriot normalized it, honestly, I couldn’t afford to eat much of it either.
It was difficult to manage on a civil servant’s salary.
“Why is beef raised on this nation’s soil more expensive than imported American beef shipped across the ocean? Doesn’t that seem strange? Does Korean beef eat oil to grow?”
Patriot concluded that all of this was the scheming of distributors.
Price fixing, distribution margins as a game?
He killed them all.
“Now Koreans eat only Korean beef.”
He had improved Korean beef with mysteries.
“That disgusting kimchi made by those Chinese—treading on it with shoes, kneading it with unwashed hands that had just urinated.”
He had eradicated kimchi made by the Chinese.
Now all citizens could afford fresh Korean cabbage and chili powder kimchi at reasonable prices.
And so the boasting continued endlessly.
‘Does he just want to brag about himself?’
By the time I began to question the purpose behind it all.
Patriot broached the main topic.
“This is all about employment.”
In the lands that our Transcendent has normalized, countless jobs are created.
Surrounding villages thrive with activity, money flows, and birth rates increase….
‘―or so it should be.’
The birth rate remains low.
Yet it is being maintained nonetheless.
Compared to other nations that have been utterly devastated, Korea is holding its own.
“So there was deep meaning behind it all.”
I must acknowledge it.
Patriot is fierce, yet a genuinely benevolent man.
He truly acts for the sake of the nation.
I find myself wanting to praise him now.
“Soldiers are the same.”
Soldiers are an occupation.
Moreover, a noble one.
Above all else.
“We can’t breathe without them!”
This is the crux of it.
A Transcendent is already overwhelmed handling only the gravest issues.
I feel it acutely.
‘The Red Sea, the Melting Sea, Ghost Cry, the Void of Jeonju, and North Korea.’
The calamities entangled since my awakening.
All of them are weighty, national-scale problems.
Patriot was no exception.
“Petty Gates, monsters spilling from Gates, pollution beasts flowing day and night. The world can never be solved by a single Transcendent!”
Patriot cried out with genuine conviction.
How to put it.
Ep. 21 (1
)
It may have seemed as though Patriot persuaded me and created a brief respite, but truthfully, I needed time as well.
⦗Young lady, I have brought back one million lives!⦘
I have no idea where she managed to harvest a million lives from.
Yet Iris somehow obtained such a thing.
‘She was always picking up random things from here and there anyway.’
She even placed flowers in my Swords as gifts and such.
In any case, after my Swords conducted various experiments with the lives Iris obtained—.
⦗If we kill just one hundred thousand people, the young lady can spend one more second with Master Sword!⦘
They had made something truly astounding possible.
‘An absolutely insane thing I would never do… but.’
That’s right.
In theory, if I harvest the lives of roughly 100,000 people, I can extend my Sword manifestation time by one second.
⦗Master of Swords, if you research it thoroughly, it seems possible even with the power that destroyed the Demon.⦘
According to Yulia Lanestia’s words, using Demons equivalent to 100,000 lives in a similar manner should allow me to extend the Sword manifestation time.
As I listened to the Swords’ research results, I nodded calmly.
⦗Master of Swords, I shall extend the manifestation time of the Swords by ten seconds using the life the little Demon brought.⦘
Muratan made the impossible possible.
He said it would take some time since this was the first attempt, but extending a single Sword’s time right before confronting China was an extremely important matter.
Of course, I nodded.
“How long will it take?”
⦗Two hours.⦘
I thought it would take half a day, but it’s only two hours.
I informed Patriot of the two-hour time limit.
“W-we’re attacking China with just two hours?”
He was delighted and agreed with my decision.
Honestly, seeing the massive greatsword form embedded in Mount Baekdu, there was no reason to wait any longer.
‘What kind of Sword could it be?’
A Sword with a strangely familiar feeling.
Yet it was definitely not a Sword I had raised.
It wasn’t a broken Sword from a failed world either.
In the first place, all the Swords that failed in Sword Raising shattered completely and scattered into fragments before disappearing.
“Let us hurry.”
I urged Patriot forward.
Patriot moved the aircraft carrier’s bombers to carve a path connecting North Korea to South Korea.
In that gap, I contacted my sister Seol-ah and asked her to bring Yuki from the Front Lines.
Through the Demon.
Whoooosh——.
Boom boom boom boom boom!!!!
As I listened to the familiar explosive sounds as background noise, my sister Seol-ah riding the Demon appeared.
The Demon’s performance remained the same even outside.
“Wow, the Demon is really fast. Can I give it a separate name?”
“It’s yours now, so feel free to do as you wish.”
It hadn’t been that long since I last saw her, yet I felt oddly glad.
Glad or not, we were in wartime now, so I got straight to business.
I pointed at the woman riding behind my sister and asked.
“Is she unconscious?”
“No, she just shrinks up whenever she sees the Demon.”
Despite looking completely unconscious, my sister shook Yuki awake and brought her to me.
But why was that?
Sniff, sniff.
“L-Lord Siu…”
Yuki gazed at me with an odd expression.
Her nostrils flaring slightly.
The sight resembled the elves I’d seen in Sword Raising, which stirred a faint sense of revulsion.
“Huff—. Ah! Mother’s pheromones!”
It was as though those words were emanating from Yuki’s very face.
Naturally, a concern arose within me.
‘What should I do with the World Tree seed…?’
The World Tree seed I had obtained.
If I planted it, a World Tree of absolute purity would grow.
‘One that consumes all things as fertilizer…’
Whether in its complete form.
Or in its inverted, corrupted state.
The World Tree devours everything regardless of its condition.
The only difference lies in whether it grants life after consuming, or scatters death.
As I entertained such thoughts.
⦗Ah, the girl smells delicious, so I came looking!⦘
Iris Ruzbella burst in.
She seemed utterly thrilled upon seeing a living, vibrant elf.
‘She cannot eat her.’
I spoke to Iris Ruzbella, infusing my words with the Dominion of the Sword Master.
Then, feigning ignorance, I informed Yuki of what needed to be done.
“Connect the Front Lines, here, and the Spirit Realm with a portal.”
“A-A portal? You want me to open one?”
Opening a portal in the middle of cursed land? What kind of insane demand was this?
That was the expression on her face.
I pointed to my Fortress of Invulnerability and showed her the Patriot’s bombardment raining down from the sky as I spoke.
“We’re running out of time, so let’s handle this quickly.”
In this brief span, the Patriot’s bombardment had driven back considerable darkness.
Thanks to Necribas’s death, it seemed we couldn’t mount any counteroffensive from this side.
“Y-Yes, I’ll open it!”
While Yuki opened the Spirit Realm, I exchanged pleasantries with Seol-ah.
The main topic was—.
“Are those two doing their jobs well?”
I harbored concerns that the transcendents from foreign lands might shirk their duties.
“Both of them really fought with their lives on the line. That Yaksha? He was tearing apart scattered corrupted monsters, and Yuki was summoning spirits to heal soldiers, incinerate monsters, and just working her tail off.”
My sister, who had exacting standards for performance evaluation, was offering such praise?
It meant the Japanese transcendents had truly given their all.
I nodded quietly in acknowledgment.
Then my sister began asking me questions in return.
“Siu, but why did you build a fortress?”
A castle as massive as Pyongyang itself had materialized, so her curiosity was understandable.
I had no intention of lying to my sister.
We were close enough for that, weren’t we?
“I was dazed for a moment, and the Swords arbitrarily created this to protect me.”
“This… this enormous fortress?”
My sister looked at my clothes and the fortress, then glanced sideways at the small sword sheathed at my waist.
“Hmm… so the Swords protects you like that?”
“Sometimes, and sometimes the opposite happens.”
My sister asks.
“That sword was originally a person, right?”
“A person and a sword simultaneously.”
Her expression was so serious that I found myself answering that way.
“Sister, are you still not there yet?”
“This ordeal thing is really… difficult!”
The aura emanating from my sister grew slightly stronger.
Yet she still seemed to lack the necessary resolve.
Our brief, warm conversation ended, and before I knew it, the portal installation was complete.
And the Patriot returned.
“I finished it a bit faster than two hours!”
In that short span of time, a passage connecting South Korea to Pyongyang had been opened.
The Patriot pointed to that path and shouted confidently.
“Now the tanks will push through.”
Moments later, our military emerged from the portal that Yuki held open.
Our South Korean Military, equipped with night-vision goggles as a countermeasure against the [Darkness] condition, and armed with top-tier domestic assault rifles fitted with scopes.
Each soldier looked like a special forces operative.
“We will defend this fortress!!!”
Soldiers moved ceaselessly around the massive fortress.
Once the preparations were roughly complete, the Patriot spoke to me.
“Junior, now you have to do that, right?”
“Sigh…”
“When I planted it on Dokdo, the rewards were truly incredible!”
“Do I really have to?”
“Of course! This is Korea’s rightfully reclaimed and legitimate territory! This is entirely your mission!”
Now my turn had come.
I had been tasked with placing the final seal on the occupation of Pyongyang.
My sister Seol-ah, who had somehow followed me, asks.
“You’re… going to do that while wearing that uniform?”
I could no longer remove these clothes.
It disappears temporarily when I bathe, yet the connection to my flesh remains unchanged.
“The actual Korean Empire Emperor?”
“No, that’s just nonsense that Patriot spouts.”
I bickered with her as we climbed to the castle’s roof.
The Demon’s mobility was extraordinary—it could traverse the fortress walls with ease, and despite this capability, its ride quality was so smooth that passengers experienced no discomfort whatsoever.
We conversed naturally.
“Planting the Taegeuk flag on a fortress built in Pyongyang…”
What kind of madness was this?
I felt the same way.
Yes.
I planted the flag atop the fortress of Pyongyang that I had conquered.
This was an act of occupation.
Perhaps it would influence the [System] that had come seeking humanity.
[Fortress of Invulnerability]
A structure recognized by the world.
I inserted the Taegeuk flag into the slot at its very peak.
Thunk!
Then, the world whispered.
【South Korea has occupied Chinese territory.】
Something feels off about this.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————