Solo Swordmaster

#Side Story 34. A trampled fate, a blooming flower (8)

* * *

Quietly.

Joan of Arc is silent.

But there was no need for an answer.

Because that sad and empty smile told me more clearly than a hundred words.

That’s why Limon had no choice but to sigh.

It was strange from the beginning.

He also asked for a favor from me.

He also asked me to stay if I won.

However, it was understandable if the purpose was to ultimately kill him during the fight.

“Did it really have to be like this?”

“yes.”

Looking at Limon lamenting.

She smiled sadly.

That one day he will return.

It was Joan of Arc who survived alone for a long time even after the destruction of mankind with only that one hope.

But her hopes were dashed when Limon appeared from a parallel world.

There was no longer any reason left for Joan of Arc to maintain this pitiful and painful life, even going to the parallel world.

Above all….

“Because I failed to keep my promise.”

“….”

“I swear with my sword that I will protect the world until you return.”

So this is the price.

It’s the atonement you have to pay.

Seeing her speaking sadly, Limon made a heavy expression.

“I see….”

To be honest.

I had already guessed it.

Although he handled the swordsmanship of all the sword masters whose names were left on the sword tower more freely than that.

In fact, she did not use only the most powerful and more important sword.

Nevertheless, he said the unexpected truth with a sigh.

“You have lost your sword.”

From the sword demon to the sword spirit, the sword spirit, the sword sword, the sword sword, the sword sword, and the sword spirit.

While embodying the swordsmanship of other sword masters to near perfection.

Limon lamented as he realized that the fact that he had never used his sword, which should have been the freest and most powerful, meant that he could not use it at all.

The oath made by a sword master is absolute.

Since he had broken his own will, it was natural for his swordsmanship to waver and weaken.

Of course, even if that were the case, under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have gone to the point where I lost my sword skills…

“It’s natural. “I have nothing more to protect.”

Me too.

The world too.

Humanity too.

Death penalty system.

…And the teacher too.

I lost everything I had to protect.

Thus, even her will as a sword master was broken, and she continued speaking with an empty smile.

“So I can’t go to your world.”

“….”

“Because dying here is the only atonement I can make.”

“….”

“More than anything….”

He wondered how he could possibly go to another world as he was the only survivor after twisting fate and ruining everything.

After speaking sadly.

She said softly.

“The teacher I know doesn’t exist in the parallel world.”

Even if I die.

Even in the afterlife.

To be reunited with the person who left.

That is the only hope left for someone who has lost everything.

Limón, who had been silent as he watched Joan of Arc smiling and talking helplessly, as if she were a shell without her soul, only opened his mouth a long time later.

“…Atonement.”

As if lamenting.

It’s like I’m ruminating inside.

I muttered to myself for a moment.

In the end, he sighed quietly.

“You’re still the same.”

“Hehe… Come to think of it, I committed a lot of sins in your world too.”

How can you commit a crime even after you died and came back to life?

Perhaps this is his nature.

No, it’s fate.

Limón shook his head as he looked at Joan of Arc, who was laughing and speaking in self-deprecation.

“I’m not talking about you from another world, Jan.”

“…?”

“Do you remember? “The disciple’s sin is the teacher’s sin, so if you want to atone, it is only right for me to atone as well.”

It was that moment.

As if only waiting for death.

Joan of Arc’s body, immersed in sorrow, flinched.

“And what you said was that you didn’t have to feel sorry for me just because you put aside your madness and accepted your sins before it was too late.”

“…Please stop it. teacher.”

Softly.

She stops him.

But Limon didn’t stop.

He just spoke with a complex expression of sadness and bitterness mixed on his always calm face.

“You promised me that you would never disappoint me when I asked you to stop falsely threatening me with the death penalty.”

“Please stop it!!!”

Wow!

It was just a moment.

After a sharp shout sounded.

Joan of Arc’s hand holding the sword hilt gained strength, and the dragon sword stuck in Limón’s hand dug deeper.

Pattering like that.

As the blood that poured from Limon’s wound bloomed again in the scattered snow.

Joan of Arc bit her lip and said.

“Those are not your memories.”

No matter how much it is Limon.

He is a being from a parallel world.

Isn’t this the teacher who spent hundreds of years with her, accepting atonement and comforting her?

No matter how much you try to convince yourself, it is unacceptable to talk about what you heard as if it were memories you experienced yourself.

“Yeah, it’s not mine.”

Her words sharpened the edge.

Limon agreed bitterly.

Because Limon himself knew better than anyone else that those were not his memories.

But….

“Suri got bitten by a potato and went out to hunt secretly, got caught by you, and ate only potatoes for a month and cried.”

“…yes?”

“Billy sold Suri’s name to defraud the Continental Defense Corps and, at least formally, abolish racial discrimination.”

“That’s…”

“When Gandhi failed to create a unified government, he instead created a peacekeeping force centered around the Sword Tower and suppressed the war.”

“wait a minute.”

“As soon as Adolf became a sword master, he tried to attack me at night, but ended up having a duel with you, and we had a snowball fight for a month before collapsing from exhaustion.”

“What are you saying now…”

A voice.

It splits.

Dry throat.

Dizzy and confused head.

It prevented her from understanding what she was hearing.

Because…

the story Limon is talking about now.

I haven’t explained it to him yet.

Memories of the past that only she knows in this world where humanity has perished and all records have died.

Because it was a story that could not be known and did not happen in his world, where he had to cut down the disciples he had raised.

But why does he know that?

A reality that cannot be understood.

Forced to guess.

– Telepathy.

The power of a dragon to read even minds.

Limon, who was reborn as the Dragon King of Swords, gained dragon psionics that gave him strength that surpassed even that of the seven dragons.

If you had used it…!

“Asha came to me without your knowledge, took you as his wife, and then knelt down and asked me to make you his concubine.”

“…?!”

“The kings, presidents, and prime ministers of various countries secretly came to me and said that I had a good wife for them, but I also turned them away.”

“…!”

“It’s not my memory.”

The blood is draining.

My body gets cold.

My lips are trembling.

That’s something even she didn’t know.

So, if you think about it with common sense, it should naturally be considered a made-up lie.

But Joan of Arc.

I remembered it.

As he came out of Limon’s quarters late at night, Geomhu met him and greeted him calmly, and Limon looked at him with particularly complex eyes afterwards.

I remember Limon, who was indifferent to whether diplomats and envoys from various countries came, but sometimes gave them a particularly cold look and chased them away.

“why.”

so that.

You have to have hope.

But I end up denying it.

That couldn’t be possible.

There’s no way it could ever happen.

In the end, the hope I always had.

The result was a fantasy I always experienced.

Like a one night dream.

The more she believed in it, the more vain and heartbreaking the experience became. She was so scared and scared that she even let go of the sword and retreated without even realizing it.

That cannot happen.

It was an act that was extremely shameful and despised by a sword master.

“how…!”

Nevertheless, she looked confused, not even realizing that she had put down the sword.

Limon was not to blame.

I just slowly stretched out my hand.

So, the moment he grabbed the dragon sword that was piercing her hand that she had let go of.

“I told you before I left. “When I come back, I definitely have something to say to you.”

Ugh.

“So, please wait.”

“…!”

Could it be that the reason Joan of Arc’s eyes shook so much was because she heard the promise he made before leaving?

Or maybe it was because the wound on his hand began to heal rapidly along with the vibration of the dragon sword.

Or….

“A long and distant journey.”

“After a fierce battle in which even my disciples were lost one after another, I finally defeated the Constellation.”

“But for that, I ended up having to swing the final sword myself in return for breaking the Sword Master’s taboo.”

“I regret leaving behind a promise that was a bondage to you that I ultimately couldn’t keep.”

Excited.

It’s shaking.

The pupils.

My heart stopped.

A frozen heart.

A weathered soul.

It makes you expect hope that you should not expect.

“And that irreversible regret became lingering.”

“So deep, so deep….”

“…A regret so sad that it can even be conveyed to me in another world through this dragon sword.”

A hand pierced by a dragon sword.

Originally it would have healed without even a trace.

But a faint scar remains.

To Joan of Arc, who froze when she saw the all-too-familiar scar on her hand.

Limon said:

“So this is a will.”

“…!”

“A message that ‘I’ leave through myself.”

Looking at her frozen.

Limon recalled bitterly.

Before crossing over to this parallel world.

A dream that kept making me sleepy.

Because the disciples did not cross the line, there was no need to cut them down, but they were able to protect the world in peace and tranquility.

More than anything.

There was always one person by my side.

It was so faint that I couldn’t help but think it was a dream, but it was still clear enough that I couldn’t forget it.

He unconsciously said it was his memory.

I even misunderstood.

The memories that ‘he’ gave me.

And regret.

he said

“There is something I could not bear to say as a teacher.”

“I never wanted to talk about it if possible, but I just couldn’t bear it.”

“That’s why I definitely wanted to come back and tell you.”

All military departments.

A teacher is like a parent.

A disciple is like a child.

However, as a teacher, I had to treat her like a child, but this is what I wanted to say, even going against that principle.

“‘I’ loved you.”

“…!”

“So much so that I tried to propose to you after the whole fight was over.”

Breath stopped.

A hardened body.

Empty head.

“You must have become sad and lonely because ‘I’ was too late and insufficient…”

It was as if I had turned into a stone statue.

Without even a slight movement.

Her looking at herself.

After looking at each other in loneliness.

He slowly stretched out his arms and hugged the slender body.

“Still, sleep.”

“….”

“Please be happy.”

“Ah…”

I said I was sorry that I couldn’t make her happy myself.

So, please do not be unhappy because you are tied to yourself, who is already dead, but forget me and be happy.

After hearing the last request he left for himself through Limon in the parallel world.

And just like the memories, I felt that all too familiar hand hugging me and comforting my back.

He shouted.

With tears pouring out.

“Ugh, uhuh…. Teacher, teacher!”

like that.

hug him

She wailed and wailed.

It’s so sad, sad, and painful.

I feel sad that the promise I had waited so long for was kept.