Chapter 18
“A Pen Stronger than a Sword (1)”
“Ha ha ha ha.”
Darengberg let out a hollow laugh as he gripped his weapon tightly.
Cold sweat drenched his body, and even the hand holding the weapon was so slick it was difficult to maintain his grip.
Darengberg stood at 2.2 meters, while the Duke of Helphion measured 2 meters.
Darengberg was slightly taller and more massive, but it was the Duke who dominated and commanded the space with overwhelming presence.
The Duke of Helphion’s arrival was nothing short of a disaster.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of his subordinates had fallen.
When Darengberg finally gathered his wits, only he remained alive.
He convinced himself that even this survival was due to the Duke’s restraint—if the Duke had targeted him first, there was no telling if he could have dodged.
To survive, he had to do something—anything.
Darengberg’s eyes deepened, and his massive frame surged forward.
His weapons were two enormous axes, larger than his own body.
The right axe swung horizontally, the left vertically, and the assault began.
“Uoooooooh!”
Both axes moved with ruthless precision, covering all directions, yet never colliding or breaking their trajectories.
Facing the enormous flow of air pulled along by the axes, the Duke of Helphion lifted his weapon.
The world-famous magical sword, the one that had severed the Demon King’s neck: Stormbringer, the sword that commands storms.
With a single stroke, the Duke erased the false tempest created by Darengberg’s axes.
Thud!
With a massive impact, both axes shattered instantly, and Darengberg’s body was violently thrown, bouncing off the ground.
“Ugh.”
A sound barely even a scream escaped his mouth.
‘What… is this…’
He knew the Duke was strong, but twelve years had passed. He thought he had caught up to some degree—but this?
At his feet, he could barely see his own pathetic body crawling on the ground like a newborn, bleeding from eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
“Hahaha… I guess I was greedy. How laughable that I overreached without even realizing it was greed.”
With a single move, Darengberg’s body and spirit were broken; he had no energy left for a second technique.
Yet a faint smirk lingered on his lips amidst the despair.
“Duke… do you know?”
The Duke moved faster than he could anticipate.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve always traveled with two loyal subordinates. Do you know where one of them is now?”
Speed alone isn’t always right.
Ironically, the very fact that the Duke was here… made Darengberg laugh despite himself.
“I gave him one command. At least, at least if I could take him down, I’d die completely fulfilled.”
Unable to contain his emotions, Darengberg burst into maniacal laughter.
He thought perhaps the Duke had taken a hit too, and looked at his face—but what he read there was… compassion.
“How pitiful.”
Was it because of the Duke’s cold expression?
Darengberg felt a chill at the back of his head.
“What? You’re saying that? That all it took was your steward dying, and you’d just call it pitiful?”
“You got the subject wrong.”
“What?”
“I said pitiful was your subordinate. If he died by my hand, he would at least have died honorably. But you… became nothing more than a tool to send the steward off.”
“Wh-what…?”
At that moment, a scene from the Magic Tower flashed through Darengberg’s mind:
‘Wait, why is your wrist like that?’
‘What’s this? Not blood… did I scratch myself somewhere?’
‘You fool, stop talking nonsense. Do you think a scratch could make you bleed like this?’
He couldn’t make sense of it, but somehow, the feeling of failure and despair slowly washed over him.
“The twelve years we spent together just became your final words.”
The Duke’s cold voice fell like a death sentence.
The Duke’s mansion was eerily quiet—so still that one could hear even the movement of air.
Even the slightest sound would reveal an intruder.
I stood in the middle of the practice hall, holding the sword given to me by Steward Apel, waiting for my opponent.
At first, I thought it might be better to hide in a corner so they wouldn’t spot me, but the steward insisted the open practice hall was safer—no obstacles meant no risk of being ambushed.
“You bastard! Waiting for me in the perfect place to die, huh!”
It was that little gorilla who had stood behind Darengberg at the Magic Tower.
His eyes bulged, bloodshot and furious, and froth formed around his mouth as if he were on the verge of explosion.
“Because of you… because of you, everything…”
I didn’t know this person’s name, nor their life.
So there was no need for compassion.
Repeating this to myself, I raised my sword.
The steward and Duke had said:
‘Your steward has a strange talent, so just trust and swing the sword.’
‘Follow where your body wants to go.’
I didn’t know what my body was about to do, but one memory had stayed with me for days.
The line that the Duke had drawn.
I had tried to follow it thousands of times but never managed to replicate it exactly.
I recalled that line and raised my sword.
“You pathetic fool!”
A mercenary charged, swinging an axe as large as his body.
I countered, drawing a line with my sword downward.
Compared to the Duke’s line, mine was crude, fleeting across the empty air, yet…
“Impossible…”
With a barely formed final word, the mercenary collapsed.
The axe slipped from his hands, clanging across the hall like a death rattle.
It worked.
As the steward and Duke had said, I had only moved as my body dictated.
Five years in the Akashic Records, plus training with the steward here…
Everything I had deemed useless had made me stronger.
My body remembered.
I couldn’t gauge the mercenary’s strength… but as a member of the so-called best mercenary company, the Grizzly Mercenaries, he couldn’t have been weak.
So how strong had I become?
Could I, as his will suggested, truly become a master swordsman?
The term Swordmaster came to mind.
The Duke had said that if I continued swinging like this, I could reach intermediate Swordmaster level.
Could I take on Deon Krapy then?
It wouldn’t be easy. I was a mere kingdom citizen, and Krapy was a noble of the Empire.
To oppose him would mean defying the Empire.
And the Empire had 21 intermediate Swordmasters.
No matter how skilled I became, I couldn’t survive a coordinated attack from 21.
I stood in the practice hall, sword in hand, lost in thought, contemplating my next steps.
My thoughts were broken when the Duke entered the hall.
“Have you arrived?”
“You’ve won.”
He said no more, simply watching me.
A subtle expression, neither smiling nor frowning, settled on his face.
And I realized I mirrored that same expression.
“Your expression isn’t very bright.”
The Duke seemed to worry for me in his own way.
“It’s complicated. I feel guilty for disturbing those living peacefully in the Duke’s lands and spilling unnecessary blood.”
“Do you regret it?”
I shook my head.
I had pondered this long before the Duke arrived, so I could answer quickly.
It wasn’t that I didn’t regret it.
It was just that nothing had yet come of it.
If I could now make the Duke’s lands flourish and use this strength to avenge Krapy…
Then, perhaps selfishly, I would have no regrets.
But if I failed to achieve anything…
Then I would regret all the spilled blood, all the lives I had taken.
“I have some regrets.”
“About bringing me into the Duke’s lands?”
“No, it’s personal.”
The Duke gazed at the moon floating high in the sky.
The moon seemed to shine silently, hiding behind clouds as if witnessing today’s events.
“Do you know how long it took me to defeat the Demon King?”
“You led the Demon King’s squad for a year, right?”
“No. It took twenty years. From the moment I held a sword as a boy, I swung every day. No special purpose—just to feel myself growing stronger.”
He recalled those times.
“I defeated the Demon King simply because I was the best at swinging a sword. At that time, I was the only one in the world with the title of Grand Swordmaster. And twelve years… there was little growth. Very slight.”
The wind blew, clouds drifted, and calm moonlight settled on the Duke’s shoulders.
“My thoughts kept returning. Was my lack of strength due to defeating the Demon King? Or was my strength merely part of divine arrangement to defeat him? If so, did I defeat him too hastily?”
In the Duke’s firm words, there was deep regret.
“All those years… I resented everything: the mercenaries who followed me, even the Duke’s lands granted for defeating the Demon King.”
“You overthink it.”
I offered my clumsy comfort, and he gave a slight smile.
“I know. Dwelling on it leads to despair. That’s why I devoted myself solely to training—to swing swords foolishly, to strengthen my body blindly. I was too indifferent to people.”
I did not know the Duke’s full history with the Grizzly Mercenaries, nor his exchanges with Darengberg, nor the feelings he derived from those events.
But there was a way to hear such reflections.
“Duke, why don’t you try writing a letter yourself this time? To express your current thoughts and feelings.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I believe you can.”
I offered no further explanation, and the Duke did not question it.
The next evening, the Duke sent me three pages of letters written overnight.
I corrected minor typos and sent them to the Squarret estate.
No one could predict who would come to the Duke’s lands.
“What is Titania doing?”
“Miss is at the practice hall again.”
“Huh… persistent.”
Titania was 25, slightly past marriageable age.
She remained unmarried because her goal was steadfast: to follow her father, become a chancellor, and leave her mark in the kingdom’s history.
Thus, she had ignored suitors and devoted herself to study at Delphi Academy.
Yet now, she suddenly wanted to swing a sword.
The Duke had assumed it was a mere hobby, and allowed it.
But soon he realized his mistake.
Titania had begun to train seriously, five to six hours a day.
The Duke investigated the cause and discovered that, about a month ago, she had been exchanging letters with the “thunder-stripped battle idiot.”
‘What could someone who only knows fighting and physical training possibly see in him?’
What shocked him more was Titania eagerly awaited the Duke’s letters.
Determined to understand everything, the Duke asked,
“Has a letter arrived today?”
“Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
His curiosity eventually led him to secretly read his daughter’s letters.
And today, after reading the Duke of Helphion’s first honest confession, he said:
“Steward, prepare the carriage. We must visit the Helphion lands.”
