Chapter 40 – Regression

000

“Keukhak!”

A young man rolling on the ground making a rough sound.

And when the iron longsword falls, it makes a sound that hurts his ears.

“Keheuk… Haa…”

Covered in dirt all over the body.

Lie down on the ground and catch his breath.

It was Eustes who was losing his mind over Talcheck’s rough training.

First, Eustes was immediately regretting what he had said last night.

It would have been better to run away.

I never thought I would be suited for such a hellish training.

Eustes recalls the events of the morning.

I opened the dusty training room prepared in the mansion.

Eustes thought Talchek would teach him the basics.

I overworked my arms and legs today, and tomorrow I’ll have muscle pain.

I was thinking of the same, ordinary training.

However, Talchek checked the iron sword he had bought and said this.

“As expected, ‘Volt’ son-in-law’s skills aren’t bad. He prepares something that fits your hand. With this, even you can cut me to death with a very, very low probability.”

“Ha, ha… ?”

A line tinged with madness that I couldn’t possibly think of as sane.

Eustes couldn’t possibly read the mind of a man named Talchek.

“Uh, anyway. Is that what I need to practice from today? What was it first? Like 1,000 swings?”

Eustes talks as if he saw something somewhere.

Then Talcheq snorted.

“Are you an idiot? What are you going to do by putting all the effort that anyone can do in class?”

“But the kingdom’s army is like this…”

“It’s just that they deliberately do the same training in order to be in harmony in the war.”

Tsutsu, he clicked his tongue and threw the iron sword back to Eustes.

Eustes is hee! Screaming, I picked up the sword that had fallen to the ground, being careful not to hit the blade.

“Creating basic physical strength. Strength training. All of that can be done by yourself. Of course, if you put in the effort.”

“…Then what are you going to teach me?”

When Eustes looks at Talchek with a suspicious look, Talchek laughs so loudly that the corner of his mouth hangs in his ear.

“That’s the `how to use the sword well`!”

That’s how freedom sparring started.

Talchek himself carried a club that was too blunt to be called a wooden sword.

He makes Eustes hold the iron sword he ordered him to buy.

“If I shed even a drop of blood, the day is over.”

“…Hahang~?”

Eustes smiled inwardly.

Talcheck, who makes himself do absurd things and continues with a troublesome attitude.

Perhaps, he had no desire to teach himself the sword.

If so, he just had to find another human being as his teacher, not Talcheck himself.

Is it okay to bleed?

I’ll even drop that proud finger!

Saying that, Eustes ran away with his iron sword raised high.

Although it was based on the posture of the warriors who fought in the arena.

His posture was so awkward that I couldn’t even see where the center of his body was.

Naturally, the trajectory of the sword that was swung like that was clumsy and easy to read.

Fuck!

Eusthes felt his body fly to the side with the impact as his face turned with a sound.

It took me a while to realize myself rolling off the ground the next moment.

“What, what…?”

I saw the tingling face and the club wielded by Talchek.

Could it be that you were hit by that?

Were you standing still until a moment ago?

“Oops. I thought it was a flying insect, but it turned out to be a young boy.”

“…Kuk!!!”

Eustes ignoring himself and being furious at the words provoking him.

Grabbing the sword once more, he charged with the momentum to kill Talchek.

Eustes’ screams resonated in the training ground for three hours.

In the end, Eustes exhausted himself on the spot.

Talchek yawns and drinks wine from the bottle.

“You have no talent.”

“Shut up…”

Eusthes, who had almost cried, tried to stand up, but his arms did not have strength.

This man intends to kill me.

Tired, killed.

“Don’t worry. No talent means you can reverse a talented guy with hard work.”

Talcheck continued to talk to Eustes.

Hearing his words, Eustes fainted on the spot with his whole body drained of strength.

001

The priest, presumed to be a regressor, guided the three people.

It was a small family home located on the outskirts of the city.

Iona and Cleon make eye contact, preparing for what might happen.

“This is it. Let’s sleep. Come in.”

The cleric smiled and let the three of them inside.

Quon swallows and goes inside.

I could feel how many people were in the house.

The interior decoration is old, but there are signs of human use.

Above all, the only books scattered here and there were books related to ‘ancient relics’.

It was a moment when doubt turned to almost certainty.

A priest who brings the three inside and follows them in and closes the door of the mansion.

“I’m really happy. You’re approaching us with such interest.”

Click. When you hear the sound of the door locking.

Cleon and Iona stance at the same time.

“Now, calm down. Magic Swordsman Cleon. Kingdom Knight Iona.”

“…!”

Cleon widens his eyes as they call his name.

She still had her own blonde hair.

Iona, too, seemed a little surprised that her identity was exposed.

“Then, the lady next to her is Quon, who used to be a candidate for a saint.”

Quondo is also wary of a man calling his name.

When Cleon and Iona moved forward as if to embrace Quon at the same time, the priest let out an unpleasant laugh.

“It’s a high-level illusion magic. I didn’t recognize it when I first saw it. But… The thing you wore around your waist.”

The man’s gaze goes to the plain long sword slung over Cleon’s waist.

It was Galatea who changed her appearance to match the changeling.

“Because we are sensitive to ancient objects. No matter how many times it changed its shape and disappeared, we knew right away that it was a demonic sword.”

In response to his answer, Cleon coldly opens his eyes and dispels Layla’s magic.

Then, he returned to his original black-haired, black-eyed form and tried to pull out Galatea.

“Don’t move.”

Next moment. Cleon’s movements stop because he wants to kill himself.

A man in a green robe with an arrow in his hand quietly walked out of the shadows inside the house.

I can feel the hunter’s imprint beyond the hidden eyes.

“Mikasia Rufenwolf…”

“Hey, magic swordsman hyung. Two days? Three days? How are your people?”

A hunter who teases the story by mentioning what happened before.

“Weren’t you working with the Marquis? Why are you with them?”

Mikasia just smiled as if she would not respond to that.

“You’re familiar with it. Then you know how dangerous that hunter is, right?”

For Cleon, it was just a matter of spreading his magic barrier and covering himself, Quon, and Iona.

If the opponent is using an ordinary arrow.

No matter how you look at it, the arrow that Mikasia was hanging on her bow was no ordinary arrow.

The tip is split into two, and something like a magic stone is embedded in the middle instead of the tip of the arrow.

A clumsy response was not a desirable action unless one knew what kind of power the arrow possessed magic.

“You heard about me from the Marquis.”

Iona is a silent priest.

No, I asked the male regressor.

Then, the regressor smiled and affirmed it.

“I heard from Marquis Hughes that the Sword Master and his daughter are coming to this city. We couldn’t help but be happy. It’s no wonder that an incarnation of ancient technology will appear in this city.”

“…! You, all the way there…!”

Iona seemed very surprised by the regressor’s words.

Cleon was worried about the man’s words, but decided to watch the situation first.

“Oops. Is this part still a secret from your colleagues? Then it wouldn’t be polite for me to reveal this. Forget what I just said.”

“…Kuh…”

Iona’s eyes seemed to ask what’s the use after already talking about everything.

Then Quon quietly opened her mouth.

“…Why are you wearing religious garb and preaching? What are you?”

“Ah. I am a priest of the church. At the same time, I belong to the regressor.”

The man put his hand on his chest and bowed to him.

And turn over the hood of the robe.

Under the hood was an elderly, bearded man.

His gray hair was growing in a mess and pulled back.

A beard the same color as his hair grows under his nose or on his chin.

The eyes seemed to be slightly out of focus, moving their gaze here and there.

Unlike his intelligent voice, his appearance was full of madness.

“My name is Maxwell.”

A man saying his own name.

Quon clenched his hand as if he was a little taken aback by his words.

“Why, contrary to the church’s teachings, the ideology of an apocalypse like a regressor…!”

“Apocalypseists. Miss Quon, the regressors act to save the world. They care about the world far more than the holy swords, saints, and warriors.”

Maxwell, who denies the doctrines of his own church.

The three wondered if it was true that this man had introduced himself as a priest.

“Don’t worry too much. I really don’t want to fight you guys. Think of the hunters over there as just… My bodyguards.”

“Well, that’s it bro. If you don’t pull out your sword or use magic, I won’t let go of this demonstration either.”

Dozens of ways to get out of here were simulated in Cleon and Iona’s heads in an instant.

However, if the other person wanted to talk to them, it was an opportunity to dig up some information.

“Okay. Let’s hear the story.”

When Cleon says that, the man nods his head and glances at the hunter.

Then the hunter lowers the bowstring and leans against the wall to watch the Cleons.

“Thank you. If we fought head-on with Cleon, the magic swordsman who defeated ‘Hero Alvein,’ we would have had to be prepared for annihilation.”

“…”

Cleon showed no reaction to the man’s words of praise.

There was no value in this man’s praise anyway.

“It is true that I have something I want to tell you.”

“What is it?”

At Iona’s question, Maxwell picked up one of the books scattered on the ground and placed it on the table next to him.

The title of the book was ‘World Tree Shradsel’.

“World tree…?”

When Cleon reads the name quietly.

Iona’s face looks a little troubled.

“The World Trees are huge trees that existed in this world in the past. They were called World Trees because they created their own world by generating magical energy and having a tremendous effect on the surroundings.”

“That’s right. But the world tree is a natural being. It protected plants and animals more than humans, so it was an object that humans at the time had to conquer.”

Maxwell opened her book in response to Iona’s words.

There were several illustrations that seemed to have been drawn by imagining the world tree.

It is described as having a tree larger than a mountain.

To Cleon, it was nothing more than an unfounded ‘delusion’.

“It was impossible to kill the World Trees, because they are connected to the leylines, consuming the life of the stars and regenerating them infinitely.”

Maxwell, who was saying that, suddenly closed the book he was reading. He dropped it under the table.

“So, the humans at the time decided not to kill them but to erase them from the world. They were ‘banished’.”

“…Exile.”

A scene that comes to life in Cleon’s mind.

A lifesaver that disappeared before my eyes.

“Most of the World Trees fell into the dimensional rift and disappeared. Those who did not disappear must have gone mad and grotesquely twisted there.”

Maxwell twirled his wrist, moving it as if expressing the twisting world tree.

Quon made a disgusted face at that bizarre gesture, but Maxwell didn’t care and continued the next story.

“But. I’ve recently felt a response from one of these World Trees return. In the living forest.”

Cleon and Iona widen their eyes at those words.

“Something happened around here… It must have been a reaction to the great ‘power of an ancient artifact’.”

Maxwell’s next words.

What passed through Cleon’s mind.

A holy sword that exploded in golden color and vibrated its power enough to tear the heavens and the earth apart.

It was Albain’s Caliburn.

“How come you guys know that?”

Cleon decided to keep his composure first and dig into the source of the information they knew.

“Because there was a sign. Cleon. Unexplored territory of the Living Forest. It’s been making a lot of noise lately.”

Iona recalls falling there with Ruba just a few days ago.

Strange monsters that appeared there.

A strangely huge plant golem.

Are all of these signs that the World Tree is about to return?

“If the World Tree, twisted in the dimensional rift, manifests itself in the world… It will try to destroy the world with a burning desire for revenge against humans. We call these World Trees ‘Sealed Trees’.”

“I don’t care about the name. What you want is to prevent the World Tree from returning?”

At Cleon’s question, Maxwell widens his eyes for a moment, then smiles.

“No way. We’re rather trying to bring in that beast.”

“Uh, why… ! If I do that, a lot of people… !”

At Quon’s words, Maxwell speaks.

“The Verse Tree is very, very full of information about ancient humans. Even falling through a rift in another dimension, how valuable is the energy contained in its body?”

Maxwell spreads his arms in genuine anticipation.

The three of them could understand what the true nature of that madness was.

“Don’t worry, we will subdue the Beast Beast. It will be easier if everyone cooperates meekly.”

“Sounds crazy! It’s best not to unleash a threat into the world in the first place.”

Iona glered at Maxwell, raising her voice on rare occasions.

“Same goes for my answer. I have no intention of cooperating with such an insane plan.”

Cleon also shook his head and rejected Maxwell’s offer.

Then Maxwell shook his head sadly, holding his hand.

“It’s really unfortunate. If you had the power of the magic sword and the holy sword, the summoning of the Beast Beast would have been faster.”

“…Sacred sword…?`

When Cleon responded to those words, Iona moved first.

When a light bullet exploded from her hand and flew towards Maxwell, it was offset by an arrow fired by Mikasia in an instant.

“The Beast Beast wants the power of the sword as the coordinates to return to.”

Cleon then realized that the vines were pulling Galatea, not him.

It was certain that it came from an unexplored territory, and if so, that too was a precursor to the revival of the beast.

As for Rubera, she wasn’t targeted herself, but her demonic sword ‘Barisada’ was targeted.

But if so, why-

The moment Cleon’s accident reached that point.

“Cleon!”

Quon’s call.

The next moment he sees Mikasia’s arrow flying at him, Cleon swiftly swings her sword to slash the arrow.

“Kuh…!”

“We have to catch everyone here… ! Cleon!”

“I know…!”

The moment after Cleon said that, he got into a stance and tried to slash the two of them.

“That’s it.”

A voice that stops Cleon and Iona.

There, there was a figure of ‘Tio’ who went on an adventure with three people including Eustes.

Standing on the stairs from the upper floor to the first floor, I looked down at the three of them.

“Tio…!”

Quon calls her name.

However, the expression behind the eyes covered by the blue bangs was not gentle.

What Tio was holding in his hand was a ‘marble’ he had seen somewhere.

[Wait, that… !]

The next moment, Galatea recognizes it.

A barrier spread around the orb.

“Keuh…!?”

“I’m sorry…!”

Cleon and Iona kneeling at the same time.

Only then did Cleon notice what Tio was holding.

“`The core of the sword`…!”

“Ohhh. You know. We put a lot of effort into getting that activated.”

Maxwell speaks as if he admired it.

Galatea’s voice of pain echoes in Cleon’s ears.

Iona also stopped herself to endure the shattering pain in her head.

“Cleon! Miss Iona!”

Of the three, the only one unharmed is Quon.

I squeezed my hands tightly as I saw the two people who were suddenly unable to move.

“Oops. Come to think of it, Mr. Quon was there. How about it? Would you like to save the world with us?”

At Maxwell’s words, Quon glared at him and opened his mouth.

“No! We don’t want that kind of redemption. People help each other and work to keep the world in balance, making the world a better place.”

As a priest of the church, he is a kuon who conveys what he thinks as it is.

Maxwell winked at Mikasia as if it wasn’t fun then.

The next moment, his bow is pointed at Quon.

“Whoa…”

Quon took a deep breath.

After a while, he opened his mouth.

“A-W-D-H-S-N-I-J-N-“

Unpronounced language.

God’s letter.

Divine power exploded in her voice that flowed out of the melody.

Maxwell opened his eyes wide and looked at Quon.

“Oh, oh…! ‘Ode to God’! No way, at such a young age!”

“Kuh…!”

Unlike Maxwell who admired it, Mikasia had no choice but to drop the arrow she was holding due to the divine power covering her entire body her.

Theo and Maxwell too.

It is pure and powerful, and it stumbles under the power of the divine power that it manifests to protect its friends and loved ones from others.

Thinking that he had made enough of a gap, Quon opened the scroll of the portal the next moment.

“Cleon! Iona!”

The next moment, Quon drags the two of them through the portal.

When the echoing song of God disappeared, the three people were already gone.

Mikasia kicks her tongue and puts her arrow into it.

Tio looked at the ‘core of the sword’ he had for a while, then disappeared again.

Only Maxwell, who was left there, shed tears of emotion.

“It’s wonderful… Miss Quon. The desire to protect all of you. It must have been training to the point where your bones were cut and blood flowed.”

And quietly lower your head.

“But… It’s pointless. You can’t protect everyone with that kind of thinking. In the end, only the past will be an indicator to the future.”

Silent prayers echo through the room.

There was a blessing in it.

The enemy of the world who will be born anew and come to this world.

It was a blessing for the rebirth of the beast of prey, Shradsel.