chapter_0217

-Isn’t that the Sword Saint, Mira?

-It seems so.

-Why is she here, and as a boss inside the gate? I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

The three of us whispered quietly among ourselves.

I had completely erased my presence with invisibility magic, so if the secretary, who was standing nearby, had seen us, he would have thought that Priscilla and Elysier were having a serious conversation.

-Well, we’ll have to find out now.

That was all I could say, as we couldn’t come to any conclusions by discussing it among ourselves.

-If we’ve decided, let’s hurry. We need to get back quickly if we want to enjoy the festival, right? Why are we still standing here?

At my words, Priscilla and Elysier rose enthusiastically. The secretary, who had been nervous in their presence, brightened up when they asked him to contact the Yeomhwa Guild.

The fact that the two of them also considered this a serious enough matter to activate the emergency contact network meant that they agreed that things had gone too far. After all, they had been hanging by a thread, and now they had a chance to survive.

“Yes, yes! I’ll let them know right away that Guild Master Ha Yoon and Guild Master Kang Yena will be heading down soon! When should I tell them to come?”

“Now.”

“I will prepare immediately!”

The secretary disappeared in the blink of an eye. Once we were alone, I dispelled the magic.

“Did the Sword Saint also travel through time? Or did she create a dimensional door like us?”

“That’s the most likely possibility, but… She didn’t have the Holy Spear, and she didn’t know the coordinates of Earth. How could she have done it?”

Only the seven of us, excluding me, had been able to travel to Earth because the Goddess and the Demon God had provided the coordinates for the dimensional door, and we had been able to return to the novel’s world from Earth thanks to the Holy Spear.

The Sword Saint didn’t fit into either category.

“Any possibility cannot be completely ruled out. To begin with, the time of her disappearance was abnormal, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t be surprising if she had sliced through time and space and disappeared and reappeared, given that she casually cuts steel with leaves.”

“That’s true.”

Erestika had completely twisted the flow of time with her summer festival, but until then, everything had been proceeding as it had in the original timeline, except for the Sword Saint’s disappearance.

Except for that one detail, nothing else had changed. So, as Elysier said, it wouldn’t be unusual if something happened.

“Let’s go and see. Since she hasn’t killed anyone and has only subdued them so far, even though she’s been provoked, it seems she’s still capable of communication. Let’s go in and confirm if it’s really the Sword Saint first.”

There were countless questions to ask: if it was really the Sword Saint, or if it was something pretending to be her; if it was the real Sword Saint, whether she remembered us; if she didn’t, what had happened; if we could restore her memories; if it was a fake, how it had come to be; and if it was, where the real Sword Saint had gone.

Priscilla and Elysier immediately went to find the secretary, and I hid myself with invisibility magic and stood next to them. I decided to keep my summoned beast form sealed for the time being.

No matter how powerful the summoned beast was, it would attract unnecessary suspicion if I brought it everywhere. It was already expensive enough for the seven of us to share the burden of the compensation, so there was no need to use it recklessly.

-Hey! Let go of me! Are you going to burn everything down?!

As we approached the location where the gate had opened, indicated by the coordinates set by the secretary, we heard a tongue-twisted shout.

The faces of the hunters who had come to greet Priscilla and Elysier turned anxious. It was clearly not a pre-arranged signal. Wondering what was going on, we headed toward the source of the voice.

A woman with brown bobbed hair, wearing crimson armor, was struggling against a group of hunters.

The nearby road was half-scorched, and the trees were completely burned down. There were also hunters lying on the ground, receiving treatment, probably injured by the woman.

-She’s the second daughter of the Yeomhwa Guild.

Priscilla whispered softly.

-The youngest son and the father were slaughtered, so she must have come for revenge.

-Is she going to do that while drunk?

“That’s…”

As we stood there, perplexed, the woman’s struggles intensified.

-Let go of me! I said I’d go in myself!

-Please hold on! I just received word that Ha Yoon Hunter and Kang Yena Hunter from the Eternal Guild will be arriving soon!

-My family died! Why are they handling it?! Why them and not me?!

-If you want to know the reason, I will tell you.

Elysier, who had been quietly listening until now, stepped forward.

The tense atmosphere suddenly calmed down. The hunters from the Yeomhwa Guild, who had been standing nearby, unsure of what to do, quickly moved away.

“Guild Master… Kang Yena…”

The brown-haired woman called out to Elysier, her voice trembling. The hunters holding her limbs let go, and Elysier stood in front of her, looking down.

Even among men, Elysier was quite tall, and her intimidating gaze from that height was overwhelming.

“Will you not answer? You asked why it is not you but us from the Eternal Guild who have come to deal with this S-grade gate. If you want to know the reason, I will tell you.”

“No… I mean…”

“Why did your Yeomhwa Guild allow the S-grade gate’s boss to be used as a sparring partner? Why did your Yeomhwa Guild needlessly provoke the boss? And why did your Yeomhwa Guild do something so foolish that it caused all this? Do you understand?”

“……”

“Can you win if it comes out? No, can you even defeat it? If you think you can, go in and prove it. Or should I throw you in myself?”

Elysier grabbed her hair. A scream of “Ah!” escaped her lips, and her body was dragged toward the gate.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! It was a slip of the tongue! I’m really sorry! Please forgive me just this once!”

The brown-haired woman, whose hair and fingers were being roughly handled, pleaded pitifully. Still, Elysier only stopped when she reached the gate.

She swung her hand, and the woman’s body rolled on the ground. The brown-haired woman, who had been apologizing profusely, quickly disappeared into the distance.

In the frozen atmosphere, most of the Yeomhwa Guild hunters followed their guild master and withdrew, leaving only a few A-grade hunters to maintain order.

“Make sure no one comes in.”

“Yes! We understand!”

The A-grade hunters saluted with military precision, and Elysier and Priscilla entered the gate, with me quietly following behind.

“Is it okay to treat her so harshly? She’s a guild master, too.”

I deactivated my invisibility magic and asked. I was surprised by how rough she had been.

“Didn’t you hear her referring to us as ‘those bastards’? Mira, we have more enemies than you can imagine, even among humans. In this case, the Yeomhwa Guild has a grudge against us because we didn’t allow her to be promoted to S-rank.”

I had once stumbled upon this information while browsing the internet. The criteria for S-rank promotion for Korean hunters was much stricter than in other countries due to the influence of the Eternal Guild.

As a result, some hunters had even changed their nationalities to become S-rank in other countries, but they still couldn’t compare to the Eternal Guild.

“If that’s how it’s always been, then I have no complaints. But what you just did was a bit much, wasn’t it?”

“Well, it’s none of our business what happened on Earth. Hey, look at this.”

Priscilla was fascinated, examining the pond with her mana.

“It’s just as the secretary briefed us. This is the first time we’ve encountered water inside a gate that humans can drink without any problems.”

Some hunters had apparently taken advantage of the situation and gone on a sort of vacation, and it seemed that it wasn’t entirely impossible. Priscilla stood up and looked around.

“So, the Sword Saint is here…”

“We’re not sure yet. It could be a fake.”

The power balance on Earth was far below that of the world I had come from, so even if it looked like the Sword Saint, we couldn’t be sure.

“…… Wait a minute.”

I stopped them just as they were about to go further. Then, I drew a line in front of me with the Spear of Light.

“Why are you drawing a line all of a sudden?”

“Beyond this point is a killing zone.”

“…… A killing zone?”

“I couldn’t think of a better term, but watch.”

A picture is worth a thousand words. I picked up a pebble and threw it beyond the line.

–

– Sekkak!

The pebble shattered into dozens of pieces. Priscilla and Elysier’s faces hardened. They wouldn’t have been able to see the trajectory of the strike with their eyes.

“Everything beyond this line will be like that. I don’t know how it’s possible, but it is.”

“…… You noticed it too, huh?”

“If you focus, you can notice it too. It’s just that the first realization is difficult, but once you become aware of it, it’s easy to perceive.”

At my words, the two of them closed their eyes. Soon after, they opened their eyes in surprise, their pupils dilated.

“I’ll go first. You two wait here for a moment.”

I took out the Holy Spear with my left hand. If the person at the center of this killing zone was indeed the Sword Saint, it would be difficult for Priscilla and Elysier to break through on their own.

The Sword Saint was a character created by Laura, who had poured all sorts of buffs on her for Leona’s growth. The Sword Saint herself had admitted that she didn’t know how to kill herself, so she had simply disappeared.

I poured out divine power, enhancing my physical abilities and accelerating to the limit, and stepped beyond the line. Immediately, an invisible strike aimed for my neck.

I erased the trajectory of the strike with the Holy Spear.

–

– Kaga gaga gak!

The ground nearby was constantly being shredded. Even with my slowed perception, I could sense that strikes were coming at me every few steps. It would have been impossible for an ordinary person to get close.

I continued to pour out divine power, countering the strikes, and advanced further. As I became more familiar with the trajectory, I reached a garden, or what I assumed to be the backyard. Someone was there.

“……”

A woman was kneeling in the garden, her eyes closed, her sword resting horizontally on her thighs, deep in meditation.

Brown hair, a yukata-like loose garment, and a scar on one eye. It was indeed the Sword Saint I remembered.

“Sword Saint.”

Her body flinched slightly. The killing zone that had covered the entire area dissipated like fog, as if it had never existed.

“…… I can hear a voice that I shouldn’t be able to hear.”

The voice that came out was also the same as the Sword Saint I remembered.

“Is this also the words of someone who should have died but didn’t…?”

“What are you talking about? If you don’t recognize me, should I call you Rachel instead of Sword Saint?”

She flinched again. Her eyes, which had been closed, slowly opened, revealing sky-blue irises.

Her sky-blue eyes widened in astonishment as they fixed on me. The single remaining iris stared at me in disbelief.

“…… Mira, Crate?”

“Yes, it’s me. But what are you doing here?”

“A fake, a fake… So, it is. Can you wait a moment?”

The Sword Saint slowly rose to her feet. However, her posture seemed odd, as if she was trying to balance herself with only one arm.

“…… Where did your right arm go?”

It wasn’t my imagination. Where her right arm should have been, there was only the fluttering sleeve of her yukata. The Sword Saint smiled bitterly.

“It’s a small price to pay to shake off the past.”