Chapter 8 - You Don't Know

"You don't need me to see you out, do you?"

"No."

"All right, then. Take care. The door's broken and doesn't close properly, so pull it shut hard on your way out."

Li Qingyu bowed politely to Limon, who waved without even looking back, and left his apartment. She walked on in silence. His home was tucked away in such a secluded alley that the surroundings were not merely desolate but eerie. Yet she never hesitated. As though strolling through a garden, she made her way out of the dark, labyrinthine alleys with ease.

"Was all this really necessary?"

A voice reached her just then. How long had the figure been there? Qingyu stopped at the sight of a masked person in black martial attire kneeling in the darkness.

"I told you not to follow me, Chao."

"Yes. That's why I waited here."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"..."

The masked figure called Chao fell silent. Agreeing or disagreeing would amount to lying to Qingyu. Of course, remaining silent was rude too.

Qingyu did not press the point. She merely sighed and asked, "Do you disapprove of my decision?"

"How could I presume to question Your Highness's actions? But..."

Chao bowed even lower. After a long hesitation, Chao bit down on their lip and continued. "This one thing, I cannot understand."

At any other time, Chao would never have been so presumptuous. Chao's role was solely to protect and serve Qingyu, with neither the right nor the wisdom to interfere in her actions. But this was too much to bear.

"Why him, of all people?"

"Is it so surprising that I proposed to him?"

"Surprising doesn't begin to cover it. The clan elders will never accept it."

The elders would froth at the mouth over her taking anyone outside the Seven Dragons Society as her prince consort. If that person was Limon Aspelder, they might come running with swords the moment they heard. The bad blood between the Society and Limon ran that deep.

"Will they, though?"

"...?"

Yet Qingyu did not agree with what seemed so obvious. She merely smiled faintly. Having served her for so long, Chao understood what that smile meant and could not hide their bewilderment. Qingyu calmly asked, "Chao, what would you do if someone in your family picked up a jewel discarded on the road?"

"I'd investigate it thoroughly, then present it to Your Highness if there was nothing wrong with it."

"That wasn't quite what I meant."

Was Chao simply rigid? Loyal? Perhaps both. Qingyu looked a little troubled by the immediate answer. "In any case, you wouldn't angrily demand that they throw the jewel away, would you?"

Only then did Chao understand her analogy, but still could not accept it. "... Isn't calling a man like him a discarded jewel giving him far too much credit?"

That was when Qingyu's expression changed. As though she had heard an absurd joke, she gazed at Chao with an unreadable look, then suddenly asked, "Chao, you're twenty-seven, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You really were born in the Iron Age."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not blaming you. Your generation simply sees the past as nothing more than the past."

"...?"

Qingyu smiled gently at Chao's confusion.

"Plenty of people besides you think the same way: that a Sword Master's power means nothing."

Even most people born near the end of the Age of Heroes would think so. Decades had passed since the age changed. Constellations and players had become the norm, and the age before them had long since faded into the past.

"That's why you can call him 'a man like him.'"

Chao flinched. It was not merely because Chao could not understand their beloved princess's words. In her beautiful obsidian eyes, Chao had seen a murky glint as deep as a swamp.

"But Chao, none of you know."

Those eyes were too dark for a young woman.

"You don't know what a Sword Master truly is."

Chao stood rigid, as though confronted with something incomprehensible. Leaving Chao there, Qingyu slowly raised her head. She looked up at the full moon in the night sky and continued quietly. "If you knew what a Sword Master was, you wouldn't make such a ridiculous mistake."

"A mistake...?"

"The mistake of thinking Sword Masters lost their glory and fell from prominence because players appeared when the Iron Age began."

"... You're saying that isn't true?"

"It's not entirely wrong. Players are one of the reasons."

Players were remarkable. They could use mysterious abilities without much training and obtain all manner of treasures from dungeons.

"If Sword Masters could enter dungeons, they wouldn't have fallen so far."

As Qingyu had pointed out, their inability to enter dungeons was reason enough for people to look down on them.

"But the biggest reason is that we live in a peaceful age."

Even so, Qingyu could say with certainty that those things were not the real reason Sword Masters had fallen.

"Since the Iron Age began, the world has grown prosperous. People became so intoxicated by the wealth and progress dungeons brought that they forgot war."

Indeed, after dungeons appeared, minor international disputes persisted, but wars and incidents of bloodshed on a massive scale had all but vanished. Even the Seven Dragons Society, once more eager than anyone to overturn the world, had stepped into the light and joined the new age. The benefits of dungeons were great enough to make people forget the past.

"So people decided they no longer needed human weapons like Sword Masters."

Players brought countless benefits. Sword Masters knew only how to fight. The more people compared the two, the more inevitable it was that they would slight Sword Masters.

"Without realizing how foolish that is."

They didn't need Sword Masters because the age was peaceful? To Qingyu, that was like arguing they should abolish the military because war could never break out, without making any provision for what would happen if it did. Only people so steeped in peace that their heads were full of flowers could think that way.

Of course, they were not entirely without a fallback.

"Don't we have the Monarchs instead?"

"The Monarchs... Yes, they've certainly reached the limits of human potential too."

The ten Monarchs had reached level 100. Their power stood on an entirely different plane from that of other players; any one of them could determine the rise or fall of a nation. With ten such Monarchs, people had turned their backs on Sword Masters as relics of a bygone age. If both were superhuman, it was only natural to prefer those who brought immense wealth and prosperity over an obsolete swordsman who knew nothing but how to swing a blade.

"But can they truly take the Sword Lord's place?"

"... The Monarchs are superhuman."

Those few words were Chao's answer: no matter how strong a Sword Master might be, he could not match the Monarchs. Having witnessed a Monarch's awe-inspiring power once, Chao saw it as the obvious answer.

"That's why I said you don't know what a Sword Master is."

As though she had expected that answer, Qingyu gave a rueful smile. Then she added softly, "But you will."

Why Sword Masters could not enter dungeons. Why only thirteen had been born in nearly a thousand years. Why the Seven Dragons Society, after fighting Limon for centuries, called him the Sword Lord with reverence. Why she had risked coming to see Limon herself at a time like this. Why, even after falling so far, Limon still wanted to remain the world's last shield. How absurd it was to compare a Monarch to a Sword Master. Who the enemy they truly needed to guard against was.

Few knew these things. But many would come to know. No, they would have no choice but to know.

"An awl in a pocket will always poke through, and the waves behind on the Yangtze can never push aside the heavens."

That was why Qingyu had come. Caught in a difficult position even within the Seven Dragons Society, her only way out was to win Limon's heart. And now was her only chance.

"... What exactly is a Sword Master, for you to say all this?"

Chao still could not understand why Qingyu was so certain. At Chao's troubled question, she turned back. Thinking of the alley she had walked through and Limon's home at its end, she spoke quietly.

"A Sword Master is..."

* * *

"Yaaawn."

After a long, jaw-cracking yawn, Limon turned off the TV he had been watching for ten hours. He rose from the sofa and scratched the back of his head.

"Ah, fuck. I'm bored out of my mind."

It had already been several days since he'd met Qingyu. Since then, all Limon had done was binge-watch dramas, watch the news, and read comics. In short, he'd spent the whole time lazing around at home.

He couldn't help it. If he had friends, he could have gone to see them, but most of the people he could call friends had long since been buried. He had no money to go shopping or take a trip, either.

Games? They were the very definition of boring. With a Sword Master's eyesight and reaction speed guiding his hands, winning any game became a matter of routine.

"Maybe I'll go see that bastard Seo Yong-chan."

For someone suspended for assault to suggest visiting his victim was enough to make Kang Jeong-su panic and cling to Limon's pant leg if he heard it. But Limon had no intention of worrying about whether Kang cried over it. Finding out whether that bull's head would appear again when he visited Seo, and how it would react to him, came first. If Kang developed stress-induced gastritis in the process, that was a minor concern.

'Or should I just get Jeong-su to do it? If I tell him I'll go over and beat the answers out of Seo myself unless he investigates him, that might work.'

Limon was still mulling it over when it happened.