Chapter 595
‘Damn.’
He had belatedly dodged the sword that had dug through his opening and flown toward his face, but unfortunately, his timing was just a little too late, and he ended up allowing it to reach his face.
Blood flowed.
It was warm.
That warmth felt like a hand consoling the loser, and it was humiliating.
Once the first wound and blood appeared, the fight fell into a lull again.
Roland said,
“Do not get excited. You are still hasty and emotional.”
“I know I shouldn’t be, but it isn’t as easy as saying it.”
“That is because you lack practice. I do not know your entirety, but anyone whose foundation is swordsmanship should devote more time to swordsmanship than to any other art. Otherwise, a swordsman will one day have no choice but to lose to a swordsman stronger than himself.”
“That......”
For a moment, anger surged up in him.
Lack practice?
Who in the world worked harder than I did?
But when those words rose all the way to his throat, Su-ho forced himself to swallow his anger down.
Because, when he thought about it carefully, it was not wrong.
‘Master said the exact same thing.’
He still remembered it clearly.
That if a swordsman did not use the sword he was supposed to use and instead kept using all kinds of side arts, there would be no growth no matter how much time passed.
Back then, he had let those words go in one ear and out the other.
Honestly, his power was no longer limited to swordsmanship.
But whenever he was placed in a situation like this, those words came back to him as if someone had struck the back of his head.
When he thought about it, there was no such thing as absolute or eternal. So why had he trusted his other skills and not trained his swordsmanship as desperately as he had in his life before regression?
Roland smiled.
“You look as though you have many thoughts.”
“Yes. I’ve heard something similar before.”
“Then that must be your representative weakness.”
“......I won’t deny it.”
“Accepting it is important as well. If you do, your swordsmanship will naturally grow. However.”
Roland raised his blade a little higher as he spoke.
“Most swordsmen die before they can even gain that realization, which is why there are so few strong swordsmen.”
“Aren’t you frightening me too much? That means I might die today.”
“Just as a position shapes a person, great power comes with a great price.”
What a gentleman.
To the point that the Paladins he had seen until now seemed not like holy knights, no, not even like people.
Was this what the dignity of a Master was?
Around then, Roland closed the distance again.
Kaaang!!
Force stronger than before.
Su-ho’s brow furrowed on its own.
What?
Was this man seriously hiding his strength on purpose?
That was the answer.
Roland was the first Paladin.
And Paladin did not mean a knight who used sacred arts, but was what they had called the outstanding knights of that era.
Among them, Roland, who had held the chief seat, had certainly not bought his swordsmanship with money.
Kwaaaang!!
The friction changed.
Now it felt as if a boulder had been ripped out and swung at him.
It was not some lucky punch.
This was Roland’s true power.
‘Don’t tell me this man has higher base stats than I do?’
But he had never seen any system notification related to that.
Of course he had not.
Because there really was a difference in stats.
After the phase changed, Su-ho was busy just parrying Roland’s sword.
No, he was not merely parrying. His sword was being pushed back.
His breath caught as if it had been cut off, and his arms grew heavy.
At this rate, he would be the one to fall.
What should I do?
He had to find a breakthrough somehow.
At that moment, a thought suddenly occurred to him.
‘Why am I getting caught up in this man’s pattern?’
Kaaang!!
As soon as his thoughts reached that point, he pushed the sword back hard and opened up some distance.
Then, with his gaze fixed on Roland, he kept thinking.
‘Let’s admit what needs to be admitted. Roland is stronger than me. He has greater strength, more experience, and higher evasion ability. On top of that, as a ghost, he has no fear of death, while I, as a living person, have at least a tiny fear of death somewhere in the corner of my mind.’
And the few words he had thrown out had made Su-ho think of Sword Demon, causing Roland and Sword Demon to overlap in his mind.
That fact had unknowingly made him shrink back.
After all, the current him could not even reach the tip of Sword Demon’s toes.
Everything was unfavorable.
And he had lost the psychological battle too.
That was only natural. From the moment Roland had begun to overlap with Sword Demon in his eyes, he had started mistaking this fight not for a duel to the death, but for a place where he was receiving instruction.
All of this was Roland’s design.
As a seasoned old veteran, he tried to take every advantage from even the smallest things, like a tiger doing its utmost even when catching a rabbit.
The psychological battle was exactly that kind of example.
‘I have to think differently.’
Su-ho emptied his mind.
No, he tried to empty it.
He erased Sword Demon from Roland’s face, which had been overlapping in his eyes, and abandoned his desire to beat him with strength and technique.
‘The conditions are different. Trying to fight as if they’re equal conditions is stupid in itself.’
Still keeping his eyes fixed on Roland, he exhaled.
The air changed.
Roland noticed it as well and smiled.
Because Su-ho had realized it faster than expected.
Was that why?
He felt anticipation.
If Su-ho had realized something, then in the next exchange, he would show him something new.
‘If he can’t show me anything, then that is as far as he goes.’
Roland’s eyes smiled coldly.
At that moment.
Kwaang!!
Having finished his calculations, Su-ho dashed in first and swung his sword at Roland.
Kwaang!! Kwaang!! Kwaang!! Kwaang!!
Steel rang as it cut through the wind.
Having taken one turn to rest, Su-ho opened his eyes wide and once again charged in like a beast.
The moment their sword tips collided, he felt Roland’s weight again.
Roland was still reading all of Su-ho’s moves with eyes as calm as the sea.
His sword was neither especially fast nor especially heavy.
It neither wavered nor was pushed back.
It was tremendously deep and solid.
But Su-ho paid no heed and continued attacking.
After several exchanges continued like that, Roland’s eyes slowly narrowed.
‘Is this all?’
The pattern seemed to have changed slightly, but the swordsmanship forming its basis had not changed.
That was the nature of swordsmanship.
Things learned through the body were difficult to change under ordinary circumstances.
All the more in a place like this, where he could not use a single skill.
After a dozen more exchanges continued, disappointment deepened in Roland’s eyes.
‘In the end, a Player is a Player.’
Roland had lived a long time.
After the system had devoured his world, he had joined the Pantheon, and afterward, as Pope, then as the Paladin Stone, he had remained here for quite a long time.
And he had seen countless Paladins.
Among them were those who were not Players, but there were also those who had been Players.
All of them had come here to earn acknowledgment and crossed swords with Roland.
Of course, not a single one had ever defeated him.
The Paladins who were not Players could not win because they relied too much on sacred arts, and those who had been Players could not win because they relied too much on skills.
What Roland wanted was primal, fundamental strength.
Not sacred arts or skills, but pure martial force.
He did not care what that person’s ideology was.
Not everyone could think the same way, after all.
So, as long as they were not evil, he placed every other standard of judgment solely on pure martial force.
But had that standard been too high?
Somehow, it seemed the one who had visited this time would not satisfy his thirst either.
Kwaang! Kwaang!! Kwaang! Kang!!
The sword exchanges continued again.
Su-ho stamped his foot, changed direction, lowered his waist, and twisted his body.
He cut in, thrust, and turned.
His movements were certainly good.
Among the swordsmen who had visited this place until now, he was far and away exceptional.
But that was where it ended.
Su-ho was still being pushed back, while Roland remained composed.
‘It is about time to end this.’
Just as he thought that and was about to raise his fighting spirit.
Crack—
The sound of something splitting.
At the same time, he felt it.
That sound had come from him.
And if a cracking sound came from him, there was only one possibility.
‘Durandal!’
His sword, Durandal, had cracked.
Kwaang!!
Roland, startled, swung his sword hard and knocked Su-ho away.
The powerful output sent Su-ho sliding far back.
It was the first emotional change Roland had shown.
Roland hurriedly checked his sword.
And sure enough, faint hairline cracks had formed near the upper part of the handle, around what could be called the waist of the sword.
“.......”
Roland’s eyes narrowed.
I see.
So that was why he kept repeating meaningless attacks.
He had been aiming for this.
Roland found it rather impressive.
Since it seemed he could not settle the match through swordsmanship, he had found another method in the middle of it and created a breakthrough.
At Roland’s first visible change in attitude, Su-ho lifted the corner of his mouth.
“You have sharp senses.”
“There is no swordsman in the world who would fail to notice a change in his own sword.”
“So, what will you do now? Surely you aren’t going to use sacred arts to protect your sword, are you?”
“.......”
Roland stared steadily at Su-ho.
Then he smiled faintly.
“Haha, I’ve been struck once. To think you would exploit the fact that side arts are restricted.”
“If you think about it, my sword is also a kind of skill, but you did not restrict my sword. So I wondered what advantage I had over you, sir, and ended up choosing this strategy.”
“Then if I restrict that sword as well, it will be my victory, yes?”
“But I know you are not the kind of person who would do that. You said you wanted to experience not only my swordsmanship, but also the way I fight, didn’t you?”
“Hahaha.”
It was true.
Roland knew that Su-ho’s sword was a kind of skill.
Even so, the reason he had not restricted the Blood Sword was because Su-ho was purely using the Blood Armory only as a function of his sword.
Roland, who had been laughing, corrected his grip on his sword again.
“I rarely praise a sword, but if my Durandal has been damaged, then that sword must certainly be a great sword among great swords.”
“It is affected by my mana.”
“Hoho, then no matter what sword I brought, it would have been difficult to withstand from the beginning.”
“Are you surrendering?”
“Hardly.”
Roland’s eyes turned sharp.
“I will no longer hold back. Given Durandal’s condition, I must end this quickly.”
When a risk that had not existed before appeared, it was important to manage that risk as quickly as possible.
Roland knew that fact well, and for his method of risk management, he chose a quick decisive battle.
And that was the most suitable answer in the current situation.
“Here I come.”
The air changed.