Cooking Swordmaster [EN]: Chapter 57

With a tremendous explosion, the very ground where the annihilation battle was taking place detonated.

The heat was so intense that anyone watching would have had their corneas burned away.

Within the inferno, Cainchel gasped for breath.

Thanks to his fire resistance exceeding 30% and his activated aura, he thankfully remained unharmed.

‘Ugh… Even with high fire resistance, it would have been dangerous if I hadn’t instantly activated my aura sword… Fallen Star [a powerful magic spell] really did a number.’

The power of the Explosion magic fired at point-blank range was immense.

The black smoke mixed with steam and rising dust blurred everyone’s vision.

Amidst this chaos, the groans of the trainee knights could be heard.

The bodies of those who failed to evade properly were reduced to charred firewood.

“Gaaaaah! M-My a-arm…!”

“…Report the damage situation immediately! D-Damn it, who the hell cast Explosion magic here!”

“F-Fortunately, there are no fatalities, but most have suffered severe burns!”

“Those who can move, help your comrades and retreat! Damn it! Sir Cainchel! Are you alright!”

Kundam’s voice was audible, but Cainchel couldn’t rashly respond.

The people gathered here were trainee knights who had undergone rigorous training. Yet, most of them were incapacitated by a single magic spell.

“Ugh…”

Vincent, who was pinned under Cainchel, opened his eyes with a rough groan.

Vincent realized he was at the epicenter of the explosion.

Had Cainchel not shielded him, his body would have been torn to shreds by the explosion magic.

A question arose in Vincent’s eyes, as if asking why he had been saved.

Cainchel felt the same.

‘…Why did I save Vincent?’

There was a plausible reason.

Saving the life of someone before one’s eyes was a knight’s duty.

Moreover, he had to create dishes to undo the Curse of Sloth afflicting Frellia. A taster connected to the Seven Deadly Sins was needed.

So, he threw himself to save him?

No, that wasn’t it. For some reason, Vincent’s face as he ate the Rosemary Coq au Vin [a French chicken stew], smiling and saying it was delicious, came to mind.

And without realizing it, his body had moved.

The only reason he saved Vincent was that.

A grotesque laughter pierced through the dust.

“Heh, kihihi, ihihihit! To survive a 5th Circle Explosion magic! As expected of a cockroach, you have tremendous vitality!”

A man who seemed to have human skin draped over a reptile’s body approached.

His madness-filled eyes scanned Vincent’s collapsed form.

“Ehehehe! You’ve become so youthful in the time I haven’t seen you, Duke Hector! Huh? What’s with that look? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten this one? Did smoothing out the wrinkles on your face stiffen your brain too! Ehehehe!”

Cainchel bit his lip. He gripped his sword and rose to his feet.

The unpleasant hostility he had felt earlier.

It was emanating from the man before him.

Vincent infused his sword with aura and stood up.

“…Hector is my father.”

“Euh? Euhahaha! Is that so?”

The man wore a tattered, rat-colored priest’s robe that looked like it would fall apart with a mere breeze.

He rubbed his eyes with the sleeve, wearing a repulsive smile.

“This is quite intriguing. To look so much like Hector and be his son! It seems my eyes have grown dim after being locked up for ten years!”

The man bowed politely as if he were attending a social gathering.

“Allow me to introduce myself to those who are meeting me for the first time… I am Antares of the Scorpio, affiliated with the Great Sins Church!”

Horror dawned on Vincent’s face.

“T-The Great Sins Church?! Those traitors should all be dead!”

Antares chuckled.

“That’s how! We! Are! Alive! Euhahahaha!”

Cainchel bit his lip. He never expected to hear that name in a place like this.

The Great Sins Church was a heretical group that worshipped the Seven Deadly Sins. They betrayed humanity and sided with the Seven Deadly Sins, massacring people until the end of the war.

Eventually, with the death of their leader, the Archbishop, they vanished from the continent.

That was certainly the case.

Ecstasy appeared on Antares’s face.

“Duke Hector! Can you hear me? I know you’re here! You thought you had imprisoned us in the White Mountains forever! But that is nothing but arrogance!”

‘The White Mountains are right next to the Gistad territory… Don’t tell me they weren’t killed but imprisoned there?’

Antares raised his right hand. For some reason, his thumb was twisted in a grotesque direction.

“If you don’t come out soon, your beloved son! Will become a charred! Lump of coal! Euhahahaha!”

This time, Antares grabbed his intact index finger and bent it backward.

—Crack!

“It hurts! Euhaha! It hurts! This rage! This rageeee is! Proof that Satan is alive!”

Simultaneously, a massive wave of fire surged towards the place where Vincent and Cainchel stood.

A 3rd Circle fire magic, Fire Wave!

Cainchel gritted his teeth. No matter how much he enhanced his legs with boost, he couldn’t evade fire magic at that speed.

‘Then I’ll trust in my fire resistance and concentrate aura into my sword to cut it!’

“Onion Swordsmanship!”

Cainchel’s sword cleaved through the wave of fire.

Antares widened his eyes and muttered.

“Sword Knight? And you, you have fire resistance even though you’re not a dwarf. What are you?”

‘I’m the one who wants to ask that!’

Antares was using powerful fire magic without any incantation.

He could barely block it because it was only 3rd Circle, but if another Explosion came, he would become a well-done steak.

Antares gripped his middle finger and said.

“Ah, that last one was regrettably only 3rd Circle. But next time, an even hotter magic will be unleashed! Rage! Satan’s blessing! Is telling me to burn everything away!”

‘Sorry, but I prefer rare to well-done. It seems he can activate magic by harming himself. Then I have to take him down before that happens.’

But could he really do that?

Even though he had gained superhuman speed using aura, the distance to Antares was considerable.

The battle between a mage and a knight was a contest of how well one could prevent magic activation. The stronger the magic, the longer the incantation required.

The weak magic that could be activated without incantation couldn’t harm a body enhanced with aura.

In other words, in a one-on-one fight, a knight who could use aura would have the advantage.

However, Antares wasn’t just skipping incantations; he was activating magic by breaking his fingers.

How could he possibly face such a monster?

The only fortunate thing was that Antares was only using fire magic.

Fire was the resistance Cainchel had the highest of.

At least he didn’t have to worry about burning to death.

“Vincent. It seems I’ll have to postpone clashing swords with you for a bit.”

“Cainchel van Gistad…”

A voice that seemed to ask why he had saved him twice.

But first, he had to defeat Antares before him.

“As you just saw, I have fire resistance! At least I won’t be helplessly burned to death by the enemy’s attack! So hurry up and go get your father or reinforcements! That guy still has eight fingers left!”

The answer came from an entirely unexpected source.

“There’s no need for that.”

“Kihihihihit! As expected, the protagonist appears when his son is about to become a lump of coal!”

A black shadow appeared before Cainchel.

It was the appearance of Hector, the Swordmaster of Temperance.

@

‘That person is the Swordmaster of Temperance…’

Hector wore a gray robe and a simple sword with no decorations at his waist.

Even though he wore no armor, he felt like he was facing a massive castle.

The streaks of white in his blond hair and the wrinkles around his eyes told the weight of the years Hector had lived.

Aside from that, he looked young enough to be Vincent’s older brother.

‘Is the activated aura preventing the aging of his body?’

Swordmasters possessed hundreds of times more aura than ordinary humans.

They were able to create the Aura Sword itself using it.

“Stand back, Vincent.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

Vincent clutched his blackened left arm and bowed. A rigid figure that hardly looked like a father and son.

Antares chuckled.

“Even if the situation is urgent, aren’t you bare-handed? What happened to that armor of Vitege you were so proud of?”

“Hmm.”

Hector lightly ignored the taunting Antares and turned his head towards Cainchel.

“Vincent is too weak to face Antares’s magic imprints. It seems you saved Vincent’s life. Tell me your name.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. I am Cainchel van Gistad.”

For the first time, agitation appeared on Hector’s face. It was a look that hadn’t changed even when seeing his son’s arm blackened.

“…What is your relationship with Payne?”

“He is my father, who passed away ten years ago.”

“Keuh… The threads of fate are truly bizarre. To think I would owe my son’s life to Payne’s son.”

Antares’s face turned bright red.

“How can you ignore an enemy you’ve met after ten years like this? Kihi, kihihihihit! This time, a really strong one will explode!”

Crack!

In the end, Antares’s right middle finger snapped in half, and the magic contained within was activated.

Hector reached out towards Cainchel, who was reflexively trying to raise his sword.

It was as if he was telling him to just watch.

“Aura Field.”

Then, a wall of aura rose around Hector.

Simultaneously, the 5th Circle fire magic, Explosion, engulfed the two.

KWAHHHHH-!

Fire magic from the 5th Circle onwards began to show the might of a true army-scale magic. Its power was enough to burn dozens of soldiers to death with a single activation.

Hector blocked it far too easily by creating a triangular pyramid-shaped wall of aura.

‘T-This is a Swordmaster…’

The amount of aura felt was hundreds of times greater than his own.

Hector slowly rose to his feet. He even seemed relaxed, as if he had done something obvious.

Antares screamed.

“Kihit! That last one was the weakest of the remaining magic imprints! Then this time! I’ll summon the flames of hell! And burn this space itself away!”

This time, Antares gripped not his finger but his left arm.

‘Don’t tell me his arm?!’

However, unlike fingers, arms were not parts that could be easily broken.

“Hut!”

Hector lunged forward with a shout. The distance to Antares was reduced at an incredible speed, like a launched siege weapon.

“You guys are always too talkative. From now on, use your hidden techniques quietly.”

And he swung his sword, severing Antares’s arm.

The severed arm was thrown to the floor like rotten straw.

“Kihihihihihi! It was truly a pleasure to see you again after so long! Duke Hector!”

Antares picked up his severed arm and bit off his left ring finger this time. Then, with a tremendous light, Antares disappeared.

‘He could even use teleport magic…’

5th Circle space magic, Teleport. He never expected he could use even this.

The priest of the Great Sins Church, Antares, possessed monstrous abilities, to say the least. If the fight with him had dragged on, he certainly wouldn’t have been able to withstand all five fingers.

But Hector was so strong that he overwhelmed even such a monster.

His dignity was so great that it was hard to believe he was the same human.

Cainchel felt a strange desire smoldering within him.

He wanted to become stronger.

If he became strong enough to cross swords with Swordmasters, everyone would remember the name of Gistad.

‘I…’

It was then.

“Cough…”

Hector, who had been standing with an indifferent expression, coughed up blood.

Black blood streamed between the fingers covering his mouth.

He looked almost like someone poisoned.

“Y-Your Excellency! I’ll go get a priest!”

Hector reached out and grabbed Cainchel’s shoulder as he tried to run.

And he wiped the blood from his mouth and said.

“Don’t tell anyone what you saw just now. And well done. Thanks to you stalling for time, everyone could be saved.”

“…Thank you.”

Cainchel felt his chest heating up at the Swordmaster’s praise.

Hector was trying to hide the appearance of the ghoul. He was one of the people who needed to hide that the Curse of the Seven Deadly Sins could be undone through cooking, though he didn’t know why.

But Hector was the Seven Virtues, called the strongest knight.

Hearing him say well done would be the greatest honor for a trainee knight.

The suddenly appeared assassin of the Great Sins Church. The majesty of the Swordmaster he saw for the first time.

Cainchel realized that his destiny had begun to change greatly within it.

Free Knight #1