The 9Th Class Swordmaster: Blade Of Truth [EN]: Chapter 495

Side Story 8

8. Close Friend

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

Caryl glared sharply at the Sword Demon as he spoke.

“You’re saying I met you on the last floor of Phare?”

The Sword Demon slowly nodded.

“That’s right. It’s not a lie. I clearly told you that story even before entering Phare. Well… to be honest, reaching the 9th floor of Phare with only swordsmanship and no magic is quite an achievement, especially without the Blader’s artifact, the Master Key.”

He praised Caryl’s strength, but it implied that without his help, Caryl would have failed to conquer the last floor, just like during the Calamity.

“What’s the extent of your memories inside Phare?”

“…What?”

“Think carefully. You failed to prevent the Calamity in your past life and also failed to fulfill the Divine Mandate. When you regressed through time after overcoming Phare, why did you only remember the power of the Tenth God? Is memory loss simply the price of time regression?”

Caryl couldn’t readily answer the Sword Demon’s question.

“Lost memories might be so natural that even you might not be aware of them.”

Kugugugugu…

Beyond the collapsing Phare, the space distorted, revealing the snowy highlands of the North. If he went out there, he could return to his original world.

“Whatever happened in the past, what does it matter? Live in the present. Isn’t that what you seek? You’ve turned your dream future into reality, so just seize the happiness that unfolds.”

But for some reason, the Sword Demon’s words didn’t quite register. A person who knows his past memories that he didn’t even know he had lost.

And it wasn’t even from this life, but from a past life.

Caryl was afraid that knowing that past would be beneficial to his current self.

He feared that it might shatter the peace he had achieved.

“Opening Pandora’s Box is not an easy task.”

The Sword Demon looked at him, slightly lowered the corners of his mouth as if understanding, and nodded.

“…Pandora?”

“It’s nothing much. It’s a myth from where I lived. Because she opened a box filled with all sorts of misfortunes, humanity has fallen into such hardship.”

Caryl frowned slightly at his words.

“Are you saying that learning about the end of Phare, which I don’t remember, will bring misfortune?”

“Well, I don’t know if it will be misfortune or hope. Hope remained in the box she opened. Whether you open the box or not, the choice is ultimately yours.”

“…”

At the Sword Demon’s answer, Caryl let out a low sigh and looked at him.

“Tell me.”

Caryl said to him in a calm voice, as if he had made up his mind.

“What happened on the last floor of Phare.”

Whoosh–!!!

At that moment,

The collapsing scenery of Phare disappeared, and darkness thickly enveloped his surroundings.

Clang…!!

A flash of light flickered in the darkness. Caryl slightly tilted his head at the familiar sound of tearing air, focusing on the sound.

Clang! Clang!! Kagagagang…!!

“…I don’t want to fight you.”

A woman’s voice was heard amidst the din of clashing blades.

“It’s already a great feat for a human to climb Phare this far. You are worthy of being praised as a hero.”

“I know very well what the gods have done to humans. I am saddened that our actions have caused you pain, but that doesn’t mean I, the Tenth God, can blame the other gods.”

There was a sense of sorrow in her words.

“As one of the many gods, I must acknowledge that the human perspective and the divine standard are different.”

“…”

Caryl realized that the other voice responding to her was very familiar.

“I am the god in charge of life. Although my power is weaker than other gods, in another sense, I am the strongest god for humans. That’s why I hold the tenth position.”

The woman in the robe looked at a man in the darkness and said.

“Humans cannot kill me.”

The man’s face, as he spoke sharply to her, was visibly exhausted.

“…”

Caryl looked at him.

Black eyes and disheveled black hair.

The blade of the sword he held, without any particular adornment, was dulled with hardened blood. No mana blade was felt on the blade, but the energy emanating from it was sharp.

A person visible in the darkness.

Surprisingly, that face was his own.

And he realized.

That the scene before him was a page from his lost memories that his past self had lived.

Kwaaaang—!!!

A violent explosion and a gasp were heard. Caryl flinched, unknowingly looking at his past self.

Thump… Thump… Thump…

His heart began to beat fiercely.

He realized it was fear, and Caryl realized that this fear was a primal fear coming from the experiences his body remembered, not from the memories in his head.

‘…Me?’

Caryl was dumbfounded that he felt fear towards a god. Remembering back, Lakshmu, the Twelfth God during the Great War, was the weakest being with no power.

Not only was he feeling fear towards such a god, but what shocked him even more was whether he had really fought Lakshmu.

‘I naturally thought I had regressed through time after passing through Phare. But… now that I think about it, I don’t remember how I got past the last floor.’

It was then.

With a rough groan, Caryl saw himself collapsed at Lakshmu’s feet.

‘I…….’

At that moment, he sensed it.

‘I failed……?’

Caryl shook his head, unknowingly, at the unbelievable sight. Then what were the countless eons he had felt?

Even though he didn’t have the memories of the last floor, his body clearly remembered the countless long hours he had endured.

“Phare is an existence that must be destroyed and must not be destroyed at the same time.”

The Sword Demon’s voice was heard.

Caryl turned his head towards him, the only being who could explain this chaos unfolding before his eyes.

“To understand this, you need to know the relationship between Phare and the gods.”

“The relationship between the gods and Phare? Isn’t that damned tower something the gods created to torment humans?”

“Hmm, it’s true that Phare is a damned tower, but it’s not something the gods created.”

“…What?”

The Sword Demon said in a low voice.

“Before the Lord, the highest god and the one who governed our world, died, he told me. He said that he didn’t create Phare.”

Caryl’s face hardened.

“Phare existed from the beginning and will continue to exist.”

The Sword Demon’s words felt like they were echoing in the space.

“We need to reverse the way we’ve taken for granted so far. Each floor of Phare has calamities that represent the gods. That’s why we thought the gods created Phare. But what if it’s the opposite?”

Gulp-

Caryl unknowingly swallowed hard at the Sword Demon’s words.

“What if the reason why there are calamities on each floor is because gods are born in Phare…….”

“…That’s absurd.”

“There are passages in this world’s literature that say that gods, as well as spirits and corruption, are born from rifts. Then what exactly is that rift? It’s a kind of boundary split or gap.”

The Sword Demon spread his two palms facing each other and then folded them together. The folded palms, as if in prayer, were erected vertically.

Like a tower.

“A structure that visualizes the boundary of the rift. That is Phare. Chaos and order coexist here, so the rules that the gods speak of exist in a tangled state. That chaos is why time flowing forward can be reversed.”

“That’s…… the reason why Phare can regress time?”

“That’s right. Phare can be said to be a form of rift. But the moment Phare collapses, that rift covers the world. In our world, we call it the Third Dream… but it has nothing to do with you, whose world is different.”

The Sword Demon shrugged lightly.

“However, what is certain is that if the rift covers the world, an uncontrollable collapse will occur. The fact that you failed to conquer the last floor might be a blessing in disguise.”

“That’s ridiculous. If Phare is destroyed, a rift in the world will occur? We’ve already destroyed Phare, and there’s no threat to the continent.”

“That’s because Godslaying preceded it. In a good way, your plan worked out.”

“…If I had destroyed Phare first, the world might have been destroyed?”

“But that didn’t happen, did it?”

Caryl frowned and looked at him.

“Of course, the rift doesn’t mean destruction. We who experienced the Third Dream eventually survived. It’s just that we’ll be walking a more difficult path.”

“…A more difficult path than this? You’re crazy.”

From Kaie Esir’s will, Caryl knew that they had succeeded in Godslaying before them, so he could gauge how difficult it was.

“Then how could I regress through time after being defeated on the last floor? According to you, I failed.”

At his question, the Sword Demon smiled faintly.

“Only gods can influence Phare. And the proof of the gods is, as you know, the fragment called the Dimension Spiral.”

Woo woong…

As the Sword Demon put strength into his outstretched palm, emerald jewels appeared around his wrist.

“You are one who resides in the realm of the gods… So you’re saying that you interfered with Phare in my past life and saved me.”

“Yes.”

“Why? In the end, I failed. Saving a failure will only repeat the same future of defeat.”

“To be honest, the one I was trying to save wasn’t you. It’s a great feat for a foreigner to reach the pinnacle of swordsmanship with only swordsmanship, but that alone was not enough.”

Caryl looked at him.

“Regressing through time is not simply turning back time. You must have thought about it too, whether the gods might know about your regression.”

Certainly, he had.

Caryl had always wondered.

Whether the gods really didn’t know about his regression.

“To regress through time, you have to deceive the gods so that they don’t notice it. That’s why it’s difficult to get involved in many things even with my power. To change the future, you had to pick someone with a more certain possibility. But the one I chose asked me to regress you instead of himself.”

“Who is it?”

“Even if you ask that, judging by your expression, it seems like you’ve already noticed to some extent. The person that comes to mind right now.”

“Could it be…….”

Caryl recalled the person the Sword Demon was looking for when he first appeared. His eyes trembled uneasily.

“You……. Are you here.”

The strangeness that had been lingering in one corner of his heart since that moment when he was heading towards the Thousand-Year Ice Cave.

“Olyvern.”

He called that name in a low voice.