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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: An Unexpected Visitor
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"Hey, Team Leader! I have something I'm really curious about."
"What is it?"
"I get why you had to get suspended, but why do I have to get suspended along with you?"
What was so heartbreaking about it?
Rimon replied to Yuna Kyung, who was sipping her soju and asking with a wistful look, as calmly as ever.
"A superior's mistake is the subordinate's responsibility."
"Isn't that usually the other way around?!"
"In your view, do superiors usually cover for their subordinates' mistakes, or push their own screw-ups onto them?"
Yuna Kyung rolled her eyes.
Then she answered confidently.
"If the superior has any sense of proper morality, obviously the former, right?"
"Yeah, good superiors get fired, bad ones get promoted, and that's why the latter happens more."
"What kind of hopeless, dreamless nonsense is that?!"
"Didn't you know? Reality has no dreams or hopes to begin with."
"Ugh, that's so cynical."
Yuna Kyung made a shocked face, like a kid who'd just heard Santa Claus isn't real.
Rimon chuckled at the sight.
Of course, it was just a joke.
If their boss, Kang Jeongsu, had really tried to pin the blame on them, a suspension wouldn't have been the end of it.
Yuna Kyung, who knew that full well, muttered blankly.
"It's kind of ironic, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"We're the ones on suspension, chilling with drinks, while the director who handed down the punishment is probably working his ass off."
"What can you do? That's what directors are for."
Rimon snickered.
Any ordinary player might not get it.
But this was assaulting the brother-in-law of an Infinite Monarch.
No doubt Kang Jeongsu was running around sweating bullets to clean up the mess.
His head might even get shinier in the process.
'Maybe I should buy him some good hair growth tonic next time?'
If Kang Jeongsu knew what Rimon was thinking, he'd beg him to skip the tonic and just stop causing incidents.
But that plea would never happen.
If it could, someone like the national savior hero Rimon wouldn't have been demoted to team leader in the first place.
"Anyway, honestly, it felt pretty satisfying."
"Did it?"
"Yeah. That guy was such a jerk. He nearly killed someone but acted like it never happened, just yapping about his money and compensation the whole time."
"That bastard probably would've said the same thing even if he'd beaten someone to death."
"No way, he's still human."
"Guys drunk on power don't see people as people anymore."
Rimon wore a cold smile.
People only feel humanity in those on their level.
That's why they bond over shared age, region, jobs, hobbies—anything that makes them equals.
But someone drunk on power can't do that.
Power is domination at its core.
It turns even equals into subjects to control.
Rimon, who'd seen countless pure souls corrupted by power over the years, knew this all too well.
Especially if it was a cow-headed idiot like Seo Yongchan to begin with—no surprise if he didn't see humans as human at all.
"...Hearing that makes me curious why you let Seo Yongchan live, Team Leader."
"Why? Would it have been bad if I hadn't?"
"Not bad, just weird. I really thought you'd kill him for real."
"Well, I wanted to."
"Then why didn't you?"
Yuna Kyung tilted her head, genuinely puzzled.
It was a question she could only ask because she was tipsy, but it was sincere all the same.
The Rimon she knew wouldn't hold back for someone's background—not even the Infinite Monarch's brother-in-law.
Rimon's answer was simple.
"Public servants get fired for random murders."
"...That's it?"
"Not 'just' that. If I get fired here, where's an old relic like me gonna find another job?"
"That's pretty realistic reasoning."
As Yuna Kyung giggled and drained her glass, Rimon smirked and refilled it with soju.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
They'd been passing bottles back and forth at the rundown street stall for quite a while.
Finally, with empty bottles piled high, Rimon stood, dumped the plastered Yuna Kyung at her place, and stepped out into the street.
He glanced up at the night sky and muttered to himself.
"The old days were better."
Before players appeared.
In the Heroes' Age, he could've killed Seo Yongchan or sold him into slavery, no questions asked.
Back then, Sword Masters were absolute.
Stronger than all ten Monarchs combined—untouchable.
Killing a healthy person? They'd all believe it was a monster and praise him, no blame.
But that's ancient history.
After players emerged.
Sword Masters fell.
Like battleships once called fortresses of the sea, scrapped with carriers and anti-ship missiles.
Skills and players rose; Sword Masters crumbled.
The Sword Tower, swarmed with disciples, went bankrupt from deficits.
"Friends" who boasted connections ghosted him; "Sword Master" became a mocking slur.
For an obsolete hack lording over past glory with nothing but sword swings.
'Eh, whatever.'
Rimon felt no particular emotion about it.
Losing power and not killing Seo Yongchan were unrelated.
He spared him for one reason.
Something about that cow-headed Seo Yongchan felt... off.
'It overlapped, right? That thing.'
He hadn't noticed at first.
But upon closer inspection, Rimon realized.
The dissonance from cow-headed Seo Yongchan came from two clashing auras.
And hidden slyly in the human one—a loathsome wriggling, like a half-rotten brain.
'Possession, fusion, parasitism—who knows.'
Not some ghost.
Not a chimera either.
Even for Rimon, with his long life, a rare form of overlap.
One thing clear: whatever clung to Seo Yongchan was fundamentally not human.
'Better not touch it rashly.'
What it was, its tie to Seo Yongchan—
He knew nothing yet; couldn't just kill him off.
Might blunder into cutting grass and startling snakes—not to mention, watching yielded more intel.
If it caused trouble?
Slice it then.
Perfect excuse to off Seo Yongchan cleanly.
'Such thinking's outdated in this era too, huh.'
Rimon smirked.
Inevitable, maybe.
No matter how he adapted, he was an old relic.
『Yangtze Waves Push Forward Waves
長江後浪推前浪
前浪死在沙灘上
後浪風光能幾時
轉眼還不是一樣』
Maybe stirred by needless nostalgia.
Or drunk on the unusually clear moonlight.
Muttering to himself with no one to hear, Rimon wandered the dim night streets aimlessly.
Suspended anyway.
No work tomorrow—might as well enjoy a leisurely night stroll.
But before he took a few steps.
Rimon stopped dead.
『The Yangtze's rear waves push forth the front ones.
The front waves perish on sandy shores.
If front waves don't perish and return to sea,
They revive unquenched, becoming rear waves once more.』
"Hm?"
Rimon narrowed his eyes at the voice echoing in the quiet night sky.
Not because it echoed his mutter.
Not the clear, beautiful tone.
He'd only just noticed her approach.
"Who are you?"
Rimon was genuinely curious.
Love him or hate him, he was a Sword Master.
His senses sharper than any Tracer's.
Tracers would rage at the comparison to a "relic," but facts were facts.
Few could slip that close undetected—even Monarchs.
Who'd pulled it off?
Intrigued, Rimon watched as the voice's owner emerged.
"Sorry for the rudeness."
Smooth black hair in a jade hairpin.
Eastern-style dress embroidered with silver silk.
Skin glowing white in the moonlight.
Parting the night like a curtain.
The visitor stepped from shadows—too noble for a girl, too innocent for a woman.
She bowed politely to Rimon.
"Pardon my intrusion, but are you the Sword Duke?"
"Sword Duke... I was called that once."
Rimon gave a strange look.
In the Sword Master absolute era.
People showered him with titles: National Savior Hero, Humanity's Guardian Deity.
Sword Duke was one.
But he hadn't heard it in ages.
Most titles forgotten; those who still said it were one type only.
"Your answer to my question?"
She flinched slightly.
As if scared of his reaction once he knew who she was.
But just for a moment.
Steeling herself, she swallowed and lifted her head.
Staring straight into Rimon's golden eyes, her voice trembled as she spoke.
"Would you know me as Li Chingwei of the Black Dragon Clan?"
"How could I not?"
Unlike her fears, Rimon neither raged nor drew his sword.
He'd guessed her identity the moment she parted the darkness.
Obvious, really.
Not even Rimon would miss Psionics tech.
And wide as the world was.
Only one Psionic could fool his eyes.
"So, what brings the Seven Dragon Society princess to me?"
"I have a favor to ask of the Sword Duke."
"A favor? You? From me?"
Rimon doubted his ears.
The moon splitting before that happened.
In his common sense, no Seven Dragon Society member would ask him anything—especially Black Dragon Clan royalty.
"Yes."
Yet she denied his logic so simply.
Rimon stared blankly at Li Chingwei for a moment.
Then gazed at the moon, thinking.
'The times really have changed.'
Why did common sense shift so drastically with each era?
Grumbling inwardly, Rimon asked her.
"What exactly do you want?"
He braced himself.
A Black Dragon Clan princess seeking him out? No ordinary request.
He wouldn't be shocked, whatever it was.
But when he heard it.
Rimon froze with a perfectly dumbfounded look.
"Please marry me."