I opened my mouth and smiled towards the soldiers. What more can I do? If the monster"s corpse was still there, I"d tell them to go see it; however, the only evidence remaining by the path was a frozen, bloodied ground. Anyone that wouldn"t be suspicious of this situation should have their brains checked.

"The details…later…"

  Alright, good. I need to now collapse. Then, I can think about what to do later. But…but, why am I not fainting?
It seems that even fainting wasn"t as easy as it seems.

"How can you even ask my son that in this state of time! Especially to a boy that has returned back from near death…I won"t send him anywhere so leave and come back later!"

I should say that I"m so proud to be the son of the world"s best mother at this time. Folding her arms on her waist, her angry face looked stern as if she was the halo of an angel……such a beacon of light.
Although her skirt was stained by my blood, there was nothing that could interrupt her from acting on her heavenly abilities.

To be able to bathe and then sleep, I"m thankful for anyone that could offer me the chance to do so. Nothing else matters right now.
So as for the details, let"s do it tomorrow. Alright?

So when I woke up in the next morning, I really couldn"t help but admit that I won"t be able to have the same feeling that I had when I went to sleep yesterday.
Not only that, the dream that I had dreamt last night… not only did it not lessen my worries, but it amplified the horrible memory I had from yesterday. It was so realistic that after I had woken up, my body was still cold that even the bright morning sunshine didn"t feel warm at all.
The dream was like this. Last night, in order to retrieve Mirbo"s sword, I had climbed down the cliff. It was the same till then. But?
I was thinking.
Is it dead?

[…Fa…b… ….]

I stopped my tracks as my body froze on the spot.

[…Fa…bian…was it?…]

Speak!
Mo, Monster say something!

I, I really abhor these kind of situations! Mi… let Mirbo resolve this situation! I have no relationship whatsoever with this friend. This is our first meeting alright! So, can I go? I can go right?
However, I stood aloft on the spot against my will. The flaming sword half-embedded in the monster"s stomach – wait was faintly shining. The sword, compared to it in reality, was larger.
And the monster horrifyingly opened his mouth and continued speaking.

[You…and me…we have no….relationship… at all… …..]

Yes, you"re exactly right! So we should stop the conversation. I"m fine.
However…

[Who…are you?]

This is a really stupid question for even an idiot to ask. If we had fought and battled up to this point, and you then ask that question? It"s not like you were ambushed by some wicked people and was injured as if you were a victim. Wait, so I"m the bad guy? To be a fool in my own dream…

At this moment though, my thoughts weren"t that complicated
It"s not like the monster had the strength to lash out at me.
If I was the monster and I had enough strength, it"s a fitting distance for it to lash out at me.
But still, it seems that the monster had already had no interest of doing so.

[I am…the protect…or…kuluk…that protects…the fairies… … Ejoli….]

Although the words spoken were quite scattered, since the voice was so loud, I had no problem understanding the contents. Of course, if he had stopped talking in between, then I wouldn"t have comprehended.

[You…have to cleanly finish my body…or else the fairies will remember my blood… ….]

I jumped up alarmingly.
What is it saying? What are the fairies going to do to me?
I have little information on what kind of existences fairies are. In particular, I had no clue on whether or not that race was one that exacts revenge or chants curses. Thinking about it, an image popped up in my head, ill.u.s.trating those fairies, the size of my hands, starting to attack me from the rear end of my b.u.t.tocks.  Haaak, such a frightening scene, even if it was only a dream.
Above all, there was something that I was curious about.

"Why Mirbo?"

[Enmity… ….]

That was all.

After that, it was the same as reality. The monster had disappeared, and after I had grabbed the sword and pondered why it was so heavy, I returned back to Mirbo as if I was a traveler fallen ill returning back to one"s own village. While dragging that enormous sword.

Currently, that sword was leaning on the wall.
I"m not sure either. I wonder why I had to keep the sword as well. The only concrete detail that I could understand was that Mirbo wasn"t able to touch the sword at all - when I first grabbed it, I could feel its extreme heat as well - but asides that, there was no appropriate reason as to why I had to keep that extremely deadly sword.
And since the sword"s owner was me, I had to now take responsibility for explaining the cause of that bloodied ground at the uphill pa.s.s by Grillard"s peak. Was there some sort of reason as to why Mirbo did this, other than him being shrewd?? When we entered Ember Village, saying that he had to find the doctor, we went our separate ways. Unlike me, he wasn"t b.l.o.o.d.y from head-to-toe so he didn"t leave a trail of blood. As long as he treated the wound of his stomach well (in fact, the claw that had caused that wound wasn"t minor at all).

I wonder if he"s still in Ember. Though I have no confirmation, asides from whether Mirbo was trustworthy or not, I believed that he was still in Ember just because I wanted to.
Of course, there was no mention of us meeting again, if he had really disappeared, then I was in a predicament where I might have to leave through the backdoor and flee towards the snowy mountains.
Where was I injured exactly again? Am I even in a state to flee?

"Ughkkkk!"

It seems that I had sprained my ankle. And……

"Akuu, ughhhhhhhh…"

It seems that there"s certainly something wrong with my shoulder. To swing that sword when my shoulder wasn"t even fully recovered. Anywhere else…?

"It hurtssss! Aigoooooooo…."

This time, it was my wrist. Considering the situation, it seems that I might have to call Arnowalt, hyung.
While I was calmly inspecting my body, twisting my body this way and that, outside the bedroom - to be honest, it was a room part.i.tioned off with a door in front. It"s because I"m living with my mother that I at least have a room like this - wait, I smell something delicious. Since the smell was coming from outside, the source was probably related to the kitchen excluding the possibilities of it coming from the kitchen, living room, outside, etc.…why am I a.n.a.lyzing this?

"Fabian – come out and eat breakfast! If you"re not feeling well, I"ll bring it to you!"

Hmm, it makes sense, yet it doesn"t make sense as well.
Earlier, after carefully inspecting my body, considering it the latter, I delivered myself outside the room.

For now, I had moved out from the bed.
It was a relief that I wasn"t in a state where I couldn"t move around after struggling with all my might. With my arm stretched out, dangling like a fool, I approached the sword leaning by the wall. I wasn"t in a state of holding and playing around with it. After touching it with my right hand, I started to doubt what made me wield this sword last night.

But still, hmm, it has a strange appearance that"s for sure.
There was no mistake that it was a two-handed sword from its size, but strangely there was no pommel on the hilt. How do you even hold it with that heavy weight? There was no mistake, however, that it was a sword for those with extreme arm strength.
The blade, too, was thick and immeasurably broad. It would at least be wider than the palm of my hand. Since it"s like this, the weight? It should be pretty crazy. With my current strength, I can"t even lift it.
And it wasn"t just the shape that was strange.
The middle of the blade was deeply carved in (And still it"s this heavy), and between it were strange inscriptions. I definitely was oblivious as to what they meant. And those words were inscribed in black. After carving out the iron, it was as if someone was trying to fill it with something - anyways, it was black.
As for the technique, of course I didn"t know what it was. In my life, the best sword I have ever seen was the day before yesterday, which was Arnowalt"s long sword.

Above all, the strangest part was that no matter how you see it, there was no traces of that flame on the sword. It was just a ma.s.sive iron block of metal. No matter how you look at it, there were no holes that could possibly emit those flames. Just in case, I inspected it carefully. This large, heavy thing was so normal and ordinary that it nearly made me suspicious that it was all an illusion.
Hmm, I was lost in thought while looking at the blade of the sword.
Somehow, that flame, did it have a similar role to the blacksmith"s anvil? No matter how much I swung with it, there was no trace of it having been chipped. It was flawless.
And if you think about it, it was me that swung this flaming, shining sword around. Ha, it would have been so cool to have shown this in front of others. But now, whether or not it was witnessed or not, the evidence of the large white-furred leather lump had disappeared, and the taciturn, who occasionally gets confused, Mirbo of little words being absent was a bit of a shame.
There were no burns on my hands at all.

Anyways, it was an impressive sword for sure.
Suddenly, a thought had appeared. Could it be that this is what you call a legendary sword?
Hehe, to even imagine that a legendary sword looking so plain and ordinary was silly (It doesn"t look expensive at all. Sigh, since it"s heavy, it must contain a lot of iron.)
And how can you claim that a legendary sword would fit my image?

But still, Mirbo had claimed that this sword was mine.
No matter how much I think about it, I can"t understand. If I can"t understand, then at least explain it well. Coming to think about it, we were both exhausted then due to being injured, and confounded from the events that had transpired, which might have caused us to not know what to say. Maybe it wasn"t like that for Mirbo, but that was how it was for me.
If Mirbo had indeed disappeared, then this is quite a dilemma. Hmm.

For now, the first step was to take this to the blacksmith and ask, which was the only thought I had at the moment. Sigh, I"m such a senseless guy.

Mirbo slowly opened his mouth.

"That sword… …."

Finally, I had waited for this. Please if you know anything, tell me. I"m so curious.

TL Afterword

Oh my G.o.d! These cliffhangers are killing me~

Translator: Calvis
Proofreader: Sai101, Kajin