The wooden sword, which had looked perfectly fine just moments ago, had cracked.
Cracking a mere wooden sword with the Dragon Bone Sword might not be hard, but when the one holding the wooden sword was a dragon, it was a different story.
"Shouldn't you change swords?"
"No need. Let us continue until this sword breaks."
The sword's damage was one thing; the test was another, and it wasn't over yet.
The wooden sword looked precarious, as if it might snap any second, but Rokan showed no sign of stopping.
In fact.
"From now on, I will use my sword as well."
"Pardon?"
At first he'd said he wouldn't attack, but perhaps he had changed his mind in the meantime; Rokan adjusted his grip on the cracked wooden sword and shifted his stance.
"Do not worry. You will not die."
Rokan looked as relaxed as if he'd stepped out for a stroll around the neighborhood.
Before I could say a word in reply, Rokan leisurely closed the distance and aimed for my upper body.
Luckily it wasn't very fast, so I thought I could block it, but I was mistaken.
The wooden sword changed its trajectory in an instant and struck my ankle.
"Argh!"
I winced as a tingling pain shot through me.
"Stop exaggerating."
Rokan was smiling kindly, but the attacks that followed were as vicious as his expression was gentle.
The wooden sword veered sharply and struck my right shoulder, and the impact made me drop my sword for an instant.
In a real fight, it would have been over right there.
Quickly grabbing the fallen sword, I hypnotized myself.
Stay calm. Calm down.
Once that wooden sword breaks, it's over anyway.
But the instant I thought I should break the wooden sword as fast as possible, I shook my head.
'That would only backfire.'
What mattered in unleashing a dragon's power was the desire to dominate.
I couldn't swing just thinking about breaking a sword.
To properly use a dragon's power, I had to draw it out with the thought of dominating anything and everything.
Ignoring the pain, I began closing the distance instead of widening it.
I didn't think of breaking his sword; I thought of bringing my opponent to his knees and dominating him.
Boldly aiming for Rokan's heart, I thrust my sword in with all my might.
Rokan moved at an unbelievable speed to block it, but my sword had already pierced through his wooden sword.
The instant it was pierced, the wooden sword in Rokan's hand shattered into pieces too small to recognize.
"Good."
I'd aimed for his heart, so it could have been dangerous, but Rokan only smiled.
He swept the shattered fragments of his sword aside with his foot and patted my shoulder lightly, as if to say well done.
"Now that I have confirmed your talent, it is time we talked in more depth."
The moment he finished speaking, the scenery changed again.
We had been in the field just a moment ago, but in the blink of an eye, we were back in the study.
"Sit."
When I sat down, Rokan immediately brought out some tea.
It was a strong-smelling tea I'd never smelled before, but the aroma wasn't bad.
Savoring its aroma, I awkwardly took a sip.
"Is it to your liking?"
"Yes."
I didn't know what tea it was, but it suited my taste well enough.
"Judging by your swordsmanship alone, it was certainly substandard. Your movements were all plain to see, and your form when you swung was dreadful. To be honest, I was hard-pressed to find a single good thing about it."
I didn't feel wronged, and I wasn't angry.
Without the Dragon Bone Sword, I really was just another run-of-the-mill D-rank Hunter you could find anywhere.
"But that is not a problem, at least not for you. It is not as if your goal is to become a Sword Master."
Rokan sipped his tea once, then went on.
"You will be able to wield my kin's power better than any human ever has."
"...Pardon?"
"Sword Masters, emperors who unified the continent, whoever they were. In thousands of years, I have not seen a single human with as much talent as you."
I couldn't believe it.
I knew I had talent, since Sia had told me before, but...
It was this much?
Me, a mere D-rank Hunter?
I couldn't hide my joy at Rokan's high praise.
I already wanted to brag to Sia that her grandfather had praised me like this, that as long as I worked hard, there'd be no problem at all.
But what came next went far beyond anything I'd expected.
"Ironically, that very thing is the reason you and my Sasha must live apart." "Pardon?"
The unexpected words hit me like a blow to the back of the head.
So.
The reason I had to live apart from Sia in the first place wasn't only her immense power, but...
It was also because of this talent I never knew I had?
"Could you... tell me more about it?"
"I cannot tell you now. When the time comes, I will."
Rokan was so firm that I didn't even dare beg him to tell me.
All I could do was nod stiffly.
"It is far too dangerous for you to know right now, so do not take it too hard."
"I'm not upset at all. I was just curious."
"It is written all over your face that you are upset."
I'd worried things might get awkward, but thankfully, Rokan's joke brought the mood back to normal.
When a faint smile began to form at the corners of my mouth, Rokan returned to the main topic.
"Let us return to the matter of your talent. Min-jun, where do you think my kin's power comes from?"
The source of a dragon's power, huh.
I'd only just learned that dragons actually existed in this world; there was no way I could know that.
Still, I could at least take a guess.
"The desire to dominate, isn't it?"
I answered with a mix of my experience using the Dragon Bone Sword and guesswork.
"Domination is not a wrong answer, but what matters more is will. Domination, too, can be seen as a kind of will."
"Will, huh...."
"Then in what form do you think a dragon's will manifests?"
Could an abstract concept like will even manifest?
My head couldn't make sense of it, but my mouth instinctively spat out an answer.
"Dragon Words."
"Yes, that is right. Any dragon, even a hatchling not yet ten years old, can at least imitate Dragon Words, even if it cannot use them properly."
The more I heard, the more fascinating the world of dragons became.
Even a young hatchling, practically a newborn by dragon standards, could use Dragon Words.
"If you are to be acknowledged as a dragon, you must at least be able to wield Dragon Words."
I already knew that my final goal was 'to fully master a dragon's power.'
But I never imagined Dragon Words would come up right from the start.
I'd assumed I'd learn Dragon Words later, after a fair amount of training, not right away.
"Because they are the foundation."
While my head went blank at the unexpected answer, Rokan continued as if he'd read my mind.
I didn't know much, but common sense said wielding Dragon Words with a human body would be anything but easy.
I already felt my blood draining away with dread.
Could I really wield Dragon Words in a human body?
Could I use magic like Teleport with nothing but will, without incantations or complex calculations?
It might be different if I were a mage, but I was a swordsman.
"Do not be impatient. We will simply start from the basics, one step at a time. At first, you will borrow that sword's power and aim to wield Dragon Words, however imperfectly."
"Imperfectly... meaning?"
"Succeeding in wielding a Dragon Word even once."
Even if I couldn't use Dragon Words freely, if I tried dozens, no, hundreds of times and pulled one off even once, that counted as success.
"After that, you will train to wield Dragon Words without borrowing the sword's power. One success in thousands of tries is fine. Even if your Dragon Word raises nothing more than a gentle breeze, that is fine."
All I needed was to zero in on it even once, Rokan added.
After that, I would wield Dragon Words fully using the sword's power, and then wield them without it.
That was the curriculum Rokan laid out just for me.
"I have lived a little under ten thousand years, but this is my first time teaching a human to wield Dragon Words. It will be no easy task, but I am glad to have found an interesting pastime in my twilight years."
He called it a pastime, but it didn't seem like something on the scale of a pastime at all.
"But for you, it is something you must stake your whole life on."
"That's right."
"So I, too, will teach you without thinking of it as a pastime. Not for your sake, but for mine, and above all, for my Sasha's."
He said that, but I could feel warmth in every single word.
Honestly, my first impression of him had been a little scary, but now I could truly feel that he was a grandfather who sincerely wished for his granddaughter and her boyfriend to be happy.
"Oh, right. My Sasha asked me to call her."
"Should I step out?"
"No. You are my grandson-in-law; you should come too."
At that word, 'in-law,' something tugged at my heart.
Before her reincarnation, Sia had lost her whole family to a Gate Break in high school, so there was no one who could call me their son-in-law.
And that was still true now.
I intended to marry Sia, but we hadn't even had a wedding yet, and on top of that, I wasn't even a dragon, so naturally I hadn't expected it at all.
Being called his in-law meant, in other words, that I could take our relationship as officially acknowledged.
Holding back the tears that threatened to burst out, I bowed ninety degrees.
"Thank you so much."
"Nonsense. I am the one who should be thanking you. When you think about it, the reason I could meet my granddaughter here at all is you."
Waving his hand, Rokan insisted that he was the one in my debt.
Anyway.
He had a phone, so I assumed he'd call her on it, but contrary to my expectations, instead of calling right away, Rokan headed to the great cavern.
It was the very place I'd first seen when I opened my eyes after losing consciousness.
Not much time had passed, so there were no major changes.
Except for one thing.
"Was that always here?"
A huge screen was mounted on one wall.
That wasn't there before, was it?
"I installed it. I originally meant to use it for watching movies, but it occurred to me that I could use it for video calls with Sasha, so I put it in earlier than planned."
He was going to use that huge screen for video calls?
While I was marveling at the scale of it, Rokan called Sia.
A moment later, Sia appeared on the huge screen, perhaps linked to his phone.
[Grandpa! Min-jun oppa!]
As if she had been waiting for this very moment, Sia waved at us happily.
Seeing Sia on that huge screen instead of a tiny phone display felt surreal.
With a mix of joy, bewilderment, and wonder, I waved back at Sia happily.
[How was he, my oppa? He definitely has talent, right? Right?]
Sia looked at Rokan with sparkling eyes.
Perhaps because she was so sorry she hadn't been there with us, Sia seemed eager to hear everything that had happened as soon as possible.
"About your boyfriend."
Rokan began.
Sia swallowed hard without moving a muscle.
He let out a chuckle and spoke.
"That fellow is far more talented than you think."