The beam of light leaking in through a fine crack fell upon the altar.
The object laid there like a holy relic was a shard of a sword.
Geon-mu checked the information through <Myriad Phenomena>.
[Remains of a Sword]
Type: Material Item
Grade: None.
The remains of a sword whose name is unknown.
It has lain neglected for long ages, yet it has not rusted.
"This is......."
Reading only the text as it was written, it was without question an unremarkable thing.
But Geon-mu did not cling to information alone.
His own intuition told him plainly what those remains were.
"This is...... certain."
Geon-mu was firmly convinced.
And so this time he appraised the object again with <Myriad Phenomena>.
[<Myriad Phenomena> sees through the remains of a sword.]
In that instant, the remains of the sword began to shine.
FLASH—!
It lit the inside of the cave a cold blue and blinded Geon-mu's eyes.
[<Nine Dragon Divine Meridians> begins to run wild!]
The blood flowing in his body was responding.
The speck of doubt that had remained turned at last into complete certainty.
'My body was reacting to this shard of the sword.'
The light gradually thinned, and Geon-mu stared at the remains of the sword again.
The shabby black iron shard was giving off a soft glow.
[Fragment of the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword]
Type: Material Item
Grade: S+
The sword that cut down and sealed the Emperor Dragon, Ragnavaluk.
Ragnavaluk's soul dwells within it, but the soul has not been awakened.
An item with no grade had turned into an S+ Grade material.
Even the <Dragon's Reverse Scale>, one of the materials that could be called the very best for magic items, did not pass A-Grade as a material, and yet the remains of the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword were S+ Grade.
'My sword indeed.'
The Heavenly Treasury, the vault where every famed blade on the earth that could be called famed had been collected.
It was a sword he had picked out from among them as the finest, so it had not rusted even without upkeep.
And on top of that, it was a sword that had sealed the soul of the Emperor Dragon, said to be the greatest of all time in that world, so in that age it was a sword that could make you the strongest simply by owning it.
His admiration went only that far.
'Why is this sword left neglected like this?'
And destroyed, at that?
Geon-mu did not know what expression he was supposed to wear.
Whether to be angry that it had not been properly stored,
or to be glad at coming face to face with something he had thought lost.
'Did they become unable to handle it once I died?'
In which case they had gone so far as to reduce the sword to fragments and separate them.
Explained that way, he could understand it to some extent.
Since Geon-mu, humanity's greatest fighting force, had vanished, it was inevitable that all sorts of upheaval would occur.
'Should I have arranged more countermeasures?'
It seemed nothing would have changed even if he had.
He could not tell whether it had been broken deliberately or had broken in the course of use, so he decided to consider it a fate that had been bound to come to this.
Geon-mu laid his hand on the remains of the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword.
The instant his fingertips touched the iron, something in Geon-mu's body rang out loudly, as though exploding.
[The Phantom Speed Dragon of the <Nine Dragon Divine Meridians> has awakened!]
[The Phantom Speed Dragon, Aiologia, dwells within your body.]
[Through the effect of the <Nine Dragon Divine Meridians>, the <Heaven-Breaking Divine Art> is strengthened.]
[All footwork forms of the <Heaven-Breaking Divine Art> are released.]
Hot energy raced quickly around Geon-mu's body.
The discomfort lasted only a few short seconds.
Geon-mu rose again and clenched his fist.
'That was unexpected.'
He had never laid a hand on the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword since his body weakened, so a change like this was a first.
Unlike when he had forcibly opened it to beat Anubis, this was stable and compliant.
On the off chance, Geon-mu opened the trait window for the Nine Dragon Divine Meridians.
[Nine Dragon Divine Meridians]
Type: Passive
Grade: SSS
Nine dragons that reigned over the continent of Yuresian and ruled it with blood and iron.
The Slayer who defeated all nine of those dragons seized their power completely.
That perfected power crosses time and space and dwells within the Slayer.
Dragons Released: 2
Dragon of Destruction: the dragon that destroyed mountains and dried up rivers (State: Unstable)
Phantom Speed Dragon: the dragon the eye cannot follow
Just as he had thought, unlike the Dragon of Destruction, the Phantom Speed Dragon had no unstable state attached to it.
'Which means there's no penalty?'
Geon-mu decided to try using the Phantom Speed Dragon's power.
[<Phantom Speed Dragon> stirs.]
Unlike when he used the Dragon of Destruction's power, his body grew lighter and lighter.
Its weight vanished, and it yielded to Geon-mu's movements.
Geon-mu carefully set down one foot.
Though he had moved very slowly, in the blink of an eye Geon-mu had taken three more steps.
"Now I see."
It was a movement his body had once known, so a few motions were enough to get the feel of it.
After moving several times, Geon-mu felt something draining out of his body.
Internal force?
No.
This was something Geon-mu had not been paying attention to.
'Mana?'
Using the Phantom Speed Dragon's power devoured mana.
The Dragon of Destruction was in an unstable state and carried the penalty of only once a day, while in the Phantom Speed Dragon's case it consumed mana every time it was used.
The mana drain was not extreme, but Geon-mu, who had done no separate mana training, could not sustain the Phantom Speed Dragon's power for long.
It still belonged in the better category, compared with the Dragon of Destruction and its extremely limited number of uses.
'Personally I prefer the power of the Earthbound Dragon or the Golden Armor Dragon.'
Still, the Phantom Speed Dragon's power was not bad, in its way.
Beaming at the unexpected gain, Geon-mu put the <Remains of the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword> into the subspace pocket.
It was then.
No sooner had Geon-mu obtained the sword than a single message came up.
It was a Patron Star's message, no different from any other time.
"......Huh?"
It could by no means be called ordinary.
[<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> watches you closely.]
The Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury.
There were a great many Patron Star messages, but Geon-mu recognized not a single one of them.
That was because they were beings with no connection to him at all.
But the designation <Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> was one he knew very well and found deeply familiar.
The immortal who managed every weapon in the immortal realm, in the Heavenly Realm.
The daughter of the Heavenly Venerable.
"Cheon-bi......?"
She was Geon-mu's old companion.
***
Geon-mu doubted his own eyes.
Could it be that I am mistaken?
Since he might have misread it, he read it once more.
"<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury>......."
The Heavenly Treasury was the vault in the Heavenly Realm.
Its administrator was only ever one person.
Unless the previous administrator had died or suffered some calamity, there was no reason for it to change to another administrator.
He had not ascended to the Heavenly Realm, so he had no way of knowing the situation there.
But if nothing had changed, then management of the Heavenly Treasury was without doubt the charge of Cheon-bi, who held the position of divine maiden.
'So she is looking down at me like this too?'
Whether to call this a reunion, he felt oddly dazed.
Before Geon-mu could say anything, a message appeared in front of him.
[<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> makes you an offer.]
"An offer?"
Geon-mu looked down to see what offer she had made.
[<Fragment of the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword> x1 → <Coin> x1,000,000]
It was an extraordinary offer.
She was trying to buy a mere fragment that could not even be used, for a sum that could sweep up most any A-Grade item.
Someone might sell at that price, but Geon-mu certainly would not.
Geon-mu knew how important these remains of the sword were.
To Geon-mu it was something like a part of his own body.
It was the sort of thing he could not sell for all the gold in the world.
"Sorry. I can't sell this."
[<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> makes an offer.]
[<Fragment of the Heaven-Breaking Dragon-Slaying Sword> x1 → <Coin> x1,000,000, right to select an S-Grade weapon from the Heavenly Treasury]
When he refused, she raised it more extraordinarily still.
Even Geon-mu, who thought he had steeled himself, flinched for an instant.
[<One Who Leads Death with Claws> is astounded.]
[<Goblin King> emphasizes the opportunity.]
[<Three-Inch Tongue> tears at its own hair.]
The offer was attractive enough that even the Patron Stars watching each had a word to say about it.
Inside the Heavenly Treasury there were countless swords, and a great many precious enough to make the short sword in Geon-mu's grip look like a toy blade.
Among them there would certainly be swords identical to the one he had held before he cut down the Emperor Dragon.
'Are these remains important enough for her to hand that over so readily?'
Geon-mu was curious what Cheon-bi's intent was.
So he asked her directly.
"Why are you so fixated on these remains?"
[<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> says the object belongs to a precious person.]
"A precious person?"
The meaning of a precious person was without doubt the owner of this sword.
And the owner of this sword was Cha Geon-mu, himself.
Which meant.......
This is embarrassing.
"Don't worry. This sword was mine to begin with, and it has come back to its owner."
[<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> denies it.]
"No, I'm telling you I am Cha Geon-mu."
He said his own name aloud into empty air.
Cheon-bi, who had been answering him steadily, said nothing at all.
She only went on making offers in silence.
'Strange.'
However hard he insisted he was Cha Geon-mu, they did not so much as pretend to hear it.
Had he been impersonating, she would have been angry, and had she recognized him, she would have been angry in her own way.
'Is it that my status window still shows the name Kim Jin-hyeok, so she can't recognize me?'
No.
Geon-mu knew what sort of person Cheon-bi was.
When he was dragged into the second world, Yuresian, and was able to meet the Heavenly Venerable again for a very brief while, Cheon-bi had recognized Geon-mu at once.
-How did you recognize me?
-I may not look it, but I'm the Heavenly Venerable's daughter. Anyone else, maybe not, but you, Cha Geon-mu, I can always recognize.
-That's unsettling, somehow.
-Ugh! Don't misunderstand, you idiot! It's only because your soul is pointlessly hard! It's only because it's a soul no human could ever have!
There was no chance Cheon-bi had said that as empty talk.
'If Cheon-bi cannot recognize me....... then a reason she cannot recognize me arose when I entered this body.'
He suddenly recalled the exchange he had had with the Avatar of Anubis.
The moment he gave his own name, it had heard nothing at all, as though it had gone deaf.
It was hard to think all of that was coincidence, and at last it converged on one conclusion.
'The Heavenly Venerable means to conceal my existence.'
Why would he do such a thing?
He had never asked the reason, so there was no way to know.
"Damned old man."
He wore the face of an immortal and thought like a snake in the grass.
Geon-mu raised his head and looked at the messages again.
Saying who he was would only fail, so Geon-mu simply stated his own intent clearly.
"I hate to say it again, but I can't give you this."
[<Administrator of the Heavenly Treasury> stares at you.]
Staring that hard would change nothing.
Geon-mu answered once more with a bright smile, and before long her messages stopped coming up.
'Cheon-bi going silent is the scariest thing there is.......'
It is frightening when the quietest one turns loud, and when the loudest one turns quiet.
Geon-mu was simply grateful that he was not facing that Cheon-bi in person.
Geon-mu gathered up the sword fragment and turned.
It was then.
The air flowing in from outside had changed subtly.
The scent of blood hung thick.
It was not the smell of Gleip's corpse but the smell of madness, the sort that would only arise in the Asura Realm.
With a hand on the short sword at his waist, Geon-mu left the ruin.
The sun had set completely and a crescent moon had risen in the sky.
And beneath it, a figure could be seen glowing faintly in the moonlight.
It was a human-shaped figure, hard to see in a place that had held only Shadow Wolves.
"Doesn't look like an assassin Cheon-bi sent......."
Geon-mu threw out a bold guess.
"Is it that fellow who whined at me to sell him the dungeon?"
At Geon-mu's guess, the figure slowly came forward.
Heo Jin-ho.
The man with shaggy hair, a black suit, and a long saber at his hip.
"I was sure you'd be dead, and here you are looking lively."
"Naturally. I may not look it, but I have been through battles on mountain and water alike."
Geon-mu shot back as though making light of it.
"This...... if this is how it is, doesn't it mean I can't have this dungeon?"
"Naturally. I came first, I claimed it, and I have even recovered that item."
The mood snapped clean off.
Heo Jin-ho's tone became rather more composed.
"That item....... Would you hand it over to me? That's an item you shouldn't be holding."
"And if I say no?"
"Haa...... Let's stop with the pointless chatter, and I'll give you exactly one chance."
His tone turned conspicuously arrogant.
"Set that item down quietly and get lost. Then I'll spare your life, at least. Simple, isn't it?"
Red energy poured off Heo Jin-ho's body.
It was the sickening air that murderers gave off, killing intent.
His intent was as obvious as the situation.
He wanted Geon-mu crushed under that killing intent into submission.
"Then let me make a proposal of my own."
But who was Geon-mu?
He was not a man to back off because a puppy with a slightly bigger body was barking.
He only wore an easy smile and made a counter-proposal.
"Just tell me what you mean to use that item for. Then I'll settle for making you a half-cripple. How about it?"