Chapter 17: The last blade dancer

Time flies so fast. It’s already been 11 months since I started living in this world with this body. In just one more month, I’ll be able to celebrate Set’s birthday.

Looking back, so many things happened in less than a year. From suddenly transforming into someone else’s body in a place I don’t even know, becoming a mother to a child, bringing in a Noxian girl who was getting rained on in the fields, learning that the last warrior of a really famous swordsmanship stayed overnight in our house, and meeting the head of the Kinkou Order and his disciple… Ah, no matter how I think about it, it’s really dizzying.

Even though it wasn’t a big deal, I met bandits a few times while doing delivery work. I can handle it now with my current strength, but I almost died when I first met them. Fortunately, I was able to save my life thanks to that person named Jina. If that person hadn’t helped me at that time… Just imagining it is terrible.

I have to keep trying to change myself without forgetting this past in order to survive in this Ionia. Because I don’t have many allies, if I don’t improve my faults or collect information on dangerous factors, it will be useless no matter how much I train.

So the conclusion was that I had to secure the safety of our mother and child by using all the means I could. In order to protect Set, I had to get information on things that could be a threat to us, and in order to eliminate the root cause that I learned about with that information, I had to increase my strength.

Having continued to train like that, I have now gained a certain level of strength. But this strength is only strong compared to weak bandits. Because you can’t say that it’s strong to be able to block all of the enemy’s throwing attacks and close-range attacks without injury and counterattack them, can you?

If there is someone who has trained for a longer period than me, they will definitely be stronger than me. Now that I, who have only been training for 10 months, am this strong, I can’t predict the extent of the strength of those who have trained for longer than that.

In the end, I have no choice but to continue training. In order to survive when facing a strong person who I don’t know when I’ll meet. That way I can keep being next to Set.

I’ve been gradually increasing the distance I go for deliveries these days. This was because I thought that not only would I have more stamina, but also becoming familiar with the topography of this Navori in advance would be helpful later.

Even though it’s quiet now, shouldn’t there be one or two places where Set can be safe when the Noxus, who don’t know when they’ll move, start to invade again?

Not only that, but the fact that the scope of activity increases means that the scope of information coming in also widens. There is also the possibility of accessing information that cannot be heard in other regions, and even if the same information is obtained, the reliability of the information increases.

For these reasons, I am now climbing a mountain near Placidium. Today’s destination is to deliver the cargo I’m holding now to a theater beyond this mountain.

The theater reminded me of the Golden Demon that Shen, who I met a few months ago, was chasing, but since that demon doesn’t seem to be in Ionia now, there was nothing to worry about. You might say that I’m overreacting, but if you know the actions that demon has taken, you’ll understand why I’m reacting like this.

I was walking while thinking about that by myself, but suddenly I heard the sound of metal clashing nearby. Suddenly, metal clashing in these mountains? That definitely meant that a battle was taking place.

I quickly moved to help someone who was being attacked. Judging by the size of the sound I heard earlier, it seemed that the battle was taking place not far from here. It was a distance that I could reach in about 20 seconds if I gave it my all, but I was worried that the cargo would be damaged, so I ran at half speed.

Arriving at the source of the sound after running along the mountain path, there were several people who seemed to be members of the Navori Brotherhood surrounding a girl who didn’t seem to be an adult yet.

No, even if they are bandits, they’re surrounding this many people just to catch one girl? This is too much! No… It’s strange that I’m demanding fairness from a bandit…

I couldn’t just leave that girl alone, so I lightly hit and knocked down one of the bandits surrounding her and headed to her side.

The girl was surprised when she saw me, who had suddenly appeared by breaking through the bandits. I need to make my intentions clear so she doesn’t misunderstand. In order to reassure her, I told her the reason why I came here.

“I came to help you. I’ll explain the details after we get out of this situation.”

Then she nodded as if she didn’t trust me, but she understood for the time being. No, even though my appearance looks weak, am I that untrustworthy? What part of this body are you looking at… Ah, Set is on my back now.

Well, I can’t help but be suspicious if a woman carrying a child on her back suddenly appears as reinforcements. This is definitely my fault.

Still, since I’ve joined the battle, I couldn’t just stand still, so I took out my fingernails and ran at the bandits. I had been practicing techniques in anticipation of using these fingernails in battle, and this is the first practical coming-out party.

I burrow into the arms of the person who is swinging a sword right in front of me and lightly scratch his face with my fingernails. That guy just covers his face and retires. Next are the two people running from both sides. As I stepped back, the two of them injured each other on their own with the swords they swung.

Looking at it now… they’re all pure amateurs. Still, I shouldn’t let my guard down. There must have been a reason why so many amateurs could gather, so I don’t know what will happen until I find out that reason.

Thinking that, I looked at the girl who must be fighting again behind me, and she was dancing while controlling the swords floating around her. What, isn’t that the Yigieogeom technique that appears in Chinese martial arts novels? But then there’s no reason to dance.

Then what should I call her? I think while hitting away one of the daggers flying behind me with my fingernails. It’s not a technique that appears in martial arts novels, so it’s not appropriate to call her a young lady, and it’s a bit difficult to just call someone with such skills a girl…

While continuously dealing with the rushing bandits, I watched her appearance and tried to come up with a title that would suit her, admiring the beautiful dance she was performing.

Not long after, when all the bandits became unable to fight, a natural title to call her came to mind at the sight of her standing gracefully like a lone crane. Why didn’t I think of this word? I thought that there was no word that could express her better than this word.

‘Sword Dancer’. A title that is considered a name she deserves to be called. I was worried for nothing.