I Gave Up Being Stronger

Four weeks ago, with a glimmer of hope, Gridel had asked Kyle, “Sir Kyle, I have grown quite old now. It’s too late for me to accept and learn new things.”

“Why are you exaggerating again? What do you want to tell me, old man?”

“That’s not it…”

Gridel had experienced Kim Chul-Soo’s antics himself. He had given the Streamer the Pisat Relics after careful consideration, only for him to destroy them. Chul-Soo was a crazy person whose actions could not be predicted with any calculations.

“I’m talking about Chul-Soo,” Gridel said.

“I see.”

“You don’t think he’ll reach the realm of the Mind Sword within four weeks, do you?”

“Are you going insane, old man?”

“As I’ve grown older, I feel that the world has changed a lot. Now, there are too many things in the world that I do not understand, and I have trouble keeping up. So, maybe some strategies and tips about how to reach the realm of the Mind Sword exist out there. Also, aren’t the young Players of this era growing a bit faster than us?”

“Even considering his potential?”

“Of course! The Mind Sword isn’t just some trashy realm.”

Gridel’s expression had not improved even after Kyle’s confirmation. The thought of it was absurd, but if Chul-Soo managed to achieve this realm, the status of Swordsmen would plummet.

People would say things like ‘Why can’t Swordsmen do what an Eltuber does in four weeks?’ or ‘These Swordsmen are so weak, lol.’

These sentences seemed to echo in Gridel’s sears. That was why he said with a serious expression, “Kyle, you have to promise me.”

“Pardon?”

“You have to promise me that Chul-Soo cannot transform his Rule Breaker into the form of a sword within four weeks.”

“Why should I?”

“I need you to. Only when you promise me might I be able to sleep peacefully at night.”

Kyle let out a sigh. ‘This old man has become sentimental with age.’

“Fine. I will bet my two balls that Chul-Soo cannot do it. Is this enough?”

“That’s more than enough. Thank you!”

Today, Kyle discovered Kim Chul-Soo holding the sword-shaped Miri in his right hand.

“Fuck! Will I have to get castrated?” Kyle shouted.

“The examiner is none other than Kyle,” Gridel spoke with a gloomy expression.

***

Kyle felt an inexplicably itchy sensation between his legs.

‘He won’t ask me to hand my balls over, right?’ Kyle thought. He then said to Cha Jin-Hyeok with a calm expression, “You took four weeks. You’re slow.”

His face slightly reddened, Jin-Hyeok made an excuse in a small voice. “Well, I’m just an Eltuber.”

“The moment you hold a sword, you’re not an Eltuber but a Swordsman, Chul-Soo. That’s nothing but a petty excuse.”

“...”

‘Does that anger you? Of course, it would. Get angry, and let’s have a proper fight with all our might!’ Kyle thought.

However, Jin-Hyeok’s reaction was lukewarm. “Yeah… You’re right, Kyle.”

“Are you admitting it?”

“Yes. I deceived myself into thinking that I’m just an Eltuber and that it’s okay for me to take four weeks.”

“...”

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

“...”

“Thank you for your advice. It was truly counsel befitting you, my teacher.”

“O-Of course…” Kyle headed to the Pisat Family’s training ground together with Jin-Hyeok.

“Now, pick up your sword, Chul-Soo. I shall judge whether you’re worthy of participating in the Sword Emperor Tournament.”

***

Gridel observed the fight between Jin-Hyeok and Kyle. ‘He’s fast.’

Jin-Hyeok’s movements were not much different from those of top-tier Swordsmen. It was as if the Streamer had skillfully wielded a sword for a long time. ‘And he has no skills related to swordsmanship.’

This meant that the skills Chul-Soo was demonstrating currently were not techniques but manifestations of his raw physical prowess. While Kyle overwhelmingly surpassed Jin-Hyeok in the sophistication and details of techniques, Jin-Hyeok overcame the lack of techniques with his physical prowess.

‘This place is beyond the reach of the Guardian Tree.’ Gridel knew there was no need to watch any further. ‘Chul-Soo is more than qualified to participate in the Sword Emperor Tournament.’

Gridel intervened in the fight. “That’s enough. How about we conclude the evaluation here?”

“We haven’t even started yet, old man,” Kyle said.

Gridel shook his head. “The Sword Emperor Tournament is just around the corner. Isn’t it unnecessary to exert yourself too much here?”

“You don’t skip today’s meal just because there will be something to eat tomorrow.” Kyle did not seem to have any intention of stopping the fight.

‘I can’t stop him like this.’ Gridel decided to use a strategy tailored for Kyle. “Chul-Soo has just entered the realm of the Mind Sword. He is not yet skilled at wielding a sword. But as you should’ve felt in this fight, his potential is immense. So, if you give him a few days, he will get much stronger.”

Kyle’s eyes widened a little. Only now did he become somewhat receptive to reason.

“For the sake of the future Chul-Soo, how about we stop here for now?” Gridel asked.

***

Returning to the lodging provided by Gridel, Jin-Hyeok placed his right hand near his heart. His heart was pounding.

‘This was so fun.’

The moment he fought with Kyle, he felt alive. A thrill ran through him when their swords clashed. When Gridel tried to stop them, even Jin-Hyeok had felt reluctant.

‘This is a bit disappointing,’ Jin-Hyeok telepathically told Miri.

-What’s so disappointing?

‘My talents lie in livestreaming and wielding a hammer.’

Jin-Hyeok greatly enjoyed swords, but it was a bit sad that his talent was not exceptional compared to his love for swords.

-But it’s just a hobby. What’s so sad about it?

Those words felt like a blow to his head.

‘You’re right.’

It wasn’t that Kyle’s words were entirely unreasonable.

“The moment you hold a sword, you’re not an Eltuber but a Swordsman, Chul-Soo. That’s nothing but a petty excuse.”

Thanks to Kyle’s words, Jin-Hyeok had gained some enlightenment, but in retrospect, Kyle’s teaching was not fit for him.

Jin-Hyeok let out a sigh of relief and lay down on the bed. “I was about to become excessively intense.”

Even when he was being intense, he had to follow the right direction. If he fell for such misguided teachings, it could hinder his main Job.

“I can’t aim to be the best at my hobby and fail to be the best at my main Job, right?”

-Well said!

Miri’s words felt particularly comforting today. It seemed Jin-Hyeok was no longer sad.

After offering warm consolation, Miri laughed.

-Stabbing the back of the head with the blade’s edge might also be quite thrilling, hehe!

***

The news of Kim Chul-Soo’s participation in the Sword Emperor Tournament spread like wildfire.

-Huh? Chul-Soo is on the participation list!

-He’s going for it, LOL!

-An Eltuber in the Sword Emperor Tournament! The world has gone crazy.

It was very rare for a non-Swordsman Player to participate in the Sword Emperor Tournament. Moreover, no Player from a non-combatant Job had ever entered the tournament.

-In the Sword Emperor Tournament, you can only use Swordsman-exclusive Skills, right?

-Does Chul-Soo even have Swordsman-exclusive Skills?

-I don’t think so.

-You can use Mysteries, though. Even with just his Mysteries, he can dominate other Swordsmen.

Debates began to arise in various online communities.

~ -How weak do you think Swordsmen are? Are you dumb? No matter how great Chul-Soo is, he’s just an Eltuber.

-Can he compete with Swordsmen?

-In the tournament, he can’t even use Skills like the Omnipotent Director.

-You’re all praising Chul-Soo like he’s some kind of god, LOL!

Occasionally, some users defended Chul-Soo and analyzed how he could win, but they were in the minority. The prevailing opinion was that Chul-Soo would suffer an overwhelming defeat.

-If they fight with pure swordsmanship, Chul-Soo won’t stand a chance.

-Physical prowess only works among weak Players. The Swordsmen participating in the Sword Emperor Tournament are already top-class, lol. Physical prowess isn’t everything.

-A person I know is a Swordsman ranker, and he said he could easily subdue Chul-Soo with swordsmanship.

Jin-Hyeok did not particularly mind the public’s reaction.

‘Well, I’m indeed the underdog.’ He did not have any Swordsman-exclusive Skills. So, he had to fight with his physical prowess and experience, but it was uncertain whether this would work against top-tier Swordsmen. ‘The fortunate thing is that my first opponent is Neil.’

Neil was a Swordsman from Preang, a powerful Server. His Level was in the early 300s. He was one of the weaker Swordsmen among the participants, so Jin-Hyeok was glad to face him.

‘I barely managed to defeat him before my regression.’

Before his regression, they had coincidentally met and fought on Earth. At that time, they had fought to a draw, but later, Jin-Hyeok had found out that Neil was already exhausted before the fight.

‘Neil did not make excuses and simply accepted the defeat.’

“A man does not make excuses. I lost.”

Jin-Hyeok remembered shaking hands with Neil, thinking his attitude was quite cool.

‘His whip-like curving sword was quite tricky.’

Still, as he had fought him once before, Jin-Hyeok was somewhat familiar with Neil’s habits and attack patterns.

‘I still remember everything even though so much time has passed.’

He felt like he had returned to that moment. If he were to exaggerate a little, he could say that he even remembered Neil’s every breath.

‘And yet, my talent as a Swordsman is lacking. I wonder if truly outstanding Swordsmen can recall even more sophisticated and detailed memories. How thrilling would that be?’

Suddenly, without even realizing it, Jin-Hyeok envied Swordsmen with top-tier talent.

***

The Pisat Sword Emperor Tournament was a festival for Swordsmen. In this tournament, one hundred Swordsmen carefully selected by the Pisat Family competed to determine the ultimate winner.

Interestingly, what this year’s Sword Emperor Tournament attracted the most was not Swordsmen but Eltubers. Numerous Eltubers came to film at the arena where the tournament was held, and among them was Marshmallow.

“As you all know, battles up to the round of thirty-two are classified as the preliminaries, right?” Marshmallow spoke to his viewers. In fact, the preliminaries were not that popular. “But the arena is still packed! Over thirty thousand people have gathered. It seems to be the highest record for the audience number in the history of the preliminaries. It looks like they are the Chul-Soo Landers gathered to see Chul-Soo.”

As tickets were being resold at over one hundred times the original price, citizens across the universe realized how terrifying the Chul-Soo Effect was.

“I think they deliberately matched him up with Neil. Of course, Neil is a strong contender, but he’s weaker than the others.” It seemed that the organizer had an incentive to have Chul-Soo advance in the tournament and continue this whirlwind of popularity. “Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Chul-Soo Landers are satisfied as long as they can see a lot of Chul-Soo.”

A huge roar of cheers filled the arena. In this palace packed with so much noise that it was difficult to even converse with the person next to you, Marshmallow captured the conversation between Neil and Jin-Hyeok with skills befitting a top-tier Eltuber.

“It’s Neil,” Jin-Hyeok said.

“It’s Chul-Soo,” Neil said. He drew out his steel sword. It looked ordinary on the outside, but it was a flexible sword that split like a whip and moved like a snake.

Jin-Hyeok also took out Miri.

Marshmallow’s head turned to a question mark.

“Huh?” Marshmallow said. On top of the hammer-shaped Miri, he saw a translucent sword. Marshmallow rubbed his eyes and zoomed in on Jin-Hyeok. “Am I seeing things? No matter how I look at it, that’s a Mind Sword.”

While Marshmallow stammered, unable to adapt to this unexpected situation, Jin-Hyeok’s first sword fight began.

‘Neil has a habit of always stepping forward with his left foot before attacking,’ Jin-Hyeok thought. That habit was still the same. He could see Neil stepping forward with his left foot. ‘The flexible sword will fly at me from my left.’

It seemed like Jin-Hyeok could see all of his opponent’s breathing and gaze and even the movement of his muscle fibers. He could see more information about Neil now than he could during his Sword King days. It was as if he had read all of Neil’s thoughts.

‘I can see it’

Jin-Hyeok could discern the path to evade the attack and the trajectory of the sword to immediately counterattack.