Dark Fantasy Normalized-Chapter 87: Ego Sword

‘Huh?’

Lisir suddenly felt a sense of foreignness.

Something was moving into his inner world and settling there.

It was a sensation similar to when Berbandes had suddenly taken up residence inside him.

-Hey.

The woman’s voice echoed again at that moment.

‘Wait, don’t tell me... is that Rodan’s master’s voice?’

Only then did Lisir realize the true identity of the foreign presence that had rooted itself inside his inner world.

Though he couldn’t tell why, it seemed that the ego sealed within the sword had transferred into his consciousness.

-You insolent brat. How long are you going to keep ignoring me?

It was a subconscious act.

Lisir focused his mind inward to seek out the source of the voice.

A world of pure white, where nothing else existed.

And there, a tall woman stood with her arms crossed.

Her short hair, tinged with a dark blue hue, harmonized perfectly with her cold, aloof expression.

Lisir realized at once that she was Rodan’s master.

The same wild, lawless pressure he had felt from Rodan radiated from her as well.

"Good. At last, I can see your face clearly. You're cuter than I expected."

A subtle smile touched her lips.

"What are you standing there for, boy? You should state your name before your new master."

"..."

Lisir’s brow furrowed.

New master? What about your old disciple?

"Wasn’t Rodan your disciple?"

"A cute little rascal, yes."

Cute? Lisir thought he had misheard.

"But too soft."

Soft? Lisir thought he had misheard again.

"He’s a genius with the sword—teach him one thing and he grasps ten. But that pathetic nature of his never improved. When's he going to stop being just a strong little brat?"

"Ah..."

Now he started to understand the situation.

Simply put, it was that.

She had grown tired of Rodan’s wild, unpolished personality and decided to abandon him.

Having gotten a taste of Rodan's natural disaster-level presence firsthand, Lisir could painfully sympathize with her feelings.

"Well, you’re not wrong about that."

She gave him a meaningful look and then smiled slyly.

"Right. You see it too, huh? From the perspective of ‘our kind’, a fool like him only looks half-baked."

"?..."

For a moment, Lisir felt a strange sense of discord.

She doesn’t quite seem like a master merely disillusioned with her student.

Even if you’re disappointed, isn’t this way too harsh for someone who was once your disciple?

Moreover, judging by Rodan’s reaction earlier, it didn’t seem like their master-disciple relationship had been formally severed.

"If you intend to make me your disciple... what about Rodan?"

Speaking of her own disciple, she waved it off like it was nothing.

"At first, I thought that if he managed to draw this sword, I'd take him back. But the more I watched, the more hopeless he seemed. He’ll never become one of ‘us.’ A defective product. I simply misjudged."

"..."

The woman who had once been Swordmaster Rodan’s master now declared Lisir as superior to him.

An extraordinary situation.

Yet all Lisir could feel was discomfort and unease.

This isn’t what a master-disciple relationship is supposed to be.

-When I took Lisir as my disciple, I wasn’t thinking about consequences at all~

'...'

Anyway, this wasn't it.

Lisir had no intention of becoming the disciple of someone like her.

"I’ll be honest. I have no intention of becoming your disciple."

"Your opinion doesn't matter. What matters is that I have decided it."

Despite the outrageousness of her words, she didn’t sound arrogant at all.

Rather, it was a sovereign, imperial attitude—one born from so much experience that she simply assumed what she wanted would happen.

For a moment, Lisir’s curiosity outweighed his discomfort.

Why was someone like her interested in him?

When he voiced his doubts, she gave a sly, wicked grin.

"Isn't it obvious? Because you’re the same as me."

"The same?"

"I know. Just how much blood you’ve stained those hands with."

"...?"

"No point playing innocent."

Her sly smile twisted further into a ghostly cackle.

"Come now. Why don't you tell me all about yourself? What have you done? What did you do to have that much blood on your hands at such a young age?"

She reached out to him gleefully, fully convinced he would willingly come to her.

As if it were inevitable.

The conditions for drawing the sword.

The requirements for awakening her true self.

It was a body and soul soaked in blood.

A killer asking another killer.

"?..."

The supposed killer tilted his head in confusion.

"Blood? What blood?"

"...?"

The sword spirit finally sensed something was wrong.

Something was seriously, seriously off.

***

[Attempting to synchronize with 'Ego Sword: Blue Lotus.']

[Activation Condition: Karma 0]

[Condition ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ not met.]

['Ego Sword: Blue Lotus' rejects you.]

[You resist.]

***

[Attempting to synchronize with 'Ego Sword: Blue Lotus.']

[Binding Condition: Karma -300]

[Condition not met.]

['Ego Sword: Blue Lotus' rejects you.]

[You resist.]

***

[All conditions met.]

[You are bound to 'Ego Sword: Blue Lotus.']

[You resist.]

['Ego Sword: Blue Lotus' is bound to you.]

***

Blue Lotus?

Oh, you mean Clana.

If you’d just said, "The crazy woman who left a flower over everyone she killed," I would’ve recognized it immediately.

That's right. Blue Lotus was an infamous battle maniac and slaughterer of her time.

A ghost-like figure who would do anything just to cross swords and draw blood.

It’s said her reign of carnage only ended when two Swordmasters personally joined forces to take her down.

You know how stubborn Swordmasters are about matters involving swords, right?

The fact they coordinated without hesitation shows just how monstrous her power was.

...But thinking about it again, it's honestly absurd.

Oh, not that.

The name Blue Lotus, I mean.

That a crazy butcher like her could be called Blue Lotus, while a pure and graceful young lady like me...

-Crawling Library Elloran <Dialogue Keyword: [Ego Sword: Blue Lotus]>-

***

[Title: What the hell is this?]

Content:

‘You have been bound to [Ego Sword: Erect Will]?’

It suddenly took up a weapon slot and now it won’t come off??

-: Congratulations. You’ve been chosen as the proud owner of Erect Di— uh, Will.

Original poster: What the hell, I never applied for this.

-: You interacted with it while meeting the conditions, so it’s basically mutual consent.

Original poster: No seriously, what conditions did I meet lol

I'm a mage, you know???

-: It likes mages.

 -: If you’re a mage who raised strength stats, it latches onto you like "this is what you really wanted, right?"

Original poster: No, I only raised STR to use Moonlight Sword Moves, wtf... Is this what all those guides meant by "beware of Erect Di— uh, Will"?? lol

-: You erected it... (sword crying emoji)

*

[Title: Is this a translation error?]

Content:

‘You have been bound to [Ego Sword: Blue Lotus]?’ Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

-: Nah, there’s a lore explanation: Some ego items have such oversized personalities that they choose their owners, not the other way around.

Original poster: But the other ego item I picked up wasn’t like that?

-: Normal ego items say "item possessing a will" and, when activated, beg you to name them, calling you "Master."

-: Honestly, it’s bad manners for an item to have a name of its own. It should politely ask the Master to give it one.

Original poster: So what the hell is this then? Is it unusable?

-: Performance-wise it’s good... it’s good, but... The issue is their exclusive skills and traits behave like total brats. Activating and deactivating however the hell they want. Same for the item stats too.

-: Once, I was fighting a boss and it just wouldn’t die. Thought it was the devs' fault. Turns out my ego sword had deactivated itself, so I was bashing it with a dull stick for 40 minutes.

Original poster: Are you kidding me I was about to toss this piece of trash and now I can't even get rid of it??

-: Yep.

You’re bound. It’s a curse status—you'll need to complete a quest to remove it. And each failed attempt raises the difficulty. Good luck.

-: But seriously, how the hell did you even get Blue Lotus to bind to you?

-: Isn't that the one that drops after beating Rodan?

-: Yeah.

-: I thought the binding condition was Karma -100?

-: Activation at Karma 0, binding at Karma -300.

-: -300 Karma, bro, what the hell were you doing?

Original poster: I just killed every male character I saw because I couldn't stand them.

-: What is this, the Dark Yuri Cult?

-: Honestly, locking people like you in online games is society's safety net.

-: Oh right. When you’re bound to an ego item, you get a new stat called "Affinity."  Manage it well. If it drops too low, you’ll suffer heavy penalties.

-: If you can't handle it, you'd better trigger a "Delete Ego" quest before the Affinity drops.

*

Blue Lotus, Clana. She struggled to grasp the situation.

When she had been in Rodan’s hands, she had never felt this whole. But now, she had fully regained her strength and sense of self.

Such a state could only happen by resonating with an ideal wielder.

However, after a brief conversation, she painfully realized: The new owner was far from her ideal.

How had such a person managed to draw the sword and awaken her full self? It was incomprehensible.

One thing was certain: This person did not deserve her.

Having decided, Clana immediately attempted to sever the resonance with Lisir.

An object abandoning its owner. Normally impossible, but her fierce will made it so.

Clana had always been the chooser. And the one who abandoned.

Just as she had forcibly dragged Lisir into her inner world, she now tried to eject him just as unilaterally.

"..."

"...?"

But Lisir didn’t budge. He just stood there, staring blankly at her.

"...What the hell is this guy?"

Clana shook her head.

-Sreung!

She drew her blade and approached Lisir.

If she couldn’t kick him out, she would force him to leave.

Here, within this inner world, she was whole again, just like she had been in life.

-Boom!

Clana kicked off the ground, launching herself like an arrow.

She moved faster than the eye could follow. By the time Lisir’s pupils caught up to her, the cold edge of a sword was already against his throat.

At the moment his head was about to be severed—

-Whoom!

"...!"

The sword slashed through empty air.

Some unknown force had yanked Clana back to her original spot.

Unperturbed, she kicked off again.

-Boom!

-Whoom!

"..."

The process repeated again and again.

Until the cold eyes of the killer were clouded with confusion.

Eventually, she arrived at a chilling possibility.

Could it be... this isn’t my inner world?

"Impossible."

She immediately denied it.

For such a thing to happen, there would have to be one critical premise:

Her ego must have been bound to his.

In other words, Lisir would have to be her rightful master.

Impossible.

She had never acknowledged him. Since becoming an object, she had never once accepted a master.

The owners of Blue Lotus had always worshipped her and been discarded at her whim.

"Hey. Let me out of here."

Her icy voice commanded Lisir.

The moment she, once called a killer that terrorized the world, tried to crush him with her presence—

"...!"

Suddenly, all her senses screamed a warning.

The world flipped upside down.

The endless white space transformed into a boundless desert.

-Whoooooooosh!

A massive sandstorm engulfed everything.

The desert, once scorched by the sun, plunged into night in an instant.

It was a disaster.

Something that no human strength could possibly oppose.

And that disaster... moved with a will of its own.

It roared toward Lisir, proclaiming its presence with the rumble of thunder.

"...Seriously?"

Faced with such a calamity, Lisir’s expression was absurdly nonchalant.

His gaze. His attitude. It was like he was dealing with a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Clana felt a crushing headache from the cognitive dissonance.

She blinked—and when she opened her eyes, the desert had vanished without a trace.

Back to the endless white space.

Lisir was facing a small spirit.

Soon both Lisir and the spirit turned their eyes to Clana.

Clana reflexively stepped back.

"D-Don't tell me..."

A trembling voice escaped from the mouth of the cold-blooded killer.

Where was this place? And who were these people?

"...!"

It was then that another "impossibility" struck her.

Clana’s gaze floated in the empty air. As if she could see something that wasn’t there.

"Affinity...?"

*

[You have been bound to a target.]

[Affinity has been activated accordingly.]

[If Affinity drops, corresponding penalties will occur.]

[Affinity: 6%]

*

"Hey!"

"...Yes? Ah."

Lisir snapped out of it at Rodan’s call.

He had been standing there blankly holding the Ego Sword for about three minutes.

"What’s going on?!"

The Swordmaster, the Lone Blade, spoke with rare urgency.

He had sensed something was off.

"Wait...Did you hear my master's voice?!"

"...Yes, I heard it."

"...!"

Rodan rushed over and grabbed Lisir by the shoulders.

"What did she say?!"

"..."

Lisir averted his eyes and answered.

"She said she wants me as her disciple."

"What?!"

- She took in a new disciple? While I’m still here?

The Swordmaster, the Lone Blade—Rodan's eyes wavered violently.