Chapter 3 This Big Brother Holds the Sword
Just as Beichen and Jian were looking at each other (?), a clear "gurgling" sound was heard in the sky above the open space.
Beichen blushed, touched his belly awkwardly, and looked at the sword.
"Yes, sorry, I'm hungry, don't mind me."
"Are you hungry? Excuse me for interfering, but there's no readily available food for humans to eat nearby. You'd better leave as soon as possible."
"Well, I want to leave too, but I always feel that it's not safe here. Can I...can I take you with me?"
Beichen asked a little worriedly. If it was just an ordinary sword, it would be fine, but since the other party could speak, it meant it had its own will. It would be better to ask. In case the other party was unwilling to follow him, he would have to find another weapon.
"Take me with you? Are you sure? I just said that my abilities are very poor and I am not qualified to be your weapon."
With a deep male voice and steady tone, the sword commented on itself in a rigid manner.
Beichen frowned at this.
"Why do you say that? I may have dug you out of a garbage dump—oh, excuse me, the corpses of your kind?...but I think you look quite good. There's a small chip on the blade, but it's perfectly usable."
Jian was silent again for a few seconds before speaking.
"Since you found me in the Weapon Grave, it proves that my abilities are no longer needed and I've been eliminated. I'm willing to protect you from here, but you should choose a weapon with better qualifications. Actually, you're not wrong. Even if I'm still alive, I'm just a piece of trash."
Still using a steady tone, Jian belittled himself without emotion, as if he were evaluating someone else.
Seeing his attitude, Beichen felt inexplicably angry.
"What are you talking about? Even if everyone looks down on you, you can't look down on yourself! Others can't understand you, don't you understand yourself? Do you think you have no good qualities?!"
"...Yes, I have no advantages."
Jian quickly gave an answer. Although it was still the same tone, there was some subtle emotion in it.
Beichen couldn't help but feel angry at his answer. He rolled his eyes, picked him up from the ground, and put him into the scabbard tied around his waist.
"Since you say so, I'm going to take you with me. Since you can't discover your own strengths, let me discover them for you."
“…”
Jian didn't say anything, but for less than a second, he made a slightly trembling sound of inhaling. Of course, the angry Beichen didn't notice it.
"Okay, my name is Xiang Beichen, what's yours?"
"...My name is Longsword, Nameless, Wings, Quantized."
"Nameless? ...Both you and Xiaxue have strange names."
Wuming felt a slight tremor in the scabbard at his waist.
"You mean Xia blood?! The magic sword Xia blood?!"
Beichen tilted his head and recalled carefully. It seemed that when Xiaxue reported his name, the first name he said was indeed "Mozhuangjian".
"Well, probably him."
"You actually know such a high-ranking weapon? ...No, I really don't have the qualifications..."
"Shut up!"
Beichen puffed out his cheeks and tapped the hilt of his sword with his index finger. "Let Xiaxue die. It's because of him that I was thrown into this godforsaken place. We should get going. Do you know the way out?"
"I know, but the nearest town is 10 sangmars away. I suggest you take a detour and walk through the Lasha Forest in the west. There's some food there for humans."
Nodding, Beichen straightened himself up and adjusted the belt around his waist.
"From now on, we'll be traveling companions. Please take care of me, Wuming!"
"...Yes, please take care of me, Miss Xiang Beichen."
A low, yet faintly joyful voice came from the waist.
Under Wuming's guidance, Beichen wandered around in the maze-like weapon tomb, and finally an hour later, he saw the outline of the rolling mountains in the night.
"Hmm... Looks like we've reached the edge of this weapons mound. ──I'm so hungry."
Beichen was hungry, holding the sword in one hand and touching his stomach with the other.
He was already very hungry, and while moving forward he encountered a few creatures that looked a bit like wild dogs. The frightened Beichen only had time to draw his sword, and the rest of the process was completed by Wuming.
——Thrust forward, slashed, blocked, as if it had life ——no, it was alive. Wuming guided Beichen's body to fight with the wild dogs. In just a few minutes, several beasts were knocked to the ground, but this also consumed a lot of Beichen's physical strength.
"Hey, Wuming."
Beichen turned around to look at the corpses of wild dogs lying on the ground. She was so hungry that she didn't want to care about hygiene issues.
"Well, is it really inedible? If I could just find some fire and torture it..."
"That's not an ordinary beast, it's a 'Possessed Moon Envoy'. If you eat it, you'll turn into a monster too." Wuming said, pausing, "Aren't you from here? It seems like you don't know any of the common sense here."
Beichen withdrew his greedy gaze from the wild dog's corpse. "I'm not sure about the details, but I think... I came from another world. At least in our world, there's no such common sense as 'weapons can talk'."
"Another world?...I see. Since it's someone Kasumi-xue knows, it's not surprising that he can pass through the dimensional gate."
Wuming didn't seem particularly surprised by this.
"Ms. Xiang Beichen, if you are really hungry, do you need me to transform into a humanoid and go find some food for you alone? That might be faster."
"What?" Beichen held up Wuming in his hand and examined it carefully. "Humanized?"
Is it like Transformers, snapping a few times and turning into a human? No, the size doesn't match at all.
"Yes, because I defeated several low-level 'Possessed Moon Envoys', my spiritual power has recovered to the point where I can transform into a human form. Your physical strength is insufficient to continue walking, so I suggest you accept my proposal."
Beichen nodded blankly: In this unfamiliar place, it is of course better to accept the proposal of the locals. Although she has only known Wuming for a short time, her intuition tells her that he will definitely not have any ill will towards her.
"Well, let's do as you say, Wuming."
Wuming stopped talking, but pure white and transparent sparks gradually spread out from the tip of the sword.
"ah……"
The sparks gradually spread to the entire sword body, and then extended to the hilt. Beichen murmured softly and let go of the hilt, but the sword did not fall to the ground. Instead, it was still suspended in the air. White light like fireflies gathered and hovered around the sword body, illuminating the surrounding open space and even blocking normal vision. Beichen closed his eyes because of the blinding light.
Then, when she opened her eyes again, the white light had faded, and the long sword floating in front of her eyes disappeared, replaced by a tall human figure.
...a humanoid figure that looked almost indistinguishable from a human. Long, light-blond hair, silver-gray eyes, and regular features—though not particularly beautiful, they were quite appealing. Between his brows emanated the stern, resolute aura of a soldier—but before Beichen could dwell on these details for long, his gaze was drawn to the countless scars covering his body.
He was wearing a tattered short-sleeved white cloth shirt. There was hardly an inch of intact skin exposed to the air. It was covered with small but hideous wounds. Even his face had three scars crisscrossing horizontally and vertically.
—Is this what Wuming meant by "humanization"?
Beichen was speechless. Receiving her gaze, Wuming lowered his head and looked expressionlessly at the countless grooves of varying depths on his arms. Although he didn't show it, Beichen inexplicably felt that... he was feeling inferior.
Trying hard to suppress the surprise in his heart, Beichen retracted his shocked gaze and took a step forward.
"Is this what you called humanization? Wuming?"
The blond man met Beichen's gaze and nodded.
"Yes. I'm sorry if I scared you. The humanoid appearance of the war machine corresponds to the weapon appearance."
Beichen suddenly realized: So that's why, because there are many tiny gaps on the sword, there are many scars on the body after turning into a human.
"I'm not scared, just a little surprised. Don't worry, if I can find a way to sharpen your sword blade until it's smooth and sharp, you won't have these scars on your body, right? It's much easier than a skin graft."
In order to dispel Wuming's inferiority complex, Beichen deliberately joked in a light tone. Wuming did not reply, but just looked down at her with gentle eyes and said "hmm" softly.
In fact, instead of spending an extremely high price to repair his worthless quantitative seed, it would be better to spend the same price to buy a weapon that is countless times more powerful than his.
──Although he thought so, Wuming did not say this out loud. He felt a little disgusted with himself in his heart.
Even if she was trash, after experiencing the feeling of being needed, she would still have the selfish desire to not be discarded again. Wuming frowned and shook his head in self-mockery: No, it was precisely because she was so gentle to him that he shouldn't let her suffer because of it. He should find a chance to tell her.
"nameless?"
Beichen's clear and gentle voice interrupted Wuming's inner tangle. Wuming suddenly came back to his senses and bowed his head to her apologetically.
"Sorry, I'm going to go find some food for you right now. There's no trace of the Possessed Moon Envoy around here anymore. But for safety's sake, could you please find a secluded corner and hide until I come back?"
Beichen nodded obediently, then looked around and ran to a ruin - there was a huge broken sword extending from the pile of debris, and the space behind it just formed a visual blind spot.
"It looks hard to be found here, so I'll just hide here?"
"good."
Wuming said no more, turned around and jumped, actually leaping from the flat ground to the pile of rubble that was more than ten meters high on the opposite side. With another jump, he disappeared from Beichen's sight in an instant, shocking Beichen speechless.
"T-This is called 'poor ability'?! What a joke... If this is 'poor ability', then to what extent do those with good abilities have to be exaggerated?!"
Hiding in the shadow of the ruins, Beichen cried out in confusion. Of course, no one could answer her questions. Only the still strange and cold purple moonlight quietly appeared and disappeared in the clouds.
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