Mushoku Tensei Redundancy (LN) - Volume 2 - Chapter 5.1

Chapter 1:

Sword God Gino Britz

SWORD GOD GINO BRITZ was said to be the weakest Sword God who ever lived. He never once left the Sword Sanctum, nor were there any tales of him defeating mighty foes. Of all the Sword Gods, his name was the most obscure, and future generations said that he only earned the title thanks to the aging out of the old guard. Few ever made the effort to find out the truth of whether he was really the weakest, but one thing was beyond doubt: of all the Sword Gods in history, he lived the longest.

Gino Britz was born in the Sword Sanctum. His father was a Sword Emperor, and his mother was the Sword God’s younger sister. His earliest memory was of sword practice when he was three years old, holding a child’s wooden practice sword while his father taught him how to swing it. This memory was the blueprint for the rest of his childhood, which was dominated by the sword. After waking up, he went on a run, then practiced his swings; after breakfast he had practice; after lunch, he had more practice; after the sun set, he fit in a short break before dinner, then did his sword swings again before bed. That was his life.

Gino didn’t actually like sword fighting very much. He kept up his practice, but only because his parents made him do it. He’d never once said to himself, “I want this.”

When he was little, that hadn’t mattered. Everyone around him was either a sword fighter or had been once. All the other children did it, and whenever he learned a new technique, his mother and father were proud of him. Even the retired old man who lived nearby called Gino a good boy when he ran by carrying his practice sword. He had no reason to question it; the sword was life. 

As he advanced in years as well as in rank, things began to change. His Sword Emperor father had been happy just to see a sword in his hand when he was a child, but once Gino reached the advanced tier, he grew stricter, saying “When you swing your sword, you should try to best your opponent,” and “You’re still weak. You might have a bit of talent, but don’t get cocky.” He trained Gino harder than ever.

At first, the adults at the training hall where he’d been born and raised treated him with fondness, but Gino advanced steadily first to intermediate tier, then to advanced tier. As they lost to him in duels, they began to look at him with overt dislike. Around that time, Gino stopped enjoying sword work. 

It was not as if he wanted to do anything else with his life. A child from another country might have said he wanted to become an adventurer, but the idea of “leaving home” never occurred to him, because his parents had never taught him that such a thing was possible. There was no need. The whole world outside of the Sword Sanctum was a place that Gino knew nothing about—and so, he continued with the sword.

Nina, the Sword God’s daughter, grew up alongside him and was his only friend. At the Sword Sanctum, no one below Saint tier was permitted to enter the main training hall. All other people, children included, trained in a location close to home. Nina was no exception despite her parentage, so she trained alongside Gino. She wasn’t the only other child who was Gino’s age, but she was the only one whose skill with a sword matched his own. The two of them spoke the same language, and every conversation was about sword fighting. Despite Gino’s ambivalence about sword work, he was more or less a genius. Even as a child, he came up with somewhat outlandish battle theories, and Nina was the only one among their peers who could keep up with him.

Nina was the ringleader among kids, rounding up the other children her age and ruling over them. That didn’t just mean the kids at the same training hall, but all those in all the training halls throughout the Sword Sanctum. Skill with a sword was the measure the children of the Sword Sanctum used to judge everything, and she was the strongest of them all. Nina, in part thanks to her father, had the ability to back up her authority. 

In her spare time, when she wasn’t drilling sword skills, she organized the other children into a kids-only secret organization. Gino was also a member, and he ended up being Nina’s lieutenant, partly because he was the second strongest, but also because he and Nina understood each other best.

Nina and Gino seemed to see sword fighting in a different way than the others. For example, none of the other children under Nina’s command ever advanced beyond the rank of Sword Saint. Nina’s organization lasted about five years, but it petered out when Nina became a Sword Saint around the same time Gino did. They were among the earliest in history to do so. Gino was exceptionally young—only twelve. 

When it happened, people were shocked. “Is he the youngest?!” they exclaimed, and his mother and father both praised him to the heavens—but Gino didn’t really feel happy about it. Doing what he was told didn’t seem like much of an achievement. Besides, Nina, who was four years older, was stronger than him.

When Nina and Gino became Sword Saints, they were permitted to practice in the main training hall. Even then, nothing really changed. Their sword training continued, day in and day out.

Just like before, he and Nina always practiced together because they were close in age and skill. As always, Nina treated him like her underling, dragging him everywhere with her. Nina was still the ringleader, even if the group around her was now composed of older swordswomen. The only thing that changed was how far his new training hall was from his house. Actually, there was one other thing. He also had more opportunities to learn from Nina’s father, Sword God Gall Falion.

Gino’s father was always saying things like “Wield your sword to be strong” at the dinner table. What Gall told Gino was the total opposite of what his father had said. The gist of what Gall said was “Wield your sword for yourself.”

Gino could more or less grasp the difference in philosophy there, but he wasn’t quite sure of the specifics, nor which was right. Neither quite clicked for him. Whatever he chose, so long as he did his assigned practice, no one got angry with him, and as long as he didn’t lose too many of the occasional mock duels, no one bothered him. He didn’t win the mock duels as often now that he’d moved to the main training hall, but he was up against adults more than a decade his senior. No one blamed him for losing a duel here and there. There had been changes, but for the most part, it seemed to Gino that everything was the same.

That changed the day she arrived: Eris Greyrat.

Eris wasted no time in making a spectacular debut. She took down Gino and Nina before they knew what had hit them, leaving everyone present thunderstruck. It was a crushing defeat. 

That in and of itself didn’t feel like a big change to Gino; losing was an everyday occurrence. His peers revered his genius, but he lost to Nina all the time. He’d never been caught off guard like that before, but it would end similarly if he were to cross swords with his father or the Sword God, so it didn’t feel worse than that. He wasn’t entirely without any bitter feelings, but those faded quickly that night, when the Sword God told him flatly, “You’re too green,” and his father scolded him. He learned Eris had done exactly as she should have by beating him. 

Still, he thought, They wouldn’t look kindly on me imitating her at the training hall, so I’d better not.

It was Nina who really changed. Unlike Gino, her bruised face flushed deep red with mortification, and she didn’t say another word that day. When Gino went home after finishing his practice at the training hall, he found her hiding and bawling while she swung her sword, muttering the same thing over and over: “You’ll pay, you’ll pay, you’ll pay…”

Gino was afraid to interrupt her. The experience of losing to someone their age was new for Nina. Even worse, she hadn’t lost with an ordinary sword. He’d heard that they’d fought with wooden practice swords with iron cores. It wasn’t even a graceful defeat. Eris knocked her down, then jumped on top of her and laid into her with both fists until Nina wet herself out of fear and pain. No defeat could have been more humiliating, and Nina had never experienced anything like it.

Following that, Nina’s assault on Eris began. In the beginning, she conspired with the other swordswomen to shun Eris, but this proved unsuccessful as Eris didn’t care to be around them in the first place. Eris wanted to be strong and didn’t care one bit about the internal dynamics of the Sword Sanctum. 

Nina, unable to get Eris’s attention, grew more frustrated by the day. She never missed a chance to publicly bad-mouth Eris, and sometimes she even complained to Gino about her. Gino didn’t like this new Nina very much. Back when she’d been their ringleader, she was more honest and direct. She wouldn’t have shunned someone just because she didn’t like them. Even Gino, who’d known Nina for years and years, started finding her unbearable. 

Then one day, without a word to anyone, Nina suddenly disappeared. Though, no one was worried about her. Nina had almost never left the Sword Sanctum and knew nothing about the world, but she was a Sword Saint. Maybe, people said, Eris had kindled in her the desire to set out on a journey to grow as a warrior. Rather than worry, many were impressed.

“I wonder if it isn’t high time you went and got a look at the world out there yourself,” Gino’s father said to him. “Slaying a red dragon or two might wipe that slack-jawed look off your face.” 

Maybe I will, Gino thought, but he didn’t actually go through with it. 

He’d never seen the outside world before, and it didn’t especially interest him. Also, he was a little scared. Most of the adults at the Sword Sanctum knew something of that “outside world,” but their knowledge only extended to neighboring countries or the countries where they’d lived. It was rare that someone had actually traveled the world. Sometimes those people told Gino their stories, but they mostly just boasted—they’d vanquished such-and-such an opponent in such-and-such a place. 

There was only one who not only didn’t boast, she told him about her failures. She was Sword King Ghislaine Dedoldia. She’d traveled the world as an adventurer, she told him, but had nearly been killed many times by her own stupidity. 

“Even the greatest sword master can be killed. If you don’t know magic or arithmetic, or at the very least your letters, you’ll be dead before you know it.” Ghislaine said this with a look of utmost solemnity, so Gino believed her. 

Like the other children at the Sword Sanctum, Gino didn’t know how to read, nor could he do arithmetic or magic. He felt no interest in learning them; only terror that with his sword alone, he wouldn’t stand a chance. He had no desire to venture far.

The days went by, and Gino did not go after Nina. Then, two months later, she returned. 

Gino asked her what had happened on her journey, but Nina wouldn’t tell him anything. However, something must have happened because Nina came back different. She stopped harassing Eris and became even more devoted to her sword. Her arrogant attitude faded away, and she almost entirely stopped spending time with the other swordswomen. 

Nina also began to spend almost all her free time on intensive training—if you could call it that. She simulated endless bouts with Gino. She pressed him into it, like she was his boss. They crossed swords over and over again, scarcely speaking a word to each other, just fighting. 

Things continued in this way for some time, and it was during this period that Gino began to develop feelings for Nina.

Many years went by before he realized he was in love. A lot happened in the meantime. North Emperor Auber came to them, as did Water God Reida. None of that held any interest for Gino. Nina, on the other hand, was different. After Eris kindled that spark in her, she rapidly grew stronger. Gino, as her partner for her intensive training, couldn’t help but get stronger too. 

Eventually, he found it impossible to compete with her. She’d usually beaten him before, but the number of wins he eked out now plummeted. Slowly, a yawning gap opened between them. That in and of itself didn’t bother Gino—losing to Nina came easy. Going from winning one bout in five to one bout in ten wasn’t such a massive change. 

It was funny, though. He felt like she’d left him behind.

Then, one day, Eris, Nina, and Gino were summoned by Sword God Gall Falion. He put the question to them of what differentiated a Sword Saint, a Sword King, and a Sword Emperor, then had them give their answers. Gino had absolutely no idea. Nina, on the other hand, gave a carefully considered reply. Eris, when told that her answer was wrong, insisted that she was right. The Sword God accepted this, then had Nina and Eris fight. Whoever won, he declared, would be made a Sword King.

The battle went to Eris. 

While Nina sobbed, Eris was made a Sword King. Gino felt something strange as he watched her cry. Before he knew it, his fists were clenched and his mouth tightened into a thin line. He didn’t recognize this emotion. He didn’t know why he was feeling it. Nerves? Disappointment? He wondered why it wasn’t him standing out there. Why hadn’t he even been granted the right to fight the other two? What would happen to him if he carried on like this?

Gino didn’t know what to do with these new feelings, but he did realize something. When he’d heard the Sword God Gall ask Nina, “If I told you that you have to choose between marrying Gino and becoming a Sword King, which would you pick?” Gino had felt his face grow hot—that there was nothing he could pipe up with in denial.

He’d fallen for her.

Gino was a little different after that. He didn’t start acting like a new man, and he continued to do the practice his father and the Sword God assigned him as well as the intensive training with Nina. On the outside, Eris’s departure from the Sword Sanctum changed nothing for Gino. His bouts with Nina grew more advanced, but that was all. The change was internal; how he thought about these things was new. He became much more motivated. He gave serious consideration to the point of their regular practice, as well as each individual technique, and began to experiment.

The results were dramatic. In no time at all, he was on an equal footing with Nina. That wasn’t surprising. Gino had always had a gift, and his daily drills had given him a strong foundation. Nina changed too. After Eris departed the Sword Sanctum, Nina, now a Sword King herself, started to frequent the nearby villages and towns. Rather than simply improving her own sword skills, she applied herself to hunting monsters and teaching at the training halls in the larger towns.

Gino, meanwhile, stayed shut up in the Sword Sanctum. The outside world didn’t scare him anymore, but he still had no interest in leaving. He couldn’t say why. Did he need a reason to stay when there was no reason for him to leave? When Nina wasn’t around, he devoted himself to practice, sometimes training by sparring with his Sword Emperor father. Despite his increased interest in training, he was no match for his father. Sword God Gall told him that he would be recognized as a Sword King soon, but that was all. In terms of technique, he had already caught up with his father—the same was true of Nina, and probably Eris and Ghislaine, who were also sword kings—but he couldn’t beat them. He was missing some final step, he knew. 

Though he knew what he needed to do in order to win, he didn’t act on it. For all that he’d become more proactive, he still balked at throwing himself into unpleasant situations. 

He had tried to put himself in such situations in the past, but every time, he’d thought, Why is this important enough to suffer for?

No answer ever volunteered itself.

During that time, Nina, who had gone to see the coronation in the Asura Kingdom, came back to the Sword Sanctum.

“Hey, Gino,” she said. “What do you say we get married?”

Without thinking much about it, Gino accepted. He’d just had the feeling that this would happen one day. After all, he had feelings for Nina, and there’d never been any sign that she was involved with any other man.

With her usual impetuousness, Nina took him back to her room, where they immediately went to bed. It was the first time for both of them, so the experience left a lot to be desired, but they were compatible enough to keep each other preoccupied the whole night. 

In a daze of giddy pleasure, Gino thought, I want more of this.

That might have been the first time he’d wanted anything so badly.

The next day, Gino took Nina with him to see the Sword God. He took Nina, not the other way around. It was a rare occurrence for Gino to take the initiative like that, but he wanted to marry her.

“No,” the Sword God immediately said.

The Sword God had never interfered with his daughter’s upbringing before, but here, for the first time, he said no. The reason was simple to him: Gino had no attractive qualities. Not a scrap of independence, adventurous spirit, or ambition. He was a doormat who did what he was told. The Sword God didn’t know that they’d already spent the night together, but he figured it had been Nina who brought up the idea of marriage as well. Gino had no desires of his own, nothing he was striving for—and he “wanted” to be married? Absurd. 

Still, it occurred to Gall that this might be a good turn of events.

“You want to marry her? Defeat me. Do that, and I’ll give you permission.”

The Sword God was trying to light a fire under Gino. He thought that throwing an obstacle in his path might motivate the boy a little.

Ah, that’s what it was, Gino thought. All along, it was this. It was that simple.

It all made sense—what the Sword God was always saying, what he was missing, and the source of his many doubts. The fog lifted, and he had it, the final step he’d been missing—he had a purpose.

“I accept!” he said. 

The rest was easy.

Gino changed completely. He was a new man. He stopped doing the practice that he’d always been ordered to do. He even stopped doing his intensive training with Nina. Was he slacking off? Not a chance. No, Gino had started training on his own. For what he was doing, he didn’t need a partner. Thanks to his intensive training with Nina, his practice with his father, and the many other mock battles he’d fought, he already had all the sparring practice he needed.

Gino had theorized a way to win; he had a vision of a sure path to victory against the Sword God. In order to realize that vision, he would have to work unbelievably hard, overcoming hardship and pain in the days ahead. That’s why he hadn’t done it before. There’d been no reason to. The frustration and impatience for no reason would have been unbearable. But now, he had a purpose—he wanted Nina. Wanted her more than anything. He wanted her even if he had to suffer. Purpose transformed the hardship and pain into pleasure and anticipation. 

All that remained was to hone himself. In order to prove his theory, he had to condition his body to increase the speed and weight of his sword swing. They had so many words for it—drills, intensive training, practice—and yet none of those fit what Gino was doing. If he’d had to choose a word, he would have called it “work.”

Gino calmly went about doing what he had to do, spending his days carrying out his work in order to mold his body into a form that would allow him to defeat the Sword God. He pushed himself to the very edge of his limits. His efforts would have made an ordinary man give up or physically break, but Gino could handle it. If he had any talent, that was it. He had his motivation, his plan he’d thought up over many hours, his flawless work, and that unbelievable perseverance that allowed him to tie them all together. These four elements joined to sharpen and hone his sword.

The fateful day arrived. That morning, Gino got up, then went to the house of his childhood friend who lived next door to propose once more.

They faced each other down, wooden swords raised. After totally demolishing Nina, he asked her to be his. She accepted, then he went to meet the Sword God. 

It was afternoon, and right then, a mock duel was underway at the main training hall. It was a simulation of a real battle, the sort that was regularly held at the Sword Sanctum. These were not only a chance to show off how one’s technique had improved, but also a place where it was permitted for groups of two to challenge a higher-ranked opponent. Gino slipped casually back into the hall. As a Sword King, Gino had either gone up against two Sword Saints or Nina, who was the same rank as him, or he had teamed up with Nina to challenge a Sword Emperor. Nina wasn’t here, in which case he would usually have automatically ended up fighting two Sword Saints. 

However, no sooner had Gino stepped out into the center of the training hall than he pointed his wooden sword at the Sword God. For a moment, the hall fell silent.

“Gino! What do you mean by this?!” 

Gino’s father, Sword Emperor Timothy Britz, was on his feet before anyone else. He seized the wooden sword at his side and struck at Gino—or he tried. As he rose on one knee in preparation to stand, it shattered. At the same time, his sword arm was broken, sending the wooden sword clattering to the ground. His eyes bulged in astonishment. He was used to pain, so no other trace of it showed on his face, but he still broke out in a sweat. He saw Gino reach the end of his sword swing. Gino glanced at his father, then turned back to the Sword God.

“Great Sword God. I have come to claim Nina’s hand,” he said, pointing his sword at the Sword God as he had before. Sword God Gall Falion took one look at the sword, then roared with laughter.

“Fine by me. Come at—”

Gino was already moving before Gall could finish. But Gall moved too, and faster. He had already been ready in his stance. When the Sword Emperor had been knocked down, Gall had picked up a wooden sword from the floor, risen to a crouch, and shifted into a low stance with his hand posed over his sword. It was a weaker position, but that was no disadvantage to Gall. No matter what stance he was in, his sword was faster than his opponent’s—that was what made a Sword God. 

Somehow, he couldn’t swing faster than Gino, as the young man matched him with almost the same speed. When the two swords moving at almost equivalent speeds clashed, they met in the air slightly closer to Gino. There. The Sword God had the edge. He struck again, even more swiftly.

But something was wrong.

The way their swords had met had been, from the Sword God’s perspective, close to perfect. The motto of Sword God Style was “one-hit kill,” so if your strike was blocked, that meant you’d misplayed. But they also had another philosophy, which was to throw the enemy off balance with the first blow in order to be sure of finishing them off with the next. No one could hit back at Gall Falion after he seized the advantage with his first strike. That was how it always went. But Gino’s sword struck with a weight that Gall had never felt before, and he maintained his balance. 

That wasn’t to say that Gall lost his. They were evenly matched. It had been a long time since anyone had matched Gall blow-for-blow.

Gall had leaned in further with his strike, so the next strike went differently. Gall’s sword was fully extended, and it took him time to bring it back. Not Gino’s. He was positioned so that he could parry Gall’s blade, then immediately swing his sword back. Neither Gall nor Gino was off balance, and there was only a fraction of a second’s difference between them. Gino, with the precision of one threading a needle, had created that difference.

Gall Falion did not strike a second blow.

That day, Gino attained everything he’d ever wanted.

Sword God Gino Britz attained his dreams when he won Nina Falion. She was the sum total of all his desires. Taking the title of Sword God, marking him as the greatest swordsman alive, was no more than a bonus.

So long as he lived, he never left the Sword Sanctum, and thus his name was the most obscure of all the Sword Gods. It was even rumored he was the weakest. Even the Sword Saints who trained under the former Sword God treated him with disdain. Gino didn’t begrudge that. Rumors meant nothing, for when opponents came to challenge him, he defeated them. They were just faceless opponents—sword fighters who came hoping to be the next Sword God, or those who had come to challenge the man they’d heard was the weakest Sword God to ever live. Gino crushed them all. 

From the moment he became Sword God, he was undefeated. If he had left the Sword Sanctum, he might have even defeated such mighty foes as Water God Reida and Death God Randolph, but he didn’t. The Sword Sanctum was his world, and he wanted nothing from outside of it. 

That being said, there was no denying that, after he became Sword God, the horizons of his world expanded. Many people, not just opponents, came to strengthen their bonds of friendship with Sword God Gino Britz. They didn’t want to fight, and they instead asked him to instruct them in sword fighting or do business with them. 

One such visitor was Rudeus Greyrat. He came one day without warning—with the all too familiar face of Berserker Sword King Eris at his side. Not only that, but he brought North God Kalman III and Dragon God Orsted as well.