Transmigrated as the Novel's Final Boss-Chapter 36:The Capital [4]

Logically, it was easy.

Push them away because the more they get to know you, the greater chance they have of discovering your identity as a demon.

But actually doing it was the hard part.

Shaking my head and staring upward through the gaps between the tree branches, I admired the night-black sky.

If one thing had changed since my previous life, it was that I now spent a lot more time with nature, though involuntarily.

Although the cloak was baggy and weightless, its material was not that thick, so the coldness of the outside permeated through it, rushing against my defenseless skin.

I had been thankful for its thin material during the daytime when it was burning hot, but now I wished a blanket or something to cover my body would magically appear.

Unable to fall asleep, I played with my pitch-black pen, spinning it around my fingers for a few seconds.

Finally, I stood up with the pen’s tip pointed horizontally at the lake ahead.

If I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight, I might as well do something productive.

Pressing down at the top of the pen, I felt my hand instantly stiffen as a blood-red blade bolted out of the pen’s tip.

Simultaneously, where the top of the pen was, a pitch-black hilt appeared, weighing down my hand.

Adjusting my grip, I swung the sword at the air a few times; however, whenever the sword got far from me, my hand kept sliding down the hilt.

By the time the sword had completed its swing, my hand was barely even holding onto it, and the blade was shaking.

What good was the sword if I couldn’t even clasp it tightly?

If someone so much as touched my hand or the blood-red blade, I would lose my grip, and the sword would fall to the ground, leaving me defenseless.

Before I could learn how to swing or jab it properly, I had to make sure I could actually hold it.

Unfortunately for me, my hands were only used to holding pencils and pens.

Recalling my fight with Kratos earlier in the day, I sighed and looked around, hoping to see any figures, even if they weren’t real.

The only reason I had won that fight was because the figures of the devil and the hero had told me exactly where to place my sword and where to go.

It was like I was in tutorial mode.

I hadn’t even had to swing my sword to kill Kratos.

All I had done was position it horizontally parallel to the berserker’s neck, like the hero’s figure had shown me, and flew forward.

Momentum had taken care of the killing for me.

But now, without the figures to guide me, I was helpless.

Thinking back on the day, I realized how stupid my actions were.

How had I, someone who had never swung a sword up until this point, expected myself to take out Kratos, a murderer and axe-user?

More important, how had it worked!?

To be fair, he must have been exhausted from leading the troll, and I had thought he would be unprepared for my attack when making my decision.

It really was ironic; the hero I had killed had come back as a holographic figure and allowed me to kill Kratos, saving my life.

Pushing aside my thoughts, I turned around and faced the tree trunk I was just resting on.

What was the point in all of this? Why had I risked my life to kill Kratos and gather money?

In my current state, if I went to the academy right now, I would be kicked out in a couple of months due to bad combat skills.

I had relied on luck enough.

Just like back on Earth, the only way to get ahead in this world was hard work.

A lot of it.

So much of it that you would pass out.

Of course, hard work doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, but it undoubtedly increases your chance of it.

Taking a deep breath in, I tightened my grip on my sword and horizontally swung it as hard as I could at the tree trunk in front of me.

I had seen my sword cut through human bodies like they were nothing when the devil had possessed my body.

So when my blood-red blade met the bark of the tree and simply bounced off like a basketball reflecting off a wall, I was completely unprepared.

Instantly, I lost my grip on the hilt due to the pressure, and the sword flew out of my hands, landing a couple of feet away from me.

*CLANG*

Staring at my sword lying on the ground before me, I couldn’t help but wonder.

What was the difference?

Was it technique? Was it strength? Was it speed? Or was a devil simply inherently stronger than me?

I couldn’t even cut down a tree...with a blade made of a stronger material than metal.

Angrily muttering, I picked up my sword and prepared myself, this time assuming an attack stance that I had seen on television shows on Earth.

Bending my knees, I held my sword horizontally and made its blade parallel to my face so that the sword was now separating me from the tree trunk.

Then, before even swinging the sword, I stepped forward and gathered momentum.

With all my strength, I flicked my right arm, which was holding my sword, to the right where the tree was.

Yet...the same thing happened.

The sword simply bounced off and flew out of my hands.

Hard work, as specified in the name, is "hard."

So, I can’t expect immediate results.

However, even though I was telling myself that, I couldn’t deny the frustration and fatigue slowly building up inside my body.

Walking to my left and picking up the sword, I enacted the exact same notion as last time, but this time, I carefully followed the trajectory of my blade with my eyes.

And I finally noticed one of my mistakes.

When my sword met the tree trunk, it was not perfectly horizontal.

It was slanting downward.

Thus, the sharp sides of my blade weren’t hitting the tree; the flat and top portions of my blade were hitting the tree.