The Amber Sword

TL: First of all, welcome back. Second, I’m a little sick at the moment (coughing out blood — bad case of sore throat), I expect to recover in a day or so.

TL: Things have changed a little due to certain circumstances and I assure you that it’s unrelated to the readers’ comments, but I kind of want to bring things forward.

The secret behind the name Sophie for the protagonist.

As you well know, many people disagreed with the name Sophie (ranging from mildly indignant to I-can’t-stand-the-sissy-name-anymore); I too didn’t like the name too. But, what comes later on in the raws was a particular moment was Brendel stating his real name “Su Fei” at some point. Here’s the conundrum.

1 – The inflection of the Chinese pronunciation Su Fei cannot be mistaken as Sophie (when you pronounce it correctly in English). Despite the notion that Su Fei is a transliteration of Sophie, this fact is only known to Chinese. To get an idea on how it actually sounds, go youtube the word “Souffle”, or google translate Sophie into Chinese and hit that audio button. You can’t mishear it into Sophie.

2 – Chapter 2’s title, Sophie’s world, seems to reference a particular book. Sophie’s world is quite successful, with 40 million in sales and translated to 50 over languages. Intentional or not, this title will probably make more sense in the distant chapters ahead. And yet that title has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, unless one can consider his stats window to be the “world”. I did not read that far ahead, so I can’t give a conclusive answer.

3 – It doesn’t help that the Chinese characters for the name Sophie and the protagonist is the exact same as the one in Chapter 2 title.

4 – Later on, the protagonist used his original name in front of a couple of girls, who commented on his name where his name sounded like a girl’s name.

Brendel shook his head.

[Does anyone here have any confidence in me?]

But his sword was already out from its sheath. He used an ordinary steel longsword after the loss of the Elven sword. Once the white-haired youth saw his sword, he showed off a look of disdain. The blade was completely new, as if it was just bought recently from a blacksmith.

He was not wrong. The truth was indeed so, as the previous sword had been destroyed as it could not withstand Brendel’s strength.

Brendel raised his sword and swung it randomly, as it to get used to his new sword. However, his actions immediately drew the boos from the nearby mercenaries and adventurers who were gathering around them. Brendel’s actions were like someone who had never fought before.

“Redi, isn’t your idol the grandmaster swordsman, Gory Keyes? Show us your skills by defeating this tenderfoot!”

“Well said, since you came from the same homeland, you can’t disgrace the name of Ablis.”

“You have my support Redi, trounce him till his mother can’t recognize him!” The mercenaries immediately made a din. The lawless lot would forever be a chaotic group regardless of where they are.

“Gory Keyes?” Brendel paused for a moment as he heard the familiar name.

He was prepared into entering Aouine’s military stance, but his actions were half completed and he was off form.

The mercenaries booed again.

“You’re not fit to mention that name!” The white-haired youth’s face turned dark and thrust towards Brendel with his sword.

The sword might have been swift and deadly in the eyes of a normal person, but before Brendel’s perception at 3.7 OZ, it was much too slow. Unfortunately, because his opponent had made the first strike without waiting for him to finish speaking, he subconsciously entered into a defensive parry that deflected the sword upwards with a long ringing.

The white-haired youth could not hold on to his sword at all, and it embedded deeply into the slightly black wooden ceiling with a slight vibration.

The entire hall turned silent.

The mercenaries who cheered loudly earlier had their mouths dangling openly, as if they saw a dragon or some monster. They watched Brendel blankly, completely forgetting to either praise or boo him.

Brendel’s action with the earlier defense could not be seen as elegant. To put it mildly, it was like a barbarian swinging a stick, void of any technique. But the key point of his defense was not a matter of elegance, but his strength.

[A natural born with freakish strength?] Everyone thought of the same thing.

This was not anything that was out of the ordinary. There were rumors of a portion of people who inherited the Golden Lineage that was in the past, and a few of them would transcend themselves to become a ‘Chosen’ being. Even if they did not transcend themselves, they would still retain a particular feature of their ancestors. For example, boundless strength, or an incredibly strong regeneration factor, and even someone who could see elements compounded into a magic spell.

Right now, the bodies that were known to still hold onto the Golden Lineage were dragons, unicorns and a few other mystical creatures.

But someone immediately yelled out:

“Tier 1 Power Rating!”

“Iron-Ranked fighter!”

The white-haired youth clutched his wrist and retreated five steps. He gazed at his swollen arm after he took on his opponent’s blow, and was unable to accept what had transpired for a moment. Even though he was not as talented as Eke, he was still able to achieve the strength of a low-tier Iron-ranked fighter, and was considerably impressive compared to the majority of the people out there.

He definitely did not expect that there was someone even younger than him who was stronger than him, and that he could not even hold his own against him even once.

[How can there be so many monsters like Eke?] Redi was confused.

His confusion only lasted for a few seconds, as Makarov and another tall middle-aged man walked down from the rooms to the hall. They did not witness the earlier scene, but looking up at the sword in the ceiling and the expressions of everyone around, the commander had a grasp as to what had happened.

He looked at Brendel and frowned. Even though he had heard that the merchant who wanted to join his mercenaries was a young man, he did not expect him to be a youth who did not look like he was past twenty summers.

“Buga,” Makarov lowered his voice immediately to the middle-aged man next to him. “Test him.”

“Me?” The middle-aged man had a strong Arreck’s accent.

“Yes. I suspect this man might be a person from ‘Paper Cards’.” Makarov stared at Brendel as he explained himself.

“How many talented youths do they have? Makarov, are you not overthinking things?” Buga said as he released the gigantic sword behind him: “But it’s fine to test him anyway since you already pointed this out. In any case, this youth definitely has some backing to him.”

Makarov turned to his old friend and looked puzzledly at him.

“Nothing much, it’s just that there’s a familiar scent that I’m smelling here.” The middle-aged man looked at Brendel with a hint of doubt.

PS:  Just in case you wonder if the original raws 苏菲 is a manly Chinese name, HAH. Nope. That ‘菲 = Fei’ character is used to describe fragrant flowers.