Chapter 631: Find a Sheath

"There are common weapons many people use for regular matters, as you must know. Then there are special-grade weapons, Ultimate weapons, legendary-grade, and the last one: Divine-grade weapon."

She stood behind the counter with one hand resting lightly near Fudō, careful not to touch the blade itself.

"Legendary grade is ’similar’ to the weapons of legend used by gods and powerful heroes. It is different from the ACTUAL, true dimension the weapon existed in.

"The sword used by a powerful ogre to win a legendary battle one thousand years ago is legendary-grade, and powerful due to the amount of magic and blood it had absorbed for centuries. But even that is legendary-like. Because it is trying to resemble the real legendary realm of the weapons used by gods themselves."

Katana listened without interrupting.

Her fingers rested on the white-and-silver handle, thumb brushing the place where the silk wrapping met the guard.

"Huh? Then a legendary-grade weapon IS a divine level weapon, since it’s meant to measure up with what actual gods used." Katana stated it in wonder. Her brows drew together slightly, the question forming as she spoke. "If that is so, why then is there a separate divine class for weapons?"

"Divine grade weapons ARE legendary by default, but more." The druid’s mouth curved in a small, knowing smile.

The expression was patient, the look of someone who had explained this distinction many times before and had learned to enjoy the moment of revelation.

"This weapon of yours shows promise and may one day reach that level, but it is not there yet. The sheer amount of magic I feel from it is immense enough to rival a mid-tier spirit, as if it almost has a core already... It ranks more than basically all legendary swords you know by default, and given a few centuries, it will become something greater."

"But what makes divine grade weapons divine is in the ability for it to gain a consciousness. They return to their masters, they cannot harm their masters, they physically show affection to their masters, and in many cases, can take on the form of their master to serve them better than a mere object. The weapon... becomes a person."

The last sentence hung in the quiet of the shop.

Katana, enthralled by the aged woman’s story, blushed. She looked down at Fudō with a new kind of attention — less ownership, and more anticipation.

The idea that the blade might one day answer her, might choose her in a deeper way, settled warmly under her ribs.

She looked forward to the day Fudō reached that level. The thought was quiet and stubborn and already half a promise.

"Huh? But Baba," Katana turned to the old lady, holding the sword with both hands now. "the sword currently doesn’t cut me. It can cut anything else though."

She said it simply, as a fact she had already tested.

The night before, alone in her room, she had pressed the edge to her finger and drawn it downward.

"Ahahaha! Katana you, such a funny girl!" The druid found it funny. A total joke.

The laugh was bright and unrestrained, filling the small shop with a sound that seemed too large for her aged frame.

It was the laugh of someone who had seen enough true divine weapons in her long life to know how rare the early signs were, and who had decided that the safest response to a girl casually describing an impossibility was to treat it as exaggeration.

She waved one thin hand toward the far corner of the shop, the gesture loose and dismissive. "I believe I should have its size at that corner. Check which manages to fit."

Katana wondered why the druid acted like that.

The question flickered through her mind — why the claim had been brushed aside so easily, why the old woman had laughed instead of asking more questions.

But she obeyed. She carried Fudō carefully between the racks of scabbards and maintenance tools, her steps slow and deliberate, the blade held out to one side to avoid accidentally touching anything.

The corner held rows of sheaths in different lengths and materials. Plain leather. Reinforced wood. A few with metal throats that were hit by the lamplight and gleamed.

She ran her free hand along them, feeling the textures under her fingertips, until she found one that looked roughly perfect — dark leather, clean stitching, long enough for the curved blade.

Katana set the tip of Fudō against the mouth of the sheath and tried to insert it.

SLASH!!

The sound was soft.

There was no great crash, no ringing of metal.

The shop simply parted. A clean, vertical cut opened from the counter all the way through the back wall.

Shelves, beams, floorboards, the air itself in the path of the edge — everything in the plane of the blade separated as if it had always been two pieces waiting to be told.

Light from the street spilled through the new gap in a sudden bright rectangle. Dust and a few severed ends of leather straps drifted in the cut, floating lazily in the unexpected sunlight.

"Here’s the bill." Baba was already there.

She stood a short distance from the counter with a small paper in one hand and a big smile on her aged face, as if she had crossed the room in the same instant the blade moved.

Her silver eyes were bright. The bill was already written, the ink still wet.

Katana stared at the clean edges of the bisected shop for a long second.

"I... suppose I won’t ever be needing a sheath...?"

Katana made a wry smile.

The expression sat awkwardly on her face, half embarrassment and half reluctant acceptance. Her lips curved up at one corner and down at the other, unable to decide which direction they wanted to go.

Then she looked down at the small paper still held out toward her, read it, and flinched hard enough that her shoulders jumped.