Chapter 138
Chapter 138
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 138
Chapter Title: Igniter
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It was around that time that Lord Helmut Blackbear, the Mad Sword, visited the Demon King's territory, ruled by the Black Prince.
“Thank you for making the difficult journey despite your busy schedule within the duchy, Lord Helmut.”
“Young Lord Dale… No, what could be more important than a summons from Viscount Sachsen!”
Dale had personally summoned Lord Helmut to his domain. Furthermore, they were riding toward an uncharted area within the Demon King's territory, a place devoid of any human presence. A dangerous region where the darkness of the demonkin stirred, a place where an encounter with a monster at any moment would not be surprising.
“I summoned you, Lord Helmut, because I have a secret favor to ask of you.”
Seeing Dale's serious expression, Lord Helmut nodded.
“But before that, could you make me a promise?”
“This Helmut swears to fulfill the pact, even if it costs me my life!”
Lord Helmut laughed heartily as usual, and Dale offered a faint smile in return.
“You must never speak a word of what you are about to see.”
Dale said after smiling. Had some threat been discovered during the pioneering efforts, one so great it couldn't be revealed carelessly? With that thought, Lord Helmut nodded gravely.
“Well, this spot should do.”
Glancing around, Dale dismounted his horse. They tethered their northern warhorses to a nearby winter tree and crossed the white expanse.
“So, what is it you wish to ask of this Helmut?”
“I'd like you to be my training partner.”
Dale said. A training partner. At the unexpected request, Lord Helmut tilted his head in confusion.
“Training? That's something you could easily do within the viscounty…”
“Shub.”
But Lord Helmut didn't even have a chance to finish his sentence.
For the 'Abomination from Another World' had already appeared by Dale's side. Jet-black tentacles wrapped around Dale and then burst outward. In their place stood Dale, now covered in black blood.
The avatar of the Shadow Lord, armed in the Armor of Dark Blood.
“……!”
The moment he saw it, he understood. Though it wasn't overlaid with processed aura, what Dale now wore was unmistakably the Armor of Ideation itself.
Even the great Lord Helmut Blackbear couldn't hide his astonishment, his expression freezing on the spot. He stared at the silent 'Black Prince' beyond the Armor of Dark Blood.
“In this state, with my avatar deployed, would you please help me hone my sword?”
“…You possess both a World of Ideation and an Armor?”
“That's right.”
It was no secret that Dale, as a mage, possessed a World of Ideation. But to have an avatar—the pinnacle of a knight's achievement—on top of that. Helmut was not one to misunderstand the gravity of what that meant.
“Strictly speaking, this is a power manifested through a grimoire, not aura.”
Even Dale had yet to fully comprehend the power of *The Book of the Black Goat*. But there was no doubt about the form of power Shub had granted him. Furthermore, utilizing the avatar ultimately stemmed from the level of Dale's own swordsmanship.
“It is truly shocking and astounding… but now, I finally understand.”
After hearing Dale's explanation, Lord Helmut finally nodded. He was not ignorant of it. A grimoire is a mage's sword in itself, and he knew of the few that possessed a 'specialness' beyond imagination.
Just like *The Scales of the Heart*, possessed by Dale's father, Lord Black.
“As expected of Young Lord Dale. You are without a doubt the son of His Grace, Duke Sachsen.”
“Does my father also possess a similar power?”
Being Lord Black's son didn't mean he knew everything about him. In fact, Lord Helmut, who could be called the Sword of Sachsen, likely knew more than Dale about the man's appearance on the battlefield.
“You probably can't even imagine it.”
Lord Helmut said with a laugh. An angel of death descending upon the battlefield. The ruthlessness of placing thousands of soldiers on the 'scales of life and death' and deciding their fates. Who could possibly imagine such a sight?
It was just as he said. Even what Dale was showing now was an act that defied the common sense and entire lives of ordinary knights and mages. And yet, he was accepting this absurd sight simply because Dale was the son of Lord Black.
“Well, that's enough idle talk.”
With that, Dale finally drew one of the 'two swords' hanging from his waist.
The Shadow Lord readjusted his grip on the hilt of the jet-black demonic sword, Hunger.
“Lord Helmut, will you not be deploying your avatar?”
“Did you say avatar, Young Lord!”
Hearing those words, Lord Helmut Blackbear burst into laughter. It was a mad laugh, unable to contain its glee.
And in the next moment, that laughter turned into the roar of a black beast.
***
Meanwhile, at the adventurer's guild in the Labyrinth City of Labyrinthos.
A red-haired beauty who captured the attention of all around was there.
“I heard I could get an 'Adventurer's License' here.”
She was a woman in a crimson pointed hat, her body impossible to hide even beneath her crimson robe.
“I'm looking for a wonderful adventurer who would be so kind as to help me.”
Her voice was openly seductive, making no attempt to hide its allure. Adventurers unable to control their vigor began to flock to her like flies. The red-haired beauty, Lady Scarlet, licked her lips at them as if savoring a meal.
“Huhu, how very kind of you all.”
The sharp edges of the fangs protruding from between her lips glinted.
***
It was like a medium tank was charging right at him.
CRASH, BOOM!
Parrying the endless swings of Lord Helmut's greatsword, 'Madness,' the Shadow Lord gritted his teeth.
“Is this all you've got, Young Lord Dale!”
Despite his words, the jet-black beast showed no signs of stopping. The two-meter greatsword swung again and again, as if he wouldn't care if a lapse in control sliced Dale's body in two.
Each time, Dale was busy deflecting the blade while simultaneously manipulating the Armor of Dark Blood like liquid metal to counter the onslaught.
When he had faced the Holy Sword, Dale had ultimately secured victory thanks to the power of a geas. Moreover, Mikhail Lancaster, said to be the closest to the Seven Swords, was by no means one of the Seven Swords himself.
But facing the jet-black beast clashing before him now, he realized.
He was strong. On a completely different level. Even the Holy Sword, fighting at one hundred percent of his power, could not possibly defeat this beast.
The title of the North's strongest knight was no empty boast. This was all the more true because Dale knew that even as a berserker who had lost half his reason, Helmut was still holding back.
It was overwhelming violence, untouchable even for Dale, who possessed the Shadow Lord's avatar and was fully utilizing his past memories.
At the same time, dark blue magic swirled at the Shadow Lord's feet. The swirling magic coalesced into spells that rained down on Lord Helmut.
But whether he spread a domain of darkness and created <>, unleashed an endless barrage of shadow bullets from a black barrel… or even threw up walls of ice and grenades of frost, nothing changed.
He simply couldn't penetrate the carapace enveloping the jet-black beast.
'Not yet. Not yet.'
He had to draw out more of the power Shub had given him. The true ability dwelling within the Shadow Lord's avatar, the Armor of Dark Blood.
The four circles coiled around his heart accelerated, imbuing the Armor of Ideation with their magic. But its color was not dark blue. It was red magic.
A single color produced by all four circles at once—a crimson ideation.
Along the black armor enveloping Dale, a shimmering crimson began to be etched, like magma.
“……!”
Lord Helmut, now a jet-black beast, gasped once more.
“We made a promise.”
Dale spoke, paying him no mind.
“Everything you see here, Lord Helmut, is a secret.”
Crimson magic, now blazing like magma, was coiling around Dale's black armor. A flame wrapped around the Shadow Lord's avatar, and into that flame, Dale began to project an ideation.
“And you, Lord Helmut, are likely the first to see this.”
Igniter.
A mage's circle is, in essence, a kind of engine that uses mana as energy to generate magic. And in his past life's world, for example, an 'ignition system' was indispensable for operating the engines of most automobiles.
The four-stroke cycle: intake, compression, power, exhaust.
Red magic doesn't necessarily have to be used to incinerate enemies. Not for Dale, who knew how thermal energy was utilized in his past world.
If one were to assume a mage is a kind of mechanical device, this was supplying power by consuming thermal energy (flame) instead of mana energy to run that device.
—Based on that very mechanism, he overlaid the magma-like red magic onto his circles.
This was no overclocking that forcibly accelerated the circles at the cost of his body and his life as a mage.
It was an image projected without a shred of risk, based on the mechanisms and mechanical engineering of another world.
A heat engine that converts thermal energy into mechanical energy to generate power. It was this otherworldly image that was accelerating the RPM of his four circles.
Now, using thermal energy, Dale's four circles were accelerating over a dozen times.
Through the absurdly paradoxical idea of not creating flame with magic, but creating magic with flame.
'My goodness, I never thought this would come in handy.'
Before he became an SSS-rank monster hunter, during those endlessly boring days, he had chosen his university with the vague goal of 'getting a job.' It was because he'd been swayed by his brother and parents, who said he wouldn't regret going into engineering.
A past so distant he could barely remember it now. Inadvertently, memories from those days surfaced from his past. But they were not things to be thinking about right now.
As long as he existed as Sachsen's 'Black Prince,' that world was a thing of the past.
“His, his mana…!”
Seeing this, the jet-black beast gasped in renewed astonishment.
To Helmut, who didn't know the circumstances, it looked as if Dale's magic was amplifying by dozens of times for no reason at all.
A literal 'mass of mana' was engulfing the Shadow Lord's existence.
Flames began to flicker along the body of dark blood. The red magic sent the heart's circles into overdrive, while the blue magic acted as a coolant... The Armor of Dark Blood blazed like magma, amplifying its power.
By perceiving his own existence as a single mechanical device and projecting the highly complex knowledge of another world.
Facing the charging medium tank, Dale finally began to press down on a state-of-the-art accelerator.
***
Around that time, the Imperial Family finally broke its silence.
To praise the achievements of Viscount Sachsen, who was pioneering the 'Demon King's territory' beyond the northern Duchy of Sachsen… and holding in high regard the cause of the anti-demonkin alliance formed between Sachsen and Lancaster, the imperial bloodline decided to make a personal visit.
The Seventh Prince, Mordred, and the Fifth Princess, Kiara.
The two scions of the Pendragon line finally began their magnificent procession.