SSS-Rank Legendary Gear (Common as Dirt)
"Hah! Hah! Hah!"
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
With every breath Rosaria took, the sword in her grip cut through the air with a sharp, ringing whistle.
"Hoo… Well? I've gotten a lot stronger, right?"
Having completed her hundredth swing, Rosaria wiped a single bead of sweat from her brow and looked around with open pride, as if daring anyone to disagree.
"Splendid, my lady. Though the path of your blade remains inconsistent, and each swing differs from the last."
"That is a compliment, right?"
Gordon, who had been watching, offered a light round of applause with his reply. Rosaria's face soured into a sulky pout as she shot the question back at him.
"Of course. You have never received formal sword training, my lady, and yet you can swing a blade with such ease. That your stamina has risen this far in so short a time is a truly remarkable development."
"Right? I used to be such a weakling that just running left me wrecked. And that sword's pretty heavy, you know?"
Gordon and Darian, both fully aware of how extraordinary her performance truly was, voiced their genuine admiration in unison.
Rosaria had only ever been a tagalong in Darian's Sword Aura training—more precisely, his Axe Aura training—and her physical limits had been so severe that even basic conditioning, like running laps around the drill yard, left her collapsed on the ground. She had never been able to keep up with Darian's lessons.
Today, however, she had finished her usual run and then swung a practice sword—identical in weight to a real one—a full hundred times, without so much as a hint of exhaustion.
"It's all thanks to this."
Setting the sword down, Rosaria turned over the back of her left hand with a grin.
Etched into her skin like a tattoo was a mark shaped roughly like a windmill—the symbol of the wind. It was the proof of her contract with the sylph, now named Ariel.
"Honestly, spirits are incredible. It feels like I've been pumped full of some kind of drug."
"I have never encountered a spirit mage myself, so I find it equally fascinating. And to think you possess a talent for spirit arts, my lady… truly astonishing."
"Hehe, of course~!"
Watching Darian and Gordon marvel at the spirit responsible for Rosaria's explosive leap in stamina, Shalle puffed up her chest even more proudly than Rosaria herself and explained with a little shrug of her shoulders.
"A spirit mage who forms a contract can share in their spirit's power. It's similar to how humans reinforce their bodies with mana, or how mages cast physical enhancement spells—except the power comes from the spirit rather than the caster's own mana, so there's no strain on the user!"
—Heehee!
Rosaria had never awakened mana the way Darian or Felix had, but she could receive and channel the power of her contracted spirit, Ariel. The most basic application of that power was physical reinforcement.
—Mom! Did I do good?
While Rosaria had been swinging her sword, Ariel had been fluttering about above her head. Now the little spirit drifted down, nuzzling her cheek against Rosaria's, and Rosaria answered with a slightly awkward smile.
"Uh… yeah, you were amazing. But why did you have to settle on Mom…?"
After completing the contract, Rosaria had given the nameless sylph the name Ariel—and in return, Ariel had begun calling Rosaria by a special title of her own.
"There are plenty of other names and nicknames you could use. Can't you pick one of those?"
—? Mom is Mom. Heehee!
"…Ugh, whatever."
Unfortunately, that special title was "Mom." Rosaria had made her displeasure clear, but Ariel had been laughing heehee since yesterday as if she genuinely didn't understand the problem, leaving Rosaria with no choice but to give up.
"…Pfft! Must be nice, huh? Mommy Ariel?"
"……"
"Oh? What are you gonna do, glaring at me like that? Mommy Ariel?"
"Seriously… is this what a parent is…?"
Darian burst out laughing, thoroughly enjoying himself as he teased his son—currently his daughter. Rosaria fixed him with a murderous glare, but since the man really was her parent, she couldn't say a word and could only stew in silent defeat.
"Ahem—in that case, it would seem my lady is now ready to begin proper training in earnest."
"That's right! I may not manage Sword Aura, but I should at least get flashy and strong like Dad, yeah?!"
Gordon cleared the air and announced that Rosaria could now join the real training. She clenched both fists and shouted as if she'd been waiting for those exact words.
I can finally get strong like those web novel protagonists I used to read about!
Until now, Rosaria had felt like a freeloader next to her steadily advancing family—not that she hadn't tried, but that she simply hadn't been able to keep up. The thought that she, too, might finally start experiencing the kind of protagonist-worthy moments her family enjoyed set her heart racing.
She had never made a big show of it, but she had been quietly carrying a knot of anxiety.
A mother who forged Sword Aura and wielded overwhelming martial power. A father who guided the territory with practiced wisdom. A younger brother gifted in magic. A high-schooler who happened to be the strongest being in the entire setting. And now even a grandfather who turned out to be an elven princess. Rosaria had grown more than a little impatient.
So when Ariel found her, she felt genuinely grateful—and the moment she realized she could finally grow stronger herself, her hands itched to get started.
"Then it would be best for my lady to settle on a weapon as well."
"A weapon…? Isn't a weapon just a sword—ah."
At Gordon's words, Rosaria automatically lifted the practice blade in her hand—then something clicked, and she looked over at Darian.
"I just like this one better~"
Darian, who had supposedly set out to learn the sword only to switch to an axe, held up the thick single-edged battle axe in his grip with a grin.
"There is no requirement that a weapon be a sword. I would advise my lady to seek out whatever armament suits her best."
"Huh. So I don't have to stick with a sword?"
Darian had manifested Sword Aura—Axe Aura, really—with an axe, not a blade. Rosaria finally grasped that she had no reason to chain herself to the sword.
"If I may be so bold as to offer a recommendation, I would suggest the dagger. It is easily concealed, which can lower an opponent's guard, and it is ideally suited for a decisive strike that severs an enemy's life."
"As it happens, the dagger is also my specialty. Perhaps this would be an excellent opportunity for my lady to learn the assassin's arts—"
"Come on! What's cool about poking around with something that tiny? A real weapon should be thick and powerful! One good swing with this and most things just turn into scrap!"
"Exactly—so you should learn the axe too!"
"Ahem…! Personally, I think the bow is a fine weapon as well. Archery that can pierce a target clean through from a great distance is practically invincible!"
"If Miss Rosaria were to take up archery, I could even teach her the secret techniques passed down only among the elves, you know?"
"Archery is poorly suited to close combat, so the assassin's arts—!"
"None of that matters—strength is what counts! Which means the axe—!"
"Elegant, refined archery that can defeat an enemy with grace—!"
"Wait! Wait! Okay, I get it—everyone just calm down!"
The moment Rosaria began weighing her options, the three of them launched into aggressive pitches for their own preferred weapons. She managed to peel them apart for a moment and sank into serious thought.
Assassin arts, huh… Sounds cool—like a legendary assassin who never reveals their identity…
But the axe is solid too. Nothing says real man like an axe…
Then again, archery looks pretty stylish in its own way…
"Ugh… What am I supposed to pick?"
—Pick?
Just as Rosaria was drowning in indecision—
"Ah, so this is where everyone was."
"Hm? What are you doing here?"
A figure spotted them from a distance and came running over. It was Felix.
"Well, I was about to test a newly improved staff, but Tene's nowhere to be found. Has anyone seen her?"
"Are you trying to use Tene as a test subject again?"
"No, well… hehe…"
Judging by the look of him, he had been hunting for Tene to run a new experiment and had simply stumbled across Rosaria's group. Tene, apparently, had read the situation and gone into hiding ahead of time.
"So? What is it this time?"
"Ah—come to think of it, last time, Opp—I mean, Rosaria. Perfect timing."
Caught dead to rights, Felix gave an awkward little laugh. In answer to Rosaria's question, he reached for something strapped to his back in a cloth wrapping, and—as if the timing couldn't have been better—unwound the veil covering it.
"That's… the gun you made last time?!"
"Gun? Would you kindly call it the Magic Bullet Launcher MK II—Improved Model?"
"By that logic, a regular gun is just a lead-bullet launcher. It's the same thing!"
The moment she saw what it was, Rosaria yelped in alarm.
It looked far too similar to the magic tool—the gun—she had asked Felix to make for her last time. That one had delivered devastating firepower and then promptly fallen apart, so she had more or less forgotten about it. Seeing it again, though, brought the memory of the drill yard nearly getting obliterated flooding back, and she shuddered from head to toe.
"Ah… so this is the thing that got completely wrecked by your mom?"
"Hoh… so this is it?"
Darian and Gordon, who hadn't witnessed the incident firsthand, studied Felix's new staff—his Abracadabra Instant-Death Magic Launcher—with considerable interest.
"Huh? This material feels familiar…! Don't tell me…!"
Among them, Shalle's eyes flew wide as she examined the staff, and she cried out.
"Ah—an elf would recognize it. I made this from a branch of the World Tree."
"I knew it! I thought the feel was familiar! Of course—that explains it!"
Felix held the staff up as if to say she'd spotted it correctly.
"Hmm… looking closely, it is pretty different from the one you made last time. Before, it was super rough—just a piece of wood roughly carved to look the part. This one's actually got some quality to it."
Rosaria nodded, noting how much more detailed and finely finished it was compared to the slapdash Mark I she'd seen before.
"Oh, you made this pretty well. Is that a gun? Does it actually fire bullets?"
Darian muttered with genuine curiosity of his own—and that was when—
"Th-the Wor… World Tree…?!"
"Hm? Gordon? What's wrong?"
While everyone else treated Felix's staff with casual indifference, one person alone stood with his mouth hanging open, so stunned he could barely form words.
"Are you saying that is truly… a branch of the World Tree?!"
It was Gordon.
"What's the big deal? Is it really that shocking?"
"My lord. The World Tree… the World Tree! The World Tree that the elves revere as their creator god!"
"A single leaf of that tree is already of immense value—and you have a branch?! The only comparable artifact in history is the staff of Rahella, the great mage famed from the Thousand-Year War a millennium ago!"
A branch of the World Tree was elastic, harder than most iron, an exceptional conductor of magic, and even possessed mana amplification—a dream material in every sense.
A single leaf was already enough to buy a mansion. Gordon could scarcely begin to imagine what a branch would be worth.
"That valuable? How much are we talking in money?"
"M-money doesn't even begin to cover it! A single piece of this is practically a national treasure!"
"Just one of these could elevate a nation's prestige… something that precious… cough! Cough!!"
Gordon clutched at his head in pure horror, veins standing out on his neck as he worked himself into a coughing fit of passionate outrage.
"Mithril? Even that metal—so rare people say the price is whatever the seller names—is the kind of scrap you could forge from something like this!"
"It's really that valuable? They just handed it over when I asked."
"So it's that expensive in the human world… how curious."
"…Pardon?"
Even in the face of Gordon's absolute shock, Felix and Shalle answered with a casual oh, is that so? tone—and Gordon's soul briefly left his body.
"Well, for us, branches of the World Tree are simply… always around…"
Shalle's reaction was only natural.
The elves lived in harmony with nature, crafting what they needed while doing as little harm as possible. Their homes, for instance, were not made by felling entire trees but by hollowing them out from within—ordinary trees would die from that, but the power of the Great Forest let them keep growing without issue. Furniture was much the same.
For finer tools, they freely used branches of the World Tree. Much like the endlessly regenerating leaves, a branch the thickness of a human arm would regrow in under an hour, so as long as they didn't overharvest, it was an everyday material. Once crafted, the items lasted so long that an elf could use a World Tree bow for nearly an entire lifetime.
Because of that restraint, and because the elves' low birth rate meant furniture was simply passed down through generations, the material was widely used without ever running dry. In a sense, it was common as dirt.
So while Shalle respected the World Tree, she didn't treat its branches or leaves as sacred relics. It was rather like how, in modern Christianity, bread and wine are regarded as the body and blood of the Lord—yet no one treats bread and wine as too holy to actually eat and drink.
"I asked if I could take a few for research, and they handed me a whole pile of firewood. I've got a dozen or so branches just in my room."
Felix, for his part, already knew all of this from the original story, which was why he'd had the nerve to ask for branches before leaving the Great Forest.
Of course, to the elves, Felix was someone under a dragon's protection—so they had given him more than he could possibly need.
"Hah… haaah… materials of that caliber are nearly on par with dragon scales…"
"Dragon scales? I could just ask Tene to peel one off for me, couldn't I?"
"Ah."
The revelation that treasures most people would never see once in a lifetime were casually lying around in Felix's room left Gordon lightheaded and muttering weakly—only for that comment to be shot down just as quickly.
The Evergarden estate currently had two materials capable of forging legendary armaments, available to pull out whenever needed. The sheer absurdity of that fact hit Gordon like a truck, and he suddenly remembered the mithril dagger that had been smashed to pieces the first time he met Tene—a dagger he had once cherished as his number-one treasure.
In a world where mithril itself could be dismissed as "scrap," the image of his former self lovingly polishing that "scrap" as his prized possession rose unbidden in his mind.
For a moment, Gordon nearly keeled over backward and fainted on the spot.