Blue Blood (1)
The battle was over. Once we shook off the lingering bewilderment, each of us got to work. Even though I had stepped out of the toilet stall, the whole thing felt like a sloppy finish—almost as if the sinks in this floating restroom had been cut off from the water supply. But our work wasn’t done yet.
Frost Champions were still rampaging across every corner of this territory. The lord who was supposed to clean up the monster incident had been reduced to a human totem pole, his entire body wrecked like Griffith after being abandoned by Guts. The nobles who had tasted my Wind-Tunnel Mouth Technique wore sour expressions and clearly wanted nothing more than to suck on honey, but they still began the cleanup effort.
……The lord’s wounds are beyond our ability to heal. Esteemed brothers and sisters, we ask that you devote your full strength to mending the heavenly calamity.
The Janus priests, whose healing abilities were sorely lacking, followed Signatio’s orders without complaint. The lord looked like the last two humans left on Earth after some apocalyptic Hannibal scenario—nothing but skin and bones remaining. Recovering fully from that state would be anything but easy. Even if you poured an elixir down his throat like cold noodles, one or two doses clearly wouldn’t cut it.
That was why Signatio laid the lord on clean cloth and immediately began the ritual with the Janus priests to close the rift in the sky.
"Janus, O Janus! Please embrace us…!"
The priests, their faces pale as death, threw themselves into the ritual with desperate fervor. It was already a punishable offense that a black mage had been hiding in the territory they were assigned to. But the fact that they hadn’t even noticed the bastard turning the lord into Tirsi’s remote control and acting as the shadow ruler behind the throne? Fuck. Just imagining it made my vision go as dark as the first night in basic training. If it were me, I’d already be looking for a rope to hang myself with.
Goodbye, my beautiful path to success!
While all that was happening, what was I doing? I was sitting cross-legged near Tirsi, who had collapsed as if all her strength had left her.
“Ughhh……”
“Mmmnnngh……”
Tirsi, lost in sleep, whimpered as if in pain. I squeezed my temples, closed my eyes, and frowned deeply. Right now, I was desperately replaying the way that son of a bitch Diabolo’s mana had moved when he used aura and swordsmanship.
Imagine the strongest version of yourself. Aura-Blade Kang Bukho! If I can pull this off, I might not reach Master-Nord, but I could at least become Mithril-class Das Nord, swinging a goddamn lightsaber!
“Mommy, please give me some mana……”
But it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. I kept letting out heavy sighs. If I wrapped it up in some martial arts novel style—gaining enlightenment after watching a master’s movements on the brink of life and death—it would sound cool. But honestly, the raw impression I got was less “profound realization” and more like binge-watching an insanely well-made esports mad movie.
There’s no emotional resonance for a 21st-century sensibility. This isn’t a wuxia story, damn it!
Shit. Even figuring out how to adapt this to my own weapons and tactics is going to be a pain.
If simply understanding the principle let you reproduce it, who the hell would ever struggle? If that were possible, back on Earth I wouldn’t have gone to veterinary school—I would’ve become famous for “High school grad is insanely good at games” or “Yellow Monkey dominates basketball.” You stupid thick-headed Nord bastard……
And my main weapons are a sword and a spear. The character stats are completely different.
How the hell was I supposed to recreate this? The advice I’d heard back at the Ulster settlement was somewhat helpful as reference, but the road ahead still looked long. The biggest problem was that I didn’t even have enough time to internalize this sensation before I forgot it.
“Hey, husband. Tell your damn pecs to calm down. Why are your tits twitching while you’re getting healed? It’s pissing off the low-fat milk that’s trying to treat you.”
Dana, who had been pouring vitality into my exhausted body after the fierce battle, gave me an earful—probably because my chest muscles had tensed up from concentrating too hard. I kept my eyes closed, still immersed in the sudden enlightenment of aura, and answered without any filter.
“Big tits naturally shake. It’s the law of massive breast gravity. Of course, anyone with a chest under 80 cm wouldn’t understand.”
“Should I kill him? No, hold it in. Ulster blood, stay calm.”
“The magic that makes chest meat disappear the moment clothes go on… truly a wizard of dieting… Do your ribs even have any tits to speak of?”
“Alright, he dies.”
Dana, whose switch had completely flipped, wrapped her arm around her husband’s neck and started choking him. Even in the middle of that, my precious babies—Look, we have tits too!—were desperately asserting their faint presence, and my dick got excited. Hey! Spring breasts are delicious!
I’d heard that post-battle excitement could affect erections, but having my blood—which should have been circulating oxygen through my tired body—get reassigned straight to my cock made me feel like I was actually going to die.
Thankfully, right before I reunited with Odin’s avatar in heaven, Minerva called for me. I cleared my throat so I wouldn’t cough and stood up.
Minerva chose her words carefully.
A bad feeling crept over me. Even though we hadn’t known each other long, I could tell Minerva wasn’t the type to drag out unnecessary words. A long tongue usually meant she was feeling cornered. So why was she taking a step back with me right now?
After thinking that, I asked.
Not that? I had assumed she was going to ask me to deal with those Yotun or whatever otherworldly creatures they were. If that was the case, I was more than willing to help. My body was a mess from using three times my normal mana capacity, but Dana’s healing had relieved some of the fatigue.
And if I beat those Yotun bastards, my mana will increase too.
Ever since I crushed that fake Thor, burning events had become pretty common. After that, my mana pool had nearly doubled, so I hadn’t felt any shortage, but more money and more mana were always welcome.
But fuck, if I thought about it that way—what the hell was Tirsi? She had filled several times more than my previous doubled mana pool. Wasn’t that more than the fake Thor?
While I was thinking that, Minerva spoke.
“Huh?”
I asked dumbly. After all this chaos, they were seriously trying to ban the raid leader who helped pick up the black mage’s loot drops? Wow! Truly impressive!
I see. Thanks for telling me about such bullshit.
My mouth fell open in disbelief. What the hell? This time I hadn’t even talked to a soul—why was I suddenly being treated as a black mage?
Minerva continued without changing her expression, like a kindergarten teacher reading from a script at a talent show.
“……Are they insane?”
Franc, who had been nursing Tirsi, muttered without even changing her complexion. It was a short, blunt, and perfectly accurate assessment of my own thoughts. Yep. When she’s pissed, our Franc really doesn’t hold back.
“Hiiieee?! N-no! My sister didn’t say anything!!”
Larilura, shocked that the usually gentle Franc had spoken harshly in front of nobles, quickly covered Franc’s mouth.
But Minerva didn’t seem particularly angry as she continued.
Her expression wasn’t pleasant. It was the look of a CEO who had just caught an incompetent manager playing Lineage the moment he clocked in. Since she had come specifically to tell me this, it seemed Minerva also considered their opinion utter garbage.
I rolled my elite brain and spoke the thought that came to mind.
“……It’s not pure nonsense. I think they’re saying it because there’s money involved.”
“What?”
“It’s simple. If I were a black mage, there would be a significant change in how the loot is distributed.”
I lowered my voice and explained roughly.
“The lord of Renapolis… it’s hard to say, but he will likely suffer severe aftereffects. If governing becomes difficult, there’s a chance the lordship could change hands. Since Diabolo was acting as his proxy, it seems he has no children either.”
“Are they aiming for the lordship? But you wouldn’t be a competitor.”
Minerva’s eyes carried a hint of doubt—Why would anyone deliberately turn someone of your caliber into an enemy?
So I calmly voiced my brain’s wild theory.
“Not the lordship itself, but the distribution of assets registered under Diabolo’s personal name. Just look at the relics that bastard spat out while his condition was completely fucked. There’s that much, right?”
I pointed at the relics and items that the brain-damaged Diabolo had poured out. They were clearly high-class goods, the kind you’d carefully store to prevent theft. If just the stuff in his inventory was like this, I could only imagine how much wealth he had transferred to his own name. In this world, true fortunes weren’t just currency or goods—they were documents, land, and power.
Incidentally, the unreadable grimoire had been placed there too. Right now, the nobles’ guards seemed to be watching it so no one could secretly pocket or steal it.
“If I’m framed as a black mage, the distribution ratio will change… and well, I’m a commoner. They probably figured it was worth a shot as a check. Even if it fails, they don’t lose anything.”
Like poking a persimmon you can’t eat. It’s not a losing business, so it’s worth trying.
I held back a sigh and lamented.
This is exactly why I desperately need a powerful sponsor.
If I had a famous noble backing me, would they dare pull this shit? These sons of bitches were acting out because they thought I wouldn’t be able to come protest later. It was the kind of thinking only brain-dead idiots born with silver spoons would have.
At least they’re not doing it openly. Is that because they saw me fight?
In this other world, some transcendents stood above the law. At Mithril class, you were above both legal and illegal village nobles. Most nobles would become your subordinates with a simple bow. And if you were really pissed, you could rip off your rank insignia, fight them, and wipe them all out. It was entirely possible.
What if I didn’t just rampage on my own, but instead made a deal with some noble and entered their service? Then the bastards who picked a fight with me would end up making enemies of the noble who took me in. For lords of tiny territories or nobles without even a proper deed to their land, creating an equal-level enemy would be undesirable.
Who in power would refuse a guy who can shoot aura out of his spear and willingly offers to become their subordinate?
That was probably how that Diabolo bastard had wormed his way in here. Maybe that was why they only threw out such passive checks.
Good thing I showed them my fighting even if I burned mana like a seal stamp.
The mana I had spent in one go using the imperial seal card was now completely gone, but as long as they saw me as an insanely strong aura-emitting warrior, they wouldn’t dare act openly. The black mage suspicion could just be brushed off with protests.
When Minerva looked toward the gathered nobles, a few of them averted their eyes like thieves with guilty consciences. If they were going to be that scared, they shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I had no idea why they couldn’t control their own greed and acted like idiots.
—Flash!
While I was thinking that and looking down on those petty men, the Janus priests—who had been chanting spells while bleeding from their eyes and noses—finally achieved results. A sphere of light flew toward the tree in the sky and collided with it. The crack began to disappear as if repairing a fractured painting. The sky regaining its original form as light raced across it was incredibly beautiful and surreal.
Especially for my mana-sensitive senses, it felt even more sacred than its appearance suggested.
Damn, that’s really cool.
I purely admired its holiness. Now I understood why the people of this world believed in gods. Even someone like me, who had rarely been moved by natural scenery, felt goosebumps comparable to the first time I saw Franc’s breasts.
……If he had gone around doing things like that while alive, even an ordinary human would be worshipped as a god after death.
Looking up at the sky returning to its normal blue, I gave a slightly bitter smile. Diabolo had called the source of that divine power—Janus—a “manufactured god.” The result of humans turning a human into a god.
Well, even on Earth there were cultures that worshipped great men as gods.
Weren’t the Chinese immortals something like that? If so, did that mean the gods of Romania were peerless martial artists who had reached the pinnacle of life and death and ascended? And were the churches of this world like Shaolin temples that took those immortals as their founders?
Fuck, this suddenly feels way too familiar.
I chuckled as I looked up at the normalizing sky. The majestic sight of a once-human god’s light closing the otherworldly gate that had defiled our homeland. Watching it, the foul mood caused by those petty bastards’ nonsense seemed to ease a little.