Oh, Great Ancestor (1)
When the Vitagarte clan knelt before the Karlank Empire, one of their 'royal' blood had to be sent to the capital of Karlangk as a token of absolute submission. People called it a hostage. The one forced into that role was the founding patriarch's younger sister. She was not the heir, yet she burned with vigor and wielded martial prowess like no other. The flame of the North. The avatar of terror who had driven the Empire itself into hell. Her name was Gorgo.
Her homeland kingdom had bowed to the Empire and been reduced to a mere grand duchy. For a true Northerner like her, the situation could hardly have been pleasant. Yet the easygoing, good-natured woman displayed every ounce of her charm without reservation. She even served as student council president of Sigmund Academy, formed a sworn brotherhood with the Hero of that generation, and fought on the front lines of the demon army subjugation party. Her renown across the Empire needed no further elaboration.
Afterward, however, her trail vanished from history. She disappeared without a trace in the Demon Realm, and the world naturally assumed she had perished in a blaze of heroic glory. In truth, Gorgo had shattered one of the Six Swords and sealed herself away in another dimension. In other words, she was the only being before me who had ever destroyed one of the Six Swords.
Of course, the question of how a blade that could never be broken had been broken remained deeply puzzling. Laughably enough, it had all been a coincidence. Driven into a corner by the Six Sword Asparug, she had been forced to stake everything on a desperate last stand. The moment she resolved to charge to her death in that hopeless situation, an "eclipse" occurred at precisely the right time.
An eclipse was a moment the sun-born demon race could not perceive. During that brief window, Gorgo had been able to pummel Asparug while he was powerless to flee or fight back. Naturally, as the phrase "astronomical probability" suggested, the odds of finding a battlefield where the eclipse's timing aligned perfectly were vanishingly small. It was nearly impossible unless one belonged to the solar clan like Eclipse and could forcibly align the celestial bodies to summon one.
Yet she had succeeded by sheer luck and been swallowed by Asparug. Unlike me, she had been unable to resist the Six Sword. In the process of her mind being stolen, she had slaughtered everyone around her who should have carried on news of her feat. Therefore, clinging to the last shred of her will, the final choice of a woman who simply wanted to remain human was to "exile" herself to another dimension by any means possible.
That was why she could not return until Vankite and Yagnus located her across countless dimensions and dragged her back into the world. Nevertheless, the fact that she had reduced Asparug to this state was regarded with genuine fear among the Six Swords, who believed themselves incapable of dying. Yagnus must have hesitated until the very end before pulling her out.
Of course, by the time I beat him to death, he could no longer afford to care about such things and had brought her forth anyway. But now she was here, and I had used my wits to freeze her solid. If the opportunity to properly restore her consciousness was given to me, she would prove far more valuable than simply being devoured.
So when Babalk pressed his demand, I answered him plainly.
"You seem to think such words would work on a Northerner. Even if she has become one of the Six Swords, she remains our hero."
"No. Since she could not remain human, what stands before us is nothing more than Asparug wearing Gorgo's skin. Strangely, fragments of Gorgo's mind still linger and influence him, but there is no method to restore her."
"...Is that what you believe? What if I could return Gorgo's personality to her? What would you say then?"
Babalk stared at me, his expression thick with suspicion.
"...I'm sorry, but no such method exists. In matters concerning the demon race, there is zero chance you could produce a brighter spark of insight than I."
"Well. I happen to disagree."
"You are serious."
The rigid mindset typical of the elderly was obstructing his vision. Of course, having thoroughly dissected this precious specimen in every way imaginable, he could speak with such certainty. Yet that was nothing but arrogance, the refusal to acknowledge new brilliance. Even Babalk was becoming an outdated relic.
"Let's make a deal. You said you would give her to me as a gift. If I restore her mind, I will personally take her under my care from now on."
"The man who wouldn't even accept a Hero now claims he will purify a Six Sword? Such sophistry is unrivaled."
"You may see it that way. However, my approach is slightly different."
I turned to face Babalk, who stood at my exact eye level.
"Coexistence would be entirely feasible."
"Coexistence...?"
"Complete restoration is impossible, of course. We don't have a precise method for that yet. But in the form of coexistence, I can at least provide life-sustaining treatment that allows her to fight as combat strength right away."
The crucial point here was that I wanted to conceal from that cunning old man exactly how far my abilities could reach. Still, it would probably be futile. After he had already backtracked through all my actions and displayed such perverse obsession that he even resorted to threats, it was obvious he would uncover the method sooner or later.
So I sighed in advance and brought forth the only S-rank relic I had absorbed so far, the great hero of ever-changing strategies.
A fist-sized shadow sprang from my chest.
"sweet little baby."
Suspiciously, ever since his deep conversation with Burga, who seemed oddly familiar with modern culture, Yagnus had begun absorbing 'modern memes' and 'subculture' in subtle ways. I didn't want to admit it, but I had no idea what exactly they had discussed. Regardless, I issued my command.
"Project Ecurisia's Spike."
"Cool, that's a strong and excellent idea. Johann."
The shadow twisted grotesquely and projected the form of an enormous nail that I could barely grasp in one hand.
"Wait, that is—!"
Babalk clearly recognized the spike. Given that he was a hardcore history otaku, it wasn't surprising.
"Eureka!"
His eyes flew wide open, as though he couldn't fathom how I had arrived at this idea.
"That spike was created when the Empire's magic tower cast frenzy spells on Vitagarte soldiers. It's one of the North's secret weapons!"
"Correct. It was developed around the same period as the scrolls that freeze only Northerners. The North was never going to simply endure it."
He swallowed a groan.
"A device that fixes the spirit, preserves identity and information, a lost higher-dimensional information apparatus capable of all this...! Wait, this might actually work...!"
"You understand now?" I shot back. "And you don't need to mutter so incoherently. I already know you're a professor, so please refrain from using such difficult terminology. Let's simply call it the North's 'forced dual-personality device.'"
"Dual-personality device? Ha! Your combat ability is superb, but your explanatory skills earn an F. Strictly speaking, that is incorrect. Ecurisia's Spike separates a human's mind onto the nail itself to anchor their 'self-identity.'"
"In other words, it hammers an additional personality into the brain in the shape of a nail. Is my description of 'dual personality' wrong?"
At that, his gaze transcended mere curiosity. It was filled with awe that seemed to ask, You bastard. Just how far ahead have you thought this through?
"However, Ecurisia's Spike is a representative example of lost technology. Don't tell me you possess it simply because you are from the North?"
"Something like that."
"But would it truly be effective against a Six Sword? The odds that a mere artifact could overcome their will seem extremely slim..."
I shook my head. Had this been mere speculation, I would not have spoken with such confidence. In the original story, this method had succeeded in restoring Gorgo. Of course, the result had been a magic swordsman in a permanent Jekyll-and-Hyde state where the Six Sword and her personality coexisted. Still, that was better than vanishing entirely.
"As you yourself stated, Professor, fragments of Gorgo's mind remain within her. Had she been completely devoured by the Six Sword, those fragments should have disappeared. The fact that they did not is proof that possibility exists."
Babalk's eyes narrowed. The seeds of doubt had not been fully uprooted.
"Why are you looking at me like that? If I fail and something goes wrong, you can simply kill me, can't you?"
Paying his suspicion no mind, I drove the spike with a heavy thud into the shadow behind the ice.
Then I pressed the button that emitted powerful heat to melt the ice designed to freeze Northerners.
Whirring—.
"Cough, cough, cough—."
Before my eyes, Gorgo coughed violently. She looked like a drowned rat, as if she had just emerged from amniotic fluid. Embedded in the back of her head was the spike I had driven in moments ago. Setting aside that Frankenstein-like appearance, her face was the very image of the young lady. Had it not been for the short bob cut, they might have been indistinguishable. The original portrait had been the same. She simply gave off the impression of a more primal Karalin. This family's genes were truly formidable.
"You... you.... I, I—."
She had only just awakened.
"...I don't want to go back... I don't want to return to that place, to that darkness again... Please, don't send me back there... I beg you... Kill me... Just kill me..."
She clutched her head and wailed, crawling into a corner like a helpless child, trembling with her entire body. It was only natural. What she had endured until now was being swallowed by the Six Sword she had barely managed to seize, slaughtering her own comrades with her own hands, and then suffering the horrific agony of having her mind torn apart by the sword's true body for eons.
Unlike Babalk, who watched with clinical detachment, I stood silently before the woman collapsing in on herself. Then I knelt.
Thud—.
I drew my blade and laid it across both palms, pointing its tip toward the earth rather than the sky. The courtesy of submission. The oath of true loyalty. The highest form of respect, stricter than death itself, that a knight of the royal family offered to the bloodline he served. Showing such reverence to the broken and ruined blood of Vitagarte posed no problem for me.
"Lady Gorgo."
"...Who are you? Do you know me?"
Her voice was far too small to belong to the war god of the past. Rather than joy at meeting someone who knew her, fear seemed to come first at the realization that she had descendants.
"No. I believe it would be more appropriate to call you Great Ancestor now."
She panted heavily, but I took her hand and spoke warmly.
"I am the Lord of Steel, Yohan Kim. I serve as the sole retainer and guardian knight of the current Grand Duke's daughter of Vitagarte, Karalin von Vitagarte."
In a tone warmer and steadier than anyone's, I continued.
"...I greet you with utmost loyalty from three hundred years in the future."
"Three hundred... years..."
"Yes. A great deal of time has passed since your heroic struggle."
"...I see."
Her lips trembled.
"Do you have any orders for me?"
"No, it's just..."
Having felt the absurd weight of that passage of time on her own skin, she could only murmur emptily in response to my question.
"I told my brother that someday, without fail, I would return to the royal castle..."
It was a cruel fragment of history.