The Source of Contamination 3

As long as that invincible barrier stayed up, the player was stuck taking a pure loss. The field was choked with toxic miasma, there were no trash mobs left to farm, and the boss's health bar refused to budge — of course it was a raw deal.

{Where do you think you're goooing?! You brute!}

"Ugh, damn it. We're getting real familiar, aren't we."

As impressive as Irene's purification holy magic was, her Holy Power wasn't infinite. So I ordered everyone except myself — the only other person who could use Holy Power — to head back up. I saw them off with a smile under their worried gazes, and the skeleton dark mage immediately started thrashing around to stop them.

Of course he did. He'd been waiting for us to get poisoned down in this toxic underground, so the idea of us climbing up for fresh air must have really gotten under his skin.

But just as we had no way to drop his invincibility gimmick and kill him, he had no way of getting past me to grab my party. Even if the invincibility gimmick brought him back, crushing his skull still bought time while he regenerated.

"Doesn't matter if I grind him to powder, huh."

{You think the knowledge amassed by the sages of the Skeleton Tower would crumble under mere grip strength? Surrender and devote yourself to Death!}

"Yeah, well, you can't kill me either — with all that fancy Death of yours or whatever."

{Khmm… You're fouler than a rotting corpse…}

Even when I smashed him to dust, he reconstituted within three seconds like some liquid-metal movie monster. Mana-infused attacks didn't even register as pain. Holy Power attacks at least seemed to annoy him — his voice got rougher — but he stayed just as intact.

On a hunch, I methodically pulverized every bone in his body starting from the spine, then scraped his staff against the floor until it was powder too. The boss monster's invincibility gimmick clearly wasn't going to break from something that petty. He just came back and squawked at me, as irritating as ever.

It wasn't like I was facing some arena player who'd built a health-gate deck and was turtling for a judge's decision. What the hell was I even doing against a boss monster? Should I just collapse the whole clearing and drag this bastard alive all the way to the Magic Tower?

{Just what are you? If I had my way, I'd put you on a dissection table this instant.}

"Think you can cut me open?"

The absurdity cut both ways. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Listening to the boss ramble, most of the barriers he deployed were designed for war — for holding off siege engines and the combined magic of Upper-grade and Intermediate-grade mages working in concert.

And I'd just body-checked the whole thing on the strength of a single holy enhancement spell. We were both equally speechless.

So there we were, staring each other down with nothing better to do, when a hologram window suddenly popped up in front of my face unbidden.

The black letters floating in midair wriggled like earthworms, rewriting themselves on their own. As if to prove that Han Se-ah's voyeuristic camera wasn't the only thing watching me in real time, someone who found this boring standoff unacceptable seemed to have put their hands on the quest.

I stared blankly into empty space while the skeleton yammered on about something or other, but none of that mattered right now. What mattered was the message from the one who could toy with my soul.

Anyone could see what that meant: kill this skull-faced bastard right now.

Being this blatant about it made defiance bubble up fresh — I almost wanted to wait until the Temple or Magic Tower people arrived. The problem was the card this thing had pulled to keep me in line.

Internet ban. A full-on internet ban.

…Was this thing actually insane?

Before I entered the world of Heroes Chronicle, society had been in a bit of an uproar. More and more people were choosing "kill yourself" over "just apologize."

I'd laughed plenty at those idiot business owners and corporations who, instead of simply apologizing and paying damages, sprinted full-tilt off a cliff like they were committing suicide by public opinion. I valued practical benefit over petty pride, after all.

So… fine.

I'd be a good boy.

No point getting pissy and mouthing off at a hyperdimensional godlike being that could toy with my soul. I'd quietly clear the quest and keep my twenty-four-hour internet access. The boss was right in front of me, and it'd even handed me a skill to kill him with — so I might as well hunt, right?

But then why was my mouth moving on its own?

"I am Roland, heir to the blood of Hector — first knight of mankind, one of the Nine Greats — Roland of Lombardy—"

{Planning a one-man play all of a sudden, barbarian?}

But damn it, for a skill, this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠chant was way too long. This was mortifying.

My body moved on its own, different from when I'd received the holy enhancement. Back then, I'd been drunk on raw power and lost control. Now it felt like a first-person game had switched to third-person — like I, Lee Haneul, was looking down at Roland as someone else played the character.

And through it all, my mouth — Roland's mouth — kept moving, reciting this embarrassing chant without end. Had the skill-event cutscenes that came standard on native 5★ and above characters just… adapted straight into Heroes Chronicle?

Every otaku-bait game had at least one of those skill cutscenes. Use a skill, the character drops a signature line, a giant illustration fills part of the screen with a whoosh. Looking at pretty female characters blown up large was great. Reenacting one myself felt… well.

"In the name of the great hero who deserves to be loved, I take up Durandal — the sword bestowed by angels — and step forth."

The skeleton kept sniping at me throughout, and I wanted to curl up from secondhand embarrassment, but control of my body had long since been surrendered. This wasn't a simple buff — it was a transformation-type skill. The mace and shield in my hands were glowing with blue light.

Couldn't the skill just be called "Summon Durandal"?

Instead of mumbling like some wannabe bard, just a clean "Come forth, Durandal!" and done — no shame, so much better. Han Se-ah shouting skill names every time she cast magic looked classy by comparison.

{What a noisy method. From the excess of ornamentation to the inefficiency of power — barbaric.}

"……"

I ignored the skeleton's snide remarks and took stock. Honestly, I was too embarrassed to have a comeback ready, and when a smart guy and a strong guy trade words, the strong guy always loses.

I didn't have the confidence to claim even as a polite fiction that my head was any good.

But my body? My body was damn good.

I wasn't sure why a story about Roland suddenly involved Hector from Greco-Roman mythology, but what mattered was the sword that had formed in my grip. Whether the lines pouring automatically from my mouth counted as some kind of event cutscene or not, the mace and shield that hadn't taken a scratch — let alone changed — in ten years had fused into a massive two-handed greatsword.

"Hrrrgh—!"

{Wh-what?!}

From a heavy-armored knight with mace and shield to a light-armored knight with a greatsword — the gear had swapped. At the same time, my Holy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Power went dormant and mana surged in a violent rush. I'd thought of it as a form change because the two energies had different effects, and apparently I'd been right.

……A tank character whose raw attack power was already on par with a DPS… had a separate offense form? No wonder players howled that the balance team's mother was flying over the clouds.

"Oh— ohhh, holy shit! It works!"

Once the blue light faded, the greatsword in my hands wasn't ornate, but its clean lines made a man's heart race. Nearly as tall as Irene, the blade shone pure white without a single blemish — not sharp so much as radiating a tyrannical force that would smash through anything. Less a keen masterwork sword than a blunt instrument wearing the shape of a blade.

And most important of all: aura was pouring outward, rippling off it.

{You reached Upper-grade some time ago, did you not? Why rejoice at the sight of aura at that level…?}

The skeleton muttered in disbelief. But what could I say? Roland was a defense-type character through and through. When I reinforced my body and gear with mana, the sheer volume of power inside made everything flash blue — but it had never erupted outward like this.

Now was different. Thanks to the form-change skill Hector's Bloodline, packing in mana didn't just make things glow blue — the aura kept growing, swelling larger and larger.

A roughly 1.6-meter greatsword, sheathed in two meters of aura… then three meters, four, five…

{Tr-truly barbaric mana!}

Aura I'd never managed to project in ten years of grinding inside the Tower and out now moved at my will. First time handling it, yet it felt as natural as working a hologram internet window. Whether from the searing blue flames of the aura's wake or pure terror, the skeleton's voice started crackling like a broken radio.

Well — the only things left in this wide clearing were me and the skeleton, and both of us knew exactly where Durandal was pointed.

"You won't understand this, and there's no camera, so I'll just say it straight."

{H-huh?}

"This thing does true damage. Ignores defense."

A colossal greatsword of light split the clearing in two.