The Fallen Sword Princess
So what the hell happened in there?
Siren’s question left me momentarily at a loss. In the original story, both the Mudfish and the Sage were allies to the player. The Mudfish might not have had much screen time, but the Sage was an entirely different matter.
The Sage handed out question rights as main quest rewards and interfered—directly or indirectly—with the main storyline, making her essentially a helper character for the player.
The Mudfish, being close to the Sage, would have occupied a similar position.
…At least, that’s what I would have believed if I hadn’t witnessed the devil interfering with the plot.
But I had seen it. And I had heard it. The devil meddling with the story. And the fact that it would keep meddling, changing the future I knew.
Which meant I had to choose my words carefully. I needed to decide whether telling the professor before me was the right call.
I glanced back and forth between the leg Siren had touched and her hardened expression. The words had come amid terrible pain, yet the desperate wish behind her voice had been crystal clear.
Don’t ever do that again. Your body is the most precious thing you have. You need to be alive to pull stunts like that.
The melancholy threading through that voice had been far too heavy to be an act. If it had been acting, she should have become a world-class actress instead of the Mudfish. From the few times I’d faced her, it was obvious the Mudfish carried a past that let her say such things with genuine weight.
The way she truly cared for her students was completely different from the Mudfish I remembered.
And I couldn’t ignore someone who had shown me that side of herself.
“Tana Erhen was devoured by the medium of the contract.”
I laid out nearly everything I knew. That Tana Erhen had been dragged into a pact with a devil by Chairman Erhen’s hand. That the current crisis had stemmed from that event. That she had known about it beforehand, and that she had even warned me in advance.
“I believe she skipped class to keep the influence of demonic energy as far away from the other cadets as possible.”
Siren appeared to mull this over before asking me in a low voice.
“Then you took Elesia and Cheon Yu-ha to hunt the devil because you’d already heard the story?”
“Yes. I was told that dragging things out would be dangerous.”
“I see…”
Siren’s expression stiffened. Her fist clenched tight.
“I’ll need to speak with the Sage. If what you’re saying is true, this can’t be handled inside the academy alone.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“You understand what your words actually mean, don’t you?”
I nodded. This wasn’t simply the case of one student being unfairly caught in a demonic contract. The chairman of a major pharmaceutical company had reached out to the devil.
Which meant that some of the regular customers who used Erhen products were now tainted by demonic energy—turned into demons. Erhen Pharmaceutical wasn’t a household name, but it was well-known among those who mattered.
If their products were contaminated with demonic energy, it wouldn’t just mean they’d stop selling to awakeners. The entire company would be destroyed.
And that was far too heavy a burden for a mere freshman to carry.
Siren was worried because she understood exactly that. If rumors spread that I had reported this, the stares I received would be anything but kind. The same applied to Tana. As the chairman’s daughter, she would be dragged through endless scandals.
Maybe Tana had known all of this and still asked me to kill her.
Her mind had already been ground down to nothing by Chairman Erhen. The mask had hidden it, but the moment it came off, the truth had been plain to see. If she were suddenly exposed to every kind of slander and unwanted attention she had never experienced before—could she endure it?
Looking at it that way, perhaps I should have granted her request. She had wanted to become even a little happier through death.
“Well, she’s alive now, so it’ll work out somehow.”
I shrugged, answering Siren’s concern. The reason I had saved Tana instead of granting her wish was exactly this. You had to be alive first before you could do anything at all.
Even if she faced slander, attention, and every kind of gaze imaginable.
Overcoming all of it was something you could only do while still breathing.
I wanted Tana to live. I wanted her to overcome everything and stand tall. Not just from the perspective of a cadet, but from the perspective of a user who had watched her for a very long time. I wanted Tana to live and be happy.
That was why I had saved her.
“Heh heh, exactly! As long as you’re alive, that’s what matters!”
My answer seemed to please Siren immensely. She let out a bright laugh and pulled me into a crushing hug.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!”
My entire body was pressed against hers. It felt like I was being ground to dust… and it hurt. It hurt like absolute hell.
Trait: Erectile Dysfunction is being alleviated.
Your Tier is increasing.
“Ugh… it’s tingling.”
My body only regained its senses about half a day later. Even then, “regaining my senses” only meant the tingling had lessened enough that I could move. I still couldn’t leave the hospital room.
At least I could move freely while lying in bed. That was enough for now.
I sat up, leaning my back against the headboard, and closed my eyes. At the same time, I began circulating mana at a level that wouldn’t cause discomfort. It still made my whole body tingle as it traveled through my veins, but I could endure it.
All the impurities must have been purged.
Whether it was thanks to the pill or not, reaching the 4th Tier had expelled most of the waste that had accumulated in my body. As a result, mana circulation felt far smoother than before. In the past I would have lost a significant amount while absorbing external mana, but that no longer happened.
It felt like I had stepped slightly beyond the 4th Tier. The pill’s effects seemed stronger than I had expected. Now mana wasn’t simply pooling in my heart—it was gradually gathering in my lower abdomen as well.
Two reservoirs. This went beyond simply storing mana. It was an engine capable of circulating mana at even greater speeds. And because the two resonated with each other, their efficiency increased further.
“Wow, look at this body.”
Since I could circulate mana, I could clearly assess my physical condition.
My right arm—the one that had held the sword—had apparently been shattered once and then reattached. Similar injuries remained on my leg. My back was covered in scars that looked as if they had been torn open by blades.
It seemed that even if potions could heal wounds, they couldn’t erase the scars left behind.
Anyway.
“There was definitely a strange message that appeared in the middle.”
It had been such a fleeting instant, and my memory was hazy because I had been breaking through to the 4th Tier at the time, but I remembered it clearly.
I sent mana toward the spot while recalling the message that had appeared so blatantly above the notification about my Tier rising.
This time there was a reaction. I felt the mana flow suddenly hit a wall.
It wasn’t blocked by impurities or anything similar. If it had been, I would have noticed it during earlier circulations. The fact that I could feel it now probably meant the trait had truly been alleviated, just as the message said.
And considering the system had gone out of its way to announce the Tier increase right after, it was safe to assume that reaching a higher Tier was the condition for alleviating the trait.
Honestly, it was good news. It meant I could remove the trait without having to hunt down an elixir.
The only problem was that I had no idea which Tier I needed to reach before it would fully disappear.
I had only realized something was blocking me after reaching the 4th Tier. That meant I shouldn’t expect it to vanish quickly just by stepping into the 5th Tier.
Yet when I closed my eyes and looked inward, a massive wall stood in my way. Even accounting for the fact that I hadn’t fully stabilized the 4th Tier yet, the wall was enormous. I would have to overcome it to reach the 5th Tier.
And that was never going to be easy. If it were, everyone would have reached the 5th Tier by now.
Well, the traits this body possesses aren’t exactly common either.
In any case, reaching the 5th Tier would take more time. The 4th Tier itself had been forced through in order to defeat the core, so it wasn’t perfectly stable.
Examining my body made that clear. It was already fortunate that I had only ended up with everything broken. A single mistake, a touch of bad luck, and I might never have been able to use mana again if I had run even slightly short.
In that sense, the medicinal pill had shown tremendous efficacy. Though only four remained now.
As I sat quietly circulating mana, all sorts of thoughts drifted through my mind. The idle notion of wanting to eat meat once I got out of here. What would happen with the demonic contract. And I wondered how Elesia, Cheon Yu-ha, and Tana were doing.
I had confirmed the first two were only unconscious and still alive, but I hadn’t been able to check on Tana. I had simply fed her the remaining half of the Holy Water.
Even half was still Holy Water. And since I had completely subdued the devil before giving it to her, it should have worked—but the world had a way of making “should have” feel uncertain.
That little word “maybe” was quite skilled at keeping people anxious.
My current state was exactly like that. I felt like smoking a cigarette.
But this was a hospital room, and I was a cadet. So I’d have to sneak one later.
With that thought, I lay back down and closed my eyes. My body felt heavy. My eyelids were leaden. The accumulated fatigue came rushing back.
Still, I had gotten through the main episode safely.
That thought alone brought me peace.