Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: The Void Dagger's Energy
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1
“Hello, Assistant Clara.”
“Good afternoon...”
Clara was in her usual half-zombie state today as well.
She sat at her desk, fiddling with her quill with more hollow eyes than before.
Judging by the mountain of paperwork piled up, she wasn’t getting off work tonight either.
The sleeping bag tossed aside next to her made her plight all the more pitiful...
I glanced around the lab, but Edmund was nowhere to be seen.
He calls me here and then goes off somewhere...
“Did you enjoy the festival at all?”
The moment I asked Clara that, I regretted it.
I’d only run into her once at the festival grounds.
She’d been fleeing with her research materials to escape an explosion.
It wasn’t hard to imagine how that had happened.
She must have bolted from the lab with just her materials in hand...
“Haha... I enjoyed it just fine... The festival noises carried all the way to the lab... There were plenty of foods I could package up, so I ate them here while doing research...”
Did you really enjoy it?
It was too cruel to ask, so I just nodded along with a smile...
If she’s happy with it, that’s fine...
“Oh, right. Thanks for lending me the handkerchief.”
I pulled the one from inside my robe and held it out to her.
Clara took it limply and tilted her head in confusion.
“This isn’t my handkerchief...?”
“You wouldn’t let go of it no matter what, so I bought a new one. I still have the old one too, but if it’s something sentimental, I figured I’d restore it as best I could...”
“Oh, no... It was just a plain old handkerchief. You could’ve thrown it away... No need to go buying a new one...”
“If I borrowed it, I should return it.”
At that, Clara bowed her head slightly.
“Thank you...?”
“It’s nothing to thank me for.”
“Still, thanks to you, Theo... I was able to save my research materials...! So this is my way of thanking you for that too...?”
“Maybe next time, try running for your life before grabbing the research materials?”
Clara shook her head vigorously at that.
It was the most energetic I’d seen her all day.
“No way. My research materials are more precious than my own life...”
“Even so, that’s a bit...”
“Dying is the end, but... if the research materials get destroyed, I have to start over from scratch. That’s like dying twice...”
Is this how grad students are treated?
If Clara fell into water with her research materials, she’d definitely yell “Save the research!” instead of “Save me!”...
Just what the hell has Edmund been doing to her?
It’s terrifying...
“You’re already here.”
“You’re no gentleman, that’s for sure.”
Speak of the devil, and he appears—Edmund walked into the lab.
Clara tilted her head at my offhand mutter.
“What’s a ‘gentleman’...? Is that rune language too...?”
No normal people in this place, as expected.
I brushed it off as nothing and turned toward Edmund.
“What did you call me here for today, Professor?”
“Nothing major. I wanted to give you the reward for recovering that stolen artifact of yours.”
Reward, huh.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.
Edmund pulled a heavily sealed pouch from his desk drawer.
After undoing the complex locks, he held out a small dagger.
“...Isn’t this the stolen artifact?”
It was the dagger I’d taken back from Luena.
I accepted it in a daze, and Edmund nodded.
“Correct. Your reward is the chance to analyze it first. It has runes engraved on the blade, so go ahead and study it to your heart’s content.”
“Pardon...?”
How is this a reward?
He’s just slyly dumping work on me.
Even Clara would cut ties over this.
“I’m jealous...”
Clara murmured that with sparkling eyes.
Right, I’m the only normal one here.
A chill ran down my spine, and I fled Edmund’s lab like my life depended on it...
2
“It was definitely called the Void Dagger...”
I lay on my bed, spinning the dagger in my hand.
The official name of the dagger I’d been handed for analysis was the Void Dagger.
Its defining feature was the intricate, finely engraved runes on the worn blade.
The runes’ effect was simple.
As Luena had said, it was a kind of battery that accumulated vast amounts of power.
“You figured it out quick.”
The runes on the Void Dagger were impossible to even date to a specific era.
Naturally, a proper interpretation was beyond modern scholars.
It was like debating the edge of the vast universe without ever reaching the moon.
Just uncovering the fact that the Void Dagger could store massive energy was already near-miraculous.
Of course, that’s the story for the current era.
I knew not only future developments but even rune lore that only existed in the setting materials, so interpreting and deciphering it was just a hassle, not impossible.
“But I have no intention of deciphering it...”
It was obvious what would happen if I decoded even a single character.
A regular college student wouldn’t just prove Fermat’s Last Theorem overnight or suddenly propose a new paradigm in relativity—hell, I’d be proving what lies at the actual end of the universe.
They’d drag me around everywhere, and the Precursors would probably kidnap me too.
The Precursors would do anything to resurrect their god.
And the Void Dagger was an essential item for the god’s reincarnation...
“How about I just swallow it whole?”
If I leave it be, the Precursors will steal the Void Dagger again later and use it up as an energy source for the god’s return, then toss it.
Better I take it instead.
Holding onto the Void Dagger would paint a target on my back from the Precursors, so I’d just siphon off the accumulated energy.
I’d get the energy, screw over the Precursors—best of both worlds.
Of course, actually doing it wouldn’t be easy.
Energy is intangible, so I’d need a vessel to contain it.
But finding a vessel that could hold the massive energy stored in the Void Dagger wasn’t simple.
It had to be something I could engrave runes on and that wouldn’t break under massive energy.
As I pondered if anything around fit the bill... my gaze naturally drifted to Deathwise.
“Hey, mind if I engrave some runes on you?”
-What’s this all of a sudden? I could handle it if you insist. You’d need the right tools, though. The runes already engraved on my blade should tell you that much.
“Runes? Where?”
-The red markings.
Those are runes?
No matter how I looked, they just seemed like red lines?
-Tsk tsk. I thought you knew your runes, but was it all hot air?
“Hot air? Isn’t that what you’re spewing? I’ve wandered every ancient ruin across the continent, but I’ve never seen runes engraved on a blade like yours.”
No matter how I racked my memory, I had no recollection of runes in the form of patterns or drawings rather than script.
“For starters, what do the runes on you even do?”
-I don’t know.
Is this a joke?
“...You didn’t just say that because the Void Dagger has cool-looking runes and you wanted to sound impressive, right?”
-There’s a limit to false accusations! What would I have to gain from lying?!
“If it’s not you bluffing to look cool, then it doesn’t make sense that you don’t know what your own runes do.”
-I never said I knew nothing! I know parts of it! Besides, even without runes, this blade possesses a nobility and beauty no mere dagger could match!
I’d have to see it to believe it...
-Argh...! Fine, I’ll prove it myself! You want to transfer the power accumulated in that dagger, right? My existing runes can handle that much easily! Go ahead and try!
Deathwise bristled with confidence, certain it was more than enough.
I didn’t know what runes were engraved on it, but apparently they had the same effect as the Void Dagger’s.
The magic sword had only partial knowledge of its own runes... If that was true, they probably held even more complex and grand abilities.
Arguing further would just be empty talk.
To prove it, there was no choice but to experiment.
“Alright, let’s give it a shot then.”
-Ha! Prepare to praise my greatness once you succeed!
The magic sword was confident to the end, so I picked up the Void Dagger right away.
And then, a blinding light exploded in my dorm room, enough to blind anyone.
3
-Hoo... My belly’s about to burst...
The magic sword murmured in satisfaction.
As if a thing without a belly had any room to burst.
-It’s a figure of speech, a figure of speech. Don’t you get it?
“Shut it.”
I brushed off the nonsense.
More importantly, the results.
To cut to the chase: the experiment succeeded.
Deathwise absorbed every last bit of the explosive energy extracted from the Void Dagger.
This proved a good chunk of what Deathwise had said.
There wasn’t a drop of energy left in the Void Dagger.
I’d used the runes to scour it thoroughly until it was bone-dry.
The runes themselves still functioned, but with no contents, it was no different from a drained power bank.
Right now, Choco was using it to play knight all by herself.
I wondered if it was okay to let her play with an artifact...
But despite the name, the blade wasn’t sharp, it was tough as a battery and wouldn’t break, and most crucially, I’d already transferred the contents, so playing with it wouldn’t cause issues.
Choco stood proudly on the pillow, hoisting the dagger high with both paws.
The proportions were spot-on, making her look just like a hero pulling the legendary sword from the stone.
-Now then, hurry up and praise my greatness...!
“Wow, you’re amazing. A true magic sword. The best.”
-It feels soulless, but...
That was the best praise I could muster.
Of course, it was sincere, without a shred of falsehood.
Sorry you don’t believe me—I put extra heart into it.
Like an ice cream shop part-timer packing in more than the standard scoop, I pressed it down firm.
-Enough. If you get it, that’s plenty.
Anyway, moving on.
Transferring the energy stored in the Void Dagger to the magic sword was a huge deal.
As Luena had said, the energy in the Void Dagger defied imagination.
It didn’t just store energy simply; it artificially generated overlapping multidimensional layers to distribute the energy and prevent overload—a mechanism that went beyond innovation into pure revolution.
The Precursors, who saw the Void Dagger as a mere battery, couldn’t even dream of such advanced mechanics.
In fact, the stored energy wasn’t even the most important part; it was this mechanism.
If I could apply it, I could use it in battle too.
Then my half-baked daytime-weak, nighttime-strong lifestyle would finally end.
“Heh heh heh...”
How much trouble had my nighttime-only strength caused me so far!
Honestly, without Leon, Ethan, or Cain’s help, I would’ve died two or three times by now for sure.
The magic sword was powerful, no doubt, but the penalty of only being usable for half a day held me back too much.
Master this application, and I wouldn’t even need to wait for night.
Yeah, no more operating only at night and suffering sleep deprivation.
I could enjoy a solid eight hours of sleep a day and my miracle mornings...!
-You seem thrilled on your own... But you’re jumping the gun. There’s quite a bit of energy accumulated, so digesting it will take some time.
“...You confidently transferred it over, and now you say it needs digesting? How long?”
-I don’t know. It’ll take a while, I’d wager... I won’t be able to wield the absorbed energy for that time...
Without that energy, applications were impossible.
In short, I’d remain a nighttime-only powerhouse for a while longer.
My sleep schedule getting squeezed was now a given.
Ah, my brief and sweet miracle morning dreams...