Surviving is Proof of Strength (3)
Tick, tock, tick, tock!
The sharp sound of a ticking second hand scraped against my brain. In sync with that sound, the stone door in front of me slowly began to descend. It was the entrance to the treasury. This was literally a time-attack event... If I couldn't defeat these bastards—no, these bitches—in front of me in time, my access to the treasury would be permanently revoked.
"Sian, there's no need to rush, is there? Let's have a little fun before you go!"
"I said, get the hell out of my way!"
Despite my shouts, the near-naked heroines (?) clung to me even more tenaciously. Dorothy, the top student of the Magicology Department, wrapped her arms around my neck with a dreamy look in her eyes.
Of course, this was a fake. It was just a doll crafted from pink mana to look as realistic as possible. My brain understood this perfectly, but the problem was this scumbag noble's brutally honest body.
Ugh, seriously...!
And that wasn't all. To make matters worse, from inside the closing treasury, the 7-Star Sword Spirit was using telekinesis to fling swords at me from the darkness.
Swish! Whoosh! Boom!
It was enough to drive me insane. If I dodged the succubus, I'd get skewered by a sword; if I dodged the sword, the succubus would pounce on me.
The fake Iris blocked my path and spoke.
"Young Master, this is as far as you go. Please, rest now."
"Sigh..."
The fake Iris let her robes slide down her shoulders with an indifferent expression. I let out a deep sigh and muttered,
"Let's stop playing around."
With that declaration, I vigorously drew up the energy slumbering in my dantian.
Thump, thump, thump!
A hot energy began to circulate relentlessly through the blood vessels of my entire body. At the same time, I focused my consciousness into a single point.
"..."
With a sharp, tingling sensation, my blurry vision instantly cleared. The lust dominating this scumbag noble's body evaporated cleanly, leaving me in a state of absolute zen... and above all, I could see it now.
"Sian! W-what are you doing? It's not even class time, why are you focusing so..."
"Thanks for the brief eye candy, though."
Right in the center of the fake heroines' chests, the monster cores—their hearts—shimmered. The fake Iris standing in front of me flinched, seemingly intimidated. A smirk slipped past my lips.
"I'm sorry, but..."
I tightened my grip on my sword and lightly swung my arm.
"Iris would never make a face like that."
"Kyaaaah!"
Slash!
"And she'd never tell me to rest, either. If anything, she'd beat me half to death to force me to rest."
"S-Sian, wait—"
"No way!!"
A crescent wave of sword qi erupted like a flash of lightning from the tip of my blade. Starting with the fake Iris, it swept across the entire area in a devastating arc. The moment their cores shattered, the fake heroines crumbled away like illusions. Leaving the scattering particles of light behind, I didn't waste a second and sprinted toward the stone door, which was on the verge of closing completely.
Ruuuumble!
Safe.
Just before it hit the floor, I squeezed my body through the agonizingly narrow gap, barely managing to slip inside.
Raiding a treasury is a royal pain in the ass. It was only because these patterns were familiar to me, but if it had been any of the hundreds or thousands of average tomb raiders in the Empire...
Most of them probably would have found their graves right here.
In any case, Baltar's scheme didn't work on me. What mattered was that I had finally made it inside the treasury.
"Whoa."
An exclamation of awe escaped my lips. Not only were there mountains of gold coins and piles of rare, glittering gems filling the interior, but antique weapons and mysterious, mana-infused artifacts displayed on every pillar emitted a brilliant, ethereal glow.
Was this the reward for overcoming that brutal trial? Even if I had relied on my Mental Fortitude stat to get through it, as a guy who had logged ten thousand hours in Ariel, rejecting half-naked heroines throwing themselves at me... even I had to admit I was pretty impressive.
I smiled with satisfaction and turned my gaze toward a masterfully crafted sword thrust into a pile of gold coins. It was too early to celebrate just yet.
Phase three, begin.
The moment my eyes landed on the sword, it trembled violently before floating up into the air on its own.
Swoosh!
Immediately after, the blade shot toward the space between my eyebrows like a bolt of lightning.
"Tsk."
Taking a quick breath, I coated my sword with sword qi once more and swung. Upon impact, the masterwork sword couldn't withstand the force; its blade shattered like glass, raining down onto the floor.
...What a waste. A sword in this treasury must be worth at least ten gold coins.
I smacked my lips as I looked down at the shards. Well, whatever.
"As long as I finish you off quickly, no more treasures will have to be sacrificed."
"..."
Standing blankly at the far end of the treasury wall was a young girl. It was the Sword Spirit. She had pitch-black hair and dull, lifeless eyes, like a dead fish... If Iris's expressionless face was a frozen lake, this girl looked like a creature that had the very concept of emotion surgically excised.
Well, she's not human to begin with, so it makes sense she lacks humanity.
Furthermore, spirits already had weak egos, and having guarded this sealed place without any human contact, it was bound to be even worse.
Hummmm! Hummmm!
As the Sword Spirit extended her hand, dozens of weapons displayed throughout the treasury rose into the air simultaneously. Seriously, what is this, Fate's Gilgamesh?
If I don't clear this quickly, all those expensive treasures are going to turn into scrap metal.
Wiping the cold sweat trickling down my spine, I adjusted my grip on my sword.
Actually, the strategy for defeating the Sword Spirit was surprisingly simple. Unless you could suppress her, the guardian of this place, with overwhelming power, there was only one clear condition:
Silent endurance—dodging and deflecting the attacks she hurls at you.
Since this was a test of the intruder's patience and martial prowess, she was a gimmick boss where you simply had to survive until she spoke first.
At most, she'll open her mouth in ten or fifteen minutes.
I focused my gaze on the incoming weapons. Dozens of swords, spears, and axes rained down like a merciless downpour.
Clang! Clank! Whoosh!
Shrouding my blade in the bare minimum of sword qi, I deflected their trajectories and twisted my body to dodge by a hair's breadth. Thanks to the correction from my Mental Fortitude, my mana efficiency and my ability to read the trajectories of the attacks were overwhelming. Yes, that should have been the case.
"Pant... Huff, pant...?"
...Something was wrong. I mean, when the hell was she going to speak? It felt like an hour had passed. My mana pool—which belonged to a scumbag noble with such high Mental Fortitude—was on the verge of running completely dry.
After endlessly repeating these insane acrobatics and defensive maneuvers without a single moment to breathe, I deliberately leaped close to her face.
"..."
The spirit stared at me from inches away, her mouth tightly shut and her dead fish eyes devoid of any emotion.
Clang!
"...Urgh!"
I was immediately pushed back by an incoming sword, but thanks to that, I was able to confirm it.
I knew something was off!
I should have realized it the moment she blew past the timing when she should have deemed me passed and spoken to me. An alien black pattern was bulging like veins on the back of her neck, constricting her. Her ego was being suppressed by someone's magic.
I got complacent because everything had been going too perfectly until now.
Was this what they called the butterfly effect? I knew that by changing Sian's fate, there was no guarantee other things would go according to the original story... but I didn't expect an anomaly to crop up this quickly.
...Dark magic. Someone had cast dark magic on the Sword Spirit. And high-level dark magic like ego manipulation...
Can only be maintained if the caster is nearby.
The moment I reached my conclusion, I gripped my sword with both hands. With my remaining mana, I didn't have the luxury to precisely scan the vast treasury. There was only one way.
I kicked off the ground and began swinging my sword wildly.
Boom! Crash! Slash! Rumble...!
"My fucking money, goddammit!!"
At my tearful shout and bizarre behavior, the Sword Spirit's movements stiffened. Since her ego was being controlled, the one who was actually flustered had to be the caster. I continued to recklessly slam sword qi into the mountains of gold coins like a runaway train.
Clink-clank! Boom!
Tens of thousands of gold coins and treasures splattered in all directions like grains of sand caught in a hurricane, some even disintegrating into dust and scattering in the air.
"Are you over there? Or over here?!"
In an instant, the treasury became an absolute mess. Ethereal artifacts rolled across the floor, and rare statues were shattered into pieces. At first, it felt like my heart was tearing apart, but by the fourth strike, I started feeling a strange sense of catharsis. It was actually fun. Just as I was about to slice a third marble pillar clean in half—
"Now that I'm doing it, this feels kind of liberating—"
"Y-you absolute lunatic!!"
Finally unable to take it anymore, a scream erupted from behind a massive stone statue in the corner of the treasury.
"What kind of crazy bastard destroys his own family's vault?!"
"Found you at last, you rat."
Amidst the crumbling debris, a man clad in a grey robe revealed himself. But out of nowhere, he pointed a finger at me, fuming with rage.
"You... you ignorant brute! Does it make any sense to destroy your own family's treasury just to find me?!"
"It's mine anyway, so what does it matter to you if I break it or not? More importantly, you've got a lot of nerve for someone who snuck in here."
As I approached him as if I were about to slice his throat open right then and there, the robed man shrieked in terror.
"Wait! Wait a minute! It's a misunderstanding! I was just hired!"
"Hired? For what."
"To seal the Sword Spirit's ego and keep her mouth shut so you could never clear this trial!"
I froze in my tracks.
"...By whom?"
"Who else?! Your old man!"
"..."
My brain temporarily short-circuited at the man's revelation.
...He was cheap enough to hire a dark mage behind my back?
In the original game, the head of the Brace Ducal family was said to have sharp intuition. Did he worry that I might actually take that?
The robed man stamped his feet in frustration.
"The deal was that once the job was done, I could secretly take one artifact of my choice from this treasury! But you went and smashed everything! I'm completely screwed now!"
"...Uh, well."
"Not only did I fail the Duke's request, but if he finds out the treasury ended up like this, do you think he'll let me live?! My life is forfeit because of you! *Sob*..."
With a dumbfounded expression, I looked back and forth between the ruined treasury and the robed man. Hearing the whole story actually made me feel a little sorry...
...Wait a minute.
I suddenly realized that things were turning out beautifully.
Baltar hired a dark mage. Of course, dark magic was strictly illegal under imperial law, though it was common knowledge that the political elites occasionally used it for their own selfish desires. However, if this got out, it would become a fatal political scandal. Since Baltar had recently put me on a pedestal in front of ten thousand of his citizens, unless he wanted to spit in his own face, I didn't have to worry about dying a sudden death.
...Perfect.
My decision was made. A sly smirk curled up the corners of my mouth as I addressed the robed man.
"Hey."
"What! Tell the Duke to let me out of here right now—"
"Let's do a little job together."
"...?"
Father. You're the one who started this war first.