Chapter 3
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: The Silver Holy Sword
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Finally, the promised day dawned.
At the lunch table that day, no conversation took place until the end.
The sound of spoons clinking against bowls.
The slow movements of chewing and swallowing.
That was all.
Joseph and Elysia didn't look at each other as they simply moved food to their mouths.
As if they knew, without needing to say it, that this was the last moment they could spend sitting face-to-face like this.
Sadness, anger—emotions that seemed irreversible if spoken aloud—were all swallowed deep in their throats.
Rather, it was the servants present who shed tears.
The maids standing at the edge of the table, heads bowed carefully.
The knights clenching their fists and holding their breaths.
"What are we going to do...?"
"I can't bear to watch...!"
Even their whispers were kept deathly low, lest they echo too loudly.
When the meal ended, Joseph rose from his seat first.
The sound of the chair scraping back rang out unusually loud, and at that noise, Elysia's shoulders trembled faintly for a moment.
Then Elysia stood as well, without a word.
Without even wiping the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes.
The father and daughter walked side by side toward the castle's central garden.
To greet the guest who would soon arrive—an existence too cruel to call a welcome.
"...Come to think of it, it's been ages since you and I last walked through the garden like this."
A moment of silence passed before Joseph spoke first.
"...Yes."
Elysia nodded cautiously.
"Ever since Mother passed... we've both been so busy."
Joseph gave no reply.
He slowed his pace, glanced once at Elysia's profile, then lifted his gaze to the sky.
Clouds drifted lazily by.
When he closed his eyes, a memory overlapped in his mind.
A time when this garden had been smaller.
Himself, young Elysia, and his wife who had still been by their side.
Fiona, queen of the Valenhardt Duchy.
A benevolent sovereign to her people, always filling the family with smiles.
Yet her frail body had ultimately failed to hold on.
After she departed, the garden remained unchanged, but those who walked it had not.
To fill the void left by the queen, Joseph grew busier as Duke, while Elysia had to mature faster as the family's eldest daughter.
In the end, the time for father and daughter to walk side by side like this had vanished long ago.
And now, it might never return.
"Back then..."
Joseph murmured lowly.
"You were such a little girl."
His hand paused unconsciously in midair.
As if realizing he could no longer reach to stroke her hair like before.
"You've become a proper lady before I knew it."
"...Father."
Elysia's voice quivered slightly.
Joseph bowed his head.
His face was that of a man finally letting something long suppressed spill forth.
"Elysia."
He paused for a moment.
Uncharacteristically hesitant for a duke who had rendered countless decisions.
"...I still can't accept it."
A curt denial.
"Whether the people call me a wise ruler or the Empire hails me as a loyal servant—"
Joseph's voice grew quieter.
"You're the last family I have left... and I don't want to lose you!"
Those were not the words of a duke.
They were a father's rawest admission of defeat.
"The dragons will descend into this garden soon."
His tone was soft, but steady.
"But I have no intention of handing you over to them, Elysia."
"...What?"
Elysia's eyes flew wide.
"Father, then what in the world—"
"I refuse."
He cut her off without a hint of doubt.
"You are the princess of the Valenhardt Duchy. Not a bargaining chip. Not a token of reconciliation."
He halted and faced her squarely.
"If they won't withdraw, I'll sever the heads of the envoys coming here."
Elysia's breath caught.
"Ah, Father...!"
"And if that ignites war."
Joseph's gaze turned northward to the sky.
"This time, I'll stand at the vanguard myself."
The resolve in his words was unmistakable. No bluff, no empty threat.
A man who had once lost his family.
The vow of a father determined never to repeat that choice.
"Let the people brand me a tyrant. Let history paint me as a blood-soaked duke. I don't care."
Joseph's fist clenched tight.
"This time... I refuse to go down as a lord who failed to protect his kin."
In that instant.
The garden air subtly fractured.
"Pfft."
A light laugh.
Yet brimming with scorn.
"A puny human, talking of fighting us?"
Another voice layered atop it.
"Where'd this mayfly scum scrounge up the guts?"
Elysia and Joseph snapped their heads up in unison.
Far across the sky.
Two shadows slicing through the clouds as they descended.
Human in shape, but no human were they.
Vast wings unfurled from their backs.
Scales devouring light.
Horns rending foreheads, pupils slit vertically like slits.
Dragons.
More precisely, two dragons cloaked in human guise, hovering motionless above the garden.
Their eyes raked over the father and daughter in the center like appraisers eyeing livestock—walls and knights beneath notice.
"So that's the human duke."
"Smaller than expected."
Tittering snickers.
That laughter alone flash-froze the garden.
"No need for chit-chat."
One dragon cocked its head.
"Hand over the princess. As agreed."
Joseph took a bold step forward.
Hand resting on his waist, he glared upward.
Fear was there.
But no yielding.
"Begone."
The duke's voice was quiet.
But laced with iron will.
"Valenhardt endures."
At that, the dragons erupted in synchronized laughter, as if rehearsed.
Low. Prolonged. Derisive.
And languidly.
As if gracing the earth with their step was mercy enough, they descended into the garden.
The instant massive talons met stone.
"How dare you!"
Joseph's roar detonated.
"By whose leave do you tread Valenhardt soil?!"
Mana erupted from the hand at his waist like a wild boil-over.
Unlike Elysia, Joseph yet bore the hero's lineage—immature, but real.
The moment his hand cleared the sheath, crimson radiance exploded.
Flaming mana coalesced, forging a blade.
Holy Sword.
Flawed, yet unmistakably infused with the hero's echo—that which had slain dragons beyond count long ago.
"Hoo."
One dragon narrowed its eyes.
"That the legendary Holy Sword we've heard tell of?"
"Eyes front."
Joseph was already in motion.
Ground exploding beneath him, a red arc thrust skyward.
Air rent asunder.
The sword's tip lanced dead for the dragon's heart.
Swift.
By mortal measure, blisteringly so.
Yet.
Thok.
Dully improbable thud.
Joseph's eyes bulged.
The dragon's hand.
Nay, two fingers pincered the blade firm.
"...What?"
Power's surge severed clean.
"Sigh."
The dragon exhaled wearily.
"Had hopes for the famed Holy Sword."
Strength coiled slow into the vise grip.
"Mayfly through and through."
Screeeeech—!
Metal wailed.
Mana-clad steel buckled, fissured, shattered under raw might.
Crimson gleam dispersed to nothing in the void.
"Guh?!"
Joseph's frame launched airborne.
The dragon's foot had idly booted his gut.
Crash—!!
The duke's body rolled and skidded across garden stone.
A cry tore from Elysia's throat.
"Father—!"
The dragon flicked dust from its foot, peering down at the crumpled man.
"This the might of one braced for war?"
Ice-cold disdain.
Then all crystallized clear.
This was no contest.
Merely a spectacle trampling Valenhardt's final stand before their eyes.
"Ah, Father...!"
Elysia lurched toward him, stumbling.
"Someone—fetch the physician! Hurry... bring him now!"
"Y-yes, Lady!"
But no quarter given even for that.
Elysia's wrist snapped in an iron vise.
Body wrenched back, knees slamming stone.
"Nngh...!"
"Easy now, where to?"
Marina—the red-scaled dragonkin who'd punted Joseph—sighed irritably.
"You're with us now. You're the star of the show."
"Marina~."
Silpi, her blue-scaled kin, giggled as she cut in.
"Don't rough her up. Can't have the bride all scratched up, can we?"
Feigned caution, mockery writ large on her face.
Elysia ground her teeth.
Not grievance. Not terror.
Pure rage.
Blood seeped slow from mangled lip.
'If only I...'
Her gaze flicked to her fallen father.
'If only I had the power to summon a Holy Sword...!'
Then.
At the least, she wouldn't stand idle as everything was stripped away.
Golden irises quaked, snapping forward.
Two dragonkin looming over her.
Clasped in their talons, she was no noble, no princess—just chattel.
"Marina, careful now~."
Silpi tittered.
"What if the princess skewers you with her Holy Sword?"
"Pfft."
Marina scoffed.
"Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows this girl's got no Holy Sword."
Indeed.
First in Valenhardt annals to fail the summons.
Powerless as kin crumpled, house crushed—
"That's why I am what I am."
Still, just once—even once—
Elysia shut her eyes and beseeched for the first time.
"Please..."
Hand empty as she knew it to be, instinct flung it forth.
"Come out...!"
Voice cracking, she wrung the final plea.
"My Holy Sword!"
And.
KABOOM——!!
The world-cleaving peal thundered.
"...Huh?"
Silpi's eyes ballooned.
"M-Marina?!"
High overhead.
No prelude—a silver bolt plunged.
No lightning. No rune-circle.
Simply plummeted.
And cleaved.
Marina sundered pristine, halves splaying apart unresisted.
Gore painted the garden.
Draconic scales, archmage wards, vaunted flesh—all for naught.
Hush.
Silpi stood, face a mask of disbelief.
There, at Elysia's feet—a sword impaled.
Silver luster dwarfing her father's. Mana hyperdense. Form flawlessly honed, breath-stealing.
And hilt-bound, absurdly—a scrap of parchment.
Trembling fingers claimed it.
Brevity itself.
Hand firm and true.
『To Lady Elysia. Your Holy Sword, forged by your devoted butler. Wield it well. — Kim Jinwoo』
"...Jinwoo?"
Elysia's eyes wavered.
The instant his name passed her lips, the silver sword hummed soft.