Radiance
Radiance
Thud.
Crowell's body hit the ground.
It twitched once in its death throes. To anyone watching, the outcome was unmistakable.
"H-he's deeeaaad?!"
Annette, who had been hanging back, gasped in horror. "Why? Why did he die?"
She simply couldn't understand it. How on earth had Caric won?
"I was faster."
"But you said you couldn't use aura?"
"I was faster anyway, wasn't I?"
Had he really been faster than Crowell with his aura activated? Even more, Caric had toyed with the man like a plaything from start to finish — all while spouting the most vicious mockery imaginable.
Caric's utterly unhinged trash talk was enough to make even Annette, an imperial princess, feel faintly dizzy.
Count Crowell... died just like that?
Who was Crowell, after all? The First Prince's hunting hound. The vanguard of the Purge. The royal butcher who had personally taken the heads of princes. A sadistic killer within arm's reach of Sword Master.
And now he's nothing more than one of Caric's meals...?
The Caric-is-a-cannibal theory raised its head in Annette's mind once again. Nothing else made any sense.
"What do you think? Option three isn't bad, right?"
Caric grinned. Annette nodded vigorously without hesitation. "Yes! Yes! From now on I'll consider Option Three first!"
"No, that defeats the point of it being Option Three. You consider a reverse charge and 'persuasion' first."
"Reverse charge?"
Ah, he means running away. Annette roughly followed along.
"That was a tough opponent, though," Caric went on. "Tried to end it quick and got myself cut for it."
He examined his left shoulder — the spot Crowell's final strike had caught. Blood was seeping through his leather armor.
"Ahh!" Annette's rabbit eyes went wide with alarm. "Right! What do we do? You were cut by aura!"
She was on the verge of tears, fussing about in a panic.
"Just spit on it and it'll heal."
But mid-sentence, Caric changed his mind. Another plan had occurred to him — it was time to test Annette's awakening.
"—is what I'd say, but it hurts so much! Annette! This is an emergency!"
Caric's dramatic about-face didn't surprise her in the least. Honestly, being fine after taking an aura blade was the strange part.
So he really has been holding back all along!
"I'll go get the medicine! Where is it?"
"Over there! Right by the door!"
Annette scrambled toward the door — but all that stood there was the doorstop.
"W-where is it?" She couldn't find it anywhere.
"That one! Right in front of you!"
"All I see is the doorstop!"
Annette berated herself. Her benefactor was bleeding out, and she couldn't even find one stupid object, useless as trash.
"Yes, that one! Bring me the doorstop!"
"...Huh?"
"The doorstop!"
"I'll get it!"
It made absolutely no sense to her, but Annette decided to obey. Heaving and huffing, she hauled the doorstop over.
In the meantime, Caric had collapsed into the snow, putting on a spectacular performance of kicking his legs. "Nnngh! Annette! Save me!"
"Caric..."
Annette's eyes grew misty. It was the gaze of someone genuinely worried for him — she seemed utterly incapable of imagining that Caric would ever fake something like this.
Whoa. She's actually buying this?
A pang of guilt stabbed at Caric's chest. Anyone watching would have called him an absolute piece of garbage. But it was all for the greater good.
"You can't die."
"If anyone can save me, it's you," Caric said, his voice hard and steady. "That stone carries a naturally occurring healing energy."
"This...?"
Annette asked in disbelief. Well, of course she did — it was the thing she'd been using as a doorstop. Even if it was a bit pale, and large, and glowing.
But this part was actually true.
That's what the original-novel notes said, anyway.
It was an item Annette had farmed in the Demon Realm in the late story — apparently a remnant of the founding Emperor's battle against the Evil God's fragment in the Demon Realm. Caric, for his part, had just picked it up because it was pretty and only ever used it as a doorstop.
"You know how to use magic, don't you? Imagine moving the stone's energy into my wound."
"I, I..."
"You can do it."
Caric spoke with a stiff, unshakable certainty — a voice carrying one hundred percent pure belief. Naturally so. Annette was the original novel's certified super-genius. The only reason she'd never awakened before was a matter of mentality, and that problem had already been solved.
From Annette's side, though, it looked very different.
"You can do it. I believe in you."
At those words, said once more, resolve flooded into Annette's eyes.
Caric believes in me.
This was the first time in her life that anyone had believed in her this completely. If she failed, Caric might end up crippled for life!
I have to do this.
Annette closed her eyes and drew up her mana. In that instant, she displayed a focus so intense it was almost frightening. The wellspring of all magic was belief — a wholehearted conviction that she could work a miracle, that she could bend reality itself. And right now, there was not a single tremor in Annette's heart. She had cast off the self-doubt that once gnawed at her. There was only one thought left: I will do this.
Fwooooosh!
White light burst from Annette's hands. It began as energy drawn from the stone, but soon she realized something — she could wield this light herself. No, it was easier to control than any other magic she had ever touched.
Fwoooaaash!
Lost in a trance, Annette poured the light down over Caric.
What in the hell is this.
Caric, the target of it all, was profoundly bewildered. His wound had healed the instant Radiance manifested — and yet Annette's energy kept pouring in without end. Then it began to purify his body. The accumulated residue of the Demon Realm that had built up without his knowing was washed away, layer by layer.
So this is the rom-fantasy heroine's purification-amplification power, huh.
Receiving a buff for the first time in his life, Caric felt like he'd ascended to Super Saiyan. He half expected to fire off an energy blast on the spot.
The light shower ended quickly, though — Annette's concentration had simply bottomed out.
"Huh?"
The world seemed to spin before her eyes. She began to slump where she sat, and Caric caught her. First time using the ability, so she probably hadn't gotten the hang of controlling it yet.
"What just happened? I..."
"You did well. You saved my life."
"R-really?"
"Congratulations on your awakening. You're an S-rank healer now too."
"Is that... a good thing?"
"It is."
"What a relief."
Annette blinked slowly, and Caric could see the signs of her passing out from mana exhaustion yet again. Her voice came out hazy and faint.
"Then, Caric..."
"What is it."
Annette looked up at him. "I'm... useful now, aren't I?"
It was a question he hadn't expected. "..."
But before he could answer, she passed out.
Caric looked down at her in silence for a while.
Useful, she says. Was she still thinking about things like that? The image of her, over and over, trying so hard to be helpful, drifted through his mind.
"You don't have to think like that anymore. You're a super-genius."
That was what he told the sleeping Annette. And somehow, she seemed to smile faintly in her sleep.
After he'd laid Annette down on the bed, Caric got down to looting.
Any rare drops?
He searched the place top to bottom, and the haul was respectable. First off, the imperial-issue armaments Crowell had been using.
"Wow. He was hoarding this stuff all to himself, huh."
Nothing he'd owned until now even compared. If these clashed head-on with Demon Realm weapons, the Demon Realm gear's edges would chip right off.
Still, fitting for that snake's taste — it's all slimy little things.
A one-handed sword thin as a skewer, and a set of dainty throwing daggers. He'd carry them for now, but they weren't to Caric's taste. This gave him yet another reason to visit the Empire. He'd have to go and get himself one proper, meaty axe.
Conveniently, his traveling funds had also skyrocketed. Crowell, the clever little miser, had owned a subspace pouch — absolutely stuffed to the brim with gold coins. Caric felt a warm sense of security. He didn't know much, but he figured he could live very large once he reached the Empire.
Of course, the single greatest prize was the subspace pouch itself — a piece of fantasy civilization he couldn't have even imagined beyond the Great Wall. Thanks to it, he could store Crowell's entire corpse in one piece, and pack away unlimited supplies for the trip to the Empire.
Got to take the shaman granny's cursed skulls too.
Caric emptied the pouch out completely, and three more items tumbled loose. First was the master-class acceleration secret manual of House Crowell — the man had apparently been still learning it, which was why he'd carried it on his person.
Lucky me. I'll give it a try once I learn aura.
The remaining two were closer to evidence. One was a bundle of encrypted documents. Naturally, he couldn't read a word of it, but it was probably dirt on various nobles. If the cipher were ever cracked, it would be useful in a dozen different ways.
The other was a compass — a tracking-type magic tool, by the look of it. When he tested it, the needle kept pointing straight at Annette. Rock-solid proof of an assassination plot.
But it wouldn't be enough to bring the First Prince down on the spot. Lucien would cut his losses the moment it surfaced. If Annette had had even a modest power base, they might have been able to drag it out and press the attack, but...
Whatever. That's a problem for after we actually reach the Empire.
Caric filed the situation away at that point. Finally, after confirming that corpses wouldn't rot inside the subspace, he smiled in satisfaction. He'd never looted this richly in his life.
The Empire must be crawling with guys like this.
His heart was already starting to pound.
Caric and Annette stayed hidden at the shelter for a few more days — mostly to get a handle on her abilities and to train.
"Caric! Look at this!"
Annette made light sparkle out of her palm with a cheerful twinkle. She looked like a kid who'd just gotten a magical-girl toy and lost her mind over it. But the results were nothing a toy could ever compare to.
Sssssaaaah.
The cursed magic sword in storage — the thing that had refused to submit even when half-destroyed — let out a scream and was purified on the spot.
And its embedded magic hadn't been weakened at all. On the contrary, the sword's ego — a layer of impurity squatting inside it — had been scrubbed away, and its function improved.
Fittingly broken for a rom-fantasy heroine, isn't she.
The power called Radiance was once the lost sacred authority of the imperial bloodline. Its effect was simple: it purified anything, healed anything, and amplified anything. Applied to fire, it raised the heat; applied to ice, it intensified the cold. And the energy it consumed was exactly the same in every case! A fantasy cheat that no primitive discipline like physics could ever explain. It automatically read the wielder's intent and set the direction of amplification as a baseline feature.
That said, this magic sword would still chip the moment it crossed blades with Crowell's.
That was simply the limitation of Demon Realm weaponry. What mattered right now was Annette's ability.
Annette turned to look at Caric, her eyes a mixture of nervousness and hope. Caric gave her a slow, solid nod.
"Brilliant."
Her face lit up. She'd heard it often enough by now to know the word was a compliment.
"Really?"
"Output, control, precision. You've improved on every front."
"Hehe."
"I'm convinced. You really are a super-genius girl."
Annette blushed and fidgeted, embarrassed.
"But don't get cocky — keep pushing yourself from here on!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
"Good. Then it's time."
Caric took out the shaman-cursed skull and held it out. "Let's give Wilson Two the gift of life."
Annette released her Radiance, and the warding spell bound into the wolf skull grew stronger.
"Excellent."
The two of them stepped outside the shelter. In the yard stood a snowman the size of a person — built together by Caric and Annette just last night. It was still unfinished, though; there was an empty gap where its head should be.
Caric slotted the wolf skull neatly into that gap. This was the reason Crowell had gone and smashed an innocent snowman — it had been the medium for the warding spell.
Annette hurriedly scooped up snow and began packing it into place to complete the body. Before long, she was patting the snow down and turned to look at Caric. He handed her a stone, some twigs, and a carrot, and she finished the snowman's face.
"Looks good. Let's go."
Caric checked the subspace pouch at his chest and started walking, long strides carrying him ahead. Before following, Annette spoke to the snowman one last time.
"Wilson Two, guard the house until we come back."
Hmmm-mm.
Must have been the sunlight. For an instant, the snowman's eyes seemed to glimmer.
Annette decided it was her imagination and started walking. Caric was already a good distance ahead. When she finally caught up, she asked:
"By the way, Caric — how will we get to the Great Wall?"
"The Barbarian way, obviously."
Caric pointed into the distance — toward a direction where a monster the size of a house was prowling.
"We 'persuade' ourselves a mount."