I Want to Speak (6)
We had planned to stop by the Magic Tower first, but circumstances shifted.
I accompanied them all the way to the temple without delay. Awkwardness be damned—I had to see what had become of my dragon corpse!
“This is……”
What greeted me in the end was a heap of countless scale fragments and horns.
“Though it was only a quarter share, the Magic Tower and the city lord coveted the eyes and flesh, so we mainly secured the horns and scales.”
The Archmage explained why only horns and scales remained.
That hardly mattered. I had no idea what uses eyes or flesh might have, but if we were forging weapons, this was the better portion. The Archmage seemed to have considered exactly that when dividing the spoils.
The real problem, however, was something else entirely.
“The color’s changed?”
“They’ve turned transparent……”
The dragon corpse I had hauled up from the sea floor had originally been a murky, dull shade overall. Anyone looking at it would have thought of pollution, corruption, impurity.
Yet what lay before us now had shifted in hue, just as the two dumplings said, and grown somewhat translucent. Not glass-clear, of course, but a pure, luminous color that came close.
“I’ve seen this shade somewhere before……”
“It looks like the original color the Sea Dragon bore.”
“Ah! You’re right! The Archmage is correct. Unlike the dragon we killed, the Sea Dragon that aided us had exactly this lovely hue.”
“It does seem that way…… but why would it suddenly change into this state?”
“That…… I have no guess yet. We’ll need to investigate.”
The jewel-bright, crystalline blue was undeniably beautiful. Still, I couldn’t fathom why the color had altered during storage—or why, of all things, it had turned such a radiant shade.
The dark blue-green had at least been grounded in black and thus tolerable. This piercing azure simply did not match my palette!
“Still, it’s a relief. I was imagining someone had stolen it or ruined it somehow.”
“Do you think the temple would store it carelessly!”
No. It was not a relief. The color palette was wrong. Completely wrong.
I muttered an inexpressible despair under my breath and blankly reached for a scale. Sizzle. Smoke rose as if my hand had touched acid, and my flesh began to burn.
“……!”
I yanked my hand back at once. The glove had saved my palm, yet faint burn marks already marked my fingers.
“What—!”
“Are you all right?!”
I withdrew the injured hand and glared at the scale. The fragment that had scorched me merely exhaled a faint wisp of steam-like smoke, utterly unharmed.
“What in the world……”
Even the Archmage, called the Great Sage, had not foreseen this. She widened her sky-blue eyes and stepped toward me.
“Could it be?”
She glanced from the wound on my hand to the scale, then snatched up a fragment without a moment’s hesitation—even after watching my skin burn.
“Archmage!”
“Eek, Mage-nim?!”
Yet her hand remained unharmed. The blue scale simply rested quietly amid the white fur.
“You try touching it as well for a moment. If my thought is correct, you will come to no harm.”
“Y-yes……”
At the Archmage’s request, Dev also touched it. He seemed a touch nervous, merely prodding with one fingertip, yet nothing of the sort I had experienced occurred.
Reassured, he took the fragment properly and turned it over in his fingers.
“It’s fine……?”
“Just what is going on? Why only the Demon Knight……”
Last of all, the Inquisitor touched the scale and likewise remained unharmed. So only I had been burned.
My heart took the wound. Why only me……?
“It seems to be because of the Demon Energy.”
The Archmage soothed me. In that brief span she had already finished her reasoning; the words flowed smoothly.
“To Ancient Beasts such as the Sea Dragon, impurity is poison itself. Thus they possess the power to reject it—much like Holy Power.”
“Wait—then that means……”
“But the dragon we slew had been corrupted by impurity. That is why there was no reaction when the Demon Knight touched it.”
She lifted a hand to silence Dev for a moment, then continued her final deduction.
“Yet…… if, while the temple stored the remains, the impurity that had settled into the corpse was slowly purified—if it thereby regained its power to reject impurity—what then? In that case both the scales recovering their proper color and the fact that only the Demon Knight was harmed would be roughly explained.”
There was no hard proof, yet the conjecture fit the circumstances perfectly. In the blink of an eye I had been rejected even by a crafting material.
“…So that was it. I understand.”
Hold on. What did this mean going forward? If the material itself was incompatible with me…… then any weapon or item forged from it would also be incompatible, wouldn’t it?
“…I once touched the uncorrupted Sea Dragon as well. If it possesses the power to reject impurity, why was I unharmed then?”
I clung to every possible loophole. Color mismatch could be fixed with paint, but if the item itself rejected me, I would never be able to use it at all.
I refused to accept that. I wanted equipment made from dragon scales!
“That, I presume, is because the Sea Dragon accepted you. It is the same principle by which you take no harm when you come into contact with the Inquisitor.”
But the truth the Archmage laid bare was merciless.
“Byproducts, however, possess no mind with which to direct the power. They therefore emit it constantly…… and that is why you suffered.”
The analogy was so apt I could not even pretend not to understand.
After listening to every word, I looked down at the scale with a heavy heart. The color was wrong, and merely handling it inflicted damage. Sorrow surged over me like a tide.
All that suffering, and the only reward was a material I could not even use. After a full month of hardship, this was what I had gained—something I myself could never wield!!
“I-I’m so sorry, Demon Knight. If only I hadn’t suggested leaving it with the temple……”
“It is not the Inquisitor’s fault. Who could have foreseen such a thing?”
Kimchi Dumpling watched my face with anxious care. Dev seemed of the same mind and kept silent. That only made the sorrow cut deeper.
The loss of my precious material hit with painful clarity.
“……”
No. No. Even a rat-hole has days when sunlight reaches it. Wasn’t this actually an opportunity? If it was incompatible with me, that meant it was also incompatible with demons.
Used properly, couldn’t this become a weapon highly effective against them? If I simply made the hilt from another material, I could still grip it! I almost never touched the blade itself anyway!
Hope flickered for a moment. In short: discard the idea of armor and forge just one weapon.
“If we fashioned a weapon from this, do you believe it would prove effective against demons?”
“…Effective beyond question.”
Then we would make only one! Just a single sword! The blue could be painted over!
“But…… if you yourself intend to wield it, would that not be somewhat difficult?”
Why?!
“Setting all else aside, the moment you pour power into it the chance of the repulsion causing an explosion would be considerable.”
…God is dead!!
The Inquisitor fretted under a tide of guilt and self-reproach. They could have entrusted the remains to the Adventurers’ Guild, yet she had been the one to insist on the temple for the sake of security.
That choice had now turned poisonous.
At this point she almost wished it had simply been stolen. At least theft could be remedied; this could not.
“If we research further…… we might be able to corrupt it artificially.”
“……! Is such a thing possible?”
“It would not be especially difficult.”
Deliberately creating impurity and inducing corruption. She frowned reflexively, then smoothed her expression as she watched the Demon Knight gazing quietly at the scales.
Impurity was something that must be purified…… corruption something that must never be forgiven……
Yet the owner of that dragon corpse was the Demon Knight himself. She had no right to stop him from making the material usable for his own purposes.
Especially when the impurity and corruption would not harm others, but would be employed by him to save others.
The visceral revulsion remained, of course, but it could not be helped.
“Our noble priestess seems to dislike the idea, doesn’t she?”
“I-I never said that……! I just feel a little uneasy that such a method even exists……!”
She hadn’t said a word, so why was that slippery rogue picking a fight again!
She clenched her teeth and glared at the thief. The sword the Demon Knight had given him dangled at his waist. That only made her more irritated!
She wasn’t sure of the reason herself…… but ever since he had proudly shown it off, claiming the Demon Knight had recognized him, just looking at his face made her want to scream.
“You……!”
At that moment the Archmage cried out in shock. The Inquisitor’s head snapped around on pure reflex.
Sizzle.
The Demon Knight was gripping a scale again, burns be damned.
“Sir!”
“Demon Knight!”
“Have you lost your mind?”
They called out in alarm, yet he did not release the scale. Instead he drew mana into his hand. The Demon Energy that normally stayed confined to his right arm mixed with the mana and flowed down his left.
Sizzle—!
The clash between the scale and the surging black energy intensified.
Crack!
At last the fragment shattered into pieces that flew in every direction.
His fingers, melted an angry red, and the glove riddled with holes came into view.
“This won’t work.”
The injury looked severe at a glance, yet the Demon Knight’s expression remained calm. If anything he stared dryly at the scattered shards, as though calculating something.
“Th-there was no need to test it so brutally. Give me your hand.”
“Not yet.”
With the same injured hand he seized another scale.
“Sir!!”
“Y-your hand will be ruined!”
“Catch.”
Fortunately he did not hold it long. The scale left his fingers, arced through the air, and landed in her palm.
“Channel Holy Power into it.”
“Pardon?”
The order was abrupt, yet the Inquisitor obeyed before she could think. When the Demon Knight issued instructions, the situation was usually urgent; the response was pure reflex.
“……!”
The Holy Power she poured in blazed far brighter than expected.
It rivaled shields or maces forged from star-metal. It was compatible with Holy Power—no, it seemed to amplify it.
Though the amount of power it accepted was a little less than those metals.
“How is it?”
“Th-the Holy Power is being amplified.”
She reported the sensation without omitting a single detail. The Demon Knight, who still refused to give his hand to the Archmage, listened quietly, then reached toward someone else.
Toward the slippery rogue.
“Ah!”
The thief hesitated a moment over the outstretched hand, then drew the sword at his waist and offered it.
“S-sir, you really should treat that wound first.”
For the first time she wanted to agree with the thief, yet the Demon Knight remained the same as always. He calmly accepted the blade with his left hand and poured mana into it.
The mana settled into the sword, but she felt no particular strengthening.
“…That side is more efficient, then.”
After a soft murmur the sword returned to the thief. Next he drew the dagger he always kept inside his coat.
Clang!
The mana-wreathed dagger struck the scale and snapped. In return the scale cracked, though it did not fully split.
He cast the broken dagger aside onto the floor.
“Make it into armor. Then it will still be of use.”
“Pardon?”
The Inquisitor fell into momentary confusion at the Demon Knight’s words. She understood he had been testing something, yet the conclusion—armor—struck her as absurd.
Even setting the suddenness aside, she doubted it was possible. Quantity was one issue; even if it could be made, the Demon Knight himself would never be able to wear it.
He…… carried impurity within his body, after all.
“…You, don’t tell me?”
Unlike her, the Archmage seemed to have grasped something. The Inquisitor urgently questioned her with her eyes.
The Demon Knight’s thoughts always exceeded her imagination; she could never discern his intent alone.
“You intend to give it to the Inquisitor?”
Hearing another’s deduction did not mean she immediately understood it either.
I forced down the urge to weep and stared at my left hand. If I kept insisting I would handle that material while looking like this, I would simply be an idiot.
“Make it into armor. Then it will still be of use.”
So what choice did I have? I could only pass it to someone who could use it better than I.
“You intend to give it to the Inquisitor?”
“Wha—? Y-you’re giving it to me?!”
I recited the lyrics of the Green Mountain Song under my breath while watching Kimchi Dumpling’s reaction, which was far more enthusiastic than Meat Dumpling’s.
Even so, the bitter ache in my chest did not ease easily. With Dev there had at least been the alternative of forging another piece from materials left on the mainland; here there was none.
“W-why……?”
Yet clinging to it myself for that reason would be even more foolish.
I could not draw one hundred percent of the power from a weapon made of this material. Being unable to pour skill or mana into it meant exactly that.
The Inquisitor, by contrast, was perfectly compatible. The fact that it amplified Holy Power already said everything.
This material belonged with the Inquisitor.
“…You truly mean to give it to her.”
Who else would I give it to, then?
Even if I corrupted it and used it myself, I had just proven that the efficiency would never match hers.
I recalled the moment I had poured mana into the sword I had handed Dev. The blade had accepted the mana smoothly enough, yet it had not amplified it.
In efficiency, the Inquisitor won by a landslide.
Of course, even with lower efficiency I still had the option of using it myself. But would my concept ever welcome artificial corruption?
“If that weak body of hers wears it, at least it will get in the way less.”
Moreover…… let’s be honest. From the moment I cleaved a dragon with an ordinary iron sword, weapons had lost their meaning for me.
Whether you deal ten damage or a hundred to a mob with ten health, the result is the same. Chasing specs was merely a gamer’s craving.
The Inquisitor was different. She was the sort who sometimes walked around without her armor because of the weight.
As someone who fought through steady endurance rather than explosive damage like mine, that was a fatal penalty.
Yet this material was lighter than iron. Armor forged from it would mean she no longer needed to go without. Naturally the equipment penalty would lessen as well.
And from the way it amplifies, if the Inquisitor wears this, restraining me when I go berserk will become considerably easier……
At this point, investing in her was clearly the correct choice.
“You……”
“Ah, Demon Knight……”
“Sir Knight……”
It was correct……
“Very well. If that is your will, it must be respected.”
“Th-thank you! I-I don’t know if I deserve something like this, but I’ll work even harder!”
“Sir’s surprisingly generous, huh.”
…I wouldn’t reverse the decision I had already made, but damn it, I still felt wronged!
My dragon-scale sword!!