The King and the Crown Prince (1)
"Terry Greenhilt. It is a profound honor to be granted an audience with Your Highness."
Terry, Anna, and even Roy dropped to one knee upon the floor, offering a vassal's formal bow to the first prince of the Steel Kingdom—Aron Steelhart, the realm's future sovereign.
Afterwards, the adults exchanged small talk for quite some time. Anna and Roy remained silent in the rear. Until the prince himself addressed them, it would have been unthinkably insolent for children to insert themselves into the conversation of their elders.
"I have heard that of late the Greenhilt domain has become a model for other territories. You cleanly eradicated the monsters that had been appearing within your borders, did you not? Was that also thanks to the weapons of this fellow called Geren?"
"Hahaha, indeed so. The mercenaries' aid was considerable, yet without those weapons we would have been sorely overmatched. As proof, in the two years immediately before the weapons began to circulate, packs of orcs raiding the farmlands inflicted heavy damage. Food production dropped sharply as well. Now, however, we have entered a period of stability; word has even reached me that they have begun, in part, the forest-clearing projects that had long been postponed."
"Oh-ho. Baron Greenhilt's skill is no ordinary thing. While other territories can barely hold the monsters at bay, you are already pressing forward with reclamation."
"It shames me to say it, but our domain is currently known as the kingdom's second-greatest granary. Should this reclamation succeed, it will provide at least a modest measure of relief to the realm's difficult food situation."
"Mm. Excellent. I shall speak to His Majesty myself and see whether there is any assistance we might offer."
"I have heard that the borders remain unsettled. Your words alone I accept with deepest gratitude."
Only after the conversation had progressed this far did Prince Aron's gaze finally settle upon Roy. Naturally the talk turned at once to Geren and the magic weapons.
"You are the disciple of that man called Geren, are you not?"
"I am, Your Highness."
"You would know more of him than anyone else."
"Of course. I can proudly say that for the past six years I have spent more time at his side than any other."
"I see. I was told he hails from a northern kingdom. Is that correct?"
"Yes. He said he came from Frost, a fallen nation at the far northern edge."
"Frost... I am certain I have heard the name before."
Roy found the prince's reaction strange. How little contact could there have been for the man merely to "have heard the name"? Even if the country had fallen, given Geren's age it had still existed in perfect health a mere twenty years earlier. For the name of an entire nation—not some obscure city—to draw only that much recognition felt slightly odd, as though the place had been too distant even to notice.
"In truth, the reason I summoned you today is that there is something I wish to ask."
"I shall answer with all my heart."
"Good. I am about to draw my sword for a moment; do not take it amiss."
Aron immediately unsheathed the blade at his hip. While the others startled, Roy's eyes lit with keen interest.
An ancient relic... and no ordinary one at that.
Terry, failing to read the room, cut in.
"My, my! What a magnificent sword, Your Highness! Even to these old eyes its worth is beyond reckoning."
"I did not draw it to boast."
"...Ahem. Forgive my presumption."
"What I wish to know is this: is that man Geren capable of crafting a weapon such as this?"
Roy answered without the slightest hesitation.
"It is impossible."
"That is not what the rumors say."
"The swords my master sells are ordinary weapons already forged by other smiths, upon which he has merely laid enchantments. Yet even to my still-unskilled eyes, the blade Your Highness holds was clearly crafted with painstaking care from the very first stage of its making."
"You are not Geren himself. You claim to know this after a single glance?"
"As his disciple I have always remained at my master's side. Whenever he fashioned a magic weapon I was there, receiving his instruction."
Roy drew a steadying breath, steeled himself, then opened his eyes wide and spoke with resolve.
"I have watched every step of the enchantment process, and I myself have now reached the point where I can roughly imitate it. I am still lacking, of course, yet even my master has acknowledged my progress."
"...!?"
Shock was plain in the prince's eyes.
"Returning to the matter at hand: to produce a weapon as fine as the one in Your Highness's grasp would demand vast time and labor, and even securing the necessary materials would be difficult. That is why I declared it impossible."
"Hold a moment. What you said just now—is it true? That you can make them as well?"
"What I can produce are the magic weapons currently sold upon the market."
"Yes, that is precisely what I mean. I am asking whether you yourself are truly capable of it!"
"If it would not be an imposition, may I bring out the items I have brought with me today?"
"What do you suddenly intend?"
"In truth, I have something to show you... Though it is still imperfect, I have brought a weapon I myself enchanted, hoping to present it to Your Highness."
Every gift Roy had carried had been confiscated at the palace gates—standard security procedure inside the royal palace. One could hardly be allowed to bring a sword into the prince's presence, least of all a razor-sharp blade already laced with magic.
When the prince gave leave, a knight of the royal guard hurried off and returned with the seized packages. A sword wrapped in the finest silk and nestled in a luxurious case was revealed at last.
That sword cost a full two hundred gold coins, you know.
Even an ordinary, unenchanted blade had run two hundred gold. Since the recipient was a prince, Roy could not simply bring any scrap of steel; he had visited the armory nearest the noble quarter and purchased their most expensive sword. Of course it was a masterpiece that fully justified its price and more. He had bought two such blades and enchanted one of them for today.
The enchantment fell a little short of the one on the sword Roy himself carried, yet when mana was poured into it a soft crimson glow still rose—respectable work by any measure.
Prince Aron drew the blade from its scabbard and at once sent his mana flowing through it. Years of wielding a relic sword had clearly made the motion second nature.
"Hoh... You made this yourself?"
"I am ashamed to admit it, but yes. To be precise, I purchased the sword and then personally laid the enchantment upon it."
"I can scarcely believe it."
The prince held Roy's gifted sword in one hand and, in the other, the relic blade he normally used. He sent mana into both in identical fashion. Naturally the relic flared with a far denser, more sinister crimson light. In actual combat the difference would be even more stark.
They are not even in the same league, yet to a novice the gift would merely seem a little inferior.
The magic Roy had placed upon the prince's gift was a time-limited array that would eventually destroy itself with prolonged use. The power sealed inside the relic, by contrast, was semi-permanent ancient magic. The mere fact that such an ancient artifact still functioned flawlessly spoke of a value on an entirely different plane.
Even so, the prince was astonished.
Of course he is.
The relic sword Aron Steelhart carried was a treasure of which only a single example existed in the entire Steel Kingdom. Comparable relics numbered only a few more, each of them priceless. No mere thousand or two thousand gold coins could ever purchase such a thing; it was a national treasure whose worth defied calculation. And yet the twelve-year-old child standing before him had produced something that could be compared to that precious treasure. Who would not be stunned?
The prince immediately ordered the guards at the entrance to strengthen their watch. He had realized that the conversation now unfolding was of incalculable value.
"You could mass-produce something identical to this, then?"
Roy quietly nodded.
"Of course. So long as the supply of materials remains smooth, any number is possible. ...Ah!? No! I cannot make them!"
"Which is it—can you or can you not!?"
At Roy's sudden reversal the prince's voice roughened.
"Forgive me. I can make them. However, that sword is so expensive I have no more money with which to buy another, and the shop that sold them has none left. What I can do is lay enchantments; I am no master smith who forges peerless blades."
Roy had presented the sword as a gift to win the prince's favor, yet he had not the slightest intention of taking a loss. On the contrary, he meant to reclaim at least double his outlay—and with that purpose a rather wicked bit of play-acting now began.
"Is that so? Hmm, it is certainly a fine blade."
The prince examined the gifted sword once more in detail. Beyond the enchantment itself, the craftsmanship of the steel was far from ordinary.
"Still, I am curious. How much did it cost to make this sword? Including the price of the blade itself."
"This sword is merely a token of my sincerity offered to Your Highness. I cannot bring myself to speak of its price."
"It is all right. Tell me."
"Your Highness. When you first asked whether I could create a sword identical to the one you showed me, I answered that it was impossible. In addition to the reasons I gave earlier, the more powerful the enchantment, the sharply higher the chance of failure. If one were to destroy a peerless blade worth over a thousand gold while attempting to enchant it, the loss would be enormous, would it not?"
In short, the stronger the magic one tried to bestow, the lower the success rate. That much was true; Roy had largely overcome the problem through mana control no ordinary person could imitate. There was, however, no need to reveal that here. Exaggerating the difficulty would only drive the market value of enchanted weapons still higher.
"That is why I am asking how much it cost."
"I was fortunate. I purchased two weapons and devoted myself to the enchantment; luckily one succeeded."
"So how much did it cost, I ask!"
"Excluding the swords themselves, fifty gold coins. Including both blades and the failed attempt, four hundred and fifty gold coins."
The prince's eyes flew wide. Even for the crown prince of a nation, the sum was enough to make him doubt his ears. It was not an amount a child of a rural baronial house could casually present as a gift.
"You... where in the world did you obtain so great a sum of money?"