Proving Worth (9)
By the time Cecil stirred from his long slumber, daylight had already flooded the world outside.
He winced against the sunlight streaming through the window as he rose, and it was then that he realized just how thoroughly wrecked his body was.
What on earth happened to me? Pressing a hand to his forehead, he cast his memory back, and the events of yesterday came flooding in.
Entering the dungeon to clear it.
Emerging outside, only to fall hook, line, and sinker for Lucy Aln's taunts.
Swallowed whole by rage, casting honor and duty alike to the wind, throwing himself at her with a single obsession: to bring down Lucy Aln.
And then being toyed with, utterly and miserably — until he had reached the state of nothingness.
"Prince Cecil."
At the voice beside him, he turned his head to find an elderly gentleman standing there.
This was the man who had beaten the fundamentals of the sword into Cecil as a boy — and who, on behalf of Duke Bedford's household, handled the family's various unsavory affairs.
"Nabil."
Though he answered to countless names, to Cecil he was simply Nabil, the gentleman who pressed a fedora to his chest and offered a courteous bow.
"What brings you here?"
"The Queen Consort sent me. She has words she wishes conveyed to you."
The moment Cecil saw Nabil's easy smile, he had a fair idea of what was about to be relayed.
"Shall you hear it now?"
"Yes."
As Cecil nodded, Nabil's lips parted.
What emerged from his mouth was not the polite old man's voice that had filled the room mere moments ago.
It was a woman's voice — sharp, and brittle enough to tear — the voice of the Second Queen, his own mother, the voice Cecil had heard every single day of his childhood.
"O foolish and dull-witted Prince. You have botched matters yet again."
Foolish and dull-witted, is it. Nabil's softened the language. The actual phrasing would have been considerably more vicious.
"Unable to earn so much as a shred of goodwill from the Lady of House Aln, you pick a quarrel with her, resort to a filthy trick, and then — after a humiliating rout — you launch a sneak attack. However do you manage to be this incompetent? Frankly, the Doll would serve better in your place."
The condemnations poured forth from Nabil's mouth without pause, just as they had since Cecil was a boy.
Cecil listened in silence, as he always did — and then he noticed something strange about himself. He was taking the rebuke far too calmly.
It was true that Cecil had long since grown accustomed to such venom. And yet his mother's rebukes had always carved sorrow and fury into his heart.
Not today. Amid all the poison, his heart remained serene.
Have my emotions simply vanished?
No. Look at last evening, when I heard Lucy Aln's taunts. That blazing rage was unmistakably real.
Even now, merely recalling that moment sent heat rushing to his head — proof enough that his feelings had not deserted him. So why?
...Don't tell me.
Compared to her sneering, Mother's mockery is nothing at all? Has my head — has my heart — already passed that judgment?
The thought struck him as so absurd that a hollow laugh escaped his lips.
"Do you understand, Prince? You possess not one shred of talent beyond swinging a sword. Go hone your blade in quiet, then. It is the only use you have."
With those words closing the matter, Nabil cleared his throat and returned to his own voice.
"Well, then. I would advise devoting yourself to your training for the time being."
"Yes. Understood."
"What follows is merely my own opinion, but I confess I was quite astonished. To think you succeeded in imbuing your strikes with mana."
There was no lie in what Nabil said.
It was certainly true that Cecil possessed exceptional martial talent — but infusing mana into one's blows was a feat that transcended talent altogether.
So extraordinary was it that even the Second Queen, who had offered him nothing but barbs his whole life, deigned to acknowledge at least this one thing.
"Then what use is it, when I lost?"
Cecil was hardly ignorant of what he had achieved within that state of nothingness. He had lived his entire life as a swordsman; how could he fail to grasp the magnitude of it?
And yet his reaction remained lukewarm, because what had arrived at the end of his miracle was defeat.
Lucy Aln. The heir to the blood of the hero Benedict Aln. The monster who had, in barely half a year, risen onto the continent's ranks of the divine. With her shield alone, she had swatted aside Cecil's miracle as though it were nothing.
"It was merely an unfortunate matchup, Your Highness."
"I suppose so."
Cecil knew it too. Had his opponent been anyone but Lucy Aln, that strike could never have been stopped.
But what difference does that make? In the end, my miracle was nothing more than a tool used to prove the worth of a jewel called Lucy Aln.
"Nabil. One thing I wish to ask."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Had I been at my full strength, could I have won that duel against Lucy Aln?"
Nabil held his tongue for a moment before answering.
"I must apologize. I did not witness the duel with my own eyes."
"Right. Of course."
Cecil gave a light dismissal to the apologetic Nabil. He had already reached his conclusion within.
Even at full strength, I would have lost to Lucy Aln. I lost like that even after working a miracle — what does my condition have to do with anything?
No. If anything, in peak condition the miracle would never have occurred, and I'd have been toyed with to the very end. Trampled underfoot while she giggled.
...Haah. So thanks to that wretched girl's foul temperament, I managed to attain an enlightenment — and yet I can't muster a shred of gratitude.
I try to regard it as a debt owed to a fellow martial artist, but the moment I picture that insufferable grin, my blood boils all over again.
"You weren't so bad, you say? Curse the wretched girl."
One day. Without fail. I will make those lips of hers whimper.
Muttering his grievances, Cecil rose from the bed and ordered Nabil to withdraw.
To surpass Lucy Aln — if nothing else, he needed to grasp the feel of the aura he had unleashed the previous evening.
As he hauled his aching body upright, the First Prince had already vanished entirely from his mind.
The day after the duel with the Second Prince. After receiving a suitably moderate trial from Luka and making my way outside the Academy, I was busy putting my new skill through its paces — Impact Conversion, the reward I'd picked up alongside yesterday's quest clear.
Impact Conversion is a passive skill considered essential for frontline tank classes. For a Paladin like me, it's basically mandatory.
You fight up front and take damage → your Divinity recovers → you use that Divinity to restore your HP → you take damage again → your Divinity recovers again...
You can build a whole self-sustaining loop that way.
Of course, the loop isn't truly infinite. Impact Conversion's efficiency isn't stellar, so there's a ceiling to it.
But it unmistakably boosts a tank's staying power by a visible margin, so I figured it would be a huge help to the current me.
Reality, however, was cruel.
I'd been in a dungeon outside the Academy for quite a while now, moving this way and that to test the skill's performance, and the results felt absolutely terrible.
It wasn't that my Divinity wasn't recovering — the amount was just pitifully, comically small.
Fine, maybe my proficiency is garbage because I just learned the skill. But this is too much. The efficiency is nowhere near what I remember.
As I racked my brain over what could be wrong, a single thought flickered through my head.
No way. It can't be. But I have to check.
"Scared of a little girl, are we?♡ Why don't you just crawl on your belly and beg to be kept as livestock?♡ Oh, I wonder if anyone would take in a disgusting cowardly orc scrub like you?♡"
Having lured an orc over with taunts to assist in my experiment, I lowered my shield and took the fist it bellowed directly to my face.
The moment a resounding WHAM! echoed out, I felt my Divinity recover. The pain wasn't all that bad, admittedly — the stat gap between me and the orc was just that wide.
Ah.
Damn it.
So Impact Conversion in reality only triggers on direct impact to my body?
Blocking with the shield doesn't count as taking damage?
It had been different back when this was a game. A shield in-game was, after all, just another piece of armor — unless you pulled off a Just Parry, it simply reduced a fixed amount of damage.
So my HP visibly dropped, and Impact Conversion triggered accordingly.
Reality didn't work that way.
When you block a sword with a shield, the damage to your body is negligible. There's a bit of a jolt, sure, but that's all.
Same goes for any other attack. Unless the blow actually lands on your flesh, what reaches your body is trivial — and so the recovery is trivial too.
To sum up: unless my defense gets broken through, Impact Conversion is meaningless?
What kind of insane design is that?! My defense breaking means my life is in danger! What good is Impact Conversion in a situation where I could die in a single hit?!
...Haah. Right. No wonder I thought the Scrub Chief God was being generous, handing out a skill for beating some two-bit Second Prince.
I'd figured the guy who usually scales rewards so carefully to difficulty had made a mistake. Nope. It was worth exactly what he paid for it.
Damn it all. The reality that the skill I'd thought was god-tier was actually garbage hit me so hard that I caved in the skull of the orc winding up another punch with my mace.
But that alone didn't vent my fury. One measly orc could not settle what I was feeling.
Orcs of this dungeon! If you must curse someone, curse the Scrub, Petty Chief God! If that bastard hadn't gotten my hopes up, there would have been no massacre today!
Perhaps because I'd cleared the dungeon with embarrassing ease, the reward the Scrub Chief God handed over for this trial was nothing to write home about. A slight bump to Endurance and Strength. And a little Wisdom.
Endurance and Strength, fine. Whatever.
But Wisdom going up? The more I think about it, the more deliberate that looks.
That's a taunt, isn't it? "Wow, you sure caught on fast that you got played~" — he's teasing me, isn't he?!
You dog of a Scrub Chief God! Don't pull this garbage on your own Apostle! Have some dignity, I said — dignity!
Showering the Scrub Chief God with curses in my head, I returned to Academy Street and immediately headed for the dormitory.
I intended to continue verifying Impact Conversion with Grandpa in Practice Mode.
But that plan never came to pass. Partway down the street, one of Alsaetin's underlings, waiting in the middle of the plaza, approached me.
The guy brushed past me as if by accident, pressing a slip of paper into my hand.
It was a note from Karia.
Employer! Your popularity was already pretty good, but this whole affair has bumped your reputation up another notch!
Oh, and apparently someone from the Second Queen's camp wants to meet you, my lady. Stop by the shop when you have time.
— Karia
My reputation went... up?
Is that right?
I don't know why, but the Academy kids keep flinching and running away when they see me?
That's not some joke about my stock rising when you flip the chart upside down, is it?
...Huh.
Already?