Clear Prep (16)
The darkness is lifting, little by little.
That cursed sun never fails to arrive, today as ever. In days past, it displeased me to watch that one bow its head—shrouded in shadow, capable of nothing. But it is of no consequence. That, too, has little time remaining now. Even if I myself should vanish, so long as I drag that hope down into oblivion with me, our Lord shall reclaim His glory.
O child, beloved of that hideous, hideous creature. How fared you? Did my little sleight of hand prove so simple that laughter escaped your lips?
For me, it did. As I took stock of all the things you possess, laughter spilled out of me of its own accord. You counter the darkness with practiced ease. You have perfectly memorized the paths of a place you have never once entered. You even know how to face the blade of an opponent you are meeting for the very first time. Armadi has clearly bestowed a countless wealth of knowledge upon you.
And yet you place far too much faith in that knowledge. A trump card is not something one reveals so freely. Do you not realize your enemy will simply prepare a countermeasure?
If you are this land's one and only hope, then the role assigned to me is to swallow that hope whole. Once every last thing is in place, I shall wait in eager anticipation. For the moment you arrive. For the moment you scream in agony. For the moment you weep, begging Armadi for a salvation that will never come.
You will not be able to look away from it. For I have already glimpsed the frailty of the heart you so desperately try to hide.
The first thing I did after slipping out of the Old Building was sprint straight for the training grounds. It was the hour just before dawn—on any ordinary day, the exact moment I would begin my drills out of sheer habit. Which meant that right now, she would definitely be there.
"Hey."
Sure enough, Frey had beaten me to the training grounds and was already swinging her sword.
"Nice shield. New?"
"Yep. Picked it up a little while ago."
"Isn't it gorgeous? A trash swordswoman like you couldn't put so much as a scratch on it~"
"Want to test it?"
"I'd love that."
"If you're trying to feel out just how much of a joke you are, I won't stop you."
I had come looking for Frey for exactly one reason: a skill I had never once seen back when this world was still a game. I needed to find out precisely what Weakness Perception was capable of.
The game called Soul Academy had no hidden skills. It was a title that had never received a single update despite spawning an endless parade of mods, so naturally the unpacked data had long since dredged every last piece of buried information into the light. Achievement hunting, speedruns, challenge runs—I dabbled in every bizarre playstyle imaginable, and I actively mined that unpacked data in my research, grinding away until record after record bore my name. Some people whined that using that kind of information was cheating. I didn't spare the opinion a second thought. Why would I take criticism from players worse than me?
Anyway, after all that research, I naturally knew every skill that existed in Soul Academy. If a skill showed even a flicker of promise for squeezing out optimal efficiency, I'd gotten my hands on it and tested it to death.
And this was a skill I was seeing for the first time in my life. A skill I could only meet because I'd been transmigrated into this world. Which meant, obviously, that checking its performance came first!
Honestly, the description was vague. You become better at identifying weaknesses. That's it. If this were a game, I'd assume it amounted to a critical hit boost—but this is reality. How does the skill trigger? What effects does it produce? How strong is it? What uses could it possibly have?
There was more to verify than I could count on one hand. That was precisely why I'd come to Frey. Carl was my escort and a Soul Academy instructor besides—he'd already burned an entire day because of me, and I couldn't in good conscience hold him any longer.
Frey, though, was another matter. This girl didn't care about coursework or anything else so long as she could swing a sword; I could keep her for as long as I pleased.
"Shall we?"
"Whenever you like."
"Do as you please. Since all you ever do is eat beatings, might as well attempt a sneak attack, hm?"
"Right. Let's go."
Watching Frey dash off at a blistering pace, I turned it over in my head. Right now, at least, she looked no different from usual. This was the Frey who sparred with me dozens of times a day.
Had I really grown so used to her sword that there was nothing new left to find in it?
"...Your shield's gotten tougher. Gear carry. Cheap."
Mid-combo, Frey grumbled between strikes as I turned her blade aside with Ankir. Coming from her, of all people—the girl who always insisted that equipment was part of one's ability—that complaint should have been beneath her, but I let it slide. Something about my exchange with the skeleton earlier had left me wondering whether the problem was my personality.
So instead of mouthing off for no reason, I fixed my attention on Frey's sword.
The blade she wielded now differed from the one I'd first faced in any number of ways. Her signature blinding speed and relentless offense remained intact, but woven between them now were unmistakable differences.
To put it plainly: precision. The Frey of the past had moved her sword on instinct alone. With so little formal instruction behind her, she'd had no other choice. An ordinary person would have sensed something amiss midway and begged someone for guidance, but Frey never did—her talent was so overwhelming that instinct alone could have conquered the continent.
That was no longer the case. For reasons I couldn't guess, she had asked her father to teach her the sword, and her blade had become polished beyond all comparison with before. The strengths she'd always possessed—her lightning judgment and her fearlessness in the face of danger—remained untouched, and the fundamentals of swordsmanship had been laid down on top of them. Her swordwork, once scattered every which way, had sharpened into clear lines, and so the speed and force of her attacks had grown. The wasted steps of deliberation had been trimmed away, and so her strikes fell faster still.
She'd received instruction for barely a single vacation, and yet her sword had leapt forward by a visible margin.
And yet—it still wasn't enough. Whether it was because I'd crossed blades with a skeleton who had driven the fundamentals to their absolute extreme, or because I now possessed a skill called Weakness Perception, I could see her shortcomings laid bare. The intervals between her swings were far too short. Her attacks multiplied out of a kind of claustrophobia, but speed came at the price of power in each individual blow. Without sufficient force behind them, no matter how quick the blade, it would simply crash against a shield and bounce away.
Fighting me required no special technique at all. All I had to do was wait patiently, and she would destroy herself.
My judgment proved exactly right. Frey, pushing her tempo higher and higher, finally exposed an enormous opening—and in that instant, my eyes caught the point where her balance broke. I slipped into the gap and gave the spot I'd been watching a light push, and Frey toppled over with almost comical ease.
Sprawled on the ground, she blinked up at the sky a few times, then raised her sword high in challenge.
"Again."
I accepted her request gladly. All so I could feel out the true power of the skill called Weakness Perception.
As the sparring stretched on, I came to understand what this skill actually was. First, it showed me weaknesses directly. Just as I had seen Frey's impatience and her crumbling balance, it let me perceive an opponent's vulnerabilities as naturally as looking at them.
Second, it never revealed everything at once. In our first bout there had been weaknesses I missed, but as time passed, more and more came into view. The gap that opened because her feet came off the ground 'just a hair' faster for a swing than for a step when she grew desperate. The way her eyebrows dipped 'ever so slightly' whenever she was about to gamble. Things like that. Thanks to it, the longer our bout ran, the more easily I could bring Frey down.
Third, the skill was clearly influenced by my own ability. The weaknesses had begun with the ones I'd already roughed out through countless previous spars with her.
Even at this alone, Weakness Perception would have more than earned the title of a broken skill. I excel at defense, which means I can naturally drag out a long fight. A skill that let me read my opponent as time passed and find the exact means to break them—it fit my style of combat perfectly.
But the brokenness of Weakness Perception didn't stop there. Astonishingly, it didn't confine itself to combat.
I should have suspected it the moment I read that vague description. A weakness is, quite literally, the weak part of a person. A body part they're embarrassed to show? A weakness. Words they hate hearing? That's a weakness too. Something they'd never, ever want you to find out? Obviously a weakness.
Explaining it this way might be hard to follow. Hmm. An example, then. Let's see...
"Cheap. You're small, so as long as you hide behind that shield, everything gets blocked."
This—right here—was the thing Frey least wanted me to notice.
"Um~ dummy swordswoman~? I get that you're dying to get roasted, but with a sword this pathetic, I can't even work up the urge~♡"
Her habit of constantly picking fights to bait me into taunting her. Don't ask me why, but that too was surely one of Frey's flaws—a weakness. And look. No sooner had the words left my mouth than her blade began to waver.
"Worry about swinging your sword instead of flapping your gums~♡ Not that it'd change the outcome either way~♡"
The instant my giggling laugh rang out, red flooded across Frey's face. Anger? Embarrassment? I couldn't tell which it was, but the result it produced was unmistakable: blue light gathered along Frey's blade.
Whoa, hey!? This is a spar! What do you think you're doing busting out aura here?!
I hastily wreathed my shield in divinity the moment I saw it. The one mercy was that Frey's preparation was far from perfect—my taunt had landed so well that she simply cloaked herself in aura and swung, and the blow's power came out muddled. But it only held because it was me on the receiving end. Anyone else—Arthur, say—and they'd have been obliterated.
Regardless, Frey's swordsmanship was the real deal. By the time I lowered the shield I'd held over my head, fully intending to deliver a stern lecture, she was already fleeing into the distance.
...Strike first and run? What even is that? Was my scolding really that unbearable to hear?
Hmm. Chasing her down now probably wouldn't end well. We'd cross paths again sooner or later anyway, so the lecture could wait until then. In the meantime, there were other things to verify. My divinity had recovered plenty during the sparring with Frey.
I'd just unfold my divine domain and take a look...
"My lady."
The voice arrived the instant I resolved to try, as though it had been waiting for exactly that moment, and I stopped channeling my divinity. The figure standing behind me looked like Carl—but it was not Carl. It's hard to put into words, but how should I describe it... the faint edge of madness that always clung to Carl simply wasn't there. If it were him, he could wait days on end without showing a trace of impatience. He'd sooner shout, Thank you for the honor of waiting!
Who is this? What is this guy?
Just as I tightened my grip on the mace, the figure hurriedly spoke up.
"It is Alsaetin, my lady."
...Alsaetin?
What is he doing here? One slip, and if the Academy caught him, what then? He could have simply sent a note or something later and I'd have gone to meet him on my own—what possible emergency could justify pulling a stunt like this?
"Forgive me, my lady. The matter is one of dire urgency."
"What is it?"
"Speak. Quickly."
"It concerns the thing you have been searching for, my lady. The darkness seeks to swallow the land."
...Oh.
Hold on. Just a moment? If it's about what I've been searching for, it has to be information tied to the Burrow Duchy. Darkness, in that context, means Tariki. And "the land"—that's the territory. Let me put all of this together: Tariki is moving to swallow the territory. Rephrased just slightly, the Apostle of the Evil God is preparing to offer up Burrow Territory to Tariki, which means...
Is he insane?
Is he INSANE!?
Has that bastard lost his mind, begging to be subjugated?!