The Holy Sword of Banishing Evil (2)
The lobby of the Seventh Holy Sword Prison.
In a museum where countless holy swords lay sealed away, I was currently sharing chocolate bars with one of them.
Crunch. Crunch.
Every time I bit into a chocolate bar to replenish my calories, a thick, sticky sweetness flooded my mouth. As I worked through the few remaining bars, my gaze naturally drifted toward the holy sword sitting beside me.
“…….”
Munch. Munch.
Apparently the sweet chocolate bars were very much to her liking. Justitia was smiling with pure satisfaction as she chewed, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk.
Why on earth does a holy sword need calorie replenishment in the first place?
The question floated through my head, but I decided not to press it. If Justitia hadn’t watched over me while I was collapsed, I never would have made it back in one piece. A few chocolate bars as a reward for her seemed more than fair.
“Is there something you’re curious about?”
Maybe my stare had gotten too intense. Justitia, still munching, turned to look at me and asked the question—whether there was anything I wanted to know about her.
Considering the mountain of questions I had, I wasn’t about to turn down the offer.
“Plenty of things I’m curious about.”
“What is it, then, trash hero?”
“How many years have you actually been stuck in this place?”
I gestured around us at the Holy Sword Prison we currently occupied—the pristine white museum where she and I were living. The question was simple: just how long had she been locked up here?
“Hmm… roughly two thousand years, I’d say.”
“Two thousand years? That’s insanely long.”
Her answer was more than enough to leave me stunned. Two thousand years. A span of time so vast that a human lifespan couldn’t even begin to grasp it.
“That’s only counting the time I still remember, of course. In reality it could be even longer.”
“Ah… right, you were in hibernation…”
And even that figure excluded the periods she’d spent dormant. Which meant the actual time Justitia had been imprisoned in the Holy Sword Prison was far longer than two thousand years.
Hearing that made me realize just how ancient the Seventh Holy Sword Prison really was. If she’d been sealed here for millennia, the facility itself had to have been founded long before that. And yet it still maintained this near-high-tech appearance—truly one of the mysteries of the dungeons.
Come to think of it, there must have been other wardens here before me.
A place this old would have had plenty of previous wardens. Not accidental freeloaders like me who’d stumbled into the management rights, but proper wardens who had actually held the post. Did Justitia remember anything about those earlier days?
Curious, I asked her about the previous wardens.
“Justitia—”
“Yes?”
“What kind of people were the wardens who served before me?”
The short question left my mouth, and Justitia tilted her head at me, blue eyes filled with genuine confusion.
“They weren’t people.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Those blue eyes reflected my face. A moment later the reason for her head-tilt spilled from her lips.
“Aside from you, no warden has ever been human. In any dimension, a human has never become the warden.”
“You’re saying every previous warden wasn’t human?”
The warden of the Holy Sword Prison is not human. This wasn’t some insult about someone’s character—she was literally claiming they hadn’t been human at all.
Justitia let out a sigh that sounded almost resigned and continued.
“If that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have any reason to be this obsessed with humans, would I?”
“Well… true, but…”
“Only humans can become heroes. I’m a holy sword meant to protect the human world, after all.”
Hearing the full story made my head start to throb. Simply being happy about landing the title of warden had been naive. There were far deeper secrets tangled up in this facility.
“So only non-human beings can become warden—that’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes, exactly. Until now, monsters were the ones researching the holy swords here.”
“And I’m the weird special case who became warden even though I’m human?”
“Because this place was never a facility built by humans.”
Nibble. Nibble.
Watching Justitia gnaw away at her chocolate bar, I sorted through everything she’d just told me.
Holy swords are weapons meant only for humans.
This place is not a facility for humans.
The previous managers of this place were not human.
All of those facts pointed to one conclusion.
—This place was built by the enemies of humanity.
So I’ve basically hijacked a facility that dangerous bastards used to run?
Apparently, without even realizing it, I had stolen the monsters’ hideout right out from under them.
Just because I’d uncovered the dark history of the Holy Sword Prison didn’t mean I planned to abandon the place. After all, the only thing I actually possessed was the title of warden. Without it, I’d drop right back down to being an Empty Awakener the very next day. Better to figure out how to make full use of this place than to throw it away.
“First things first—I should probably top up the management system’s energy.”
With that in mind, I decided to combine exploration with collecting magic crystals from the nearby monsters. I’d take down the skeletons wandering around and gather whatever loot they dropped.
—“Why am I the only one fighting?”
“You ate a ton of chocolate bars.”
Naturally, the actual fighting against the skeletons fell to Justitia. She transformed into her sword form, cut the monsters down, and I collected the magic crystals and other loot. With no other means of attack besides the holy sword, it was the only option. Swinging the sword myself would just leave me exhausted, so having Justitia fly around doing the work was the only way.
Basically I’m just a pack mule with a flying sword, aren’t I?
Picking up loot off the floor one piece at a time did make me feel exactly like a porter. But since every single item belonged to me, I cheerfully scooped them all up.
Various materials.
And small magic crystals.
After half a day of hunting, the haul wasn’t half bad.
“At this rate I could actually make a living as a hunter.”
If I took it outside and sold it, I’d walk away with a decent sum. Of course, selling the entire pile was impossible—because waiting for me back at the Seventh Holy Sword Prison was a hippo that ate magic crystals for breakfast.
Magic crystals consumed. Energy partially recharged.
The moment I returned to the Holy Sword Prison, the magic crystals were immediately drained to recharge the management system. They were the lowest grade, so the charge was tiny, but something was better than nothing. Besides, the system was designed to snatch every magic crystal the second you brought one inside.
Thankfully, the management system rewarded my hard work by unlocking a new function.
New function unlocked.
You may now use stored energy to open a Simple Gate connected to the Seventh Holy Sword Prison.
A Simple Gate linked to the Holy Sword Prison. In other words, I could now enter this place from anywhere—even outside the dungeon. For all practical purposes, the prison and I had become bound together like a single fate.
“Hah… now I just need to escape.”
“Are you planning to come back here?”
“Of course. I have to keep charging the magic little by little so it doesn’t suddenly drop into hibernation again.”
Keeping the magic topped up would prevent the holy sword from suddenly falling dormant. And if enough magic accumulated, maybe a new holy sword would unlock. That was the hope, anyway.
“If I keep charging it every day like this, I might be able to wake the next holy sword pretty soon, right?”
Justitia’s reaction to my grand plan was ice-cold.
“You’ll just collapse after swinging once anyway.”
“……Shut up.”
Unfortunately I had no comeback. Collapsing after a single swing was an undeniable fact.
“A real man grows by falling down.”
Still, a true man doesn’t fear falling. Fall seven times, rise eight—that’s how you become a real man.
The next morning.
I woke from an uncomfortable night’s sleep only to face a despairing reality.
We were out of food.
The chocolate bars that had given me hope for the past few days had finally hit rock bottom.
“…….”
And one of the direct causes was currently huddled in the corner, nibbling on the last chocolate bar.
Om-nyom-nyom-nyom—.
Apparently determined not to let anyone snatch the final bar, Justitia had hidden herself in the corner to eat it in secret.
“Ugh… the holy sword isn’t the one who needs to survive—the human is.”
“I did all the work.”
“……Fine.”
Every last scrap of food was gone. If we didn’t get out of here within a few days, I’d starve and dehydrate to death. The situation suddenly reminded me of that hunter who’d survived three weeks alone in a dungeon—the one who ate monsters and found a water source just to stay alive.
But there’s no meat here.
Unlike that hunter from the news, surviving on monster meat was impossible for me. Every monster in this place was completely meatless. I wasn’t about to boil skeleton bones into bone broth or start eating zombie flesh either.
So the only thing left was to make a decision as fast as possible.
“We’re leaving. We have to find signs of people within a few days.”
There was no more time to waste here. This was the moment to bet everything and push forward. With that mindset I strode boldly out into the dungeon—
“Ah, shit… where the hell am I?”
And promptly got lost.
Just how deep had I wandered? No matter which way I went, there wasn’t a single trace of human presence. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Every path I took was an endless parade of monsters waiting to greet me.
“Seriously… why are there so damn many of them?”
I had Justitia smash the skeletons and collected their loot one by one. Before I knew it, I’d been forced into magic-crystal farming again.
Flutter—.
Along the way I lucked into a single piece of hunter gear.
Equipment Grade: D
Equipment Type: Armor
Description: Pulling up the hood makes your face difficult to recognize. Weakens the effects of tracking magic.
In a corner of a building crawling with undead, I’d found a bloodstained cloak inside an old chest. Between the dust and the dried blood, the thing gave off a distinctly unsettling vibe.
“Maybe I should just take it outside and sell it.”
I was about to stuff the newly discovered cloak into my bag, planning to pawn it the second I escaped the dungeon. But Justitia, watching me, made a suggestion.
—“You should wear it, just in case.”
“You want me to walk around wearing this?”
She was recommending I put the cloak on. And she had her reasons.
—“When you carry around something as valuable as a holy sword, you tend to attract a lot of unwanted attention.”
“Ah… yeah, that makes sense.”
If word got out that I was carrying EX-grade equipment, greedy hunters would paint a target on my back. That was Justitia’s point. At the very least, keeping my face hidden seemed wise.
—“Besides, you’re the kind of trash hero who collapses after swinging once.”
“……Warden.”
—“You’re the kind of trash warden who collapses after swinging once.”
“You didn’t really need to say that part twice, did you?”
I didn’t have the strength to protect a treasure. If anyone found out I was an F-rank hunter, they might come after my gear. Even if the holy sword was soul-bound, that fact wouldn’t matter to a bunch of robbers. Better to follow Justitia’s advice and keep the hood up whenever I drew the sword. At least then no one would track me back to my tiny rented room.
“Yeah… that might be the smarter move.”
Storing the holy sword wasn’t hard. If I walked around outside without it, the only way to identify me was my face. So while I was inside the dungeon, covering that face was the right call.
“Guess I’ll wear this for a while, then.”
And so I pulled on the dust-covered hood—the first halfway decent piece of armor I’d ever worn in my life.
Flutter—.
I swung my arm hard while wearing the cloak, and the dust that had settled on it exploded in every direction.
“Cough, cough…!”
Hacking and wheezing, I looked around. Without a mirror I had no idea what I even looked like right now. I needed a second opinion.
In the end I asked Justitia for her thoughts.
“Well? Does it suit me?”
I held out an arm half-hidden by the cloak and waited for the holy sword’s evaluation. The answer that came back was simple.
“Kyaaaaaaah……!”
A piercing scream echoed through the surroundings, loud enough to make my ears ring. Faced with that violent reaction, I could only clap my hands over my ears and make a pained face.
“Even if it looks terrible on me, you don’t have to scream that loud, do you?”
Justitia answered in a completely flat voice.
—“That wasn’t me.”
“What?”
—“I didn’t say a word.”
The reply that came from Justitia was shocking. That scream hadn’t come from my holy sword.
“Now that you mention it… the voice did sound a little different…”
Which left only one conclusion. Someone else had screamed.
“Kyaaak! S-save me……!”
As if to prove it, another sharp scream rang out.
Three days after getting stranded in the dungeon, I had finally found a sign of human life.
“Nooooo! Why… why is a monster like that here……!”
And not just any sign—a scream begging for rescue.