Even a Rotten Fish
I figured I’d just get in the way, so I came out anyway.
Shiron left the training hall behind and wandered the manor grounds. He hadn’t stepped outside with any particular purpose, so he had nowhere specific to go.
Now what?
He’d planned to spend the morning on heart-technique training, but now that he knew he couldn’t learn it, the entire block of time had emptied out at once.
Sword practice? I already did that at dawn.
He turned the question over in his mind, but nothing useful came to him.
Siriel had said that training through heart techniques ate up more time than expected. According to the schedule Yohan had drawn up, she spent roughly four hours a day learning and applying them. Shiron had allotted himself the same four hours.
That aside—why is she following me instead of going to class?
He’d walked without direction and found himself strolling through the manor gardens when he turned toward the soft grumbling behind him.
“Siriel.”
“Y-yeah?”
“Is it okay for you to skip heart-technique training today?”
Perhaps because he’d spoken so suddenly, Siriel froze for a beat before tilting her head.
“…Skip? I’ve never heard that word before.”
“I mean, is it fine for you to ditch heart-technique practice. Even if you can’t train with me, you could’ve done it with Lucia.”
Siriel considered that for a moment before answering.
“I just… wanted to follow you because I was worried about you, Oppa.”
“You were worried about me?”
“Yeah.”
A little surprised, Shiron let out a short laugh—but Siriel didn’t smile. She only lowered her head.
“You and Lucia… it looked like you were fighting.”
“Mm…”
He started to deny it, then stopped. Looking at how thoroughly dejected she was, his resolve softened; no excuse came to mind. Thinking back, the atmosphere a little while ago hadn’t exactly been good. He tried to picture how he must have looked from the outside.
To Siriel, did it look like I stormed out in disappointment?
He’d made her worry without meaning to. He had no way to check his own expression, but if even bright, cheerful Siriel had been worried, his face then must have been hard to look at.
Chuckling, Shiron slung an arm around her shoulders.
“We weren’t fighting, so you don’t have to worry.”
“Why are you laughing…”
Siriel ducked her head even lower and kicked at a pebble. It felt like he was teasing her.
These past few weeks, her social sense had improved a great deal. She could now read a room and act accordingly without needing everything spelled out for her.
“Just because you’re so good.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of candy—lemon flavor, her favorite.
“…”
Faced with the treat she loved, Siriel hesitated for a moment. In the end the temptation won; she squeezed her eyes shut and snapped it up.
“Mm, mm-hm. It’s good.”
She gave a little shiver, as if savoring the tartness. That was how Shiron worked—every time she did something endearing, another candy found its way into her mouth. The number he’d given her had long since climbed into double digits without effort. What had started as a personal stash of snacks had, by now, become mainly a tool for raising her affection.
When he thought about it, it was strange. Even the junk items you walked right past in the game could turn out useful if you looked carefully enough. All sorts of things now occupied space inside his body.
He patted Siriel the way one might soothe a tiger cub.
Please just grow up exactly like this.
That was his small wish. The emotions of a child who was neither a reincarnator nor a possessor were simple, and that made her easy to deal with.
Come to think of it…
While he watched Siriel chew on the candy for a while, Shiron looked around. Spring had only just arrived, and flowers were blooming in full. Ever since he’d possessed this body in the game, he hadn’t truly rested once. Training or research—and whatever time remained, he’d spent trying to leave a good impression on people who would matter later.
Heart techniques for accumulating and controlling mana… I need to sort my thoughts on that a bit. I’ll think about it later.
Nothing cleared the head like a walk. He decided to tour the gardens scattered across the manor grounds.
“By the way.”
“Yeah?”
“Won’t you get scolded later for skipping heart-technique class?”
“Ah…”
“Sir Yohan might let it slide, but Aunt will probably give you an earful.”
“I-I’ll just explain it properly!”
With that, Siriel stuck close to Shiron’s side as he walked the garden paths. From beside him she looked utterly glued on. She even took his hand and began introducing every corner of the gardens.
Only after several circuits of the manor grounds did Shiron finally return to the annex. The dry spring air had left him thirsty, so he drew a water flask from his shoulder.
It was a use he’d gained after absorbing the power of a holy relic that expanded inventory space.
Still cold.
Well water drawn at dawn four days ago still held its temperature even after all this time. Like this, he periodically checked how far he could push his abilities.
The power he’d named “Storage” was remarkably practical: anything placed inside could be retrieved from any part of his body without rotting or taking damage.
Right now, all I can really use are the holy relic’s power and the Holy Sword…
Since he couldn’t circulate mana, he naturally couldn’t use the martial art known as Aura either. But being unable to use Aura wasn’t a serious problem for him. He had the Holy Sword—the sharpest blade in the world. Its edge was so monstrous it could cut the skin of Ophelia, the guardian of Dawn Castle herself.
Better than mediocre Aura any day.
That solved offense. Defense was the issue. Not being able to wield Aura also meant he couldn’t use Protective Aura—the barrier of energy wrapped around the body to raise one’s defenses.
Thanks to the system, his natural durability would climb the more he trained, but even so it couldn’t match Protective Aura, that invisible shell. A buff that worked like armor, nullifying damage below a certain threshold. In his memory, Lucia’s Protective Aura didn’t even leave a mark from ordinary mob attacks. And he wasn’t Lucia—he was Shiron. Playing a trash character with no buffs active was already dangerous enough. Doing it with only one life made it worse.
He pulled a notebook from his pocket.
Time to abandon the mana-learning route.
He tore out the pages that had become useless and fed them to the stove. He’d planned to head out and collect holy relics once he could handle Aura; one whole section of his plan had just collapsed.
Next plan.
He flipped through the notebook. Experiments had shown that items in “Storage” could be drawn out not only from his hands and feet, but from his mouth or the crown of his head. He could even stop midway through retrieving them.
Once, just once, he’d let the tip of the Holy Sword emerge from the end of a finger. Pressing that finger hard against a plate and dragging it had sliced the dish cleanly in half—the memory was still vivid.
“…Would this work too?”
A sudden curiosity struck him. If he summoned a shield just beneath the skin instead of equipping it, would it stop an attack?
He didn’t hesitate. From his solar plexus he drew a fork.
Where to stab… the answer came quickly. Somewhere no one would see—his thigh.
He drove the fork down with all his strength.
Clang!
The sharp ring of metal striking metal rang out.
“…”
When he pulled his clothes aside, four red dots had appeared. Barely enough blood beaded on his thigh to form drops, while the fork was crushed into a pathetic wreck. The relatively soft fork had been stopped by a gauntlet he’d summoned just beneath the surface of the skin.
“This is it.”
A thrill ran through his entire body. He hurriedly wrote down what he’d discovered.
Looks like it could stop most attacks.
And then a certain item came to mind.
High-ranking holy relic of Lucerne
Nullifies ranged and magic attacks by consuming the user’s mana
Reincarnation Sword Master had no leveling system, and players couldn’t freely adjust the difficulty. What it had instead was this: combat difficulty shifted dramatically depending on which people you met, which items you equipped, and which choices you made.
The Shield of Chesed, which nullified attacks that struck it, possessed an absurd ability—and an equally fatal drawback. But Shiron, unable to use Protective Aura, was in no position to be picky about risks.
Uses for it flooded his mind, and a pleased smile spread across his face—only for a regretful sigh to escape the same lips a moment later. Unlike the Holy Sword, which had been easy to obtain because his starting area was Dawn Castle, the Shield of Chesed lay in the Holy Capital—a place he couldn’t reach right now.
Too dangerous to go there as I am.
He needed holy relics to grow stronger, yet he needed to grow stronger to gather holy relics. Resolving that contradiction came first.
That said, it’s not like there’s no way at all.
Shiron prepared himself to go see Hugo.
Hugo’s office.
“Um… I’d like permission to do a little scoundrel work.”
“Urgh…”
Faced with those words from his nephew’s solemn face, Hugo let out a pained groan.