The Holy Sword's Light for the Demonic Beasts... Wait, It's Not Turning On? (2)
In the slums on the outskirts of the imperial capital, in District 13—better known as the Rat Hole—a dingy back alley led to a secret door connected to the basement of an abandoned brewery. The moment I knocked, the heavy iron door creaked open.
The basement reeked of mold and thick, acrid smoke. Standing right in the middle with her arms crossed was my perfect accomplice, Lady Clotilde, her black robe pulled low over her face.
“You’re here. Not bad at driving a carriage for a mere finance ministry clerk. No tails, I hope?”
“With the empire’s greatest swordsman personally clearing the path, who would dare follow me?”
I shrugged and set the heavy oak barrel down on the brewery floor. To the naked eye it was just a cheap ale cask, but inside rested the empire’s very heart—the Holy Sword Solaria, the Blade of Radiance—freshly removed from the Holy Relic Chamber.
At Clotilde’s chin jerk, three dwarves with wild beards shuffled out from the shadows in the corner.
“Allow me to introduce Bareck and his crew. The empire’s finest metalworkers who lost everything gambling, got chased by loan sharks, and threw themselves on my mercy.”
“Hey, boss lady. That promise about cleaning our records and giving us escape money to a neighboring country—you’re good for it, right? My brothers and I are one wrong step away from losing our heads tomorrow.”
Bareck scratched his mustache, voice thick with unease.
I smiled sweetly and kicked the barrel lid off.
“Of course. Finish this job perfectly and tomorrow morning you’ll all board a luxury merchant caravan to the Varsha Empire as legitimate head technicians with brand-new lives. Right, then—let’s get the patient on the table.”
The dwarves grumbled as they hauled a long, heavy bundle from the barrel and laid it on the workbench. The instant they peeled back the rolled velvet cloth—
“……Gasp!”
“Holy—! Insane! This, this is…!!”
Bareck and his brothers dropped to their knees on the spot.
A brilliant, majestic golden radiance instantly banished the basement gloom. Ancient divine script covered the entire blade, and at the pommel a vivid red magic stone pulsed like a living heart.
“S-Solaria…? The Sun God’s holy sword from the myths—why the hell is it here?! Are you people crazy?! You stole this?! This isn’t just treason, it’s outright blasphemy!”
As the dwarves foamed at the mouth and tried to bolt, Clotilde flicked her robe and gave a cold snort.
“Stole it? How rude. This piece carries a perfectly legal export requisition stamped with the crown prince’s seal and the knight commander’s signature. Besides, it’s scheduled to be installed quite openly in the Imperial Palace Central Garden tomorrow morning.”
“As a lamppost,” I helpfully added.
“A lamppost?! You lunatics!!”
While Bareck reeled in horror, I pulled a heavy pouch from my coat and dumped its contents across the table. With a bright clink, anonymous bonds redeemable at any Varsha Empire bank and a glittering pile of platinum coins spilled out.
“Simple outpatient surgery. Extract the power source embedded in the pommel—the ‘Heart of the Sun’—without so much as a scratch. Then, in its place…”
I took one last fist-sized stone from the pouch and set it down. Beside the shining platinum and the radiant holy sword sat a cheap fluorescent-green glow stone you could buy in any back-alley market.
“Insert this instead and weld it shut so perfectly no one can tell. That’s all.”
“……What? You want me to jam this five-gold piece of slime shit into the holy sword?”
Thick tears rolled down Bareck’s cheeks. I could almost hear the master artisan’s soul ripping apart in real time.
“This is a crime…! A desecration of metallurgy!! Just kill me instead!!”
“If you refuse, fine. We’ll hand your brothers to the loan sharks waiting outside and find someone else.”
“……Fetch the thinnest welding tool, boys.”
The power of capitalism and raw survival was absolute. The dwarves who had been sobbing wiped their faces in five minutes flat and turned into stone-cold professionals.
With the holy barrier already disabled, the sword’s disassembly went like clockwork under their dazzling skill.
Clang— Clink!
At last the pommel opened and the core—a tiny burning sun—slid free. The entire basement flooded with gentle, sunny warmth.
Clotilde carefully placed the ‘Heart of the Sun’ into the magic-sealing box she had prepared and smiled with satisfaction.
“Excellent. This core will ride in the cargo wagon of my disguised merchant caravan leaving at dawn tomorrow. The manifest will list it as ‘premium grill stone.’ Border guards will wave it through thinking it’s ordinary kitchenware.”
Meanwhile, the hollowed-out holy sword received its new cheap green stone. Thanks to the dwarves’ inspired finishing work, it looked flawless from the outside. The only difference was that the once-brilliant golden glow had been replaced by a tacky neon-green light straight out of a cheap nightclub sign.
“Aaaah… My hands are tainted forever…”
Bareck covered his face in shame, but I stroked the newly christened ‘Holy Sword Lamppost Unit One’ and cheered inwardly.
“Perfect. This should suit the saintess’s picky tastes exactly.”
The following night, in the Imperial Palace Central Garden of the Lumiere Empire.
“Aaaah…! It’s so beautiful, Sir Cael!”
Saintess Fiora clasped her hands together and cried out in pure delight. Her gaze was fixed on the holy sword—now hanging upside-down like a lantern from a metal pole planted squarely in the middle of the garden—spewing fluorescent light.
The dim, feeble green glow typical of a bargain-bin magic stone. Anyone else would have called the sight grotesque and painfully cheap, yet Lady Fiora shed tears of genuine emotion.
“The old lampposts were too harsh and glaring—they felt like they were stabbing my wounded heart. But this… it’s soft and gentle like fireflies dancing across the night sky, tenderly wrapping my fragile eyes! This must be the true blessing of the Sun God!”
At the saintess’s tearful praise, Cael’s face flushed crimson with the ecstasy of a man who had conquered the world.
“Lady Fiora…! The reason the holy sword has broken three hundred years of silence to emit such a gentle light is because it has resonated with your noble soul! This radiance will guard your every step, day and night!”
What utter bullshit. The damn thing was just running on a five-gold battery so weak it could barely glow at all.
I bit back the sneer threatening to escape and kept my head respectfully bowed, playing the loyal subject to the hilt.
“Well done, Ilario! Thanks to your keen eye we’ve managed to protect Lady Fiora’s smile. To think the finance ministry had talent like you!”
“You flatter me, Commander. It is entirely the miracle born of your pure and exalted love for the saintess. Ah, here is the invoice for ‘special processing and labor costs’ required to safely convert the holy sword into a functional lamppost.”
I handed Cael a bill for fifty thousand gold (roughly fifty million dollars). Eyes glazed with devotion, he signed it without even glancing at the details.
Of course the actual expense had been nothing more than the escape money we gave the dwarves, so the entire sum would be funneled through Clotilde and laundered straight into our private accounts.
In just two days we had legally stolen the empire’s greatest national treasure and embezzled a fortune on top of it. Yet astonishingly, this was merely the cute little tutorial for the full-scale ‘National Bankruptcy Project’ we would unleash over the coming year.
[Present]
Southern Varsha Empire, ultra-luxury private beach resort.
Bubble bubble bubble—
“Haaaa… This is heaven on earth.”
Clotilde let out a satisfied sigh, pulling herself from fond memories of past embezzlement schemes. She lounged in an extravagant outdoor hot spring lined with marble, champagne glass in hand, emerald sea sparkling beyond the edge. The water itself glowed with a soft, sacred golden hue that rose like mist, caressing her flawless skin.
I chuckled under a nearby parasol, lazily stirring my cocktail.
“How’s the temperature, my lady?”
“Perfect. Back in the capital my bones would freeze even in midwinter, but this ‘Heart of the Sun’ heats the water so beautifully that a simple half-body soak melts every ache away and leaves my skin radiant. The Sun God’s divine power really is unmatched for beauty.”
Indeed. The majestic core we had smuggled out of the empire ten months ago was now happily serving as an eco-friendly generator and deluxe hot-water boiler for our resort’s outdoor pool.
If the Sun God ever learned his holy relic was being used as a resort water heater, he would probably faint on the spot. But really, what could he do? Wasn’t warming bathwater for the triumphant victors of capitalism a far more meaningful existence than pretending to be a fluorescent rock inside a lamppost?
“Still, Ilario—about that five-gold glow stone.”
Clotilde draped an arm over the edge of the spring and looked at me.
“You said it was just hardened slime droppings. How long is it supposed to last?”
“The merchant didn’t give a warranty, but he claimed it would keep glowing at night for about a year.”
“Oh? It’s already been well over ten months since we installed it.”
Clotilde’s red lips curved into a playful smile. At the same moment, the crystal orb resting on the parasol table flared to life and the frantic scream of a news anchor burst out once more.
Our eyes met across the steaming water. Without a word, we raised our glasses in perfect sync.
“Shall we toast, my lady? To the night the great empire’s sun finally goes dark.”