To the Royal Palace with the Grand Archduchess
To the Royal Palace with the Grand Archduchess
My head was already in an uproar before I even got to use my ability with the shield. The cause was the dagger at my waist.
I had kept it strapped to my waist in case I stumbled upon a hero's relic while traveling, but I never expected it to cause such a fuss here.
[This shield is the very shield my first master used to carry!]
As soon as Katrin handed me the shield, the Ego Dagger cried out.
The loud voice echoing inside my head made me dizzy, but I couldn't really scold the Ego Dagger for shouting.
After all, I was the one who had told it to let me know if it found any hero's relics, so it hadn't done anything wrong.
After I demonstrated my ability with the shield, I borrowed the sword, and the Ego Dagger shouted again.
[Ah! This sword is the same!]
Seeing how instantly it recognized the sword, I had to admit the Ego Dagger's eye for detail was pretty good, just as it had claimed.
[Me, the sword, and the shield—all three of us are gathered! Now all of my first master's equipment has been reunited!]
The Ego Dagger shouted excitedly, but unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen.
If it hadn't been for Katrin, I wouldn't even have been able to keep the dagger. Coveting the shield and sword here was out of the question.
Instead, it seemed better to target the equipment of Knight Carlos, the source of my awakened ability.
'I wonder if the Gracia Dukedom also has the weapons of the first king, Carlos? Or maybe they're in the royal warehouse...'
Thinking of the royal warehouse, I gave up on the idea. It was impossible to enter unless you were royalty.
I would have to settle for checking the Duke's estate, which was at least accessible.
As I swung the sword around, Katrin took back her shield and unfolded a mana barrier.
Her barrier was still much larger and sturdier.
"Hey, I should obviously be better at this. How can you, who only copied it, already be better than me?"
It was a bit disappointing, but Katrin was right.
Besides, the noise echoing in my head was too loud for me to even think about refuting her.
[The person in front of you also possesses the ability that my first master used!]
As expected, the Ego Dagger recognized the ability Katrin was using, too.
[Surely, the person in front of you doesn't happen to have the surname Rattenhamar, right?]
On top of that, it was quite quick-witted.
It seemed I would have to explain things to it separately once I got home.
As I vaguely brushed aside the dagger's questions, Katrin asked me another one.
"Don't tell me the reason you asked to borrow the sword, too, was to check whether you could acquire my family's ability through it?"
There was another quick-witted person here.
"It's not for such a grand reason. I just happened to acquire the ability used with the shield, so I was curious about how it happened."
"That's literally the same thing."
As expected, she didn't let things slide easily.
"Still, since you were honest, I'll let it slide."
Still, Katrin was a good person. She warned me to be careful.
"You must make sure no one else knows, especially our Count. If he finds out you've acquired that ability too, he won't just sit still. He'll either make up an excuse to lock you up or try to marry you off to someone in our family."
"Marriage?"
"Hmm, is there anyone around your age? If things go wrong, I, an old maid, might end up as your marriage partner..."
That's a bit...
By the standards of my past life, she wasn't even an old maid, and given my mental age, I might actually be older than her. Even so, there was an age gap of more than ten years.
Hmm... Hmm...
Come to think of it, maybe it wouldn't be a problem?
I chuckled and shook my head.
She was only joking anyway, and I had no intention of getting caught, so it was something that would never happen.
Unfortunately, I didn't acquire any new ability from the sword she held.
I couldn't tell whether I needed to keep it on my person continuously or if some other method was required.
I tried using the shield, but my existing ability didn't grow any stronger, and I ended up spending the day demonstrating my new ability to Katrin.
Thanks to the fuss I made during my first escort duty, I was able to spend a leisurely second semester.
The students who had been waiting for a chance to target me pretended not to know me after hearing what had happened back then. Instead, I heard that the other students in the Knight Faculty were having a rough time.
My condolences to them.
Since it wasn't my business and I had no way to help them, all I could do was pray for them during half-empty classes.
Not that I was just slacking off, though.
I was busy nagging my newly acquired advisor.
To others, I probably looked like I was standing silently in a corner of the training ground, holding a dagger. In reality, though, I was fighting fiercely inside my head.
'You must have watched the hero fight all the time. He must have held you and swung you himself. Then you must know some techniques or swordsmanship!'
[Well, I don't really remember much.]
It seemed my Ego Dagger was quite prone to sulking.
It had been acting like this ever since I came back from meeting Katrin.
'Hey, I explained the reason to you. It's not like we're unrelated, and you heard her say she gave you to me directly.'
[Did I say anything? I am merely my new master's dagger.]
After coaxing and wheedling the sulking dagger for a long time, we finally made some progress.
But what it said next wasn't very satisfying, either.
[As I said earlier, I am a dagger. A dagger is a sidearm. A sidearm is the sort of weapon one carries at the waist while using a sword and shield, just as you do, Master.]
Seriously, it didn't sound like the same dagger that had been boasting so proudly just moments ago.
[It was used during night raids, to stab an opponent by stealth when they were distracted by other weapons, or to fight off assassins beside a sleeping lady.]
Hearing what its previous master had used the dagger for made me feel a bit sorry for it.
I, too, had used daggers in such a manner.
[It was also mainly used during torture... Would you like me to teach you the torture methods the hero used?]
Torture, of all things.
I wasn't going through all this trouble just to learn how to torture people.
My head was already full of torture methods I had unearthed from the Duke's library.
Most of them were methods developed after the Great War.
Torture aimed at humans had steadily evolved over generations. The methods from the Great War era were nothing but outdated techniques.
Fortunately, though, there were techniques the Ego Dagger did know.
They weren't high-level swordsmanship, but they were various useful techniques that made use of mana.
'These techniques are closer to stealth or assassination, so they're a bit awkward for a knight to use, though.'
I was almost worried that I would end up becoming better at assassination if things kept going like this.
There was a limit to how long I could spend taking it easy, however.
In the end, another request for support came my way.
Since it was a request I couldn't refuse, it was closer to an order or directive, but at least this time, it came from someone I knew well.
It wasn't Balea.
After hearing me talk about haunted houses last time, she had gathered people with similar abilities and was building this world's very first horror theme park.
It felt like it was going to turn into some massive festival, which was almost terrifying.
And Manuel had departed on a trip with other nobles for training.
It was a grand story about touring the territories for training, but I couldn't understand why he would pack a fishing rod for such training.
Don't tell me... Manuel's ability is electricity.
I could only hope he wouldn't commit the heresy of discharging electricity into the water.
Ultimately, the person who requested my support was neither of those two, but Grand Archduchess Frida.
"Did you find some ruins or something?"
When I visited her mansion and asked, she shook her head.
The Grand Archduchess looked as elegant as always.
But she was furrowing her brow slightly, as if something were on her mind.
If it wasn't ruins, I couldn't think of why she would need me. I couldn't think of anything else besides ruins.
Then, was I supposed to escort her on a journey? Was she going somewhere far away?
"Is it something that requires going outside the capital?"
The Grand Archduchess shook her head again.
She wasn't going outside the capital, so was a relic auction house opening or something?
I couldn't bring myself to mention the illegal auction house to the Grand Archduchess.
Even to me, that seemed unlikely.
As I kept guessing wrong, the Grand Archduchess told me what was going on.
"The royal family here has offered to support me."
But her explanation began with something completely out of the blue.
"They say it's the royal family, but to be precise, I was told the Second Prince is the one providing the support."
Wait, hold on. The negotiations with the King of the Duchy should have ended when the Viscount died.
I couldn't let on that I knew about the negotiations.
I waited for her to speak further.
Before she spoke, the Grand Archduchess grimaced slightly.
Was that expression one of displeasure or perhaps awkwardness?
The Grand Archduchess opened her mouth.
"The noble who delivered the Prince's message called it a gesture of goodwill."
Wait, so the Second Prince is hitting on the Grand Archduchess.
But aren't the Second Prince and the Grand Archduchess cousins?
Ah, right. In this country, it didn't matter if cousins married each other.
"Hasn't the Second Prince married yet?"
"You didn't know? He is still unmarried."
Having heard that he was a massive playboy, I had assumed all this time that he was already married.
So the playboy prince is acting like a playboy again?
"After all, marrying me would make it highly advantageous for him to become the next king, regardless of the circumstances."
In the end, it was a political matter. Judging by her expression, the Grand Archduchess utterly detested the Second Prince's intentions.
Since even I knew about it, the Grand Archduchess must have heard the rumors about the Second Prince as well.
"If you dislike it that much, you could just refuse. I believe you're in a position where you can easily refuse, Your Grace."
Though it was a duchy, she was still a princess. She wasn't in a position where the Second Prince of another country could simply do as he pleased with her.
"It was difficult to refuse. It was support that I absolutely needed."
"Are they offering to show you some incredible relic?"
"Yes, they said they would show me an incredibly grand relic."
An incredible relic? What kind of relic could the Second Prince possibly have?
There was no way I would know which relics the Second Prince possessed.
Besides, I had already swept up all the relics he had almost taken last time.
As I considered various possibilities, the Grand Archduchess told me something unexpected.
"They are going to show me the royal warehouse."
Wait, what? Surely I hadn't heard that wrong.
But was that even possible?
"Is that something the Second Prince could do?"
"It's not like we're taking anything out of the royal warehouse. It seems looking around for the sake of ability training is permitted. Apparently, the Second Prince had to give up a few things to make this happen. He proudly told me what he had to sacrifice."
How magnificent, Second Prince. Opening the royal warehouse for a woman—no, for power.
Leaning forward, I spoke to the Grand Archduchess with conviction.
"You must do it immediately. It's the royal warehouse. It will allow you to develop your ability rapidly, Your Grace. In any case, he probably expects nothing more than to win a bit of your favor with a gift of this scale. You can just thank him later and leave it at that."
Compared with what we stood to gain, I felt I could even bow down in gratitude. Though I couldn't make the Grand Archduchess do that.
If the Grand Archduchess entered the royal warehouse and quickly developed her ability, my orb would be restored in no time.
And if I were to go in with her to protect her, perhaps I might even get to see the weapons of Knight Carlos.
No, I had absolutely no such intentions.
It was purely for the Grand Archduchess.
"You must go. This is your chance!"
The Grand Archduchess looked puzzled by my strong insistence, but I was completely free of any selfish motives.
My eyes were filled with nothing but pure loyalty to her.