Summoning (1)
Summoning (1)
I had barely managed to defeat the fifteen-year-old Hero after struggling so much, so there was no way I could defeat the Twenty-Year-Old Hero.
My mana was depleted, my crossbow was broken again, and I had already used the ring.
But having crossed swords with him, I realized it was a fight I couldn't win, even if I had everything prepared.
There was nothing clumsy about the Twenty-Year-Old Hero.
His larger frame was the least of the things that made him stronger.
His fully developed swordsmanship, his experience, even the way he used his abilities.
I could clearly see why he was called a Hero and how he had been able to found this kingdom.
I couldn't fully grasp the extent of his skills. I had died before we could even properly cross swords.
After returning to the past and experiencing that agony all over again, I fell into deep thought.
As I sat lost in thought inside the carriage on the way back to the Kingdom, everyone assumed I was feeling the aftereffects of the battle and left me alone.
Thanks to that, I was able to sort through my thoughts for a long time.
The pain I had experienced twice was a problem, but it was also strange that I had grabbed the sword in the royal warehouse and, after dying, had naturally challenged him again.
I wasn't the type of person to act so impulsively, yet I had invited danger upon myself simply because I couldn't die.
It would be one thing if I simply returned to the past, but I hadn't given any thought at all to what would happen if I actually succeeded.
If I had been caught holding the Sword of the King, what would have happened afterward...?
No, although my death had undone it, I had actually been caught by the Grand Archduchess the first time.
Since that wasn't like me, this time I should give more thought to grabbing the sword...
No, I was doing it again. This was definitely strange.
"Let's absolutely not grab the sword this time. I'll just check it."
Until I figured out what was wrong, I had no intention of touching the sword.
'Besides, when I killed the fifteen-year-old Hero, I felt a strange sensation...'
At the time, I had just thought it was a peculiar feeling, but now that I thought about it, it had been a different kind of sensation.
Now that I had returned to the past, I naturally couldn't feel that sensation at all.
'I'm curious about what that feeling was, though...'
My curiosity flared up again, but I forced myself to shake my head.
I had no intention of grabbing the sword, but that didn't mean I was changing my daily routine.
Even if I didn't grab the sword, the Grand Archduchess still needed to inspect the artifacts in the royal warehouse.
After we arrived at the royal palace, the members of the dispatch class parted ways as usual. After that, I visited the Lady's estate to have my dagger repaired.
Later, when the academy reopened, the Grand Archduchess and the Empire's students came to study abroad, and I ended up escorting them after the students who disliked me singled me out.
That day, I discovered the cause of what had been clouding my mind.
"Young Lord Joachim wishes to spar. Since it must be tiring just to escort us, why don't you play along for a bit?"
I felt the exact same sensation in the words of the female student who was trying to instigate a fight.
My desire to grab the sword and fight the Hero was incredibly similar to the desire hidden in the female student's provocative words.
'It was that sword's ability.'
The Hero's sword—the black sword—had enticed me.
Thinking about it, that was only natural, but I had never imagined that an artifact would possess mental abilities.
Come to think of it, artifacts didn't just possess a single ability.
The Ego Dagger also had more than one ability if you included its ego, and looking at the orb, there was no telling how many different abilities it would possess once repaired.
It was a sword that replicated its past master's skills and appearance to construct a training ground within one's mental world.
It wasn't all that surprising that such a sword possessed an additional mental ability to entice people.
The duel in the garden ended just as it had before.
Wrecking the garden for the third time was starting to get tedious, but it couldn't be helped if I wanted to spar with Joachim.
Although I had decided not to fight the Hero, sparring with Joachim was a great help to me.
I could review my battle with the Hero, and by facing imperial swordsmanship, I could identify the weaknesses in the Kingdom's swordsmanship.
Besides, I could practice the techniques the Hero had used.
"Ah!"
Joachim let out a groan as he watched his sword fly out of his hand.
"How did you do that? Our blades didn't clash hard enough for it to fly away like that, did they?"
He stared at me with wide, surprised eyes, but I could only scratch the back of my head.
I hadn't meant to send it flying. I had been planning to use mana to make our swords stick together, just like the Hero had done.
But they repelled each other and his sword went flying instead, making it a complete failure.
Though I made plenty of mistakes like that, sparring with Joachim still helped me improve my skills immensely.
Time passed just as it had before.
The Grand Archduchess informed me that she had been granted entry to the royal warehouse, and I accompanied her inside as her escort.
When I met with the Grand Archduchess, after much deliberation, I asked her to repair my crossbow.
I had no intention of grabbing the sword, but I had witnessed the sheer power of that arrow all too clearly that day.
Even though it had been a surprise attack made possible by creating an opening, what had killed the Hero, in the end, was this crossbow and the black arrow.
There was nothing better than this crossbow to carry around for emergencies.
After spending a similar amount of time sparring with Joachim, it was time to head to the royal warehouse once again.
Just in case, I packed the artifacts into my pockets.
The ring, the necklace, the greatsword, and even the crossbow.
After finishing my preparations, I fastened my dagger and longsword to my waist and set off for the royal palace.
Once again, the Second Prince greeted us in front of the main palace gates.
Hearing the exact same words for the third time was incredibly tedious, but I endured it, thinking this would be the last time.
The Grand Archduchess met with the ailing King, and afterward, she and I were able to descend into the basement.
Once again, the old noble conducting the inspection picked a fight with me. I kept a low profile this time as well, but that wasn't the end of it.
I had managed to find out exactly who this antagonistic noble was.
Perhaps because it was the royal warehouse, the noble conducting the inspection belonged to a family that had branched off from the royal line a few generations ago.
He could be considered roughly a second cousin to the current King.
By that logic, since my father, the Duke, was the King's first cousin, this man was a much more distant collateral relative than our ducal house.
Once I learned about his family background, I understood why he had picked a fight with me.
It wasn't because of me, but because he disliked the Gracia Dukedom.
I knew I wasn't the root cause, but since I was the one being targeted, I had no intention of letting it slide.
Since we would likely cross paths in the future, I decided to bide my time.
While I managed to identify the noble conducting the inspection, I still couldn't find out who the robed man guarding the warehouse was.
No matter whom I asked, or even when I checked with the Auction House Owner, no one knew him.
It wasn't just that they didn't know him; no one even knew there was a warehouse keeper for the royal warehouse.
Whether he was that important or people simply lacked interest, I still knew absolutely nothing about the warehouse keeper, despite meeting him for the third time.
Just like before, the warehouse keeper opened the door, and the Grand Archduchess and I stepped inside.
Though it was a treasure vault piled high with treasures and gold coins, the Grand Archduchess and I simply looked around calmly.
"Young Lord Alex seems familiar with these treasures, too. You aren't surprised at all."
I had been incredibly shocked the first time, too. Seeing them a second and third time had simply made me indifferent.
Besides, what mattered right now wasn't the precious metals piled up around us.
We passed the piles of treasure and reached the display of artifacts. What mattered was that black sword, sealed in chains and shoved deep inside.
"You must never—absolutely never—touch that sword!"
As we approached the artifacts, the warehouse keeper pointed at the black sword and issued his usual warning.
At the same time, the Ego Dagger chattered in my head about how it was a sword used by a Hero, and the warehouse keeper followed up by thoroughly scaring me, saying I would die if I touched it.
'He wasn't trying to scare me; he was stating a fact.'
Indeed, the fifteen-year-old Hero alone wouldn't have been able to kill everyone who had grabbed the sword.
Before it became known that touching it meant certain death, many people must have grabbed the sword, and surely some of them had been formidable.
There might have been the Commander of the Royal Knights or renowned knights, and to kill such people, they must have faced a fully realized Hero, not a fifteen-year-old one.
Besides, he had even mentioned that he was the first opponent.
Yet what on earth had I been thinking, believing I only needed to defeat the first Hero who appeared?
Thinking about it now, it was utterly absurd.
As I stared at the sword, lost in those thoughts, someone grabbed my clothes from the side.
"You must never—absolutely never—grab that sword!"
It was the Grand Archduchess. She was holding on to my clothes and looking at me with concern.
"Pardon?"
I asked in bewilderment.
"Just now, you had an expression like you were about to go grab the sword."
She pointed at my face.
At her words, I finally noticed my posture.
One of my hands was gripping my dagger, while the other rested over my chest—right where my pocket was.
Besides, I had already taken a few steps toward the sword.
"I've heard that it exerts an immense temptation, depending on the person. They say even renowned knights and great royals have failed to resist it. But... this is intriguing."
The warehouse keeper spoke as he watched me.
It seemed he found it intriguing that someone as young as me was falling prey to the temptation.
More importantly, he should have told me that beforehand. If I had known earlier, I might not have died in vain...
No, come to think of it, even if I had known, I probably would have challenged it at least once.
Seeing how I was losing my senses even though I knew, the temptation was far more formidable than I had thought.
'It's not like some ring from a movie in my past life.'
Besides, since I wouldn't die permanently, trying it once wasn't a bad idea.
'But having an older Hero appear once you defeat one is just pushing it.'
Once I seemed to have snapped out of it, the two of them returned to examining the artifacts as before.
Come to think of it, preparing my equipment and training with Joachim in this life was probably all due to that temptation.
I had made up various excuses, but looking back now, they were all just pretexts.
I stared at the sword and let out a sigh.
Regret still lingered.
I wanted to fight an even older Hero, and I also wanted to win all the way to the end so I could use the sword as my personal training ground.
But now was not the time.
I didn't know when I would enter the royal warehouse again, but I had to aim for the next opportunity.
This time, it was time to stop here.
'Come to think of it, there's one more thing left to check, right?'
That sensation I had felt when I defeated the fifteen-year-old Hero.
But like this, there was no way I could feel anything.
I thought looking at the sword might change something, but since I hadn't even defeated the Hero in this life, there was no way I could feel that sensation again.
'Huh?'
Contrary to my expectations, however, I felt something.
Click.
It felt as if something were clicking into place. A sensation as if that black sword and I were being connected.
Even though it was related to an artifact, I could tell immediately.
This was my ability.
A newly awakened ability.
I immediately opened my status window.
< Knight-type Hero Ability User >
< Active Abilities >
- Physical Optimization: Level 17
- Mana Circuit Construction Method: Level 1
- Mana Resonance: Unsealing in progress
- Equipment Summoning: Level 1
- Sealed
< Unauthorized Abilities >
- Mana Materialization: Level 2
- Death Regression: Level 2
The fact that Mana Materialization had risen to Level 2 was undoubtedly due to acquiring the shield's ability.
The problem was the ability I was seeing for the first time.
Besides, I immediately knew how to use it.
'Summon!'
As I thought of summoning the Ego Dagger, the dagger fastened to my waist appeared in my hand.
This ability allowed me to call forth any artifact recognized as my own possession right in front of me.
And just now, it seemed that black sword wrapped in chains had been registered as my artifact.
I looked back and forth between the dagger in my hand and the sealed black sword.