The Second Semester
The Second Semester
The biggest reason this strange message had appeared was that it had been far too long since its former master, the first king, Carlos, had held the sword.
Because he had died without passing the sword on to anyone else, it had spent hundreds of years alone.
There would have been no problem if someone had taken up the sword and become its next master. The issue was the excessive synchronization set by the first king, Carlos.
Everyone who took hold of the sword ended up dying, and in the end, the sword spent all that time without a new master.
It had been far too long for the first king's settings to remain in effect. It had also been far too long for the sword to endure without a master.
Ultimately, the sword's settings had loosened to the point where one could say they were broken.
So much so that anyone who defeated the first Hero to appear would be temporarily registered.
Perhaps I wasn't the only one who had been temporarily registered.
But those people would ultimately have had no choice but to die at the hands of the next Hero, and the one after that—unless someone stronger than a Hero had taken up the sword.
Since I had died and regressed to the past, my registration should, of course, have been invalidated.
But the world where I was registered was my Mental World.
Even though I had regressed to the past, my mind had not.
Therefore, the connection between my mind and the sword remained intact. When we were reunited, I was officially registered as the sword's user, along with a new ability.
"...Is that how I should understand it?"
After seeing the message, I could roughly understand how I had become the user.
The sword hadn't told me everything, of course, but when I pieced together my situation and the information it had provided, the story more or less added up.
The truth might have been different, but now that I could hold the sword without any problem, it didn't really matter.
The sword the King had used had fallen into my hands.
Even though I was only a temporary user, the former master was dead and gone, so in the end, this sword was mine.
There were limitations, like not being able to change the opponent who appeared because I wasn't the absolute master. Still, as long as I had this sword, I could keep sparring against a Hero—and the first king himself, no less.
If the other knights found out, they would lose their minds.
No, was the royal family already losing its mind?
I immediately checked which parts I could adjust.
"I can't change the opponent, but I can leave without fighting to the very end, and I can adjust the synchronization rate, too..."
Even a temporary user could adjust the synchronization!
I immediately gave a command.
"Lower the synchronization! By half!"
I didn't know how much I had to lower it to avoid dying.
Still, since I had lowered it by half, I probably wouldn't die.
Then I had to test it.
I set down the sword and placed the artifacts in my pouch.
Then I picked up the sword again.
Indeed, I didn't die when I held it. Nor was I immediately pulled into the Mental World.
But if someone else held it, they would still be dragged into the Mental World like before. They just wouldn't die, since the synchronization had been lowered.
"Come to think of it, I don't feel that overwhelming urge to just grab it like before."
It seemed to be because I was officially registered.
Still, it would be no different for anyone else, so I couldn't show it to them after all.
"The problem isn't someone else holding the sword. If I'm caught keeping it, my head will be chopped off for lèse-majesté."
I took a deep breath and gave a command to the sword in my hand.
'Enter!'
I was back out not long after entering the sword.
Perhaps because I hadn't prepared properly, this time I lost to the very first Hero who appeared.
But thanks to lowering the synchronization, I didn't die even though I lost. Or maybe I lost precisely because I had lowered the synchronization.
The problem was that even with the synchronization lowered, it still hurt like hell.
I threw the sword aside and clutched my head with both hands.
"Ugh... My head!"
A war raged inside my head, and my spine and the nerves throughout my body kept trembling.
I had clearly lowered it by half, but the pain didn't feel much different from what I'd felt when I died.
Only after trembling like that for nearly an hour was I finally able to calm down.
I slumped onto the floor and let out a sigh.
"Well, considering it was enough to kill someone when set at its peak, even cutting it in half would still hurt like absolute hell."
Honestly, I could understand the pain. I was used to pain, so I could endure it if I had to.
But that wasn't the problem.
"So there was a reason the synchronization was set to maximum."
The first king hadn't set the synchronization to a lethal level for no reason.
With the synchronization reduced, it didn't feel real at all.
I couldn't properly feel the sensation of holding the sword, the tension of facing an enemy, the flow of the air, or the movement of mana.
"This definitely wasn't made by a practitioner. Any knight would know that lowering the synchronization makes it completely pointless."
Did the blacksmith god just hammer it together and toss it over, saying, 'Here you go'?
In the end, it was useless unless the synchronization was turned up to the maximum.
"The problem is that if I lose, I die..."
No, wait. I could definitely adjust the other settings.
There was a setting that let me exit the sword without having to fight all the versions of Carlos who kept appearing.
While it was impossible to choose a specific age of Carlos to fight, I could exit after winning a fight without facing the next opponent.
"All right, settings complete."
Having finished adjusting the settings, I stared down at the sword lying on the floor.
Since I had configured it, I had to test it.
But picking up the sword wasn't easy.
It would be a serious problem if I died while fighting just to test it. I would regress back to the moment I was looking at the Carlos Royal Warehouse.
If I lowered the synchronization to avoid dying, not only would I be unable to test it properly, but winning would be even more impossible.
Wondering how on earth I was supposed to fight when I couldn't even feel anything properly, I cursed the creator of this sword once again.
In any case, I had to take up the sword eventually. Still, the situation was much better than when I had first seen it.
I didn't have to defeat the Hero in his prime; I only had to beat the fifteen-year-old Hero.
Besides, he was a Hero I had already defeated once.
"If I just do exactly what I did before, I can definitely win."
It was a match full of cheap tricks and foul play, but winning was all that mattered.
On top of that, I now had a new ability.
"I wouldn't be agonizing like this if the sword would just tempt me like it did before..."
I'd only ended up overthinking things for nothing.
I slapped my cheeks with both hands.
The pain that had hammered my head and nerves earlier was gone. Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any aftereffects.
The pouch tucked into my chest was still there. The crossbow that had been broken in the Mental World was perfectly fine in reality.
"All right, let's go!"
I entered the Mental World once again.
A moment later, I returned to reality.
I hadn't regressed to the past. I had opened my eyes at that exact same moment, still holding the sword.
"I won!"
I threw both hands up in the air inside my room.
"I won without even using an arrow!"
I had used the necklace and the ring, but I had managed to avoid using the arrow.
The newly acquired ability was absolutely incredible.
The fifteen-year-old Hero wasn't yet able to use that ability.
Thanks to that, although I did use the necklace, I was able to fight him on equal terms.
And finally, I deployed the ring's barrier to block his attack and finished him off by throwing a mana-infused dagger.
Honestly, it didn't seem much different from when I used the crossbow, but...
"It's different from an undetected arrow, of course. Absolutely different."
Even when I considered the details of the duel, it was vastly different from before.
Now, I felt like I could handle the next Hero as well if I used arrows.
Still, it was different from when the sword was tempting me.
I immediately regained my senses and shoved the black sword into my pouch.
It wasn't time to face the twenty-year-old Carlos yet.
I couldn't even face the fifteen-year-old Carlos without artifacts, especially the necklace.
Facing a Hero who had trained for five more years with my current level of skill was completely out of the question.
Besides, this sword wasn't an artifact meant for defeating the Hero through cheap tricks. It was a training ground for improving my own skills.
First, I had to fight and defeat the fifteen-year-old Carlos without any artifacts, especially the necklace.
Only after that would I be able to challenge the twenty-year-old Carlos.
After that, I continued through a second semester that seemed ordinary to others.
That "ordinary" only meant compared to the first semester, though; it wasn't actually ordinary like the other students' semesters.
At the Grand Archduchess's request for support, I accompanied her to various events.
From balls and tea parties to banquets and galas.
Thanks to that, strange rumors about the Grand Archduchess and me began to circulate within the Academy, and I also greeted many people in the capital's high society as her escort.
Even though I was merely a student knight serving as her escort, greeting so many women—which had been the Grand Archduchess's goal—more than fulfilled that objective.
"Thank you for your kind words. Since the Grand Archduchess is calling, I shall take my leave first. If I may catch even a glimpse of you from afar in the future, I would consider it a great blessing."
"Oh my, I will keep your gracious words deep in my heart."
In the end, I had become capable of easily exchanging such words with noble young ladies as I left a banquet hall.
"Good. This is more than enough."
One day near the end of the second semester, the Grand Archduchess declared that I had completed my etiquette training.
During the second semester, while following the Grand Archduchess around, I had managed to create a switch inside my head.
It was a switch that let me toggle between Etiquette Mode Alex and my usual self.
Whenever I met women, especially noblewomen, I changed my behavior by flipping the switch to Etiquette Mode Alex.
It felt a bit like having a split personality, but I could just think of it as a form of acting.
In this manner, I satisfied the Grand Archduchess in a timely fashion, and the rumors about me within the Academy also took a fairly positive turn.
Hearing that even the female student whose garden had been ruined had changed her opinion of me, I smacked my lips in mild amusement. But since things had ultimately ended on a good note, I decided to look on the bright side of everything.
Aside from the time I spent following the Grand Archduchess, I focused on training.
As for my other classes, what I had prepared at home was more than enough, so during Knight Faculty hours and extracurricular sessions, I continued to spar with other students.
With the Princess, Bria, Professor Katrin, and even the Empire exchange student, Joachim.
Fortunately, the students from the Empire didn't show any unusual behavior, and I was able to devote all my time to training.
Everyone looked at me with expressions of sheer exhaustion, but the training they knew about was only a fraction of it.
While the others spent a short second semester of less than half a year, I lived through a completely different flow of time.
After obtaining the black sword, I frequently entered the Mental World to fight the Hero, Carlos.
First, I entered leaving behind the crossbow and arrows, then the ring, and after that, the necklace.
Removing the artifacts one by one like that, I continued my battles with the fifteen-year-old Hero.
Along the way, I died multiple times, and there were even days when I had to skip classes because of the pain.
My perception of time was bound to be much longer than that of the other students.
On the day that incredibly long second semester finally came to an end,
I was able to defeat the fifteen-year-old Hero, Carlos, with nothing but a sword in my hands.
Once the second semester ended, winter vacation would begin immediately.
It was time to return to my hometown, the Duchy.