Artifact Investigation (1)
Artifact Investigation (1)
A room in the freshman girls' dormitory of the Royal Academy.
Unlike the rooms of the other female students, this one was utterly desolate.
There were no decorations to brighten it, nor any cosmetics or daily necessities in sight.
There were only textbooks and writing utensils. The school uniform hanging on the wall was all she had.
Inside the room, Ivana sat on her bed, reading a letter.
Unlike the others, she seemed mature and detached from everything, but she was still just a girl in her mid-teens.
Though she never showed it on her face, she had endured hardships and plenty of things that were difficult to bear.
Since entering the Royal Academy, those things had only become more frequent.
The person she had worked so hard to nurture had suffered a pointless defeat, and a senior had rejected her without even hearing her out.
On top of that, there was a female senior who picked fights with her for no reason.
She had never been treated this way when she was at home.
Though she couldn't show it to others, the resentment in her heart kept building.
And whenever that resentment became too difficult to bear, she read the letter.
[...I am sorry I cannot visit you often, but I am always thinking of you. On the day of Mother's funeral, I swore that you were my only sibling. Those who share Father's blood are nothing but rivals and enemies. Just endure and wait a little longer. On the day I ascend the throne, I will soothe all the pain you have suffered while living in hiding...]
The letter was filled with apologies and affection.
Though she had heard many bad rumors about her brother, she didn't believe them.
The brother she knew had always been gentle and warm.
Everyone was saying that the King didn't have much time left.
Just as her brother had said, she only had to endure a little longer.
Once the King died and her brother became the new King, her days of living in hiding to escape the King would come to an end.
Her mother, whom the King had driven from the palace.
Her mother, who had given birth to her out of loneliness and dreams of revenge against the King.
Ivana hated her mother for giving birth to her as an illegitimate child, and she also hated the King, who had abandoned her mother.
The only person she trusted and relied on was her half-brother, her brother, who had hidden and protected her all this time.
She let out a sigh and folded the letter. The tightness in her chest seemed to ease a little.
Ivana planned to work hard again starting tomorrow. She had to repay her brother, who had gotten her into the Academy.
Since the Marquis's son, Gael, had reached his growth limit sooner than expected, she also had to find a new cadet to use as a test subject.
With her current ability, she could still bestow it on only one person.
But if she continued to grow her strength like this, she would be able to bestow abilities on more than one person.
To do that, she had to find someone strong with high growth potential.
"That cheeky second-year would be the best, but..."
There was no student of that caliber in this Academy. Even the knights secretly guarding her were no match.
It seemed she would have to meet that second-year again once he returned from his group project outside the capital.
With those thoughts in mind, Ivana hid the letter deep inside her desk once more.
She couldn't let anyone else see it.
This letter had been sent by her brother and patron, the Crown Prince of this country.
After resting comfortably at the Marquis's mansion, we were guided to a room deep inside the estate the next day.
Knights were guarding the entrance to the room.
Inside, old items that looked like artifacts were laid out on a large table, and an elderly scribe was waiting beside it.
It seemed they had brought the artifacts out of the warehouse.
Regrettably, it seemed we wouldn't get to see the Pisen Marquisate's treasure vault.
Then again, there was no reason for them to let us in.
Upon seeing the artifacts, the Grand Archduchess's eyes sparkled.
That was because artifacts rumored to have disappeared lay on the table in a damaged state.
Although taking them all and trying to repair them would be the best way to hone her skills, simply examining them like this seemed to be a great help to her.
To avoid revealing her ability, examining them like this was the best course of action.
As for repairing the damaged artifacts, it seemed the artifact I had brought her last time had helped.
While the Grand Archduchess examined the artifacts frantically, the Princess and Mirisa listened as the elderly scribe explained their origins.
"This watch was found a hundred years ago by a mercenary exploring the Seal Grounds. It is an artifact from the era of the Old Empire. I heard that for a while after it was discovered, it absorbed the surrounding mana to tell the time. But now that it is broken, it is nothing more than an antique. And this artifact is..."
Perhaps because he was the scribe who had managed the artifacts all this time, he explained each item's origins and use in detail.
Since she couldn't take notes in a place like this, Mirisa committed the information to memory as best she could, while the Princess listened to the stories with interest.
While the Grand Archduchess, the Princess, and Mirisa were all busy in their own ways, the remaining three of us stood around blankly, making small talk.
"There are many fascinating things here. I wonder if any of those artifacts were used by heroes?"
"Well, we'll have to look closer, but I doubt it."
At Balea's words, I shook my head.
If there were an artifact used by heroes, the dagger at my waist would surely have made a huge fuss.
Although it had been sulking and quiet lately for some reason, it would still have started blabbering immediately if an artifact used by heroes appeared.
And in any case, our conversation was just small talk to keep us from standing around blankly like Joachim.
Balea had no interest in the artifacts, and for me, the meeting scheduled for this afternoon was far more important than these relics.
As I chatted with Balea, a certain task came to mind.
I didn't know if it would work, but since we had come as members of the same team, I decided to try doing something helpful.
I excused myself to Balea and approached the butler standing by the door.
"How may I help you?"
The butler treated me with more politeness than I had expected.
Perhaps he had received separate instructions from the Marquis.
It seemed things would go much more smoothly.
"By any chance, are there any damaged artifacts you might be willing to sell? I thought that if we presented them to the Princess or the Grand Archduchess, they would make excellent souvenirs of their visit to the Marquisate."
It was a somewhat cheeky request, but since the recipients of the gifts were no ordinary people, it wouldn't sound too presumptuous.
"I am sorry, but these artifacts are not for sale. As for gifts for the Princess and the Grand Archduchess... the Marquis will likely speak of them separately."
Okay, this was enough.
I never expected them to sell the artifacts anyway.
There was no way the Marquisate would let the Princess or the Grand Archduchess leave without any gifts after their visit.
My words were a hint to give them gifts in the form of damaged artifacts. The butler seemed to have understood my meaning perfectly.
As expected, noble conversations where everything had to be said indirectly were exhausting.
"Why don't you become an administrative official instead of a knight? I think you'd be quite good at it."
When I returned to Balea's side, she whispered softly, apparently having overheard what I'd said to the butler.
It was a compliment on my political tact. It was certainly meant as one, but why didn't it feel like one? Perhaps because I disliked that sort of thing.
So I retorted with a question of my own.
"Have you ever considered becoming a tactician or a spy, Lady Balea?"
"Ah, now that I think about it, that might have sounded sarcastic. To think you'd strike back immediately like that."
Balea pouted.
These were words she couldn't say to anyone else. They were also words Balea wouldn't have spoken if it weren't for me.
Having someone nearby with whom I could speak informally was something to be incredibly grateful for.
Admittedly, the fact that it was Balea was a bit awkward.
As we continued our small talk, the morning slipped away.
The Grand Archduchess left the room with a satisfied expression, and Mirisa and the Princess, who had listened to the scribe's stories, also seemed pleased.
The scribe was surprisingly good at storytelling.
The elderly scribe, though, who had to talk all morning, looked quite exhausted.
We had lunch in the mansion's dining hall.
There, we met the Marquis's family.
Although a formal banquet with the Marquis's family was scheduled separately for dinner, no separate arrangements had been made for lunch, so we naturally ended up dining with them.
The meal was ordinary, and they seemed like an ordinary high-ranking noble family.
The Marquis's wife was a refined-looking middle-aged lady, and there were boys and girls around our age.
Three sons and two daughters. In this world, that wasn't a particularly large number of children.
One of the three sons was a familiar face.
At first, I didn't recognize him.
Not only was his head hanging low, but his appearance and the mana radiating from him were different from when we had fought.
He was the same height, but his bulk and muscles seemed to have shrunk, and his mana had definitely decreased.
That was without even comparing him to how strong he had become during our fight.
He was far weaker than when I had first seen him, back when he seemed to have the skill of an official knight.
Even now, his skills were decent for a freshman at the Academy, but with this level of ability, it would have been difficult for him to cause enough of a stir at the Academy for me to hear about it.
'It's not like his skills dropped because he got injured over the span of a few days, so could it be... that the bestowed ability can also be taken back?'
Having fought him, I could roughly tell what kind of ability it was.
It was an ability that allowed someone to rapidly build up the peak physical body and mana they could potentially achieve.
An ability that allowed someone to approach their absolute prime quickly.
It seemed the growth rate only accelerated when fighting a proper powerhouse, but even so, it was an incredible ability.
Experience, innate talent, and swordsmanship, it seemed, couldn't be nurtured with that ability.
If even those could be enhanced, it would have been a truly cheat-like technique.
'Surprisingly, it had more weaknesses.'
I hadn't expected that the power nurtured by the ability would vanish once it was taken back.
Traces of the developed muscles and mana remained, though. It didn't seem to have dropped all the way back to his initial level.
Still, the frustration of the person who had lost it was so palpable that even I, watching from across the table, could feel it.
'The fact that she gave it and then took it back must mean she can't bestow it on multiple people at once. Is that why she came looking for me?'
I think I also understood why those freshmen were gathered around her.
It must have been because they had all experienced her ability.
Having felt such absurd growth only to have it snatched away, they had no choice but to cling to her.
That freshman with his head hanging low would also end up joining that crowd once he returned to the Academy.
As I ate, lost in these thoughts, I kept feeling gazes on me.
I could tell even without raising my head.
They were the gazes of the Marquis's two daughters.
There was no affection in them.
The other two brothers, excluding the guy with his head hanging low, were too busy stealing glances at the Grand Archduchess and the Princess to pay attention to anything else.
'It must be because of that guy.'
The Marquis's daughters must have also heard how we ended up coming to the Marquisate.
In that case, they would have heard who caused the incident and who won.
Their gazes were likely born of that kind of curiosity.
What the Marquis had said yesterday about marriage to a child of the family crossed my mind, but that couldn't be the reason.
While I felt their gazes, the surrounding mana became unstable once again.
For some reason, the female team members seemed to have soured in mood again.
After the somewhat suffocating meal ended, we headed to the training ground.
Now it was time to see the Divine Sword and the Master of the Sword.