The Knight's Sword (2)
The Knight's Sword (2)
The Chief Butler drew the sword and brought it over to me.
I had heard the ceremony's sequence explained several times, so I raised both hands as instructed and supported the sword he handed me.
As I held the sword, the Knight Commander spoke.
"Though it looks so ordinary, they say it displayed tremendous power when the first king, Carlos, wielded it. I heard the kings who came after him used its power too, but at some point..."
"Ahem. Ahem."
The Chief Butler cleared his throat while the Knight Commander was still speaking.
Even without hearing the rest, it was obvious his words would have turned into criticism of the current king. It seemed only natural for the Chief Butler to cut him off.
But it wouldn't have mattered even if he hadn't.
I wasn't listening to the Knight Commander anyway.
The moment I held the sword, I was completely severed from the world.
The world went dark, then brightened again a moment later.
It was a sensation I'd felt every time I died, and much the same thing had happened when I grasped the training sword.
Perhaps because of that, I managed not to startle, even though it happened so suddenly.
When I opened my eyes, I was standing in a desolate land where the earth had been churned up and the mountains had crumbled.
What's more, my body wouldn't move as I wished. Even my eye level felt strange. I seemed much taller.
Still, thanks to my past experiences, I managed to stay calm.
But I couldn't help being startled when a woman suddenly thrust her face right in front of mine.
"Are you all right?"
The beautiful woman gazed at me as she asked.
She was truly beautiful, and I was seeing her for the first time.
She possessed a beauty so extraordinary it shouldn't have existed in the mortal world, but that wasn't what surprised me.
It was because I had seen her before.
I'd never met her in person, but I remembered the woman looking at me with worried eyes.
"Ah, I'm fine. I was just lost in thought for a moment."
Uh, it wasn't just that I couldn't move my body as I pleased.
My mouth and body were moving on their own.
"I thought you were still unwell."
The woman gently caressed my cheek.
"You know what my body's like. That fellow even healed me, so there's no way I'm unwell."
As the conversation continued, I finally began to understand what was happening.
It wasn't that I couldn't move my body.
I had possessed someone else's body.
No—looking at the woman, it wasn't possession. I was seeing someone else's memories.
The woman worrying about me—or rather, the man whose body I had possessed—was someone I'd seen in a painting hanging in the study of the estate's mansion.
I'd also seen her in a painting hanging in the royal palace's hallway.
Although she looked older in those paintings, they had captured her beauty well.
If she was indeed the woman in those paintings, then the woman before me was the Queen of the first king, the Mother of the Nation, and the heroine who laid the Kingdom's foundational pillars on the first king's behalf.
If so, the man whose body I'd possessed could only be the first king.
When I held the training sword, it made me fight the first king. Now the Knight's Sword was showing me the first king's memories?
Now that I understood what was happening, I could watch the scene unfold with a relaxed mind.
Surely I wouldn't have to watch until he died.
...Right?
As I wondered about this and that, the conversation continued.
As I—or rather, the first king—patted himself as if to reassure her, someone clicked their tongue nearby.
I turned to look and saw a man in a priest's robe gazing this way with a pitiful expression.
"A guy whose body was half blown away sure talks big. If it weren't for me, you'd already be dead."
Perhaps because it was true, the first king scratched his head.
Then he abruptly changed the subject.
"Did Wil go?"
As if he had no intention of pressing the matter, the priest answered.
"Yeah. He took the kids and left in a flash, saying he'd revive the fallen empire."
I nodded.
Could "Wil" be Emperor Wilhelm, who was said to have founded the Tsar Empire?
"The others have left too. You two are the last."
Listening to their conversation, I felt I knew where this place—now reduced to ruins—was.
This was the very Seal Grounds where the Demon King had been sealed.
It was the ancient imperial capital, ruined in the battle against the Demon King. Now, it was a sealed ground blanketed by forests and jungles.
"We should get going too."
"Are you two really going to found a country as well?"
"Quite a few of the soldiers who followed me survived, and there are a lot of families to look after. If we build a castle and gather the survivors from here and there, it'll become something like a country."
"As if it'll be that easy."
"Of course, I couldn't do it alone. But I have complete faith in Leonor."
His gaze shifted to the Queen standing beside him.
"Well, if you're with Leonor, it does seem possible. But is she really going with you?"
"Ah, that's right. Leonor! Are you really all right with coming with me? I only know how to fight, so you'll have a hard time."
The Queen smiled at Carlos's words and was about to answer, but then she glared at him as if she'd suddenly remembered something.
"Where on earth do you think I'd go, leaving you behind? No, wait—is that a proposal? No way. Absolutely not. You can't just brush it off with words like that!"
"You'll get chewed out later. If you're going to do it, propose properly."
"Exactly. You must propose pro-per-ly after founding the country! Otherwise, I won't accept!"
Hmm. The history books I'd read hadn't mentioned a separate proposal later on... It might really be that this proposal was the end of it.
I offered the Queen my silent condolences.
"Pio, are you really going to establish the religious order?"
"We all agreed to it. There are people like Teodora who opposed it and left, but seeing as even they didn't stop us, they must know it's inevitable."
"I don't really know. Everyone says it's necessary, so I'm taking part...but I don't know if it's the right thing to do."
"Even if it isn't the right thing, it's necessary. This is absolutely essential for the country you're going to build, too."
The priest gazed at the ruined land with a sorrowful expression.
"Are you all right?"
The Queen asked the priest with concern.
The priest shook his head.
"I'm fine. I'm just doing what needs to be done. If there are people who act for the sake of the future, then there must also be someone to clean up the past."
Flash!
At those words, the world began to darken again.
Fortunately, I didn't have to watch until he died.
I breathed a sigh of relief and waited for the light to return to the world.
When the world brightened again, I looked around.
I was holding the sword, and the Chief Butler was clearing his throat.
The scene was exactly as it had been before I saw the memory.
It had felt like an incredibly long time, but in reality, only a moment had passed.
My mind was cluttered by the sudden experience, but thanks to my many regressions, I managed to act calm on the outside.
I carefully lifted the sword and hung it at my waist.
As I donned the gleaming plate armor of the Royal Knights and strapped the Knight's Sword to my waist, the scene I'd just witnessed came back to me.
I'd thought something might change if I grasped the Knight's Sword, just as it had when I held the dagger and gained a new ability.
But I'd never imagined I'd see the first king, Carlos, and Queen Leonor with my own eyes.
Seeing them was quite exciting as a citizen of this kingdom, but their conversation was too much to take in with mere excitement.
To think the religious order—the only religion left on this continent—had been founded by one of the heroes.
And it hadn't even been established to serve a god. It had some other purpose in mind.
It was the kind of story that would cause an uproar if anyone found out, but I couldn't tell anyone.
Unless other people could also see the memories I'd seen, if I blabbed about it, I'd only be branded a heretic.
And seeing how the kings who came after had kept silent, it seemed that only I could see this memory.
'As expected, I should just keep quiet and pretend I don't know for now.'
It was no big deal. It was just one more secret added to my collection.
The Royal Chief Butler, the Knight Commander, and I walked down the hallway in silence after leaving the King's office.
The Knight Commander stayed quiet after the Chief Butler's warning, and I followed the two of them without a word.
We passed through the hallway and crossed the hall, then emerged at the royal palace's main gate.
A carriage from the temple was waiting for us there.
It was a modest-looking white carriage.
The priest who came to greet us wasn't the young priest I'd seen during the Knight Tournament.
Well, that priest was probably preparing for the ritual by now.
The middle-aged priest ushered us into the carriage with a blunt expression.
The inside of the carriage was quite different from its exterior.
Though it looked modest from the outside, its interior was luxurious enough to rival a royal carriage.
Since the capital's temple dealt with royal figures and high nobles, it made sense that they'd ride in a carriage like this, but I couldn't help feeling a bitter taste in my mouth.
The carriage carrying the Knight Commander and me slowly set off from the royal palace.
The temple wasn't far from the royal palace.
It was close enough that its spire could be seen from inside the palace.
Though the carriage moved slowly, it arrived at the temple not long after leaving the palace.
As the carriage stopped, hymns reached my sensitive ears.
It was a choir singing praises to the nameless god.
Thanks to the memory I'd just glimpsed, the choir's praise sounded different to me.
Because I remembered my past lives, I didn't have any particular religious faith.
But seeing how I could regress every time I died and how the temple displayed healing powers, I might have half-believed in the nameless god.
That was probably why the memory I'd just seen came as such a shock to me, too.
It was ironic that a knight who was supposed to pray for the King's healing had grasped the Knight's Sword and ended up in this state, but I composed my expression and entered the temple's tall spire.
Priests were lined up in the hallway, waiting for us.
I walked past them and stood before a tightly closed door.
It was a grand door engraved with divine blessings.
I'd seen a similar door at the temple on the estate, though it had been smaller.
The altar lay beyond this door.
An altar where sacrifices were offered to the god and blessings were prayed for.
The relic I was looking for had to be inside.
It was an exciting moment, but I was too busy looking at something else to even think about the relic.
Since I hadn't felt any other changes after holding the sword and seeing the memory, I'd thought that viewing the memory was all the Knight's Sword did.
It was a pity, but there was no guarantee I'd gain a new ability every time I held a hero's relic, so I tried to be satisfied with having seen the memory.
But the moment I walked down the temple hallway and stood before this door, I felt the mana inside my body change.
It had taken time, just as it had when I gained abilities from the dagger.
Even with the altar right in front of me, I opened the status window to check.
< Knight-type Hero Ability User >
< Active Abilities >
Physical Optimization: Level 20
Mana Circuit Construction Method: Level 2
Mana Resonance: Level 1
Equipment Summoning: Level 1
Mana Emission: Level 1
< Unauthorized Abilities >
Mana Materialization: Level 2
Death Regression: Level 2
Thanks to studying, learning, and gathering the mana cultivation techniques into one, the "Mana Circuit Construction Method" had risen by one level.
The seal on Mana Resonance had also been completely broken.
But these two were things I'd already known before entering the royal palace.
What had changed was the last ability.
The ability that had been sealed was finally unlocked.
It hadn't even required a seal to be released like the other abilities.
It was already at Level 1.
Although its name alone didn't make it seem like a particularly impressive ability, I knew what it was.
The biggest reason I'd lost to the Twenty-Year-Old Hero inside the training sword without even getting close was precisely this ability.
I had finally obtained the long-range ability a knight needed.