110. Early Santa
110. Early Santa
"Ahhh, that was fun. If nothing unusual happens next week, want to go out again?"
"If we go out too often, won't it stop feeling special?"
"Now that Amy's joined in, I think it'd be worth going one more time."
I went out to the downtown district with Liber this weekend.
An incident ruined our fun last weekend, but this time, nothing of the sort happened.
We checked out the places we'd scouted during last weekend's outing, bought a ton of gifts, and in the evening, we booked a hotel room with a great view and had a good night.
I'd never forget it—the two of us looking out at the nighttime ocean from the balcony. Not from my bleak dorm room, but from a spacious hotel room with a stunning view.
[Mmph.. mmph..!!]
The sword clutched in my hand was minutely vibrating.
I'd finally gone ahead and bought it from the weapon shop that sold Cursed Weapons, the one I'd checked out before.
Considering it had been smashed with a hammer like that last time and was still perfectly fine, it definitely felt like it was no ordinary item.
The moment I bought it, I shoved it into a scabbard I'd prepared with a sealing treatment so it couldn't pull any tricks, and it quieted down somewhat.
The shop owner practically begged me to take it, so he only asked for the lowest possible price, and instead, I purchased some of the highest quality weapons from his shop.
I should give them as gifts to the others.
"....Atlas, it's really all right, isn't it? You were incredibly startled when you picked up that sword."
"It's fine."
The moment I grabbed this cursed sword, it had spouted some unpleasant nonsense again, so I was a little startled.
Since it had done the same thing last time, I figured it would be more of the same this time and let it slide.
But a bit of unease lingered in a corner of my mind, and because I was bothered by it throughout this trip and kept moving around restlessly, Liber seemed to have worried quite a lot.
"Why on earth did you buy that unpleasant sword?"
"Do you know how precious this thing is...? I shoved it in a corner of my room, planning to give it away as a present later."
"So there is someone who would like that thing..."
"I'm telling you, this is seriously precious??"
Thanks to buying this and that as gifts, I was loaded down with baggage on my back. Just then, a group of students rushed past beside me.
It was Perda's group.
"Whoa, what in the world did you buy so much of? Are you planning to open a weapon shop or something?"
"They're all gifts."
As Perda pointed out, I looked quite ridiculous.
Carrying a huge bundle on my back was very unnatural.
But they were all things I had bought out of necessity.
Perda seemed to have gone out on consecutive outings as well.
Judging by the signs, it looked like I would be running into that guy every week whenever I went out, so I needed to be careful.
Taking last week's incident as a lesson, I had paid good money to rent a private room, so I hadn't even realized he was there until I came out.
"Class 5 said they were doing a tea house, right? Can I come visit?"
"I don't mind you coming, but if you cause a ruckus, I'll kick you out."
"I won't do anything like that."
As Perda waved his hands in denial, Nina asked from behind him.
"Is it true that Woodville's Atlas is receiving supplies from 'Ben's Bakery'??"
"We're buying from there."
"Nivas always goes to the capital alone, so I've only ever heard of Ben's Bakery and never got to visit..! How is it?? Is it really as delicious as its reputation suggests??"
Nina asked with her eyes sparkling, but Liber and I were at a loss for words.
Liber had also recently witnessed Woodville and a few others from Class 5 practicing baking bread, and even then, they were still putting on the sight of turning perfectly good dough into charcoal.
"I'm not sure yet...?"
"Right...?"
There was only about one week left until then, and no one knew if it would be properly completed by that time.
"What do you mean you're not sure yet??"
"Um... you'll know when you come on the day of the festival."
"That means I can come, right? I'll definitely be there, so wait for me!"
But Nina, not knowing what that meant, just smiled innocently.
Liber didn't particularly keep his guard up around Nina either.
When they first met, he had been somewhat cautious, but since she was such an open and honest kid, he seemed to have taken a liking to her.
"Our class is doing a host bar with non-alcoholic cocktails, so drop by sometime. If you mention it at the entrance, I'll give you some special service."
"Ugh, I'm absolutely not going."
I had to go around and deliver the pile of gifts I had brought, like some kind of Santa Claus.
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With a sizable load on my shoulder and a basket in my hand, I was climbing a hill on the academy grounds.
I found Amy, who was in the middle of practice.
In a clearing, Amy was matching combinations with a practice golem alongside Rio, who had become her teammate.
Rio, who used earth elemental magic, was learning a lot of 'practical' spells.
Things like 'Dig,' which predicted where a person would step and instantly created a pit, and 'Swamp,' which turned the footing into mud to temporarily restrict movement.
She used simple but powerful spells such as 'Stone Wall,' which boasted high physical defense by raising a rock wall, and 'Alchemy: Iron Spear,' which boasted high physical attack power by causing a steel stake to surge upward.
Amy was also showing good movement, coating her steel sword with aura.
She hadn't learned a named swordsmanship from a prestigious family, but Amy's sword was remarkably systematic for being self-taught.
It resembled Hayden's sword, which I had only ever seen described in the novel.
The sword of Hayden, the protagonist of Academy's Devil Slayer, was a sword learned from a demon hunter.
It was a sword more useful against opponents that lacked a human form or didn't move like a human than in person-to-person combat, so it featured many attacks with large, sweeping movements.
'From a distance, you'd think she was Hayden.'
The moment Rio's support bound the golem's movements, Amy attacked the practice golem with her sword.
It was an incredibly fast and large attack.
After taking a certain amount of damage, the golem entered rest mode on its own.
This practice golem hadn't originally been in this clearing.
Anyone could use the practice golems if they simply reserved a slot at the academy's designated training grounds, but during the Hunting Festival season, reservations had exploded to the point where you could no longer get a slot at the training grounds.
So I pulled out one that was being used elsewhere.
I asked Hera nuna for a favor and borrowed one of the practice golems the Swordsmanship Research Club wasn't using, tuned it up appropriately, and we were now using it.
I had input about three patterns of the magical beasts most commonly encountered during the Black Forest's Hunting Festival so they could practice with it.
"Amy, take a break before you continue."
"Wow.. thank you."
"...Thank you."
Pausing her practice, Amy smiled brightly and ran over, opened the cloth covering the basket, and pulled out the Pine Sparkling she always drank.
After her, Rio hesitantly shuffled over and quietly took a cup of coffee with cold ice floating in it.
She seemed to have gotten quite comfortable with Amy, but she was still very shy around me.
Though she could have been more comfortable, since I'm her sunbae.
'Or maybe not?'
That sunbae and several other sunbaes in the same year had gotten smacked by me before, so was she being cautious?
Still, a shy person was better than a rude one.
"So how is it, are you confident?"
"We're only three, but... everyone is skilled enough to do the work of two or more people, so I'm plenty confident!"
"If so... wouldn't something like this increase your chances even more?"
From the bundle I had been carrying on my back, I handed her a package I had prepared, even attaching a tag with Amy's name on it.
"Here, a gift."
"This is...?"
"You can't use the equipment you normally carry, right?"
With trembling hands, Amy opened the package and began taking out the items inside one by one.
The first thing she picked up was, as expected, a longsword.
It was a longsword that was flashily decorated but still had all the practical aspects taken care of.
When Amy drew it from the scabbard, the pure white blade flashed in the sunlight.
It was an alloy mixed with mithril.
And the proportion of mithril was quite high.
"It's nothing compared to a solid mithril sword, but it's a mithril alloy, and I tried to match the weight, length, and so on as closely as possible."
It wasn't simply a mithril alloy.
I had remembered the weight, length, and center of gravity of the greatsword Amy used and found something as similar as possible.
Of course, if it were made with the same thickness as a sword forged from a solid mithril ingot, the weight would've been too much, so I adjusted that part.
"Thank you... how did you manage this..."
As Amy received the sword, her eyes welled up.
Seeing a kid who ran around swinging solid mithril when hunting demons, only to later put that away to avoid drawing aggro and instead swing a mass-produced iron sword, made my own heart uneasy too.
Seeing her so happy made giving the gift worthwhile.
"There's more inside, so keep pulling them out."
"Yes.. yes!!"
From the package popped out various pieces of equipment that would take over the roles of the gear Amy usually used.
I'd generously packed in a rare metal chainmail to minimize damage from slashing or piercing attacks, an artifact that reduced the shock from large attacks, and even throwing weapons that weren't exactly guns but still exploded.
"I'm rooting for you, so do your best at the Hunting Festival."
"Yes!!"
After that, I also handed a gift to sunbae Rio, and then I left the three of them to continue practicing. Alone, I hoisted my load and moved around to distribute gifts to various people.
It wasn't even winter yet, and I wondered what this Santa-like behavior was all about.
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After carrying the load on my back, wandering all over the academy while handing out gifts, I was finally alone.
The load on my back, which had been so heavy, was now light.
A mithril-alloy sword for Amy, armor she could layer under her coat, and other miscellaneous things...
A teddy bear and an artifact for Lucia,
I also gave Shara a necklace... and gave Hera nuna an artifact that provided strong resistance against magic attacks.
I also gifted Andy a chainmail that would block at least one dangerous attack.
Thinking about it one by one, it really added up to a lot.
As for Rio, the sunbae Amy asked to be on her team, I bought her a wand and a brooch too.
I roughly judged her skill and attribute and picked the best things from the shop, and she seemed pleased.
'She's an exam admission student, right?'
She was a person who, even at a glance, clearly looked like an exam admission student.
She didn't dress up well and tried to look neat, but everything she wore was slightly frayed, leaving her somehow looking shabby.
The academy's scholarship provided enough money for students to maintain a minimum level of dignity, so if her clothes were worn down to that degree, she was likely using the bare minimum for herself and sending the rest back home.
There were often students like that.
Because the money one needed to live like a decent person at the academy could allow common farmers to live very comfortably.
The reason I had supported her with equipment this time wasn't for the one-dimensional reason that she looked pitiful or anything.
I didn't think of those desperately living their lives as pitiful without any bottom or end.
That would be an act of looking down on them.
I wasn't some kind of saint. If I had planned to take responsibility for the lives of every person living in poverty just because they looked pitiful, I wouldn't have been a Shadow; I would have taken my territory and first fed the farmers of my territory.
The reason I supported Rio with equipment was that she was on the same team as Amy.
I didn't know what Amy was thinking when she called Rio.
Whether she sympathized with her situation, purely chose her based on skill, or picked her because they were both exam admission students, I couldn't tell.
Because she was working incredibly hard to prepare for the Hunting Festival, I didn't say anything that might shake her for no reason.
I simply wanted her to focus only on the Hunting Festival.
First of all, just from watching them match their combinations, she was a good mage with decent skill and good sense. Having better equipment would likely make her much stronger, so I bought them to help the team out.
Even so, for a gift given to someone I hardly knew, it was fairly expensive, but there was a reason for all of it.
"So, shall we have another look..?"
In a corner of the room illuminated by the sunlight streaming through the window, I picked up the sword that was incessantly quivering.
The sword, vibrating minutely as if it had a motor inside, had a very bizarre form.
The blade itself was incredibly worn out and looked as if it would rust at any moment, but the scabbard was, incongruously, extremely flashy.
It was as if something that didn't match at all had been forcibly shoved into it.
Sighing, I drew the worn-out sword.
"...Then say it again. One more time."
[You cursed bastard..!! How dare you seal me in this cramped scabbard!! I curse you, I curse you..!!]
The moment I drew the sword from the scabbard, it vibrated violently and shouted recklessly.
It spewed words of curses and radiated dreadful curses in all directions, and if I left it alone, it felt like an undead might pop out right here in my dorm room.
This sword, which was impudently spewing curses in a corner of my room, was the Cursed Weapon I had discovered last week.
I went to the weapon shop in the downtown district that handled Cursed Weapons, obtained a scabbard for sealing it, and purchased it.
As soon as I bought it and sealed it in the scabbard, it acted up like this because it didn't like it.
"Still haven't come to your senses, I see."
Leaving behind the guy noisily buzzing and pouring out curses, I drew Squete from beside me.
-Huuung
With that, the previously dark room brightened at once, as if a light had been turned on inside it.
The Aura Blade had begun to burn, glowing white-hot.
If I struck down with full force in this state, the Cursed Weapon would be cut in half in an instant.
But I had no desire to break something I had gone through the trouble to buy.
Instead, I brought the Aura Blade to the blade of the Cursed Weapon.
Then, a sound like searing living flesh with a hot iron began to emanate from the blade.
-Tssssssssssss
[Kuaaaaaaagggghhhh!!!!]
"Only answer the questions you're asked. So, what did you say was going to happen to me?"
The Aura Blade, having reached the extreme, was also lethal to curses.
[Fine, if you want to hear it, I'll tell you...! In two weeks, your neck will be cut and you'll die...!! I don't know how you avoided the last prophecy, but this time it'll be hard to escape..!!]
This much wasn't enough to make the Cursed Weapon completely submit, but at least it was possible to make it stop just babbling crazed nonsense.
[Hahaha!! Why not enjoy the remaining time you have alive!!]
"Understood, so get back in there now."
[W..wait just a moment!! Spare me from the seal... it's too suffocating, I tell you!]
"If that's the case, you should have spoken nicely."
-Cheolkeok
The moment I shoved it into the scabbard, the once so noisy clamor fell silent.
Occasionally, it still vibrated, scabbard and all, but it wasn't anything significant.
And that wasn't the important thing.
The biggest reason I had gone around handing out gifts was because of this.
Originally, I had only planned to buy Amy a single mithril-alloy sword and be done with it, but the reason I specifically packed armor to wear underneath was entirely because of that damn prophecy.
"Neck... huh..."
I didn't know whether what this Cursed Weapon said was accurate or not, but last time, it had been fulfilled somewhat similarly.
The prophecy that said I'd be stabbed to death by a sword was only half right—I had gotten stabbed, but I didn't die.
Thinking of it at that level meant that within two weeks, a major incident large enough that I'd suffer a neck injury would occur.
If it was within two weeks, the period included the Hunting Festival.
If it happened after that, I'd be fortunate, but the most likely scenario was an accident occurring during the Hunting Festival.
Since something was set to blow up within two weeks, I grew anxious. So first, I gave everyone participating in the Hunting Festival, which would likely be the most dangerous, additional equipment to protect their bodies.
Just the other day, I had been incredibly happy, but the moment I heard this, I became this uneasy; truly, it could only be a horrific curse.
What on earth was going to blow up?
Had the bastard who commissioned those assassins not given up yet?
I knew something would blow up, but I didn't know where it would blow up, which gave me a headache.
"This is driving me crazy, seriously... What's the problem now? It's not like coding; what the hell, I thought I blocked one thing, and now other things are exploding one after another..."
The Hunting Festival was drawing closer.