The Sword of Screaming

Unique grade.

A rank plainly higher than even SSR—one that had not existed at all in the game's earliest days. To think a thing like this had been shoved into a corner of the Seal Vault.

And yet, smeared like filth over the pure-white radiance that marked Unique grade, there clung a dark-crimson curse. A cursed item. In Crius Saga, cursed items were mostly spectacle pieces, thrown away for their brutal penalties and for how miserable they were to cleanse.

But.

"This one's actually usable."

Not for me, they weren't.

I went over the traits in the description window one by one. Four of them.

Whoever draws the sword, or whoever it cuts... Well. No need to worry about the penalties.

Weapon Master is not simply a skill for handling a weapon well with one's hands. Its true worth lies in governing the weapon's own nature—activating or sealing its traits as the conditions demand, even applying those effects differently according to the foe. I could keep this sword's penalties from touching me. I could tune it into something safe enough to bring to a spar.

Seen that way, the blade was not merely difficult to wield. It was an exceptionally versatile arm.

Bleeding and curse favor a long fight against a strong opponent. Fear, the other way around, is worth using when the enemy comes in numbers.

Fire Aura, though, was a power strange to me. Aura was a concept that had not existed at all back when I was a hunter.

If it's anything like granting an attribute... it ought to be considerably useful.

Even if it did nothing, it would not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠matter. The other traits alone already outclassed every weapon I had confirmed in the draws. It had not been judged Unique for nothing.

"Don't tell me there's another one of these."

On the off chance, I checked the rest of the weapons in the Seal Vault. Black cards flipped, gleaming bronze, then silver, then gold, and Blue-White Stones spilled away in a rush—though set against the whole of what I held, the loss did not even show.

I have to stock enhancement stones anyway.

Attempt a draw and refuse the weapon, and you were given fragments of enhancement stone in its place. The weapon-enhancement system was not open yet, but gathering the stones ahead of time was no bad thing.

I went through every weapon in the Seal Vault that way, and in the end no second Unique item appeared. Even so, I was not disappointed. The Sword of Screaming alone was a haul well beyond what I had expected.

Without hesitation, I pressed the selection button that had appeared before the screaming sword.

With that small system message, the chains and sealing script wrapped around the sword came undone and slipped away. The dark-crimson blade writhed like a living serpent, breathing out an ominous mana.

I snatched the hilt before it could run wild. The sword, which had been thrashing with mana, went quiet and steady at once, as if it had never stirred.

"Balance seems all right..."

I curled my hand lightly around the grip and gave it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an easy swing. A sharp cut of air, and a chilling keenness caught the light in a faint gleam.

"Feels good, too."

This much was a pass. I took up the sword I had just gained and stepped out of the Seal Vault.

Walter, waiting anxiously beyond the door, hardened the moment he saw the blade in my hand.

"Young master. You chose that sword?"

In his eyes there lay something past doubt and worry—a faint hostility. He looked ready to brace himself, as if I might already be bewitched by the demonic blade and start cutting people down at any moment.

"I did. As you can see, I found a sword very much to my liking. Look at this blade, as if blood itself were running through it. A man needs at least this much before he can go around calling himself the eldest son of House Roenheim, wouldn't you say?"

I answered on purpose in the careless tone peculiar to Lucas. At that voice, which could only sound pathetic, Walter's guard eased a little.

"Do you know what that sword is?"

"I don't. Do you?"

I asked in the hope of hearing any tale bound up with the blade. Unexpectedly, Walter shook his head as well.

"I don't know the details either. Which is to say, it entered the Seal Vault a very long time ago."

"An old famous sword. I like it all the more."

"...It causes you no discomfort?"

"None at all."

At my answer Walter let out a short sigh. Whether that sigh was worry or simple exasperation, I could not tell, and it did not matter. With a weapon of this caliber, there would be far more I could do from here. Carrying that expectation with me, I returned to my room.

That night, deep in the ducal house's archive, Walter was digging through dozens of the Seal Vault's ledgers.

"Not in this one either."

He closed one of the volumes and rubbed at the spot between his brows.

The Seal Vault of House Roenheim. In truth, the vault's history ran longer than the ducal house's own. A vault once operated in the Empire's name had been entrusted by the emperor of that age to Roenheim's first duke, and so the intake records Walter was reading stretched across some hundreds of years.

"This is the one."

Only after working through more than ten such volumes did he at last confirm the record of the sword the young master had chosen.

The Screaming Sword. That was the name written in the ledger, and the traits set down beside it were vicious past believing. Merely holding it drank a person's life and drew blood, and once it left the sheath, the wail of a devil froze all who heard it in terror. A demonic blade.

"And yet..."

Walter called back the sword as he had seen it. In the hand of that immature young master, the blade had certainly shed an uncommon edge and an ill omen. But the curse written here had not manifested in the slightest.

Has the curse come undone?

It was not an impossible tale. Nothing in all the world outlasts the years. It was surprisingly common for a sealed curse, across decades and centuries, to lose its strength little by little and at last to vanish. The ominous presence he had felt was likely no more than a remnant the curse had left behind.

"Haa..."

Closing the vault records, Walter let out a long breath.

In truth, the moment he first heard Lucas say they ought to go to the Seal Vault, worry had come before anything else. He could already see the boy bewitched by some haunted weapon and gone mad. Had it not been Duke Kaiser's order—to let him choose a weapon as freely as possible—Walter would never have allowed it.

And yet that same Lucas had sorted through the weapons and brought back one whose curse had lifted.

"Has he truly changed?"

Walter murmured it, eyes narrowing.

Certainly, if one looked only at the weapons themselves, some of the demonic blades in the Seal Vault were famous swords that would not have looked out of place in the First Armory. They lay there only because the curses laid over them were so powerful. But whether a curse had lifted or not was difficult to judge even for a renowned shaman, and so no one ever thought of seeking a weapon in the Seal Vault.

Lucas had done it.

Was this simple chance, or had some true change come over him?

"If that is so..."

Having thought that far, Walter rose. As he quietly set the records he had examined back in order, a single resolve had settled in his eyes.

The next day, from early morning, Walter came to my room.

"You'll teach me the mind art?"

My eyes opened a fraction at the unexpected offer.

"Yes, young master."

He spoke as bluntly as ever, and yet there was a gravity about him I could not quite place.

The mind art...

The mind art was the fundamental training by which the knights of this world handled the power called aura. A faint trace of it remained even in Lucas's memories. Walter had tried to teach it once before, and Lucas himself had apparently kicked the lesson aside.

"What brought this on all of a sudden?"

I had no reason to refuse, but it was strange that Walter had been the one to offer. Hadn't the old man been quietly displeased with me all this time?

"I will be leaving House Roenheim soon."

He spoke of retirement as if it were nothing. I did not need the reason said aloud. Walter was already an old man well past seventy.

"True enough. You're at an age to have gone home long ago and lived watching your grandchildren. So this is about regrets?"

"Inadequate as I am, I am the master who first taught you the sword. I wish only to see a final duty through."

"Even so... you never said a word of it until now."

"Please take it simply that the time has come."

That was all Walter said, but I could read what lay beneath. Somewhere inside, he must have felt that I was no longer the Lucas of before. It was not strange. Nor was it something I needed to hide. So I did not refuse him.

"Well, fine. I'll give it a try."

He seemed briefly startled that I accepted so readily, then calmly led me off somewhere. Where we went was not the training ground where I usually drilled my body, but a quiet, snug room set deeper inside the mansion.

"The foundation of the mind art is breath, meditation, and control over the flow of mana. First, sit comfortably here—"

He demonstrated as he explained the method's essentials.

"Hoh..."

In my hunter days I had been used to drawing mana in from outside and converting it into skills. The mind art was different. Its basis was to first sense the faint mana already existing within oneself, and circulate it by conscious will.

The mana itself feels different.

If the mana I knew was coarse iron wire, the mana of this world was soft silk thread. The essence was the same, yet the quality was as far apart as sky and earth. That mana brushed faintly against my skin, and the sensation of guiding it with precision along vessel and nerve was strange enough to wonder at.

"This is... an odd feeling."

"Quiet. You must concentrate."

I had murmured without meaning to, and Walter checked me. Opening my mouth that much was never going to scatter my focus, but I followed his word obediently.

"The important part begins here. Excuse me a moment."

Walter rose and set a hand against my back. At the same time I felt his mana enter my body.

"Remember the flow of mana near the heart."

His mana led mine, twining with it into a structure that was complex and yet exact. It looked like the parts of a machine—or a precision circuit.

"This is...?"

"This is an aura core. An organ that converts the mana of nature into aura, a power specialized to the sword."

When he took his hand away, the aura core that had formed for a moment scattered in an instant.

"To sustain the mind art until this aura core is fully formed within the body—that is the very first stage of the Roenheim mind art."

I nodded. So that was what an aura core was: installing, inside the body, a single organ woven out of mana.

"And once it's formed?"

"One must increase the number of cores."

A 1-Star Knight, a 3-Star Knight—the names were nothing more than a count of those cores. An ordinary apprentice knight sat around one star, and a knight of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠intermediate rank was a 3-Star Knight. Duke Kaiser, himself a Sword Master, stood at five stars. Five cores, in other words.

"How long does forming the first core usually take?"

"Half a year, if one is quick. Several years, if not. It ought to have been passed down when you were younger, but..."

Walter let the end of the sentence fade. He meant I was late. Far too late. Even so, I did not feel impatient.

"Still, if you have the will to learn, I will watch over you until then."

He added that he would put off his retirement until I formed an aura core. Failing to pass the mind art on to me must have weighed on him badly.

"Hm..."

I called back the aura core we had formed a moment before. The structure was complicated, but not beyond understanding. It almost felt like something I had seen somewhere. And different as it was, I was a man who had used mana without cease as an S-rank hunter. Dig a little, and I thought I could grasp the principle completely.

So I asked.

"Is there a way to look further into this mind art? A book, for instance."

Walter's eyes went round, as if he had not expected it, and still he answered.

"Of course. In the ducal library, a book on the mind art should not be hard to find."

"Can I... go in there as well?"

"It was a place one was permitted to enter. Two years ago, however, His Grace issued an order barring you."

What did the brat even do, to get himself shut out of the library too? The moment I grumbled it, the memory surfaced—Lucas, on the excuse of studying, throwing a drinking party in there all by himself. Honestly. He really had gone and shit on every last corner of this house.

I frowned and went on.

"Think you could get that lifted for me?"

"I will speak of it. Though I must ask what it is you mean to do..."

"What else? I mean to study."

At that, Walter's mouth truly fell open. I paid him no mind and turned my focus back to the mind art.