The Core in the Sword
"Is that truly all you need to hear?"
Suspicion toward me still lingered in Edwin's eyes as he asked. At the sight of it, I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Edwin was Lucas's younger brother. But even setting Lucas's memories aside, I knew him. In Crius Saga, Edwin was a wandering-knight NPC who appeared after the fall of the Empire—a righteous figure who stood with humanity no matter how desperate things became. He handed out tedious quests, and the rewards were nothing special, but in exchange he raised your honor by a great deal.
To think that Edwin had originally been the second son of a ducal house.
And yet there was something even more astonishing. I had never imagined that a brother so saintly could be hated this thoroughly by his elder.
Ha...
When I sifted back through Lucas's memories, the picture was appalling. As a child he had tormented his younger brother, and once Edwin learned the sword, he had turned instead to tormenting Edwin's servants—a coward's trick, exploiting that kindness.
In the end, unable to watch any longer, Edwin begged Lucas to stop, only for Lucas to try to shatter the core that was as good as a knight's life, until their father stepped in and stopped him.
It would have been no surprise if the two had become mortal enemies then and there. Even so, Edwin tried again and again afterward to turn Lucas's heart. He had finally given up about a year ago, but that only showed how good a brother he had been.
I let out a long breath. Lucas's past—treating a brother like that as an enemy—rankled, but there was nothing to be done. I had taken his body, and I was living off everything he had enjoyed before he died. I could hardly accept the good as if it were only natural, then pretend the man's karma was none of my business simply because I hadn't been the one to earn it.
"Right. Just answer what I asked."
So I demanded no excuses for Edwin's groundless suspicion. He never quite dropped that wary look, but he began to explain the state of the Great Forest all the same.
"...That is all."
Hearing the rough of it from him, I frowned. I had expected as much from the moment I ran into the Branded Monsters, but the changes underway in the Great Forest were worse than I had anticipated.
"What does Father mean to do?"
"He is preparing for war."
"War?"
"The monsters of the Great Forest will soon try to come over the walls."
I knew better than anyone that those were not empty words. The mid-game scenario of Crius Saga—the war that destroyed the Empire—began with the southern and northern defensive lines collapsing at the same time. Which meant that this Roenheim ducal house, where I now stood, might hold for a while, but would be breached in the end.
Standing by and letting that happen would do me no good either.
I'd rather avoid the apocalypse.
After the Empire fell, the setting of Crius Saga was practically an apocalypse: no nation, no society, demons and humans tangled together, a world where only the strong survived. Fine enough to enjoy as a game. As a place to live, the worst imaginable. This was a second life I had barely managed to get. I already wanted things easier, not harder, and I had no desire to live somewhere more horrific than my days as a hunter.
So stopping the fall of the Empire was the most important task before me.
"If you have nothing more to say, I'll take my leave."
When I fell silent for a moment, Edwin, finished, withdrew at once—without ever quite putting away that puzzled look he kept on me.
"Yes. Go."
I sent him off and picked the thread of my thoughts back up. How was I going to stop the Empire from falling? A few possibilities crossed my mind, but in the end the first thing I had to do was already settled.
In the end, I'll have to move the ducal house...
They might treat me as a son they'd written off, but I was still the eldest of Roenheim, one of the greatest noble houses in the Empire. If I meant to shift a board as large as the Empire, I would have to make active use of that position. The problem was that I had no influence here at all.
Among the family, I was a son completely cast aside, and I had no standing among the knights and officials who upheld the house either. On the contrary, even the servants doing the cleaning took one look at my collar and fled in fright. Who, in a situation like this, would listen to a word I said?
"Hm..."
Lost in that, I found myself back at my room before I knew it. My hand was on the latch when I suddenly registered Walter standing beside me. There was no reason to worry over this alone. Wasn't there a knight right next to me who had served the ducal house for decades?
"Sir Walter."
"What is it?"
"If I want to move this house, where would you say I ought to start?"
"You mean..."
At a question I had tossed out without much thought, Walter's eyes went wide, as if he had heard something he was never meant to hear. But he soon composed himself and answered calmly.
"It would begin with carrying out your duties faithfully."
"I know that much. I'm asking because that won't be enough."
If I quietly handled my duties, my reputation might recover someday—but who knew how long that would take. And the situation I was in now did not grant me that much time. I needed something a little more unconventional.
"There could be no such thing."
Walter shook his head, as if to say there was no easy shortcut of the sort I wanted.
"For you, Young Master, there is only the proper path. Walk the way of a knight, straight and true."
"The way of a knight? Could you be a little more specific?"
At my pressing, his brow twitched, but he soon obliged.
"First, raise your standing as a knight."
"That's the basics. And then?"
"Next come achievements. If you successfully carry out not ordinary duties, but difficult and dangerous ones, your name will rise of its own accord."
"Easier said than done. But could I simply insert myself into missions like that as I please?"
"Impossible for an ordinary knight. For you, Young Master, it should be possible."
He added it carefully. Did he mean I should force the issue even in front of Father? Well, that sort of thing had originally been Lucas's specialty.
"Even if I strong-armed my way onto a mission and carried it out, would anyone actually acknowledge it?"
"No mission is undertaken alone. If you truly distinguish yourself on the battlefield, every knight who stood on that same field will testify to your prowess."
In the end, he was telling me to win the knights' trust. And it was true—the Roenheim ducal house was a renowned house of knights. Guarding the southern border, it kept a larger knight order than other nobles, which meant the knights' influence here was greater than in other houses as well. So if I won their hearts, even the duke could not ignore me forever.
"You should have said so from the start."
Having more or less gotten my answer, I went into my room. All that remained was to build my strength and watch for an opportunity.
And that opportunity came before long.
It was exactly the third day since Edwin's return. From morning, the mansion was in disarray. The servants and maids who should have been doing the morning cleaning were hauling things instead, and even the knights who usually stood guard were moving busily off somewhere.
"Something going on?"
Just then, Duke Kaiser summoned me. I headed for his office, and at the door I came face to face with someone I knew.
"...Brother?"
It was Edwin. He must have been summoned by Father as well; his expression hardened the moment he saw my face.
"Good morning."
"Yes. You as well, Brother... um... good morning."
When I offered the greeting without a shred of shame, Edwin—too good-natured, as expected—couldn't bring himself to ignore it, and returned an awkward bow. And so the brothers who had exchanged greetings stepped into the office side by side, as if they got along.
"You're here."
Duke Kaiser, seated at his desk as always, received us with a grave face. Edwin was the first to speak.
"What is the matter, Father?"
"An urgent report has come from Baron Eisenberg. A considerably large band of orcs has been found near the mines."
Eisenberg. Searching Lucas's memories, I turned up a simple account. A house bordering Roenheim's lands, most of whose territory was mountain and mine. Their chief product was iron ore, which made them inseparable from Roenheim, always in need of great quantities of weapons and armor. In politics as well, they were one of the close houses belonging to the Roenheim ducal faction.
"If Eisenberg's mines are ruined, the loss to us will be great. Especially in a situation like the present."
I nodded. We were already at the point of deciding whether or not to go to war over the demonkin. If the supply lines were about to be shaken on top of that, the duke's concern made sense.
"Therefore, Edwin, take the knights and reinforce them at once."
"I will carry out your command."
Edwin answered without hesitation. But the duke, his voice still heavy, went on as if advising him.
"It will not be an easy task. By the baron's investigation, orc warriors alone number in the dozens. Whatever leads them, then, is very likely a higher species still. The knights we can send now are insufficient force."
At present, the house's main knightly strength was all committed to the southern wall or the Great Forest. What remained at the mansion were apprentice knights fit for little more than guard duty, and a handful of full knights. Even so, Duke Kaiser—the heart of the war preparations—could not move in person.
"You must fill that gap. Can you?"
"Of course."
Kaiser nodded once at Edwin's confident reply, then turned his gaze to me.
"Lucas, take the soldiers and remain near the border of the territory. Some of the orcs may flee that way."
In other words, go clean up the stragglers. I shook my head.
"Sir Walter alone would be more than enough for that. It isn't work for me."
At those words, Kaiser's brow twitched.
"So. You're saying you'll sit this out?"
"No."
I jerked my chin toward Edwin.
"I'm going with him."
"What?"
Kaiser and Edwin's eyes widened at the same time. I went on, unconcerned.
"You said the force on that side is short, didn't you? So I'll add my sword to it."
"What are you— If you're thinking of leading the knights, put that notion away. You have no qualification for it."
Kaiser cut it off coldly. But I had no such thought in the slightest.
"I know. Leave Edwin as commander. I'm only saying I'll join."
"As a common soldier, you mean?"
"Not a soldier... let's call it a knight."
When I answered so calmly, disbelief colored Kaiser's gaze. Edwin, beside me, spoke in a voice thick with shock.
"You're saying you would accept my command, Brother?"
A brief silence passed, and then it was Kaiser who spoke.
"Denied."
"Why?"
"Because you are no knight. I cannot treat as a knight a man who cannot even handle aura."
"I can handle aura."
Kaiser snorted.
"I heard Sir Walter taught you the internal art. But to claim you handle aura merely because you know the art is absurd."
He added that only by forming an aura core did one finally become a knight. In other words, he could not treat me—who had no aura core—as one. I refuted him without a flicker of concern. I had already made an aura core long ago, so there was nothing lacking in calling me a knight.
But—
"What...?"
At those words, the air in the office turned cold in an instant. Kaiser glared at me with nothing but an icy gaze, and even Edwin let out a sigh.
"Brother. Another of those outrageous lies..."
"What makes you call it a lie?"
"Any knight can sense whether an aura core exists within a man's body. But I feel no core at all in your heart."
"Ah. That."
If that was the reason, suspecting me was only natural. The core I had made did not manifest unless a sword was in my hand. So I drew the Wailing Blade that hung at my waist.
"What are you—!"
Edwin sprang back and dropped into a stance, as if I might raise that sword and charge him at any moment. Did he truly think I would start a bloodbath in here?
Manifestation
Shaaaa—
Crimson aura ignited along the blade.
Right there in front of him, I set the aura core in motion. Crimson aura, like flame, wrapped the length of the sword and burned—nothing like a simple release of mana, an aura that writhed as though it were alive. The temperature in the room climbed at once.
"No... h-how..."
Edwin stammered, unable to believe the sight before his eyes. Even Kaiser stared, eyes wide.
"You... you formed an aura core in barely a week?"
"Something like that."
Kaiser said nothing. Even amid the shock, he did not lose his composure, and he stared at the aura on my sword.
"A vicious aura. More ominous than any I have ever seen. Yes. It resembles you exactly."
He spoke as if mocking, but his voice held an astonishment he could not hide. Soon he asked the fundamental question.
"Lucas. You did not follow the Roenheim internal art."
"No. There were parts I didn't like, so I adjusted it a little. Is that not allowed?"
I had half expected him to grow angry and demand why I had done such a thing. Unexpectedly, Kaiser narrowed his eyes, as if something had occurred to him.
"But you have done a foolish thing. An aura core that activates only when you grip a sword. Then your core cannot be formed except with the sword you hold now, can it?"
"Another sword would be fine as well."
"That cannot be."
His point was sharp. An aura core was not something you attached and detached. It was like an organ of the body. What I had done was not unlike the old tale of the rabbit hauled before the Dragon King, who swore he had left his liver behind on dry land.
But what could I do? My skill, Weapon Master, made the sword in my hand the same as a body I had been born with.
"Even like this?"
I sheathed the Wailing Blade and took a spare dagger in hand. Colorless aura flowed from that dagger as well. Lacking the Wailing Blade's trait, it did not take on a crimson hue, but—
"Hah...!"
Feeling the unmistakable pulse of an aura core there, Kaiser let out a hollow laugh. He looked at me for a long while, and at last he made his decision.
"Father!"
Edwin tried to object, but Kaiser stopped him with a gesture.
"The decision is already made."
He looked at me again.
"But remember this. There will be no special treatment whatsoever. Your meals and your bedding will all be assigned the same as the other apprentice knights. Any complaints?"
"None."
It wasn't something I had hoped for in the first place.
"Then go. You depart tomorrow morning."
I nodded, and left the office with Edwin's complicated gaze at my back.