The Will That Continues
The light that had filled my vision vanished, and the solid floor of the temple pressed firm beneath my feet.
I was back.
The moment that truth sank in, the thread of tension I had been clutching so I would not lose consciousness finally snapped.
Thud!
The followers of the Creteus Order who had been waiting for me rose to their feet as one. Among them, the Saintess who had been kneeling in prayer hurriedly lifted her head.
“Great Warrior!”
It had already been an honorific, but now she was adding “-nim”…
Well, I suppose it’s understandable…
In this world, only those born with the qualities of true great heroes challenge the Divine Arrangement and achieve the feat of reaching the second day. They charge in without proper information and are forced to make the best possible choices in real time.
But for me, who already possessed prior knowledge, lasting until the third day had not been impossible. So I would really prefer they tone down the “-nim.” When someone treated as the equal of a nation’s king calls me that, even I cannot help but feel awkward.
“I apologize for the unsightly display. It seems I grew a little too greedy.”
I waved a hand and tried to rise. But the Saintess herself pressed down on my shoulder, stopping me from moving.
“For a weary body and mind… is that not so?”
Trailing off as if a touch embarrassed, she channeled holy power into me.
A revelation from the Saintess? Ah…
I was glad I still wore my helmet. A foolish seventeen-year-old brat who got emotional inside a dungeon that merely recreated the past, played at being a knight, and came home. The thought that she might be seeing me that way sent cold sweat pouring down my entire body. My mind went completely blank on what to say.
“Are there still any places that feel uncomfortable?”
At her polite question I hurriedly shook my head.
“Hehe.”
She smiled softly, then rose slowly and nodded toward the members of the Creteus Order.
“Many are waiting for the Great Warrior. Would you please go and deliver the news that he is safe?”
To prevent any possible mishap, the Creteus Order seemed to have locked the doors and waited for my return.
“…If it would not be an imposition, could you give me a moment?”
Suddenly the faces of those unbelievers who had declared three days impossible rose in my mind. To show them how much I had grown, I first needed to know exactly how much I had grown, did I not?
Looks like it went up by about ten?
I probably had not finished off that idiot at the end. He seemed to have noticed my hit-and-run strategy; I had seen him twist his body just before the blow landed. If he had died, a massive amount of experience would have poured in, yet I had felt no such sensation.
Alright, how much did it actually rise…
Suppressing the corners of my mouth that kept trying to curl upward, I worked the gauntlet free. The aftermath of battle had reduced it to tatters, so it felt more like tearing the crumpled metal off with raw force than simply peeling it away.
Clang.
From inside the fallen gauntlet, the emblem symbolizing the Guardian’s blessing was revealed. Counting the strokes—
Thirty-eight…?
Clearing the Infinite Dungeon of the Spiroe Kingdom’s final defense as a Guardian normally lets you raise your level by about ten at most. Yet mine had climbed a full thirteen?
Haha…
Infinite Dungeons are places where stronger monsters appear according to your level, so reverse level correction never occurs. Even taking that into account, the growth was beyond anything I had imagined; it felt as though I were dreaming.
Alright then. Time to go meet those unbelievers.
I was closer to a defeated general than a triumphant one, yet I had still grown far beyond the original plan. That was enough.
I hid the emblem on the back of my hand and flung open the Order’s doors.
At the main gate stood those who had heard I was challenging the Divine Arrangement: the unbelievers, Lady Ariella, and the knights who had come to protect her. Seeing me stride out of the Creteus Order, they let out sighs of relief. At the same time they lightly caught their breath at the sight of my armor, now half a battered tin can.
I looked them over and removed my half-crushed helmet.
A smirk.
I lifted the corners of my mouth. That alone was answer enough to the unbelievers’ doubts.
“N-no… He must have spent two days in a dungeon and only entered the Divine Arrangement today….”
Lady Serafina fled into denial.
“Ugh….”
My brother made a pained sound as though the very idea were impossible and averted his gaze. The two of them had been perfectly in sync earlier, clicking their tongues and declaring the whole thing absurd. Their reaction now was only natural.
“Edwin! Are you all right?!”
But there was exactly one person who purely worried for me: Lady Ariella.
“It was a bit much. But I’m fine. I came back with results worth every coin of the armor repair bill.”
I said so while meaningfully clenching and opening my right hand. The unbelievers’ eyes grew complicated.
Please no.
Please no.
Please be lower level than me…!
Their faces were full of thoroughly human emotion, as if they were praying those very words.
I probably would have been the same.
A money-dump Knight build raised with the full might of a great house. A Warrior who had achieved growth far beyond the local average despite receiving no proper support. Two people with every right to their pride, now facing the possibility of being overtaken by someone who had received his blessing a mere three months ago. Their desperate hope that it was not real was almost pitiful.
If they just ran one dungeon with me, those thoughts would vanish.
Retribution Strike was an extremely powerful ultimate, yet right now it was closer to a half-finished product missing its accessories. Landing that blow on the idiot had only been possible because it coincided with the skill’s acquisition conditions. Since it was a skill learned at level thirty, it could not yet produce power enough to shatter the balance.
The skill learned at level thirty-five should be obtainable right away, and if I run a few canned dungeons for the rest, I’ll hit forty soon enough.
I felt as though I had squeezed every last drop of juice from a single run.
First I should tidy things up and come back.
The Saintess had stepped back and was watching our reunion. She clearly intended to show consideration for those who had worried so much. Therefore I politely bowed to her and stated that I would visit the Order again the following day.
First, the settling of accounts.
It was also time to inform the unbelievers of the harsh reality.
In a quiet corner of the garden that only blood relatives of the Remington Count family could enter—the place where Lady Ariella usually enjoyed her tea—I leisurely savored a cup.
Watching me, Lady Ariella’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“I asked the knights about the Divine Arrangement. They say it is an extremely hard and grueling trial….”
Respect and a faint wariness mixed in her gaze. Every knight insisted with one voice that even lasting a single day was difficult. Having endured three days and returned, she could not help finding it both amazing and strange.
Before answering her question I first took a sip of tea, drawing the moment out.
“What on earth have I been….”
Your tea is getting cold, brother.
“Ha… hahaha… ahaha…. You said I was a genius, Grandfather….”
And Lady Serafina, whose soul had completely left her body. Both of their gazes were locked on the back of my right hand holding the teacup—the emblem of the Guardian’s blessing, now bearing the strokes that meant level thirty-eight.
Yes. I had risen higher than Lady Serafina at level thirty-four and my brother at level thirty-six.
“Unbelievers. Raise your heads.”
At my words my brother furrowed his brow; Lady Serafina flinched and her shoulders trembled.
“Don’t you want to hear what happened anyway?”
Lady Ariella nodded as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The other two, however, kept their heads quietly lowered as if pride would not allow them to look up—yet their ears were clearly perked.
The pride of knights….
“The place I entered was called the Spiroe Kingdom. A place where most records have vanished and only the fact of its fall remains.”
I laid out everything that had happened there without addition or omission. Lady Ariella nodded with open wonder. My brother crossed his arms, a satisfied smile on his face as though he had just heard an excellent story. And Lady Serafina—
“Ohhh… ohhhhh…!!!”
With an expression as if honey might drip from her eyes, she began leaning her upper body closer and closer toward me. It was a clear plea for more of the tale.
Sir Paulo was magnificent even from my perspective. Sir Ludwig’s superhuman strength was incredible as well.
Her reaction as a full-blown otaku of chivalric literature was only natural.
—The greatest battlefield of my life, one that will never come twice, approaches. Do you not think so?
Sir Paulo’s words, spoken with death already accepted, held something that would make any knight’s heart resonate.
I wonder how it turned out….
In the end it was only a recreation of past events. Even if he had succeeded in escaping, history would not change. Even so, I could not leave him in a life-threatening crisis. I had already learned far too much about him to treat him as a stranger any longer.
“Retribution Strike…. Extremely powerful, yet on the other hand rather ambiguous.”
“It’s a core skill. It only looks incomplete because the accessories are missing.”
“Does this have something to do with why you deliberately kept me and Lady Serafina around?”
He caught on at once.
“Let’s run a dungeon soon. You’ll probably want to leave home for a year.”
“Speak sense. How am I, with a wedding soon approaching, supposed to leave home for a year?”
The Infinite Dungeon that lets you leap over the tedious, pedantic leveling stretch exists because this is not a game that ends with mere “leveling”; other enjoyable growth elements are prepared as well. Yet because of the constraints that arise in reality rather than a game, the people of this world feel a wall even in that leveling. If they follow me after I have grown this far, “leveling” itself will start to feel like simple labor. Like a dog that cannot stop itself, my brother—who cannot abandon his obsession with strength—will lose his mind as well.
“Huh? Is Aren getting married soon?”
“Ah, yes. Things got a little tangled, but I was planning to send formal invitations before long.”
“Wow~! Congratulations!”
Clap clap clap!
Aria, who had come down from Lady Ariella’s head, applauded. Watching her, I recalled Mother playing with her summons.
I’ve been away from home a long time.
It was about time to return. Soon my sister-in-law would visit our family for wedding preparations, so I would have to go back.
Before that, though—let’s clear one dungeon.
There was a wild dungeon straddling the border of the territory that no one currently claimed. Its appropriate level was exactly forty—perfect for learning new skills as well.
As I was sketching that future, I noticed Lady Ariella wearing a somehow bitter expression.
It will be soon enough.
Meetings and partings are inevitable; after parting, we meet again. So I wished she would not make such a bitter face….
Come to think of it, I still haven’t prepared a birthday present. I should get something ready.
Thinking that, I finished off the tea that had gone completely cold from all my talking.
The next day, after sharing our feelings and resting body and mind, I visited the Creteus Order neatly dressed. And there I received a truly unexpected item.
“What is this?”
A greatshield whose weight still felt a little heavy even though my level had risen to thirty-eight. It was certainly something I needed. Yet there had been no place to obtain such a shield, because almost no one required one. Frontline dealers basically used tactics of deflecting or dodging enemy attacks; their defense was so low that the damage taken when blocking was greater. That was why even high-level fighters sometimes lost their lives when surrounded by packs of low-level monsters. And yet a shield that fit me so perfectly had been prepared….
“This is a story that even the Great Warrior must not carelessly speak of. Is that acceptable?”
At the Saintess’s words I placed a hand over my heart.
“I swear upon the honor of the Revan family and as a Guardian blessed by Creteus. I will never speak of what I hear in this place.”
She took a quiet breath after hearing my oath. It seemed a difficult story to bring forth.
“In this world there exist great holy relics left by Elysion. Among them is a most sacred holy relic called the Record Stone.”
Ah, the Record Stone. A famous holy relic. The reason users could save and load was also because of the setting that they had obtained a fragment of it.
“Exactly about two months ago, a change occurred in that Record Stone.”
A new hero must have been born. In this vast continent there could not be a complete absence of heroes who left new legends upon the Record Stone.
“…It was a record regarding the Spiroe Kingdom.”
“What?”
Why a record about the Spiroe Kingdom here? The Record Stone was supposed to add entries whenever a new legend was born….
At her words I hurriedly examined the greatshield I had been given. The enormously large shield, as if designed with my height in mind, was forged from a special iron—Black Steel. Extremely hard and heavy, the sort of metal knights avoided as material for armor. As I turned it this way and that, a phrase deeply carved into the surface of the shield caught my eye.
In honor of Edwin, last knight of the Spiroe Kingdom and most honorable of all—
the messenger of Elysion.
It was a familiar phrase.
Sir Paulo…
The Infinite Dungeon was merely a dungeon that recreated past events, was it not?
“The end of the Spiroe Kingdom did not change.”
Because of the final king who ascended the throne—Cassius—the Spiroe Kingdom fell exactly as history recorded. But—
“Even so, there were those who survived. Because the heavily wounded Cassius declared he would find someone and kept his forces tied down in the capital and the surrounding regions, gaps appeared in the pursuit net.”
Through those gaps, some succeeded in fleeing beyond the borders.
“Cassius was a being who transcended human lifespan by borrowing the power of the evil gods. He pursued the survivors to the very end, and those who lived through that time ultimately could not completely escape his hands.”
Cassius was the idiot who had sworn to offer every last citizen of the Spiroe Kingdom as sacrifices to the evil gods and thereby gained his power. The survivors could never have lived out their lives in peace.
“Even so, their will continued.”
They were given time—however brief—to continue living. Even in the midst of war, new life is born. Those who would originally have breathed their last on the spot formed families and left new lives in the world. They survived to the end with everything they had, and—
“This is the legacy they left behind. An item discovered by the investigation team of the Elysion Order following the clues engraved upon the Record Stone.”
They had left a legacy for me.
“The Elysion Order judged that only one blessed with the Guardian’s blessing could properly wield this shield, and so they had been keeping it in storage.”
I slowly stroked the shield that Sir Paulo and his comrades had prepared for me.
If you carve it this deep the durability drops, Sir Paulo…
Given how many years had passed, they must have deliberately cut the letters deep so they would never fade.
It was not in vain…
I had done the best I could in that moment. In the end I had not been able to prevent the destruction of the Spiroe Kingdom—yet what I had done was not meaningless.
That was the moment I understood it.