Chapter 314: The Tin Knight and the Meaning of the Sacred Treasure (6)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 314: The Tin Knight and the Meaning of the Sacred Treasure (6)
A short while ago.
The prince of the Ionian Kingdom had a thought.
‘What exactly is this ‘former glory’ they speak of?’
From the moment he learned to read and write, the nobles he met would say things like this:
“The prince is so brilliant; this is a great blessing for the kingdom.”
“Indeed. With him, the kingdom will surely see a golden age to rival its former glory.”
After the nobles uttered such words with smiling faces, the king would laugh heartily and wave his hand as if to say they were laying it on too thick.
In hindsight, they were merely pleasantries meant to curry favor with the royal family, but the young Alonso found himself incredibly preoccupied with this “former glory.”
So, he asked his tutor.
“This ‘former glory’ of the kingdom, what does it mean, precisely?”
The tutor answered.
“Originally, the Ionian Kingdom was an empire vaster and more powerful than any other on the continent. Not even the current Empire or the Magic State could compare to the Ionia of old.”
“Then how did our country become so small?”
“It was due to a great plague and a severe drought. While the kingdom was in turmoil, we lost our territory to the despicable surprise attacks of foreign enemies. Had they not used such cowardly tactics, the kingdom would have remained strong to this day.”
“Hmph, how regrettable.”
The prince, who had adopted the precocious manner of speaking befitting a royal from a young age, sighed. He soon began to investigate the kingdom’s “old days” with great interest.
The nobles had said he would restore the kingdom’s past glory, and to do that, he first needed to understand what those “old days” were.
The tutor was taken aback by the prince’s sudden interest in history.
After all, the phrase “a talent who will restore our former glory” wasn’t a particularly meaningful one in the kingdom.
To put it in the terms of the Tin Knight’s world, it was like warmly telling a child he had the makings of a great general.
But the prince, unaware of this nuance, dove headfirst into his historical research, and soon, a question mark appeared over his head.
‘Why is there such a lack of records?’
For royal and noble families, information about their ancestors was of the utmost importance.
Such history was what guaranteed their legitimacy and special status.
The Ionian Kingdom certainly had history books detailing the achievements and lifespans of its ancestors.
But at a certain point…
The period before the old kingdom was said to have fallen to a sudden cataclysm—no matter how thoroughly he scoured the royal library, no records from that time would surface.
The tutor gave a simple explanation.
“That is because the country was fractured during that time. Ionia was split into many parts by war and plague, and in the process, the royal family’s heritage and records were burned or lost. It is only because Martinez de la Mancha brought that chaotic period to an end that the kingdom exists today. Therefore, one could say that Sir Martinez is, in effect, the founder of the current dynasty.”
Is that so? the prince thought, nodding.
The tutor believed the prince was satisfied with that, but unfortunately for him, the prince’s drive to act was exceptional even back then.
The prince scoured every nook and cranny of the kingdom, trying to uncover any information he could about its former state.
Ancient, distinguished families. A library said to have been founded by a great scholar of old. Stone monuments that had endured the ages.
No matter how many likely places he searched, the information he sought never appeared.
Instead, the answer came to him not from anything so special, but from the stories of the common folk.
“Yes, an old tale, you ask? There is one my grandfather used to tell me when I was a child, but it’s just a fairy tale…”
“Your Highness!? Why are you in such a humble place! My apologies. As a noble who receives the crown’s stipend, I should be offering you proper hospitality… P-Please, wait just a moment. I have some books at home just gathering dust, if I sell them…! What? I shouldn’t? You want me to bring them right now? Ah, I understand.”
“Who are you, mister? The song I was singing? My mommy taught it to me! Oh, Mommy! Over here! What’s wrong? You’re so pale. Oh, this handsome mister asked me to sing for him!”
Fairy tales told by a grandfather at bedtime, books left in the house of a fallen noble family that was noble in name only, songs sung by children with origins unknown.
After collecting all sorts of stories passed down among the people, the prince was finally able to grasp a faint outline of the “old days.”
“Hmm. ‘In the age of light and dark, the people gathered in the land of shadows.’ Quite a mythical turn of phrase. Did some powerful magic beast appear that terrified the people?”
“The Queen of Ashes. The kingdom of the East. Oho, I see! So this woman was my ancestor!”
“There was a great disaster. The people fled from it, and the Queen of Ashes took them in. And her knight protected his sovereign and the innocent commoners from the threat!”
“Hm. The story of the knight continues even after the Queen of Ashes is said to have passed away. Why is that? Aha. I see. It became a kind of title, passed down through generations. Then it must have been a name given to the strongest and most honorable knight in the kingdom.”
“Oh, great ancestors. O true knight whose name I do not even know. I am truly ashamed. You left behind such a magnificent legacy, yet all that remains in this kingdom now are mere fragments of what you built.”
“But rest assured. I, Alonso de la Mancha! As the successor to the Kingdom of Ashes, I will surely restore our former glory!”
The prince, who had once been the object of every noble’s affection for his brilliant mind and overwhelming martial skill, died that day.
In his place appeared a madman who, in the nobles’ eyes, was shouting about some obscure former glory and insisting they had to pick a fight with the Empire and the Magic State.
It was an emergency akin to casually telling a child he had the makings of a great general, only for the boy to later don historical armor and start raving about reclaiming the glory of some long-lost empire. The nobles’ scalps suffered as their stress levels skyrocketed, but he paid them no mind and stubbornly went his own way.
And now, at this very moment.
The king, once called a prince, Alonso, could not contain his joy.
“Oh, ooooh!”
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
A wave was crashing toward him.
It was a wave not of water, but of sand and stone, more than enough to swallow Alonso whole.
“So this is the power of the sacred treasure! No, forgive my rudeness! This must be a strike filled with your own efforts as well, Adelaide von Lennart!”
It was a declaration of such single-minded focus that a certain black witch, had she seen it, would have been dumbfounded, thinking, You’ve got a lot of nerve to be talking in a situation like this.
However, Alonso was not a man who fought recklessly with his tongue alone.
Thwump!
His feet dug powerfully into the ground.
His muscles tensed to their limits, and the veins on his forearms and thighs bulged beneath his armor.
Whirrrrrrrrr!
The lance in Alonso’s hands began to spin with terrifying force, a product of precise mana manipulation.
It was another sight that would have made the black witch recoil in disgust, wondering if there was another freak besides the Tin Knight who used such a bizarre technique.
“Hraaaaaaah—!!”
BOOOOOOOOM!
The landslide-like flow of debris was pierced in an instant by a single human’s thrust.
The fool who dreamed of being a great knight, instead of dodging or hiding from the disaster the giant had wrought, had simply thrust his spear forward and skewered it.
The jaws of the audience dropped.
And from one among them, a certain knight, a scream-like cry erupted.
“Your Majesty!!”
There was no specific instruction. It was an involuntary shriek, so that was only natural.
But it was warning enough for Alonso to realize the approaching threat.
He trusted his instincts and swung his lance behind him.
Alonso’s weapon clashed with the sword of the little lion, who had somehow gotten behind him.
Clang! Boom! Crash!
The air exploded with every impact of their weapons. It was a collision that would have made a faint-hearted person collapse to the ground, gasping for breath.
Adelaide’s ferocious assault on Alonso was purely fast and purely heavy.
Alonso, enhanced by Gale’s enchantments, had been confident he could take on anyone on the continent, but absurdly, the girl before him was shattering that confidence with sheer, head-on power.
However, the martial arts of Ionia had been forged to combat just such catastrophic beings.
Even if the name of the one who first created these arts had vanished from history, even if their forms and techniques had changed over long years, their essence still lived and breathed within Alonso.
Clang!
Alonso’s lance was finally sent flying upward by Adelaide’s upswing, and his posture broke completely.
Just as Adelaide was about to unleash another sword strike toward Alonso’s defenseless chest.
Fwsh, Alonso’s body suddenly dropped to the ground, and Adelaide’s sword cut through empty air.
The audience’s eyes widened.
The ground had been torn up by Adelaide when she unleashed her debris-flow attack.
Alonso had fallen into one of those pits.
At a glance, it seemed like a mere coincidence.
However, the triumphant smile on Alonso’s lips revealed that this was his intention.
The tables had turned.
Adelaide’s sword had already swung through the air, while Alonso had already drawn the backup sword from his waist.
Alonso’s sword pierced Adelaide.
No, it should have pierced her.
BOOM! A sound of air exploding.
Adelaide’s small frame slid sideways in mid-air, without any foothold to push off from.
It was the result of using the mana that should have been used to strengthen her body as a sort of booster, blasting it out from her side.
Alonso’s triumphant thrust cut through empty air.
But even in his surprise, Alonso did not stop thinking.
‘I see, so she had a trick like that. But it’s fine. My one-handed sword can change its trajectory faster than she can swing her two-handed sword in mid-air!’
And then.
Adelaide simply… let go of her sword.
“Huh?”
The wide arc her sword should have traced suddenly became drastically smaller.
No matter how fast Alonso’s one-handed sword was at changing its path, it couldn’t be faster than Adelaide, who was now unburdened.
Adelaide’s body fell directly on top of Alonso’s.
Thump.
Right after he felt a weight that seemed almost light for someone clad in full plate armor.
BOOOOM!
This time, as if to say this is the real deal, a blow of unimaginable force slammed into Alonso’s stomach.
“——!”
The sound that was squeezed from his lungs was something that could not be described with words.
His hand, trembling, dropped his sword. His brain, rattled by the impact, arrived at the answer in a half-dazed state.
‘She didn’t fall for my trap. She was just pretending!’
Those with great power do not typically use their heads. They can solve everything with strength alone.
The same was true for warriors skilled in wielding mana. When you could slice through opponents like scarecrows with overwhelmingly powerful physical enhancements and sword energy, you tended to think little of petty tricks and neglect to train them.
Therefore, it was unthinkable that a girl equipped with the Belt of Amaryllis, which granted a level of power incomparable to normal enhancement, and born with the greatest physical talent in the history of the Lennart family, would be skilled in psychological warfare or cheap tricks.
He had thought it impossible.
Alonso’s reasoning had been sound.
But even a king as famously eccentric as he was could never have imagined the existence of a madman who would throw a child into life-or-death struggles, withholding even the basics of mana control until her physical and sword skills were perfect, all under the pretext of not spoiling her.
As the girl raised her fist once more, Alonso thought:
‘Splendid—’
KABOOOOOOOM!
With a final thud, Alonso’s consciousness cut out.