Magic Sword Retrieval (3)
Why was there no one he could trust?
Well, there had been no choice in the matter.
For anyone reincarnated, the gap between common sense and reality was as inevitable as fate itself.
The man chasing after Seria spoke up.
“My lady, how are you feeling?”
There had been no major issues in the battle, but he was still checking just in case.
Seria answered briefly.
“I’m fine.”
“I see.”
Rodeban glanced around once.
'The mana here is quite thick. Yet she looks perfectly okay.'
Someone with a Magic Eye like him would be fine, but Seria should have felt the burden. The fact that she looked so calm made him think, without even realizing it.
'The Duke must have given her some incredible artifact.'
Nothing was visible right now, but she was clearly wearing something that blocked the mana—probably a good one.
He unconsciously licked his lips.
Something dropped right in front of his eyes.
A snow-white crystal.
An eye.
“……Hmm?”
“Rodeban-nim, the eye is……”
Without warning, snow began falling inside the dungeon.
Rodeban scratched the back of his head.
Something felt off.
In fact, the second group of monsters should have appeared long ago, but there had been no sign of them for a while.
He stared blankly for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.
'……Ah. Right.'
Only now did it click.
Rodeban looked up at the sky and thought.
'This isn’t the main area for monsters.'
According to what he knew, they were already close to the center.
So Seria should head back here.
He said, “My lady, from here on I’ll proceed alone.”
The dungeon’s layout would change from this point.
What needed to be overcome here wasn’t powerful monsters, but a freezing blizzard.
Still, why had he only remembered this important information now?
'……Well, having been reincarnated for twelve years, forgetting a few things isn’t strange.'
While he was justifying it to himself, Seria spoke with a panicked face.
“Huh? Already?”
“I doubt any more monsters will appear. We’re already near the center.”
“……”
She pursed her lips for a moment.
Her expression clearly said she wasn’t satisfied with that.
“How do you know that, Rodeban-nim? Have you been here before?”
In the game, he had been here.
Of course he couldn’t say that, so Rodeban vaguely dodged the question.
'……Pure instinct. The intuition of someone who has retrieved the Magic Sword multiple times. The inside of this dungeon is a frozen wasteland, isn’t it.'
The moment he spoke those words, the blizzard suddenly intensified.
Whoosh—!
The timing was perfect.
He added quickly, “See? The deeper you go, the stronger the blizzard will get. In other words, this is a dungeon where you have to endure the cold.”
“Um……”
Seria considered for a moment, then nodded.
She didn’t fully believe it, but she understood.
“I understand. I won’t insist on my own way. I’ll follow what Rodeban-nim says.”
Only then did Rodeban exhale in relief.
The contract didn’t mention it, but of course Seria’s safe return was part of the request.
He said, “Thank you, my lady. I’ll finish quickly and return.”
“Even if you don’t come back in a month, the people waiting outside will be deployed. I’ll come with them then.”
“Don’t worry. We’ve never taken more than three days to conquer a dungeon.”
Rodeban was about to bow his head but instead waved his hand casually.
He didn’t know why, but suddenly an impulse pulled him to do it.
Seria shyly copied the gesture.
“Be careful, Rodeban-nim. Th…”
Whoosh—!
Suddenly the blizzard struck hard.
Her lips quivered, and she frowned as something got into her eye.
“Ouch.”
While the wind howled, Rodeban shouted, “My lady! Go back! The blizzard is expanding outward!”
“Ah, I got it! Take care of yourself!”
“Yes!”
Rodeban watched Seria receding into the blizzard.
A thought suddenly struck him.
What had she been about to say?
Suddenly regret flooded in.
'I should have asked. It suddenly feels important.'
Rodeban moved forward with an uneasy feeling.
***
Whoosh—!
The blizzard gradually thickened.
It was so dense that not even an arm’s length was visible.
A cold, lonely, desolate place like a frozen wasteland.
'But I have a Magic Eye.'
He had forgotten the exact name, but it had the property of immunity to status effects.
Just like when he had resisted sleeping pills on the northbound train, he was still enjoying the benefit now.
'Not bad.'
As he advanced, the mana kept growing thicker, so the direction was correct.
If he kept going like this, the Magic Sword would appear.
Whoosh—!
The harsh wind whipped his ears.
From all sides, a red blizzard mixed with mana raged.
It certainly meant they had entered the center.
Still, there was nothing to do but keep walking.
Boredom was a greater torment than the cold.
He often hummed a tune or muttered about his old subordinates from the Central Army who weren’t at fault.
Yet because there was nothing else to do, random thoughts drifted through his mind.
Like what he would do if the Duke failed to pay the reward on time, or how to politely refuse the Duke’s offer of the knight commander position.
All trivial, but no matter how he looked at it, the end of every thought was the same.
'I’m so bored I could die.'
How far had he gone?
His legs moved automatically.
Except for the occasional shake to shake off snow, Rodeban barely moved his body.
He had no idea how long he could endure this.
Moreover, his lips were frozen solid, so he couldn’t hum even if he wanted to.
In his memory, this had been an easy dungeon, which made him a little surprised.
'Was the fifth Magic Sword dungeon really this hard?'
He walked even longer.
Swears started bubbling up.
How long was he supposed to put up with this nonsense?
If he didn’t have a Magic Eye, he would have frozen to death long ago.
The flow of time began to blur.
“……Hmm?”
The scenery ahead changed.
More precisely, his body was still buried in the blizzard, but only the visible scene had shifted.
Rodeban instantly understood the situation.
'It’s an illusion.'
An illusion created by the Magic Sword.
'Actually, that’s good.'
Rodeban felt relieved.
It wasn’t dying from cold; it was almost dying from boredom.
A scene suddenly appeared.
Crackle—!
A village was burning.
The landscape was fairly familiar.
'This was where my previous self lived.'
In other words, the village where the original Rodeban had lived.
The Magic Sword shows the user’s most painful memories.
It weakens the mind, then slips in through a crack and uses the user as a puppet.
For the original Rodeban, the painful memory was about his parents.
—Ivan! We have to evacuate!
It had been a small cabin.
A pair of man and woman were talking anxiously.
Inside the room, a three-year-old baby was asleep.
—The lord abandoned the territory and ran away. The knights took everyone with them. Those bastards.
—Lena. Someone has to protect the village. If we run too, everyone around us will die.
—Ivan. What are you talking about!
—You take Rodeban and run. I’m better at survival than you, so I’ll raise him well.
Rodeban’s parents had been mercenaries.
—Ivan, no. Uuuuh……
The woman escaped the burning city with the baby.
The man could have escaped, but because of the attachment to the village he had settled in after marriage, he stayed and died.
Since a young Rodeban couldn’t possibly remember the whole scene, it was probably just the Magic Sword’s staging.
—Hello. My name is Lena.
The mother had gone to another territory and worked as a maid in a noble’s mansion, raising Rodeban.
Memories were hazy, so the scene soon changed to a young boy crying in front of a grave.
—Uuu, snivel…… Mom……!
One day, the boy found his mother’s body in the mansion.
The noble family called it an accident.
At first he believed them.
But when he was sixteen, he started doubting.
—That can’t be. Something’s being hidden.
To him, there were too many suspicious points in his mother’s death.
To dig into the truth, he would have to climb the ranks, and while others went to the academy, he chose to enlist.
Time flowed again.
Rodeban became an inspector.
In short, he had risen in rank.
Enough to investigate the noble family where his mother had worked.
—What? What do you mean our mother……
According to the other inspectors’ report, her body had dirty signs of sexual use after death.
His mother had been used and discarded for the noble’s perverted tastes.
The noble was the type who did that.
—He’s already dead?
The noble had been executed for treason.
Moreover, because treason punished the entire family, the boy had no way to take revenge.
Ssshhhh—!
While torrential rain poured down.
He returned to the narrow officer’s quarters used only by commoners.
—Welcome back.
When he got home, no one was there.
Tears fell.
……
'Damn it. So when is the Magic Sword coming out?'
Because he had seen the same memories over and over, he had developed some tolerance.
Rodeban’s memory had ended, yet the Magic Sword still hadn’t appeared.
He suddenly felt like cursing, but his frozen lips made it impossible.
'You fucking bastards.'
The next scene in that memory was also the moment he had been reincarnated.
It was one of the reasons he disliked nobles.
The unconscious memory beneath his skin had to create an instinctive disgust.
'So when the hell is the Magic Sword coming out?'
Rodeban sighed inwardly.
He could become a snowman on top of the frozen wasteland.
A malnourished hero turned into a snowman?
He swallowed five curses in a row.
A sword appeared.
“……!”
Crack—! The sound of ice breaking rang out.
His wide-open eyes, frozen shut, tore as the eyelid split.
'Finally!'
The sword with a white handle was stuck in the ground.
The moment the sword’s existence was recognized, his body moved first.
He grabbed the hilt with both hands and pulled it out without hesitation.