Magic Sword Retrieval (4)
Fortunately, the Magic Sword came free without much resistance.
The moment the blade left the ground, something shattered overhead with a sharp crack.
Whiiish...
The blizzard began to die down. The dungeon was collapsing, it seemed. Sunlight started filtering through little by little.
...I can't move.
Standing there, ice had frozen him solid in places all over his body. Not that it really mattered. The people waiting outside would find him soon enough.
"..."
Rodeban looked down at the Magic Sword in his hand. It was a pure white blade so bright it hurt to look at. Not particularly long—if he had to classify it, it was closer to a one-handed sword.
Time to try moving.
Ice was already melting under the gradually strengthening sunlight. When he shifted, chunks of ice that had clung to him all over his body fell away one after another.
Thud—!
"Mm."
Rodeban rolled his shoulder once.
My body feels light.
Not just light—he was overflowing with power in a slightly alarming way. The word omnipotence drifted through his mind. Vitality was surging through every part of him.
After glancing up at the sky once, Rodeban flopped flat onto the snow.
"...Still, I should rest a bit."
Omnipotence or not, the mental exhaustion was extreme. What kind of nonsense was this, going without food? If he'd known it would be this hard, he never would have come.
The dungeon was harder than I expected.
There had been stretches where he'd walked without any sense of time passing. A sense of crisis was starting to set in. He had no idea how much time had actually gone by.
...It didn't suddenly turn into ten years, did it?
If he assumed ten years had passed inside the dungeon—Seria would be twenty-eight. Elise would be thirty-seven. The word "ajumma" popped into his head, and he burst out laughing without warning.
"You've got to be kidding me."
It was an incredibly childish thought, but he was alone, so childish or not, who cared. People who spent too long alone stopped being right in the head. That was just how it worked.
Lying there, he watched the sky fall apart above him. Then, out of nowhere, Rodeban muttered,
"Wait. If ten years pass, I'll be thirty-nine too. That means my forties..."
The moment the word "forties" hit him, his mind snapped wide awake.
...I really ought to get married before I hit thirty.
It felt like someone had dumped ice water over his head—his consciousness surged back to reality. In truth, the knights outside had been scheduled to enter after a month, so the odds of ten years having suddenly passed were basically zero.
By the time the blizzard had completely died down, a voice carried from far away.
"...Uncle!"
It was a young girl's voice. Rodeban tilted his head.
"Uncle?"
Not many people would call him that.
Because twenty-nine isn't "uncle" territory—it's still "young man"...
Some nonsense floated up out of nowhere, and he immediately scrubbed it. Anyway, "uncle" was a title a child might use for him. When he turned his head, a teenage girl with short black hair was running toward him.
The moment he saw the distinctive red uniform of the Imperial Academy, Rodeban muttered,
"...Luce?"
Luce was the only character in the game born with the Heavenly Killing Star trait. Her physical abilities were exceptional. She was also the girl Rodeban had been sponsoring continuously.
When she was twelve, abandoned in the slums, he had brought her home. He had looked after her for several years and sent her to the Academy just before the Winterfelt battle—that was his last memory of her.
"Hup..."
Rodeban pushed himself up. Seeing her, worry came before any gladness.
Strange. School's about to start again. She should be at the Academy.
Which meant if Luce had bolted from the Academy, something must have happened...
A sudden chill of foreboding made Rodeban flinch.
"Don't tell me."
Rumble—
Vibration ran through the ground. Beyond the horizon, the advancing figures of knights came into view. Seria was among them. The problem was that every single one of them wore a grim, frozen expression.
"Looks like quite a bit of time has passed."
Rodeban scrambled to his feet. If he just sat there, they might assume the Magic Sword had taken him over.
At least a month has gone by, easily...
The thought that he might become an enemy of humanity made him casually fling the Magic Sword onto the ground, then raise both hands like a surrendering general. He found himself wishing he had a white flag. Why was that?
The girl who reached him first stopped in front of Rodeban and simply stared at him.
"..."
Born with the Heavenly Killing Star, she seemed short on basic manners. In the original story she wiped an entire country off the map with a massacre, so a lack of greeting etiquette was practically adorable by comparison.
And she's only sixteen anyway.
Rodeban greeted her first.
"Luce. It's been a while. What brings you all the way north?"
She spoke in a flat, toneless voice.
"They said Uncle was in danger. Why are your arms."
Meaning why are you holding your arms up. Rodeban nodded and answered.
"In case the knights think Uncle got eaten by the Magic Sword. It's a sign of surrender."
Luce shook her head.
"Nobody thinks that."
Rodeban looked sheepish and lowered his arms.
"Really? Then Uncle just made a fool of himself."
"I don't think you're a fool either."
"I see."
Out of habit, Rodeban reached to ruffle her hair—then stopped. His hand was dripping wet. It wasn't just his hands. His whole body had frozen solid and was now melting. He was, quite literally, a wreck from head to toe.
Luce spoke up suddenly.
"But they might think you're a latecomer. You said you'd be back in a month, and it took three."
"...Three months?"
Rodeban scratched the back of his head.
...From my side it felt like less than a week.
Apparently the process of bonding with the Magic Sword had messed with his sense of time. The contract had specified a one-month deadline for the request, so this was definitely his fault.
Then Rodeban's eyes went wide as something occurred to him.
Wait. After a month, support forces were supposed to enter. Why didn't they?
His previously cowed face regained its swagger. Because he wasn't the only one who'd screwed up.
A moment later Seria arrived, and Rodeban waved in greeting.
"My lady. It's been a while."
Seria's brow furrowed hard at that carefree face. She marched right up to his nose and suddenly bellowed,
"Rodeban—! You're way too late!"
Rodeban flinched as if hit by a lion's roar. There was real emotion packed into that single line. Two months of not coming out of the dungeon—of course she'd been worried. He put on an awkward smile and apologized quickly.
"I'm sorry, my lady. My sense of time went strange at the center. I had no idea it would take this long either."
Seria glared at him for a moment, then asked,
"How's your body?"
Rodeban nodded as if to say not to worry.
"I'm fine."
Seria eyed his soaked clothes and shook her head.
"...You don't look fine."
"Ice stuck to me and melted. That's all."
"Ah. I see."
She answered with a face that believed none of it, looking him over carefully. To the naked eye, he didn't seem injured anywhere. She asked again.
"You're really not hurt anywhere?"
Rodeban spoke with a slightly exasperated look.
"I told you I'm not. Let's head down. I'd like to change clothes."
Slightly was an understatement—he was extremely exasperated. Seria glanced at the knights waiting nearby, then reluctantly nodded.
"...All right."
Rodeban picked up the Magic Sword that had fallen to the side. The pure white blade glittered in the sunlight.
As they headed down from the peak, Seria filled him in on what had happened.
"When a month passed and you still hadn't come out, I entered the dungeon with the order. But the storm at the center was so fierce we couldn't get near it. One of the knights went in and came out half-frozen."
"I see."
Rodeban nodded. What he really wanted to check first was whether the Holy Fluid had been properly prepared, but he was holding that in.
Luce, who had been quiet, tapped his hand and said,
"I've been going to the Academy diligently."
Rodeban nodded and praised her.
"Is that so. Well done, Luce."
Her mental age was still below sixteen. Having lived almost like an animal in the slums until she was twelve, she'd only been socialized relatively recently.
Well, even without that, sixteen is still a kid.
Then Luce said something absurd.
"I've learned everything I need to, so I want to quit."
Rodeban blinked several times, then asked,
"...What year are you in?"
How old are you? had been barely filtered into something more polite. What does a little thing like you even know... It was just ridiculous.
Luce said,
"Second year now."
She'd only attended for a single year and wanted to drop out. Rodeban shook his head firmly.
"No. That's a place Uncle wanted to go and never could."
The sentence You've got it way too good rose to his throat and sank again. The Magic Sword's aftereffects seemed to have roughened his personality a bit.
Luce tilted her head.
"I can't go now?"
Meaning she was telling him to go to the Academy. He gave a hollow laugh and shook his head.
"Yeah. Too old."
"Hmm."
She stared at him for a moment, then said,
"If you put on an Academy uniform, you'd look about the same age as me."
Rodeban controlled his twitching mouth.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah."
When Luce nodded, Seria shook her head as if there was no helping these two.
At that moment, something like thunder crashed from somewhere.
—...!
More precisely, it came from Rodeban's stomach. Three straight months of starvation made it an entirely natural phenomenon. As everyone's eyes focused on him, Rodeban muttered,
"I'm hungry."
Luce held out a piece of jerky.
"Here."
"Thanks."
Rodeban shoved the jerky into his mouth, chewing as he headed down from the peak. Compared to when he'd first climbed up, his stride had become noticeably more insolent.