Chapter 21 - The Real Thing Is Different (3)

Vale Ballorhard frowned.

His nephew had been spouting incomprehensible nonsense about Poems of Martial Deeds and the like for some time now, and it grated on him immensely.

But something else was what truly displeased him.

Those eyes, that expression.

At first, he had not known what sort of gaze it was.

He had not been able to grasp in the slightest what that twisted line of the mouth meant.

Because it was a gaze he had never once received in all his life, and an unpleasant expression he had never once faced.

Pity.

What had appeared on his nephew's face was unmistakably pity.

He could not understand it.

This was a situation where the distinction between strong and weak was perfectly clear.

Not only the parties to the spar, but everyone watching knew which side was the strong one and which side was the weak one.

If either of the two deserved pity, then naturally, it was his nephew.

Then what on earth was that look?

What was that gaze, as if the strong were looking down on the weak, and what was the pity beneath it?

The emotion and attitude, whose reason he could not fathom, were truly absurd.

"Mana Chain, with that trifling art, you cannot reach 「Transcendence」."

But what was truly absurd was the fact that he himself was being shaken.

"You people need to know how much you have lost."

The moment he heard that dry voice, his heart dropped with a thud.

It felt as if he truly had lost something enormous.

His chest grew tight.

SCREEECH.

Then came Sword Resonance, like metal being gnawed away.

"I was wondering why you would not draw that eerie sword."

Forcing down his confused emotions, he gripped his sword.

He intended to end it with a single strike.

This spar, and the doubt in his heart, both.

"That which no treasured blade can cut."

It was then that a song of unknown origin flowed from his nephew's mouth.

"I split the scales of a dragon, and drink its burning blood."

The moment he heard those lyrics hummed without pitch or cadence, his heart clenched tight.

Vale Ballorhard instinctively raised his sword.

He poured all the mana of one circuit into it.

MMMMM.

The sword hummed low.

That was when his nephew's sword came crashing in.

GRIND, GRIND.

At the unpleasant noise of something being ground away, Vale Ballorhard's eyes flew wide.

He saw the Training Sword, which did not even have an edge, gnawing away from the outside at his own sword, packed full of mana.

Its sharpness was so tremendous that the skin of his face prickled as though it would be torn away.

GRAAAATE.

Half the wooden sword was ground away.

At that ravenous appetite, the fine hairs on his body stood on end.

Before he knew it, his circuits began to spin.

One, two, three.

And then one more.

BOOM!

An explosion burst out.

CRASH!

A beat later, his nephew went tumbling across the ground.

"Your Highness!"

"Enough! Don't come!"

The startled Royal Knights rushed forward, only to retreat at his nephew's gesture.

His nephew staggered to his feet and spat.

"You said you would use only one."

His voice was thick with venom.

"Then what is that?"

Following his nephew's gaze, he turned his head.

There, a blade of light roughly one meter long had risen.

It was the light of destruction that appeared only when four circuits were linked together, an Aura Blade.

Beneath the translucent blade of light, he saw the wooden sword that had been cut away.

Even after mobilizing no fewer than four circuits, he had been unable to stop the wooden sword from being cut away.

Had he not urgently brought out his Aura Blade at the final instant, the wooden sword would not have been the only thing cut away.

"Hm."

He dispersed the Aura Blade.

SWISH.

When the light vanished, the cut surface of the wooden sword came even more clearly into view.

It was a sight he could not believe even as he saw it with his own eyes.

The mana of the heart was inferior to the mana of circuits.

It was unstable, grew slowly, and had the fatal flaw of being vulnerable to the resonance of circuits.

That was common sense, and it was truth.

Yet that common sense had been denied before his eyes.

And by the sword of his nephew, who had not even been learning the sword for half a year.

His expression sank even further.

He had thrust out one strike with the thought of seeing an end to it, but he had been able to cut away nothing.

Not his nephew's sword, nor the doubts in his heart.

"You lost, Count Vale Ballorhard."

His nephew's voice was sharp enough to cut.

"Your Highness! Your Highness!"

His nephew, who had been holding himself upright, collapsed.

The Royal Knights rushed forward, and as if he had been notified in advance, the royal physician appeared and examined his nephew's condition.

Vale Ballorhard stood there blankly, watching the scene.

* * *

I had a dream.

In the dream, I was a prisoner trapped inside a cold blade, and a slave being exploited.

I was also a cripple deprived of every sense except sight and hearing.

And yet, despite that, the pain of my soul falling away in chunks beneath the breath of the mad dragon was far too vivid.

Vivid enough that I forgot it was a dream.

So when I awoke from the dream again, I had to feel a terrible sense of wrongness.

Whether I was a sword, or a human.

My head was a complete mess.

"Ugh."

If not for the pain as though my muscles were being shredded to pieces, I would likely have wandered for quite a long while after that along the boundary between reality and unreality.

"Damned Poem of Martial Deeds."

I spat out a curse.

The nightmare was the price I paid for forcibly drawing on the power of a Poem of Martial Deeds.

The pain in my muscles, as though they would be torn apart, was the same.

The headache was a bonus.

I probably would not be able to recover for some time.

I had already prepared myself for that.

After all, the [Poem of Slaying Dragons] was a Poem of Martial Deeds concerning no less than [Myth].

「Split the scales of the dragon」

What I had used in full was not even one verse, but only the three phrases that made up that verse.

Even with only that, I had been able to cut my uncle's sword in half.

Though the price was that my body was reduced to a rag.

It had been worth paying.

"One hundred victories are my pride and my strength."

『Having endured a thousand waves over a hundred contests.』

The first Poem of Martial Deeds I wove myself,

『I shall stand proud even before waves greater than those.』

A verse had been added to it.

『The grade of [Poem of Sparring] has risen slightly.』

And that new verse became my strength.

This was a Poem of Martial Deeds.

The reason a knight had to struggle for his entire life, and the greatest glory a knight could enjoy.

"Maybe it will be a little useful now."

I could not use the [Poem of Slaying Dragons] and worry about the aftermath every time I sparred with someone.

In that sense, the [Poem of Sparring] was a Poem of Martial Deeds perfectly suited to me as I was now.

A knife for chickens when slaughtering chickens, and a knife for cattle when slaughtering cattle.

For the coming spar with that Third Prince bastard, the [Poem of Sparring] would be enough.

"Your Highness?"

As I was chuckling to myself, Adelia appeared.

"Ahem."

I cleared my throat and looked her over.

Judging by her tousled hair and half-open eyes, it seemed she had been keeping watch by my side until now.

Finding that quite admirable, I smiled gently and called her name, and she showed an expression as if she were overwhelmed with gratitude.

The old her, whose every movement had been plainly reluctant, no longer existed.

The effort I had steadily put into engraving on her who her master was had paid off.

"Seeing that you have awakened, I can finally set my mind at ease."

"Were you not hoping I would never wake up?"

"That is a most unjust thing to say."

With a solemn face, she said that thanks to Your Highness, she was now able to properly provide for her aunt and younger brother.

"It was a joke."

"More importantly, how long was I unconscious?"

"Five days have passed."

"Five days?"

It seemed the aftereffects of the Poem of Martial Deeds were greater than I had thought.

When I heard that I had been unconscious for no less than five days, I asked what had happened during that time.

"After Your Highness suddenly lost consciousness, there was quite an uproar."

"Your Highness's condition at the time was so grave..."

Adelia explained the situation back then.

The muscles in both my arms had turned blue and were on the verge of necrosis, and I had been continuously coughing up blood from my mouth.

Only after the royal physician rushed over and took measures did the bleeding finally stop and my skin return to normal, but apparently, there had been quite a commotion.

"It was the first time I had ever seen the Queen so furious."

The Queen, who had arrived late, apparently saw the state I was in and thoroughly laid into my uncle.

Karl Ulrich had stepped forward beside her and reported all of my uncle's outrageous conduct, namely that he had promised to use only one circuit and then even used an Aura Blade, which made the Queen's anger grow even greater.

Thinking of that stiff-necked man being flustered was enough to make me feel completely refreshed.

"Serves him right."

"Serves him damn right."

When I cackled and told her to continue, Adelia calmly explained the rest of the story.

My uncle had been dragged away by the Queen, and afterward, although he had come several times to check on my condition, he had not stayed long the way he had before.

"His Excellency the Count looked darker than ever."

"Of course he should look dark."

"He said he would use only one circuit, then even pulled out an Aura Blade, so if he has any conscience, he should know shame."

"And he said that when Your Highness awoke, he absolutely must be notified."

As Adelia said that, her face seemed to ask what she should do.

"Don't tell him yet."

"I am going to rest for a while."

I asked her to keep quiet as much as possible about the fact that I had awakened.

It was not as if I had any choice; I really did need to rest for a while.

The aftereffects from the reckless use of a Poem of Martial Deeds did not affect only the body, so I had to take absolute rest for some time.

If I did not properly recover my damaged spirit, I would pay a horrifying price.

First, reality and memories of the past would become hopelessly mixed.

Then at some point, the boundary of reality would completely collapse, and in the end, I would become a madman and repeat the same moment over and over.

Within a world split apart from reality, the moment of martial deed would be reenacted endlessly.

Whether it was a terrible nightmare or an ecstatic glory.

That was something I absolutely wanted to refuse.

I had finally become human, so the thought of being trapped again in memories of when I had been a sword was enough to make me shudder.

"Your Highness."

"As it happens, I prepared some soup, so please appease your hunger."

Only after hearing Adelia's words did I realize that I had gone five days without eating.

Feeling the hunger that belatedly surged in, I devoured the soup she brought.

Once I had filled my stomach like that, I remembered something I had to do.

"How much of the conversation between my uncle and me did you hear that day?"

"I heard up to the part about Poems of Martial Deeds, and how the knights from four hundred years ago had made a mistake."

"So you heard pretty much all of it."

I told Adelia the story I had been putting off.

Who her ancestor was, and also what a Poem of Martial Deeds was.

Although she was half doubtful that her ancestor had been such an amazing knight, she was simply fascinated by the Poems of Martial Deeds.

"I am going to teach you a very special Poem of Martial Deeds."

"But that is not now."

The Poem of Martial Deeds of Agnes Bayern, the Sword Marquis, possessed a grade every bit as tremendous as the [Poem of Slaying Dragons].

For Adelia to use such a poem without any preparation would simply be telling her to die.

No, even before that, I questioned whether she could properly understand and embody a poem that would not resonate with her at all.

That was not a problem that could be solved by S-rank aptitude in Swordsmanship or A-rank aptitude in mana sensitivity.

Because the grade of the soul was not necessarily proportional to the talent of the body.

Then, in the end, only one thing remained.

Adelia had to create her own Poem of Martial Deeds herself, just as I had.

"So then."

"What do you want to do by learning the sword?"

At my question, she answered with a troubled face that she had not yet thought about it.

She said she had only learned because she had been ordered to, and had never had any particular ambition, showing an embarrassed face.

"Then think about it from now on."

At my words, she immediately made a thoughtful expression.

No, I did not mean think about it right this second.

I was about to say something, but she opened her mouth first.

"If I can truly become a knight."

Adelia looked straight at me.

It was an unusually persistent gaze.

And her eyes were shining so brightly.