Chapter 91: I Want to Talk (7) |
While the materials didn’t go to waste, I still wanted to express my regret and this sense of injustice in any way I could. However, my character setting didn’t allow that.
Appearing outwardly calm, I handed over the dragon’s corpse while crying bitter tears on the inside.
“You didn’t come over, so I came here in person!”
And shortly after, another visitor came to the Temple.
It was someone from the Magic Tower.
“Wh-What happened??”
At that moment, I was still a bit confused after receiving a small sum of five million Gal in exchange for those materials, despite having said that I would give them away for free.
It wasn't because it was too little or anything. It was just because the thought “My materials turned into money” kept floating around my head.
Honestly, I thought it was a shame no matter how much money I received, considering the rarity of those materials. I wanted a sword forged from dragon scales far more than some five million Gal.
“Nothing you need to know about. Why did you come here?”
…Could I do the dragon raid one more time?
“I wanted to test this new item quickly, but you didn't show up.”
That wouldn't work. Yeah.
Actually, I didn't really have the confidence to sail out on that sea again. More specifically, to kill a dragon while on a boat.
I would rather wait for the next raid than that. Urgh.
“So, this is the Demon Knight, right? I can tell just by looking at him.”
Anyway, it was now time to deal with our new visitor here.
I looked at our visitor with deep regret still in my eyes. However, despite my irreverent gaze, the visitor didn't lose their smile.
His platinum eyes crinkled over his cocoa powder-colored face.
“I am Murlock. I received the title Fierce White Wind as an Archmage. It was quite fun working on something this interesting after such a long time!”
He reached out to grab my hand. The other party seemed quite old, but I couldn't just allow another person to touch me like that, so I lightly slapped his hand away.
White Wind took back the hand I’d slapped away as smoothly as flowing water and clapped his hands together. It seemed perfectly natural.
“Well, this here is the sealing tool. Its first function is to suppress Demonic Energy and partially replace it with Arcane Power, so you can use that instead if necessary! Additionally, there's a built-in brainwashing function for the Demon possessing you. You can think of it as set words that can suppress the Demon's ego. Simply put, it stops the Demon from running wild! Oh, I didn't know what you'd prefer, so I made one you can wear around your neck and one that you can put on your right arm. Which do you want?!”
While their explanation seemed natural, their tension was far too high.
He was so different from our Archmage…!
“If possible, I’d like you to choose the neck version! If you time it right, you could bang it against something! Then, if we just add a self-destruction function—”
“What are you talking about?!”
The Archmage, who seemed to have been watching what was happening from behind me, came rushing toward us.
At that moment, I felt truly fortunate that he was our party's Archmage.
Following my dragon-scale sword, I almost lost my human rights, as well.
“What? The one for the arm? A pity. Okay. Please try it first, though…”
Clink!
“…”
“…”
“…I’ll make a new one.”
However, that didn’t mean that things ended well.
* * *
“Now, let’s see how things are going today!”
Although there was some conflict between the Archmage and Fierce White Wind, as their personalities clashed quite a bit, he didn’t stop working on the seal.
It was only natural that it didn’t work out immediately, despite the Inquisitor’s assurance.
Thus, I remained with the Magic Tower during our stay in the city to confirm the seal’s effects.
“Improved Version No. 93! Here we go!”
If someone asked me whether I found my stay with them uncomfortable, well, I would say that it wasn’t bad enough to make me want to escape, at least.
He carefully kept away when I was washing and sleeping, and as soon as he found a way to improve the seal, he would rush back to the Magic Tower’s lab. Their improved versions ranged from No. 1 to No. 93.
In fact, if I rounded up the total time I spent with them in a day, it would be less than 2 hours. He even accepted my small requests without asking for compensation.
Click.
Anyway, the Improved Version No. 93 that was created like this was placed on my right arm. It was positioned slightly above where my gauntlet began, closer to my armpit.
「Equipped a sealing device. Your power will drop.」
As I felt my head clear, the Window I had become increasingly familiar with over the past few days appeared once again.
“How is it, how is it?!”
What was I supposed to think? It didn’t feel much different from the previous version. When I looked at my Status Window, all I could see was that my Arcane Power had dropped back to 1,500.
That was a fairly reasonable penalty compared to my previous worries about all my stats getting decreased. Since my Arcane Power had risen suddenly for no apparent reason, it wasn’t such a major issue for it to decrease again.
It didn’t feel like a disadvantage or advantage to me, but I was more than satisfied with that. Well, it was quite regrettable that it didn’t disable the Rage skill altogether.
“Okay, try using your Arcane Power!”
However, from what I’d seen over the past few days, what I needed to focus on wasn’t the intensity of the seal’s penalty.
“It won’t explode this time.”
It was whether the sealing device could reliably let through the required Arcane Power for my skills.
Of course, that was also why there were 93 improved versions of the sealing. They all broke because they couldn’t withstand my output.
“Seriously!”
Still, I wasn’t complaining. Without the existence of the sealing device, it seemed like the Temple would put their own limiters on me.
Moreover, the reason it was taking so long was because White Wind had made it his mission to only seal away the Demon without preventing the use of my skills.
If I wasn’t careful, my skills might be completely sealed, so I had no choice but to cooperate quietly.
Without my skills, I was as useless as wet gunpowder.
“Come, come!”
I trudged to the middle of the training ground, leaving behind that burdensome person. This was a space given to us by that sinful Temple…
I called it a training ground, but it was actually just some place they weren’t really using. You could clearly see by looking at the ground that it hadn’t even been compacted, nor had they smoothed out the sharp rocks jutting from the earth.
It was fortunate enough they had put up a barrier to prevent unsuspecting people from getting caught up in these experiments.
Slash!
“Okay, it successfully endured the basic output.”
I tried letting out a light [Slash]. The sealing device didn’t show any abnormalities. Step 1 was a success.
“Now then, the next!”
However, considering there was a Step 1, there was also a Step 2.
It was with the following skill I had to start worrying about the output.
I used the next skill as White Wind expected me to: [Bombard]. According to its Description Window, it was the skill that consumed the most Arcane Power.
Whoosh!
I exuded spiraling Arcane Power from some sword I had found rolling around the temple. A beam slightly smaller than the one I’d unconsciously used in Montata pierced everything before me.
My MP drained in an instant.
“It didn’t break this time, either! It’s not cracked anywhere, right??”
Until now, even if they could withstand my basic skills, the seals would usually break after I used something on the level of [Bombard].
Ignoring the tense White Wind, I momentarily placed the sword on the ground and fumbled with the bracelet around my right arm with my left.
I ran my fingers over the seal’s surface but found no cracks besides the original engravings. It seemed to have finally withstood my Arcane Power, even to the level of [Bombard].
“Good, good. Let’s keep going just like this!”
Seeing that I didn’t remove the seal, White Wind had his answer. Joy spread gradually over his face as if success was just right around the corner.
“Continue!”
I also had high expectations. If the seal endured the final test, these tedious experiments would finally end.
“Hurry!”
I obediently did as I was told at White Wind’s urgings. I used skills requiring vast amounts of Arcane Power one after the other.
Since [Triple Claw Strike] increased my trajectory to three, it went without saying that its Arcane Power consumption was pretty high without having to check.
As such, I continued using the [Triple Claw Slash], [Arcane Spear], and [Ground Crash] combo for quite some time.
As we experimented, I also tried raising my skill mastery and looking for various applications for them, so my skills took vastly different forms every time I used them.
Boom, babam.
“You're doing great, really great!!”
The ground that had endured a lot of abuse from me over several days gradually became unsuitable for further experiments.
Then, my MP finally bottomed out.
“Did it break? Did it break??”
The moment I fired my last [Slash], I shook my wrist and looked at the two identical trails.
Since acquiring [Arcane Power Control], I’d been paying extra attention to controlling my Arcane Power, which physically and mentally exhausted me. Sweat rolled down my neck, which didn’t usually happen.
“Give it here!”
However, that mad researcher didn't particularly care about my condition.
“Hurry!”
He ran to my right side, impatiently stamping his feet. He didn’t forcibly rip the seal off my arm because of a certain rule we had implicitly created on the first day we started working together.
Well, I might not have explicitly stated it, but I expressed it through actions by cutting the space near him with my blade. Anyway, that was how this research fanatic figured out what to do.
I undid the seal and handed it to him. While there was a slight crack, it wasn’t broken. White Wind’s face seemed to shine brightly.
“Great! Now we just need to improve its durability a little!”
He jumped around, unbefitting his title as an Archmage.
Well, it wasn’t like I didn’t understand, though. Given his position and age, it might seem odd, but anyone would be insanely happy if they succeeded after nearly a hundred attempts.
I mean, I was equally happy. That included my inner self and my character.
My character would be happy due to the underlying cause of his annoyance disappearing and the liberation of the accumulating stress caused by the sealing device that kept reminding him of the Demon… There was no need to give a lengthy explanation as to why I felt happy, though.
Modern people need their personal space. That’s all I’m saying.
“See you later!”
I put away my sword without replying to the person giving me a rushed goodbye. It might seem a little too harsh, but I couldn’t help it due to the kind of person my character was.
“Get out of my way!!!”
Furthermore, that fierce White Wind didn’t really expect me to reply anyway. The proof of that was how he immediately ran off after saying his piece.
I didn’t think there was a significant age difference between him and the Archmage, so that was actually really impressive… Well, he seemed like a very active person.
“I hope this will be the last time…”
I massaged my neck, feeling empty after pouring out so much Arcane Power.
After that day, my Arcane recovery speed increased quite a bit, so it should be filled back up soon enough… This feeling of being squeezed completely dry was difficult to get used to.
I felt as helpless as a newborn baby.
“…Should I leave?”
Still, I’d done everything I had to do here.
I left the training grounds, moving my aching limbs. It was noon. Ten days had passed since I’d left Jacrati and come to Canaves.
* * *
* * *
“Mister!”
After I returned to the Temple to avoid the training ground supervisor’s perplexed eyes, Deb was the first to welcome me.
“You’ve come at the right time!”
The next was the Inquisitor. Her body was covered in armor shaped quite differently from her usual set.
The armor was primarily blue and silver. While the blue took up the majority, it was a very light tone that matched well with her red hair.
It was quite surprising to see that they’d made it into full plate armor despite the seemingly insufficient amount of materials.
“It’s entirely thanks to the hard work of the Temple’s blacksmiths. They discovered that, although they couldn’t use ordinary metal, they could mix it with blessed iron. That’s how they made me a set of full plate armor.”
Although I had given her the materials, I tried to avoid asking any questions about them to maintain my character’s setting of not being interested in others’ affairs. However, before I could say anything, the Inquisitor just started talking.
I didn’t really want to listen to her. It sounded like my niece or cousin coming from school and bragging to me.
Whenever I heard her talking about this, it evoked my lingering desire for a sword crafted from dragon parts.
“However, as soon as I mixed the iron into it, its color changed like this. I think that’s very fortunate, though. Had it stayed its original color, it would have been far too eye-catching.”
…I also wanted a dragon-scale sword!! I wanted to have equipment made from dragon parts, too…!
“I also want to say something.”
No. Even though I didn’t really get anything out of this reward, at least I made the kimchi dumpling happy. Our kimchi dumpling had worked so hard up until now, so I should be satisfied with this.
Why no one else was rewarding her, so I had to, remained a mystery, but nothing else mattered as long as our kid was happy. Sniff.
“Mister, we received another message from the Adventurers’ Guild…”
While I was desperately trying to suppress my overflowing regret, Deb quietly interrupted me, getting down to business.
“They want you to receive another medal.”
…Another one?
No, but I already got one ten days ago, so why??
“I heard it’s from Ayu Hin and Rampan.”
I frowned slightly.
They shouldn’t give me one just because Jacrati had, and if they had enough money to make something that useless, they should spend it on their residents instead.
Moreover, I already had two Medals of Honor: the one I received in Tatara and the one from Jacrati.
“Unnecessary.”
I barely managed to refuse a medal, a token of gratitude for killing that corrupted dragon and thus saving the West Sea, by destroying it right before the branch manager, and now I was about to get two more here? No way.
I sat down at a restaurant, leaning my sword next to me.
“…Are you really not going to accept them now, either?”
Yeah, I wouldn’t. My inventory was filled enough already with useless items!
And if they had the money, they should use it for the children and refugees!
“As expected of you, Demon Knight…!”
As I kept my silence, someone else responded from the other side. It was the Inquisitor.
“In that case, we should just disassemble the Medals of Honor and allocate the resulting funds to the Yabad region’s relief efforts!”
“…I mean, I already expected as much, but damn. You two really don’t have a single shred of greed in you.”
I wondered why she was suddenly acting that way again… Well, it wasn’t too bad.
While it wasn’t bad, wasn’t there something rather strange about their words? Why did my refusal suddenly turn into me lacking greed? I was just trying to act like a jerk here.
And why was she so confident when she said she would disassemble the medals and allocate the proceeds to the Yabad region’s relief funds? Did she think I would tolerate that? Or, well, did she think I wouldn’t care what happened to them since I had already rejected them?
Going by my character setting, the latter was the correct answer, but it somehow seemed like they thought I would like it if they did that, which felt strange.
Were my character settings still safe??
“So, all of you are here.”
Fortunately, before my character settings completely crumbled apart before my eyes, the Archmage entered the restaurant. He held a rolled-up map in his hand.
“That’s great. I have a suggestion for all of you. Would you like to hear it?”
“What is it?”
I somehow felt a sense of déjà vu as I looked at the map rolled out on top of the restaurant table.
“Inquisitor, this incident made me realize our need to supplement our personnel. Right now, doesn’t all the burden during combat lie on you and the Demon Knight?”
After finishing our task, we took a good, long rest. Now that our condition became somewhat normal again, we all gathered around an open map…
“So, how about we stop by this place to look for more talents? If we look in an arena, there may be at least one talented person suitable for our party.”
Wasn’t this basically about the next location we would go to…?