Chapter 168: 168

Chapter 168

As I gripped the cursed sword, I saw that ‘Sacred Spirit’ was protecting my mind.

As soon as I held the sword in my hands, the zombies that came running towards me began to fall down like dominoes.

It was as if the cursed power that radiated from the sword itself somehow got cut off.

“Let go of it, Reinhardt!”

“Let go of the sword!”

However, both Ellen and Eleris seemed more preoccupied with the fact that I grabbed the sword rather than the fact that the fight had finally ended.

Of course, they didn’t know that I wasn’t controlled by the sword.

“…I don’t think this thing is affecting me at all, though.”

“Let go of it!”

“Let go! Hurry up!”

“Okay, okay.”

-Pok!

Seeing them both telling me to let go of it so frantically, I plunged the sword into the ground. Both of them were staring blankly at my action of letting go of it so arbitrarily after holding it like that.

The sword had moved on its own before. However, when I let go of it, it just stayed still as if it was dead.

It didn’t move or react. At that moment, Ellen and Eleris came over to me because they realized that the fight was over.

“Are you okay?”

“…I think I’m just a little exhausted.”

Ellen seemed to be exhausted, perhaps as a side effect of using magic body strengthening. She even coughed up blood, you know?

Ellen had suddenly used magic body strengthening, which she had never used or even learned before.

I was still fine, even after I had made direct, active contact with that cursed sword that would control its host.

And Eleris, who pretended to be a low-ranked wizard, had suddenly launched one high-ranking attack spell after the other.

“…”

“…”

“…”

All of us had done something that was rather hard and complicated to put into words.

 

* * *

 

All three of us had done things that couldn’t be explained with just one or two words.

Ellen did something that was generally known to be near impossible…

I was somehow immune to that cursed sword’s mind control, incapacitating it…

And Eleris had been hiding her actual power until then. Ellen just stumbled over to my side, as she seemed completely drained.

“For now, I won’t ask why you have been hiding your power up to this point.”

“…Okay.”

Eleris was suspicious, but Ellen just had too much to think about at the moment. In the end, Ellen didn’t choose to simply teleport away to save herself, even though she realized that Eleris seemed suspicious.

“This sword. Do you know what it is?”

“Ah… No, I don’t know either. I’ll do a quick inspection of it first.”

Eleris put her hand near that bizarre sword, which completely ceased all movement. She didn’t touch it, just in case.

The sword itself didn’t look like anything special. It wasn’t as fancy as Lament. The only color it had was from the glowing runes engraved on it.

Notably, the sword didn’t have a crossguard. It was a straight sword. Its form was that of an ordinary longsword, albeit with a slightly darkish color. However, it didn’t really look like a cursed sword at first glance.

The grip was wrapped in wrinkled leather, and the pommel was studded with a black, water drop-shaped obsidian or something similar.

Eleris, who seemed to be inspecting the sword for a while, sighed in the end.

“I don’t know… If this were an enchanted object, I’d be able to tell what kind of enchantment had been used, but as for this sword… I have no idea. It might have been cursed… As to what curse it’s under, I don’t know. Curses aren’t a standardized form of magic, so there could be many causes and effects. I mean, it can’t be helped, as it wasn’t something that has been consciously placed on it, I think.” 

It’s not that she couldn’t tell if it was cursed or not. She actually presumed that it had a curse placed on it, but she couldn’t identify it. Perhaps that was just how curses were.

“But even if we don’t know what the cause for the curse is, the effect is just like what we saw. This sword will control a person’s mind and spread so much evil energy that it will cause undead to arise wherever it is.”

“This thing’s dangerous.”

“Yes, very.”

I wasn’t controlled by the sword due to Sacred Spirit’s protection. However, it would be very different for other people. It was unknown what would happen if Ellen or Eleris decided to hold that sword.

“I’ll see if I can somehow dispose of this sword…”

“No, wait a sec.”

It was me who cut off Eleris.

“I think I can use this.”

“…What?”

“Reinhardt!”

Both Eleris and Ellen seemed to have been caught off guard by my words.

“No, look, I’m fine, right?”

Ellen’s face heated up when she saw me grabbing that sword without hesitation.

“What are you doing?!”

Ellen lost her composure and yelled at me. It was my first time seeing her with such an angry expression on her face.

“Le, let go of it! Please!”

Neither of them seemed to believe that I would be able to wield that sword.

No, I mean it was wicked and suspicious-looking, but it was still a powerful weapon, and if we were able to make use of it, why shouldn’t we? Why should we dispose of it? Was I the crazy one there?

Ellen, Eleris, and I were all so frustrated that we were about to burst.

 

* * *

 

In the end, I had no other choice but to let go of the sword after we argued for a while. I couldn’t refute their reasoning that it might be dangerous if I was exposed to that thing for a longer period of time. Rather, it might be even more dangerous because my mind wasn’t taken over right away.

Ellen rubbed her temples as if she was even more exhausted after she had to go against my stubbornness.

 

In conclusion, we decided not to dispose of it right away but to take it to Temple to see if the weapon could be considered safe.

 

Anyway, Eleris’ actions and Ellen’s sudden awakening to magic body strengthening…

And then my ‘Sacred Spirit’ could be added to the list of surprising turns. With that, the complex and difficult Als Point scouting mission ended in the complete resolution of the incident.

“Now, please explain.”

Ellen silently looked at Eleris. She didn’t even need to explain what she meant by that.

Why did you deceive us and pretend to be a low-ranking wizard up to this point?

The corners of Eleris’s lips twitched. Her expression had turned into a completely bewildered one.

“Th-that’s… It’s just one of these things. R-role…playing…?”

She probably already prepared an excuse for everything, but she seemed to have some difficulty bringing it over her lips.

“…Roleplaying?”

“Well… A beginner wizard who just went on her first adventure… That’s the concept.”

“…What are you talking about?”

Ellen glared at Eleris as if trying to tell her to stop joking around. Role-playing?

“I-I’m actually… A dragon that came out to play a bit… That’s it.”

“…?”

I tended to tell Eleris almost everything I did in Temple. I also told her about my little Senior named Redina, who told me that she thought that she was a dragon. So I had asked Eleris if it was possible that she was a dragon that lost her memories. Eleris’s answer had been negative. 

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But she decided to use that excuse.

I could have never imagined that she would pull something like that.

* * *

Eleris continued her explanation while stuttering.

“It’s… I just wanted to try going on an adventure like all those humans and experience all sorts of things. If I showed you my skills… It wouldn’t be a real adventure… Yeah. So… I hid my abilities… But that was an emergency just now. I thought you might be in danger if I continued to act. I had no other choice but to… Abandon my concept… Th-that’s what happened…”

A Vampire Lord was claiming to be a dragon that came out to play.

Well, the truth was more troubling, I suppose.

It would be better if she really was a dragon.

“Th-that’s why… I was looking for some nice people who would be easy to get along with rather than some high-ranking adventurers, as I said in St. Point… Reinhardt helped me when I was in trouble… So…”

“…”

She was looking for someone she could enjoy an adventure with rather than strong ones because she was already strong enough to play around leisurely, so we were chosen.

That was the explanation she wanted to give.

“There are no such things as dragons.”

Ellen, of course, cut her off as soon as possible, trying to keep her from speaking any more nonsense.

“Wh-why are you saying that? I’m here…”

Looking at Eleris, who suddenly turned into a dragon roleplayer, I felt like I was about to lose my mind.

Was it a trend?

“A-and I’m a dragon, alright… Anyway, I saved you from a… very dangerous situation, right…? I just wanted to help you guys. That’s all…”

Anyway, I saved you, so just say thank you! 

It was a complete mess.

“There is no evidence that beings such as dragons exist. Also, it’s been said that they can cast magic without casting.”

“Th-that’s a myth.”

Eleris just sprouted more poor excuses. However, everything we knew about dragons was actually a myth. No one knew if they were true or false.

Eleris also doesn’t believe in dragons to begin with.

“Uh-uhmm… It’s a bit hard to show you my true appearance…”

Eleris suddenly closed her eyes and opened them again.

They were blood red. Her pupils also turned into vertical slits.

“These are Dragon Eyes… A characteristic of dragons.”

After she showed us those Dragon Eyes, Eleris closer her eyes again before opening them once more. Her eyes had returned to their original state.

I guess that was some kind of Illusion spell.

“…Really?”

“Yes, really…”

The stories about dragons had a major weak spot: there were many legends about what dragons were supposed to be like, but nothing was actually clear about what kind of existence a dragon really was. 

It wasn’t even clear if they were actually winged lizards.

Even if someone were to ask you to prove that you’re a dragon, people didn’t even know anything about them, so there was no way one could prove something like that reliably.

There wasn’t any evidence if those were really Dragon Eyes or something else. No one had ever seen a dragon, after all.

So Eleris was using that random illusion as proof that she really was a dragon. 

Maybe Ellen will fall for this because she doesn’t know anything…? 

That was what she was probably thinking.

Ellen seemed to be deep in thought.

It was definitely too much to call Relya a low-ranking wizard. Her physical strength, her incredible accuracy with a slingshot, spells we needed that appeared at the exact right time. She had quite a lot of knowledge as well.

And that tremendous amount of magical power, enough to cast one high-ranking spell after the other without a break.

“…Dragons aside, I did suspect that you might not be human.”

It seemed that Ellen already had some doubts that Eleris might not have been human.

“Ah, is… Is that so?”

Ellen was only half-confident about her suspicions. However, she wanted to see whether Eleris held any hostility towards us or not.

It was a bit frustrating that she used her magic body strengthening to protect someone she didn’t need to protect. 

Anyway, Ellen knew that Relya held no hostility towards us, no matter if she really believed that she was a dragon or not. Meanwhile, I had a hard time pretending to be all surprised.

Eleris was talking so much nonsense, I knew that it was utter bullshit, but I had to give responses like ‘I would have never imagined that it was something like that!’

We gathered the zombie bodies and burned them all. The sword’s curse on them was gone, but we still did it just in case.

Once that was done with, I wrapped the cursed blade in something like bandages, sealing it completely, and then hung it on my back. I didn’t know if those countermeasures were sufficient enough, but if I didn’t do it, those two wouldn’t leave me alone.

No matter what I said, they absolutely didn’t want me to hold that sword because we wouldn’t know what might happen.

 

“By the way, let me have a look at your condition, Ellen. I heard you didn’t know how to use magic body strengthening before…”

Eleris remembered that Ellen coughed up blood not too long ago.

“Right. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“…I don’t know. I feel a little dizzy.”

Ellen seemed to have realized that her condition wasn’t all that good.

“Can I take a look?”

“…”

Ellen seemed a little reluctant, probably because she still found Eleris suspicious, but in the end, she allowed her to touch her body.

“Hmm… It seems like her magical power has been almost completely drained. Perhaps she overdid it a bit while using that skill.”

She wasn’t taught how to use the skill, so she just released too much power, which strained her body.

“I’ll share my magical power with you.”

A blue light flowed out of Eleris’s body and into Ellen’s body. After some time, her complexion had majorly improved.

“Do you feel better?”

“Yes.”

“Still, I’m no expert in treating injuries like this. There’s also a limit to divine power. When you get back to Temple, find someone who specializes in this and get the right treatment.”

Injuries caused by magic body strengthening weren’t something that could be treated with divine power.

I was aware of that, of course. Ludwig had a very hard time learning that skill, after all.

To heal those kinds of wounds, one had to find a specialist in these types of matters, for example, a person that is skilled in magic body strengthening.

And those types of people were in Temple.

“…Thank you.”

She was a mysterious wizard who claimed to be a dragon.

Although Ellen was still uncomfortable around her, she seemed to have understood that Eleris was genuinely trying to help us. One could have said something like, “If you really wanted to help us, you could have just solved everything on your own.” but Ellen didn’t go that far.

Everything ended quite well anyway.

“Now that this is over with, let’s teleport away. I’ll do it. It’s a waste to use scrolls, after all, so don’t use them.”

Eleris said that we didn’t have to go back on foot now that her roleplaying was over.

“Hmm… Wait a minute.”

“Do you still have business here?”

Ellen seemed somewhat overbearing. All the work was done.

So Als Point was safe.

“The treasures they secured are still left here.”

There were still many valuable treasures all over the place.

“I don’t think there’s any reason why we shouldn’t take them for ourselves, right?”

In other words, “Why were you trying to throw away such precious things? If we just left them there, the Adventurers Guild or some other party would take them away.”

____

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