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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Sword God Bearer (2)
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In fact, the plan was perfect.
Even if Elpante had all sorts of security magic set up, the "storage room" was basically like the front yard for Sera players in the early game.
Sure, if you looted too much, you'd eventually get caught and hit with penalties, but pulling out one or two necessary items was practically essential for progressing.
I could navigate the routes and break through blindfolded.
And for someone like me who could use the "Point Shop" with plenty of points to spare, this was the easiest way to do it.
◎ Haste Potion
[ Item: Consumable ]
[ Price: 100pt ]
[ Temporarily boosts the consumer's agility. ]
◎ Shadow Mask
[ Equipment: Accessory ]
[ Price: 100pt ]
[ Conceals the wearer's face and modulates their voice. ]
◎ Catwalk Shoes
[ Equipment: Shoes ]
[ Price: 200pt ]
[ No sound from your footsteps! ]
Pop the potion, move fast to bypass security nets, hide your identity from the visual recording magic scattered around with the Shadow Mask, and silence any noise during infiltration with the Catwalk Shoes.
It was the early-game stealth combo for cost-performance. With just this, you could dodge most of the academy's security features.
'...Points really are great.'
I'd spent just a few hundred points to shortcut what would've taken days of prep work to infiltrate the storage room. In terms of performance, it was like a solid C-rank stealth skill from the assassin tree.
The downside was that they disappeared after one use, but the sheer variety of items available was a huge merit.
Items costing thousands of points could single-handedly turn the tide in a crisis.
"Huff..."
I crawled up to the window, half-exhausted, and leaped down.
The Haste Potion gave me a bit more agility, but my base stamina was pure F-rank garbage across the board. Even this simple climb was tough.
'I feel like I'm dying...'
Thinking that, I rummaged through my pocket.
I had something handy for times like this.
◎ Vitality Biscuit x2
[ Item: Consumable ]
[ Price: 50pt ] x2
[ Body not what it used to be? Restore your stamina with this biscuit. Peanut flavor, 10 per pack! ]
[ Remaining Points: 2,000pt ]
"..."
The description had an unusually salesy tone, but the effect was genuinely useful.
I'd made good use of them getting here.
Chewing on the biscuits, I felt vitality return to my body as I scanned the piled-up items around me.
I found what I was looking for right away.
'There it is.'
A palm-sized incense burner. Small for a ritual vessel, but that made it stand out even more.
"Hmm."
The storage room was full of ancient junk haphazardly stacked, so it was rarely organized properly.
I grunted as I pulled out the incense burner buried at the bottom of a pile reaching nearly to the ceiling.
Ultrim of Divinity. A thousand-year-old incense burner said to hold ancient power.
Truth be told, it didn't have any amazing performance on its own compared to the hype. Just one simple function.
It was basically a "phone."
Except the person on the receiving end was... terrifying.
'Got the most important thing...'
I looked around for extras to grab.
Normally, activating it required all sorts of rare items, but this was Sera players' official honey spot for farming. No big deal.
I picked out the necessities one by one and tucked them into my clothes.
Powder from a unicorn's ground horn to light the fire, a phoenix feather to ignite it, a coral fan to control the burner...
Take too much and I'd get tracked later, but grabbing a few of the ones I'd selected should be fine.
"Whoops."
In my focus on looting, some stuff from above slid down, but it didn't crash loudly, so no issue.
"...?"
That's what I thought.
Until a "person" buried in the collapsing pile tumbled out with it.
"...!"
Instinctively, I caught the small body hurtling straight at me.
It was a gut reaction—I had a hunch letting it hit the floor would cause a bigger commotion.
But the instant I saw the face of the person I'd caught, I regretted it.
"..."
A tiny girl clutching a sword bound tightly in chains, sleeping soundly.
She looked just like a rotten, fallen kitten in her sleep.
From my perspective, the moment I recognized her, chills shot up my spine.
Yeah. Who could've imagined?
That this peacefully sleeping person had racked up three-digit murder counts. A human butcher.
"...Mm."
Unfortunately for me, my recent activity had apparently woken her from sleep.
Still cradled in my arms, the girl wriggled and stretched.
"Haaa... Mm...?"
She stretched her arms long, then seemed to sense something off as her yawn trailed off.
Her yellow eyes blinked blankly as she looked around. Then they met mine.
"..."
"..."
First, set her down.
I held the girl with both hands and stood her upright on the floor.
For a few seconds, we just stared blankly at each other in silence.
Then, finally.
The girl realized she'd been held by some strange man she'd never seen before.
Her immediate response? Lightning-fast grip on the hilt of the sword she'd been hugging.
[ Crisis detected. ]
[ Judged as direct threat to life. ]
[ Skill: Desperate Situation applied at EX rank. ]
Yeah.
I'm screwed.
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In Sera, characters get classified as evil-aligned for various reasons, but one criterion is "karma."
More intuitively, "kill count."
The more people you slaughter, the easier it slides into evil alignment.
Higher karma makes corruption easier, in that context.
Demons—the core antagonists threading through the whole scenario—usually approach high-karma types first.
And the person embodying that system's extreme was right in front of me.
She wasn't that dangerous normally.
As long as you didn't get close.
"..."
What happened if you did? Well.
Even Elnor, who slashed people at every opportunity, couldn't match this person's overwhelming karma ranking first.
This tiny girl before me had killed more people in the academy than anyone.
"...!"
Watching her sword slash flying at me, I could easily see how.
Even protagonist Eliya Chrisanax couldn't react to my EX-enhanced Desperate Situation and got one-punched.
Now, conversely, all I could do was react to Yuria Grayhauncher's sword trajectory.
"-...!"
Realizing it was truly life-or-death, my focus sharpened until the world crawled in slow motion.
Unlike with Eliya, this attack was dead serious, intent on killing, which heightened the sense even more.
I parried the throat-aimed strike with the incense burner in my hand. A relic like this wouldn't shatter from a few hits, so it made a decent shield.
A clang rang out, sparks flying.
'What kind of monster is this...!'
Despite my inhuman strength that could fling people like feathers, my whole body ached.
For a strike thrown right after waking, without proper stance, the power was absurd.
The good news? I knew how not to get hit more by her.
I rolled backward, throwing my whole body.
In a real fight, it'd be idiotic.
It gained nothing but distance.
But against this woman, it was definitely effective.
The moment my body hit the floor, I instinctively gauged the distance between us.
'Three and a half steps.'
For her, a distance she could close in one breath and cleave me.
But Yuria stood frozen in place.
She wielded near-invincible combat power against foes within "her three steps," but conversely, she couldn't invade "the opponent's three steps."
A human forced to keep distance from everyone.
That was the "curse" on her—designed that way.
[Will you stay still?]
Of course, seeing the teary-eyed text floating in the air, it was clear she wasn't thrilled about being scooped up by a strange man.
"...Gotta make it easier to slice you?"
[Yes.]
Cut me some slack, just that much.
Of course, regardless of my wishes, my situation was a bind.
Wall at my back. Yuria ahead, sword pointed at me.
Keep three steps away and I'm safe, but then I can't escape.
Bodies touch sometimes. If she wasn't burning with that intense hostility over it, I could've negotiated...
"...?"
Hold on.
Negotiation.
Negotiation.
A few settings flashed in my mind.
True to being forced to distance from everyone, Yuria lived like a vagrant.
Running into her unexpectedly in the storage room was a surprise, but given her preference for "low-traffic" spots that "stayed that way," it wasn't impossible.
Staff rarely came without reason, so she'd made it her den.
And people in such environments always suffered chronically from one thing.
"..."
Slowly, I slipped my hand into my pocket. At a speed clearly signaling no aggression.
Then, with solemn motion, I pulled out the biscuits I'd been eating earlier.
"..."
[...]
I felt Yuria's gaze lock onto the biscuit in my hand.
Shaking it made her eyes follow smoothly. Definitely.
I heard her swallow dryly. Her stomach was probably rumbling fiercely.
"Tut tut tut."
Like feeding a cat, I tossed biscuits one by one.
In the direction away from her, toward my exit. Like Hansel and Gretel, I laid a biscuit trail.
[What, bribing a person with food?]
The upside of text communication was separating speech from eating.
She snatched flying biscuits with freakish reflexes while floating that text—proof.
[I'm not some animal. As if anyone falls for this!]
But her body was honest.
Each bite visibly made her happier.
Chewing with a beaming smile—like she had a tail wagging wildly.
Realizing I was watching, she snapped to with a "Huh!"
[I-I'm not falling for such primitive tricks! I'm human!]
Sure.
"Got more. Want some?"
[...]
A moment later.
Yuria was rolling around, munching the whole pack I'd given her.
Like a real animal.
[So, who are you? Why're you here?]
"..."
People need full bellies and warm backs for civilized talk, huh.
Question coming now.
'...But I can't exactly be honest.'
Can't say I'm here to steal.
Even if Yuria lived half-feral, she wasn't incapable of communication, as shown.
Word leaking to staff would be trouble.
Any good excuses...
Ah, right.
Before speaking, I glanced at the incense burner on the floor.
Taking it outright would draw her attention. So, let's probe.
"Came to feed you. Someone asked me to."
A topic she'd have to bite.
[...Huh?]
Yuria blinked blankly in response.
Dozens of question marks floated around her—majorly flustered.
"Someone I know said to look after you a bit."
[Someone you know...?]
No such person. But dropping this could help later.
In the original, creating variables like this was impossible, but if it were the game, I wouldn't meet her here anyway.
Might as well use the early encounter to smooth things later.
"Your sister's doing well in the Holy Kingdom, so don't worry."
Key was delivering this info early.
Yuria's body stiffened noticeably.
"The Pope won't bother you or her for a while. Still, lay low in the academy a bit longer."
The girl hugged her chain-wrapped sword tighter, never parting from it.
Small motion, but the emotional whirlwind was fiercely intense.
She'd come from the Holy Kingdom—her homeland—to distant Elpante academy for this life, all because of that guy.
Normally detailed in Chapter 2, but whatever.
Least I could share news of her sole family.
"..."
My gaze lingered on the sword she clutched.
Plain-looking, but among Sera's entire arsenal, it ranked high in malevolence.
Yuria was its "seal." The three-steps curse stemmed from it.
Not as bad as Elnor's constant mental corruption threats, but still.
Figured she deserved some hopeful news. She was suffering.
[Who are you, really? Where'd you...]
"I'm going."
Of course, no need to spill all the details.
'Don't have any to begin with.'
Oops.
Lies have long tails that trip you.
With the mask on, better to exit mysteriously.
I picked up the incense burner rolling from our earlier clash.
As a Holy Kingdom native, she'd know its value, but shocked by my words, Yuria ignored it.
Lucky...!
Worth the chit-chat...!
"...See you."
Left a farewell at least.
I'd hit the storage room for loot at least once more.
Go easy next time, yeah?
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