Chapter 68
- Rat-a-tat-tat!!
House Ventish’s swordsmanship specialized in swift swordplay.
It dazzled and disoriented its opponent, then slipped in a single lethal strike midway through.
“Kraaahhhh!!!”
Thus, before even a minute had passed since the duel began, the twenty attacks Akion had proposed were over.
- Tiddididididi!!!
“Haaaaahhhh!!!”
Meanwhile, Carlos had awakened to the intermediate Expert level thanks to his anger and had even adapted to it,
“This really works.”
Akion simply watched in admiration, as though nothing unusual were happening.
- Clang! Clang!
Though a razor-sharp sword was clearly coming down right before his eyes… he suffered neither injury nor impact.
This was a realm of magic that science and engineering could not explain.
Though it supposedly shared some theoretical fields with them, Akion was reminded each time how unfortunate his magical ineptitude was.
‘If only I could use magic, too.’
What principle made this magic work,
and whether it properly dispersed the impact force of Carlos’s powerful swordsmanship—
he could have analyzed it all.
Unlike Akion, who was feeling that regret, the spectators….
“Is that the magic engineering…?!”
“It’s performing the role of armor admirably!”
As they praised Akion, magic engineering, and the Emperor who had ordered its creation by imperial decree, imperial fervor swelled within them.
“It must be lighter than heavy armor. Absolutely.”
“It would be perfect for knights…. If you’re really worried, you could just think of it as a replacement for the chain mail underneath.”
And the sharp-minded nobles imagined countless incredible applications for it.
What if that wasn’t an academy uniform, but a military garment?
Even if it couldn’t replace heavy plate armor, it could easily replace chain mail,
and knights made that much lighter would become nimbler.
“What about mages?”
“If something like that were in their cloaks, it could change the very nature of war….”
Besides, it could be folded up, making it easy to manage military supplies,
and, above all, mages would no longer need to activate defensive magic in advance.
The defensive magic inscribed on the fabric would protect them automatically.
Like medieval nobles who lived by killing or being killed, they were exceptionally quick-witted in this area.
“Huff, huff, huff…!”
“This is the new academy uniform that will be distributed to all academy students, including next year’s incoming freshmen.”
“Y-Young Master Akion. You can’t just take that…!”
Thus, Carlos, completely exhausted, collapsed in a heap,
and Akion snatched the announcer’s amplification-magic wand and busied himself promoting the academy uniform.
“His Majesty the Emperor has always worried about the wicked people who prey on the children of nobles, and this garment is the culmination of those concerns.”
Akion’s academy uniform, with no more than a speck of dust on it, delivered a fresh shock to the medieval people.
“And for academy students who graduate with excellent grades, we intend to provide this academy uniform as a graduation gift. Ah, to be precise, we plan to have it tailored into whatever style of everyday clothing you prefer.”
“They’re just giving that away?!”
“I-If your grades are good enough…!”
And since the mere fact that it was free made the conditions almost irrelevant, the heat in the stands rose even higher.
Since it was practically the same as being given a spare life, nobles with children to send to the academy swallowed hungrily.
‘By the Emperor’s standards, that is.’
Of course, “excellent grades” meant excellent by Imperial standards.
In other words, even if their grades were good, they might not receive one if the Emperor was displeased with them.
“Let’s push it hard, shall we? Since we’re already riding this wave, I think we should properly support His Majesty the Emperor.”
“That Akion fellow. He has a surprisingly broad grasp of this sort of political maneuvering! Ha ha ha, excellent!”
“Let’s keep going just like this!”
Eneresis had no choice but to get on the Emperor’s side.
Of course, considering the enormous benefits that came from following that line, it was a good situation rather than a bad one.
“That was well put.”
“Ha ha, oh dear…. Ahem. Ah, anyway, ladies and gentlemeeeeen!! At last, we have a decision!!”
That was why Eneresis believed it should lend the current Emperor and the imperial authority its full support.
Akion had also attended the family council and agreed with the elders on this.
“The winner!! Akiiiion Eneresiiiiis!!”
“Waaaaaaaaaaah─!!!!”
Thus, the victor of the winter-day colosseum duel was Akion.
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!!”
“Magic engineering is the best!!”
“Engineering, you mean.”
Thus, he taught the people of the capital about the greatness of magic engineering.
*
After the duel,
“You little rascal. You went and pulled something like this without even consulting your father?”
- Bonk!
Count Delford had rushed here after hearing the news, hurling all sorts of magic as he came.
As a father, he had no choice but to wield the rod of love against his son.
“Ow! Dad’s committing domestic violence again!”
“When did I ever hit you?!”
“Neglect is psychological violence─ ow, ow! Just kidding!”
The count relentlessly scolded his son, who had started spouting nonsense the moment they met.
“Sigh. You rascal. No matter how thoroughly it’s been verified, you should have reported a duel between different houses.”
Watching Akion clutch his aching forehead, the count rebuked him.
“Hehe, I’m sorry.”
“Well, never mind. Thanks to you, His Majesty and our Eneresis have plenty to gain. Next time, at least give me some warning.”
Still, Eneresis had much to gain thanks to its youngest son, so Delford’s scolding ended there.
“Anyway… It seems there are more and more ruffians targeting you these days. I think I’ll have to assign someone to you.”
“I’d appreciate that. And… isn’t it human nature to resent seeing someone nearby doing well? And this is the capital, so there are a lot of people, too.”
“Good heavens, from the way you talk, you’d think you’d lived ten years longer than I have.”
Including his previous life, Akion really was Delford’s contemporary, but anyway.
Thus, Akion exchanged information with Delford about recent events and about each other.
Of all of it, the news most welcome to Akion’s ears was….
“Brother Juan and Sir Clad have returned?”
“Yes. I hear the reconstruction of the north is finished.”
The return of Juan Eneresis and Clad Steelburn, who had left about a year ago!
They had gone on assignment to rebuild the north after it was brought down by an ice spirit, and had finished everything and returned in less than a year.
Delford had come up to the capital this time as well, so he brought the final reconstruction report and showed it to Akion.
“Wow, Big Brother really knows how to get things done.”
“I don’t make him acting head of the family for nothing. If he weren’t always wagging his tail at women, I would have backed him even more.”
The report contained detailed information along with the format Akion had taught him.
“It’s good that he doesn’t do that anymore and is focusing only on magic and administration.”
“……Is that really something a father should be saying?”
“It’s not as if I made him a eunuch, is it? That’s his own karma. And with ninth-tier magic and holy healing added to that water-bed treatment, he’ll recover on his own.”
Delford still had Juan marked as his heir.
More precisely, he had realized that Akion truly had no interest in the countship,
and he also knew that Akion hated administrative work far more than expected.
So he decided to keep backing Juan as before.
“What about Big Sis?”
“Who?”
That was why Akion asked about his older sister.
Akion’s older siblings were Juan, the firstborn and his big brother,
and Hermione, the third child and his little sister.
And….
“You know, the second one. Sister Astera.”
“As, tera…?”
His big sister, still holed up in the academy and refusing to crawl out.
Estera Eneresis.
“Ah, ah, right. Astera was there. Yes.”
And that was when Akion felt a sense of déjà vu.
As if he had not remembered her at all, and someone had poked him to force the information into his head?
More importantly.
- Jiiiiing…!
The Möbius mark on the back of his hand began to ring.
As though warning him.
“Father, just a moment.”
“Hmm? All right.”
Akion knew that, when it came to things like this, there was no harm in being cautious.
So he immediately left the room, rubbed the mark, and sent a signal.
And then,
[Akion. Listen carefully—this is urgent.]
The contact came in the flippant tone the Heavenly Lord used only when he was being serious.
[We just detected the power of an Outer God. Have you experienced anything strange or déjà vu-like recently?]
‘An Outer God?’
Why an Outer God all of a sudden?
Akion wondered if he meant the sort of Outer Gods that appeared in works of fiction,
[That’s right. Think of it as a type of evil god.]
‘What.’
An evil god that crept in and corrupted the mind?!
Akion let out a shriek, covered his eyes, nose, and ears, and wondered if he should run away.
[It’s not immediately serious, but sometimes a grimoire of an Outer God breaks through the dimensions and is acquired by someone. The problem is that my data log only shows that an intrusion occurred; I can’t tell where it landed.]
And strange phenomena apparently occurred in the person who acquired it.
The entity would be forgotten,
or people would automatically ignore it.
“……”
[That’s why I contacted you. We picked up that signal again for the first time in three years. Have you noticed anything similar around you─?]
His big sister. Astera Eneresis.
When he had mentioned her a moment ago… hadn’t his biological father, Delford, seemed to have completely forgotten her?
[Your older sister? Let me check. In the personal database… A, A, then T….]
If Akion’s memory was correct, Delford had even praised her in the past because of her excellent magical talent.
[Astera Eneresis. She’s pursuing a doctorate in the academy’s graduate school and sends letters once in a while? And she sent some to you, too, Akion.]
‘I’ve never received any letters.’
And only then did Akion remember that he had not received a letter from her for the past few years.
Until just before his seventeenth birthday… Akion had been Astera Eneresis’s emotional trash can.
An irritating sister who poured out all her troubles in letters every day, then asked, ‘You’re on my side, right?’
[Haaah, we finally found a prime suspect. The timing lines up perfectly with the logs from when you awakened, so it was impossible to track her down at all… If we leave this alone, a mistake could lead all the way to an Outer God’s descent.]
‘Ugh. You useless Heavenly Lord. Please.’
She appeared to be the person who had acquired the grimoire of the Outer God the Heavenly Lord was searching for.
[I suppose you’ll only learn your lesson after mentally calculating the phenomena caused by billions of people and a planetary-scale natural simulator.]
‘Sorry.’
Even in the middle of all that, Akion realized how tremendous the Heavenly Lord’s efforts were, but anyway.
[Still, you remembered her. It seems your soul comes from another dimension, so perhaps you’re resistant to the mental corruption of Outer Gods.]
‘Then could you send over the Saintess?’
[She’d get corrupted, too.]
‘Oh dear.’
[So make some equipment for them so they can resist mental corruption, too.]
‘Ugh.’
Thus, he received an emergency commission.
The client was none other than the Heavenly Lord who ran this world.
The product he needed was….
[You have aluminum foil, right? A tinfoil hat made from that will be enough. The mental waves that spread corruption can’t pass through aluminum. Just make about forty!]
‘Hey, you jerk, that’s easier said than done. Do you know how hard it is to get aluminum?!’
[Just do it. Scrub-scrub.]
‘Kraaaagh!’
They were tinfoil hats the conspiracy theorists would love.