Chapter 129 - Sword Spirit (劍靈)
Precia slowly entered mana meditation.
She, who had been receiving and filtering the energy of nature, slowly closed her eyes and recalled the bet with Bahamut.
Bahamut asked with an arrogant expression.
“You want to make a bet with me?”
“Yes, that’s right!”
Precia nodded her head vigorously, her cheeks flushed.
Purple Dragon Bahamut, one of the main characters in the founding myth, was an object of admiration for her, who was still young.
“Bets are always welcome.”
At Bahamut’s words, Precia’s heart pounded with excitement.
Making a bet with Bahamut. It felt like entering a fairy tale she had loved since childhood.
“Good, if you’re a knight, there’s the perfect betting opponent.”
Bahamut’s bet was one thing.
Fight and win against a swordsman in an imaginary world.
With the words that the swordsman would determine the method of fighting, Bahamut pushed Precia into the imaginary world.
Regaining consciousness in a bright halo, she looked around.
A sky without a single cloud and an endless meadow.
And in the center of the meadow, a frighteningly sharp sword was stuck.
Precia remained vigilant, ready to draw her sword at any moment, not letting her guard down as to where her opponent was.
At that moment, an eerie energy rose like smoke from the sword, and the smoke gathered and transformed into the appearance of a shaggy-haired young man.
“It’s been a while since Bahamut summoned me as a betting opponent. Little girl, are you my opponent?”
At the grumbling question of the shaggy-haired man, Precia drew her sword with tension.
“Yes, that’s right. My name is Precia. Excuse me, but may I know who you are?”
Precia asked, feeling her mouth go dry.
From his appearance, there was a feeling of an indescribable pressure weighing down on her entire body.
She had only felt this feeling from her mentor, Horazon, in the past.
The shaggy-haired young man pulled out the sword stuck in the field, slung it over his shoulder, and pondered.
“Hmm, who am I? That’s a profound question. The current me can be said to be this sword itself. Commonly known as a sword soul or a sword spirit. If not, a living weapon possessed by a spirit, an ego sword, there are countless names, but… the name that might be familiar is ‘Sword Spirit (劍靈)’?”
Precia was surprised at the Sword Spirit’s self-introduction.
“Sword Spirit, Al Degflet!?”
The Sword Spirit was a knight renowned as one of the top ten swordsmen in the distant past, but he resented his lord who betrayed and killed him, and rose as an undead.
He was a disaster that transcended ordinary death knights.
And now, he had discarded his body as a death knight and became a single sword.
At Precia’s exclamation, the shaggy-haired man laughed out loud.
“Uhahaha! It seems my name hasn’t been forgotten in the world yet. It’s a tragedy, truly a tragedy!”
After laughing for a while, the Sword Spirit made a bitter expression.
“Don’t worry. I no longer lose my sanity and engage in massacres like in the past. The king and country I served have already crumbled by my hands, so there’s no way any resentment remains.”
The undead transformation of Sword Spirit Degflet was counted as one of the undead disasters.
Because a small country was annihilated by his hands, it was called the worst undead incident until the Sun Sage’s lich transformation incident.
“To be precise, it’s been a while since I got beaten up by Videl and came to my senses. Well, if it weren’t for that lizard Bahamut, I wouldn’t have been defeated by Videl in the first place. How could I win against a guy armed with all sorts of opposing weapons? Especially that damn armor of Videl’s was cheating.”
Even at the Sword Spirit’s playful grumbling, Precia couldn’t relax.
His force was still terrifying.
As Precia overcame the Sword Spirit’s force and strengthened her fighting spirit, the Sword Spirit grinned.
“Haha! I underestimated you because you’re young, but I’ll have to correct myself. Not bad.”
He said she wasn’t bad, but he inwardly clicked his tongue.
She was clearly a girl in her growth period at a glance.
Nevertheless, her ability to resist his force without being consumed by it was nothing short of admirable.
In both the Sword Spirit’s life and afterlife, Precia was the first genius of her kind.
“To make a bet, I’ll have to check your skills first. Come at me with full power.”
As the Sword Spirit snapped his fingers and provoked her, Precia took a deep breath and drew out the force from her entire body.
The opponent in front of her was a monster of the ages who surpassed transcendents.
She couldn’t afford even a moment of carelessness.
“Here I come!”
Kwaaaaaah-!
The moment sword energy condensed on the Seven Star Sword, they charged at each other, and Precia and the Sword Spirit’s swords clashed.
In a single exchange, the imaginary world shook, the ground split, and the sky melted.
Precia instantly retreated half a step and unleashed dozens of consecutive attacks.
The Sword Spirit didn’t deflect Precia’s sword strikes but deliberately collided with them and shattered them.
At that moment, the magic Bahamut had prepared was about to break. The Sword Spirit swung his sword to disperse the force and greatly retreated.
Then, as if there had never been a clash, the field was restored like a daydream, and the Sword Spirit and Precia were standing in their original positions.
“My, my, you’re amazing at that age. How old are you now?”
“I’ll be sixteen in a few months.”
“Kekekek! I don’t know who raised you, but you’ll have no match in this world by the time you’re thirty. But not now. The world is vast, and you’re still a greenhorn. Little girl.”
The Sword Spirit, who spoke decisively, looked at Precia as if evaluating her.
“Little girl, do you think you’re a transcendent?”
“…I think so.”
At Precia’s answer after a slight pause, the Sword Spirit scolded her as if reprimanding.
“How foolish! How can you call yourself a transcendent when you don’t think so yourself!”
Precia flinched at the Sword Spirit’s shout.
As he said, there was still a lingering doubt in her subconscious about whether she was a transcendent.
“Everyone will praise you as a transcendent when they see your martial prowess. But you are not a transcendent. Do you know why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because you don’t know that.”
Precia was startled by the sudden question and answer.
The experience in the Bastille Mountains was clearly telling her that she was a transcendent.
She herself ‘recognized’ it. Seeing her, the Sword Spirit grinned.
“Your mentor must be a powerful person on par with me. Otherwise, no matter how much of a genius you are, you couldn’t already be knocking on the wall of transcendents. But little girl, you have already passed the stage of receiving teachings from others.”
At his words, Precia recalled her mentor.
Just before she became a knight, Horazon, who had confirmed her skills when she used her full power, made a subtle expression and said to her.
‘It’s much faster than I thought. Well, now that you’ve become the knight you so desperately wanted, try walking your own path without my help.’
At first, she thought he meant that she had become a knight faster than others as a woman.
She understood walking her own path as meaning not to cling to the authority of a renowned mentor but to establish her position as a knight.
However, listening to the Sword Spirit’s words now, a thought flashed by that perhaps Horazon had meant something else.
“That means I can’t give you teachings either. Because you have to establish yourself. Hasty teachings will only poison you.”
The Sword Spirit’s eyes flashed eerily.
“But don’t worry. According to the worthless ability I gained after dying, countless enemies blocking your path, including me, will become your mentors in the future. If you don’t avoid it, the whirlpool of struggles will engulf you like the fate of a warrior.”
High-level undead sometimes peeked into the boundary between life and death of others.
They couldn’t act as great prophets, but they could play the role of a mediocre fortune teller.
“Don’t stop thinking. Think and think again, for the answer lies within you.”
Having said that, the Sword Spirit grinned.
“I’m also giving advice with clichéd words. I hope you understand even if I’m a bit talkative, little girl. I may be a rotten fool who’s dead, but recently, I haven’t had any conversation partners other than that damn lizard Bahamut. Isn’t it natural to become talkative when meeting a person after a long time?”
The Sword Spirit, who chatted away while laughing merrily, pondered for a moment.
“Let’s see, I have a heart as tall as a chimney to engage in life-and-death battles over and over for a young junior, but that damn lizard won’t allow it. That guy Bahamut has an unexpectedly fair side and doesn’t make bets that the opponent absolutely can’t win. Yet, he cowardly proposes a level of betting that he can win.”
Of course, just opening up the possibility for the opponent to win could be considered having good character for a dragon.
The Sword Spirit judged that Precia, as she was now, could never defeat him in a life-and-death battle.
Therefore, he came up with a method that Precia could win if she did well.
“Alright, I’ve decided. Let’s make the betting event a towel-snatching game.”
At the same time as the Sword Spirit’s words, towels were placed in both of their hands in the air.
“The use is limited to sword energy, and the goal is to snatch the towel from the opponent’s waist without injuring them. Simple, right?”
“I understand.”
At Precia’s agreement, the Sword Spirit laughed merrily.
And at that moment, the Sword Spirit and Precia began to move, aiming for each other’s towels.
On the vast field, dozens of afterimages were imprinted, engaging in ultra-high-speed combat.
Precia finished her meditation and calmly opened her eyes again.
In the end, she lost the towel-snatching game against the Sword Spirit, and with her own betting condition, she chose to have a rematch with the Sword Spirit once more.
In the rematch, she finally succeeded in snatching the towel.
Afterward, she requested a serious match against the Sword Spirit and clashed with him at full power.
But in the end, she was defeated.
The Sword Spirit giggled, saying it was fun after a long time, and disappeared with the words that they should meet again if there was another opportunity.
Bahamut said it was Precia’s victory, but she couldn’t acknowledge her own victory.
“Phew… The reason I’m not a transcendent.”
Precia sighed and pondered.
Precia, who had opened her eyes, saw Yuan preparing a fishing rod and net, and she got up from her seat.
“I will assist you.”
At Precia’s words, Yuan waved his hand.
“It’s fine, it’s not like we’re going anywhere dangerous. Until we join up with Abasael, everyone is on vacation. It’s a rare resort town, so have fun to your heart’s content.”
At Yuan’s declaration, Precia was about to shake her head. But Yuan spoke firmly.
“Especially you, Precia. You must take a vacation. I don’t know what bet you made with Bahamut, but you’ve grasped something, right?”
At his question, Precia flinched for a moment.
Her lord, the frail boy, sometimes looked at her with eyes that seemed to see through everything.
Come to think of it, it was also the boy in front of her who first advised her to develop the habit of thinking for herself.
“But I can’t neglect my duty for something that might be grasped at any time.”
At Precia’s firm refusal, Yuan patted her shoulder.
“If it were Gilbert, I would have scolded him, asking if he could be a proper escort with his mind preoccupied elsewhere. But you seem like you’d do well even if your mind is elsewhere, so I can’t say anything.”
“That’s too much!”
Gilbert, who suddenly got caught in the crossfire, made a tearful face.
Seeing Gilbert like that, Yuan chuckled and said to Precia.
“There’s no need to be impatient. You don’t have to grasp the question within you right away. It’s enough to just vaguely grasp a clue about the direction to go, so think about it.”
Having said that, Yuan grinned.
“Ah, then it’s not really a vacation, is it?”
For a knight, self-discipline and cultivation were part of their duties.
“Should I rest in the room with you?”
At Yuan’s question, Precia smiled and shook her head.
“That’s unfair. If you say that, I have no choice but to follow.”
At her smile, Yuan ruffled her hair.
“You’ll get scolded if you smile like that to someoone else, you know?”
At his playful smile, her cheeks flushed slightly.