Chapter 14 - Imbuement

“Aha.”

While everyone else stood in stunned silence at the person who had suddenly plummeted from the sky, Katya swept back her hair and looked at Noel.

“So this is who you wanted to introduce me to?”

Her eyes sparkled with interest as she spoke. Why had she earned the nickname “Deathwish” in the first place? Because she took an interest in anyone who might be able to kill her.

“...”

While Katya spoke, Aiden was quietly inching closer to Noel. He had a gut feeling bordering on certainty about what was about to happen.

In the game, keeping major characters from clashing whenever possible was practically a cardinal rule. One you absolutely had to follow. So many of them had such strong personalities that putting them together often led to conflict.

But if he had to pick the two people who got along worst, these two were the clear winners. The Lionhearted and Deathwish.

The reason was simple. Their personalities were the worst possible match. A model student and a lunatic, so to speak. Neither could understand what made the other tick if their life depended on it.

“The Lionhearted, huh? You might actually be worth getting my hopes up for.”

Noel tilted her head at that.

“Your hopes? What do you mean?”

“Want to try killing me?”

“...”

Noel gave Katya a blank look, then glanced at Aiden’s expression of utter resignation and quirked an eyebrow.

Fortunately, having come because Aiden had called for help, she seemed to have worked out exactly what the “danger” was. There could only be one person she knew of who would spout something that insane so casually.

“... Am I addressing Her Highness Katya Heinkel Craven?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I don’t believe we were informed of your visit to the Empire.”

“Hmm.”

“I will hear the details at Capital Command. You can complete the formal entry procedures there as well—”

“Enough empty pleasantries.”

Katya loosened her fingers with a crack of her knuckles. She even shrugged off her ever-present coat and tossed it onto the ground. She was plainly preparing to give this her all.

“Aren’t you going to fight me?”

“...”

Noel’s lips clamped shut like a clam. She looked positively dizzy at the way Katya ignored all context and cut straight to what she wanted.

“If I’m going to die, it has to be after I’ve poured out everything I have. Without a fight, we can’t even meet the basic requirements.”

But the moment she heard those casually tossed-out words, Noel’s gaze grew grave.

“There are civilians nearby. Enough of these absurd demands.”

Even setting aside the diplomatic fallout and other political consequences of a fight between them, this would be a clash between one of the Holy Kingdom’s greatest monsters and the strongest knight alive. There was bound to be collateral damage. Everyone nearby would get caught in it.

But Katya merely snorted at that.

“So?”

“...”

“Why bother worrying about people who don’t even matter?”

Rage was slowly becoming impossible to hide on Noel’s face.

One cared about nothing as long as she got what she wanted; the other had devoted her life to morality and justice. Of course they couldn’t find common ground. What Katya said next, with an irritated sigh, only proved it.

“Then how about this? If you won’t fight me, I’ll start by going around killing everyone I see.”

“...”

“Then I’ll kill that husband of yours right in front of you. That should give you a reason to—”

Pure-white energy erupted violently from Noel’s body. For what seemed to be the first time since Aiden had met her, she was ready for battle with unmistakable murderous intent.

“Yes.”

Naturally, one lunatic smiled in satisfaction at the sight.

“That’s more like it.”

As she spoke, flames blazed up around Katya, bright enough to illuminate the night sky. Then the two supernatural powers collided, unleashing a violent explosion as brilliant as the rising sun.

▣

He’d known this would happen.

That was the thought that crossed Aiden’s mind as he floated several meters through the air as though gravity didn’t exist.

Sure enough, just as he had expected, the shock wave from their first clash alone had swept up everything nearby and sent it flying. Even as he slammed into the stone pavement and tumbled across it, agony wracking his entire body, his mind was racing.

♠ Main Quest

◈ Act 1, < Rift in the Capital >

- A group is smuggling weapons into the capital. Apprehend them all.

- Clear Condition: Do not allow any civilian casualties.

- If you fail this quest, you will die!

Resolving the crisis here fell entirely to him. Something the protagonist should have done.

‘This is the worst.’

The very thing he had so desperately wanted to avoid was staring him in the face: getting deeply involved in the main scenario.

Even now, he wanted to run. To shake off all of this and go far, far away, somewhere it couldn’t reach him.

But if he didn’t do something, there was a very good chance that everyone nearby would die. Even Noel, who had come here because he called her, would be in danger. Which meant he would die.

“...”

To prevent that, he had to subdue Katya Heinkel Craven somehow, right here and now. And the first thing to do was...

“Hup!”

Aiden sprang to his feet and looked at the people nearby, who had been sent rolling across the ground just like him. Every one of them looked dumbfounded. Clearly, watching two people at the very pinnacle of superhuman power collide had stunned them senseless.

He quickly found what he was looking for among them.

“Hey.”

Aiden hurried over to a vicious-looking man who was clutching a box with a dazed expression.

“Give me that.”

The object the man cradled as carefully as a family heirloom was the hellfire bomb. A weapon with such tremendous firepower that even Katya had briefly taken an interest.

“Wh-why should I listen to—”

The man was still trying to sound threatening, determined to preserve what little menace he could. Aiden grinned and cut him off.

“Don’t you see that?”

He pointed at Katya, who was charging barehanded at Noel’s drawn sword. Flickering tongues of flame clashed with energy.

“Trust me. If we don’t help that knight right now, we’re all dead.”

“What are you—”

“She can’t go all out. She’s afraid we’ll get caught in it.”

Of course, Katya and Noel were roughly equal in combat strength, but anyone could see which of them was fighting in shackles. Katya couldn’t care less about collateral damage, while Noel had to fight with the civilians’ safety—and Aiden’s—in mind.

And Katya was no fool. She would notice that much. Which made her next course of action obvious.

“And that lunatic over there is more than capable of killing every last one of us because she thinks we’re making the knight hold back.”

“...”

“Don’t believe me? Want to sit around twiddling your thumbs until we all die?”

“You’re holding back an awful lot, Lionhearted!”

No sooner had he finished than Katya’s wild laughter rang out behind him, sharp enough to pierce his eardrums.

“Is it because of all these obstacles? Want me to clear them away?”

“... First,”

Noel replied evenly, her expression cold and blank.

“You need a lesson in basic decency before I bring you to court. Your Highness.”

A longsword wreathed in pure-white energy collided with a fist imbued with The First Vow. Another violent explosion burst from their clash, lighting the night sky.

Where Aiden stood, everyone screamed and tumbled across the ground again. It was absurd to see people fluttering through the air like scraps of paper even this far from the exchange of lethal blows.

“See?”

“...”

Aiden, who had gone rolling right along with everyone else, spoke with his face caked in dust. As though in a trance, the man held out the box.

Taking it, Aiden sprang up again, his mental calculations accelerating. This would do for the material. All that remained were the tools to handle it. He needed three things right away.

-System Message

▶ Copying ‘Energy Manipulation: Defensive Force Field.’

▶ Copying ‘Divinity Enhancement: Vow.’

▶ Copying ‘Dharmic Power Enhancement: Mantra.’

He had used the skill copies allotted to Noel, Katya, and Dunadan, respectively.

And finally...

“...”

Bile rose in his throat. Aiden clenched his teeth so hard his gums nearly bled.

What he was about to do was a road of no return. A one-way ticket to hell. He wouldn’t be able to go back. Not until the main scenario ended.

And yet, if he didn’t do it, he would die. And there were people who would mourn him.

His family’s faces flashed before his eyes.

‘Dad. Siscella.’

No. He couldn’t die here. Rather than see those two cry, he would take a plunge into hell.

‘Looks like I’ll be a little late getting home.’

Aiden took a deep breath and felt for the revolver inside his clothes. It felt terrifyingly cold beneath his hand.

▣

It would be no exaggeration to say that a veteran knight who had lived through a historic event like the Coalition War had seen every imaginable vision of hell. Even so, Noel could find only one word to describe her opponent.

Absurd.

“Ha!”

Katya rushed her, her entire body wrapped in divinity. Her speed was so insane that it seemed as though only the beginning and end of each movement existed.

Her speed was one thing, but the pressure of the divinity suffusing her body was enough to make even Noel dizzy. Streams of flame poured out around her, so dense that merely looking at them seemed to make them cling beneath Noel’s optic nerves and distort her perception of brightness.

“Law. I vow.”

She quietly offered a consecration under her breath. Even the overwhelming output of her energy was barely enough to hold out against this opponent with ordinary manipulation alone. Enhancement was essential.

“The safety of the innocent.”

Energy visibly stronger than before filled her regulation longsword. Then she slashed at the empty air several times.

Swinging from well outside striking distance might have seemed pointless, yet Katya, still charging from far away, was instantly sliced to pieces.

Slashes that leaped across space. With transcendent concentration and precise control over the energy in her sword, even such an impossible feat came easily. It was a technique made possible by energy’s superior output, rarely seen with other supernatural powers.

But...

“...!”

Noel gritted her teeth and twisted aside. Katya swept through the spot she had just occupied, her form a mass of flame. A moment slower and Noel would have been caught in the blow.

“You’re good! I’ve never seen that before!”

Katya looked utterly horrific as she spoke. Severed ribs. Ragged muscles exposed in the cut surfaces. This woman had just died yet again.

And yet the smile on the princess’s face showed no sign of fading. This was exactly what made her so absurd.

She never even tried to dodge, simply taking every attack as she pressed forward. Despite suffering countless fatal wounds, she showed no sign of tiring. She didn’t shed a single drop of blood.

“But. You know.”

No, it went beyond even that.

“I still can’t feel—”

The scream burst out like a sob. Mingling with her shrill, wild laughter, it sounded as though she were laughing and crying at once.

“Anything at all!”

As Katya charged again with that cry, Noel sighed and raised her sword once more.

‘At this rate—’

She couldn’t subdue her. No, she might even be the one to fall.

“...”

Noel glanced aside. She still had plenty of moves left, but the safety of the people nearby was the problem. If she began fighting in earnest, casualties would be entirely unsurprising.

That was about when she noticed something odd.

‘... Aiden?’

She could see him laboriously lugging a box in his arms. When their eyes briefly met, he hurriedly waved his hands this way and that. She wasn’t entirely sure, but he seemed to be telling her to lure Katya over there.

“...”

He clearly had something up his sleeve. Noel gave a slight nod and flung herself in that direction.

As Katya herself had said, her aim seemed to be to expend her overflowing power through combat; all she did was charge over and over. Luring her somewhere wasn’t difficult. Like a bullfighter, Noel sidestepped another rush and led Katya to the spot Aiden had indicated.

At that instant, the bomb Aiden had prepared there detonated with a roar that seemed to shake the pillars of heaven.

Hellfire bombs were weapons normally used to bring down high-rise buildings. Ordinarily, the entire area should have been blown away. Instead, a small dome instantly formed around the blast’s epicenter.

It resembled the one Noel had previously made with pure-white energy. The difference was that this one isolated only Katya and the hellfire bomb’s explosion inside it.

‘Impressive.’

Noel wiped away her sweat, inwardly admiring the sight. She had never even considered using a defensive force field like that.

Ingenious as the application was, what amazed her even more was the dome’s durability in withstanding the explosion. Even with the purest energy, containing such a powerful blast within so small a space would require her to meet several conditions. Doing it so quickly, without even a consecration, would be difficult.

It was probably because the supernatural power forming the dome was of a kind unfamiliar even to her. She had seen it once before, though: divinity mixed with energy.

‘Output comparable to energy, and firepower comparable to divinity—’

It possessed only the strengths of both powers. As a result, despite using energy in exactly the same way she did, wasn’t his version practically a straight upgrade?

“Nice try!”

But this was clearly no time to ponder the matter.

Supersonic fragments had shredded Katya’s body, and the blast’s heat had burned her from head to toe. She must have “died” dozens of times inside that dome from that explosion alone. Yet her eyes still gleamed menacingly as she tore at the defensive force field with her bare hands.

“But you’re still a long way from finishing me off with—”

“I never expected it to.”

Aiden’s calm voice cut her off.

“That was just to strip away your defenses. I had to weaken you a little before I could shoot.”

At some point, he had come to stand right in front of Katya, revolver in hand.

The divinity filling Katya’s body functioned as both sword and shield. It was generated in her heart, the source of all supernatural power. That was what Aiden was aiming for.

The hellfire bomb had been meant to briefly weaken the divinity guarding it so tightly. Regenerating her body not just a few but dozens of times had apparently been taxing even for her; the flames surrounding her had clearly weakened.

“You know...”

Katya glared at Aiden, sounding genuinely incredulous.

“You did such a good job setting all this up, and then you pull out a toy for the finale?”

Of course, even now, hers was a body that had survived a direct hit from a hellfire bomb without a scratch. No one could possibly inflict any meaningful damage on Katya with a tiny bullet.

Compared with the terrifying explosion moments earlier, Aiden standing before her with a small firearm looked downright pathetic.

But...

“I wonder.”

Aiden sighed and drew back the revolver’s hammer.

“I think this will be enough.”

Noel’s brow furrowed at the sight, a strange sense of déjà vu coming over her. She had only seen this sort of thing twice, but it had left such a vivid impression that she could easily identify the feeling.

This was how it felt just before something utterly absurd happened involving Aiden.

“Law. I vow.”

First, a consecration imbued the trigger. At his will, pure-white energy flowed along his finger and into the component.

“This lowly one offers a prayer.”

Second, a vow imbued the barrel. It was the skill he had copied from Katya: the proper prayer for a vow, which he had never been taught. Flames rose from his body and settled into the barrel as though coiling around it.

And finally...

“O jewel. O lotus. Shine forth.”

Third, a mantra imbued the bullet. The dharmic power he had learned to wield not long ago. The final requirement for performing Supernatural Imbuement on his weapon.

Of course, it was still incomplete because he had yet to establish a prohibition.

‘What a load of shit.’

That was precisely why he now had to do something truly troublesome.

The harder the goal a prohibition defined was for its bearer to reach, the more it strengthened their dharmic power. The color of energy, the temperature of divinity, and the difficulty of a prohibition were the measures that determined each power’s minimum output.

Of course, his pure-white energy was powerful. The First Vow was an absurd ability too. But those alone were nowhere near enough to pierce the endless wellspring of supernatural power that monster had been born with—the monster rampaging there, driving Noel back.

Not unless he acquired at least one more ability on par with the two he had already picked up.

Of course, that was ridiculous. Compared with the Unique Skills he had scraped together from the main scenario’s leading characters, his dharmic power was a supernatural power without any special properties.

But he knew one way to make it special.

※ Proficiency increases rapidly through the Omnipotence skill’s enhancement. An atypical property is applied.

※ Only Unique prohibitions may be designated. This power cannot be used by any other means. However, fulfilling this condition will transform the skill.

When it came to a Unique prohibition that no one else possessed, one thing came to mind.

“And so, I—”

In that sense, there was only one vow he could offer the God of the Supreme Vehicle in this situation.

A vow unique in all the world. One that, in the original story, only a single person offered to Urgan.

“Will save the world.”

The burden of the protagonist who was not here.

!! System Message !!

[ ‘General Supernatural Power: Dharmic Power’ changes to ‘Savior’s Vow’! ]

[ ‘Supernatural Imbuement’ succeeds. Weapon power increases! ]

Following those messages, power filled the bullet.

The powers coursing through the entire revolver merged, transforming into a single force within it. The instant they did, Aiden pulled the trigger.

...

...

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Holy shit!”

The shock wave was so terrifying that even Noel swore involuntarily. A ferocious force, impossible to believe had come from a revolver, raced forth with a meteor’s trail and shattered Katya’s body to pieces.

Her blood, of which not a single drop had been shed until now, sprayed in every direction.