Chapter 29 - Ghost Knight
8 min read ·
The Ghost Knight Disturbance unfolded more simply than one might expect. Spirits poured out of a rift, then caused physical damage within the capital.
As Meyer had demonstrated before, spirits could not exert all that much influence over the physical realm. Even a continent-renowned hero like the Knight of Dawn had been unable to subdue Aiden in one go.
So even a flood of spirits would not be that big a problem. Normally.
Except...
“This is no ordinary incident.”
Simple though it was, this was clearly no trivial matter. Noel looked up at the sky and spoke in a stiff voice.
“A rift of this size will affect the entire capital.”
“... You seem rather familiar with this?”
Aiden knew how this would unfold thanks to his knowledge of the original game, but Noel seemed somewhat familiar with the situation as well.
“It was one of the tactics used during the Coalition War.”
She paused briefly before continuing. Her eyes were sharp, filled with an unusual hostility that felt as though it could tear through skin.
“... The Magic Kingdom used it frequently.”
... Those words alone seemed to explain her reaction. The battle in which the Lord Protector had died had also been against the Magic Kingdom. She could hardly harbor any fondness for them.
And that clearly did not seem to be the only reason for her hostility.
“Aiden. Would you leave this area with Stella as quickly as possible?”
Her expression serious, Noel drew her sword. Pure-white energy visibly flowed along its blade. Aiden had seen that battle stance once before—only when she had faced Katya.
In other words, the current situation was just as grave.
“This will be rather rough work. Closing a rift this large... will require me to put quite a few things on the line.”
Her voice held a steely resolve. Enough to change even the look in Stella’s eyes as she carried Aiden over her shoulder.
“Dame Noel. Do you intend to handle this alone?”
“We need to find and uproot every ‘root’ sustaining the rift.”
Those roots were structures a mage installed to house a source of magical power. There was no way to close the rift without finding and destroying each one, and Noel was the only person here with the speed and agility to do it.
“It’s dangerous. Even you could be seriously injured if anything goes wrong!”
“Excuse me, just a moment—”
“The task itself isn’t particularly difficult. I just need to find them and destroy them.”
“But the rift is about to open fully. If you go in there without even knowing where the roots are, you’ll take the full brunt of—”
“Could you listen to me for a—”
“Stella.”
Noel answered her with a clear, unclouded smile.
“We weren’t given the title of knight so we could run away at times like this, were we?”
“Please, just let me speak for a—”
“There are civilians down there. That means I must go and protect them.”
“...”
“But, Dame Noel...!”
Stella called out to her desperately. Anguish swirled in her eyes, as though asking why Noel had to make that sacrifice alone. Why she insisted on shouldering everything herself.
It was a scene that could rightly be called heartrending. Noel answered with the expression of a knight entrusted with a noble mission.
“Then leave this place, Stella. Keeping Aiden safe comes fir—”
“Would you listen to me?!”
“...”
“...”
Both knights fell silent as Aiden’s impassioned shout cut her off. Probably because neither had ever seen him yelling with a vein bulging on his forehead before...
“I’m sorry to interrupt your very serious conversation, but first—”
He reached inside his clothes and pulled something out. It was one of the stakes Stella had been diligently driving into place earlier. The difference was that this one bore a distinct marking, as though it had a definite ‘function’ the others lacked.
“—we have more important things to worry about than closing the rift, you know?”
“Aiden? What do you—”
Noel tilted her head and began to ask a question, but before she could finish, divinity was rising from Aiden’s body.
The stake he held was something like a detonator switch. It could direct the supernatural power stored in the others to discharge at the moment he wanted.
As that power flowed naturally into the stake in his hand, a window appeared before his eyes.
-System Message
▶ Imbuing target ‘Wooden Stake’ with ‘Divinity’.
▶ The effect of ‘Divinity Manipulation: Delayed Release’ activates.
▶ All objects linked to the target are imbued with the same type of supernatural power!
As the lines scrolled past, colorless flames blossomed in every direction. They erupted simultaneously from the stakes Aiden and Stella had spent the entire night flying around to install.
Wherever that light spread, dark structures could be seen crumbling into ash. They were the rift’s ‘roots’ Noel had mentioned.
... And it was happening in precisely the places where Aiden had told Stella to drive in the stakes. The rift’s roots always appeared in fixed locations in the original game, after all. He had not spent the night running around installing them for nothing.
“...”
“...”
Noel and Stella both clamped their mouths shut and watched the rift close as though the night sky were being stitched back together. Beside them, Aiden huffed and flung the spent stake onto the ground.
“All that fuss over nothing...!”
“... Aiden.”
“Yes?”
“I was just preparing to risk my life.”
“...”
Aiden scratched his cheek under Noel’s oddly aggrieved gaze.
“Then isn’t it a good thing you don’t have to anymore?”
“... Well, yes.”
It was. It certainly was, but...
“...”
“...”
... Well. All’s well that ends well. Noel’s embarrassment aside, wasn’t this exactly why he had made so many preparations?
Even so, he kept his guard up and stared at the rift. If this were all, it would be easy enough to get through. But if it ended here, Aiden would never have prepared so meticulously.
“Actually, as I was saying earlier, the part we really need to worry about starts now.”
“Pardon?”
“This wasn’t the main event.”
It was simple when he thought about it. The world he now lived and breathed in was based on a game. And that meant a story structured in episodes like Act 1 and Chapter 1 had one indispensable element.
‘A boss fight.’
Couldn’t leave that out.
As Aiden gave a wry smile at the thought, ectoplasm began gathering ominously around the rift just before it closed.
‘A ghost knight—was it?’
The event itself was called the Ghost Knight Disturbance, after all. Some sort of knight-related enemy was bound to appear.
The ectoplasm descended from the sky to the ground and coalesced into a shape that fit the description: a knight clad in armor.
“—”
Aiden drew a deep breath and gathered himself. This was Act 1, Chapter 1—the very first event—so he did not expect it to be all that difficult. Still, fighting with his life on the line was not something he was used to yet.
‘My options—’
Three skill copies from Noel, and one skill imitation from the prince. He already knew their available skills by heart. He just had to copy and use the right ones for the situation.
If he put those to good use, he could get through this—
[“I am steel—”]
—or so he had thought. Until the knight formed of ectoplasm suddenly began to speak.
“—?”
A sense of foreboding slid down Aiden’s spine. Unless a spirit was exceptionally powerful, like the Knight of Dawn, it could not retain its consciousness and behave like a person.
Which meant there was a very good chance that the thing before him had no business appearing in a mere Act 1, Chapter 1.
Something was going very, very wrong.
[“I am the blade—”]
With those words, supernatural power surged around the spirit. Energy. Pure white.
... Exactly the same as Noel’s.
[“I am the scales.”]
The gathered power took shape as a single slash. He had seen that stance before. It was the very stance Noel had used to send a slash flying at Katya.
-System Message
[ ‘Skill: Analysis’ recognizes the target. ]
[ The School used by the target matches the characteristics of your Combat Style, ‘One Strike, One Arrival’. ]
[ You receive a bonus in combat. ]
... Sure enough. The School the ghost knight was using matched the Combat Style Aiden had copied from Noel perfectly.
With that slash suspended in the air, the ghost knight looked straight at Aiden. The instant their eyes met, divinity sensed the danger before anything else and sprang out to protect his body.
That alone would have let him survive most situations. But every action he took in the next instant came from instinct, not reason.
-System Message
[ Copying ‘Energy Manipulation: Defensive Force Field’. ]
[ Copying ‘Energy Manipulation: Hardness Enhancement’. ]
[ Copying ‘Energy Manipulation: Rapid Generation’. ]
Normally, he would never have chosen that combination. Noel had plenty of skills far more valuable than these. He was burning through every last copy just to strengthen a barrier that would block one immediate attack.
But certainty raced through his entire body: unless he went this far, he would die right now.
[“Subjects of the Empire, fear not—”]
And that instinct was absolutely correct.
[“—for I have come.”]
The next instant, a pure-white curtain appeared before Aiden’s eyes—and his body went flying. By the time he registered the slash, it had already reached him and struck him head-on.
‘What the...!’
Never mind that he had not even seen the attack coming. That single blow had left his triply reinforced defensive force field in tatters. If he had not spent every last skill copy just now, he would definitely have died...!
‘What the hell is this...!’
This felt like... facing Noel herself.
And no wonder. The ghost wielded Noel’s pure-white energy, used Noel’s School, and struck with almost exactly the same power. Noel was probably the only person in the world capable of something like this.
That is, with one exception.
“... Teresa?”
In a cracked voice, Noel spoke the Lord Protector’s name.