The Legend of the Meta-Defying Smith Who Saved the Kingdom

The Marquess was a tall, thin man, with a full head of silver hair and clearly well past his sixtieth year. But he sat ramrod straight, and with a presence that drew the eye, like a natural-born leader. He spared the two young love birds not a single glance, even as they gaped at him, and remained engrossed in his meal and discussion with his dining partner, a rather rotund, similarly tall and similarly aged man wearing a similar dress uniform.

Maya whispered an unprintable lament that she hadn't brought her great swords into the dining room.

Isabella and James ignored her. Nervousness had set in. "James, should we leave…?" Isabella asked. She wanted to enjoy a meal and show off her dress and suitor, but not if it would be actually dangerous. James tore his eyes away from the man leading the House that had tried to kill him, met his love's eyes, and forced himself to smile reassuringly.

"No, my dear, we don't need to go that far. The Marquess disowned that Knight; he should have no quarrel with me."

Isabella looked as though she still wanted to leave, and he wasn't going to let House Sanchez spoil his first date out on the town like this. He would distract her.

"Actually, this is good timing," he said just slightly forcefully. He withdrew a long, narrow jewelry box from his jacket and set it on the table, letting it sit a moment to draw Isabella's full attention and anticipation, and with a flourish, he opened it, revealing the two [Safety] amulets within. The amulets themselves were steel, but he had forged a nearly impossibly thin chain of silver for each of them.

"Ooh!" Isabella's eyes sparkled. Maya even leaned forward to get a closer look. "Now we can wear matching amulets, as a sign of our closeness," James proposed.

At the time in Iberteria, wearing matching jewelry was a step taken intentionally to signal to observers that the courtship was proceeding well. It was a bit of a gamble on James' part, to propose taking this step only a month in. Maya narrowed her eyes.

But Isabella enthusiastically accepted.

"How wonderful! I would love to wear matching amulets with you, James. Oh! And they're enchanted! But what is this enchantment? I've never seen it before." Her fingers delicately stroked the smooth, teardrop shape.

"It's an enchantment of my own design, based on the [Protection] enchantment. I've tuned it to certain kinds of hazards, you see…"

And so the Enchantress was successfully distracted from the presence of Marquess Sanchez across the room.

They confirmed their orders with the waiter, the full course menu for all three of them, and once the waiter left Isabella fixed James with an expectant gaze, her eyebrow raised.

"Well?" she asked, raising her chin to expose her neck. "Won't you place your amulet on me?"

James checked silently with Maya, who hesitated, then nodded. "From the front, of course," she clarified.

The table at which they sat wasn't overly large, so Isabella leaned forward, chin raised, gazing at James' lightly blushing face as he stood partway out of his chair and leaned forward as well, and clasped the amulet around her neck.

James sat back down, and then Isabella stood. "And now I'll place my amulet on you." She leaned forward, and James lifted his own chin, and the sparkle of silver in James' blonde hair caught her eye. The circlet was also enchanted, she noticed, though like the amulet, she couldn't quite identify it. She slowed her hands, seeming to enjoy the moment, while she inspected the enchantment more closely. It was familiar…

Enchanter Class Skill [Enchantment Analysis] has reached level 5.

Maya cleared her throat, and Isabella twitched, hurriedly fastening the clasp and returning to her seat.

James was flustered, bright red now from the prolonged intimate moment, but Isabella was too distracted to enjoy it.

[Enchantment Analysis]: Magic Nullification—Advanced

"James," she asked, "what level of enchantment is [Safety], exactly?"

"Intermediate," he answered thoughtlessly, still regaining his composure.

Isabella fixed him with a look. "And you enchanted the amulets yourself?"

The flush left James' face entirely, and his lips tightened the slightest bit. "...Yes," he said, after hesitating a moment.

Isabella had the foreboding sensation one gets when they turn over a rock and the unknown is about to resolve into something negative.

"Was it a difficult enchantment? Given your Class."

James averted his gaze. "Isabella, you know I don't like to talk about my second Class."

But Isabella was resolute. "Yes, I understand. But we're now wearing matching amulets. Don't you think I deserve to at least know why? Why it is you don't want to talk about it? You know both of my classes, and in this I would like to match as we do in accessories."

James' composure slipped to the point that he visibly bit his lip.

What was he hiding?

Maya's eyes narrowed again, watching James carefully.

"I noticed," Isabella continued while James remained silent, "that your circlet is enchanted with the Advanced [Magic Nullification]. I can't yet see its strength, but I imagine it is as relatively strong as all your Basic enchantments. She raised a hand to her throat and fingered the amulet, suddenly finding it cold on her skin.

It couldn't be.

There was just no way.

Not after his impassioned pleas to her to Choose a Combat Class.

But…

It also made a horrifying kind of sense.

Who would better understand the risks of such a choice, and be so adamantly against it?

Of everyone she had consulted with that evening, even her other classmates, it was only James who was so frantic about it, even surpassing her parents in how desperate he was.

And James was unlike any other Smith she had met, at the Joint Workshop.

She had expected at least one or two of them to be Mages themselves, but they had all scoffed at the idea.

Magery and Smithin' don't mix, they had said.

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But James was different. He effortlessly understood everything in the Enchanting books they studied together. He was even designing his own unique enchantments, now.

Looking closer, he was wearing a plethora of enchanted gear.

He… had enchanted it all himself, hadn't he.

James continued to hesitate.

"James," Isabella said firmly. "You must at least tell me why you can't tell me your second Class."

James swallowed thickly, and finally looked back at his beloved.

The distance across the table seemed like a gaping chasm in that moment.

He could see it in her eyes, the realization. But it was overwhelmed by the pain he was inflicting on her by keeping a secret from her.

He had been sloppy.

He had been thoughtless.

He should have known that Isabella, budding Enchanter that she was, would eventually realize his work was beyond the scope of anybody but a fellow Classed Enchanter.

He should have known he would have to tell her at some point.

Maya was glaring daggers at him from the side, the wall at her back.

"I… swore an oath, never to tell anyone my second Class."

"An oath." Isabella repeated flatly.

"On my life, and on my parents' lives," James looked at her, pleading with his eyes.

"But your lord, Sir Cortez, he knows, no?" Isabella pressed.

James clenched his jaw. "Yes," he admitted, "though there were circumstances…"

"Oh, circumstances?" Isabella's heart fell. "So you take such oaths lightly, then?"

They both felt the wedge between them.

Maya's expression grew stony.

And then, suddenly, before James could think of what to say, how to explain the trial and the Priest who examined his Classes, all three lost their connection to their Classes. Only the faintest thread remained, just a shade of the intrinsic Class boosts, but all their skills were lost.

Most notably, all [Danger Sense] and combat Skills.

To Isabella and Maya, this was like being suddenly blinded and deafened. They lost all sense of relative position and nearby threats.

To James, it was like having to wield his tools wearing thick, stiff gloves.

His [Enchantment Activation] skill, normally ready to activate his enchantments as adroitly as he moved his fingers, was gone.

Everyone in the room twitched simultaneously, and in the moment of distraction a figure clad in black cloth dropped from the ceiling.

James was already scanning for threats, and so saw the figure falling.

But he was slow.

They all were, in that moment.

Dungeon-honed reactions kicked in.

He heaved the table over, placing at least some kind of barricade between them and the mysterious figure. He then reached out with both hands, grabbing the two girls' arms, and pulled them down. They were frozen in shock, unable to keep up with the situation.

Even as he did this, the black-clad hooded figure raised its arm, pointing with a finger at Marquess Sanchez, who was just starting to rise from his seat, and the Marquess' head burst in an explosion of gore.

His now headless body collapsed, wedged between the table and his chair.

The figure turned now, towards the one table that had reacted the fastest to its appearance.

James ripped off his amulet and thrust it into Maya's hand. With his other, he threw a small metal orb into the air, taken from the pouch on his belt.

"Use the amulet!" he shouted. "Close your eyes and cover your ears!"

He knew what was about to happen would hurt, now that he had given up his own amulet.

But he didn't hold back.

The orb was one of several he had on him, dual enchanted with a ridiculously strong combination of [Flash] and [Thunderclap].

With pure intrinsic mana manipulation, he activated the orb and his circlet of [Magic Nullification], just as something pushed against the enchantment.

The figure was pointing directly at him.

And then the room disappeared.

BOOM!!!

It was the loudest sound anybody in the room had ever heard, and the sound was heard several blocks in every direction.

Every glass in the room shattered instantly.

All eardrums, save four, were burst.

The figure in the center staggered, completely stunned and disoriented from the flashbang.

Counterattacks should have been impossible, with all the Classes disabled.

It had confirmed there were no Irregulars in the vicinity before striking.

First, it circulated healing magic to its eyes and ears, recovering the damage in moments. Other than its burst eardrums, there was no real injury. Merely a bright light and loud sound.

It recovered its sight just in time to witness a hammer swinging directly at its head, wielded by a furious-looking blonde human, blood trickling from both ears.

Reflexively it formed a barrier, but sacrificing sturdiness for speed, it was weak.

And yet…

It should have been strong enough to block the strike of a Classless human.

[Heavy Blow]

Boom!

Nobody could hear the sound as the hammer smashed into the figure's head through the hooded cloak, pulverizing the skull.

The body collapsed, but the son of two Brawlers didn't hesitate even the slightest moment.

Everybody could feel the vibrations through the floor as the Smith obliterated the body. Head, torso, arms, hips, legs: he thoroughly destroyed it until every bone was broken and the flesh was held together by strands of skin and tendon.

This was done in the time it took most people to realize their connection to their Classes had returned, though none could see or hear.

None except Greatsword Berserker Maya and Knifewielder Isabella. And even they were still confused.

Finished with his gory work, the Smith dashed back to where the girls sat huddled behind the table. "We need to go!" he shouted, but he couldn't hear his own voice.

They hesitated, and the Smith was in no mood to waste time.

They were in danger.

Isabella was in danger.

He grabbed both girls by the waist and threw them one over each shoulder, activating every one of his defensive enchantments as he did. They wriggled in his grasp, but he was already moving, kicking the dining room door open, running down the stairs and into the street.

The Izguardia manor was closer than the Knight's Order Headquarters.

He pounded through the streets, deeply regretting not having a [Fleetfoot] or [Haste] enchantment handy.

The Royal Family found it fortunate that rumors of the blonde Smith and Knight's retainer dashing through the streets, covered in blood and carrying two struggling young women, distracted the capital Gossips from the assassination of Marquess Sanchez.

The girls shouted at him to stop, but he couldn't hear a thing. He simply ran as fast as he could, scanning for threats, until he got to the Izguardia family manor. The gate was open, so he dashed right in past the stunned guards, not stopping until he got right to the front door, where he set the girls down and whirled to face any pursuers—

There was only Izguardia family guards, running at him and shouting silently, and then Maya's fist caught him in the temple and knocked him out cold.

The Aspirant Knight was working on a report of Irregular movements when his vice captain burst into his office, and told him that there was a suspected Irregular incident that had just occurred.

"Where?"

"At Puco Rancero, the restaurant."

"Oh for Pacifica's sake!"