Chapter 69
Chapter 69
“…You.”
Petra shot me a sideways glance and grabbed the hilt of her sword.
However, the reason her stiff expression didn’t relax was likely because the executor’s pressure was anything but ordinary.
She placed her hand firmly on the hilt and slowly stepped forward.
The executor likewise rose from the throne I had been sitting on and began to descend at an unhurried pace.
“Is it a Death Knight?”
After confirming the executor’s appearance, she muttered quietly.
Certainly, his thick-boned form made it easy to mistake him for a Death Knight, but he wasn’t such a lowly existence.
“The exterior is similar, but it’s completely different. It would be more accurate to call him a fallen paladin.”
Ching—!
As the executor closed the distance to right in front of her, Petra finally drew her sword.
At the same time the crisp sound of the draw echoed through the hall, she glanced at me and spoke.
“Please don’t get hurt by stepping in unnecessarily. I’ll take care of this.”
“Sure.”
Since it was a chance to appraise Petra’s skills, I nodded readily.
She really did have a strong sense of responsibility.
She had come all this way indulging my stubbornness, and now she was even taking full responsibility for cleaning it up herself.
Facing the executor head-on with her sword drawn, Petra’s momentum didn’t waver in the slightest.
She, too, had reached the level of a Sword Expert.
She fell short of Alice, but compared to the others at the Academy, she was far ahead.
“streuende Rosen(Scattering Rose Petals).”
With a soft chant, surging crimson aura clung to her blade.
At a glance, it was a distinctive aura that clearly contained extraordinary power.
She had modified the secret swordsmanship passed down through the Leipzig family to suit herself, and the result was the tip of her blade that gracefully blanketed the air like rose petals scattered by the wind.
Tudadadada—!
However, just because the scattering was graceful didn’t mean it was weak.
Petra’s sword surged toward the executor’s entire body, emitting a thick, piercing sound as if a spear were thrusting forward.
Koom—!
The executor didn’t simply take it lying down.
Though he staggered briefly after losing the initiative to Petra, he soon blocked all her attacks with a presence like a massive boulder and instead launched a counterattack.
Blue energy and red aura battered each other’s bodies, grinding away at one another’s flames.
From behind, I watched their clash while letting out a sigh of admiration.
‘If I had to compare it to something, she’s like a leopard.’
Petra’s sword was thinner and longer than a standard longsword.
It was a type commonly called a rapier or a slender sword, favored by swordsmen who prioritized speed.
The sword’s performance itself was ordinary, but the skill of the one wielding it was anything but.
She effortlessly deflected or parried the executor’s greatsword as it came crashing down with monstrous force, never once being pushed back as she faced him head-on.
‘What’s unfortunate is the sword itself.’
A master doesn’t blame their tools.
But that saying was, quite literally, only for masters.
Petra was still a swordswoman with a long road ahead.
In situations like this, the quality and performance of a weapon had a huge impact.
Attacks she could normally deflect in a single motion required multiple exertions of force, and that led to a great deal of unnecessary energy loss.
“Tsht.”
In particular, rapiers and slender swords had thin blades, which meant poor durability and a heavy burden on the wielder.
In fact, after several clashes, Petra seemed to have taken a shock to her wrist, as she pulled her body back slightly and frowned.
“Want some help?”
“If you want to make it back alive, I’d recommend staying right where you are.”
When I tested her lightly, a vicious reply came back.
I shrugged at that and leaned against the wall again, continuing to watch the fight.
[You are quite capable, young lamb.]
The executor was a being that had slumbered in this place for countless long years.
According to what the archaeologist had researched in the original work, the executor should have possessed strength on par with a Sword Master.
However, the worshippers of the god this temple once served had already turned to dust and returned to the earth, and now the place was nothing more than a tourist attraction of the capital.
With the source severed, he was barely maintaining his existence.
Even so, he still possessed a certain degree of strength—but it wasn’t enough to defeat Petra.
“Hap—!”
A sharp cry pierced the ears.
At last, her sword, which had been locked in an evenly matched struggle, struck one of the executor’s legs.
The surging crimson aura blasted away his armor, and the executor collapsed in place with one leg destroyed.
“Not bad.”
Petra was sweating, but her eyes were shining brighter than ever.
She seemed pleased to have defeated a foe that had given her such trouble, even turning her head toward me with a broad grin.
[O supreme god, heed the call of this seed.]
“…Huh?”
However, the executor didn’t stop moving there.
Despite having one leg destroyed and collapsing in place, he offered up a prayer from where he sat.
“If we destroy the head, it’ll disappear, right?”
“That should be the case.”
To finish him off, Petra once again ignited her crimson aura.
But before she could move, a vibration rippled through the floor and a change occurred.
“…Huh?”
Gugugugung—!
The walls that had blocked all sides cracked apart.
And from within them, beings with the same form as the executor she had just defeated began to fall down, one after another.
“Uh…….”
Petra’s face turned pale at the sight.
She had struggled that much against just a single one.
On top of that, her stamina was already depleted.
If only one more had appeared, she might somehow have managed to bring it down again—but even at a glance, the number of executors that revealed themselves exceeded twenty.
“…….”
After looking at me, she began desperately scanning around for the entrance we had come through.
But that path had long since been sealed as well.
In the end, with a dazed expression, she let out a hollow sigh and stumbled backward until she reached my side.
Her sword, which had been covered in brilliant crimson aura, now lost its sharp edge as if reflecting its owner’s state of mind and dragged limply along the floor.
Petra looked at me with a face completely drained of strength and spoke.
“…I really have the worst luck. I struggled my entire life trying to break free from the fate I was given, and this is how it ends.”
“Do you resent me?”
“I do. I mean, for what reason did you drag me to a place like this…….”
She shrugged as if she couldn’t understand what I was thinking.
But contrary to her words, she didn’t look like she truly hated me.
“I’ll fight as much as I can, but maybe I followed you here because, deep down, I wanted a situation like this.”
The complex emotions that had filled her face just moments ago were now replaced with a sense of relief.
To be honest, she said, everything about family and such had been exhausting.
She hated that they had been blinded by power and forcibly arranged her engagement to a brute like me, and she despised how even at the Academy she had been pressured to curry favor with the children of high-ranking nobles.
Listening to her calmly pour out her feelings made me feel a little sorry for her.
She must have been tired—of a world that demanded ideals and sacrifices from her.
That was probably why she could speak so openly in front of me.
“Still, now that it’s come to this, I feel a bit relieved.
Though I am a little dissatisfied that the man I’m with at the end is you.”
“…You’re really blunt.”
“So what. It’s the end for both of us anyway. And that thing about you having contacted the outside beforehand—that was a lie too, right?”
At her sharply probing words, I smiled faintly.
As if she had expected that, Petra shook her head with a bitter smile.
“You and I both had unfortunate fates. Now that I think about it, ending our lives like this, together with someone of a similar fate, isn’t so bad.”
The executors had now surrounded us and closed in right up to our noses.
Feeling the vicious aura they emitted, her body trembled slightly.
No matter how composed one tried to be, anyone would feel fear in the face of death.
“May I make one last selfish request?”
“What is it?”
“…I want to.”
“What?”
“I want to kiss you.”
Petra said that because she had maintained her chastity under the pretense of being engaged to me, she had never dated anyone of the opposite sex.
Then, without even a hint of embarrassment, she looked at me and smiled softly.
“You know, your personality and behavior may be terrible, but your face is decent.”
“…Hahahahahaha—!”
At her words, I finally couldn’t hold back my laughter.
She really was consistent to the end.
Seeing that same state as in the original work filled me with a sense of nostalgia—and relief.
Either way, I had succeeded in opening her heart.
The method had been the worst possible, but as long as the result was good, wasn’t that enough?
I grabbed Petra’s hand and pulled her into my arms.
Then I looked around at the executors who had drawn right up to us.
This situation hadn’t originally existed.
In the original work, there was no fight with the executors in the first place.
No matter how much the archaeologist had hired a mercenary group, their strength would have made it difficult to even hold off a single executor.
However, the archaeologist had known in advance that an executor would appear and used a holy relic prepared beforehand to drive away the impure energy that served as the executor’s source.
‘Was it because he struck first that the others didn’t appear?’
“…Ah.”
Seeing the executors right in front of us, Petra clutched my collar tightly.
I gently whispered into her ear, as if soothing a child.
“Who decides the end of a life for themselves?”
“…What?”
The archaeologist had brought a holy relic, but I had something even better.
Holding Petra with my left arm, I stretched out my hand into the air and called forth the holy sword.
“Come, Excalibur.”
A dazzling light bloomed within the grand hall.
I had seen the sight many times, but perhaps because of the location, it felt a little more novel this time.
“…Ah.”
Soon, Excalibur, radiating brilliant aura, settled into my hand.
Petra, held in my arms, gazed at it with an intoxicated expression, and I raised the holy sword of salvation and aimed it at the executors.
“Disappear, remnants of a bygone era,”
As if in a final act of resistance, grotesque energy surged forth from the executors’ bodies toward us, but the light ultimately split the darkness.
At the same time, the divine forms of the executors let out bizarre sounds beyond verbal description and faded away into the air.
“…Ah.”
Petra let out yet another breathless exclamation.
Just like that, I took her hand and headed toward the throne where the first executor had been seated.
‘It should be here…….’
Slice.
When I cut through the throne, an entrance leading inward was revealed.
Stepping inside while holding her hand, I led her forward, and though Petra hesitated slightly, she followed obediently behind me.
Inside, another altar was positioned.
And upon it, a pair of swords were embedded in a crossed state, each displaying its own splendor.
Two swords, one tinged with red and the other with white.
Seeing them, Petra’s eyes widened.
“These two swords were the purpose of coming here.”
I drew them without hesitation.
Letting the status window messages that rang in my ears pass by, I handed the red sword to her.
“…This, to me?”
“It’s a reward for all your hard work. Ah, though since it’s a valuable sword, I guess I’m taking a slight loss.”
When I jokingly added that perhaps we could settle the remaining value with the kiss we hadn’t gotten earlier, Petra, her face beet red, clenched her fist and struck my chest.
…With how heavy my chest felt, it seemed like she could have taken them all down by herself even if I hadn’t drawn Excalibur.