WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ Academy's Pure Love Dark Knight ◈

Chapter 114

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Episode 114. The Unmelting Heart of the North.

I sat across from Asha, and we began exchanging a little conversation over refreshments and black tea.

"Nice to meet you, Licht."

It seemed she'd lost touch with the other Ten Greats after staying in the North for so long.

"I hear you dealt with Head Ache using the same power as Akasa."

"..I suppose you could say that."

The reason I'd lied about being the Hero of Wisdom was obvious.

From Asha Aureus's point of view, I was nothing more than an outsider.

If I wanted to be able to talk about the secret between Nex and Asha, this was the better route to take.

"I never thought Drake would take on a student. Maybe I've been in the North too long."

Knowing the backstory was thanks to my knowledge from reality, and honestly, that made more sense than putting it down to intuition or reasoning.

"My ability is finding or hiding information. Whether it's omniscience or Erasure of Knowledge, I was able to handle it."

"That's a little enviable. I wish someone like you had been around during the war."

Nex and Dennis had actually called me the Hero of Wisdom before too, and I'd heard that, according to the setting, the gods didn't just pick a single hero anyway.

"Might I see your holy sword? Licht."

"Ah, here it is."

I'd already taken out Giyu ahead of time to make it look like a holy sword. Holy swords tended to vary so wildly in their abilities anyway that using this one wasn't likely to expose my lie.

"It's not a fake, at least."

"Of course it's genuine."

Asha Aureus scattered a few small feathers of flame to check whether the sword would melt, and my counterfeit holy sword showed no reaction at all.

"Hm, I'd love it if there were a hero out there blessed by Pantoz who could handle spirits too...."

That was my heart for Phine Gransia, unchanging.

Now that the future where she became the Saintess had vanished, she might not end up liking me, but something this small wasn't going to make my feelings disappear.

'Something about the way she's been glaring at me since earlier feels off.'

As if displeased that I was lying, the white-haired woman stood off against the far wall with her arms crossed.

But Phine, unlike at the academy, there's a difference in status here.

No matter how you look at it, this woman outranks us. And she's a bit of an elder, too.

Most players called Asha beautiful, but I never really understood it.

"..Just which apostle is the one sending monsters into the North, Duchess Aureus?"

Leaving Phine's sharp glare behind me, I asked what I was curious about.

"Shouldn't you already know that much, Hero of Wisdom?"

Her tone turned icy in an instant.

Right. This was just how she was to begin with. It was only because the princess and the Northern Grand Duchess were standing right there that she couldn't come at me more overbearingly.

Her suspicion clearly hadn't cleared yet. Then I'd need to lay some groundwork to make this lie stick. Most of the North's terrain was mountainous.

There was only one apostle who could drive monsters living in such rugged, high terrain down into Kaprostia.

"If it's the Apostle of Wrath, I already know about that. But it looks like there's something more to it."

The Apostle of Wrath, who threw crowds into a state of fury. There was only one option.

"You really do know. I'm sorry for testing you like that. I'm just thorough by nature."

"How could I possibly object, Living Sun."

Each of us sizing the other up.

Asha's thoroughness resembled her son Nex's. Skilled at deceiving and reading others. As alike as the two of them were, why hadn't she ever told him the truth?

"It was probably something the Demon King of Might did."

That was when a word I'd never heard before came out of the duchess's mouth.

'The Demon King of Might..? Was that Fin, or Heogun?'

I'd only ever seen the name in the setting materials. So that must be the direction their authority or abilities went.

The Heroic Cult originally had four demon kings.

So one of the two must be the Demon King of Might. Given that, he probably used both senses of the word, military might, and the power to sap all strength away, leaving you utterly powerless.

'That would explain why Phine's monstrous physical strength disappeared, too.'

The pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling into place. The only question left now was why she'd become a Saintess who could barely use holy power.

But what possible reason could there be for turning the Gransia Empire's princess into the Nameless Saintess like that?

If it was meant to keep Emperor Rook in check, it made even less sense. Even at the point when I was playing through <Black Heart>, Bellin Gransia was still being held hostage.

He was the kind of man who'd burn the entire empire to the ground just to hunt the Heroic Cult down if pushed, so wasn't this too big a risk to take?

'I'm missing something. Think. Thinking is my strength.'

Out of habit, I propped my chin on my hand and thought it over carefully.

Once she became the Nameless Saintess, she'd turned into someone so weak she'd be a liability even as a party member in a demon king raid.

'..Because Phine was a threat to the demon kings?'

That was the most likely explanation.

A mage-swordswoman using glass magic was already broken enough on its own, and she'd actually managed to hold her ground against Magic Hat to some extent.

Without Phine, Kainel and Ariel would have been driven back carrying deep trauma, if they'd been driven back at all. Or worse, they might have been dragged off to the Demon King's Castle and put through something horrific.

Every last one of the Heroic Cult were lunatics, after all.

They'd fake a dead person back to life, or dump nothing but horrific glimpses of the future on someone until every last hope of living on was crushed.

'But then why go to the trouble of using Might in the first place.... Ah, because Rook would be out for blood.'

Erasing an empire's princess as though she never existed would send massive shockwaves.

He'd attacked me even over a slight misunderstanding, and Dennis had some resistance to Erasure of Knowledge to begin with.

If you looked at it as reducing every possible contingency that might arise, it made sense. It wouldn't have been possible without help from the other demon kings.

"Still, you don't need to worry about it any longer."

"Hm. That's an unusual helmet you have. Is that an artifact too, by any chance?"

But like hell I'd just let that happen. Watch the person I loved fall into misfortune?

'I wasn't going to care about any penalty anymore.'

Ache had said the future couldn't be changed, but denying that outright, head-on, was exactly what the Black Knight, me, was for.

"That's right, Duchess Asha Aureus."

"Then I'll trust you. Starting tomorrow, please deal with the monsters alongside Drake, Hero."

I knelt before Duchess Aureus to show my respect, and she told me all I needed to do starting the next day was help hold off the incursions.

"Starting tomorrow? Shouldn't we be clearing out the monsters starting today, right now?"

"Because as head of House Aureus, I'm the one currently maintaining the Phoenix Cradle."

Asha took another sip of her black tea and told me, smiling with obvious confidence.

Golden phoenix wings wrapped around the entire Northern territory.

Her son Nex could only cover about one building's worth at the academy. I guess a member of the Ten Greats really was on another level.

"You really do resemble Senior Nex."

"..You know Nex, Hero?"

I'd fished for a reaction a little. I needed to figure out whether she knew about the relationship between Nex and Chartiness.

"Yes, I'm a junior of Count Nex's."

"..So you're a student at the academy."

For a moment, Asha Aureus's expression went stiff. Was she startled by unexpected news of her son? If she was rattled, that was something I could use.

"He used the Cradle during Head Ache's attack too, this time around."

"..."

The corners of her mouth had drawn tight and sideways. She apparently hadn't heard from Nex at all.

"None of the second-years at the academy got hurt, and it was entirely thanks to him."

Clink. I set my teacup down, rose from my seat, and headed to the room that had been prepared. Asha needed time to reflect on this by herself, after all.

* * *

I took the bedding out of the wardrobe, arranged it, and unpacked the luggage I'd brought.

Aside from a few simple changes of clothes, there hadn't been much worth bringing along using the Heart Sword anyway. Feeling alone again somehow, my room back in reality came to mind.

It used to be packed full of white merchandise, and just looking at it settled me down. I'm running low on my Platinum Wolf fix here.

'Guess they don't sell that kind of thing around here.'

Just then, I heard the doorknob turn, and someone crept carefully into my room.

"..Licht. Why'd you lie?"

Startled me. I had no idea when she'd followed me, but Phine had trailed after me with just a short delay. A woman perking her wolf ears at me, curious.

"Being a liar is convenient."

"Licht, you know it's really obvious, right..?"

"I know."

Phine looked at me and let out a small sigh. It didn't matter if I got found out anyway. The title of hero was something that followed from your actions, not the other way around.

"Licht."

"What is it, Phine?"

Phine kept drawing closer to me. The werewolf-blooded woman wound her tail around my leg again. Soft, sure, but I don't think my self-control's going to hold up.

"Why do you always.. go out of your way to make things harder on yourself?"

"That's my calling."

Because I have to make you happy, Phine. Even if I end up with nothing left to hold onto, as long as I keep you safe, that's enough.

A whole heap of truth nearly came spilling out of my throat, but I held it back.

The woman in front of me now wasn't the Saintess. She was the Gransia Empire's princess.

Her current 2% affection level could plummet all at once, just like it had when Chartiness was kidnapped, and

there was a good chance she'd meet someone better than me. Even having taken down Ache, I still wasn't the Hero of Conviction. And I was even further from being some prince on a white horse.

'Because I was just a Pure Love Black Knight, nothing more.'

Like a black knight who silently takes on a false reputation for the sake of the person he loves, all I had to do was quietly help along whatever love line unfolded at her side.

Even if I didn't fully trust the status window, it had brought me all the way here with nothing but a single beta tester invitation.

I'd even satisfied one condition and seen the CG scene Beneath the Magnolia Tree.

If the Grand Route were a lie, the whole game would fall apart completely, and going by every warning it had sent me so far, there was no reason for it to bother doing that.

Not possessing me in the first place would have been the safer move for them anyway. And these were the same people who knew I'd only ever gone after the Saintess route.

"I'm.. worried about you, Licht."

As I sank into thought, Phine's face turned sad. Her tail and ears drooped low,

"I don't want you getting hurt any more than this."

Her breath drawing closer and closer made it hard to keep my composure.

Phine always shook me like this. Back in reality too, my bad burn scars had kept me from ever really fitting in with people.

After even my father passed away, she was the only thing holding my life up.

"If this is about trying to bring Nex and Chartiness together, don't."

"..."

"What even is love, why does an engagement even matter?"

Unlike when she'd been the Saintess, maybe because she now had the experience of her own mother Bellin Gransia being kidnapped, she'd taken up an extreme way of thinking.

"Doing that doesn't automatically make anyone happy, Licht.."

Worry at this level felt like something was off. Just what was the reason Phine treated me this specially?

Honestly, I'd had that feeling for a while now. Last time, she'd tried to kiss me out of nowhere using something she'd read in a book, and

"Princess Phine Gransia."

even now, she kept her tail wrapped around me, showing off her possessiveness. Behavior that looked less like love and more like obsession.

"Why, Licht?"

Just like the gigolo bastard had said, people couldn't be divided cleanly into black and white. Even what looked to someone else like a girl who'd fallen in love

"What do you think of me?"

could really be obsession underneath. I swallowed a bitter mouthful of saliva and finally managed to ask her what I wanted to know, and

"..Honestly, I don't really know."

The answer that came back was Phine Gransia, head bowed low, avoiding my eyes.

"But there's one thing I'm sure of."

She'd been staring down at the floor this whole time, but she lifted her head and looked at me, her golden eyes glinting. A wolf's eyes, gleaming in the night.

"You, Licht.. you matter to me. I don't want to lose you to anyone else."

Those predator's eyes spoke the truth.

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