Copy Skills with Affinity! - Chapter 14

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈

Chapter 14: Imbuement

──────

“Ah.”

While everyone around them stood silent at the sight of someone suddenly dropping from the sky, Katia brushed back her hair and looked at Noel.

“This is the person you said you’d introduce me to?”

Her eyes gleamed with interest.

After all, why had she earned the nickname Deathwish?

Because anyone capable of killing her interested her.

“...”

As Katia spoke, Aiden Kellermain slowly edged closer to Noel.

He had an intuition that was almost certainty about the situation that would follow.

In the game, it was practically a fundamental rule to keep major characters from clashing whenever possible.

There were too many of them with personalities far too strong. Put them together, and they were bound to collide.

And if anyone asked which two people had the worst compatibility of all, the answer would undoubtedly be these two.

Lionheart and Deathwish.

The reason was simple. Their personalities made them the absolute worst match.

It was like putting an honor student and a lunatic together. Neither could understand the other’s reasoning even if their life depended on it.

“With Lionheart, I can at least expect something.”

At that, Noel tilted her head.

“What exactly are you expecting?”

“Do you want to try killing me?”

“...”

Noel stared expressionlessly at Katia, then looked at Aiden Kellermain’s resigned expression and slightly furrowed her brow.

Thankfully, she seemed to have realized what the dangerous factor was that had made Aiden Kellermain call her here.

There could only be one person in the information she had who would casually say something so insane.

“...Are you Her Highness Katia Heinkel Craven?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I don’t believe I heard that you were visiting the Empire.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll hear the details at Capital Command Headquarters. You can complete the formal entry procedures there...”

“Enough empty words.”

With a crack, Katia loosened her finger joints.

Then she casually took off the coat she always wore and tossed it onto the ground with a thud.

It was obvious to anyone that she was preparing to give this her all.

“Aren’t you going to fight?”

“...”

Noel’s lips pressed tightly together.

She clearly looked overwhelmed by the attitude of someone who skipped all context and got straight to the point.

“If I’m going to die, I need to die after giving everything I have. Without a fight, the whole premise falls apart.”

But the instant Noel heard Katia’s casual words, her gaze sank heavily.

“There are civilians nearby. Stop making absurd demands.”

Even setting aside the diplomatic and political consequences of these two fighting, this was a clash between one of the Holy Empire’s greatest monsters and the strongest knight alive.

There was no way the battle would not cause collateral damage. Everyone nearby would be caught in it.

But Katia only scoffed.

“So?”

“...”

“Why do you care about people who aren’t important?”

Rage was beginning to show on Noel’s face.

One person only cared about getting what she wanted. The other had devoted her life to morality and justice. Their conversation was never going to go smoothly.

Katia’s next words, spoken with an annoyed sigh, made that clear.

“Then let’s do this. If you won’t fight me, I’ll start walking around here and kill everyone I see.”

“...”

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

Violent, pure white ki burst from Noel’s body.

It seemed to be the first time Aiden had seen her take a battle stance so thoroughly filled with killing intent.

“Fine.”

And one lunatic smiled in satisfaction at the sight.

“That’s more like it.”

At the same time, flames bright enough to light up the night sky rose around Katia.

Then the two supernatural powers collided, and a brilliant explosion like the dawn sun erupted between them.

▣

He knew this would happen.

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

Just as expected, the shockwave from their first clash had swept away everything nearby.

Even as he slammed into the stone ground and rolled across it, pain tearing through his body, Aiden Kellermain’s mind raced at full speed.

♠ Main Quest

◈ First Act, < Imperial Capital Rift >

- A group is smuggling weapons into the Imperial Capital. Arrest them all.

- Clear Condition: Do not allow civilian casualties.

- If you fail the quest, you will die!

Solving the problem that had landed here was entirely his responsibility.

The protagonist should have been the one to handle it.

‘This is the worst.’

The thing he had wanted to avoid so badly was right in front of him. Getting deeply involved in the main scenario.

He wanted to run even now. Drop everything and go somewhere far away, somewhere none of this could reach.

But if he did nothing...

Then, most likely...

Everyone nearby would die.

Even Noel, whom he had called here, would be in danger.

And then he would die.

“...”

To prevent that, he somehow had to subdue Katia Heinkel Craven.

And the first thing he needed to do was...

“Hup!”

Aiden Kellermain sprang to his feet and looked at the people rolling across the ground around him.

Every one of them wore a dazed expression. They had clearly been stunned by the sight of two people at the pinnacle of superhuman strength clashing.

He quickly found what he was looking for among them.

“Hey.”

Aiden Kellermain rushed over to a rough-looking man hugging a box as though it were a precious heirloom.

“Give me that.”

The box the man held so dearly was a Hellfire Bomb.

A high-powered weapon that had briefly caught even Katia’s interest.

“W-Why should I listen to you...”

The man tried to keep up his intimidating act, but Aiden Kellermain grinned and cut him off.

“Can’t you see that?”

He pointed at Katia, who was charging barehanded at Noel with her sword drawn.

Flames licked through the air as they collided with ki.

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

“What are you...”

“She can’t fight at full strength because of us.”

Katia and Noel were roughly equal in combat strength, but the one wearing shackles was obviously Noel.

Unlike Katia, who would not care in the slightest about collateral damage, Noel had to fight while worrying about civilians and Aiden Kellermain.

And Katia was not stupid enough to miss that.

Once she realized it, what she would do was obvious.

“That lunatic over there is the kind of person who’d kill us all because she thinks the people nearby are stopping Lionheart from using her full strength.”

“...”

“If you don’t believe me, do you want to sit there sucking your thumb until we all die?”

“You’re holding back to a strange degree, Lionheart!”

Before Aiden Kellermain had even finished speaking, Katia’s piercing laughter rang out behind him.

“Is it because there are obstacles nearby? Want me to clear them away?”

“...First.”

Noel answered in an even, cold voice.

“Before I put you on trial, Your Highness, you need to learn some basic decency.”

The longsword wrapped in pure white ki collided with Katia’s fist, which carried the First Vow.

Another violent explosion painted the night sky.

Everyone around Aiden Kellermain screamed and rolled across the ground again.

It was absurd to see people fluttering through the air like paper even this far from where the lethal strikes were being exchanged.

“See?”

Aiden Kellermain, who had been thrown to the ground again, spoke through the dust covering his face.

The man held out the box to him as though entranced.

Aiden Kellermain took it, sprang to his feet again, and calculated even faster.

This was enough for the materials. The rest was a means to use it.

He needed three things immediately.

-System Message

▶ Copying ‘Ki Control: Defensive barrier field.’

▶ Copying ‘Divine Enhancement: Vow.’

▶ Copying ‘Spiritual Power Enhancement: Mantra.’

They were the skills he had copied using the allocations assigned to Noel, Katia, and Dunadan.

And finally...

“...”

Nausea rose in his throat. Aiden Kellermain clenched his teeth until his gums nearly bled.

What he was about to do was a path of no return.

A one-way ticket to hell.

He would not be able to turn back until the main scenario ended.

Even so...

If he did not do this, he would die.

And there were people who would grieve if he died.

For an instant, the faces of his family flashed through his mind.

‘Dad. Sissela.’

No.

He could not die here.

Rather than see those two cry, he would fall into hell himself.

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

Aiden Kellermain drew a deep breath and felt the revolver inside his coat.

It was terrifyingly cold against his hand.

▣

A battle-hardened knight who had lived through the historic event called the Coalition War would have seen every hell imaginable.

Even so...

Noel could only give her opponent one assessment.

Absurd.

“Ha!”

Katia charged at her, divine power wrapped around her entire body. Her speed was so insane that it felt as though only the beginning and result of her movements existed.

Her speed was one thing, but even Noel felt dizzy from the pressure of the divine power filling Katia’s body.

Flames so dense that merely looking at them seemed to cling beneath her optic nerves and confuse her sense of brightness streamed out around Katia.

“Law. I swear.”

Noel quietly offered a consecration beneath her breath.

Even with her overwhelming ki, merely holding back an opponent like this through basic control was difficult. Enhancement was necessary.

“For the safety of the innocent.”

Ki, clearly stronger than before, filled her standard-issue longsword.

Then Noel swung several times through empty air.

It seemed pointless, since Katia was nowhere close enough to be hit.

Yet Katia’s body, charging from far away, was instantly cut into pieces.

Sword strikes sent across space itself.

With transcendent concentration and precise control over the ki in her sword, such an absurd feat became possible.

It was a technique only possible because ki possessed an advantage in output that other supernatural powers rarely had.

But...

“...!”

Noel gritted her teeth and twisted her body.

Katia, shaped like a mass of flame, shot through the place Noel had just occupied. If she had been even slightly slower, she would have been caught in the attack.

“You’re good! That’s the first time I’ve seen something like that!”

Katia’s appearance was horrifyingly gruesome.

Broken ribs. Ragged muscles visible along the severed surfaces.

This woman had died again just now.

And yet, the smile on the princess’s face showed no sign of fading.

That was precisely what made her absurd.

She did not even try to avoid attacks. She took every blow and continued pressing forward. She suffered countless fatal injuries.

Yet she showed no sign of fatigue. Not a single drop of blood fell.

“But, you know...”

No, it went beyond even that.

“I still can’t feel anything...”

The cry burst from her like a sob.

Mixed with her tearing laughter, it almost sounded as though she was laughing and crying at once.

“I can’t feel a thing!”

Katia charged again, and Noel sighed as she raised her sword once more.

‘At this rate...’

She could not subdue her.

No, she might even lose.

“...”

Noel glanced aside.

She still had plenty of moves she had not used.

But the people around them were the problem.

If she truly began fighting in earnest, casualties would be no surprise.

That was when Noel noticed something strange.

‘...Mr. Aiden Kellermain?’

She saw Aiden Kellermain struggling to carry a box in his arms.

When their eyes met briefly, he hurriedly waved his hands around.

She could not be sure, but he seemed to be telling her to draw Katia over there.

“...”

He clearly had some kind of plan.

Noel gave a faint nod and threw herself in that direction.

Her opponent was only repeating direct charges, as though her goal truly was to expend her overflowing power through battle as she had said. Drawing her somewhere was not difficult.

Like a matador, Noel lightly evaded Katia’s charge and guided her toward the place Aiden had indicated.

At the same time, the bomb Aiden had prepared there detonated with a thunderous roar.

The Hellfire Bomb was a weapon normally used to bring down high-rise buildings. Under normal circumstances, the entire area should have been blown apart.

But a small dome formed in an instant around the center of the blast.

It resembled the dome Noel had created before using pure white ki. This time, however, it was meant to isolate the Hellfire Bomb’s explosion and Katia within it.

‘Amazing.’

Noel wiped away sweat as she admired it inwardly.

She had never considered using a barrier field that way.

But more astonishing than its use was the dome’s durability.

Even with the purest ki, containing an explosion of that scale within such a narrow area would require several conditions, even for her.

Doing it in so little time, without even adding a consecration, would be difficult.

Perhaps it was because the supernatural power forming the dome was unfamiliar even to her.

She had seen it once before. Divine power mixed with ki.

‘Its output is like ki, and its destructive power is like divine power...’

It was a trait that took only the strengths of both powers.

He controlled ki in the same way she did, yet its performance was nearly a superior version.

“The attempt was good!”

But this was clearly not the time to dwell on that.

Her entire body had been torn apart by supersonic fragments and burned by scorching heat. She had surely died dozens of times from that alone.

Yet Katia was still tearing open the barrier field with her hands, her vicious eyes shining.

“This is nowhere near enough to finish...”

“I never expected it to be.”

Aiden Kellermain’s calm voice cut her off.

“That was only meant to strip it away. If I’m going to shoot, I need to weaken it at least a little.”

At some point, he had come within arm’s reach of Katia, revolver in hand.

The divine power filling Katia’s body functioned as both sword and shield.

The place it originated from was the heart, the source of all supernatural powers.

That was what Aiden Kellermain was aiming for.

The Hellfire Bomb had been meant to briefly weaken the divine power guarding it so completely.

Regenerating her body dozens of times had apparently taken its toll. The flames surrounding Katia had noticeably weakened.

“You know.”

Katia stared at Aiden with genuine disbelief.

“You set up every part of this so well, and then at the end, you pull out a toy like that?”

Even so...

She had survived a direct hit from a Hellfire Bomb without a scratch. No one could deal meaningful damage to Katia with such a small bullet.

Compared to the massive explosion from moments ago, Aiden Kellermain standing before her with a small firearm looked almost pathetic.

But...

“Who knows.”

Aiden Kellermain sighed and cocked the hammer of his revolver.

“I think this will be enough.”

At the sight, Noel felt an odd sense of familiarity and furrowed her brow.

She had only seen it two or three times, but it had made such a strong impression that she could define it easily.

This was the feeling she got right before something absurd happened involving Mr. Aiden Kellermain.

“Law. I swear.”

The first consecration entered the trigger.

Pure white ki ran along his finger at his will and filled the weapon’s components.

“This lowly one offers a prayer.”

The second vow entered the barrel.

It was a skill copied from Katia. A proper vow prayer, one Aiden had never learned.

Flames rising from his body coiled around the barrel.

And finally...

“O jewel, O lotus, shine your light.”

The third mantra entered the bullet.

It was the spiritual power he had learned only recently.

The final condition needed to imbue his weapon with supernatural power.

Of course, it was still incomplete because he had not imposed a constraint.

‘This is a pain in the ass.’

Because of that, he had to do something truly difficult.

The harder the goal defined by a constraint was for its target to achieve, the more it strengthened spiritual power.

The color of ki, the temperature of divine power, and the difficulty of a constraint were all measures that determined the minimum output of each supernatural power.

Of course, his pure white ki was powerful. The First Vow was also an absurd ability.

But neither would be enough to pierce the endless source of supernatural power belonging to the monster rampaging over there and pushing Noel back.

At minimum, he needed one more ability that rivaled the previous two.

Naturally, that was absurd.

Compared to the Unique skills he had taken from major figures in the main scenario, his spiritual power was an ordinary supernatural ability without any special traits.

But...

He knew one way to make it special.

※ Proficiency rises rapidly through the Omnipotence Skill Modifier. An alien trait is granted.

※ Only Unique-type Restrictions may be designated. It cannot be used by any other method. However, once this condition is met, the skill changes.

There was one Unique constraint that no one else possessed.

“Therefore, I...”

In that sense, the vow he would offer the God of the Supreme Vehicle in this situation had only one possible answer.

The only one in the world.

The vow that, in the original story, only one person offered to Urgan.

The protagonist’s calling.

The calling of someone who was not here.

“I will save the world.”