Copy Skills with Affinity! - Chapter 2

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈

Chapter 2: Kidnapping (2)

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They say life's changes always come without warning, and violently.

Even so, having this much change descend on him overnight was a bit much.

Today, he had been dragged here and told, "We'll live together from today," as though he had no right to refuse her request that he pretend to be her husband.

Along with the subtle threat that she would hand the evidence she had gathered of his crimes over to the authorities if he did not cooperate.

Every act of resistance and attempted escape had been sunk by Lady Noel's gentle smile, as unyielding as an iron wall. Letting him leave a single letter for his family saying he had somewhere to be was likely her final consideration for him...

“You will be using this room from today onward.”

The female knight assigned to guide Aiden spoke in a businesslike tone, her silver armor clinking.

He had heard her name was Lady Stella. She was apparently one of Lady Noel's closest aides.

Aside from Lady Noel, she was the only person who knew about the fake marriage Aiden had been forced into.

“We will assign an orderly to you. Please relay anything you need through them, and we will prepare it as soon as possible.”

“...Yes.”

“You will be entering the Imperial Palace before long. Please prepare yourself accordingly.”

The words entering his dazed mind were all jumbled together, but he somehow managed to seize on one question.

“...The Imperial Palace?”

“Lady Noel is a national hero who symbolizes the Imperial military. His Imperial Majesty is always attentive to her marriage prospects, so it cannot be avoided that you meet him at least once.”

“Do I really have to do that...”

Aiden saw Lady Stella's expression and immediately shut his mouth.

Come to think of it, if she were willing to let him refuse, she would not have dragged him here without asking his opinion in the first place.

Instead, he voiced a slightly different question.

“Is it really all right to leave something this important to me?”

The question also carried his doubt over whether it was all right to entrust this insane scam, a fake marriage, to someone like him.

“Lady Noel made the decision. How could it not be all right?”

“...”

“Lady Noel has never made a wrong decision.”

Aiden fell silent at the words, which held a trust so blind it was almost frightening.

It even sounded as though Stella was reproaching him for doubting Lady Noel's decision.

The thought that followed came naturally.

‘Is she insane?’

She had the makings of a fanatic.

The kind of person who, if Lady Noel said the sun rose in the west, would get angry at the eastern sun the next morning for failing to rise in the west.

“Then please rest well.”

When Lady Stella left after saying that and closed the door, Aiden quietly sighed.

Everything had happened so suddenly, but he needed to sort out the situation first.

He sat down and stared into empty space. A window that always appeared in response to his thoughts opened before his eyes at once.

- Skill Info

◈ Weaver of Fate

You alone know the truth of this world. Form bonds with important figures in the Main Story to gain new rewards!

【 Noel Astria Seamus 】

- Bond: Level 1

- You may copy one skill.

This was absurd.

Never mind the grand name, Weaver of Fate, or whatever.

‘A Level 1 bond with Lady Noel?’

What sort of bond could there be between a person who had kidnapped him to make him pretend to be her husband and the hostage dragged here against his will?

Even if he wanted to develop Stockholm syndrome, they had not interacted enough for that to happen. They had only exchanged a few words.

Still, beneath that strange wording was one point he could view positively.

‘Copying a skill...’

It likely meant he could imitate one of Lady Noel's abilities exactly.

Considering Lady Noel's standing in this world, simply having such an ability would be a great help.

Because...

- Quest Info

▶ Failure in the events listed below will result in severe penalties!

◈ Fake Marriage

- You have been chosen as Lady Noel's spouse. Maintain your contract with her until the end!

- Additional information will be updated as events related to the Main Story approach!

Aiden stared at the windows with narrowed eyes.

The words Fake Marriage were already enough to make his stomach hurt, but the greater problem was what lay beneath them.

What was the Main Story?

A glorious battle against the forces of evil threatening the world.

A boiling cauldron of schemes and plots spun by every sort of power player across a continent brimming with the threat of war.

The grand story of grand people.

Which meant...

‘If I get tangled up in it, I'll die.’

The problem was that, whether he liked it or not, he was already involved.

What should he do?

More precisely, how could he drop all of this and run away even now?

As Aiden thought it over, the sound of a door flying open struck his ears.

Lady Stella had said she would assign him an orderly, so it was probably them.

Aiden immediately straightened his posture and composed his expression.

For the moment, while he was stuck here, he had to play the part of Lady Noel's spouse.

“It's nice to meet you. I'm...”

Bang!

Before he could finish his greeting, the person who kicked open the door declared coldly,

“I am Gale Osron, Lady Noel's longtime friend and heir to House Osron. Draw your sword.”

“...”

What was this person talking about?

It was clearly not the sort of thing an orderly would say, and the man who had entered was not dressed like one either.

With a sword and armor already equipped, he looked like someone who had come expecting a fight.

And he was openly radiating killing intent at his opponent.

Aiden barely kept his trembling cheeks under control as he spoke.

“Sorry, but I don't quite understand what you mean...”

“I heard you are Lady Noel's betrothed. I would like to see what you are capable of.”

“...Why?”

No, seriously.

Why?

Were there only people like this around Lady Noel?

“I have never heard Lady Noel speak of you. I only heard today that an engagement had suddenly been arranged.”

With a Shing!, Gale Osron drew his longsword.

“I cannot rest easy until I test the sort of man my friend intends to accept as her spouse myself. And when blades clash, you can learn a person's true nature. Come at me.”

“...”

Aiden realized one thing for certain.

There really were a lot of insane people around Lady Noel.

As the knight drew his sword for real and strode toward him, Aiden urgently turned his gaze to the system window.

If he stayed still, he might actually get stabbed. He had to think of something!

- System Message

▶ Activating the skill-copying ability of the skill, Weaver of Fate.

▶ Analyzing the skill list of the target, Noel Astria Seamus.

▶ Displaying the highest-value skills first...

Aiden chose the one at the very top without even looking. Anything was fine, as long as it could get him out of here right now!

- System Message

▶ Copying the unique ability, Heart of Pure White.

▶ This ability is possessed by only this individual in the entire world.

▶ The target, Noel, may become more interested in you!

Something about that last message bothered him, but he clearly had no time to worry about it.

“I will strike first.”

“...”

Where had this man sold off his chivalry?

Shouldn't he at least yield the first strike?

“Stand straight and show me what you can do!”

As the blade came down at him, Aiden tightly shut his eyes.

▣

“How does he look?”

At the softly spoken question, Stella barely held back the sigh that threatened to escape.

She could not commit such rudeness before the Lady Noel she admired.

“He is completely terrified.”

“To what extent?”

“It is obvious that he feels he has been dragged into something beyond his ability to handle. He is like a puppy soaked by the rain, all limp and drooping.”

At Stella's blunt string of remarks, Lady Noel finally burst out laughing.

Apparently, it was funny enough that she even set down the wooden sword she had been casually swinging.

“That is only natural, Stella. I would have been more surprised if he adapted to this situation so quickly.”

“...”

Noel Astria Seamus, also known by the epithet Lionheart, held an absolute position within the military.

Stella herself was one of the people who fostered that atmosphere of reverence, but seeing Noel act that way still made it impossible not to wonder.

“May I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Why him, of all people?”

Lady Noel, who had been wiping away sweat, slowly turned her crimson eyes toward Stella.

Those eyes held no emotion or intent, yet the moment Stella met that clear gaze, she barely calmed the breath that threatened to catch in her throat.

Even simply sharing the same space with her, one could feel the difference in the weight of her presence.

As though...

As though the whole world had been designed to revolve around that woman.

So it was unavoidable that Stella's voice caught slightly as she continued.

“...There were plenty of other candidates for marriage. Whoever you chose would have been better than that man...”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

Before Stella could continue, Noel cut her off in a firm voice.

“If I married anyone in the current situation, it would cause a commotion. You know that too, don't you, Stella?”

That was certainly true.

The Coalition War, which had plunged the entire continent into decades of conflict, had only ended one year ago.

In that situation, if a national hero whose prestige was second only to the Emperor joined forces with any one faction, there was an extremely high chance it would create a butterfly effect that shattered the barely maintained peace.

“Then would it not be better to reject them all?”

“The others are one thing, but even I have trouble with His Highness the Prince pressing the matter himself.”

Stella had no choice but to fall silent at that.

No matter how much Lady Noel was a knight who had carved her name into Imperial history, she was ultimately a soldier of the Imperial military. It was a dizzying prospect to imagine a direct member of the Imperial family pushing a marriage proposal.

Especially for anyone who knew the rumors surrounding the prince in question.

“Yes. I hate that sort of marriage too. That is why he is the substitute.”

Noel continued with a snicker as Stella's face paled.

“A third party who suddenly appears from nowhere with no political backing. If we say we fell for each other and decided to marry, His Highness will not be able to keep finding fault with it forever, will he?”

“...Even within that category, there would have been countless alternatives to a man named Aiden.”

At Stella's stiff reply, Noel tilted her head.

“Stella, did you not look into that man's background?”

“As I recall, there was nothing unusual about him.”

A back-alley con man. A low-level criminal who had never been involved in a major case.

What kind of utterly unremarkable petty criminal had not even been arrested once by the authorities?

Perhaps they had not even thought him worth the effort.

“Yes. That is exactly what matters.”

As Stella considered that, Lady Noel spoke softly.

“How did he avoid every one of those things that would make him stand out?”

“Pardon?”

Noel smiled gently at Stella's blank question.

“That man is remarkably ordinary, considering his profession.”

Despite making a living as a con man, a job that made it so easy to stand out.

Not only had he never been arrested, he had never even been investigated by the authorities.

He was, quite literally, a thoroughly petty criminal.

Yes, thoroughly.

So much so that it almost seemed artificial.

“...I do not quite understand what you mean.”

“Well, there is something to it. I am sure I will get a chance to explain soon.”

With that, Lady Noel raised her wooden sword again.

“I am simply certain that he seems interesting.”

“...”

By Stella's standards, that was an oddly high evaluation for a man named Aiden.

But the question quickly slipped back down her throat.

She could feel ki circulating through Lady Noel's body as she gripped the wooden sword.

Ki. The blessing granted by Karba, the Empire's patron deity and Goddess of Strife, to her people.

The superhuman power wielded by Imperial knights came from honing the energy inside their bodies through cultivation methods, then releasing it beyond their bodies.

The measure of one's mastery was the color of their ki.

One famous example was the Dawn Knight, the first person to develop ki-based sword paths and martial techniques.

The First Knight. A monster said to be capable of splitting mountains and cleaving the sky with a single sword. A great figure praised as the Sword Saint.

A person who could compress the ki blooming within their body into only two colors, silver and blue.

And now, here stood a genius who made even that legend seem like a relic from a bygone age.

Noel let out a deep breath, and ki rose from her body like mist.

‘Pure white.’

Stella swallowed dryly.

The ki Noel wielded was a flawless white.

Purer than anyone's, simpler than anyone's, clearer than anyone's.

Among the countless talents, as numerous as grains of sand on a shore, throughout the Empire's long history...

Lady Noel was the only knight who had compressed her ki into a single color.

“Lady Noel! Lady Noel!”

The moment Stella heard a soldier's voice intrude upon that astonishing sight, her face twisted into a fierce frown.

To interrupt such a magnificent scene. If this was not urgent business, they would not be forgiven...

“The eldest son of House Osron has entered your betrothed's quarters!”

It was urgent enough that she could not possibly be angry.

Stella and Noel's expressions hardened at the same time.

Gale Osron. Lady Noel's longtime friend.

He was not a bad person. He was not, but...

“What kind of trouble is that musclehead with muscles for brains trying to cause now...?!”

“Stella. That is too harsh.”

Lady Noel smiled wryly as she stopped her, but she did not deny the sentiment itself.

It was clear from the way she swiftly threw on her coat that she had decided to intervene personally, certain that he would cause trouble.

Considering Gale's personality, he had probably thrust a sword at Aiden without warning, claiming that he needed to test his character. That was a more serious problem than it sounded.

He was not an elite on the level of a formally appointed knight, but he had trained in combat for a long time as the eldest son of a marquis house.

If he were thrown among ordinary soldiers, he would be a lion among sheep.

‘If we do not get there quickly, something really could happen.’

Aiden's expected abilities were even below those ordinary soldiers. It would not be strange at all if something went wrong.

Noel took a deep breath and braced her legs. She was likely about to leap toward Aiden's room and arrive there in a single bound.

She would probably break a window while entering, but what could she do? Time was of the essence.

That was what she had been thinking.

Crash!

“Aaaaaah!”

Until she saw someone falling freely through the very window she had planned to break on her way inside.

Their full suit of armor was dented as though it had been struck by a giant's fist.

“...”