WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈
Chapter 47: Memorial
──────
“Has it... stopped?”
“... That’s impossible.”
Noel and Katia, who had been watching silently, both cried out in shock.
Until just moments ago, the spirit had been rampaging with terrifying force. Now, it had abruptly come to a halt.
Its gaze remained fixed on the national flag wrapped around Aiden’s body.
A flag bearing a lion. The Empire’s flag.
[-]
Labored breathing came from beneath the visor, where red eyes glowed.
The spirit no longer charged Noel like a mindless beast. Nor did it rampage like a human-shaped tank, sweeping aside every obstacle in its path.
What filled those eyes was unmistakably...
‘The final line.’
Even in this state.
Even after clearly losing its reason, after becoming so far gone that it had lost the ability to speak, there was still a line it would never cross.
The Lord Protector. A knight who protected the nation.
It seemed that a knight who had lived bearing such a title remembered the pride she had built even after death.
The Lord Protector would not harm a symbol of the Empire.
Nor would she harm those who bore one.
‘As expected.’
Let’s start with one simple premise.
A spirit could manifest in the material realm only if it held an intense desire it had failed to fulfill in life. And the stronger that desire was, the more powerfully it could manifest.
No matter whether the demons or demonkind, the main scenario’s primary enemies, had interfered or not, that was a fundamental rule.
Put another way.
Even if they had the power to revive a spirit with a technique close to raising the dead, they could not twist that fundamental desire itself.
Which meant...
Even if they had planted the suggestion that harming Noel meant protecting the Empire...
They clearly could not shake the identity of someone who wished to protect the Empire.
“...”
Aiden silently watched the woman’s red, lantern-like eyes.
No description of the Lord Protector he remembered had ever mentioned anything like this.
Clearly, she was different from how she had been in life.
It was probably proof of some kind of berserk corruption. She must have been incapable of keeping her sanity.
It could not have been easy to plant a suggestion in someone so steadfast, ordering her to harm another person, especially someone dear to her like Noel.
The curse and corruption must have taken place over a long period. It had likely been easier to shatter her mind entirely.
And yet.
The Lord Protector.
Lady Teresa Adelaide.
Even with her mind broken like this, she had never done anything that would shame her name.
“I’m sorry.”
Aiden offered that quiet apology once more.
How could he not praise her?
Until the very end.
Beyond death, with her mind clouded, even after her spirit had been steeped and corrupted in filth...
This woman knight had not lost her pride. She had fought this desperately to protect the Empire.
The Lord Protector, a knight who protected the nation. She had acted without the slightest shame toward that title.
And Aiden was now taking advantage of that brilliantly shining pride.
An apology was only right.
To the woman knight who could not bring her sword down upon him and was holding back her body with all her strength as it tried to lunge forward.
But even so.
‘... I can’t let someone like her kill her own family.’
Which was why he had to defeat her here.
Aiden raised his sword.
Abilities circulated through his body.
-...
The first to prepare was First Vow. Then Pure White Ki blended into it.
-...!!
The two mixed abilities were reborn as Guardian’s Flame, producing far greater firepower than the original.
That alone nearly doubled the original ability’s power. But then...
-Divine Power Manipulation: Detonation.
The energy surrounding his body suddenly grew more than twice as powerful.
And then.
-Spiral - Hollow Point.
He shaped the ability he had refined using the method he had copied from the Prince.
-...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The abilities surged and mixed as though exploding, then began spinning after splitting into fine fragments.
It was a form that instinctively made anyone watching feel that it was growing more dangerous by the second.
Aiden wrapped that gathered power around his sword.
There was one more thing left.
‘There are two sword parts.’
The hilt and the blade.
It was not as complicated as a revolver, so it could not hold several abilities. But it could hold at least two.
Which meant he still had one final means of strengthening it.
‘... Come to think of it.’
Meyer had asked him a question before.
No matter how powerful and complete a technique was, it meant nothing if you could not land it on your opponent.
Had Meyer asked whether Aiden had the skill to make something like that hit?
Aiden had answered confidently. He said he was the type who excelled in real combat, so he was sure of himself. Senior had not even bothered listening at the time.
It was a shame he could not show Meyer.
This was why he had answered that way.
-System Message
▶ ‘Skill: Savior’s Vow’ responds.
▶ You have discovered the ‘Public Enemy of the World.’
▶ In accordance with the ‘Constraint: Protect the World,’ your ability is strengthened!
Aiden gave a dry laugh when he saw it.
‘... Just as expected.’
He had known this constraint would work perfectly during the main scenario.
The journey he was on now was itself an effort to save the world.
In this kind of real combat...
He possessed the ability to inflate a technique forged by Meyer to dozens of times its original strength.
Katia and Noel both stood with their mouths agape as dozens of Cores burst forth from all across his body and began orbiting him.
“... What in the...!”
Even in the Great Plains, producing dozens of Cores was an achievement only legendary high monks could manage. Anyone would react like that upon seeing someone create them on the spot.
Then, that Spiritual Power filled the sword’s hilt.
-System Message
▶ Ability Imbuement succeeds. The weapon’s power increases!
With that message floating before him...
Aiden raised his sword.
[-!]
Once the shaping was complete, the Lord Protector, whose attention had been focused on the flag, finally raised her sword to block.
But it was already too late.
The only condition this technique required was a long activation time. Its weakness was that no opponent would normally wait for that.
And besides.
Against this...
Choosing to defend was entirely the wrong answer.
Aiden took a deep breath and raised his sword.
He murmured the activation phrase Meyer had taught him.
-Shred her apart.
-Blade of Dawn.
Then.
A single flash.
The tip of his sword blazed.
▣
There were people called saints.
It was a title granted to those who had reached the pinnacle of their field. A nickname bestowed with reverence upon people who had traveled the continent.
The Sword Saint who conquered the continent with a single rusted sword. The Divine Spear who defeated an ancient giant in a human body. The Crowned Archer who drove back an otherworldly disaster pouring down from the atmosphere...
The one known as the Dawn Knight was also counted among the saints, a person whose deeds were worthy of that rank.
There was one fact shared by all who had witnessed the Dawn Knight fight.
When they watched him fight at night, in a place with no lights...
It was as though he was dividing day from night.
Was not the Dawn Knight’s very nickname derived from the brilliant light that burst from his weapons whenever he used his techniques?
You could call it a symbolic phenomenon.
Honestly, Noel had thought it was an absurd claim that existed only in old records.
Until she saw it herself.
“...!”
Noel gritted her teeth and raised an arm to shield her eyes.
The ability bursting from Aiden’s sword was so blindingly bright that even she could not easily keep her eyes open.
There was no other word for it.
‘Dawn...!’
It was so absurdly intense that the records almost seemed to have understated it.
Even someone like her, standing at the summit among superhumans, could barely keep her eyes open against that light.
‘Where on earth did he get something like this now...?!’
Noel felt a nearly incomprehensible sense of injustice at Aiden, who kept pulling out these things whenever she blinked, and then Aiden swung his sword.
Guardian’s Flame already possessed tremendous destructive power because it was Divine Power formed at the density of Ki. The instant it left the sword’s tip, it split into several parts.
Every one of them was a violently spinning spiral. They were given penetrating power to pierce defensive measures.
The slashes carried such outrageous power that anyone could see it. Even a superhuman like Noel would struggle to recover if she took one head-on.
“...!”
But the Lord Protector’s response was no joke either.
Though it was already too late to react, she somehow manipulated her Ki to form blades in time.
Since creating defenses would not make it easy to block those spirals anyway, she intended to intercept them instead.
The trajectories of those blades were exact. They covered paths that could cancel most of the incoming slashes.
She could not completely defend against the attack, but it was a clean response that would surely avoid a fatal wound.
But then...
Noel’s mouth fell open at the sight before her.
The tiny spirals did not stop. They kept splitting, accelerating their division.
From several to dozens.
From dozens to hundreds.
From hundreds to thousands...
“What?!”
The sheer absurdity of it made Noel say it aloud.
The slashes divided without end. Tiny spirals covered heaven and earth so completely that even she could not follow all their trajectories.
It was as though flashes of light were consuming the world around them.
And the divided slashes slipped through the gaps between the slashes the Lord Protector had created in response.
-!!
-!!!!!!
Noel was left speechless as the attacks pierced mercilessly through the armor.
She now understood exactly how powerful Aiden’s attack was.
‘This...’
An attack made of Divine Power amplified by the density of Ki. It spread over such a wide area that evasion was impossible, aimed for openings at vital points, and pierced through defensive measures.
There might be ways to deal with it in actual combat.
You could leave before the caster attacked, or interrupt them before the attack came out...
If one tried hard enough, there were ways to fight without responding to the attack itself.
But.
If it could be unleashed.
And if it could land.
And if the opponent was a spirit...
‘A certain kill.’
... There was no other way to describe it.
Even if this were not the Lord Protector’s spirit, but the spirit of something far stronger, it clearly could not endure this!
-!!!!!!
The Blade of Dawn, which had slipped into the gaps in her armor, burned the Lord Protector’s entire body.
Divine Power, which held an advantage against spirits, burned far more fiercely than usual the moment it met a spirit body.
The Lord Protector, who had moved so fiercely until moments ago, slowed. Her armor gradually began to collapse.
“...”
Aiden quietly lowered his sword as he watched.
It was already a fatal wound.
Even the Lord Protector, who had become powerful enough to overwhelm Noel, could not continue fighting after taking something like that head-on.
Her entire body was ragged and aflame. The sight was so desperate that it was strange she had not died instantly.
But.
[...!]
Even so.
The knight did not retreat.
With a blood-choked roar, she tried to rise again, still burning with the will to fight.
“...”
Aiden silently watched her.
Well.
You could call it stubbornness. You could call it foolishly clinging to something that was already over.
But considering why she had manifested like this, it was not persistence that should be disparaged.
Aiden did not know how the Lord Protector’s mind had been disturbed. He did not know what underhanded methods the demonkind had used to shake this woman’s mind.
But one thing was certain.
Looking at her now...
It felt like the Lord Protector was clinging on this desperately because she believed that continuing to fight meant protecting the Empire.
“Lady Teresa Adelaide.”
That was why.
“My home is here too. My father and younger sister live in the Empire.”
Because she was that kind of person.
There was something he had to promise her as well.
“My family, my friends, and everyone I know are all here.”
The desire she had left behind was something Aiden could not help but deeply understand.
Noel had said the Lord Protector was like the sun.
A knight who valued peaceful days shared with anyone, regardless of status, gender, or age, above all else.
The reason someone like that believed so strongly in the value of the Empire was probably...
Because of the people within it.
Her family and loved ones. People who worked and lived diligently.
Ordinary, everyday people. Powerless but kind people.
And wanting to protect those people...
Overlapped far too much with why he had recently thrown himself into the insane task of saving the world.
[-]
Beneath the visor, the red eyes stared directly at Aiden.
Could you call it staring?
She simply stood there and listened to his words.
No more battle cries came from her.
She was simply standing there, listening to what he had to say.
Aiden met her gaze directly and continued.
“So, I promise.”
He called upon Savior’s Vow once more.
His father had drilled it into him from childhood, and what Aiden had learned through experience after becoming an adult was this.
Always avoid people who make promises with words alone.
And Aiden did not want to become the kind of adult people avoided.
He added one more meaning to the constraint contained beneath the Cores formed from Spiritual Power.
After the first constraint, to save the world, he placed a second one before the Lord Protector’s eyes.
“I’ll protect the Empire.”
The Lord Protector’s ideals. The values she had wished to protect.
Aiden would inherit her desire for that pastoral, simple sight which he dreamed of as deeply as she had.
So.
Please.
“I’ll make sure the people in it, the powerless but kind people, are not treated unjustly.”
So please.
“So...”
Please, stop now.
“It’s all right for you to stop fighting.”
Rest in peace.
[-...]
For a long time, silence lingered beneath the visor.
With her sword still pointed at him, the Lord Protector watched Aiden for a long while.
Then.
Thud.
Her sword fell from her hand.
The red, lantern-like glow beneath the visor remained, but the hostility radiating from it vanished like melting snow.
She was not in her right mind. She had lost the ability to speak. There was no way to confirm whether his words had even reached her.
Still.
[-I’ll trust you.]
It was as though...
He had heard those words.
At the same time, her body crumbled into drifting particles.
As though she had fulfilled the desire she had accumulated before death. As though she no longer had any regrets left behind.
“...”
“...”
No one could speak as the Lord Protector’s spirit crumbled and scattered.
Her power source, located within her chest, revealed itself. Aiden walked through the drifting particles and carefully held it in both hands.
Noel blankly spoke its name.
“A pinwheel...”
A token of the promise tokens she had always made for Noel.
-I’ll protect the Empire!
With only this.
With the will behind the vow she had offered.
The Lord Protector had endured beyond death.
“...”
The pinwheel Aiden held in both hands soon turned into particles and scattered as well.
The token carrying a knight’s vow drifted in every direction. It faded far into the distance. It left quietly.
So that no one could disturb it.
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