Kays Translations

Chapter 5: Sword Garden

“…”

“…”

After they stared at each other in silence for a moment, Radius furrowed his brow and asked Ren:

“What of it?”

Ren’s astonishment came a moment later.

“No, no, no—!”

He was surprised that he had continued the conversation so calmly, but once he fully processed Radius’s words, that composure vanished.

Crown Prince—the one who would inherit Leomel.

“Is that really true?!”

“Why would I lie about something like this? Besides, haven’t you said before that I was widely considered the most likely next emperor?”

“Well, yes! But actually hearing that it’s going to happen is… It’s a lot to take in!”

He was shocked—thoroughly so—but there was something he needed to say first.

Remembering that, Ren spoke while still visibly unsettled.

“Congratulations. I always knew you would become Crown Prince.”

“Thank you.”

Congratulated by Ren, Radius broke into a crumpled, warm smile—an open, boyish expression he almost never showed.

“I wanted your congratulations, of course, but I also wanted to surprise you. Heh. Asking you here today was worthwhile.”

“Well… if that was your goal, I suppose being surprised was worthwhile too.”

If Radius, the one being celebrated, was pleased, Ren had no reason to object.

Once he regained his composure, Ren lifted the teacup he had somehow managed not to drop and took another sip.

“As you may have realized, what I just told you is not entirely unrelated to Cecil Ashton.”

“Hm? In what way?”

“Have you forgotten the Forbidden Archive?”

Ren paused for a breath, then smiled wryly.

“No, I hadn’t forgotten. I think I was still distracted by the Crown Prince announcement.”

The Forbidden Archive occupied the lowest level of the Imperial Library and could be entered by only a select few.

Ren and Radius had discussed it before. If Radius became Crown Prince, he would gain permission to enter.

At the time, Ren had half-jokingly asked him to look for anything connected to House Ashton—even an old family tree.

“Now that we have come this far, I am curious as well. I intend to continue investigating.”

“Thanks. Though if information about my family really is hidden in the Forbidden Archive, things may become even more dramatic.”

“What are you talking about? They are already dramatic enough.”

Radius gave Ren a cool smile.

Yet for one brief moment—

“…”

As he looked at Ren, a possibility stirred in Radius’s mind. He pretended not to notice it, however, and Ren failed to catch the reaction. Their conversation continued.

“Once winter break ends, the academy will have no shortage of topics wherever one goes.”

“You mean Vayne?”

“You have already heard about him?”

“Only a little.”

“That answer is strangely evasive, but yes. The reports are not yet confirmed, though he apparently released an extraordinary holy power. They say even Airia resonated with it. If so, then he would be…”

“Connected to the Seven Heroes?”

“Exactly. And if that is true, only one possibility remains.”

“He would be a descendant of Hero Ruin.”

The bloodline of Hero Ruin, long believed to have vanished.

Radius looked both pleased and strangely weary as he gave an uncharacteristically casual reply.

“Perhaps.”

“At this point, I do not care about the factional struggle itself. If Vayne truly inherited Hero Ruin’s blood, that is wonderful, and I am glad of it. However…”

“However?”

“The Hero Faction may gather as much momentum as it likes. I only worry that troublesome nobles will mistake that momentum for permission to do whatever they please.”

For the empire’s citizens, the Hero Faction’s resurgence was not a bad thing.

Radius’s concern was the sort of troublesome noble who could emerge in either the Hero Faction or the Imperial Faction.

With a self-deprecating note, he added that their own inability to deal with such people was partly to blame.

Then he collected himself and continued.

“And there is also you, Ren.”

A boy who had defeated Giant God’s Messenger Wadatsumi alone could hardly avoid attention.

No official announcement named Ren as the victor, but nobles would inevitably hear the circumstances and draw their own conclusions. A newspaper article had already given them more than enough material, and many students would surely approach him with questions.

“Is your next goal the rank of Sword King?”

“…It is.”

The question reminded Ren of Lutreche and of their first conversation in the temple district.

Sensing that Ren was thinking about something, Radius asked without hesitation.

“Did something happen between you and the Sword King?”

“Something… sort of happened.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Sure, though it wasn’t anything major.”

Ren told him about meeting Lutreche.

He had told Licia the same story the previous day.

Even Radius had never imagined Ren would encounter Lutreche. Since Lutreche herself had seemed surprised, the meeting had unquestionably been accidental.

“I truly do not understand…”

Neither Ren’s connection to House Ashton nor Lutreche’s intentions made sense.

Their speculation produced no answers, and eventually both cups were empty.

Afterward, they confined themselves to ordinary, inconsequential conversation.

“The heirs of the two remaining Great Houses will enroll this spring as well. I hear they have both passed the entrance examination.”

The Hero Faction would grow livelier still. Radius’s own circumstances, meanwhile, would likely give the Imperial Faction a favorable wind.

Early that afternoon—

“The library is closing.”

Just as Radius said, the academy library was about to close.

During winter break, it sometimes shut before noon.

“If you’re returning to the castle, shall I walk with you part of the way?”

“No need. Someone is coming to collect me.”

“All right.”

When they left the academy, a carriage was already waiting for Radius.

After parting with him, Ren set out for another destination.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

It was a little more than an hour away on foot.

Beyond a bridge near the edge of the Imperial Capital stretched a broad meadow that remained richly green even in winter.

Entering required special permission, which Ren possessed.

There were no buildings or hidden treasures there, yet the restriction had a clear purpose.

The Lion King had once visited this land to train with the sword, and the people of Leomel still cherished it. They called it the Sword Garden.

There were several ways to gain entry, but every one required official authorization from the castle.

One was to receive a medal from the Lion’s Holy Office, as Ren had.

Another was to earn special permission through an exceptional service to Leomel.

In Legend of the Seven Heroes, the protagonists’ achievements had been recognized in precisely that way, allowing them to enter.

(At two thirty that afternoon.)

In the game’s chronology, this event took place after the main story of Legend of the Seven Heroes I and before the beginning of II.

It occurred during the free days after the party returned to the Imperial Capital from its battle with Ulysses Ignat in the Baldor Mountains.

Ren crossed the grass, which was slightly damp from melted snow.

“Of course it isn’t going exactly like Legend of the Seven Heroes.”

Naturally, it was not.

Ren found it faintly amusing to say so aloud when he had spent so long trying to prevent events from following the game.

He looked toward the place where she should have stood.

A lone tree grew in one corner of the meadow where the earth rose into a gentle hill.

Ren stood there gazing into the distance when—

“Why are you here?”

A beautiful woman’s voice reached him.

Before he turned, his heart began pounding hard enough to surprise him. Concealing it beneath a calm expression, he faced her.

“I thought I might be able to meet you here.”

The woman before him was the Silver Princess.

“…Me?”

“Yes—Sword King Lutreche.”

She was Leomel’s greatest military power.

In Legend of the Seven Heroes, an event often described as ‘challenging the Sword King’ offered the protagonists an opportunity to meet Lutreche.

(What is this feeling…?)

Lutreche possessed an almost mystical beauty.

Yet beyond that beauty, she looked somehow fragile—nothing like the overwhelmingly powerful woman Ren knew her to be.

The impression lasted only an instant.

She quickly erased that shadow. Everyone regarded her as aloof and eternally composed, yet the sight of Ren had plainly surprised her.

She had even stopped in place.

Once she recovered, she answered him.

“You need not use any honorific with me. I am simply Lutreche.”

Her tone was matter-of-fact as she continued.

“Ren Ashton, why did you come to see me?”

“There was something I wanted to ask you directly. I couldn’t ask yesterday.”

Lutreche assumed he meant the incident at the Grand Clock Tower. Shortly after Ren moved to Elendil, the Demon King cult had targeted the city’s famous tower. Radius and his allies saw through the plot, deliberately drew the cultists in, and eliminated them.

Lutreche, however, had explained her intervention only by saying she had ‘felt like helping.’

Ren had heard that answer from Radius and expected her to evade the question again, which was why he had not asked before. But now—

“Do you know something about the Ashtons?”

Old Town in Marquis Ignat’s territory.

Using information from the orphanage discovered in the submerged city, Ragna—the Bureau of Mysteries’ renowned researcher—had uncovered a great deal.

Cecil Ashton and the Corroding Princess.

That made Ren wonder why Lutreche had helped at the Grand Clock Tower. Perhaps she knew something about House Ashton.

And his suspicion was—

“I have no reason to tell you.”

Lutreche did not deny it.

Unlike when she had spoken with Radius, she did not lie. She simply dismissed the question by saying she had no reason to answer.

“But I can help you move forward.”

The cloth wrapped around the longsword in her hand slipped free.

“Help me move forward?”

“Yes. But answer one question first.”

She looked directly at Ren.

“Ren Ashton, can you become stronger than I am?”

The blade she revealed was a peerless masterpiece—the sword that had made the great smith Werlich declare he could never forge anything finer.

Its name was God-Eater. The silhouette of its endlessly white blade was said by Werlich to evoke the pure white of the world’s creation.

She drove God-Eater into the turf, though not to begin a duel. Lutreche only wished to hear Ren’s resolve.

“Become… stronger than you?”

Ren’s silence did not come from doubt.

He was choosing his words carefully. The answer he finally gave drew Lutreche’s interest.

“This may not be a direct answer, but what I do will not change. I have always lived the same way: when I need strength, I become stronger. So if I must surpass you, then I intend to do exactly that.”

He did not want to insult the Sword King.

Avoiding any discourteous boast, he expressed the resolve he had reaffirmed since becoming a Sword Saint—the resolve to reach the rank of Sword King.

“…”

The Silver Princess continued watching him.

At last, she moved one finger. The cloth lying on the grass floated into the air and wrapped itself around God-Eater once more.

Then she turned her back on Ren.

“Wait!”

As she walked away, her lips moved.

“Try looking for an Emblem Contract.”

Why had she directed him toward the Adventurers’ Guild’s high-difficulty contracts?

With so many fates already altered by his actions, Ren could not ignore the suggestion.

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