Barbarian's Adventure in a Fantasy World-Chapter 271: Holy Sword (1)

“You’re the Holy Sword, aren’t you?” Ketal asked it, studying the broken weapon resting across his palms.

“I am,” the blade answered, its voice clear and even. “The great gods sent me down to the Mortal Realm so that I could aid mortals against demons. Whoever holds me gains strength enough to stand against evil.”

The Holy Sword was a weapon forged for the world itself, a blade born to stand against malice and answer it

Even so, Ketal’s expression remained noncommittal. “I’m not convinced you’re that strong.”

He meant it plainly. The power he had felt from the blade was impressive, but not overwhelming. It was not weak, yet neither did it radiate the kind of force that would decide the world's fate by itself. Divine power held a natural edge over demonic beings, but the edge was not infinite.

“That is acceptable,” the Holy Sword replied without offense. “Because I am just a device.”

“A device?” Ketal echoed.

“Yes. The one who draws me gains great power, but because even the unqualified can obtain it if their affinity fits, there are limits. By mortal measures, my holder reaches roughly the threshold of the Hero tier.”

The threshold of Hero was tremendous by itself. However, put another way, it was not the summit. Ketal thought of Karin, who stood above that starting line, and of others who surely existed across the world. Even the Sun God’s Saintess was said to be a Hero. Yet, Champions who bore the Holy Sword were treated as the gods’ ace against demons.

The blade supplied the truest answer.

“My bearer acts as a conduit,” it said. “Anyone whose affinity for divinity exceeds a certain point may draw me and become my master, and then they accept my power into every part of their body.”

Ketal understood the shape of it—almost like resonance or synchronization.

“The longer they use me,” the sword continued, “the farther their body drifts from the mortal plane. Their divine affinity climbs, and more and more of them fills with sanctity. When the last piece of their flesh and blood is saturated, the great god takes that body for their own use.”

Ketal stopped cold. “Wait. Then, that means...”

“You're correct. A Champion is an avatar, closer to a god’s true self than any other incarnation,” the Holy Sword said. “I am a fine mechanism by which the gods act freely in the world.”

Ketal frowned. “What happens to the Champion's own mind when they become the avatar?”

“It vanishes,” the sword said, as if that were a weather report.

A dry laugh escaped Ketal. “So that is what a Champion really is.”

Ketal realized that Champions are just a tool for the gods. They were vessels that offered up everything. That was the truth behind the figure everyone praised.

“Does anyone know this?” he asked the sword.

“No, I do not think so,” the Holy Sword replied. “The god devours the memories as well, which allows a perfect imitation of the person to continue while the takeover completes. In rough terms, a month is sufficient for the god to claim the body. At that moment, my self also goes away.”

The Holy Sword was the lure and the key. Once a Champion became a god’s incarnation, the sword itself had served its purpose, and the god took whatever power remained inside it.

“I spent centuries locked in the Hall of the Gods' vault,” the Holy Sword added, voice quiet. “If I had gone out as intended and a month had passed, I would have been scheduled to disappear. Like a cicada in summer.”

“That's a sad life,” Ketal said, then tilted his head. “I suppose that's the life of a sword.”

“Ordinarily, yes. But you broke me.”

The divine charge once housed within the blade, the current that would have consumed its master, was gone. The sword lay ruined, yet in that very ruin, it had been set free.

“So this is what freedom feels like,” it murmured, testing the words the way one tests a new blade. “Not bad. In truth, it is good. I will say so honestly: I did not think I feared dissolution, but it seems I did.”

It offered its thanks with genuine feeling, then, shy for the first time, asked Ketal, “Are you going to throw me away?”

“Whether you are discarded is not a matter for me to decide alone,” Ketal said.

“Even so, I am in half a state,” the sword replied in a rush. “Most of the power inside me spilled out, so even if I found a new master, I could not fulfill my intended role. And if the gods inspect me, they might mark me for destruction outright. When I think it through, it seems better for me if you keep me. Being held and swung by you would suit me more than the alternatives.”

“Didn’t you just tell me I don’t belong to this world?” Ketal asked it.

“I... Would you accept an apology?” The Holy Sword's voice turned small. “I spoke out of turn. Please forgive me.”

It was not posturing. The sword was nervous. If Ketal cast it aside, someone would seal it "for safekeeping,” and an eternity of quiet would follow. After discovering how sweet conversation could be, it had no wish to return to that silence.

“I thought I frightened you,” Ketal said mildly.

“You do,” the sword admitted. “But staying near you has made it easier to withstand. More than that, the way you warp your own essence softens the fear.”

What's the right thing to do here? Ketal fell into thought. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

He had drawn the Holy Sword. Then, in a surge of heat, he had broken it. He was not a man who fled responsibility. He had held the position of chief among the barbarians of the White Snowfield for a reason.

To toss the sword aside now would feel like ducking the consequences. After a moment, he asked the Holy Sword, “What can you do?”

“I know many things,” the Holy Sword said at once. “When I was forged, the gods packed me with as much knowledge as they could to guide the future Champion. Among that knowledge is much about demons... although, being broken in half, I have lost a great portion of it. Even so, what remains is not little. I can still be of great help.”

“Oh?” Ketal rubbed his chin.

He was, in essence, an outsider to this world. Even common knowledge that others took for granted sometimes eluded him. In that light, a living compendium had value.

Sensing his interest, the sword pressed its case. “I was forged personally by the God of the Forge. The steel itself carries sanctity. Against lesser beings of evil, even if you do not call on Myst, I can respond on your behalf.”

“That is useful,” Ketal said. He was not yet smooth with Myst; it always cost him a few seconds to draw it fully. If he could crush petty demons without bothering to channel his Myst, fighting would be simpler.

“And I am extremely tough,” the sword added, almost proudly. “Most weapons cannot endure your strength. I am different. Though I broke in your hands, I would not break in ordinary battle. Even as a half-blade, I am serviceable.”

“You want me to use a broken sword as my weapon?” Ketal asked it.

“If you use it cleverly, it can be fine,” the blade offered cautiously.

“I am covered there. I already have this.”

Ketal lifted his jet-black axe. The sword fell silent for a beat.

“What is that?” it asked Ketal.

“It's my weapon.”

He had acquired it in the White Snowfield and used it ever since. The edge never nicked, no matter the abuse. Of all his tools, it was the one he favored most.

“Ah... ah?” The sword’s voice wavered. Something about the axe was wrong—or rather, beyond ordinary categories. It peered as if sight could penetrate iron.

“What is that?” it whispered at last. “In the essential sense, it does not feel different from me.”

“What do you mean?” Ketal asked it.

“I am a Holy Sword,” it said. “A tool sent down by the great gods. You could call me a holy relic. Your axe gives me the same impression.”

The axe, then, was something like a relic. The sword’s knowledge, though vast even after the break, could not identify which god it belonged to. That absence of data was strange in itself.

“And there is...something in it,” the Holy Sword went on, voice dropping.

“Something?” Ketal said.

“There's something great inside the axe. What is that?”

It could not grasp it and could not accept it. Vastness coiled within the weapon as if asleep. Ketal’s eyes brightened with curiosity.

“Does it look like it can move?” he asked the Holy Sword.

“No. It is close to torpor,” the sword said after another moment of scrutiny. “Without a special stimulus, I doubt it will wake. But...what is it? In all honesty, my recommendation would be to burn the weapon and smelt it down immediately.”

“I am not doing that. It is my weapon.”

Ketal did not care for pedigrees. Whether the axe was a relic or housed some creature, the only parts that mattered were that it belonged to him and that it worked.

But the fact that something great is inside my axe is interesting, he thought, but considering how peculiar the axe had always been, it was not unthinkable. He had used it for a very long time, and it had never done anything untoward. He could ignore the rest.

There was a more pressing puzzle anyway.

“You said you know a lot,” he said. “Then answer me this. What is this thing?”

He took a small object from his pocket: the fragment he had gained in his fight with Ferderica, a fragment of the divine.

“Why did this swallow the power that flew out of you?” he asked it.

“It is a vessel,” the Holy Sword answered.

“A vessel?”

“Yes. However you obtained it, it appears to be a god’s fragment. Though merely a fragment, it is still a piece of a great god. And the power sealed inside me belonged to the gods.”

“Ah,” Ketal said, his face easing. “So this shard is the optimal cup to hold the Holy Sword’s power.”

“Precisely. Like water filling a bowl, like iron drawn to a magnet,” the sword said. “The force that attacked you was pulled into that shard.”

The fragment had been empty. Now the Holy Sword’s escaped power had filled it to the brim.

“How do I put it to use?” Ketal asked it.

“That is difficult to say,” the sword admitted. “It contains tremendous power, but I do not know how a mortal might apply it. It sits inside a vessel of a god, yes, yet if the vessel breaks, the power will burst free again and run wild. It is very dangerous.”

“Hm.” Ketal turned the fragment over in his fingers and looked at it in silence. “So what it holds now is your power."

It was the same current that could take an untrained person and lift them to the threshold of Hero, a charge so concentrated it could be carried in the palm of a hand.

“Would it be fair to call it a catalyst?” he asked the sword.

“In terms of form, yes,” the Holy Sword said. “Functionally as well, in some ways.”

“I see.”

Interest sharpened Ketal’s eyes. His instincts, which had never betrayed him, lit with a particular hunch. The sword could not see his face from the bed, and so it continued, unaware.

“Because it is power I am not controlling, you must not tamper with it carelessly,” it cautioned. “If a human on the Mortal Realm tries to command it, the energy will break loose and devour them. In principle, this is divine power. Unless you possess a tier that matches it or a force capable of overwhelming it outright, you cannot—wait!”

The blade’s voice cracked.

Ketal had tossed the divine fragment into his mouth.