episode_0017

[The Next Day]

“Hmm, Savior, you don’t need to stay with me anymore.”

“No, if there is nothing you desire from me, then there is no other way for me but to assist you by your side until my sin is absolved. That is the path to atone for my wrongdoing.”

Savior spoke to me with that noble voice.

Watching her, Aris, who was standing beside me with her arms crossed, gave Savior a suspicious glare.

“Seriously, why is that person suddenly acting like that after hurting you?”

When Savior was slightly further away, Aris whispered into my ear.

“Well, it seems she feels guilty because she attacked me, not knowing I was blind or thinking I was weak…”

“What kind of nonsense is that…? That would mean she would have kept attacking you if she hadn’t known you were blind… In the end, this action is also just hypocritical, born of her own guilt…”

Aris spoke with a truly worried voice.

‘Well, from an ordinary person’s perspective, that might be true… but if her chivalry demands it… it’s annoying, but I’ll have to put up with it for a while…’

I sighed slightly and walked with Aris towards the training ground where sword training was held.

“Aris… was it? I shall assist this Rapier fellow by his side, so you may go and rest. The healer’s class ended for today, did it not? You do not need to receive sword training, so I shall guide him.”

Savior, who had returned from a distance, spoke confidently to Aris as if certain her words would be followed.

Aris, hearing those words, was momentarily dumbfounded but retorted without backing down.

“I can go that far. So don’t worry about it and just go your own way.”

Savior seemed momentarily flustered by Aris’s barbed words, but she also didn’t give up.

“I merely wish to atone for my sin to him. Whatever you may be thinking, it is absolutely not that, so do not worry.”

Savior declared to Aris with a firm voice and expression.

At that, Aris’s face turned red as if something had stung her, and she gripped my arm even tighter.

-Savior

[Curiosity 50/100]

‘Well, that’s a relief… Aris is enough for me anyway…’

It was a system that fortunately told me it hadn’t reached the level of affection.

‘Right, it’s almost our first meeting, there’s no way she’d develop affection or romantic feelings. I can just relax… At some point, she’ll just leave and attach herself to the protagonist, anyway…’

I thought such thoughts and went to the sword training ground with Aris.

Of course, Savior was watching from behind with a displeased expression, but she seemed to accept it.

Perhaps she didn’t care much because she could atone for her sins to me at the sword training ground.

‘Wait a minute.’

As I thought about Savior, the main heroine of this game, I felt something a little strange.

‘Why isn’t the protagonist visible…?’

The protagonist, he was the center of all events that occurred here.

He was a person with a decent appearance who built affection with the heroines using lines prepared by the game, and with overwhelming abilities, he would incapacitate anyone who picked a fight with him. However, since coming here, I had never once detected his magic.

‘Now that I think about it, the system said it ‘activated’ when I met certain conditions… It wasn’t originally active…’

[The system blocks your deep thoughts.]

As I tried to continue my thoughts, this message suddenly appeared, and my mind suddenly became foggy and stifled as if covered in mist.

I was surprised for only a moment to receive such a mental attack despite my Spirit being at 999, the human limit, but the fact that the system blocked such thoughts itself was incomprehensible to me.

‘Well, it’s not that important anyway… He’ll show up later… And then, please, I hope he takes this Savior and the other heroines with him…’

“Ray… It’s such a pity that you can’t see this beautiful scenery…”

‘Except Aris…’

It was a thought that came out unconsciously, so I was a little surprised.

“If I could heal your eyes, I would…”

She was so cute saying that, so I stroked her head.

Of course, she and I were the same age, but that was physical age, and my mental age was much older, which is why I acted that way.

“Ray! I’m not a child!”

Aris, whose hair was slightly ruffled, glared at me with a prim expression, but I just laughed.

Savior merely watched from behind with an expression of incomprehension.

***

“Why on earth do men and women engage in such actions and blush? No, it’s not because of you and Aris a moment ago. It’s just the most incomprehensible thing I’ve seen so far.”

When Savior and I were alone, waiting in the sword training ground, Savior approached and asked.

Only then did I recall her setting.

‘Perhaps… she’d never been in a relationship…?’

That was right.

She had only received chivalry and sword training since she was young.

It was perhaps natural that soft things were absolutely incomprehensible to her, who had grown up so rigidly.

“I truly pity you, who knows nothing of love…”

“What did you say?”

“No, I was just joking.”

A certain line came to mind, so I tried it, but because Savior instantly gave me a stern look, I had no choice but to immediately retract my words.

Clang! Clang!

I could wield the ‘mental swords’ but not real ones, so I could only conceptualize and watch.

Loud clanging sounds continuously echoed through the training ground, and the noise tormented my ears.

Savior was sitting next to me as I sat there.

“Aren’t you going to practice…?”

When I asked cautiously, Savior said to me as if it were obvious.

“If I go and practice while you are not, then there would be no one to assist you.”

“Then let’s practice just one skill together. Can you take me on?”

I wanted to test the reward for Savior, whom the system had barely convinced to return to normal.

It was a skill I would soon have to use in real combat, and unlike Type 1, this skill wasn’t a heavy attack but required a fair amount of control, so it needed even more practice.

“Are you sure…?”

Savior looked at me with a worried expression, but I spoke to her as if asking if she was scared.

“Why? Are you afraid of losing to me?”

“I will not fight you with my full intent.”

Savior’s face crumpled, and she walked to the training ground as if to prove she was indeed someone who came to atone for her sins to me.

When she had secured a field, she took no action, unlike when she first met me.

“I will merely parry your attacks. I cannot repeat my mistake a second time.”

“Well, I think your body will react first, though…?”

I summoned five mental swords and imbued each one with a small ripple.

It required quite a high level of concentration.

If one was ready to use Type 2, another wasn’t, and if I focused on that other one again, the sword that had clearly contained a ripple would have returned to its original state.

‘It would have been a disaster if I hadn’t practiced…’

If I had tried this kind of trick with that boss right in front of me, my head would have been the first to fly off.

After preparing for 10 minutes, just as Savior was about to speak because no attacks had come, Savior felt the five ripples.

“It’s my first time, so there’s no helping it.”

I extended my arm towards her.

***

‘What on earth is that…?’

Five presences were felt before Savior’s eyes.

However, what she could confirm was that those five presences were absolutely different from the presence Rapier had first used.

It didn’t appear directly and merely sent wave-shaped presences from behind, but this time was different.

Clash! Clash! Clash! Clash! Clash!

She had initially intended to face Rapier with pure swordsmanship, without any magic, but she couldn’t help but ignite her sword.

Each of those swords moved as if possessed by a will of their own.

It felt as if a colossal wave was approaching and tightening around her, and the movements of those invisible swords also grew faster and faster.

Now, she felt as if those invisible swords were almost toying with her.

The reason was that they were absolutely not aiming for her vital points.

It felt like they were merely checking her movements, never moving along a trajectory that could actually harm her.

However, the enormous wave circling around her was gradually approaching, and with the swords moving faster and faster, it was simply too difficult for Savior, who had to feel the swords by intuition and parry them.

‘Is that blind Rapier… really a weakling…? He’s overwhelming me…?’

She thought as she blocked a sword coming straight at her.

Thud!

‘Hmm, he is indeed a weakling.’

Savior thought as she watched Rapier trip over a small stone that had appeared on the field.

As soon as Rapier fell, all the swords that had been pressuring her vanished, and the wave-like blades directed at her were no longer there.

‘But what were those swords just now…? Was it a magic that created illusions…?’

Savior was making a completely wrong guess as she helped the fallen Rapier up.