Inheriting the Novel

Chapter 57 : Maria Timmons (1)

Maria Timmons (1)

When I pointed to a location marked on the map and spoke, Count Bellen looked at me with quite a puzzled gaze.

"... You want this mine?"

It was only natural for Count Bellen to be surprised. This mine had become defunct and abandoned.

He studied me intently, as if thinking I had a hidden motive, but there was no way he could discern anything just by looking.

"Yes, I want this mine."

"Then... Very well. Is this really enough for you to overlook this incident?"

"Oh, and I'd also like you to send about fifty of the workers in Count Bellen's employ."

I said it lightly, but fifty workers was by no measure a small number.

Perhaps convinced this was my real goal, Count Bellen let out a small sigh and nodded.

"... All right."

"Thank you for this excellent deal, Count Bellen."

I reached out my hand to offer a handshake.

Count Bellen stared blankly at my hand, trembling, and then finally gripped it firmly.

He likely couldn't say anything to me because Riya was standing beside me, out of fear.

"I hope to continue maintaining our good relations with the House of Count Bellen. So, I hope incidents like today's never happen again."

It was practically a threat—implying that it would not be fun for him if such a thing happened again.

Understanding my meaning, Count Bellen's face quivered.

"O-of course. As for Nior... I'll talk to him. Again, I apologize for the great concern caused by my son's misdeeds this time."

"That won't be necessary."

I gave Riya a subtle signal with my eyes and stood up.

"Well then, I'll take my leave. As for the handover of the mine..."

"I'll have the documents drawn up and sent to House Vanhart by tomorrow."

"Thank you very much."

After giving a brisk farewell, I left Count Bellen's manor.

Riya, who had silently followed me until we were a good distance away from the manor, asked in a composed tone.

"I thought you could have squeezed more out of the deal, Clay. You're more merciful than I expected."

"It's not as though I wanted to swallow the entire House of Bellen. This much is enough."

"If it were me, I would've just accepted a domain war and swept them away. Especially since you could've gotten support from the empire in this situation."

"That's true enough."

There was a reason Count Bellen came out in such a submissive posture and surrendered unconditionally.

The very existence of Riya Asktalin was practically a guarantee of victory.

[But then, why didn't you do that?]

It seemed Grancesia was curious as well.

With two women's attentive gazes on me, I gave a faint smile and said,

"I just have a feeling I won't even have to get my own hands dirty."

"You won't have to act yourself?"

"Well, it's just a hunch, but..."

I couldn't give her a detailed explanation, so I swallowed my words.

'The House of Bellen will crumble on its own, even without my direct intervention.'

Currently, the House of Bellen was running a business into which they'd invested considerable funds.

But that business would soon collapse, and the resulting massive debt would come back to haunt them.

'Yet, the House of Bellen eventually overcomes the debt and achieves great growth.'

There are two things that allow House Bellen to overcome its crisis.

One is Maria Timmons, and the other is the abandoned mine I've just acquired.

Desperate to pay off his debts, Count Bellen pushes mining in the abandoned mine to unreasonable extremes.

In the process, there's a cave-in accident—but that very event becomes a huge opportunity.

That's where they discover a spot containing a vast deposit of mana stones.

'The person who sold those off and amassed a fortune was Maria Timmons.'

Maria Timmons, with her outstanding ability, not only sold those mana stones at a high price and cleared the debts, but also brought enormous profits to the House of Bellen.

[Why does Count Bellen have so much backstory for just an extra?]

'It's because of Maria, not Count Bellen himself.'

Maria Timmons was a main character—one of the heroines of the story.

In the original, Fabian, at Ravin's request, rescues Maria, and in the process, Count Bellen's misdeeds are exposed, destroying the House of Bellen.

'Well, in this case, they'll just fail and vanish naturally, without that drama.'

[Doesn't seem too tragic at all.]

So there was no need for me to get involved. The House of Bellen would self-destruct over debts anyway.

"Clay."

"Yeah?"

"You aren't talking to someone right now, are you?"

Riya, who had been silently walking beside me, gave me a suspicious look. The unexpected question left me momentarily at a loss for words.

"Your expression keeps changing, like you're having a conversation with someone..."

"It's just your imagination."

"Really. Hmm... Well, if you say so, I'll let it go."

She reluctantly accepted my answer, but her sharp gaze, oddly glinting, still lingered on me with suspicion.

I maintained a calm expression outwardly but was inwardly flustered. No one had ever commented on this before—not until Riya.

'... Is it that obvious in my expressions when I'm talking to you?'

[Uh, no? I don't think you look any different than usual... That lizard woman's just freakishly sensitive, that's all.]

That's a relief, but Riya seemed expert at reading my face. Honestly, it was a bit frightening.

[So, have you finished taking care of everything urgent then?]

'Yeah. Once I take over the mine tomorrow, that's it. I'll leave it to Ravin, so now I can focus solely on the Moon Severing Divine Sword.'

Riya did worry me a bit, but I figured she'd understand if I explained my reasons.

'But... will the remaining time be enough?'

Although I'd had a small taste, the Moon Severing Divine Sword really did deserve to be called a "Divine Sword".

Even with my fairly high understanding of swordsmanship, I found it hard to fully grasp even a single technique.

'... I'll have to make it work, somehow.'

There was just a month left before I would have to move to Eintban.

I had to master the basics of the Moon Severing Divine Sword in that time.

* * *

A special space set up within the mithril mine.

According to Damian, this place had been created long ago by the soldiers of the Darlos Kingdom.

The fallen Seven Heroes, Lugal Necris, had committed mass slaughter of Darlos Kingdom's people and escaped.

The only ones who could contend with Lugal, who had such power that he was called the Dark King, were fellow members of the Seven Heroes.

It was Damian who rose to stop him.

Damian relentlessly pursued and fought Lugal, tracking him as he fled, until eventually reaching the area near the Kiten Forest.

And there, Damian saw it.

Lugal, who had cast away his humanity and become a Lich.

"I did manage to finally bring down Lugal, but he hid his core in a space rift to await the future."

"So that's why Darlos made a place like this?"

"Yes."

The miasma leaking out from the dimensional rift where Lugal's core was hidden polluted the land, so the Kingdom of Darlos constructed this chamber to contain it.

And to stop the eventually resurrected Lugal, Damian, too, cast off his mortal body.

As long as Lugal was capable of endless resurrection, the lifespan of a human would never suffice to keep up.

"And so for hundreds of years... I kept fighting Lugal, bringing him down every time."

What must it have felt like for Damian, fighting a seemingly endless battle?

'This will be the last time, surely.'

In this resurrection, Lugal plans to use his full might to finally defeat Damian, but in the end, he loses.

And in the battle, Damian perishes with him, vanishing together.

"I never expected that the Darlos Kingdom would fall afterward... but it's all in the past."

With a bitter tone, Damian rose slowly.

"All right, now that we've rested enough, let's resume your training."

"Damn it."

I forced strength into my trembling legs and spoke.

"... We're training even now, you know."

"You call that training? That's just a simple warm-up."

Like hell it was a warm-up.

I barely swallowed the curses rising to my lips.

The whole time I'd been listening to Damian's story, I was carrying heavy lumps of metal on my arms and doing half-squats to work my legs.

But that was only from my perspective. To Damian, it was no more than a post-meal exercise.

"All right then, pick up your sword and come at me."

Damian had a wooden practice sword in his hand.

Normally, one might think he grabbed a wooden sword to pull his punches, but the opposite was true.

He used the wooden sword because if he struck with it, at least I wouldn't die.

"Haaa!"

Conversely, I held a real sword in my hand.

I even poured my magic power into it and unleashed my strongest technique.

The form of the Moon Severing Divine Sword, as taught by Damian.

I did my best to imitate it and swung, faintly producing a white blade flash.

"That's sloppy! Channel your magic faster! And your shoulder angle is off. Raise it higher!"

'Easy for you to say!'

Damian had only ever shown me the basic forms of the Moon Severing Divine Sword—he'd never properly taught me how to wield it.

The logic was that if you used it enough in actual combat, your body would naturally pick up the technique.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

"Uwaaaagh!"

Whenever I showed an opening or failed to properly use the Moon Severing Divine Sword, Damian's practice sword would rain down merciless blows.

"Tsk, tsk. To think you can't even perform the First Technique, Crescent Moon Slash, properly..."

I wanted to say something to that tongue-clucking voice of Damian's.

'What kind of blockheaded training method is this, anyway?'

To build plausibility, I had to spar with Damian, sure, but I'd never expected 90 percent of Damian's training to be sparring.

And the one who devised this boneheaded routine hadn't been Damian himself.

To be precise, it was brought to life by "some rotten Saintess" who trained Damian.

[... Sorry for being so blockheaded.]

'If you know, reflect on your actions.'

[W-well, that's how everyone learned in my day! Besides, this is the fastest way to apply sword techniques in real battles!]

She wasn't wrong.

Damian's pointers were spot-on, and I did feel myself improving, little by little, with every attempt at the First Technique, Crescent Moon Slash.

And because every session was practically a real duel, even if my technique was awkward, I was getting a sense for when and how to execute it with the most force.

With a master as skilled as Damian, even such a brute-force method turned out to be shockingly effective.

"Still, you've gotten better. At first, you passed out after just two rounds of sparring."

Damian muttered as he watched me get back up again and again like a punching bag.

"After nearly a month of training like this every day, it'd be weird if I hadn't gotten used to it."

"You do recover quickly, so it was possible to keep this up. I didn't expect you to have such a talent."

Damian sounded genuinely impressed.

Overtraining my body and sparring over and over.

Every day, my entire body was bruised and sore, but after one night's rest, I'd be completely fine.

'Divine Blood... it really is OP.'

Divine Blood, which kept me in the best possible physical condition at all times.

Remarkably, it even sped up recovery from fatigue.

Thanks to that, bruises and muscle aches healed quickly and I could endure this hellish daily training.

"Your skills have improved quickly, considering your potential."

Damian nodded as he spoke.

"... Am I really getting better, though? Honestly, every day feels the same to me."

"You are. It's disappointing you still can't perform Crescent Moon Slash properly, but give it three more days and you'll be able to. That will qualify you to learn the derived techniques from Crescent Moon Slash."

Derived techniques.

Those words made my eyes light up.

"The Moon Severing Divine Sword consists of twelve techniques, of which four have derived techniques."

Which meant there were four such derived techniques.

One of them is the chained move 'Falling Moon', performed immediately after Crescent Moon Slash.

"Falling Moon is the first derived technique you should learn. It's simple, but it's also foundational."

"So if I master Crescent Moon Slash, I can use Falling Moon too?"

"You can't—not just yet. Mastering Crescent Moon Slash only means you've met the criteria to learn it."

"... I see."

"As you'd expect."

Damian spoke calmly, seeing my disappointed look.

"No matter how simple Falling Moon is among derived techniques, it's still an essence of the Moon Severing Divine Sword. You can't use it after learning just one technique. At minimum, you'll need to master half of the twelve."

Half of twelve techniques meant six.

I hadn't even fully mastered the first, Crescent Moon Slash, so it felt like a distant goal.

But at the same time, it made my heart race.

'If Crescent Moon Slash alone is this impressive, the others must be even more incredible.'

Even after grasping only part, I could tell just how exceptional the Moon Severing Divine Sword was.

Just imagining how far I could go if I mastered it entirely made my heart pound in excitement.