Chapter 99: Elfheim and The Secret Room

“Hmm? How did you know my name… No. Is it not weird that my name became known? I’m the Previous Grand Master of the Royal Palace, Alex. I’m hired and now working as the noble Miss Saintess’ guard. Since Miss Saintess called you Hero, I won’t doubt that part, but I can’t trust you who suddenly said let’s catch the Demon King. Say where you came from.”

Tall height and broad shoulders, forearms that were like logs, long legs….
The ideal man body I envisioned.
He had a little difference physically with the Alex I met in the Dumpling Kingdom a few days after I was summoned.

He got a little bit stronger as he grew older.
Not just his body but also his stats.

▷ Species: Human
▷ Level: 998
▷ Job: Swordsman (Physical strength= Swordsmanship↑)
▷ Skills: Swordsmanship SSS, Ability to Endure Attack SS, Impregnable SS, Fortitude SS, Tolerance S…
▷ Status: On guard, Magic Sword

But he fell short of the Alex in his best that I remembered. I couldn’t believe the only skill that reached SSS-grade was only Swordsmanship.

“You’re not Alex.”
“What did you say…?”
“Anyways, you’re not.”

If he was Alex with 9 years of hero experience, he had to be a powerful man that could also fight against the current me who had become a strand of dog hair after sacrificing all of my skills.

I really didn’t like him, but he was my Swordsmanship teacher.

The sword-girl, who didn’t need Swordsmanship thanks to the fact that she was a born genius and her family secret, solved everything with sword aura. But Alex was a pure Master of Swordsmanship along with Prince Nasus from Elfheim, the Demon Spear Craft, and the Guardian of the fallen sword.

That Alex should’ve had at least his Swordsmanship grade reach the maximum earlier.

But he hadn’t reached that yet for 9 years?

It was as ridiculous as how my skill ‘Fabrication’ hasn’t reached MAX grade for almost 10 years.
For Fabrication basically I needed to deceive people, but thanks to the occupational disease called a righteous hero the skill level didn’t go up at all.

My Instigation leveled up well…

“Wow. I can’t believe you deny the fact that I’m Alex… Ah! Hero, do you also envy my nickname ‘the Sword King’?”
“Hm? Is that the conclusion?”

In fact, it was too bad that a bastard like him was called ‘the Sword King Alex’.

“Hero. Then prove it with your sword.”
“Well that’s…”

I frowned after stopping my words there.
I had deactivated Blackbox and…

▷ Species : Chaos Human
▷ Level : 744
▷ Job : Hero (EXP 500%)
▷ Skills : Prodigy Z, Interpretation A, Friendship E, Love E, Hope D
▷ Status : Holy Sword, Saintess

How could this have happened!

Thanks to Saintess A who was able to distinguish Demon King and Hero at once, I couldn’t activate Blackbox.
The skill Prodigy reached transcendental level but this was a growth-type skill that had nothing to do with battle.
But it didn’t mean I couldn’t fight.
Because my real weapon wasn’t skills or levels.

“Are you scared?”
“Don’t mess with me, fake Alex. I’m going to you.”

I took a leap straight to Alex.
Several battle skills were formed in response to my high-dimensional move, but I didn’t need to check it one by one.
Since this would end before the skills got activated.

“Come…! Swordmaster!”

Alex sneered at me and summoned his Magic sword.

The Sword King I remembered from the 1st round didn’t summon his own weapon. He always had it on his waist like it was his lover and spelled his dog bone-like philosophy that it was “in order to get used to the sword”.
This was also different from the Alex that I knew.

Anyway,

Holy magic sword Swordmaster.

It was a magic sword that the guardian ‘Sword God’, who lost his mind while practicing swordsmanship, forged with the knowledge he gained all his life in it.
A half holy sword that had a sacred energy even though it was a magic sword. Its performance was in the top 3 excellent swords in the Fantasia continent.

The legend of the eastern continent, Sky Scourge Sword Rune.

The secret treasure of Elfheim, Spirits Sword Endymion.

The sword that the Sword God loved, Holy magic sword Swordmaster.

These were the three. Demon King Pedonar’s magic sword was also pretty good, but couldn’t make it to the top 3 excellent swords.
That was why if we went to Fantasia continent we could see high-ranked demon and demon followers keeping track of the legend of ‘Sky Scourge Sword Rune’
Since I had used the elf sword Endymion in my 2nd round, I think I knew why everybody was so obsessed with the top 3 excellent swords.

Though it was no use now.

“Nucleon.”

I quietly summoned the real hero weapon.
And I stroke down vertically.

I didn’t do any complicated things like swordsmanship. Because I was sure I would win even without those kinds of things.

Daenggang-

Alex’s Holy magic sword Swordmaster was broken in half.

The thing called Swordsmanship,
Traditionally would only be valid when the blades collide with each other.
But there was a wide performance difference between Nucleon and Swordmaster like the difference between a straw and a lightsaber.
Because at the end of the day, Swordmaster was also a sword that was divided as many as the number of the fantasy world copied.
It fell behind in pure performance anyway, so it was a no match for Nucleon at all since even the density of its existence was lacking.

“W, what the…?!”

Alex opened both his eyes wide at the ridiculous result. At the same time he swiftly dodged it while twisting his body.
Though I wished he would think of resisting with his bare body, Alex was also not stupid to do an act of reckless bravado in front of the Holy sword that had cut one of the top 3 excellent swords like a tofu.

“Tsk!”

I clicked my tongue.
It was too bad that my fatal attack missed.

I would’ve cut Alex beautifully if I received calibration of skills like Agility or Swordsmanship a little more.
But if I killed a ‘colleague’, there would be a setback in the rise of the proficiency level of the skill Friendship so it wasn’t necessarily bad.

Yes.
I only needed to not kill him.

Ppyong!

I dismissed Nucleon’s summons.

In fantasy animes, our running speed wouldn’t decrease even though we’re holding a big sword bigger and heavier than ourselves in our hands, but it wasn’t that simple in reality.
The kinetic energy was proportional to the mass and speed squared.
It meant that when the mass quadrupled and the kinetic energy remained constant, the moving speed would decrease by half.
If a person ran with a weapon around his own weight in reality, his speed would decrease 0.7 (1/1.414) times, 30%.
Of course in real situations it wasn’t accurate like this since there were so many variable elements like gravity, air resistance, friction coefficient, etc.
But either way, it wasn’t good to just choose heavy weapons to hear admiration “Whew! How did you lift this heavy thing? Amazing!”

In that sense,

“Eat this!”

The holy sword Nucleon was on the heavier side.
Because the harder the gold was, the higher the density was too, so it got heavy.

Among the metals of the Fantasia world, there were also convenient ones which were ‘fantastic metals that are solid but light like a feather’, but in reality it wasn’t easy.

Complying with physical chemistry.

It wasn’t that the Holy sword Nucleon’s weight was about the same with my body’s, but even this weight was heavy in this state of having lost all my skills.
Even a 1% change of the dodging speed, the life-or-death and the victory-or-defeat would be turned upside-down.

That was why I dismissed the summons.

But one fun fact here.
The fantasy stats’ skills allowed you to ignore complicated and profound laws of motion and stuffs like these.
Alex, in front of me, was enjoying that advantage now.
I gave up weapons and made my body light.
As a result, I was able to keep up with the dodging speed of Alex, who was cowardly dodging quickly with the help of skills.
And I hit his abdomen with my elbows that closed ranks around Justice.

“Urghk-?!”

Alex bent like a shrimp.
His waist would have been broken and his internal organs burst if there weren’t defensive system skills like Ability to Endure Attack, Impregnable, etc.
Usually I would neutralize or cancel the defensive system skills with offensive system skills. But since I couldn’t do that now, only by pure strength!
I pushed ahead with the power of science.

Ppagak.

Next, the 2nd blow!
As I ran and jumped, I hit the face of Alex, who had his head down as he bent his body, with my knee.
His back straightened out naturally.

Alex didn’t just stand there and get attacked.
Just because he was a Swordsmanship master it didn’t mean he couldn’t fight with his bare hands at all. He was also trained for situations where his sword got broken or he couldn’t use it.
But this bastard wasn’t the sword king I knew from the 1st round.
The grade of the skill Boxing he had was terrible.

“What have you been doing all this time?”

I dodged Alex’s fist that was like an earthenware pot and occupied his back.

“H, how did you.. my move…?”

Still, both of Alex’s eyes weren’t air holes. He noticed at once that I had a good grip on all his battle styles.

How he would attack, how he would defend, how he would dodge…

I could see all of that.

“Of course…”

It was to get revenge!

He was also not my match in the 1st round one-on-one. But to go against all the colleagues was a strain.
And Sword King Alex was the shield that was in charge of the party’s safeguarding.
Even if I ambushed him, if I couldn’t rapidly rule him out there wouldn’t be any chance of winning. So I learned Swordsmanship and studied his movements.

This was the result.

To me Alex was no better than ‘eating young dragon’.

Crack!

A bright sound came from between Alex’s lumbar vertebrae 4 and 5 that got hit by my knife-hand strike. It was proof that his lumbar disc had beautifully gone in.

“Keuaak-?!”

Alex was rolling on the floor.
The best scene that made me want to record it and start my day by playing it every morning was here.
Should I be a movie director when I return to the earth?
I think I’d do a good job.

“Mr Hero! Here! This way…!”

Lanuvel who was casually peeking around here and there like a tourist beckoned us to come.

But the only one who could move was me.
Alex was unable to move because of the lumbar disc.

Saintess A occupied herself with rescuing Elfheim Kingdom’s elves who were left after the demon and demon followers got massacred.
So was mermaid princess Aqua who seemed as if she was going to chase me around. She took care of the ‘villains who didn’t possess Dark Energy’ while guarding Saintess A.

“Do I have to go when you tell me to?”
“Please come here! Lanuvel is asking you to like this!”
“Don’t act cute. You’re going to get hit.”

Even while warning her I approached Lanuvel.
Because even though she always introduced herself as an archeologist who was pursuing the Hero’s legend, from a cool point of view she was also a professional grave thief.
So Lanuvel had a good nose for treasures.

The demon and demon followers had emptied out the valuables in the treasure storage including Elfheim Kingdom’s 3 secret treasures.
It was only normal that there was nothing left. But there was bound to be a hidden secret room somewhere.
Lanuvel would be able to discover around one or two in this big kingdom.
The situation was different with the past.

That time the master of the kingdom, Elf King was there. Since it was a favorable relationship nonetheless, I couldn’t just search or steal something recklessly.
But now it had become an empty land without a master.
The first one to pick it up would be the owner.

“Mr Hero. This way.”
“This is… The royal palace garden.”

In the burned garden, naked elf corpses were displayed like garden trees.
One as a flag, another as a sandbag, another as a sign post, another as an arrow target, another as an ornament, another as a toy, another as an experiment, another…

It wasn’t necessarily a surprising sight.
It would’ve been seen anywhere if the demon troop were scattered all over the continent and weren’t just focused in Elfheim.
I also saw it a few times in the 1st round.
Even though I couldn’t see it anymore since I subjugated the Demon King swiftly after that.

▶ Comment : It’s true. There was no chance for the demons since you turned the continent into a mugmugwort field yourself.

Miss Trainee Teacher. That wasn’t me who did that.

It was the fault of the beloved Oblivion Dragon King Noebius and the giant catfish Ullullu, some of the over-loyal demon and demon followers, the crazy engineer who made irrelevant Golem instead of super robot, and so on.

I don’t know anything about it.

“Lanuvel. So what have you discovered?”

I would be greatly disappointed if she discovered ‘blue earrings full of trivial memories that the Elf King gave his wife as her 351st birthday gift’ that a squirrel had hidden under some root.
I would kick that butt of Lanuvel who acted cute, in return for taking my valuable time and kinetic energy.

“Look at this. Mr Hero.”

The thing that Lanuvel, who guided me to the fountain at the center of the royal palace garden, pointed at was a manhole cover.

A route down to the sewer.

“So what about this… hmm…?”

I found something weird after questioning it.

Because in the architecture style of the elves who didn’t use toilets in advanced Slime ways and relied everything on the spirits, there was no sewage treatment plant.
So were their bathrooms!

If I had to nitpick, this garden was the kingdom’s exclusive bathroom.
They left the clean finish to the spirits.
They called the spirits friends but they made them handle their food and excretion, wash dishes, clean… Even wipe their butt holes.
There would be no other shameless species that ignored the Labour Welfare Law like the elves in the Fantasia continent.
And they acted like they were kind and clean…

Anyways, there was no sewer in the elves’ buildings. So we could say this manhole cover here was abnormal.
To put it simply, it was suspicious.

“Hey, Mr Hero? How do you know about the elves’ cultures and architecture style more than Lanuvel? Then Lanuvel’s value would be…”
“Shut up and follow me.”

Deureureuk.

I opened the manhole cover and went down to the basement.
I clearly took this lightly until then. I thought there would be the Elf King wife’s underwear he hid, at best.

I really had no idea.