The Dragon Sword that uncle showed me was not the same Dragon Sword I know.
It was nothing but a mere shell of a dragon sword’s power.
In fact, from the beginning, I already knew why the Dragon Sword was treated like this insignificant training sword. The Dragon Sword lacked the will of a true dragon.
Maybe it was natural. This is a different time, after all. This was no longer the era when knights trained to develop their mana hearts. No, this was the era of the rings.
Damn mana chain.
To see others lose interest in mana heart is one thing, but to see the descendants of Leonberger abandon their faith in the mana heart over the mana chain is another story altogether.
But I guess the descendants of my friend is not the same as my friend. They inherited only his blood and kingdom, not his ability to discern the true worth of treasures. They chose differently, and this choice led to this moment where a fake dragon sword stood in front of me, wielded confidently by a man who knows nothing about the truth.
I inhaled and exhaled deeply to try and cool my head. But no matter what I do, there was no quelling the fire that burned in my heart. The man-made mana heart in me has been troubled after seeing its half—the dragon sword.
‘It’s fake. It’s not your half.’ I told my heart. I felt it sink as if it understood what I just said.
“… there is nothing more suitable for you who does not even know how to hold a sword.”
It was only after he finished his sentence that I realized he had been giving me instructions while I was lost in my thoughts, trying to calm the heart that raged with fury inside of me.
“I don’t intend to pass on the family’s swordsmanship to you. If you want to learn, you need to find yourself your own teacher.”
He uttered more verses and phrases, but what struck me is that he said it was impossible to win a bet with a dragon sword alone.
“So—“
“I don’t need it all,” I said, cutting uncle’s words. This took uncle by surprise.
“I will not learn other swordsmanship,” I declared, “it is enough to win with this sword.”
Uncle clearly had a lot to say. But, as always, he stepped back and simply looked at me disappointingly.
“Do what you want,” he said, resignation and apathy swirling thickly in his voice. “We’ll keep doing basic strength training like before, and after that, we’ll work on the sword.”
Uncle adjusted my training schedule as if nothing happened.
A wooden sword practice was added to the list of my monotonous yet laborious physical routine. And from that day on, I began to learn with the fake dragon sword that was weakened and reduced to this insignificant form.
My heart wanted to have a real dragon sword to feel its power in my hand’s grip, but unfortunately, my current body could not handle the real thing yet.
This body was too fragile for a force so powerful. I didn’t want to risk my mana heart, as well. One wrong move and you could end up breaking it.
So, I forced myself to settle with practicing the fake dragon sword that the foreign minister showed. To be fair, uncle was incredibly good at training.
With a wooden sword, he demonstrated monotonous attacks and blocks, which I copied day after day. Meanwhile, my body was slowly changing. The muscles needed to wield a sword were slowly getting built.
Another month passed. After much hard work, I succeeded in changing my constitution.
『The High Obesity property has been changed to Normal Obesity. 』
『The metabolism becomes more active due to changes in the constitution.』
The message said.
I have become somewhat used to using this body through repeated rigorous training. This was the moment when two months’ worth of hard work finally paid off, at least a little bit.
The change wasn’t also just external. My Mana Response Disorder trait disappeared, and the General Mana Response Trait was developed after steadily accumulating mana.
However, these weren’t enough to satisfy me. I still have a long way to go before I can truly say I have succeeded.
The succeeding exercises also changed in intensity to keep up with the progress I was making. After my daily routine with uncle, I would stay alone in the training area and continue. It was hard, but it was rewarding to see all of my sweat and effort starting to bear fruit.
That made me feel a sense of accomplishment I’ve never felt before. I was growing. Although the achievements were still insignificant, especially for uncle’s standards, I have definitely come a long way since the day I first acquired this body.
My body was inspired, and my spirit was infinitely elevated, the more I practiced. This fueled me to keep working.
“…!”
I stepped in and out quickly, practicing my footwork and improving my agility.
“…!”
I swung my wooden sword as hard as I could against invisible enemies in the air.
“Stop!”
I was so concentrated at my task that I failed to notice someone was calling my attention until they finally grabbed.
“What are you doing outside?” uncle demanded. He was staring at me with a distorted face, the complete opposite usually stoic and apathetic face. It was an emotional expression that I had never seen before, especially not from him.
“What are you doing?!” Uncle said louder this time after I failed to answer the first time. He grabbed my hand with enough force to make me cry out in pain.
He turned my hand so that the palm was exposed. I then saw how badly damaged it was—torn, swollen, festered with boils close to bursting.
The sight of my bruised palm brought me back to my senses. I started to feel the rain that has been beating down on me for quite some time now. It was something I didn’t even notice earlier when I was still too lost in the momentum of my training.
“Stupid!” Uncle shouted, “Why are you training on a day like this?!”
I was confused. Yes, it’s raining, but it’s nice because it was cool, unlike the sun’s scorching touch. I nearly dismissed his antics as nothing more than another excuse to be mad at me, but then I noticed something else about the ground around me.
“Uhh…”
Black spots littered the space around me—spots that were not there earlier when I began my training. Black spots that could have only been the result of lightning hitting the ground.
I measured the distance between me and the closes black spot as the storm clouds above continued to roil.
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Ten steps. I was only ten steps away from being a roasted pig. I tried to imagine the scene, then quickly shook off the terrible image. A few moments later, I heard another mental announcement at the back of my mind:
『Super-Intensive Concentration has been newly created.』
‘If you concentrate too hard, you will be hit by a thunderbolt‘, I thought.
“Training is over.” Uncle declared, and my crazy practice under the storm was forced to end.
I was on my way to my quarters when I met the wizard again.
“Your Highness,” he greeted courtly.
I nodded to return the greeting.
“Please allow me to aid you today, Your Highness.” He said, almost pleading.
“Be quick,” I said, surprising him.
He quickly got to work and created a flash of white light in his hands. He trembled slightly at the sight of my palms.
I just stood there as he meticulously tried to repair my palms, not knowing what to feel about the situation.
Hundreds of years ago, there weren’t many skilled wizards. In the Great War and in the endless violent battles that swept across the continent, it was always the wizards who fell first, and most of the surviving wizards suffered too greatly to ever be of much use.
The luxury of receiving healing magic was a near impossibility then, even for high-ranking commanders.
“Your Highness, please do not resist,” he pleaded as if he could read my troubled thoughts, “ease your mind.”
The wizard restored my palms and lightly healed the rest of my body. I felt light. I could feel my physical fatigue melting away like snow in the first morning of spring.
‘Uh, I could get used to this…’
I couldn’t help but smile at the dull yet pleasant sense of being healed, the stark opposite of the pain-filled months I had to endure to train my body. But my moment of peace was suddenly interrupted when I noticed something odd from my escort.
Carls Ulrich was looking at me with a strange face. I turned to him and asked, “why?”
He didn’t answer. He returned to his usual expressionless face as a royal knight and escort. After the treatment, he carefully led me to my room.
***
The day’s near-death encounter with the thunderstorm made me look back on myself.
I couldn’t say that I am perfect now. My spirit, who lived as a sword, and this weak prince’s body had not yet found a compromise.
This weak body continues to drag my spirit back like a bothersome leash.
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But earlier, under the storm cloud’s wrath, this body rolled its limits. Everyone wants to break the boundaries of their strength, but transcending that barrier always comes at a price—a steep price I couldn’t pay with my current body.
After seeing countless promising warriors meet their end like that, I never thought I would end up nearly committing the same mistakes. I have to refine my mind.
“Sir Balahard has asked me to tell you that training without his observation is strictly forbidden”, a knight informed me.
Uncle was exactly as I expected.
“I’m going out for a walk,” I said, excusing myself.
“I shall accompany you, Your Highness,” the knight announced.
I left the room with the intention of going out for a walk so that I can work on my mana heart. But it seems the knight was instructed to observe closely should I disobey uncle’s strict orders. I gave up on the walk quickly, knowing I’ll achieve nothing out it.
I went back to my room and looked around the knights’ blank and serious faces.
Haah. I exhaled. I promised myself that I would enjoy the luxuries I missed out on during the hundreds of years I spent locked away as a sword. But I forgot about this after I got too caught up in training and improving this body.
‘Well, how about you start having fun?’ I thought to myself.
I paced around the room, deep in thought about what to do. I was clueless about what “fun” means now. Then, I saw a bunch of people approaching from a distance.
“The Third Prince has arrived!” announced a servant.
It seems like I have a “brother”. If he is called the Third Prince, then surely he is the brother of Prince Adrian. This also means that there are others.
“You look pretty good for a dead body,” the younger prince said, his tone suggesting he didn’t have a loving relationship with his brother.
But then he laughed, dispelling the seriousness of the air around us.
Only
Oh. It must have been a joke. I think…
I belatedly laughed at his joke.
“I was so impressed with the legends that I tried to reproduce them myself,” I joked, “but I was the dragon with the sword in its belly.”
The Third Prince and I both laughed until he turned red.
“Thanks to me, the royal family’s honor has fallen to the ground, but you can still laugh?” I asked him.
“It was a bit embarrassing but also funny,” he answered, wiping a bit of tear from the corner of his eye.
“By the way,” he added, “was it true that you made a bit against Sir Balahard?”
Gone was the laughter, as the Third Prince’s expression turned serious.