Chapter 146 – 146. Restoration of the Holy Sword (2)
Kaaang!
With each strike of Vulkanos’s hammer, a tremendous amount of divinity is scattered around, and the sound of metal clashing fills the interior of the forge.
Orichalcum melted by the holy fire was knocked on and off, only the regular sound of knocking continued.
“Are you still doing it?”
Illyana, who came to see her condition, brought Theresia to the blacksmith’s shop and asked while watching Eunhyeon’s hammering.
“How much time has passed?”
“Um, about six hours?”
“Right.”
Illiana nodded her head calmly and looked at Riod, who was staring back at Eunhyun’s work process, with a doubtful look on her face.
“No way… Has he been hammering like that for six hours now?”
“Yes.”
Illyana frowned at Rio de’s positive reaction, as if it were natural.
“It’s crazy… Stop right now and rest…”
“Can not be done.”
Riod grabbed Illyana’s wrist as she tried to approach Eunhyeon and stopped her.
“Hey, won’t you let this go? Do not disturb.”
“You are the one who doesn’t interfere.”
“What? Are you saying I’m sabotaging you? Can’t you see him now? Your whole body is wet with sweat! If you get dehydrated…”
“Hey, give up. Don’t you think I told you? That it’s completely turned He’s been hammering in front of the furnace for six hours, and he’s like a real madman.”
In response to Illyana’s angry voice, Agies, who now has a far-sighted voice, advises her to give up, with a sad expression.
“…”
Illyana couldn’t say anything, and she stared blankly at Eunhyun.
Wearing only a white T-shirt and hitting her hammer, Eun-hyeon’s body is drenched in sweat from the pouring rain, and her body is clinging to the situation.
Sweat is welling up from her body, and the drops of sweat dripping from her chin are evaporating in an instant due to the temperature of the floor, accompanied by the sound of a hammer hitting the floor.
In the smithy, where the temperature is rapidly rising due to the flames in the furnace, it was Eunhyeon who was forging the metal on the anvil closest to the furnace.
Caang!
Suddenly, the rhythmic sound of metal hitting ceased.
“Whoa…”
After using the tongs to pick up the red-hot blade, I threw it back into the furnace without regret.
“Water, please!”
Responding to Eun-hyeon’s loud voice, Agnes reflexively grabbed the canteen lying next to him and threw it at Eun-hyeon.
After skillfully taking the canteen, Eunhyeon opens the stopper and drinks the water in the canteen to replenish moisture.
“Whoa. Uh, Illyana, are you here?”
“You… How long are you going to do this?”
“Umm, well, until the blades of the holy sword are all made?”
“So, when is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“… Does that make sense?”
“The Holy Sword is so tricky. I have to keep doing it until the sword is satisfied.”
“The sword is satisfied?”
At his words, Lyod expressed doubt.
“The Holy Sword is a little different from normal weapons. A weapon has its own will, and a weapon chooses its own master.”
“… Father?”
“… I had never heard of such a thing.”
The rich man of Armitas, who had been quietly watching Eunhyun’s work, made an expression that he did not expect at all.
“That would be natural. The people who have used this sword are the heads of the Dukes of Armitas and their successors. The blood of the duke’s family had been recognized by the Holy Sword from the beginning. It seems that the content of this point has been misrepresented and forgotten over time?”
“… You must have known of my plan to hand over the holy sword to the second prince to solidify his position as crown prince and prove his legitimacy?”
When Abros glared at Eun-hyeon and asked a question with his eyes narrowed, Eun-hyeon answered calmly.
“So what?”
“If you knew my plans, why didn’t you tell me this beforehand?”
Even after resurrecting the holy sword, if the holy sword does not recognize the second prince as its owner, that might lead to a difficult situation.
“Duke. You seem to be misunderstanding something.”
“A misunderstanding?”
“My purpose is to resurrect the holy sword and induce one of the people of the kingdom to be chosen by the holy sword and become a powerful force capable of defending the kingdom. Whether the owner of the holy sword is the second prince or whoever it is is not a big issue for me.”
There is also a possibility that the second prince can be recognized as a holy sword following the ducal family.
From the beginning, the holy sword Durandal was the sword of the royal family, and the royal family only bestowed it on the ducal family in the past, and it is possible that the blood of the Pernias family was also recognized.
“… What if the holy sword falls to the wicked?”
“That’s a more pointless worry. This sword is a weapon that chooses the owner who will use it.”
The Holy Sword is a weapon that tests the user’s mindset and when a being that meets his or her standards grasps it, it recognizes that being as its owner and bestows ‘protection’, including enormous divine power, on its owner. The source of divine power is the divine power that was injected into the Holy Sword when it was created.
In the end, the weapon’s will to choose its owner is the same as the will of God, the source of the weapon’s power.
‘And the divine power contained in this god’s weapon is probably…’
If you can only find out what kind of god is the source of the divinity that exists in this sacred sword, but judging from the character and characteristics of that god, it is not too difficult to naturally guess and figure out the conditions for becoming the owner of this weapon. It wasn’t
Perhaps she is one of the seven goddesses who created this world, thought Eunhyeon.
‘It is not Minerva-sama’s divine power. Then there are six candidates.’
After receiving Minerva’s weapon, the Aegis, and feeling a part of her divine power, Eun-hyeon was able to assert that the divine power contained within her holy sword was not Minerva’s.
After finishing her thoughts, Eun-hyeon looked at Abros again and continued her words.
“Duke. I am not an errand boy or a solver who has come to solve all of the duke’s problems. I should have told you from the beginning. We call it a ‘symbiotic relationship’.”
“… It did.”
In the end, the relationship between Eunhyeon and Abros was nothing more than a relationship of helping each other to achieve their own goals.
Eun-hyeon gave herself a huge amount of money, and she is using her strength to restore her and is giving her a huge amount of grace by restoring the holy sword, which is no different from her own long-cherished project.
It was purely a necessary action for Eunhyeon, so he was only giving grace like this, and from his point of view, it was not a matter of much concern about who the holy sword chose as its owner.
It was too unconscionable to ask for help from him any more than this, and Abros, who had become aware that there was a part of him that he was overly dependent on Eun-hyeon without even realizing it, frowned and acknowledged Eun-hyeon’s point.
“Well then…”
After finishing the story and taking a short break, Eunhyeon put the tongs back into the white burning brazier.
He takes out the blade of the heated holy sword and starts hammering again with no end in sight.
Kaaang!
“Ha… Who really stopped that…”
“Where are you going?”
Illyana sighed and turned around to leave her smithy, but her riod glanced at her and asked.
“I bet he hasn’t eaten anything for six hours. I need to make something and feed it.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
At her Illyana’s words, Rio de and Agnes looked at her with disbelief and asked back.
“What, why are you looking at me like that?”
Illyana frowned as if the expressions of the two were very reluctant.
“… Do you cook?”
“Everyone lives and hears that he cooks.”
“Why! What, can’t I cook?!”
“No… Even 20 years ago, you didn’t lift a hand when we were cooking.”
“It’s a question I ask because it doesn’t sound like something you would say, having lived on energy bars for 20 years while being bothered by cooking.”
Liod, who had been to Illyana’s house once before Eun-hyeon resurrected and came to find them, recalled the memory of her being stunned by the energy bar wrappers and boxes piled up in her house.
“What? A little loaf like that cookie? How can I live by eating only that?”
Anies’ expression hardened as she scanned Illyana’s body with disbelief.
“I wondered what they ate, the milk was so big, but the secret was the biscuit lump?”
“It can’t be, can’t it? Because that guy has been like that since the old days.”
Agies, who had been observing her body closely, muttered with a serious face on her face, and Riod snorted and denied her guess.
Abros and Alex tried to ignore the conversation between the three and pretended to focus on Eunhyun’s work.
Shocked that the conversation of the great heroes who saved the world was such a low-level conversation, Alex put on a complex expression and tried to look away from embarrassment.
“You don’t have to. Witch. My daughter is already gone.”
“… What? Yo. This?”
Illyana, who frowned for a moment, hurriedly added an honorific and asked back.
“Eleanor said she would bring something simple to feed the man and went up. It’s shift time for maintaining the sanctuary barrier soon, so I’ll come down.”
“…”
◆ ◆ ◆
Kaaang!
Hit, hit, hit again, hit the hammer again and again.
It’s to the point where you can see hallucinations drawing afterimages from hammers that have already been struck dozens or hundreds of times.
Nevertheless, Eunhyun did not stop.
Not to mention the whole body being scorched by the murderous temperature of the brazier as he struck the hammer, the burns to the point of becoming a charred piece of meat that had not been fully cooked were covered by the barrier of Agnes’ sanctuary and healed in an instant.
This is not the only effect of Agnes’ sanctuary barrier.
It amplifies the divine power inherent in Eunhyeon’s body and the hammer of Vulcanos, the divine weapon, and amplifies the effect of ‘Holy Fire’ instead of ordinary fire, forging Orichalcon metal to be stronger.
For this, the damage of the physical burns that healed quickly was a level that he could willingly endure.
Burns are automatically healed by the barrier of sanctification.
All you need is stamina to hit the hammer and perseverance to not give up.
He gauged the degree of perfection of the holy sword by measuring the amount of his divine power sucked into the sword and the sanctity of the sanctuary barrier every time he struck the hammer to train it.
‘It’s still, still far away.’
Every time the blade of the holy sword was struck with the hammer of Vulcanos, it greedily ate the divine power generated by Eunhyun’s divine power and the divine power in the barrier of sanctuary, but it was still dissatisfied, so it longed for more divine power.
Ugh
After how much time had passed, when the holy sword finally reached a level where it could express its own will, the holy sword began to move its own blade with divine power.
The sword body trembled greedily as if ‘More, more! That’s not enough. More!” Seemed to be shouting.
It’s like a vicious circle in which you grow more every time you consume divine power and yearn for more divine power.
However, Eunhyeon was well aware that this process was the process of the Holy Sword itself regaining its self.
‘Okay. Okay. If you want to eat like that, you have to let them eat.’
That’s why every time the blade roared, more holy power was put into Vulkanos’s hammer and the holy sword was struck down with all the strength.
Caang!
Ugh
The Holy Sword, hit by a blow containing tremendous divine power, trembled and started a fight.
Seeing that reaction, Eun-hyeon raised the hammer again, captured the divine power, and struck the trembling blade of the holy sword.
Kaaang!
Whoops!
Once again, the powerfully trembling holy sword begins to send its intentions to Eun-hyeon.
‘Stop, too many. Please put in a small amount slowly and kindly.’
Kaaaaang!
Whoa!
The holy sword struck by Eun-hyeon’s hammer shook its blade from side to side like a pendulum, and he began to struggle to escape from the fixed anvil.
‘I have to hit it hard, fast, and hard.’
Eunhyeon realized that at this moment, she had reached the stage of the last spurt process to complete the holy sword.
Eun-hyeon’s forearm, which was lifted high with divine power to the limit of Vulcanos’s hammer, swelled up and began to prepare for the last blow.
Feeling an incomparable amount of divine power contained in Vulcanos’ hammer soaring upward, the Holy Sword hardened its body as it struggled to escape from the fixed anvil.
It was as if his whole body stiffened with fear, anticipating what would happen to him.
‘Come on, go!’
Kaaaaang!
When the final blow was struck, the Holy Sword, which absorbed all the divine power contained in the hammer, began to emit pure white light.
“Ah! Such a X foot! Blindfold!”
Anies, who was hit squarely in the bright light that filled his forge, screamed and covered his eyes with his hands.
Soon after a few seconds passed, the lights inside the smithy disappeared, and a white silver blade as bright as Eunhyun’s hair appeared on the anvil.
“… ?”
Eunhyeon tilted her head as the state of the newly resurrected holy sword looked strange.
The moment I tried to hold the handle of the sword in my hand, I was worried that it might be because of the excessive amount of divine power injected, or that the whole body trembling might have caused some side effects.
Whoops!
“Eh?”
The handle moved by itself and pushed away Eunhyun’s hand.
Eunhyeon was dumbfounded by this sight and just stared blankly at the holy sword.
The holy sword is a weapon that unreservedly brings its protection and divine power to its master if it is a target that it recognizes, but if it is not the target, it does not react at all like a normal weapon and does not take any special action.
“What kind of dog is this now…”
He had no intention of using this holy sword himself, but Eun-hyeon naturally frowned at the will of the holy sword, which was clearly showing an intention of ‘rejecting’ her.
