Chapter 1286: Raydoss's Divine Sword

（…I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere before.）

『You too?』

（Nn.）

〈There is an 88% chance that he is related to the girl Carna, whom we encountered in the Belioth Kingdom.〉

Oh, I see! Carna!

She was the girl we met near the border when we traveled to Belioth, who claimed to be the daughter of a merchant. I doubt it though. Employing a knight escort and being completely unaware of adventurers made her backstory sound kinda sketchy.

Fran seemed to like her fearless attitude and lack of prejudice towards black cats.

I suspected that she might be from Raydoss, and it seems I was right. Plus, her being related to this boy means she has royal blood, right?

（So Carna was a princess?）

『Seems like it.』

Well, not like it changes anything about our current situation. We should focus on the matter at hand.

「It would be best to have you two board my undead carriage.」

「Hmm… but this is…」

「Chancellor, this is an emergency. Please bear with it.」

「…Right.」

Honestly, the undead carriage was constructed out of bones so it looked pretty nasty. Anyone unfamiliar with it would naturally hesitate to get inside. However, there’s no time to waste.

Sibylla forcefully pushed the Chancellor into the carriage.

We had no choice but to leave the mech behind since we couldn’t move it. Storing it didn’t work and Urushi was repelled by a barrier whenever he tried to get close.

We hurriedly distanced ourselves from the capital.

After about five minutes of travel, we paused to treat the Chancellor while listening to his side of the story. However, he remained silent. Or more accurately, he couldn’t speak.

「The Evil God——Grh!」

He suddenly started writhing in pain the second he began explaining. This was caused by a strong pulse of mana from the silver bracelet on his arm.

The mana resembled that of covenant magic. This pain was being applied because he was attempting to break a magical contract.

I considered invoking covenant magic to solve the issue, but it was clearly impossible. The rigidness of his contract was far greater than that of any slave contract.

Only a caster of covenant magic like me could recognize such power. There was nothing we could do.

Nevertheless, the Chancellor continued to resist.

「As I thought… It’s now or never! Nwoooh!」

The Chancellor roared in pain as the bracelet shattered. Immediately after, the already elderly man appeared to age even further by about twenty years. Is that the backlash from breaking the contract?

「Chancellor! Are you okay?」

「At this point… time is of the essence. You must listen to what I have to say.」

「…Alright.」

The Chancellor didn’t seem okay at all, but he laid down on the spot and began speaking with a tired expression.

「It started with that mysterious barrier-like thing…」

Apparently, the Evil God Fragments sealed under the capital began radiating power right after the barrier enveloped Raydoss as a whole.

The seal was clearly falling apart at the seams, and the Chancellor panicked. This was supposed to happen many years later, and they weren’t nearly ready to deal with it.

The dukes must have initiated the revival of the fragments without telling him.

「Those fools had gone mad to the point where they could no longer realize their own insanity.」

The Chancellor dropped his shoulders powerlessly. He seemed to regret not being able to stop the actions of his peers.

「They still professed their loyalty to His Majesty, but it was nothing more than a sham in my eyes. The convenient “loyalty” allowed them to shift all responsibility onto the king, and convince themselves that anything would be allowed for the sake of king and country…」

It seems the whole thing about reviving the fragments to defeat them was supposedly done for the sake of the king.

「Reviving the fragments in an incomplete form so they can be defeated is more easily said than done. Just how much must be sacrificed to accomplish such a feat? No, those fools eagerly sacrificed the people…! And to what end? Their real goal was to be recognized for their accomplishments. To prove their greatness to the world by defeating the fragments with their own hands….」

「…We took down the East and South Conquest Duke already.」

「I see… So they have fallen without any atonement for their crimes… A fitting end, in a sense…」

The Chancellor spat out the words and continued the story.

When the dukes attempted to selfishly revive the fragments, the new king interfered with their plan.

He had ascended to the throne only a few months ago, and was completely unaware of the dukes’ conspiracy and the Evil God Fragments until then.

Yet upon being told all of the truths out of the blue, he accepted the crown and did everything he could to maintain the seal.

The backlash for doing so struck him just as hard, resulting in… the mechanization of his body.

The Chancellor gently removed the sleeping boy’s robe. The situation underneath was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

I had thought he was wearing metallic full-body armor, but he was not wearing anything of the sort. His flesh had turned into metal.

Even the joints of his arms were like ball joints. His human body had clearly transformed into that of a machine.

By my estimates, about 70% of the unconscious boy’s body was now robotic.

「What the…! Oi, Chancellor! What’s going on here!?」

「This the price of the Warmount Blade, Chariot.」

「「「 !!! 」」」

Everyone present displayed various expressions of astonishment.

Chariot! That’s one of the more famous divine swords! It’s said to be capable of summoning golems… but it seems these golems are more mechanical than I thought.

The relics of Raydoss bestowed by the king were likely products of Chariot as well.

And the cost was this boy’s mechanical body. Compared to sacrificing lifespan and demonic mutation, maybe mechanization shouldn’t come as a surprise.

That said, the boy was still young, and he had only been king for a few months. Does it really make sense for his transformation to progress this quickly?

My doubts vanished upon hearing the Chancellor’s words.

「The king is required to keep the divine sword active continuously in order to seal the fragments. Moreover, His Majesty had to push beyond his limits in order to hold back the Evil God’s oncoming revival.」

So his transformation was abnormally fast because he pushed himself too hard with the divine sword.

「Even so, His Majesty never stopped maintaining the seal. But then, we found ourselves under attack.」

「You mean that weird goblin from earlier?」

「Indeed.」

The king and Chancellor were confronting the Evil God’s seal underground, so they knew very little about what was happening on the surface. They could not rely on messengers either since it was a secret location.

「We found ourselves overwhelmed by countless of those sinister goblins, and had no choice but to flee the castle with the help of the Red Knights. His Majesty exhausted all his power to repel the evil-cloaked minotaurs.」

「…Which means, the seal is…」

「It’s only a matter of time until it is undone.」