Golden Experience

Chapter 96: “The Death of the Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Douglas O’Connell”

<Your Majesty, we are loath to ask, but…>

<Could you allow us to take over from here?>

The two undead seemed to have calmed down. They asked to “take over,” but what exactly did they want to take over? Was there something else to do besides kill them?

“Uh, that’s fine, but… What are you going to do?”

<There is something we need to hear from these rats…>

“Huh? Even though you can’t talk?”

Rare wasn’t exactly opposed to translating. If the two of them wanted information, then she was also interested in hearing it.

“Aah, nnh! Aaaah. Now they can hear me as well,” Sieg suddenly said out loud.

For an instant, Rare thought it was friend chat, but she clearly heard it. His latest reincarnation had given him the ability to speak again.

“Ooohn? Nn! Iiii, see. We are now able to talk. This will make things go more quickly.”

It really did seem that reincarning did the trick. After confirming it for himself, Deas quickly stepped forward and grabbed the only person standing, the prime minister, by the collar with one hand and lifted him up into the air. With the other hand, he twisted off the man’s arm. The [Vein of the Spirit Lord] fell to the floor, shattering on impact.

“Guhgh!!!”

She remembered this sensation. There was no way she could forget. Apparently, this powerful debuff was a special effect of the item being destroyed. However, unlike when it happened last time, it wasn’t so strong that she couldn’t stand. She was also not on the receiving end of any damage this time, and the magnitude of the effect seemed slightly weaker than before.

“If you… ever see that item he was holding… again, it’s imperative… that it does not break…”

“Your Majesty! You bastards!!!”

Deas looked like he wanted to kill the prime minister right away, but Rare had a feeling this wasn’t the man’s fault. But she didn’t feel that it was quite appropriate to admonish Deas either. If this were a field debuff, all she would have to do is exit the area of effect, but she didn’t know what to do when it was a single-target effect. There should still be an effective area; if she got as far away as she possibly could, it should probably wear off.

“Oh… it’s gone now. Phew. It must only last for a short time. Interesting; I’m glad we were able to discover that here. The fact that you could so frivolously activate it means that, as I suspected, you have a way to mass produce them. Deas, I wonder if His Excellency has any more of those items.”

If they were one-use items, then he should have more in reserve. Rare’s LP wouldn’t automatically come back after having her max LP reduced. Since she had lost more than [Treatment] could effectively cure, she would use [Healing Magic] here instead.

“An excellent question!” Deas shouted while starting to search the prime minister’s body.

She was treated to a scene of a silver-haired dandy groping the chest of a plump elderly gentleman.

“This is borderline… I wonder if… there’s any demand for this? I can’t say for sure…”

“So you have no more!”

Apparently, the prime minister didn’t have any other items on his person. Since Deas had ripped off his arm, the man’s face was turning quite pale, and a cold sweat was beading on his forehead.

“So it’s not a craftable item…? Well, if he doesn’t have any more, then that’s that. Anyway, Deas, His Excellency no longer seems capable of conversation. You should let him go already. Didn’t you have questions? Why don’t you go ask those gentlemen on the ground back there? I would think their tongues will be looser than the prime minister’s.”

“In that case, allow me,” Sieg suggested, walking over to the collapsed nobles. Deas did not release the prime minister.

“I suppose I have no choice. [Treatment].”

Rare approached the two and used [Treatment] on the prime minister. One cast did not stop the bleeding. After a number of casts, the wound closed up, completely stopping the flow of blood. In comparison, that healer player’s [Healing Magic] could even restore a lost arm. Even though it cost MP, [Treatment] was still more of a technique and not actually magic; it was similar to something like [Tanning]. Because of that, no matter how much LP it restored, unlike with magical healing, there was no way for it to regrow limbs. It could only achieve what could be accomplished through natural means; it could not ignore the laws of nature and cure instantly.

“Ghh…! Wh-Why did you… heal me…?!”

“Because you seem most likely to have the answers we want. Now then, Deas and Sieg have something to say.”

As she spoke, Rare concentrated on her [Discerning Feather Barrier]. Surely, enough time had passed for one of the mages to have recovered enough MP to cast another spell. The reason they hadn’t run away yet must have been because they had not given up on resisting. It would have been fine to kill them, but they had been accompanying the nobles all this time, meaning they were probably someone’s followers. In other words, once she was done with the nobles, she could kill them all.

“All right, Deas. Ask what you will.”

“My sincere gratitude. It shames me to waste your valuable time with this, Your Majesty. Now then, worm… just now, you mentioned a ‘spirit lord.’”

“Urgh, hearing a filthy creature like you utter that sacred name is revolting…”

“Shut your mouth!!!”

—This old man has the shittiest conversational skills…

“Whatever. [Charm]… There.”

Rare had already run out of patience and promptly used [Charm]. She had never charmed a humanoid capable of speech before, so she wouldn’t know if he could actually provide coherent information in this state until they tried asking. At the very least, the fact that he wouldn’t hurl abuse every time he opened his mouth would be an improvement.

“Now ask. Your Excellency, answer Deas’s questions.”

“I can do naught but offer apologies over and over again. Worm, why did you speak of the spirit lord, and what was that item?”

This was something Rare also wanted to hear. She was glad they could save some effort here.

“…That… artifact. It is a treasure… that the spirit lord who used to… reign over these lands… left behind. Its effects are…”

“Blast the effects! What do you mean, the spirit lord left behind a treasure?!”

No, the effects were pretty important too. But Rare was interested in the keyword “artifact,” which implied that it was some kind of important item, as well as the fact that it was a “treasure” that was left behind.

“In the event… that the spirit lord were to perish… a rare treasure… called an artifact… was passed down… to his descendants. It could be used… to oppose the catastrophes…”

In other words, it was a countermeasure for when a threat appeared that the military was unable to repel. It was unclear if the spirit lord was just a piece of lore used to explain an item that the game developers created to prevent the kingdom from collapsing too easily, or if the spirit lord or whatever actually prepared this item.

A spirit lord. Perhaps there could have been a spirit lord standing here right now. It could have been Rare. She had ended up choosing to become a demon lord, but the other option had been a spirit lord. But even if she had chosen differently, it was hard to say if she would have been able to learn how to craft that item. Maybe it was a skill that wouldn’t unlock unless she were a spirit lord.

It had been silent, but then Deas’s pupils shone red. They were the same red right after he had reincarnated. Some part of this conversation probably fueled his rage.

“I shall correct… one point. His Majesty the spirit lord had no descendants. As far as I know, they were all killed. During the rebellion.”

Deas was once the captain of the royal guard of the continent’s only united kingdom. She was told that back in the past, a member of royal family had been murdered. They had most likely been a relative of the spirit lord. Or perhaps it had been the lord himself.

“Someone with royal blood could have possibly survived, but I know not how long has passed since then. Their bloodline has surely long since perished. After that, the rebels rose to power and built their own kingdoms. This ‘Hiers’ kingdom is one of them.”

The prime minister showed no reaction. Obviously it was because of [Charm], but Rare wondered how he would have reacted if he had been able to learn this when he was of sound mind.

“The spirit lord, leaving behind his protection for you vermin?! Don’t make me laugh!!!”

Rare covered her ears. Would be nice if he didn’t suddenly start yelling out of nowhere.

“Moreover, you dared to use the spirit lord’s legacy to harm the demon lord, my master Rare! How much will you violate before you are satisfied?!”

Finally, things were starting to connect. The king that Deas and Sieg and the knight orders had once pledged their loyalty to was the spirit lord. The kingdom that the spirit lord had once governed was the once-united continent. And whatever conspiracy had divided up that country, Rare didn’t know who had been involved, but she imagined this spirit lord must have been far stronger than she currently was, and these conspirators were able to defeat him. They were also behind the deaths of the knight orders, which Deas and Sieg belonged to, as well as anyone who had royal blood. Finally, the spirit lord’s belongings had been passed down as mythical artifacts.

In Deas and Sieg’s eyes, the descendants of their hated enemies had used the possessions of their former lord to kill Rare, to whom they currently pledged their service. This was the reason behind Deas’s anger.

“Based on all that, could this be how they ‘fulfilled the conditions for reincarnation’? In other words, Deas’s rage, and then Sieg’s… grief? Those emotions must have some kind of hidden parameter, and once they hit a certain value, that allowed them to become eligible for reincarnation.”

Then again, if there were a player who was the same race they were, how would that work? It was a bit hard to imagine that they had programmed in a completely different reincarnation condition for players, but it was also just as hard to think that a player would have to harbor such strong emotions as Deas and Sieg had felt to trigger it. Well, no matter how hard Rare thought about it, it would be impossible to research it thoroughly. She had no choice but to give up on it.

“Ahh, it feels great to figure out so much stuff! All that’s left is to find out how many of those items are left, and what the exact effects are.”

For now, finding out that the debuff item probably wasn’t mass producable was a relief. However, it wasn’t impossible for a new spirit lord to be born either. There was a potential for spirit lords to be able to create this item. Then again, while the item certainly needed to be monitored, the spirit lord itself was much more deserving of attention.

“…The spirit lord’s treasure… that I had in my possession… is the last one to be found in this castle… The others are in His Majesty’s care… Arrangements have already been made… for him to flee to another country…”

“—He flew the coop.”

This was an unexpected development. That meant that all the nobles here were decoys. The knights as well. Rare just realized that this room seemed to be an audience chamber, but the king, who should preside over said audience, was missing. She should have noticed this from the start, but since the enemy launched right into a barrage of spells and they immediately went into battle, the distraction must have caused her to miss it.

“Well damn, I just completely didn’t see this coming… Today has just been chalk full of blunders for me… This is because I just didn’t properly think things through; I really need to get my ass into gear…”

However, depending on when exactly the king fled, it could still be possible to salvage the situation.

“So what time was the king supposed to leave the castle?”

“…When I proposed this plan… when the catastrophe first appeared over the city… and we received permission to use… the Heart of the Spirit Lord… our national treasure… that was when… I told the king to prepare… anything important and leave immediately…”

Making an educated guess from the fact that the Vein of the Spirit Lord was a single-target debuff item, the Heart of the Spirit Lord must have been the thing the players had used. It was shocking to discover that they had lent out a national treasure to players to use, but if the plan was to use the capital itself as a distraction for the king to escape, then the worst that could happen was the treasure might get stolen and that was it. However, if he was already gone back then, then if Rare’s forces wanted to go after him now then they needed to know the direction he went.

“Which country did he flee to?”

“…In order to prevent… the nobles left behind from leaking… the information if they were tortured… the king himself made that decision…”

“If I had been successfully put down, were you not going to report that information…?”

“…I do not know… where the king… sought asylum… Once the situation was resolved… we planned to send diplomats… to all allied countries…”

This prime minister was truly outstanding. Rare wondered if other countries also had people as brilliant as he was. If they did, she would have to do much more extensive planning before her next invasion. Unlike the player who dodged Yoroizaka’s attacks during the day, this was a type of strength that had nothing to do with skills or game status. To be frank, it made her nervous.

“Finally, tell us everything you know about these, uh, ‘vein’ and ‘heart’ items.”

The prime minister gave a long, faltering explanation. As she suspected, they had frightening powers. And this was just a coincidence, but they even had bonus effects against demon lords, who were the polar opposite of spirit lords. From the way the prime minister spoke about it, Rare got the impression that he didn’t realize the significance of those bonuses, so she wondered if that “world announcement” system message didn’t mention her race. Maybe in Rare, Deas, and Sieg’s cases, the race was clearly stated since she was always a related party. If so, then there was a possibility that for anyone else, the contents of the message could be slightly different. Well, either way, this wasn’t information she verify right now.

“You rotten fools… The weakening curse was supposed to be for all of you. You should have been the ones to fall by it. You despicable…!”

Deas’s rage meter seemed to be going up again. Rare felt like his boiling point was a lot lower now compared to before. In this situation she didn’t really care about it, but if this was how he was going to be from now on, it would be kind of a pain in the ass.

“I have finished… My sincere apologies, I seem to have ruined all the ones over here,” Sieg called out.

Behind him, the nobles he had been interrogating were all dead. Rare wasn’t surprised given that she noticed the mages around them dying off in the middle of her own chat. It was a trivial matter.

“Deas.”

“Very well.”

At her unspoken command, Deas choked out the prime minister’s last breath. What a truly terrifying enemy.

“I suppose we’ve achieved our objective… I can’t deny I feel some discontent, but we can’t address it now. We just need to take what we’ve learned and do better next time.”