Chapter 221 Part 4: Useless, Hopeless, Feeble
He approached the three of them.
"Mr. Merchant… Were you the one who brought me here?"
"Indeed, sadly I could not save you in time. Your body… Well, it's not possible to repair it at the moment due to the anomalies inside it. One of them being a divine skill that is keeping Lord Oriel prisoner inside your corpse. The other soul can be removed at any time but I wanted to wait for you to wake up and hear what you want to do."
"Wait, there are two other souls inside his body!?" Lyra stepped back, "No, not just that! How is a skill keeping the Failed King trapped inside a mortal body!? Not even high-tier magic can keep his soul contained for that long."
"It's not just any skill," the merchant shook his head, "It's the [Judgment] series—the name might not sound all that intimidating but it's one of the holy sword's most powerful skills, being derived from the [Song] will of the holy sword. Now if it were one of [Light]'s containment skills then I would've been able to break the skill forcibly with rune destruction formations."
Rafaela was the only one who didn't seem to understand what was going on. Lyra and Arnold had thoughtful expressions on their faces.
What was surprising was how the merchant knew about the holy sword's skills to this extend. Just like he mentioned, there are two wills within the holy sword, which is why it's called [Song and Light]. The first will is remarkably more powerful and is responsible for powering the hero's blessings and supplying divine aura to the hero the more he wields the sword.
"Is there really no way to revive my body even in its current state?"
"None that I can think of. Removing the skill takes priority now. You can try using the demon sword. It is no ordinary demon sword since it belonged to the Failed King himself. It should be able to release enough demon energy for the skill itself to see the sword as a bigger threat and attempt to seal the sword, which it will mistake as a demon lord."
"I sense a but coming." Lyra said from the side.
The merchant shrugged.
"But Oriel's soul is trapped inside your body that has the demon factor. Nothing will happen if you attempt to summon it in your current body. Unless you can get the cooperation of the other demon lords for whatever reason, there are only two other solutions I can think of. I'm sure one of them is already on your mind."
Rafaela and Lyra looked at the silent Arnold.
"…Kill Arthur."
"Indeed. Kill the one who cast the skill and set yourself free! Of course, that is easier said than done, keke. The sword supplied him with extraordinary power that made him surpass you in mere seconds."
A mere mid-level 20s warrior killed Arnold—a level 60 warrior so easily. It's not an exaggeration to think Arthur could possibly be as strong as the weakest demon lord—Ekterina.
"What's the other solution?" Even with all the knowledge inside his head, of the hundreds of thousands of content the game had to offer, he could not recall a way to remove the holy skill.
At this moment he felt useless and hopeless. This is something he had never felt before. He always had a solution to a problem, no matter how vile the method was and would act on it without hesitation.
Right now, he wanted to lean on others even if he appeared weak and pathetic.
"There is another hero candidate, no?"
"What!? There is!?"
The merchant ignored Lyra's scream and continued, "You must be wondering how I know this and judging by your expression, you were already aware of such a person. I know this because the young man who killed you did not possess Golden Aura but another variant of divine aura. The way I see it, both can coexist at the same time in any era, just like during the first hero's era. This is based on the assumption that one cannot exist without the other, just like a coin needing two sides."
Someone had White Aura during the first war?
Arnold had never heard of this. Then again, the full details of the war weren't exactly dumped on the player right in the beginning of the story so a lot of things remained unknown.
"Has thou heard of the Hero's Consort?"
All three of them looked at each other, none of them seemingly having the answer.
"In short, a woman that Promethius wed was given the Blessing of the Champion after she gave birth to his first child. I'm sure this might sound romantic to the uninformed but you will find out that this marriage did not have a happy beginning or ending. Well, I will spare you the full details since my customer is in quite a hurry to continue on his journey. I'm uncertain why the gods would bestow divine aura upon someone simply for giving birth to the Champion's children. My burning theory is that she was of divine origin and the gods wanted to put a leash on her to make use of her strength that surpass every living mortal at the time, or even demigods."
"All of this means that both of them were able to use the holy sword, right?" Lyra chimed in.
"Yes, the same holds true for this era of champions." He looked at Arnold, "While Golden Aura will always triumph over White Aura, this does not mean the other champion does not need help in order to retrieve the holy sword and save you."
Which means Arnold's fate lies in Luke's hand.
Goddammit, even though I wanted to stay out of the hero's way, fate decided I have no control over my future again…
He recalled Luke's innocent face and gentle voice as he lovingly shouts "Big brother!"
If it's him… he'll do anything Arnold asks him for.
So many people are going to depend on that boy in the future…
What he told Flora moments before they parted ways seems even more important now that his life is in Luke's hands.
Thinking of Flora, what did they tell her when Arnold didn't come out of that dungeon….?
'Flora was intent on protecting me so she definitely would've gone berserk if she found out what happened. They might've deceived her somehow… Since it's her, I don't think it would've taken much to persuade her.'
Arnold felt Rafaela grab his hand. His muddled thoughts all came to a halt when he felt her warmth.
Lyra spoke up at that moment, "The gods still don't know who the golden aura user is, which means they don't have a hold of him yet and cannot force responsibilities onto him. They will focus all their attention on the white aura user, giving the golden aura user the chance to do whatever he wants without fear of being spied on by the gods."
"Which also means the two of you can prepare yourselves to fight the Arthur boy for the holy sword without intervention from the gods."
Arnold glanced at Lyra.
Perhaps sensing the doubt in his eyes, she spoke again:
"If you were to tell us who the golden aura user is, I promise you I will not reveal who it is to anyone connected to the divine realm."
The only person he needs to convince now is Angelica. Whether he could do this without threatening her remains a mystery until he confronts her…
"Now that that's sorted, what will you do about the other soul inside your body? Given its special nature, there isn't any worries of it leaving your body after a certain period of time."
Right, divine souls don't leave the host's body even after death since the River of Souls can't control the divine souls like with mortal souls.
What would be the benefit of taking the soul? Sure, it was responsible for Arnold's insane regeneration abilities but beyond that it was useless to him.
"There's no need to take it with me now." Arnold shook his head.
He had no idea if this clone could even contain more than one soul like his body could.
"Is it okay if I leave my body here?" he looked at Lyra, "I can come back at any time using an artifact so I'm not abandoning my body completely and you can have this clone's body back if I manage to remove the holy skill."
Lyra sighed, "Yes, I suppose that will be fine but we'll need to find a way to preserve your body since I can't just have a decaying corpse in my lab where my other children eat and sleep."
"A-Ah…"
"Haha, not to worry!" the merchant injected, "I already cast a spell that will keep his body as fresh as it was before he died! It should last for a year at least."
"Why can you do so many things…" Both Lyra and Arnold looked at him in suspicion but said person merely walked over to Arnold's corpse and wiggled his finger.
"What are you doing?" Arnold noticed that his finger was hovering right above his crotch area, the bulging part.
"Hm? I was going to cast a spell to transfer your genitals to that body."
"W-Why would you put a penis on a girl!?" Lyra shouted when she heard that. Maybe she was upset for a different reason. This body once belonged to her child, after all.
"I am doing this for both him and the elf girl."
Rafaela made an idiotic "Eh?"
"Well, the two of you haven't seen each other for a while so why not have a go at it before you depart?" he made a dirty gesture with his hands. Rafaela hid her face but her reddened ears wiggled up and down.
"Rafaela, you had sex with this boy while out on official duties…?" Lyra looked at Rafaela in shock, her voice sounding as if she couldn't believe Rafaela of all people would be so lewd.
He could feel Rafaela's hand tightening around his own. He glanced at her, noticing her fidgeting with her dress while her ears wiggled. She took sneaking glances up at him.
"Alright…"
"W-Wait! What are you thinking!? Won't it look unnatural! Think of the times when you go into a bathhouse! People will think you're a perverted boy using your cuteness to look at naked women!" Lyra tried to dissuade Arnold.
"Hm? If that's the issue then I can just make sure both genitals are connected to that body." Mr. Merchant said casually, "Just show it to them if they try to throw you out. They'll conclude that you underwent some kind of rare mutation during birth. Those are exceedingly rare but they tend to happen. Oh, and don't worry about the procedure, while lengthy it will be painless."
"No… No… That monstrous thing is going to be attached to my child… My dear child will have a monster under her skirt… It will swing from side to side even when she's wearing a cute dress…" Lyra seemed to have lost it, "Every time I cuddle with my other children, I'll think that thing is crawling between their legs…"
"I want to know something first before the procedure, Lyra." Arnold interrupted her murmuring.
Lyra sighed softly.
"I will never get used to hearing my child call me by name and not Mother. What is it you want to know?"
"Are your homunculi children capable of using Aether?"