Betrayed by His Party, a Failed Healing Mage Revived Past Demon Lords Out of Spite and They Were All Overpowered Beautiful Girls - 15

Chapter 15: The Healing Mage Becomes an Apprentice

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“Please!! Somehow!! I beg you!!”

“…I refuse.”

I prostrated myself before Nayaka and begged. However, Nayaka didn’t even glance at me and continued silently swinging the hammer. I knew how to handle situations like this.

“Please!! I’m begging you!!”

Until the other person gives in, until they accept your request, you just keep pleading.

In fact, this was exactly how I had once become an apprentice to my healing magic teacher. So I knew that if I kept at it, eventually she would nod in agreement.

“…I do owe you for bringing me back to life.”

“Does that mean?!?!”

“But you lack what’s necessary to forge a magic sword.”

“I have more determination, guts, and willpower than anyone!!”

“No, I mean not those kinds of mental traits…”

Nayaka glanced at me, then spoke hesitantly.

“To forge a magic sword, one needs enormous magical power. You’re overwhelmingly lacking in mana.”

“…Does that mean there’s nothing I can do about it?”

“No, it’s impossible. This is a matter of innate ability.”

I slumped in defeat. I had finally grasped a foothold to gain the power to counter the hero party, and now it seemed hopeless.

“If that’s the case, I guess I’ll give up…”

“…Why do you want a magic sword?”

“Huh? Oh, well, the story is kind of like this—”

I explained to Nayaka everything that had happened up to this point while she silently hammered the magic sword. She looked at me with a warm, almost sympathetic gaze.

“Revenge, huh. I won’t say it’s pointless.”

“Uh, thank you…”

“…It can’t be helped. As I said, I owe you one. I’ll teach you how to forge a magic sword.”

“Eh? But you just said I don’t have enough mana.”

“Do you know about runes?”

Runes?

“They’re magical symbols I devised. By engraving them, you can imbue objects with special powers.”

“So if I use these runes, I can forge a magic sword too…”

“You can. You can also weaken the sword’s traits to reduce the cost, or increase the cost to strengthen the traits.”

Wow. Magic swords are incredible.

I admired them in my mind as Nayaka finally looked at me, having finished a round of forging.

“I’ll teach you the runes. From there, you’ll need to experiment and practice on your own. In that storage, there’s a huge pile of magic swords I failed at making. Use them to practice.”

“Ah, thank you!!”

“…You don’t need to thank me.”

“Huh? No, I think this is amazing, though.”

Such a humble person. 

After that, I learned the runes from Nayaka and spent my days endlessly engraving them onto her failed swords.

Runes The runes were twenty-four magical symbols devised by Nayaka, capable of granting weapons and armor special abilities. I used the tools Nayaka had given me, engraving runes into every failed weapon she had created. But…

“Oh no, I misjudged the mana—”

CRASH!!

Like shattering glass, a chunk of metal exploded. The fragments struck my eye.

“My eye!! My eye!!”

“…You put too much mana into it. The required mana changes depending on the material and shape of the sword. If you don’t adjust it carefully, it will explode.”

It had been nearly ten days since I started learning runes from Nayaka. Just ten days, yet also so many. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t successfully engrave runes onto a sword, and my own clumsiness frustrated me.

Next time… Next time for sure—

CRASH!!

“My eye!! My eye!!”

“…Without the regenerative ability of a high-level vampire, you would have been blind by now.”

“Ugh, I can’t get this right at all!!”

I had already tried hundreds of times, and almost every attempt exploded, sending fragments into my eyes. It was excruciating.

“How does Nayaka manage to carve so many runes onto a single sword?”

When she taught me, she demonstrated. Even the powerful magic swords she forged, already imbued with massive mana, became something even greater with the runes. It looked like a normal longsword, but it had over fifty runes engraved. I couldn’t even carve a single rune without failing… And the terrifying part? That longsword was considered a “failed sword” by her.

“This is just my theory, but in making a magic sword or engraving runes, what matters most is the intention you put into the weapon.”

“…Do you put intention into it, Nayaka?”

“Of course. I became a blacksmith to forge the strongest magic sword, one that could even slay a goddess.”

Slay a goddess? I wondered if she bore some grudge. Or maybe it was an instinctive desire, like how Elizabeth wanted to slaughter all humans.

“When you carve runes, what do you think about?”

“Um, I think about doing it better—”

“The will to improve is important. But that’s not the intention you put into the weapon.”

“…I see.”

The intention I should put into the weapon as I carved the runes:

“To take revenge on the hero party.”

“No.”

“Huh? But… That’s exactly it.”

“Saying you want revenge sounds too polite. Follow your instincts. Think about what you really want to do to them.”

Follow my instincts… What did I want to do to the hero party? To Albert and the others? The answer was obvious. 

“…Kill them.”

I focused this single thought, this intent to kill, and tried engraving the runes again. And then, somehow…

Though I had failed countless times before, I managed to carve two, three, four runes in succession. Finally, I engraved seven runes and instinctively knew the weapon had reached its limit, so I stopped.

“I did it… I did it!? Why!?”

“You did it yourself. Why are you surprised?”

“B-but I couldn’t do it for so long, and now I did!?”

As I marveled at my own work, Nayaka took the shortsword I had engraved and blinked.

“…Impressive. This shortsword is imbued with the concept of ‘death.’”

“Uh… is that good?”

“It can kill with even a graze of the blade.”

“Whoa. I’m amazing.”

“Truly. But its durability is extremely low. It will probably break after one use, and the user won’t escape unscathed. Be careful not to accidentally harm yourself. It would be disastrous.”

…If I hurt myself, I’d die. And the cost falls on the user. That’s terrifying. I can’t even carry this around!!

“Uh, could you hold onto this shortsword for me?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you!!”

Nayaka took the shortsword from me and placed it in a glass display case.

“Uh, you don’t need to display it like that…”

“It’s your first work as an apprentice. Displaying it is only natural.”

Apprentice. Hearing that made me feel a strange mix of embarrassment and happiness. I couldn’t say not to display it.

…I need to make a stronger, easier-to-handle magic sword next.

I grabbed more failed swords from the storage and began engraving runes again.

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