#88 Trial of the Holy Sword (1)
“This way, please.”
Heinrich continued deeper into the Picaol Grand Temple, following the guiding Archbishop.
Since the design centered around the sealed ground where the Holy Sword was embedded, that place inevitably became the deepest and most secluded location.‘It seems I’ve come quite far underground. Just how massive a crater was carved during the battle...?’Well, it had been a life-or-death struggle between the strongest beings of that era, so it was perfectly understandable.
“You likely already know this, but the trial is different for every challenger, so there is little advice I can offer.”
When they passed through several checkpoints and arrived before a stone door engraved with glowing prayers, the Archbishop who had been guiding him spoke in a low voice.
Heinrich quietly nodded, as this was something he already knew.
He had already familiarized himself with all related records during his training period.
“As such, the time taken to face the trial also varies from person to person. Some have emerged after just a few hours, while others have taken about a week.”
Of course, all of them failed.
He added with a shrug, then turned to Heinrich and pointed at the door.
“The moment you pass through this door and step inside, the trial begins. Compose yourself, and tell me when you are ready to challenge it.”
Having come this far, was there any need to hesitate further?
Heinrich took a deep breath and spoke to him boldly.
“I will enter right now.”
“...Very well. Then, I shall open the door.”
The Archbishop nodded silently, then approached the stone door, placed his hand upon it, and quietly recited a prayer.
“...What is hidden in that box is my flesh and blood. You shall...”
At his words, the prayers engraved on the door reacted and began to glow softly.
The Archbishop’s divine power was continuously drawn into the sealed door.
How much time passed that way? Before he knew it, thick beads of sweat were streaming down the Archbishop’s face.‘To think that opening the door just once requires enough divine power to lay an Archbishop-level priest up for days...’Since it considered not only quantity but also grade, mobilizing a large number of priests was impossible as well.
Heinrich was familiar with him since he resided at the Grand Temple and encountered him occasionally, but in truth, an Archbishop was incredibly high-level personnel.
They were ones who took charge of temples located in major cities and received treatment equivalent to a Count among nobles.‘I had grown so accustomed to it that I hadn’t realized, but the Saintess was a major figure whom even the Empire’s Emperor could not treat carelessly.’Because he had spent time with her at the Grand Temple, the Order’s headquarters, his sense of reality had dulled somewhat.
Fwoosh.
In that moment when he had briefly fallen into idle thoughts, the stone door erupted with intense light and began to shake slowly.
Rrrumble.
The stone door opening heavily.
However, its interior was filled with light, making it impossible to see inside.
“...Then, I wish you good fortune.”
Leaving behind the Archbishop’s exhausted voice, soaked with sweat, Heinrich stepped forward without hesitation.
And when he had completely entered into the light.
Clack.
—Boom!
The stone door closed roughly.
The light around Heinrich disappeared at once, revealing an ordinary corridor.
“...Oh?”
He could feel it instinctively.
That this space was a separate dimension entirely cut off from the outside.
He looked back, but only a corridor stretching out, identical to the one before him, was visible; the stone door through which he had entered was nowhere to be seen.‘Could it be asking me to choose between going forward or back?’Heinrich shrugged and raised his divine power and 「Blessing: Reinforced Body」 to their limits, focusing on his eyes.
Additionally, when he used the 「Auterica Sacred Law」 to amplify his vision...
“...Still, I can’t see the end.”
It was the same when he looked behind him; in the end, it seemed he had no choice but to proceed blindly.
He let out a sigh and looked ahead once more.
He intended to break through straight ahead for now.‘I might as well use a slight convenience.’He concentrated his divine power to expand his field of vision to the limit and focused his mind.
And immediately.
Fwoosh—He used 「Blessing: Leap」 to jump across space.
But even at his arrival point, all he could see was an endlessly long corridor stretching out; nothing had particularly changed.
“Hup!”
Kwaaang!
He also tried striking the wall beside him with his full power, pouring divine power into it to the limit, but not a single crack appeared.
Then.
A situation where he didn’t know how long the time limit was, or where the destination was.‘Is this a trial of endurance?’He had realized from the start that the flow of time here was different from the outside.
It would have been difficult for others to grasp immediately, but wasn’t he someone who had several avatars outside?‘Roughly ten to one? The time difference with Earth is a hundred to one.’He could accept this without issue because his 「Mind Hub」 and mental strength had grown, but if it had been early in his time in this other world, he would have suffered greatly from motion sickness at this level.‘Not knowing when or how far I have to reach is burdensome. It means I have no choice but to overdo it.’
The Holy Sword’s trial was usually divided into several stages.
This time, it seemed to be testing the challenger’s persistence, mental strength, physical strength, and so on.
As time continued to flow, there was no reason to delay any longer.
Heinrich lightly loosened up his body there and immediately started running forward.
And with his overwhelming physique, honed through training, and the help of various skills including 「Super Regeneration」, he traversed the corridor at an incredible speed.‘Since I don’t know what level the trial wants, I’ll just go as far as I can for now.’In this trial space, nutrition and sleep were unnecessary, so there was nothing particularly problematic.
He allocated his mental resources solely to running, only using 「Blessing: Leap」 periodically.‘I think this will take some time. It can’t be helped.’Heinrich ran alone through the silent corridor in silence.
He simply repeated running, running, running mechanically, and using 「Blessing: Leap」.
So three days passed, and the fatigue accumulating in his body gradually began to exceed what 「Super Regeneration」 could recover.
The ambient energy supplied the necessary energy, but his recovery speed couldn’t keep up with the continuously accumulating strain.The first week.
Slowing down at intervals to recover his body had also reached its limit.
He could feel his whole body beginning to creak, but this level was normal during training, so he didn’t mind.The second week.
As expected of a trial, simply moving wasn’t the end.
Whispers that stimulated his mind assailed him while he ran.
A presence that stimulated abandonment, resignation, loneliness, and so on continuously invaded his mind, but to him, who had already fallen into a state of no-mind, it was nothing more than meaningless interference.The third week.
He still didn’t know how much time remained or how much further he had to go, so he couldn’t slow his pace.
He only took brief periodic rests, ignored the pain he felt in his body, and repeatedly started running again.「Mind Hub」 made this neither a trial nor anything significant to him.
It was merely simple repetitive labor.
Under these conditions... he could continue moving forward for days, for months, forever.
Time continued to flow, and flow again.
So when four days had passed in outside time, and about forty days in internal time...
Heinrich was still running.
***
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Krhuh... I see. Tomorrow is the day this continent and I shall be destroyed together. Pahat!”
In an underground hideout in the southern part of the continent, a large man and a frail old man were conversing.
“Once the ritual begins, we won’t be able to avoid the Order’s eyes any longer. There is only one chance. We must finish everything before they reach this place.”
“Ahh—I know, I said I know. Don’t worry. I absolutely won’t fail. How long have I waited for this day?”
The eyes of the old man, who laughed feebly and foolishly, were already filled with madness.
The man quietly watched such an old man, then slightly turned his head and wore a twisted sneer.
To think that a great mage, once called the continent’s greatest prodigy, who had risen through the ranks in the Magic Tower Alliance and was certain to become the next Lord... would fall this far.‘Well, it’s a good thing for us. Though it doesn’t really matter either way.’He had no interest whatsoever in what unjust grievances the old man had, or how frustrated he must be to try to destroy the world.
They simply helped each other because their intentions aligned.
After all, not a single human among those with them was in their right mind.‘Pft... if they possessed normal thinking, they wouldn’t be engaging in such affairs.’He surveyed the interior, covered in all sorts of bizarre sorcery, once and turned his body outside.
The remaining time now was merely one day.
***
A change was detected on Heinrich’s side, who had been running with his consciousness detached.
‘...What’s that?’
Within his slowly returning consciousness, he saw an “end” blocking the way in the distance of the endlessly stretching corridor.
And as he continued running, he was finally able to face an ordinary wooden door at the end of the corridor.
“Is this the destination? How long did it take?”
Since a little over four days had passed... in this place’s time, it meant he had done nothing but run for well over a month.‘My condition isn’t very good. Well, I did benefit from this space’s characteristics, but I did overdo it a bit.’In fact, that expression was also quite euphemistic.
If the pain hadn’t been filtered out by 「Mind Hub」, he would never have been able to offer such calm impressions.
Since his monstrous body, strengthened by skills and divine power, was damaged to tatters, one could tell how much he had overexerted himself.‘At this rate, it seems I’d need to rest for several days even with 「Super Regeneration」 to fully recover.’
It was a condition too strenuous to continue the trial, but he had something to rely on since he had accessed various pieces of information beforehand.
The moment Heinrich boldly placed his hand on the next gate’s door.
Fwoosh.
Energy from the surroundings was sucked into his body.
By the power of the energy injected from outside, his body, which had been overworked continuously for a month, began to recover rapidly.
“Mmh...”
His muscles squirmed incessantly, and scorching heat emanated from his entire body.
「Super Regeneration」, which had been unable to exert its full power due to the body’s overload, greedily absorbed the ambient energy and reacted violently.
Added to that was 「Blessing: Reinforced Body」, which reconstructed his body to be stronger, tougher, and firmer than before.
“Haa...”
And when all that process ended, his body had advanced one dimension beyond what it was before challenging the trial.
The will resounded in his mind again, but Heinrich was busy observing himself and checking his body’s condition.
‘...This is pretty good, actually?’
Come to think of it, this place was optimized for training!
A miraculous space where he could focus solely on strengthening himself without eating or sleeping.
He crossed his arms there and fell into deep contemplation.‘Anyway, the flow of time is different here; is there really a need to move on to the next trial right away?’Having cleared the trial, the time limit had also disappeared, and training here for just one day had the effect of training for over ten days outside.
The Holy Sword wasn’t going to run away somewhere; wouldn’t a little time be fine?
‘Just a little, let’s just stay a tiny bit longer. Yes, just one more day.’
The training addict Heinrich turned around, turned his back on the door, and squatted down.
And he began rapidly traversing the corridor doing bunny hops.
About an hour had passed since he moved like that, perhaps?
“Hoo... hoo... huh?”
While immersed in training, he realized that at the end of the direction he was going was the door he had encountered moments before.
Heinrich crossed the corridor and reached the door again, frowning as he examined it.
It was undoubtedly the door he had faced from the opposite direction.
‘Why is this here? ...Well, I think I know.’
Since this was a place created for the trial in the first place, it wasn’t incomprehensible that the space was tangled up arbitrarily.
He lightly frowned and turned around...
“...!”
He flinched and stepped back at the brown door that had suddenly appeared before his nose.
He hurriedly looked behind him, but the long corridor had vanished, and both front and back were blocked by the same door.
‘Does this mean stop wasting time and hurry to the next trial?’
Seeing it come to this, it seemed he likely had no more leeway to train.
‘I could do bodyweight exercises in place, but...’
He didn’t want to deliberately go that far and earn more disfavor from the will governing the trial.
Above all, there were no heavy exercise machines perfectly suited for him here.
Heinrich clicked his tongue in regret and opened the door before him, stepping inside.
Just like when he had first entered the trial, when the brilliant light enveloping his whole body disappeared...
He stood alone in the middle of a vast chapel.