Chapter 51: Regicide

The Skeleton King only seemed to gaze at Tobias for a few moments, before resuming to move.

It raised its ornate greatsword to its side, and with two hands, it swept the blade sidewards towards Tobias, intending to cleave his head right off for raising a blade against the King.

Tobias used his inferior height to his advantage. He quickly ducked and dashed forwards, and with his longsword primed to his side like a loaded spring spear trap, he sent a sidewards cleave of his own, aimed towards the Skeleton King’s spine.

But the Skeleton King only raised its molten metal-covered left forearm, and his longsword only cut through the forearm bone halfway, before it got stuck in place.

...!

And while he was stuck trying to pry his longsword away, the Skeleton King raised its right hand which held its decorated greatsword, and sent a faster than normal slash, aiming to decapitate Tobias again.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance, before he let go of his longsword and ducked beneath the strike. And with that, Jacques had snuck behind the Skeleton King, and aimed to cleave its spine in half with his saber.

But his saber just chipped off some black flakes, before bouncing right off. Even with absolute precision, his saber just wasn’t sharp enough, and he wasn’t strong enough to break through the charcoal-like spine which had the width of a person’s torso.

So this is why Magnus told him that swords were side-arms after all...

When the Skeleton King turned again to face Jacques, it was stopped in place. Because Tobias had held the handle of his longsword, and tried to pry it off again.

But again, he failed. A quick glance towards the charred bone told Tobias that the molten metal... had already cooled enough to the point where it glued his longsword in place.

... How annoying!

He was forced to leap backwards, right as the greatsword cleaved the space where he was just a few moments ago.

How was he supposed to fight without a weapon...?

Wait...

“Jacques! Keep it busy!” Tobias called out, as he turned around to sprint away from the Skeleton King.

“I’ve been doing that for the past ten minutes already!” Jacques called back, but he didn’t pay anymore attention to it.

Tobias sprinted past Clara, and Bastille who was just finished spewing out a wave of fire to deal with the newly spawned wave of armed skeletons.

“Tobias?!” Clara squeaked out, although he had ignored her right now, as he gave a silent apology in his head.

With his dagger raised, he quickly jabbed it into the wrist of a battle axe wielding skeleton, and he stole its weapon to use as his own.

“Bastille! Don’t kill this skeleton!” He yelled, as the Sorcerer only looked at him with a dumbfounded, confused expression. But then those spectacle-covered crimson eyes flicked towards his newly acquired battle axe, and they suddenly grew wide with realization, before he nodded quickly.

Of course he would figure it out. That Sorcerer’s probably the smartest person Tobias knows, after all.

As long as this skeleton didn’t die... Its weapon could be stolen. He noted that it wasn’t going to use its suicidal move to turn its core into an alarm, because such function was useless in this dungeon filled with its allies.

And right now, he was going to rely on that fact. He hefted the battle axe over his shoulder, and noted that it was much unlike any weapon he had ever used before.

But its heavy head-focused weight, and its broad, strong double crescent axe head...

It was a weapon, that when combined with his strength, could cleave through armor and chop through charred bones, if nothing else.

And while he had never used a battle axe in melee combat before... He remembered that a long time ago in his village, he used an axe to chop logs in half to be used as firewood.

... This is just an upgrade from that memory, then.

So when he was facing the back of the Skeleton King, whose attention was kept on Jacques, Tobias quickly took his opportunity to raise his battle axe and swung it with as much force as he could.

For the briefest of moments, he felt like he was chopping down a tree. The battle axe was much more devastating than anything he had ever wielded in his entire life. The broad, thick axe head cleaved through the spine with as much satisfaction as snapping a twig of petrified wood.

An incredibly thick, charred, twig of petrified wood, really.

And with the Skeleton King’s body cleaved into two parts, it began to fall to the ground. But before it did, Tobias only raised his battle axe once more, and sent a fully-powered downward strike – which shattered the right forearm which held its adorned greatsword.

The rattling of bones, and the heavy clanging of steel shortly followed after. But even if the Skeleton King’s body was literally cleaved in half and its right hand gone, its red, ominously glowing eyes still looked at them with the same, indifferent gaze it held.

“Well, what is it?” It said, its skeletal jaws with lower protruding fangs clattering about as it spoke in a deep, gravelly, inhuman voice. “Are you going to make a King wait?”

...

How obnoxious, and how needlessly sassy. Those words really didn’t fit a dying man – no, he was already dead to begin with.

“Of course not.” Tobias replied, as he shook his head at the question imposed to him.

What was the term for slaying a King, again...?

No matter.

Tobias wordlessly dropped the battle axe, before picking up the fallen greatsword which the King himself had wielded. It really was too ornate – with its silver pommel, silk-like black wrapping on its hilt, and the silvery great blade which reflected the bright moonlight up above.

It was beautiful, and it was a weapon fit for a King.

So it was a bitter shame to use it for his crude, savage purposes... But there was nothing he could do about it. This weapon – no, this work of art would disappear along with its original owner, anyways.

It would only be a service towards the Fallen King to slay him with his own weapon, would it not be?

So he raised the decorated greatsword above its original owner’s skull, before plunging it down.

Skeletons really were skeletons. Even with its skull bearing a massive split, those two eyes still glowed brightly red, and he could still faintly hear its words earlier; ‘Well, what is it?’ echoing through his head.

But that’s why he only had to break it up into little pieces, did he not?

So once again, he raised the greatsword, and cleaved the skull into two parts. And again, into four parts. And again, and again, into eight parts. The glowing eyes were gone – but he could still feel its lingering presence.

And after a while... when such skull was divided into smaller parts, he raised his hardened leather boot, and ground such bones into fine dust with a satisfying crunching noise.

If only this King was a human, or at least, was alive... Then Tobias would have been able to give it a much more dignified death.

But that was decent enough.

“Bastille.” Tobias called out. “You think you can do me a favor?”

“Well...” Bastille coughed, and looked at the pile of bone dust, before looking towards Tobias. “You’re really thorough. I guess you want me to burn this?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. Then he looked around himself, before he shivered lightly. It felt like something was still staring at him... “You can feel that it’s still around, right?”

“Skeletons could only be normally killed with Light or Holy Magic, but I guess if you grind them like this... Even fire should be able to do it, in theory.” Bastille sighed, then idly turned towards Tobias. “Since when the hell did you know how to deal with skeletons?”

“I did my research.” Tobias said.

He really did do his research, and he had to; because he after his duel with Jacques, he realized that some things just couldn’t be forced with pure strength.

The Sorcerer accepted his words with a hum, and he had finally remembered were Tobias had gone the other day (The Archives). A bright flame emerged from his hand. With a flick, he threw the flame into the pile of bone dust, as it burned away the dust almost immediately, emitting a black, almost ominous smoke.

The rest of the Skeleton King’s charred body slowly began to disappear into motes of light, before Tobias’ longsword dropped the ground with a particularly loud clang. And the discarded, stolen battle axe began to disintegrate into dust, before being blown away by some mysterious wind.

And looking at the throne room – which had been the battle field of legions upon legions of skeletons... all of those same defeated enemies turned into dust as well.

Then... there was silence.

But that was before the familiar sound of metal clinking against the ground could be heard, and tracing such a sound led to the unoccupied throne of gold and steel, where a golden key rested there.

Jacques was the one who walked to it, and his eye faintly burned white to inspect it.

“Great job, everyone.” He said, and twirled around the key with his finger. But his words only made everyone else give a relieved sigh, and with that, he nodded again. “Anyone got any injuries?”

The question was phrased to everyone, but Jacques looked towards Tobias specifically. And not to mention, his other party members also turned to his way; Bastille with a curious expression, while Clara was straight up worried about him.

Tobias idly wondered why the case was such, before he remembered... That as long as an injury wasn’t obviously dangerous or life threatening in any way or form, then he had the tendency to overlook it.

And while he was wondering about it, Clara seemed to take this as an opportunity to step closer towards him, and idly looked around his body from different angles.

Yeah... She really wasn’t the kind of person that talked too much without being talked to, and preferred to show her emotions with her actions, or something like that. (But he thought that her mannerisms reminded him of someone else... but he couldn’t figure out who it was.)

“Are you alright, Toby?” She gently whispered to him while patting his back, and he let out a nod. “He’s alright.”

“I could have said that myself...” He sighed, then shook his head. That was fine, nothing really changed even if he was the one who said so. “But yeah, no injuries this time. A few close calls, but I’m still intact.”

The words seemed to have made Clara purse her lips together, and she began to worry about him again. But Jacques took his words with a nod, and he flicked his neck towards the direction of the doors.

“Let’s go, then.” Jacques said, and began to walk towards his destination, while Tobias followed behind him.

Yes... He knew this part really well, especially when it came to gigantic doors which were the size of a city’s gates.

So when Jacques slid the golden key and unlocked the doors, they positioned themselves along the right door. And with a collective nod, they tensed their muscles, gathered their strength, and pushed the door open.

And like that, Jacques walked towards the hallways which were emptied of monsters, and had the aesthetic of an ancient palace of sorts.

Tobias let Bastille slip past him, and only stood in place to let Clara pass by. But she didn’t, and she only stayed by his side, while looking at him with an expression that silently told him that she would follow him.

... Was she alright with him now, then?

So he nodded to her, and only followed his party, just a few steps away from their Sorcerer.

And just like that, Clara took to his side, and while she didn’t quite cling to him this time, she was still close enough so their arms brushed against another every now and then.

“Great job out there.” She whispered, and he noted that the silence of the air meant that such a whisper might be heard, but not quite understood by their other party members.

But that didn’t really matter too much right now. She was happy, but more importantly, she was safe.

“Mhm.” He nodded, and gave her a soft, gentle smile, which only made her eyes radiate joy. “You also did great.”

And with those words, she let out a pleased noise/hum of joy, and began to walk with a visible hop in her steps.

Clara really was Clara, after all. She was strangely adorable in her own, unpredictable way like that.

And just like that, before he understood what he was doing, his right arm just raised itself, and planted itself on her head.

She slowly looked up to him – with an embarrassed expression, while her face quickly began to turn red.

Such expression... He idly wondered just what about it made it so adorable, even to him. Was it the way she was embarrassed? But unlike before, she didn’t recoil away from him, and after a while, she looked up at him and gave him a crooked, incredibly nervous smile.

... Girls really were complicated, sometimes.

Even dealing with Catherine was sometimes a minor challenge of its own, and that was considering the fact that they were half twins...

So he removed his hand from her head, and decided to look elsewhere.

The Tier 4 Dungeon they were warped into really did look like an old castle.

But it was his first time looking outside of the windows in between the stone pillars. There was a night sky, yet there was no moon. And there was grass which spanned the castle ground and surrounding courtyard, and yet, one could see that after a few hundred meters or so, the grass just... stopped. As if someone had cut a piece of the world with the castle, before lifting it and placing it above a void of sorts.

...

It was weird.

What was weirder was the fact that both Castle-like Dungeons shared a similar Dungeon Boss: A gigantic, heavily armored entity which resembled royalty to some degree.

Those bosses... were honestly the hardest. Because once again, if Bastille wasn’t an exceptionally frightening fire sorcerer whose flames were hot enough to melt metal armor, then they wouldn’t probably stand a chance at being those bosses.

...

But then again, if said Sorcerer knew how to cast Magic aside from Fire to begin with, then wouldn’t that just make everything easier to begin with?

The ability to use Light-based or Holy Magic to counter their undead foes would surely make everything a whole lot easier for everyone involved in these kinds of Dungeons.

And against armored, living foes... Isn’t Lightning-based Magic going to seriously harm them? Because if he remembered correctly, lightning (and heat, really) travels through metal excellently... or something like that. And since lightning produced heat...

Well, sufficient exposure was surely bound to melt the armor, or simply just fry the person inside the armor, would it not?

But that’s alright. They still pulled through time and time again, anyways. So Tobias shrugged, and tossed away that thought.

And by the time he stopped thinking to himself, there they were – back to the Dungeon entrance proper, as evidenced by the white door with the golden plaque, and the gold-rimmed chest...

Tobias blinked. That was new.

“There’s definitely a Relic in there.” Bastille commented, as he eyed the golden chest with some interest.

“Definitely an Artifact.” Jacques replied, and brought out the golden key from one of his pockets.

With a swiftness born out of opening numerous Dungeon Reward Chests, it only took a moment for him to slip the golden key, and turn it to open the chest with a satisfying click.

And with that... everyone peered into the chest.

There it was. Above the pile of coins which consisted roughly half of silver, and half of copper, a sword rested there.

It had a black, scale-like leather-wrapped handle long enough to used with both hands comfortably, and the pommel was made of white metal, and had a blue gem affixed to it. The guard was also made out of the same white metal, and was shaped into a cross. It was decent hand protection, but nothing too special.

But the strangest part about the sword was the fact that despite it possessing a handle and a guard which belonged more to a two-handed longsword like what Tobias owned, its white, bone-gray blade was only the length of a one handed short sword at most.

A two handed longsword handle, for a short sword blade... Tobias didn’t know if that was a good idea, and it looked strange, to say the least.

And like that, Jacques had picked up the sword. With his lone right eye, he examined the sword, and his eyes burned white. At first, his face contorted to one of confusion, before his eyes widened in surprise.

That was definitely him doing his fancy Analysis, or whatever it was called. Tobias wondered if his System would allow him to also use Analysis, or something like that...

But no.

Analysis, Observe, Discern, Identify; no matter how much he thought about it, he just could never get it to work. Even saying it out loud didn’t do anything.

“So then... What is it?” Tobias asked, just as their Leader’s eye reverted back to its sky-blue color.

“It has a name.” Jacques said, and firmly held the strange sword with both hands.

Then he turned away from them, and raised the sword above his head. After a moment of holding it in place, a faint light shimmered from the short sword, before it was engulfed in white light, which seemed to solidify into existence.

The hardened light took the form of a greatsword, and Tobias immediately understood its purpose then.

And after that, Jacques swung it. The swing caused the greatsword of light to shattered into an arc of fragmented light, as it sailed forwards. It slashed against the distant stone pillar, leaving a deep gouge on the chiseled, carved stone, and tiny, wisp-like motes of white light shimmered about the gouge.

“It is called Moonlit Radiance.” And with those words, another greatsword of white light formed itself on the blade. “It is an Epic Artifact.”