Outrage of the Ancients

Apparently, even legendary heroes got car sick.

Dietrich and I had been in the back, discussing what information I should give him once [Knowledge Transfer] came off cooldown. He’d wanted to know about modern weaponry while I’d argued that I didn’t actually know all that much about guns and tanks and missiles, and what I did know, I’d gained from probably unrealistic movies and TV shows, as well as the occasional YouTube video.

I could easily just as easily find a few videos and show him those to convey just as much information as my Skill would have while saving my Skill for something more useful.

He’d agreed that would work better, so I’d searched up a few videos, queued them up, and handed over my phone. And then, this had happened.

Dietrich wiped at his mouth, unleashed a string of unfamiliar swearwords, and straightened back up before he began to walk towards the car he’d leaped out of while it’d still been moving.

“That was unpleasant,” he muttered. “Is that normal?”

“It’s an inner ear thing,” I shrugged. “Happens to some people, doesn’t happen to others.”

“I think we’ll stick to talking for now, I’ll watch those videos later,” he sighed. “That seems to have been the cause of the issue.”

“Yep,” I nodded. “You should probably also sit in the front now, that makes it easier. And look out of the window.”

Dietrich sighed again and shook his head. “I miss riding.”

“Why don’t you?” I asked. “That horse of yours is supernaturally fast, isn’t it?”

“Can’t make a horse run at full speed the whole time,” Dietrich explained as he fought the seatbelt for a couple of seconds before it finally clicked into position when Mia reached over to help.

“I wouldn’t know,” Mia said. “But from what I’ve heard, horses tend to be a little … fragile. One thing goes wrong, and you have to put them down. Broken leg, slightly messed-up stomach, that’s it. I prefer cars.”

She thumped the steering wheel for emphasis.

“Don’t mechanical devices tend to break the moment one of their components goes?” Dietrich asked.

“Yeah, but you can fix a car. Can’t fix a horse,” Mia replied, pressing down the gas pedal even further. “And they’re fast.”

“And everyone can have one?” Dietrich asked.

“If they can afford it,” I said. “I think modern transportation might be a good choice for our next [Knowledge Transfer].”

“Maybe modern etiquette, then transportation,” Dietrich suggested. “I don’t have the privilege of a king to have others ignore my missteps.”

That was a good point, actually.

We kept driving, with Dietrich pointing at whatever caught his attention and asking “What’s that.” It was a little like babysitting a toddler, except this toddler had silver hair, a sword, a deep voice, and most importantly, a brain. He could understand the meaning behind something.

The golden arches of a McDonald’s that sat next to the Autobahn were strange and alien at first, but when we explained what they were, he filed them away as an “unnaturally obnoxious advertisement.”

“Mia, you never told us what you got from your Class,” I asked during a period of silence.

“Something called [Matchless Endurance] and [Knowledge Sponge],” she said. “It gives me more stamina and lets me learn better. I think.”

“If the System gives you something like that, I think you’re going to need it,” I commented dryly, but Dietrich shook his head.

“Physical training is important, but you seem to be in good shape. I’m not going to make you run in circles with a weighted backpack or the like.”

Mia seemed on the verge of sighing in relief when he continued.

“I think you’re already prepared for proper drills. Sparring, training a single strike a thousand times before moving on to the next one …”

Somehow, I was more than fine with not directly learning under one of history’s greats. While the other two talked, I fished my phone out of my pocket and started reading the news. Somehow, it wasn’t all that apocalyptic. Plenty of talk about “mass hallucinations on a global scale”, and several rumors about monsters, but there wasn’t anything concrete there.

It was weird. The so-called “hallucinations” were a problem, obviously, but shouldn’t literal monsters have taken priority in the news cycle?

However, the road trip was going well.

Until suddenly, Dietrich jerked in his seat, face more serious than I’d ever seen anyone look, and snapped “Stop the car!”

It was the kind of statement that, depending on tone, could be everything from serious to pleading, seriously rude to almost polite. But when Dietrich said it, it came across as nothing less than an impossible-to-deny order.

Mia slammed on the brakes immediately while flicking on hazard lights and pulling over into the breakdown lane as quickly as she possibly could. It was an incredibly dangerous maneuver at 130 kilometers an hour, but she pulled it off.

Had Dietrich gotten carsick again? How bad was it?

But while the former king threw himself out of the car with the same alacrity as he had earlier, he wasn’t looking nauseous. No, he … an ear-splitting screech made me jump in shock, staring around wildly to try and spot the threat.

***

Call it instinct, call it the sixth sense, call it whatever, any warrior worth their salt had it. It was what kept them alive in combat, let them react to blows they weren’t even aware of, and it was what allowed them to glean things from obtuse patterns that scholars would take months to untangle without actually having to dig into everything.

The current situation was based on precisely none of that. Instead, one of his new “magics” had warned him. [Dangersense]. Something was coming from above.

So he ordered Mia Vogt to stop the car, there being no time to explain, and she did just that.

Dietrich hurled himself out of the “car” the moment it had stopped and whipped his sword from its sheath, whirling to face a horse-sized eagle that was coming at him, claws outstretched.

Steelfeather Eagle (evolved eagle), Level 7

Oh, hell.

He threw himself to the side while swinging his sword at the monster’s legs, feeling it jerk in his hand as it struck home but he didn’t see it happen as he was currently moving away from the beast.

And the world slowed to a crawl. He hadn’t even fully concentrated on making it happen, he’d merely been made aware of the fact that [A Brush With Death] could be used and would be helpful, so he’d made some vague decision to take advantage of the opportunity.

Suddenly, he had an incredible amount of time to consider his actions, a single second that stretched into infinity, while his mind unfolded, revealing all surroundings even though they weren’t even in his line of sight.

The bird was currently only two meters behind and slightly above him, with one of the claws it had tried to rip him apart with only hanging on by a thread. He couldn’t reach the beast with his sword right now, and his last javelin was in the car, but somehow, he felt he had another option, one of his [Skills] that was calling to him.

[A Blade Borrowed] let him, well, do exactly what the name indicated. Borrow a blade he’d once held, for a single strike, then, it would return to wherever it had been before. And Dietrich knew exactly what weapon to pull out.

Time moved like syrup, Dietrich’s body was frozen like an insect in amber, but his mind was working faster than it had ever been, his plans seeming to imprint him into his body as he made them, coiling up like a serpent preparing to strike.

When the first Skill ended, all his preparations snapped into place perfectly, just as he’d imagined.

Dietrich whirled around, an impossibly slim and elegant sword manifesting in his left hand as he did so, and he released the blade at just the correct point to send it whirling through the air straight at his foe. There was no guarantee that it would strike perfectly, but with a blade as sharp as Mimung, that didn’t matter.

He’d aimed the blade at the bird’s wing, hoping to clip it, but it not only carved straight through the appendage but also continued straight into its chest, until it came out of the monster’s other end, having practically bisected it. And since the weapon had disappeared after completing the attack, there wasn’t even a sword to retrieve.

“I’m guessing someone’s going to come clean that up eventually?” he asked, gesturing towards the corpse once he was back at the car with the Vogt twins.

Tristan shrugged. “Probably. But it’s not in the way, and I don’t think we can afford to wait for it.”

Dietrich nodded.

“Onwards.”

***

The last stretch towards the target was a pain in the freaking behind. We’d stopped in Aachen to rest a little, eat something, and plot our next steps.

It had been simple. So simple. And it had taken so fucking long.

All we’d had to do was repeat the few steps of having Dietrich point in a direction and state a distance, me whipping out my phone and finding a proper route, and Mia driving us there, until eventually, we had to hop out on foot and march through the woods without so much as a trail to guide us.

Just three people marching through the woods, following the magical “feelings” of a time-displaced old man.

No, that wasn’t fair. Dietrich was being as polite as could be about the whole thing, showing more courtesy than I ever would have expected from a king.

I was just being cranky because we’d been running ourselves ragged. Under normal circumstances, we’d already have been back home, me lying on the couch with a book while Mia had gone straight back out to do something else. I liked exercise and long walks through nature and all, but not to this extent.

“One more kilometer.”

At least with Dietrich’s narrating, I knew exactly how much further we had to go, and it didn’t seem like we’d have to climb any cliffs to reach our destination.

Mia and Dietrich continuously talked while I just plodded along, keeping a straight face. I sighed. Just a little bit further … and then, finally, we were standing in front of a sheer cliff face.

“Do we have to climb that?” I asked after a long moment where we just stared at it.

“No, we need to go inside,” Dietrich responded after taking a bit to think things over. “Step back, please. I haven’t used these Skills yet and it could be dangerous.”

Mia and I had retreated almost fifty meters back before he turned to the cliff and swung his sword in a massive arc that not only cleaved straight through the rock where he struck it, but also the stone beyond, shearing the entire structure in half before a wave of force slammed into the upper chunk, shattering it while pushing it off the lower chunk.

Holy …

Dietrich turned around to us.

“Do you want to go inside?”

“Let’s go,” Mia grinned at me before hurrying towards the site of the chaos while I followed at a more sedate pace until I was right in front of the whole mess.

It looked like a bomb had gone off, but one that was unnaturally precise, having pulverized a ton of material while leaving a long, dark, staircase that led into the ground intact, as well as the material around the structure, which hopefully meant it couldn’t collapse on top of our heads.

Mia had already had her phone out so I did the same, and we switched on the flashlights at the same time.

“Can I borrow that?” Dietrich asked, and Mia handed it over. He led the way, phone in one hand, sword in the other … but two steps in, the sword soundlessly fell apart, followed by a resounding clatter of a dozen chunks of metal bouncing off stone.

He sighed, and conjured the same weapon he’d thrown at the bird earlier. “I think that might have been too much for a mundane weapon.”

Then, we all entered. He was still in the lead, Mia followed with her prop sword drawn, and me in the rear with the second phone-light.

A voice rang out in my mind. The moment I was deep enough that my head was below the ground, that apparently counted as some kind of achievement.

“Can you guys wait for a second, there’s some System weirdness in my head right now,” I called out and the others waited.

[Legend’s Guide Lv. 1 -> Legend’s Guide Lv. 3]

[Skill Boost Available]

[Skill gained: Restoration of the Old]

Okay, that was a neat upgrade. Now I just needed to know what any of that meant …

I mean, [Restoration of the Old] was fairly self-explanatory, and it felt like all I had to do was will it to trigger and it’d clean and fix stuff. Simple.

And the Skill Boost was also something I could understand, mostly, but I had no bloody clue how to use it. Could I just … make it happen?

So I tried and slapped the boost on [Knowledge Transfer] because that seemed to be my most important Skill for now, [Innate Etiquette] was already at the point where I needed it to be, in my opinion.

Immediately, I heard the same voice that had told me about the Skills I’d gotten informing me about [Knowledge Transfer] being upgraded and a blue box similar to the Class Selection screen or the initial warning message popped up.

“[Skill boosted: Knowledge Transfer]”

The amount of transferable knowledge increases, can be used at a range of up to one meter.

Okay, that was useful, both due to the nature of the upgrade and the fact that I’d gotten a proper overview of it.

Greater bandwidth was always good, and not needing to figure out what patch of skin to touch made it easier, especially since I suspected Dietrich would soon be running around in full armor.

But where was that same description for my existing Skills?

[Knowledge Transfer]

Transfer your knowledge on a given topic to a target you are directly touching (skin-to-skin contact), can be used every 6 hours

The amount of transferable knowledge increases, can be used at a range of up to one meter.

[Innate Etiquette]

Automatically understand and execute proper etiquette, automatically know names and titles of conversation partners unless that information is deliberately hidden

And why had I previously only gotten vague impressions of what my [Skills] did? Was this change only due to the fact that I now knew proper descriptions could be gained?

I sighed and hung my head.

“Guys, you can get a written description of your Skills if you ask for it,” I announced. “Be right back.”

Then, I took a few steps outside, grabbed my phone, and filmed another short.

“Everyone, I just figured out how to get actual Skill descriptions, instead of vague impressions on how they work. If you already knew about that, ignore this video.”

I turned my phone around to show the screen that had followed me. That might change in the future, but right now, it seemed like there was no damaging information on that screen right now.

“Basically, all you have to do is ask for descriptions, but it only worked for me when I asked for descriptions like what popped up when I unlocked a Skill Boost at Level 2. Oh, yeah, you can apparently either get a new Skill or a Boost you can slap on one of your other Skills,” I finished, ended the whole thing, and sent it off.

Then, I marched back inside to join the others, who were still standing on the stairs.

“All of my companions who died were buried here, but I have no idea why Nagelring and Echesachs are also here,” Dietrich explained as the smooth stone of the staircase was slowly replaced by a rougher floor, akin to what you’d find in a cave.

“Here we are.”

He heaved open a door I’d entirely missed, set deep in a recess in the wall, and was greeted by a tidal wave of dust.

I just acted, waving my hand towards the incoming mess and triggering [Restoration of the Old]. It felt natural and, hey presto, it worked.

In an instant, the dust turned into a funnel that flashed towards my palm, and by the time I’d finished the motion, there sat a small, marble-sized sphere of compressed dirt. At the same time, the clearly aging door had become fully restored, gleaming like new.

“Not bad,” Dietrich observed.

“Apparently leading a ‘legend’ involves fixing old structures,” I replied, following him as he walked into the room, and pocketed the marble. I could tell it was easy to break if I wanted to, and I’d keep it for a rainy day. Because if someone got right up in my face, I could empty a millennium’s worth of dust if need be. And chances were I could find a new room to clean after that to restore my stocks of “ammo”.

There were ten immense stone coffins in the room, each intricately carved and looking like new.

“My comrades,” he said simply before walking towards a specific one. “Hildebrand. My teacher, master at arms, and one of the finest men this world has ever seen. I don’t think I’d have survived a single one of my adventures without him, let alone all of them. All he’d have to do is look at a seemingly invincible supernatural foe and he’d know how to get around its apparent immortality.”

Dietrich drew the hilt of his sword, which had remained intact even as the blade itself had shattered, and brought it down onto the stone sword that sat on the chest of the stone warrior carved into the coffin’s top. The stone shattered like drywall, revealing a second sword, this one made of metal and sitting in a gorgeous metal sheath.

Slowly, carefully, almost reverently, he withdrew the weapon before looking at me.

“Can you restore the coffin? We built it to hide the sword at his request, but if possible, I’d want his final resting place to be pristine once more.”

Mentally, I reached out for the Skill and shook my head.

“Give me an hour,” I said. “I can wait if we’re done before then.”

Dietrich nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

Then, he slowly drew the sword from its sheath, right hand on its hilt, left hand sitting atop the sheath.

“This is Balmung, the blade once wielded by Siegfried, forged from the remnants of a blade said to have been awarded by Odin himself. When he was betrayed and murdered by Hagen, it passed to the backstabber. Later, Krimhild, Siegfried’s widow, executed him with it before herself facing death for betraying the laws of hospitality, and causing countless deaths including that of her own infant son. It passed to Hildebrand after that, since it was he and I who brought an end to the slaughter at Etzel’s court.”

He pushed the blade back into its sheath with an incredibly swift and sudden motion, then held it out to Mia.

“And now, Mia Vogt, it passes to you. May you learn from its previous wielders, making their wisdom your own and remembering their mistakes so that you may avoid them.”

We both gaped at the literally legendary weapon he’d just … handed over. Not without a little pomp and circumstance, admittedly, but still, how did we deserve this? It was generous beyond belief, so why?

Finally, Mia managed to bring out an “I can’t accept this.”

“I want you to have it. And he would have wanted someone like you to have it,” Dietrich gently explained.

“Don’t you need it?” Mia asked, finding her footing again.

Dietrich jerked his head towards the wall.

“There are two more swords in the next room. I’ll use Eckesachs, since I’m more familiar with it, and Tristan, you’ll take Nagelring. I know you don’t love the sword like your sister does, but you should still carry one for protection.”

That last part would have sounded rude, but he’d been spot-on about my feelings and the fact that I’d have turned him down flat if he’d handed me the blade, terrified of disrespecting or losing it. So spot-on that I couldn’t feel mad at him.

He held out the sword to Mia again, where she could grab it if she reached out her hands, and she did so, moving slowly as she stared at the weapon.

Somehow, my brain decided that this whole situation looked kinda funny since it was only illuminated by mobile phone flashlights, Dietrich especially having the light catch his face from below like that ridiculous scare tactic you knew from summer camp scary stories. However, I managed to avoid laughing despite the laughter that was bubbling up from my gut.

Once Mia was finished attaching Balmung’s sheat to her belt, Dietrich led us to the room where he was sensing the other blades.

The door was once again set in the wall and had even been caught by my restoration, causing it to slide open easily to reveal, well, an armory. There was a column a couple of meters from the door, and it had a message scratched into it.

“For Dietrich,

“We know you’re going to return, one day.

“We know we won’t be there when you do.

“As the last of your companions, I chose to create this armory for you. It holds both Nagelring and Eckesachs, enough gold to buy anything you need and raise an army on top of that. I also included the rings we took off Laurin’s honor guard and some dwarven-made gear.

“Find people in your new age, lead them as you have us. The world is a better place when it has you in it, and anyone who walks through life with you will be the better for it.

“Don’t worry about us, find people who can be there for you where you are now.

“Your friend and comrade,

“Dietleib von Steier.”

I could feel my eyes growing moist as I read it and studiously ignored Dietrich’s stricken expression.

After a long time, I genuinely had no idea how long, Dietrich wiped across his face once, then turned to face us once more.

“Is gold still a viable currency in this age?” he asked.

“No, but we can easily trade it in for Euros or overpay so much that it’ll get accepted anyway,” I suggested.

“Good,” Dietrich nodded, already moving through the armory like a literal whirlwind, grabbing a huge chest that rattled with what I assumed to be gold coins and setting it next to the entrance before he was in front of me with another sword.

“This is Nagelring. Forged by the dwarf Alberich, and guarded by two fearsome giants. I slew Grim, the male, but when I cut his wife in half, she just popped back together. I decapitated her, and she once more returned to life. No matter what I did, she just healed herself until Hildebrand told me to cut her in half once more and step between the pieces. When I did that, the healing ceased.

“I have carried this sword through countless battles, and when I acquired Eckesachs, this blade passed along to Heime, who brought down his own giant with this sword.

“And now, it passes to you. May you learn from its previous wielders, making their wisdom your own and remembering their mistakes so that you may avoid them.”

“Thank you,” I replied, bowing as I reached out to receive the gift, then continuing once I was standing straight again, meet his eyes, then drew upon [Innate Ettiquete] for the proper verbiage as I went down on one knee.

“Dietrich of the Ammelungs, King of Bern, I bid you to accept my oath of fealty. Until the end of my life, or until you choose to dissolve this bond, I will be your comrade, your guide to this new world.”

[Legend’s Guide Lv. 3 -> Legend’s Guide Lv. 4]

[Skill Boost gained]

Maybe I’d gotten swept up in the situation, maybe I was just scared of facing this chaotic world on my own, but it had felt like the right thing to do.

Dietrich looked surprised, but responded with a similarly formal proclamation.

“I, Dietrich of the Ammelungs, King of Bern, accept your oath of fealty and swear to treat you with dignity, shield you from the danger of this world, and provide for you until this bond is severed by dissolution or death.”

I rose back to my feet and he nodded at me. Mia flashed me a look and I returned it, a wordless message flashing between us.

“Dietrich of the Ammelungs, King of Bern, I bid you to accept my oath of fealty. Until the end of my life, or until you choose to dissolve this bond, I will be your sword and the one who watches your back, standing with you in this new world against threats too great for any one warrior to defeat.”

Dietrich responded as he had with me, looking incredibly happy before he returned to digging through the armory. At some point, he returned with a pair of rings, which he handed over, though I also noticed that he’d found a sword he felt was suitable at some point.

“These are rings that once belonged to the honor guard of the dwarven king Laurin. Wearing them allows you to see through invisibility and increases your physical strength,” he announced.

“Don’t you need one too?” Mia asked.

Dietrich rolled up his sleeve to reveal a tiny belt there, ripped in one place but otherwise looking brand-new, tied around his arm, the two ends of the rip knotted together.

“Laurin’s belt. It has the same effect. I tore it off him when attacked me while invisible.”

Oh, right, I remembered that story now. Laurin had kidnapped Dietleib’s sister, and Dietrich had taken his comrades to get her back. Dietleib had drawn Laurin out by trashing his rose garden, and then Dietrich had knocked down the dwarven king, who had surrendered and invited them in to show them she was safe … and promptly drugged them at the following feast, then locked them up.

Dietleib’s sister had freed them, but Laurin and his honor guard had attacked them under the cover of invisibility cloaks, which had solidly failed when Dietrich had gotten his hands on the belt after grappling with his invisible assailant. He’d killed other members of the honor guard for their rings and passed them out and together, they’d conquered the dwarven kingdom.

I immediately slipped the ring on, and Mia did the same, but I didn’t really notice anything changing.

I kept staring at the ring for a long moment longer. It sat on my left middle finger, glittering in the cell phones’ light. A gold band was the base, though a line of purple crystal ran down the center, and two lines of what was either silver or platinum running over the top, intertwining in a beautiful pattern.

As he worked, Dietrich told some stories.

At some point, I also applied the Skill Boost, on the Skill that seemed the strongest to me. Yes, knowledge wasn’t particularly helpful when faced with violence directly, but it was also second to none when it came to avoiding winding up in no-win situations in the first place.

[Skill boosted: Knowledge Transfer]

Up to two targets can be taught at once, range increases to 5 meters.

Oh, nice. I could also share some knowledge with Mia. Obviously, we shared an understanding of the modern world, but when it came to things like sign language, which only I’d learned, it would still be helpful.

And eventually, we left the tomb slash armory laden down with stuff Dietrich thought would be useful … only to be greeted by a whole lot of cops. What. The. Actual. Fuck.