Author Notes:
I am Speed!!!
Yup, it's another OBOM chapter with yet another inspired and speedy development. Don't ask the why or how, and no, I don't accept being sued.
Again, don't forget to enjoy the chapter and check out the Monthly Recruitment Drive on my Patreon for newcomer discount! Oh, and visit my Discord server for fun and giggles as well!
https://www.patreon.com/Heartbreak117
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[Daily Login Reward received:
- Chiappa Triple Crown (Angel Break Edition) 12-gauge break-action shotgun.]
[Chiappa Triple Crown (Angel Break Custom):
- Italian-designed, Turkish-made. The Triple Crown is a triple-barreled, break-action, chambered in the ubiquitous 12-gauge.
- The Triple Crown features three 28-inch barrels arranged in a triangular formation, with one barrel at the top and two below, thus providing a singular sight picture.
- It features a single trigger and includes a manual safety located on the tang behind the action lever.
- The stock is carefully crafted from the finest Exhibitor Grade walnut wood, and silver holy visages are tastefully engraved on the silver-finishing of the barrel, action, top lever, and trigger guard.
- Unfurling silver seraphic wings are inlaid masterfully near the similarly colored buttpad. It is said that the way the wings are depicted unfolding is a segue into introducing the symmetrically checkered pattern on the walnut grip. A pattern that contains an encrypted message, which itself holds the full chant of the Batism Rite used by the Demonic-fighting priesthood of a bygone era.
- As a custom-made example, this Triple Crown, the Angel Break, is blessed by generations of the Vatican's Popes and Popesses and the Heavenly Guardian that solemnly watches over humanity. Many foul lifeforms and demonic entities were purged in the unending Heavenly Crusade by the Angel Break as a result of the stacked blessings. Many more will follow if the Angel Break finds a worthy wielder.
- This is a Holy Weapon, with all the necessary parts and benefits that moniker entails. Comes standard with 120 blessed FLITECONTROL 00 Buck shots, but there are abilities to the Angel Break Custom waiting to be unveiled.]
The System's announcement stops the canteen from ever gracing my lips after a hard day digging holes and uncovering lost secrets. Although the System paragraphs aren't long, they provide Aurea and me with way too much information, yet seemingly little at all, about our new Login Reward. Near instantly, however, both Aurea and I home into the very bold words.
Holy Weapon
"Aurea, is that really what I think it is?" I say aloud, risking the Alpha sunbathing near me to direct me a look as if asking if I had gone insane after a day working under the sun.
"I-I think so...? I mean... Does the System even joke, in the first place?" Aurea replies, a bit unsure. I can feel her gaze boring into the two critically important words, alongside the expectation and confusion that come with seeing them.
Honestly, it's not like I can fault Aurea for reacting like that. After all, this is a magical world we're living in. Holy or Divine Artifacts exist, but only with the suitable rarity that elevates their worth to either a Tactical or a Strategic level. In fact, Aurea's patron is the wielder of a one such Tactical Artifact, the Holy Sword Durandal, after which Aurea's homeland is named. The Holy Sword Durandal is, according to old lore as learned by Aurea, a guiding key that its wielder will use to find a Strategic Artefact, a Divine-crafted Knight. Yet, after years of vain searching by the rare wielders, people have mostly given up on that front. Aurea's patron seemingly does not even bother with that whole quest, however, opting to use the Durandal as one big stick in a room where people are empty-handed. But that's a story for another day.
The point is, Holy Weapons, or Artefacts as a whole, serve as game-changers in this Medieval world, much like Knights. However, it's their very rarity, scarcer than even the more expensive, custom-made Knight models, that makes the influence they have on the world very limited. Some Artefacts are consumables. Other Artefacts are either in disrepair with no means to fix them, or are in a half-broken state where one more use will destroy them completely. Even the Fortskritt Theocracy has to be very selective in the use of the artifacts it keeps in storage, and it is the nation known to house the most Artifacts of all kinds. As such, unlike the more numerous Knights that can be used offensively, Artefacts are wielded in a manner akin to nuclear deterrence or a final, hidden trump card.
That said, to this day, the origin point of Artefacts is highly controversial in the academic circle, according to Aurea. Some Artefacts are known to be crafted and passed down by the Ember Goddess, Sapientia. Others are uncovered via treacherous expeditions. However, there have been fragmented tales of masters, young and old, men and women alike, crafting Artefacts themselves. Yet, due to the expansive geographical distance on this massive archipelago planet, which is Arcadia, record-keeping and living proofs are hard to acquire and ascertain. In a world where Knights and their riders are already so sought after to the point that a war can be waged between small nations to recover a single lost Knight, one can only imagine the extent to which people will vie for even a wisp of an unrecovered Artefact's location.
Now, to actually have a suspect Tactical Artefact dropping into our hands all of a sudden... Both Aurea and I find ourselves gulping, with me looking around warily for fear of an imaginative threat materializing out of nowhere. My sudden bout of caution even alarms the Alpha, who gets up from its sunbathing position to sniff the air a couple of times before growling the members of its pack into taking a guard stance.
Though I understand that I am overreacting, I still let the wolves spring into patrol around the place as a precaution on the basis that ain't no Heaven-sent gift is without a string attached to it. Eventually, one of the Horned Wolves, Husky, returns with a big anaconda carcass between its jaws.
Seeing that, Aurea gets all squeamish while I can't help but curse. "Bloody hell. That's one big mother-"
Woof
The Alpha interrupts with a bark while giving me a side glance. I can feel its gaze contains a mixture of intents, with the prevailing one asking me how I know there's a man-eating reptile around in the bush.
"Luck, maybe?" I shrug, not really knowing how to explain the whole deal with the System and the shotgun it gave us, anyway.
The Alpha maintains its gaze on me for a couple of seconds before barking Husky away to dispose of the anaconda's carcass. Now that I think about it, this is the only other time I encountered a predator other than the Horned Wolves, dead as it is. Goes to say there are a lot of things left to be on the lookout for on this island, huh.
And speaking of things...
I turn to look at the neatly arranged row of carefully dug and filled graves. Contained within each burial is a pilot, otherwise known as a Knight Rider according to this world's naming scheme, of the mechs I found in the ancient battlefield the Alpha led me to.
How do I know it's ancient? By seeing how brittle the external and internal of these Knights are. They're frangible enough for me to pry open their cockpits and uncover scraps of long-decomposed bodies with nothing but brute force and a multi-function shovel. Evidently, even the hardiest of alloys will buckle in the passage of Time. It's a miracle that some bodies remain as intact as they are, although that amounts to only a few pieces of bone at best. It's probably what's left of the Knights' cockpits doing their final duty in safeguarding the vestiges of their Riders.
Honestly, I don't know if they really are deserving of a final resting place or not; they could be war criminals in life, and my effort would ultimately be wasted. But given that I am scavenging for knowledge and potentially useful resources here, digging a few graves in exchange for no ghostly curses seems like a fair trade to me.
Speaking of that, could it be a sign? Could the reason the System suddenly rewarded me with a Holy Weapon be that I am about to encounter some paranormal activities? Thinking about it deeper, the Horned Wolves and I have scoured the whole battlefield, coming up with only broken Knights. For days, we have been unable to uncover even a lick of the supposed enemy that cut down multiple Knights. This could mean the Knights perished without even doing any meaningful damage to their enemy, which is worrisome in a way. Or that the supposed enemy was biological, which means they had long rotted and may not have to worry about much... Probably.
I instantly veto the idea that these Knights fought among themselves before they ended up killing each other, and there are good reasons for this. These Knights, although Aurea has been unable to verify their making, do seem to share a joint design language, a uniform DNA in their mechanical makeups: identical stature, part commonality... Not to mention the similar, albeit heavily faded exterior liveries, and even the piloting gear is nearly identical to one another. More importantly, the Knights fell while they weren't physically facing each other, basically crossing out a heated melee.
That's a lot of what-ifs, though...
Really, I may never know for sure what really happened here, which does tick Aurea and me sideways a lot. Our burning curiosity means we aren't satisfied with just uncovering these Knights, but given what we have seen so far, best we keep it shimmering with a healthy dose of caution.
Anyway! Too many digressions aside... I can't make sense of the deteriorating words, so I don't know who these Riders were in life. Other than the graves, I decided to go the extra mile and carve some words on a simple stone tablet. I then planted the tablet at the heads of the graves, acting as a memorial for these unknown Knight Riders.
Now that everything is said and done, and the shock of receiving a random Artefact has mostly subsided, I give one last look at the burial site before proceeding to a corner of the ancient battlefield. I walk under a makeshift shelter, made out of leaves and logs, to see the various parts and knick-knacks I managed to scavenge laid neatly on the ground. There are also rusted and weathered textures to them all, and these parts are big and small alike. The only reason I arranged them in this manner is so that I can more clearly compare them and see what I am working on.
"Let's ignore what the System gave us for a bit..." I say to Aurea. "So we have what seems to be a bundled artificial muscle structure here. A servo there. A part of a gyroscope. An optic for what's no doubt a head... And what seems to be a piece of a head-mounted energy weapon? Are we sure these Knights come from the same Medieval period as you, Aurea?"
"I... Don't know, Other Me... Thanks to you, I understand the functionality of these parts. They're all more... Advanced. Much better, more elegant than what the people of Durandal, or the whole of Arcadia at large, are familiar with, even though these objects are all in such a... Heartbreaking state. I think..." Aurea trails off, leading me to finish her unspoken words.
"You think these Knights could be something akin to Tactical Artefacts? We do have Artefact Knights around, right?"
"Yes... The uniformity of these Knights suggests these were mass-produced at one point. A-At the very least, these Knights should have been near the pinnacle of human engineering of their time." Aurea replies before adding in a small tone. "Though I don't think they were up to the point of your kind of mechs, Umbra."
"Mine was made for interstellar wars and planetary invasions. I highly doubt your Knights and my mechs can be considered the same species." I shrug with a small smile. "Though I swear we see what seems to be RCS thrusters on some parts of the Knights outside. And let's not forget the ergonomic control scheme. These details do suggest these Knights were sophisticated enough to even attempt flying, or at least, gliding. The more I think about it, the more it doesn't make sense why these supposedly advanced Knights are here, destroyed in combat. Just what sorts of monstrosity could defeat an entire mech unit that could potentially fly and had access to energy weapons?"
I then look northward, pondering.
"I don't know how these Knights got here, but could their demises be linked to whatever is keeping the Horned Wolves over here? If so, then things just went to Dante Must Die difficulty real fast... Huh, getting the Angel Break may very well be a lucky break, indeed."
Aurea, sensing my worry for our shared future, consoles me by saying.
"M-Maybe whatever else is out there is falling to time as well...? A-And the Alpha and its pack will help us... Right?"
The subsequent silence would have been really awkward had I not chuckled, giving Aurea a mental pat on her head. Really, her optimism may very well be the perfect companion in a stranded deep scenario.
In any case, while we haven't learned as much as we would like, we have learned enough to see things through a more cautious lens. There's something out there, prowling this island. Something, or multiple things, which are ancient, and most certainly dangerous. I'd better up my daily training, and let's add getting used to wielding the Angel Break Custom and investigating its capabilities to the agenda. Can never be too ready in the face of the unknown, and all that.