Copy Skills with Affinity!

Chapter 24

The Assault

I had roughly known for a long time that Dame Noel had a hobby of collecting liquor. Just looking at her office, it was decorated with all sorts of alcohol.

But I had never heard that she enjoyed drinking to the point of getting completely drunk like this.

“What brings you to my room-?”

The strange thing was that even in this state, she still managed to keep enough reason to hold a conversation.

Sitting perched on the edge of the bed, gently swirling the glass in her hand with a bright smile, she showed a softness I could never have imagined from her usual demeanor.

When she was drunk, she actually looked kind of cute.

Normally, she was so tense that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she seemed rigid about every little thing, but now that her demeanor had softened, the contrast made her seem even more radiant.

“I…”

As soon as I opened my mouth to say something, she cut me off by placing the glass down in front of me with a tap.

Then, with a splash, she poured a liquor so strong it stung the nose just to smell it.

“Aiden, would you like a drink too?”

“I’ll pass.”

“Ah, whyyy-!”

…

Let me correct myself.

She didn’t become cute. She was simply the sort of person whose drinking habits were terribly bad.

Maybe this was the backlash of living her life like a textbook model soldier.

At least she didn’t push it further. Instead, she simply tipped the glass she’d poured for me all the way into her own mouth, and somehow that felt fitting for her again.

The type who never crossed a line. Someone inherently gentle and good-natured. A person wrapped in layers of responsibility.

“Have you been well these past couple of days-?”

“Pardon?”

“You’re someone I brought in, Aiden- so it’s my responsibility to look after you- if anything ever happens, please be sure to tell me-”

Even when she was unbelievably drunk, the kind of things she chose to say matched perfectly with that impression.

“Dame Noel.”

“Yes-?”

“Why exactly do people call you the Butcher?”

I couldn’t help but be honestly curious.

That sort of nickname didn’t suit her at all—how had she come to bear it?

…Dame Noel’s movement froze completely.

It was rude, now that I thought about it.

At the banquet, even the prince had used that word to corner her, and Katya had wielded it to strike at her nerves. Just hearing it must have been unpleasant for her.

But if any way of asking would be rude anyway, I preferred to be straightforward.

…

After remaining still for a long moment, Dame Noel finally opened her mouth in a voice thick with strain.

“On the battlefield, I killed more than anyone.”

“Isn’t that an honorable thing for a soldier?”

“Because I killed anyone.”

…

“If they picked up a weapon and wanted to continue fighting… then it didn’t matter who they were—”

Noel trailed off as she poured more liquor into her glass.

…I could guess the sentences she left unsaid between the lines.

I could imagine it.

The Allied War had been an unprecedented total war where every nation on the continent staked its very survival, and the first things desperate countries on the brink of defeat abandoned were humanity and morality.

One could picture without even seeing it what such nations must have done just to hold out a little longer.

Conscripts driven into battle without even proper training.

People who had once held books or tools instead of weapons.

There had even been nations that conscripted child soldiers.

…

As a knight who stood on that battlefield, Noel must have cut them all down.

Lionhearted.

An honorific granted to knights who always stood at the very front, breaking through enemy lines.

But if I thought about it, really thought about it—

That meant she had performed the work of a human butcher more skillfully than anyone.

That nickname—“Butcher”—which made her whole demeanor change every time she heard it, must have felt like someone tearing open old wounds to sprinkle salt inside.

It was no wonder she drank herself into a stupor like this.

Because every time she heard that word—

The things she wanted to forget, the nightmares collecting dust in some corner of her memories, must have all come crawling out at once.

“When a battle drags on—”

Noel poured more liquor, the stream splashing into the glass.

Aiden’s gaze clung to her trembling fingertips.

“The only thing that increases is the number of people dying…”

Her hands quivered uncontrollably. She was barely managing to hold herself together.

Her face had turned deathly pale. The corners of her eyes kept twitching.

She had held on this long even while drinking herself sick, but the moment this subject came up, it was as if her body could no longer support her.

“…So if everyone just feared me, there might be more who surrendered—”

Lionhearted. The valiant human butcher. The Butcher who killed all who charged at her.

“I wanted to be the first to charge, the one who killed the most, so the battle would end even a little faster… so there would be even a few less people dying—”

She went on in a rambling voice, clearly no longer aware of what she was even saying herself.

Her hands trembled as if she had developed a palsy. The alcohol pouring into the glass gave off a sharp, nauseating stench.

“I… that… I mean—”

“Yes.”

Just before the liquor spilled over, Aiden grabbed her wrist.

“I understand.”

…

Noel blinked at him in a daze.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

Regardless of how she looked at him, Aiden continued calmly.

“This isn’t something we should discuss while you can’t even keep your mind clear, so let’s end it simply.”

Just as the Prince had said before—

It was possible Noel had done terrible things within the environment called war.

I also understood there had been some incident involving the Prince and her mentor, the Warden of the Realm.

But even so.

From her intentions and actions, there was only one conclusion Aiden could reach.

“You’ve been through a lot.”

…

“I don’t think there’s anything else I can say.”

Noel stared at Aiden with wide eyes for a long moment.

A long, long moment.

As if something had finally cleared in her mind.

“…Thank you.”

Her reply came out in a voice full of embarrassment.

And then—

“No, wait—”

Before Aiden could stop her, Noel tipped the glass brimming with spirits straight down her throat in one go.

It was the sort of act that could only be interpreted as a desperate attempt to knock herself out rather than endure the awkward atmosphere any longer…

…

And sure enough, as if that had been the final blow, Noel collapsed onto the bed as if she had lost consciousness. Aiden let out a sigh.

“Aiden… I’ll protect you—”

She murmured in her sleep. Aiden quietly pulled the blanket over her.

“…Good grief.”

If Katya was childish in an obvious way, this person was the opposite—too strict with herself for her own good.

Aiden glanced around the room. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

…I should probably tidy up a little.

It was probably a necessary step if she wanted to preserve her usual image.

▣

-System Message

▶ You have wisely handled the sub-quest.

▶ Affection with ‘Noel Astrea Simus’ has increased.

▶ Bond stage has risen from Stage 5 to Stage 6.

▶ You have gained 1 additional skill copy charge!

▶ Your accumulated bond is high enough. The ‘Weaver of Fate’ effect will soon change!

If there was any consolation, it was that their drunken conversation seemed to have helped ease Noel’s heart quite a bit.

…Three copies just from Dame Noel now.

I hadn’t had a reason to use them yet, so I’d been saving them up, and before I knew it, there were already three.

Adding Katya’s two, the Prince’s unused skill copy, and the still-locked Skill Shop, I could say I still had plenty of room to grow.

With this much…

I could probably consider I’d gathered most of the “ingredients” needed to handle Act I—the Ghost Knight incident coming soon.

My “cooking skill”—in other words, my combat technique was still hopelessly unpolished, though.

But the hopeful thing was that, even in that area, there were at least signs I was improving bit by bit.

“…You die a little less now.”

Meyer said that as he sheathed his sword.

It was a refreshingly cheerful voice, considering he had just split Aiden clean down the middle again.

“Didn’t you only die about 80 times today?”

…

“I haven’t seen anyone improve this fast in just a few days.”

Aiden lay flat on the ground, glaring up at Meyer without a word.

Unbelievable.

In truth, there was simply no way to handle it.

Even when I used Heart of Pure White to forcefully enhance my physical abilities, threatened him with Holy Flame, and tried to flee by invoking Mana Arts, none of it made any difference.

My Qi was torn apart like cardboard, my Holy Flame scattered as if it were no more than a campfire, and my Mana Arts never even had time to gather focus.

He closed the distance, and then he cut me in half.

I died, died, and died again.

Considering how clearly he showed with every movement that he wasn’t even fighting me seriously, it was hard to comprehend how he could still do that so effortlessly.

…

The ridiculous part was that he hadn’t been lying when he said I was improving.

On the first day, I had genuinely died over a hundred times.

And the reason for that well, I knew it perfectly well myself.

-System Message

▶ The effect of ‘Skill: Analysis’ has activated.

▶ The combat techniques of ‘Meyer Belford’ are equivalent to the skill’s highest tier. Combat Form analysis is impossible!

▶ The skill has gained a supplementary function to analyze the opponent’s ‘weaknesses.’

▶ Efficient countermeasures are being automatically learned.

Since the Analysis skill itself had been copied from Meyer, even though it couldn’t fully grasp his Combat Form, it still managed to scrape together enough information to formulate counter-strategies. Thanks to that, ways to respond were automatically imprinted on my body in real time.

And because if I didn’t put them into practice immediately, I’d be decapitated again, the learning efficiency was absurdly good.

Even with all those advantages, though, the gap between us was so overwhelming that my head still went flying every time.

As I thought about that, my bisected body began fusing itself back together with a cracking sound.

In the Mental World, no matter how many times I died, my body always regenerated like this.

The first time I experienced it, I’d been horrified to the point of shuddering, but after dying dozens or hundreds of times over the past few days, even this had become something I’d grown strangely accustomed to.

“…But even if this is training, do we really have to feel every sensation so vividly?”

Because every death was painfully real in every way.

Being split in two by a sword, burning alive in Holy Flame, my body bursting from Qi, my flesh being riddled by Mana Arts—all of it felt as if it were truly happening.

“It’s necessary.”

Meyer answered in a firm voice.

“Listen, fledgling. Let me teach you something. Do you know why I became the great knight whose name went down in history?”

“…Pardon?”

“Because I trained so hard that it was more fucked up than any real battle.”

“…”

“Now that I’m putting you through this hellish training myself and optimizing everything down to the last detail, don’t complain. Every bit of this is necessary.”

…Well.

He wasn’t exactly wrong.

Wasn’t this just plain suffering? He was still only repeating the same pattern—getting cut clean through by Meyer over and over again.

“When I say you’ve improved a lot, I’m not just saying that to be nice.”

“…Pardon?”

“Believe me. At this point, you could probably hold your own if you had to fight for real.”

“…And what exactly makes you say that?”

I hadn’t learned anything properly. All I’d done was get split apart repeatedly. How was that supposed to count as training?

“That’s actually the point.”

It was as if he’d read my mind when he spoke.

“In just a few days, you’ve died in every imaginable way. Right?”

“…That’s true.”

“You could say you’ve earned a bunch of spare lives because of it.”

“…”

“You can look at me all you want like you don’t believe me, but it’s the truth.”

“It still feels more like torture than anything else…”

“No.”

Meyer let out a thin laugh as he replied.

“It’s not just torture. It’s valuable torture.”

…So even this guy admitted it was torture.

▣

And if you spent every night going through experiences like that, it was only natural you’d hear words like these eventually.

“Aiden. Are you sleeping properly at night?”

In her office, Dame Noel spoke up with a worried look.

Anyone would be concerned seeing Aiden growing more gaunt by the day.

“…Yes. Somehow.”

“If there’s anything making you uncomfortable, please tell me. I’ll find a way to improve it.”

“…It’s fine.”

Unfortunately, it was something no one else could help with.

Even knowing I couldn’t die, and that it was all simulated sensation, going through that over and over again was bound to be ruinous for my mental health.

My body was intact, but my mind felt like it was fraying to its limit every day. Like I was withering away.

Yet when I said that, Noel looked at me with clear dissatisfaction, pursing her lips as she stared intently.

When I forced a smile to show I was alright, she shook her head slowly.

We stood like that in silence for a while.

It seemed she had something she wanted to say, because Noel took a moment before she spoke again.

“Aiden.”

“Yes.”

She glanced at me, biting her lip as if testing the words.

“When I was completely drunk… you came to my room, didn’t you.”

“I did.”

“Did I… do anything to offend you back then?”

“…”

“…I’ve heard before that I have terrible drinking habits.”

From the way she said it, she clearly remembered nothing about that night.

I couldn’t decide whether that was fortunate or unfortunate.

…Well.

Would I call it offensive?

She’d shown me sides of herself I never would have seen otherwise.

“…No.”

I scratched my cheek and spoke my honest impression.

She seemed so worried, I thought I should put it in the kindest way I could.

“If anything, I’d say you were kind of cute.”

“…”

“Noel?”

“…”

“Noel…?”

“….”

There was no reply.

With her mouth clamped shut in stubborn silence, Dame Noel pulled her hat low over her face and turned toward her desk.

But no matter how hard she tried to hide it, the flush rising all the way up to her ears was impossible to miss.

“Aiden.”

After a long pause in that posture, Noel shot me a look full of quiet reproach.

“That’s forbidden.”

“…”

“Please refrain from saying things like that.”

“…Did I offend you?”

“No, it wasn’t unpleasant, but it’s forbidden.”

“…”

“If you must know, it was… nice. But don’t say it again.”

Why was it forbidden?

…And yet, it felt so typical of her to admit so honestly that she’d liked it.

She’s more vulnerable to praise than I’d expected.

Considering her position, it was rare to find someone so defenseless against a compliment. The more I got to know her, the more contradictions she seemed to be made of…

“Aiden! Dame Noel!”

Before I could reflect any further on that thought, the office door flew open. It was Stella, looking unusually flustered.

“Dame Stella? What’s the matter—”

“Her Highness Katya has gone missing!”

Aiden jumped to his feet in shock.