Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!? - Volume 19 - Chapter SS1

Bonus Short Stories

Side: Harumi

Once she inherited Alaia’s sacred duties, Harumi added a new chore to her daily routine—looking after Signaltin. The sword was like an extension of her very self, so she took great care in keeping it nice and clean. She felt like Koutarou using a dirty Signaltin would be the same as showing up to battle with her hair messy. And as someone who took pride in appearances, Harumi would never let that happen.

“Hmm, maybe I should clean the sheath today...”

After looking over the blade, Harumi decided to turn her attention elsewhere. As she never skimped on its maintenance, Signaltin was already polished to a brilliant sheen. Nevertheless, Harumi wanted to do what she could to make the sword as a whole even more beautiful. She really did treat it like she would herself.

“Ah, found a small scratch.”

Harumi meticulously looked over the sheath and polished away every scruff, scratch, and stain she could find. Signaltin was infused with mana, so even large cracks in it could be repaired with magic. But that didn’t work well for cosmetic blemishes like dirt and smudges. Such minute, precise control of mana was so difficult that it would just be easier to clean the sword by hand. Harumi also felt like she could really put her heart into it when she polished it herself, so she actually enjoyed the manual labor.

“There we go. It’s done. Now for the finishing touch...”

Harumi continued polishing and buffing with accustomed gestures. She owned metallic hair accessories and jewelry, and the skills for caring for them transferred quite nicely. As a result, Signaltin shone as beautifully as any of her barrettes or necklaces.

“I see you’re really going at it.”

“Oh, Theia-san. Do you need something?”

Harumi actually had a faithful friend when it came to taking care of her sword—Theia. They would often sit beside each other and work, Theia taking care of Saguratin while Harumi took care of Signaltin. They felt similarly about their blades and the man that used them. As a princess, Theia wouldn’t stand for her knight to use anything less than a brilliantly shining blade... in no small part because the shine on that blade represented all the love Theia put into it.

“Could you show me something, Harumi?”

“Certainly. What is it?”

“How should I fix a scratch like this?”

“For this, you start with...”

The girls had started working together because Theia often needed help in regards to maintenance. She wasn’t good at detailed work to begin with. And as a princess, she’d always left things like machine and weapon upkeep to her underlings. That made her nervous when it came to taking care of something so valuable on her own, but it wasn’t like she could ask someone else to do it for her. Working alongside Harumi was the ideal solution.

“...And then you do something like this.”

“I see. So I can’t just scrape it away.”

“If you want a real mirror finish, you need to be gentle with it.”

“Then I’ll learn how to be gentle one day.”

“Heehee, let’s do our best together.”

“Indeed.”

Theia often sought Harumi’s advice and guidance when they sat next to each other like this. Back when she didn’t know any better, Theia would just wipe her blade down with a soft cloth. But after she’d started working with Harumi, she’d developed some real technique. As a result, the golden sword that had seen many a battle was gradually regaining its original glory.

“Now that I think about it...”

“Yes?”

“When Koutarou saw Saguratin the other day, he told me not to make it too sparkly.”

“My...”

“Apparently it’s distracting when he’s using it.”

Koutarou actually felt like the girls were going too far with their maintenance. They would polish the blades to perfection, making them look like they were more for ceremony than war. It instilled a certain reluctance in him to actually use them in combat.

“Isn’t that stupid?”

“It’s certainly silly. Making them sparkly is the whole point.”

“I know, right? He doesn’t understand a maiden’s heart at all.”

“We all want to dress ourselves up for Satomi-kun.”

“I know what you mean. But at the same time... it’s not like I can’t understand how he feels.”

“Teehee. A knight’s sword is his very essence, after all.”

Koutarou feeling daunted by the swords was because of his humble nature. A knight’s sword was his soul, which meant using a sparkling one would make him feel self-conscious. It would be like saying he himself was sparkling. That’s why, taking his own image into consideration, Koutarou didn’t think the swords needed to be polished any more than absolutely necessary.

“And that’s why we want to make them as beautiful as possible.”

“I suppose, in the end, Satomi-kun is a man, after all. His tastes just stray that way.”

“I personally think flashy is just fine.”

“I agree, heehee...”

Both girls paused their work there to share a giggle.

“Actually, speaking of, Ruth has started polishing his armor too.”

“So the overhaul was finished, then?”

“Indeed. Right now she’s picking a new coating for the surface with Clan’s help.”

“So they can use something neat like that...”

“I’d like to myself, honestly.”

“But we can’t apply a coating to a knight’s soul.”

“That’s right. Heh...”

Little did Koutarou know that the girls were ultimately working together to make him sparkle more than ever. Just imagining the face he’d make when he realized it, Harumi and Theia put even more heart into polishing their swords. They couldn’t wait.