Nido Tensei Shita Shounen wa S-rank Boukensha Toshite Heion ni Sugosu ~ Zense ga Kenja de Eiyūdatta Boku wa Raisede wa Jimi ni Ikiru ~

Chapter 61: The Broken Castle and the Royal Guard Knight

“Oh, it can fly! It can fly!”

“Yes, we can fly again!”

The knights cheer and fly through the sky.

After fixing the knights’ wings, we were heading towards the Sky Castle where their master, the Sky King, resides.

“Oh, Lord Rex can really fly without wings!”

The knight captain, Calm, exclaims in surprise as we fly up using flight magic.

“Do you also possess some kind of magic item, Lord Rex?”

“No, we are using flight magic.”

“Flight magic!? You mean that lost magic!?”

While fixing everyone’s wings, we listened to various stories from Calm and the others.
They serve as knights to the king known as the Sky King and usually live in a place called the Sky Castle.
It seems they protect the floating islands from flying creatures on a regular basis.

“The wings you repaired are amazing! They move much more smoothly compared to before they broke!”

“And the speed has increased significantly, Captain!”

The knights are delighted with the performance of the wings I repaired.

“You’ve been using them without maintenance for so long.
So, while fixing them, I also performed maintenance and replaced the old mechanisms with new ones.
The performance has increased by about 30% compared to before they broke.”

“30%?! That’s incredible!”

“As soon as the wings were fixed, they became like new.”

Liliera seems amazed by the knights’ excitement as they fly with their repaired wings.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to fix them? And to improve their performance as well?”

Liliera’s eyes express her disapproval.

“No, I think it’s better this way.”

I whisper to Liliera.

“The fact that I was able to fix their magic items is more important than anything else.”

“That you were able to fix them?”

Liliera furrows her brow and tilts her head.

“Yes, they couldn’t fix them themselves, but I could.”

“Ah, I see.”

Liliera realizes what I mean and exclaims.

“If they know that Rex can fix magic items that they can’t, they won’t dare to act recklessly.”

I smile and nod.
Yes, if they know that I can fix their magic items, they won’t be able to act hostile towards us.
Even if we fight with all our might, they will always have to consider holding back.

If we ever have to fight against the Sky people in the future, this will be a significant advantage, and it can also be used as a bargaining chip.

“Lord Rex, we can see our castle!”

A knight points in the direction where the shadow of a building can be seen.
But its appearance…

“That… is the castle?”

Seeing it, I tilt my head in confusion at the knights’ words.

“Huh? That?”

Liliera, who saw the same thing, also looks puzzled.

“That looks more like a ruin than a castle.”

Yes, what we saw ahead of us was a partially destroyed large building.

“It looks more like a part of a fortress, doesn’t it?”

Yes, it looked more like a fortress guarding a strategic point than a castle.

“That is our castle, the Sky Castle!”

The knights proudly declare.
It seems that it really is a castle.

“That… is a castle, huh.”

“Are they using a repaired fortress as a temporary measure?”

As we approach the castle, the details of the Sky Castle become visible.
It seems that the Sky Castle is indeed using a partially destroyed fortress, with the collapsed parts repaired using stone and materials from the ruined fortress.
It looks like a makeshift repair during wartime.

“Lord Rex, Lady Liliera, please descend to the courtyard over there.”

Following Calm’s guidance, we descend to the courtyard, and knights with wings like the knights from before come out from inside the castle.

“Oh, Captain Calm! Have you successfully captured the illegal intruders?”

The one who speaks to Calm is a knight wearing more decorated armor than the others.
Upon closer inspection, all the knights who appeared from inside the castle are adorned with decorations.
They must be the royal guards.

“Captain of the Royal Guards, that’s correct, but…”

So they are the royal guards.
Calm looks away from the captain of the royal guards and glances at us.

“Oh, what are those people doing here? They have such lowly faces.”

What does a lowly face look like?

“Uh, well…”

Calm stammers.
I wonder how he plans to explain our presence to the captain of the royal guards.
I’m a little curious.

“What’s the matter, Captain Calm?”

“Well, you see, this person is… yes, he is a traveling magic item technician!”

“Huh!?”

The captain of the royal guards looks at Calm with a face that says, “What is he talking about?”

“It’s true.
As you know, our wings have been showing performance issues due to years of heavy use.
But he repaired our wings, and not only that, their performance has improved to the point where they rival the best wings among us.”

“Repair!? Did you show the wings borrowed from His Majesty to some suspicious stranger?”

“Uh, well, it’s not like that… Yes, during our previous mission, one of my subordinates’ wings were severely malfunctioning.
It was clear that they would soon become unusable.”

The captain of the royal guards furrows his brow in response to Calm’s words.
He seems skeptical, or rather, completely doubtful.

“So, I thought I would ask him to try fixing them if he really could.
And he successfully repaired the wings, not only that, but their performance has become one of the best among our wings.”

Calm looks back, and one of his subordinates floats up into the air and demonstrates complex aerial maneuvers.

“Look, wings that can perform such maneuvers are not only possessed by our knights but also by your royal guards, right?”

Calm’s words have a serious tone to them.

“How… It’s hard to believe, but the movements are truly remarkable.”

“With such skill, it’s understandable that you can’t imitate it.”

The captain of the royal guards shifts his gaze from Calm to us.

“I see.
So, you claim to be a magic item technician.
What does that have to do with the legendary Sky Continent?”

Well, nothing really.
I’m not even a magic item technician.
I’m more of a magic item developer, to be honest.

“Nothing in particular.
We just wanted to see the Sky Continent of legends.”

“Do you think such vague reasons will be accepted? You are still too suspicious.
I will detain you and make you confess your true intentions.”

“Wait, Captain of the Royal Guards! They possess useful technology.
Please don’t act too rashly!”

At Calm’s plea, the captain of the royal guards sneers.

“How weak.
Even if they are useful technicians, bringing them here without detaining them is unacceptable! If they are truly useful, we can throw them into a cell and chain them up so they can’t escape!”

When the captain of the royal guards waves his hand, the surrounding royal guards draw their swords and attack us.

Seriously, they’re saying such arbitrary things.

“Can we defeat them?”

Liliera asks, readying her spear.

“Yes, I can heal any serious injuries, so no need to hold back.”

“Understood.”

The royal guards, with their swords glowing, attack us.
It seems that their swords are also magic items.

“Here we go.”

I dodge the swords by half of my body and cut through the royal guard’s sword from the base.

“What?! My sword!?”

The shocked Royal Guard Knight whose prized sword had been destroyed.
But that’s not all.
I severed the wings on the backs of the Royal Guard Knights, and then cut the joints of their armor, leaving them completely exposed.
As a finishing blow, I split their armor in half as they lost their support and fell to the ground.

“Oh no, my wings!”

“My armor!”

The Royal Guard Knights whose equipment had been destroyed screamed in despair.

“Spark Cloud!!”

“Gaaaahhhhh!?”

And as the Royal Guard Knights lost all their equipment, their bodies were engulfed by small thunderclouds.
In an instant, lightning flashed and they were electrocuted, collapsing to the ground.

“Take that!”

Liliera took advantage of her reach to restrain the knights, thrusting her spear into their thighs and immobilizing them.
Liliera’s fighting style was unassuming but solid, effectively reducing her opponents’ mobility.

The immobilized Royal Guard Knights were hindered by their fallen comrades, unable to maneuver properly.
Frustrated, one of the knights attempted to attack from above using his wings, but Liliera, who had been waiting for this moment, flew up with her flight magic and severed his wings, causing him to fall to the ground.

“Take this!”

I jumped into the midst of the Royal Guard Knights, swiftly slashing with my sword and blowing them away with magic.

“You fool!”

“Wait, don’t attack recklessly! We’ll end up hitting each other!”

Just like the knights from earlier, the Royal Guard Knights seemed inexperienced in actual combat.
As soon as the battle turned chaotic, their movements lacked precision.
Well, their movements were already lacking even before the chaos began.

Perhaps they didn’t have many opportunities to fight because they had been guarding the king in the castle all this time?

“Enough! What are you doing?! It’s just two opponents!”

The captain of the Royal Guard shouted angrily, but the Royal Guard Knights were struggling to keep up with our enhanced abilities from body strengthening magic.
Or rather, could these people not use body strengthening magic?

Come to think of it, they couldn’t use flight magic either.
And their fighting style didn’t exhibit any refined techniques.
If they were descendants of the knights from the time when the Sky Continent existed, I would have expected them to have inherited the combat techniques from that era.

Could this also be related to the collapse of the Sky Continent that I’m unaware of? In the end, the Royal Guard Knights were wiped out in a matter of minutes.

“You… you!”

The captain of the Royal Guard swung his sword at me.
But avoiding an attack fueled by anger was easy, and I evaded it with a backstep.
Then, I cut off the sword that had been slammed into the ground and even severed the wings on his back from the base.

“My sword…!”

“It’s not just the sword.”

I pointed at the feathers that had fallen to the ground with my finger.
After the captain of the Royal Guard saw those feathers, he turned his head and looked at the wings that should have been on his back.
But there were no wings there, and he started searching with both hands, patting his back to see if the wings were missing.
Finally, his hand touched the area between his shoulder blades, feeling the severed base of the wings.

“M-My wings…”

The captain of the Royal Guard turned pale and slumped down.

“Now, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

I smiled at the slumped captain of the Royal Guard.

“How about repairing your magic items?”

“…”

The captain of the Royal Guard, with a pale face, looked at Calm.
Then Calm smiled kindly.
Seeing that, the captain of the Royal Guard seemed to understand everything, and he dropped his shoulders heavily, bowing his head.
And while his shoulders trembled, he said this.

“…P-Please.”