User blog:Scarletta Agni/The Twin Cursed Blades Infomine

Italics are paraphrased text, bold text are direct quotes, and unedited text between brackets are notes.

Noting that he was humming a hymn, Langley guessed that he was a priest.''
 * ''First, the protagonist this time is someone who has a long history with the Twin Blades of Levianta, Chartette Langley... 's father, the Langley smith, Smith Langley.
 * ''The time setting is after the Lucifenian Revolution, when Chartette's already begun her journey.
 * There are three people working at the Langley smithy, and one of them is a girl named ナギサ＝クーロン (Nagisa Coulomb?). She started working there from a very young age, and Chartette thinks of her as a younger sister. While the Langleys make swords and shields, her specialty is firearms, and her ideas are always very new, and Langley [unspecific but likely Smith, not Chartette] is very interested also. The rocket glove, featured a lot in this story, is her creation.
 * Some day after the Revolution, Chartette discovered that Nagisa was pregnant, but Nagisa, who isn't really prone to speaking, has never brought up her love life, and has never told them who the father was. Langley didn't really blame her, since he thought having a partner wasn't so bad, but he later found out from the gossip of other artisans that the father was seemingly a traveler who had met Nagisa on accident and was apparently the leader of a band of mercenaries, and had already died in the Revolution. [that would be Gast]
 * Nagisa says that she'll raise the child alone, and asks to be allowed to continue working at the smithy. Langley isn't going to make her life hard, naturally, and after consulting with his wife, she is also pretty okay with helping Nagisa.
 * Then, Langley remembered his daughter Chartette, and considering her free spirit is rather sure she won't stay in the smithy. But, considering her very active role in the revolution and that Germaine's also with her, honestly isn't really worried. But she'll probably take a long time to produce a grandchild for him so Nagisa's unborn child is nice for him and his wife in this way too.
 * '''"Lucifenian women are all very ambitious... don't you think? --Leonhart."
 * Facing the direction of the Lion Knight's grave, I can't help but mumble this to myself.
 * ''After some time, one day a man carrying strange luggage arrived in the shop.
 * The priest said that his name was Mikhail Asayev, and by Kyle Marlon's recommendation had come to ask Langley to do something.
 * Then, what he took out were a pair of dual swords.
 * "These are divine tools passed down from antiquity in Levianta -- the Twin Blades of Levianta."
 * Langley noticed that Mikhail's left eye was strange, almost like a fake glass eye.
 * Mikhail gives a rather simple explanation of the dual blades to Langley, and mentions that one symbolizes "Creation" [likely of the world], and the other symbolizes "The End" [or destruction as a parallel], and in the years of the former Magic Kingdom Levianta, were passed down generation-by-generation in the Li family, but were taken out of the country not long before the Great Catastrophe.
 * Mikhail's request is--destroy these dual blades completely.
 * Langley is surprised--because he's not being asked to mend or create--he's being asked to destroy a weapon.
 * At first he thinks there's some ulterior motive--that Mikhail wants him to carry the blame for destroying divine tools.
 * Mikhail immediately takes out the Levin Archbishop's letter of request to clear his name, and the letter, sealed with a dragon seal, made it clear that "the man who destroys the Twin Blades of Levianta will not be persecuted."
 * Langley just gets more and more confused.
 * '''"Mr. Langley, have you ever heard of the 'Vessels of Deadly Sin'?"
 * '''"I've heard some rumors... stories told in the smiths' guild."
 * '''"In this world there exist many tools or weapons that carry the 'Demons of Sin', and no smith, no matter how famous, can recast or destroy them."
 * "Long ago, some blacksmith found one of them, "the Spoon", and wanted to change it into a fork. But in the end, not only could he not succeed, he was possessed by the demon, and died pitifully."
 * Mikhail tells Langley that these dual swords were one of the Vessels, and if they just threw it away carelessly it would bring ruin to whoever picked it up. He'd visited numerous smiths in Levianta, but no one could destroy them.
 * After hearing this, Langley's enthusiasm for smithing overtook his fear.
 * He began to attempt to destroy the dual swords.
 * What was surprising was, the blades were snapped in half quite easily.
 * But Mikhail told him it was useless, since it would just mend itself the next day.
 * He said that he would stay in the Lucifenian clergy for seven days, and that if Langley could completely destroy the blades in seven days he would receive a large sum of money, and that if he got scared and wanted to quit, to just go to the clergy and return the dual swords.
 * Before Langley can even answer Mikhail's out the door.
 * The next day Langley opens the box and, as Mikhail said, it had mended itself, and since obviously no one had broken in and replaced them, could there really be a demon in it? Langley inspected the swords carefully, and found that they weren't exactly constructed with the highest of technologies, and that the raw material was just some pretty impure iron, and there were no fancy decorations or anything.
 * Over the next few days, he and a few other artisans came together to try a variety of different methods to destroy the dual blades, but no matter how badly they damage it, it would always return to normal the next day.
 * This anomaly caused all the smiths working with him to feel unsafe, and none of them wanted to participate anymore.
 * At this time, Nagisa, who had been wholly uninterested in the dual blades before, suggested they try using gunpowder.
 * Langley took her suggestion, and went to a riverbank far from the smithy, and successfully exploded the dual blades.
 * Then he picked up the pieces and brought them home.
 * He planned to spend the entire night watching the fragments, seeing what would happen at night.
 * --At about two in the morning, something strange happened.
 * The moonlight passing through the tiny window into the room seemed to suddenly become stronger.
 * When Langley realized this, his consciousness had already started dimming.
 * He discovered that his body was slowly sinking into the sea, but since it wasn't hard to breathe, he immediately realized he was dreaming.
 * Swimming before him was a giant fish with rainbow scales.
 * "...Stop this futile effort already."
 * That was a woman's voice.
 * "It's not possible to destroy the Vessels. Even if you really destroyed them, there'd be no point."
 * Was this fish the demon that resided within the dual blades?
 * "You're rather lucky. I'm a pacifist, and that's the only reason you've stayed safe and sound up till now. If you did this to any other demon... you'd probably have been cursed long ago. But, continuing to play with you is going to get a little troublesome. And... just you people can't protect me."
 * "Protect you? Do you mean that someone has made a target of you?"
 * "Yup. The 'magician' who collects the 'Vessels of Deadly Sin' -- I don't want to be taken advantage of by humans. Mikhail Asayev... in these times, only he, the "genealogist" can fool that witch. That girl Nagisa... waiting for the child in her belly to grow up is another possible escape route--"
 * Magician -- Was it referring to Elluka Clockworker of the Three Heroes? And then... what was a "genealogist"?
 * "... I won't allow you to harm Nagisa."
 * "Then hurry up and give the twin blades back to Mikhail. I think that's better for both of us, hehehe--"
 * --Here, he woke up.
 * When Langley awoke, the sun had already risen, and the twin blades had reverted back.
 * If he believed the demon, it wasn't that he couldn't return the twin blades, but he was worried that Mikhail would face the danger of being possessed.
 * He tries to think if there are other ways.
 * His first thought was to seek the help of Elluka, one of the three heroes. But Elluka had left the kingdom before the Revolution and no one knew where she was anymore.
 * He then thought of another rumor in the blacksmiths' guild.
 * --Spirits.
 * The relatives of the Earth God Held, it was said that within them was an existence that could destroy and devour anything.
 * ''Only that even if they really existed, Langley couldn't hope to find them within the span of two to three days.
 * So in the end he couldn't do anything anyway.
 * The setting changes to the Levin Church
 * Langley returned the dual blades to Mikhail, and although Mikhail felt rather sad, he knew that Langley spent a lot *of time working on it, and gave him a few gold coins anyway.
 * Mikhail would leave Lucifenia tomorrow.
 * Langley guessed that he'd never have the opportunity to see him again, so he wanted to take this last chance to ask Mikhail some of his questions. Mikhail answered yes. Hearing the word "genealogist" come from Langley's mouth shocked Mikhail.
 * Langley described to him the dream he had that night and the conversation he had with the demon.
 * Mikhail told him that although he had visited many smiths before, this was the first time that happened.
 * Mikhail rolled that unnatural left eye and began to explain why he was called the "genealogist".
 * First of all, his "glass eye" was not inserted after birth, but he had rather been born with it.
 * "Of the people born in Levianta, occasionally there will appear those known as "genealogists", who have special powers. For example, the "Purple Dream" that can predict the future, the ability to control blue fire, et cetera. It could also be said that this was the result of them 'having inherited some of the gods' powers'."
 * [side note: this reminds me of that rumor that the Zvezdas had the blood of Held running through them]
 * "And I--am the 'heir' of one of the 'Twin Gods' Behemo, that's what the Archbishop told me. Through this 'Glass Eye', I can see many things normal people can't see."
 * Mikhail added that his ability was basically "Clairvoyance".
 * "Mr. Langley, there is a pregnant woman in your smithy, no? Her child--is a boy."
 * Langley then asked Mikhail why the clergy would not seek Elluka's help.
 * Mikhail, who was pretty eager to speak earlier, suddenly began to stutter and mumble a lot.
 * It seemed there was some secret, but Langley didn't really want to know, since he didn't want to get caught up in any trouble.
 * Done with his questions, Langley thought that since he rarely came to church, he might as well pray before he leaves, so he bid farewell to Mikhail and went to the chapel
 * Before he left the room, he took one last look at Mikhail.
 * Behind him--there seemed to appear the shadowy form of a woman covered in scales.
 * --While praying in the chapel, lots of extra words kept coming to mind.
 * The Vessels of Deadly Sin.
 * Demons.
 * Spirits.
 * Heirs.
 * Magician.
 * None of them were in any way relevant to my life.
 * And, I had no plans to engage with any of these words in the coming years.
 * I was old already, so I just wanted to spend the rest of my life peacefully in the smithy.
 * However...
 * Nagisa, her unborn child, and--Chartette, what would become of them?
 * I truly hope, that they too can have a peaceful life... it's unfortunate that such things are out of my control.
 * All I can do is pray.
 * O Sun God.
 * O Earth God.
 * O Twin Dragon Gods.
 * Please bestow upon the people of this world, compassion and peace.
 * The End
 * The End