After being dug out of the pit, Wang Fei was unceremoniously dropped onto the ground by a crane along with a pile of other junk. Soon, two figures walked over to inspect him. The first to approach was a middle-aged Kuranta man dressed in what looked like tribal attire. His name seemed to be Vogel.
"I can't believe it's actually a full suit of armor. Although it looks like a crudely made test model, judging by the materials... some parts are made of D32! This isn't something ordinary people can possess," Vogel, who had handled D32 steel many times, would never forget the unimaginable feel of Terra's finest metal.
"Hee hee, I told you my senses were good, Uncle! More importantly, Uncle Vogel! Do you think Uncle Kov could turn this armor into a suit for me?" Maria asked excitedly, her eyes sparkling as she stared at the armor.
The middle-aged man pondered for a moment before pulling out his phone and dialing a number.
"Hmm... the exterior looks a bit worn, but the internal structure is still in very good condition, as if it's never been used. If we melt it down and re-forge it, replacing some parts with materials of this caliber, Kovaf might be able to do it. But to be sure, let me check first to make sure this armor isn't illegal. I don't want you getting into trouble later if we stumble upon some illegal goods from one of those corporations."
After speaking, Vogel used his phone to take a picture of the armor to check which company had made it. However, seeing no manufacturer's symbol or serial number on the suit, he decided to send the photo to his close friend, Kovaf, for him to investigate.
To be honest, Vogel found it hard to believe that any fool would accidentally throw away something this valuable. Even if it was flawed or incomplete, the quality of the D32 steel in the suit was still highly sought after in the market and fetched a very high price, possibly even more than a house in a small mobile city.
'So, are they really going to dismantle me?' After feigning silence for a long time, Wang Fei was becoming certain that their goal here was indeed to find spare parts.
But since his current body was just a suit of armor, he couldn't speak (he had no voice box). He had no choice but to try and signal to them by getting up and waving his hands.
"Hmm? Uncle Vogel, do these armors usually have a mechanism to move on their own?" Maria said.
"Maria, a finished suit of armor can't just move by itself—Oh, Knight-Primarch save me!" Vogel, looking up and seeing the armor in front of him rising to its feet, exclaimed with a common Kazimierz knight's catchphrase, accidentally dropping his phone, which shattered on the ground.
But after composing himself, Vogel's expression quickly turned anxious as he swiftly drew a knife from its sheath.
"Maria, get behind me, quick! This armor is haunted!!" Vogel shouted hastily, stepping in front of Maria to tell her to back away from the suit.
'A ghost? Wait, I'm not a ghost, I'm a spirit!'
Although he didn't know if the two words were different, he tried to wave his hands to deny it. But the other party seemed to misunderstand, thinking he was about to convulse as if he had just been possessed, and quickly backed away, pulling Maria with him.
"What! A ghost! Are ghosts real, Uncle Vogel!!"
But instead of being scared, Maria showed an childlike excitement, causing both of them to turn and stare at her.
'You're missing the point, kid,' Wang Fei and Vogel grumbled internally.
Vogel, left with no choice, had to quickly explain.
"Decades ago, when I was an apprentice knight, I was sent to fight on the Victorian border. There, I saw people who used a form of black magic. They were experts in using wicked dark spells, able to control malevolent spirits to possess armor or the flesh of the dead, then control them like slaves who fight tirelessly for all eternity."
"They're very strong, so you have to be careful, Maria. This isn't a game anymore! You must do everything I say, because they might have reinforcements waiting around here!"
'Wait a minute... Uncle, do I look like the malevolent spirit you're talking about? What kind of evil spirit is this pure and handsome (even without a face)?' Wang Fei looked displeased at being compared to those spirits. He irritably tried to make a cross shape with his hands.
"Umm... but Uncle Vogel, I don't think the ghost in front of us looks like what you described," Maria, who seemed to sense that the armor was displeased and its gestures showed no ill intent towards them, said. It was as if it didn't even want to fight them.
"Hmph... evil spirits always try to trick you into a false sense of security. The cunning ones usually have high spiritual power, but it comes at the cost of their physical bodies being weak. So before it recovers, I'll take care of it right now!"
As Vogel finished speaking, he spun the knife in his hand in an 'N' shape, then raised it to the sky and charged forward to attack him.
Wang Fei couldn't just let that happen. He picked up a steel rod from the ground to block the incoming knife.
"Amateur!" Vogel's knife, held above his head, suddenly blurred like an illusion before reappearing at his right side.
'An illusion spell... so he's one of the Nightzmora.'
Unfortunately for his opponent, he had picked the wrong fight... because this wasn't the first time he'd encountered one of the Nightmare Knights.
Thwack!! Wang Fei jabbed his right elbow (armor) hard into the tip of the incoming knife, knocking his opponent off balance.
Vogel was stunned and tried to regain control of his knife while shouldering into him with close-combat skills. But that was his biggest mistake. Wang Fei took the opportunity of his charge to sidestep, using the moment to trip his opponent. Vogel, preparing for a follow-up knife attack, lost his footing and was struck on the back of the head by Wang Fei's steel rod before he could react.
"Ack!" Vogel fell beautifully to the ground. Of course, Wang Fei hadn't used his full strength. A normal person would likely be unconscious for a few hours, but a physically strong knight would probably recover in less than half an hour.
Clap, clap! "Wow! Mr. Ghost, you're amazing! You even beat Uncle Vogel, a former knight!"
'Maria... is this really the time for praise? Your uncle just got knocked out by me, you know?'
Although Wang Fei felt like complaining about his dear sister, he was glad to see she was still the same lovely, cheerful girl she'd always been. Because of that, he couldn't help but make her even happier. He bowed, touching a hand to his chest and bending at the waist like a magician who had just finished a performance, earning even more praise from her. (This pair of siblings really is something else.)
Five minutes later, after carrying the unconscious Uncle Vogel back to the car they had arrived in, the two sat outside talking. Though "talking" might not be the right word, as Maria did most of the talking. Wang Fei responded by typing messages on Maria's phone, which he had borrowed, letting a program voice the text for him (picture a male version of Siri).
Maria introduced herself as Maria Nearl, a recent graduate who wanted to compete in the Kazimierz Major next month. She said she was here looking for spare parts to build her own suit of armor. The reason she didn't just buy one from a shop was that she didn't want her family to know she was competing. She wanted to enter the competition secretly and tell them later, after she had qualified.
"And why don't you want your family to know? Or... do they not approve of you competing?"
Wang Fei typed out the question, curious. He was a little worried that others might not want Maria to compete for some reason.
"No, no... quite the opposite. Mom and Dad are very supportive, but... Grandpa and Uncle Młynar don't approve. Maybe they're afraid I'll become like my older sister, who became too obsessed with competing." Maria looked a little down after mentioning her sister.
"Your sister competed too?" Wang Fei was very curious about what Margaret had been up to for the past 6 years, but from Maria's expression and demeanor, it probably wasn't a good story.
"Yes... my sister competed for the first time 6 years ago, but... she was only the runner-up then and lost the right to draw the champion's sword. But 3 years later, my sister competed again and won the championship, earning her the title 'Radiant Knight of Hope' (RaidenHope). She earned the right to draw the sword that day, but even though the sword accepted her as a knight, she couldn't pull it out... It seems my sister was very heartbroken about that, so she chose to leave on a journey again to train herself."
Hearing Margaret's story from Maria surprised Wang Fei greatly.
'Margaret couldn't draw the sword? Then what was that sword in her hand that sent me here back then...'
Wang Fei vaguely remembered the event of being sent back to this simulated world. The condition for unlocking it was direct contact with the power of the champion's sword. The fact that she had it should have meant she could draw it.
'Could this simulated world be a parallel universe? Did my existence cause a butterfly effect, preventing Margaret from drawing the sword? And if so... in the real world, who was the previous Knight-Primarch? Was it the real Ray, Margaret's older brother?'
When Wang Fei thought that, he felt a little sad, as if his identity as the Knight-Primarch in the real world had been replaced by someone else. But on second thought, he shouldn't be sad about it. After all, that was the real world, and this was the simulated world, his world. What he should do now was put all his effort into making this world better, as it should be.
'But speaking of which... why have I never heard any rumors in the real world about the death of the Knight-Primarch?'
Although Lungmen was quite far from Kazimierz, the news of the death of such a prominent figure should have been a phenomenal event, famous throughout all of Terra. It should have reached Lungmen or even Yan. Yet, he had never heard or even seen any news about the Knight-Primarch.
This made Wang Fei wonder if perhaps the Knight-Primarch in the real world wasn't as powerful as he thought... or maybe his death wasn't announced to the whole world like he did in the simulated world.
So only a very small number of people knew that the Knight-Primarch had died. But all of this was just his speculation. The only person who could confirm it was Margaret, the current wielder of the champion's sword.
'From what Maria said, it seems that in the 6 years since I left, no one has been able to lift that sword.'
"So... Maria, you want to draw the sword to become the next Knight-Primarch?"
"Knight-Primarch..." Maria murmured softly when she heard that, then jolted as she realized she was thinking strange thoughts and hastily waved her hands.
"M-me?! No way, no way! I wouldn't dare dream that high! I just want to enter the competition to become a knight like everyone else!"
Then her eyes began to shine, and she started boasting like a child admiring her idol.
"Mr. Ghost, you might not believe this! But my older brother, he was actually the previous Knight-Primarch who wielded the great holy sword! He was the hero who saved Kazimierz and shook the entire continent! With just a single swing of his sword, he could repel the entire Ursus and Victorian armies of hundreds of thousands until they fled! He was the true king worthy of ruling Kazimierz! To us, my brother will always be the Knight-Primarch of Kazimierz!!"
"Even now... I still believe that one day my brother will return. He will definitely return in glory! To protect us once again!!" Maria, gazing at the sky, revealed a bright smile. It was the same smile she had when she listened to his stories about the time the knight appeared to save the princess.
But the look in her eyes that Wang Fei saw now was filled with loneliness and solitude. Even he could feel that she was waiting for him, even though she knew in her heart that he would never come back...
'...'
Seeing his sister's suffering, Wang Fei's hand moved to pat her head to comfort her, but at the last second, he chose not to... and pulled his hand back, knowing that in his current state, he was in no position to comfort her.
'She would be so disappointed if she knew her respectable brother ended up in this state...' Wang Fei looked at his own armor-clad body and sighed, even though he no longer had a physical body.
Although part of him wanted to tell Maria the truth, he was afraid... afraid that this child would believe his words completely and rush to take him back home to everyone to explain. But Wang Fei knew well that he wasn't in a safe situation right now. He had made many (a great many) enemies, and one of them was the Kazimierz Chamber of Commerce. And if he remembered correctly, it seemed his spirit's possession of this armor was the result of some experiment by the Chamber of Commerce. If they found out his spirit was inhabiting the armor, they might come to capture him and endanger his entire family.
'So, the first thing I should do is find a way to restore my own strength.'
Wang Fei could clearly feel that his spiritual state was gradually improving. It was probably because he was now near Maria, who shared his power or bloodline, allowing the sacred power in her blood to slowly restore his spirit. However, perhaps because Maria's sacred power was too weak, his recovery was as slow as a crawling turtle. If he continued to wait like this, it would take at least half a year for his spirit to fully recover.
Simply put, he needed to find a way to stay close to his family to restore his spiritual state, but he also had to find a way to prevent the Chamber of Commerce from learning of his existence. To approach the Nearl family mansion in this state without being noticed was practically impossible.
Unless…
Wang Fei looked into the car and saw that Vogel was starting to regain consciousness. He turned to Maria and quickly typed a message.
"Maria, I need you to help me with something."
Several hours later. At the Nearl family mansion.
Ding-dong! "Hmm?" The sound of the doorbell at the front of the mansion caught the attention of a woman in the kitchen. She quickly washed her hands and dried a plate before heading to the door to open it, only to find the face of her daughter who had been missing all afternoon.
"Mama, I'm home~" Maria, seeing her mother, didn't hesitate to rush in and hug her dearly, causing the white-haired woman who was about to scold her to just smile and soften as always.
"Oh, you child... where have you been for so long? Do you know that Sofia has been out looking for you?"
"W-well, the errand I was on was quite complicated. By the way, is anyone else home?" Maria, hearing this, could only scratch her cheek in embarrassment. She couldn't very well tell her mother she'd been rummaging through a scrapyard for parts to build a suit of armor... but she didn't want to lie to her mother either, so she deflected and deliberately changed the subject.
It wasn't that Yolanta couldn't see that her daughter was hiding something, but she didn't say anything and answered her question.
"Your father is in the basement as usual. As for Młynar, he said there was an urgent meeting at the company, so he left an hour ago." After Yolanta finished speaking, she just noticed someone who had arrived with Maria.
He was an ordinary-looking young man with dark black hair. The armor he wore was a rather strange color, as if it had been crudely painted with a brush. But because he wore a full suit of armor that only showed his head, it was difficult to see his figure inside.
When the young man saw Yolanta's gaze, he walked towards her with a smiling face, then bowed respectfully in a knightly manner before introducing himself.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Lady Yolanta. I am a friend of Maria's. My name is Wang Fei."
The holographic voice that came out surprised Yolanta so much that she was speechless for a moment.