"I knew you'd care about this."
Unaware that Shien had already formed some ideas, Vivian suddenly smiled.
"Actually, it isn't much of a secret. Nearly everyone in the kingdom knows about it."
Hearing Vivian's opening remark, Shien felt miserable all over.
Everyone knows, everyone knows—fucking everyone knows again!
You're just bullying a transmigrator like me for being unfamiliar with the place and not knowing anything because I just got here, aren't you?
Feeling as though his intelligence had been insulted, Shien regretted not reading a few more books when he had been in the guild library earlier.
If he had read more, he would surely have known all these things that "everyone knew," right?
Instead, people were treating him like an illiterate. It was truly unbearable.
At that moment, Shien deeply realized the benefits of studying and decided he should make a sign to advise everyone: Study hard and improve every day.
Of course, Vivian had no idea Shien was brainstorming again and simply began explaining.
"I know what you're thinking. You think a Hero's Holy Sword should be a power exclusive to its owner, that it shouldn't be transferable, and that once a Hero dies, the Holy Sword should disappear too, right?"
Vivian spoke at length.
"And that is indeed the case. In the past, after the Heroes summoned to this world passed away, their Holy Swords would shatter immediately, without leaving even a single fragment behind."
"But a thousand years ago, when Hero Mitra, the founder of this kingdom, was nearing death, he made a request to the Three Great Goddesses in order to leave some power behind for the royal family and the kingdom."
"That request was to offer himself as a living sacrifice to the Holy Sword."
At those words, Shien abruptly stopped walking.
"A sacrifice?"