Mushoku Tensei: Reincarnated as the weakest Sword God

The Silver Palace of Asura was as imposing up close as it seemed from afar, it was larger than even the imposing Peragius Castle, and there were apparently many structures in the sprawling grounds surrounding it, including the royal family's main residences and a series of beautiful gardens.

Ariel was going to visit her sick father, and then make a reservation for one of the palace halls, my role was simply to follow her and Luke.

For three days, things were going smoothly.

Ariel was making steady progress in organizing her meeting, the nobles who had been awaiting her return offering to help.

In the course of my duties as a bodyguard, I had been introduced to what seemed like dozens of influential people, to be honest I couldn't remember any of their names.

I hadn't formally met Darius and Prince Grabel, but I had seen them from a distance, only once.

Darius was a flaccid man, with a drooping chin and an unpleasant gleam in his eyes. When he saw me, his face contorted in terror. It was as if he saw the Grim Reaper or something. Maybe it wasn't wise to read too much into that sort of thing, but... the man's reaction was so obvious that I didn't feel the need to doubt any longer. He was obviously one of Hitogami's three disciples.

Prince Grabel seemed like a fairly ordinary man, he was nothing more than a medium-looking bearded man in his thirties with fluffy golden hair.

The princess was fighting her own battles, my job was to eliminate the enemies who tried to stop her by force.

In fact, we had been attacked repeatedly, hired assassins were sent to us every day.

That said, these assassins were nothing special, we hadn't provoked our biggest prey yet.

The killers targeted Ariel exclusively, to be more precise, they were after Sylphiette, who was now acting as her body double, and they pounced on her in the street, while she was eating and while she was sleeping, not giving us a moment of peace.

Of course the real Ariel was wearing a maid outfit and a wig, and she slept soundly every night in a normal maid's bed.

"They actually send us a lot more than last time, you know? It makes a big difference having you and Rudy around, Gino," Sylphiette commented at one point.

"I've made preparations for the stage, now I think it's time to bait our trap." Ariel said

That day, the princess made a special effort to talk to a noble loyal to Prince Grabel, during this conversation, she made some vulgar jokes about how Sylphiette was on her period and how I was having stomach problems...

The noble showed some interest in Sylphiette, but she responded with a frown.

It seemed that Ariel had decided to invite an attack by spreading the word that her own bodyguards were in bad shape.

However, it didn't work.

Perhaps she had been too obvious about it, from the next day onwards, even common assassins stopped showing up.

It was the fifth day, the attacks against us had completely ceased.

In return, the enemy had begun targeting some of the more influential nobles of Ariel's faction, specifically those who were making arrangements for her stage.

These nobles had the means to defend themselves, and the attacks hadn't amounted to much.

...

Nine days had passed, and our stage was finally set.

In short, it was going to be a party, drinking, dancing, chatting, that sort of thing, these sorts of events were regularly held in the halls of the Silver Palace.

This was announced as an event that was going to be celebrated by the Second Princess Ariel in honor of Prince Grabel.

There had been several attempts to disrupt the preparations, but the princess had dealt with them all effectively.

Tomorrow would be the moment of truth.

"Sir Gino, I just gave them one last push," Ariel said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Oh?" I muttered

"To be more specific, I've leaked some information that should make High Minister Darius very anxious" she replied

"...well, I see" I muttered.

...

Later that night, we headed to Ariel's residence, it was a dark, moonless night.

All of our preparations were now complete, it was just a matter of waiting until tomorrow, we would have to relax and rest as much as we could tonight.

Or so I thought, until I saw the man standing in the middle of the road in front of us, he had rabbit ears, so he was clearly a beastman.

The beastman wore black, non-reflective armor and had a straight sword in his hand, he stood right in the path of Ariel's carriage.

"Who goes there?!!" Luke asked, stepping forward from his spot next to the carriage.

"I am the Northern King Nucklegard! One of the three swords of the Northern God, they call me Twinblade!" He said

A second later, Nucklegard began to separate, one half of him moving slowly to the left, and the other to the right.

"Hey, Nuckle, I guess we shouldn't say our names."

"Oh, right! I guess things are a little different this time, huh? You're pretty smart, Gard!"

"Hehe, well, I've been hitting the books lately."

No, it wasn't that, Nucklegard was actually a pair of twins.

"Oh! And we probably shouldn't tell them it was Lord Darius who hired us either!"

"You're probably right, when we had to fight assassins, they never told us who they worked for."

"Yeah, exactly, so make sure you keep it a secret, Nuckle!"

"Understood!"

They really weren't very good at being assassins, huh?...

Shocking myself out of my disbelief, I spurred my horse and leapt towards them.

"I'm Gino Britzs," I said.

The twin swordsmen's ears twitched at the sight of me.

"Oh? The new Sword God?!...We may be nothing more than a couple of puny Mildetts..."

"But we'll still take you on!"

I got into my combat stance and the guys got into a mirror position.

"Alone, we're only half a man."

"Together, we're a whole man!"

"We'll fight you two at a time!"

"Surely you'll agree that this is fair!"

Uh no, that's the definition of unfair, actually.

At that moment, another silhouette emerged from the darkness, this time on the street behind our carriage, it was a tall brown-haired man wearing a black leather coat and he was carrying a sword that I recognized immediately.

"Oh boy...So it wasn't enough for you to just become the Sword God, huh! Now you want a position in the nobility, you insolent boy!"

It was my father...

...

"Dad?..." I muttered in shock, my legs felt heavy, my throat was dry for some reason.

It was my father, there was no doubt, he got into a combat stance while Sylphiette and Rudeus faced him.

What is he doing here?!, why him?!...

"Okay! Here we go!!!" Nucklegard shouted, I had forgotten about him momentarily... I dodged his attack effortlessly and with a sword of light I cut Nuckle in half and Gard lost his right hand.

"yeaaagh!!!, damn it!!, bro!" Gard screamed in agony as he writhed on the ground.

My gaze is focused on my father, Rudeus and Sylphiette began to attack him quickly, my father repelled their attacks effortlessly, Luke was glued to the carriage on guard.

"fucking hell!! You'll see!!" Gard shouted.

I quickly threw a stone bullet at him that penetrated his skull, killing him instantly.

So I started running towards my father, he was already closing the distance between Rudeus and Sylphiette.

But I was able to stop his sword at the last second.

"Dad! What are you doing here?!" I screamed while looking him in the eyes.

He didn't answer me, he was still in an attack position while struggling with my sword, his gaze was cold and calculating, he had only looked at me like that once, When he wounded my chest and I became a saint of the sword, the wound wounded me again in the chest.

For him, he was no longer his son, he was an enemy that he had to kill.

"Rudeus!!, Sylphiette!!" Protect the princess!!" I shouted

They both looked shocked but nodded.

More assassins had come out in front of us but even Like could take care of them.

"I'll ask you again, Dad! What are you doing here!!" I shouted.

"What are you doing here? You haven't had enough, have you? When you told me you wanted to go out into the world I was happy. I thought you would go out and take Nina with you, that you would have a good life...But what did you do?! You came back full of pride and defeated the master by stealing his title!! You are a disgrace!!" Dad shouted.

"We've had this discussion before!! It was an accident!!" I yelled.

"Accident?! If it was an accident you should have let yourself be defeated again! That's why your mother and I left! I couldn't stand to live on the same land as a usurper!" Dad shouted

"But I will not make that same mistake again with your brother!! He is already an intermediate of the sword, you know." dad murmured.

I just stayed silent as I looked at him.

"What are you planning to do?" I muttered.

"I'll settle my debt, the master will claim his title again if I team up with him to kill that princess" Dad said.

"What?...with Gull? Are you collaborating with Gull to kill Ariel? Why?!" I screamed.

"I don't know, he came to me one day with a proposal, I couldn't say no, we're all in this, so I'll return the honor God Sword style..." dad murmured.

At this point I felt tears coming out of my eyes.

"Is there nothing that can make you change your mind? I am stronger and faster than you and you know it!! What will happen to mom and my brother? Are you going to leave them alone because of this?!!" I yelled at him.

"It wasn't in our plans for you to be here, But never mind, Master and Kall will take care of you," he muttered.

In an instant he stopped struggling against me, He immediately rushed towards Ariel's carriage, and I throw a long sword of light towards it.

"Wait!!" I screamed as I ran towards him.

The attack split the carriage in half but Ariel had already left it, Sylphiette began to attack him with Air attacks but my father repelled them effortlessly.

Rudeus and Luke were busy with the other assassins so they didn't notice what happened.

It all happened in a second.

Papa lunged at Sylphiette at lightning speed, she didn't have time to react and one of Papa's attacks hit her.

His left arm was cleanly severed in an instant.

She didn't even have time to react and my father tried to attack her again.

"Nooo!!" I screamed as I intercepted his attack and threw a long sword of light at him that split him in half.

It was like in slow motion, my father's upper half fell to the ground with a serene expression as he looked at me.

He fell to the ground with a thud as he looked at me.

I couldn't decipher his expression, he looked disappointed as he looked at me.

The next member's life left his eyes.

Timothy Britzs had died...

"aaaargh!!!" Sylphiette's cry of pain brought me back to normal.

"Sylphie!!" Rudeus shouted as he came running towards us.

I immediately took out a healing circle that Orsted gave me and placed it on Sylphiette's severed stump.

In an instant and with a yellow glow, his severed arm grew back without leaving a scar.

"Ha....haa..." She muttered still in shock

"Sylphie! Are you okay?!" Rudeus ran towards her while hugging her tightly.

"Yes...yes, I'm fine, thanks Gino" She murmured.

But I didn't answer him, my attention was on my father's body.

I didn't know how I felt, my father disowned me, he allied himself with Gull to kill me, but still...even though I tried, I just couldn't hate him, I wanted to be angry with him, He had abandoned me, but even if I wanted to, tears began to come out of my eyes.

...

Ariel was unharmed, Luke and Rudeus were able to take on all the assassins without any problems.

I gathered my father's body and burned his remains, his only possession was his blue sword Tsukikage...

I decided to take his sword and put it on my belt, I didn't feel well...

When night came I simply lay in bed and stared at the ceiling until exhaustion overcame me.