The World of Otome Game
is a Second Chance for Broken Swords
Story Starts
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Chapter 1 -
Steel Against Steel
As Leon's small airship neared the floating island, he caught sight—with sharpened vision—of the drones rising to meet him, their lenses all swivelling toward his craft.
He stilled the craft, letting it sway gently while he weighed his next move. The drones floated in silence, patient as vultures waiting to strike.
He dismissed the idea of using Archer's more destructive Noble Phantasms like the modified Caladbolg II—it would devastate the island. Nor could he 'spam' Hrunting, a word he'd picked up from video games, since it only locked onto one target. With so many drones, he'd need far too many to make it worthwhile. Even with his improved reserves, he doubted he could maintain that kind of output.
He couldn't barrage them either—the distance currently was too great. With their AI assisting, they'd dodge even a storm of nameless blades.
"I should have thought ahead," he murmured, narrowing his gaze at the clusters of drones gathering like storm clouds.
"Yes!" He adjusted the navigator, expanding its reach across the skies, searching for anything lurking beyond the island.
"Just one small vessel, a hundred klicks north-northeast. High above the troposphere, where most of the floating islands drift about."
Floating islands avoided most storms by being situated above the troposphere. However, they still suffered the occasional atmospheric discharge—one of which had recently struck the Bartforts' lands, forcing his father to sell property to cover the loss.
"Okay, let's do four each. I also do not need to break them," Leon muttered as he brought the airship level with the island's height.
"I am the bone of my sword, steel is my body, and fire is my heart," he intoned, letting the first three lines of his aria bleed into the world, overlaying it with the edge of his Reality Marble.
Eight swords suddenly manifested, embedding themselves on the deck of his airship—neatly arranged in a quarter circle to his right.
The drill-like blade rose in his hands. It wasn't as cumbersome as the true Caladbolg, he reflected, and with a thought, he reshaped it, honing its lines before fitting it to his bow.
Reinforcement surged through his frame as he gripped the alloy bow—the same Archer had wielded in his final years, before surrendering himself as a Counter Guardian.
The bow bent under his reinforced strength, the alloy trembling as if in protest. He whispered its name into the sky: "Caladbolg II."
The blade tore free with explosive force. Leon kicked the engines alive, the airship lurching forward as three more Caladbolg II streaked out one after another, each one arcing toward a cluster of drones like a comet.
While he initially dismissed Caladbolg II for its destructive tendencies, there was one attribute perfect for this scenario—priming the next batch of swords.
Each Caladbolg twisted the air itself, a vortex pulling all nearby into its ruin. Drone clusters tore apart in chained fireballs, the swords screaming past in lines parallel to the island, sparing its fragile surface.
The explosions multiplied as the vortex drew in drones on the fringes, chain reactions rippling through the airspace around the floating island.
The drones scrambled, their AI no doubt recalculating the scenario, adapting to his attack.
Before the drones could adapt, he pulled the altered blade from its notch. It trembled in his grasp, seething with bloodlust, begging for release.
"I have created over a thousand blades." His voice, carried across the sky as steel shimmered into being, hundreds of swords rose around him. "Anchoring vectors, Hound of the Red Plains… Hrunting."
The black-and-red blade tore from his grip, and the host of swords echoed its course along parallel vectors. He loosed three more Hruntings, each with a storm of steel in its wake, until the sky glowed crimson with arcs of light and flashing blades.
The AI was no doubt calculating the red streak's trajectory, shifting drones out of the way to avoid a repeat of the last disaster.
But Hrunting—sword of Beowulf—was said in legend to sense and pursue its prey, Grendel. It shifted course, the tip adjusting until it honed true on its target—and the storm of swords followed its hunting pattern, each tracking along a parallel vector.
He took control of the ship, cutting the thrusters as he swivelled it right. The craft slid sideways, a short burst from the side engines guiding it down into a thicketed forest.
Leon traced several more swords and launched them into the sky. Explosions thundered above the canopy, flashes breaking through the leaves as the drones closed in around him.
He unleashed another barrage at the surrounding drones, then slung a duffel of supplies and rations over his back—insurance in case he lost the airship.
He then traced both Kanshou and Bakuya, cutting down a nearby drone. The white blade spun from his hand as he rushed forward, dodging laser fire and hurling swords in a constant barrage—Kanshou and Bakuya trading places as each returned in rapid succession.
He fired the engines, the ship roaring as he cut a straight path out of the forest.
Bursting from the forest, he spotted a lone drone rushing toward him. The airspace around it was strangely empty, save for Hrunting streaking in pursuit—and the swarm of blades shadowing its path.
Thrusters roared as Leon drove forward, head-on toward the lone drone. High above, the encircling swarm poured its attention on him, blind to the suspended sea of swords glinting like a guillotine poised to fall.
Timing it precisely, he seized control of the swords, which were aligned in parallel vectors to Hrunting. They froze, tips skyward, then shifted trajectory and burst forth like a shrapnel bomb.
At the same time, he loosed his swords in a rain above the swarm, batting aside the lone drone that came head-on. Hrunting still streaked after it as he resummoned another set of blades to follow its vectors.
Pairs of Kanshou and Bakuya whirled from his hands, streaking outward as drones and repulsorlift tanks poured from the island's central complex.
A storm of twin blades spun around the airship, undulating like a macabre dance. Kanshou and Bakuya struck without pattern, shredding any drone or tank that dared step onto their shifting floor.
He traced two of Herakles' sword-axes, reinforcing them as he braced them tip-down before the airship, catching the artillery blasts from the hovering tanks.
Then he shifted the axes toward the tanks and sent them hurtling back. The air cracked with a whip as they burst forward at supersonic speed, crushing two vehicles before Leon repeated the process again and again.
He drew another Caladbolg II and set it to his bow. 'I need to time this perfectly,' he thought, launching it toward the complex at a low angle.
The blade tore through dozens of drones, clipping a tank as it went, before smashing a gaping hole in the side of the complex. Leon drove the airship in after it, dismissing the weapon before it could tear deeper into the flooring.
Seeing the destruction in its wake, Leon whistled, admiring the sheer damage the Noble Phantasm wrought.
"Capable of cleaving mountains indeed," he muttered as he disembarked. Alarms blared, and the clatter of metal footsteps grew steadily louder, closing in on his position.
Blades flared into being, sealing the airship in a shell of steel. Leon crouched low and gripped the ragged edge of the breach.
He tipped forward, angling his body just right. Around him, traced swords floated in sync, anchored to his body as their origin point. With everything aligned, Leon kicked off—plunging through the floors Caladbolg had torn open. Blades streaked out as he fell, cutting down drones and bipedal automatons while wall-mounted sentries spat lasers in his wake.
Nine floors down, he landed hard, his reinforced limbs absorbing the impact. There should be thirteen basement levels in total, if his notes and memory were correct.
A quadruped automaton turned the corner, Gatling guns mounted on its arms. Before it could fire, Leon raised a wall of swords and traced a Chinese straight sword—not just sharpening it, but reinforcing its concept of cutting. Then he inscribed a circle beneath his feet, dropping through the floor to crush another automaton below.
Hearing the telltale hum of drones flying towards him, he steeled himself.
"Trigger off," he declared, sending swords lancing down both corridors, shredding the drones as they turned the corner.
"Were there this many automatons in the game?" Leon griped. This was supposed to be a hidden paywalled event—the one that rewarded a 'Lost Item,' an overpowered relic that trivialised everything except, of course, RNG.
"Okay, three more." This time, he tried altering the floor instead of cutting. It wasn't like conceptual alterations or reinforcement, where you imbued an item with an idea or reinforced it past its limits—this was different, far easier.
While he hadn't been able to practice magecraft after the Heaven's Feel ritual, this world of swords, guns, and magic had given him a second chance to explore concepts. The video games from his final months had sparked more ideas than he cared to admit.
With this kind of alteration, he was only changing the shape—but he still had to grasp the metal and all its trace elements. Fortunately, this alloy was uniform. A hole opened in the floor, the warped edges rising into a shallow rim around it.
He leapt down and landed before a door he recognised—the entrance to the control centre of the complex.
"Already here?" he muttered, surprised. He sealed the perfectly circular hole above with traced blades. The alarms still wailed, but what unsettled him more was the lack of resistance.
"There." His eyes caught the keycard sitting atop a side console, eerily faithful to the game's design.
He sharpened his hearing with reinforcement. Above, floor after floor throbbed with activity—clashes, movement, chaos he couldn't see yet.
'Are they fighting amongst themselves?' Leon wondered, bewildered that he stood uncontested at the heart of their complex.
He tapped the keycard on the console. The iron panels groaned open, sliding into their recesses—and at that instant, the alarms spiked again.
"EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE!"
"Fuck," Leon cursed as he rushed towards the console.
"Congratulations are in order, new human," the voice drawled—mocking, almost gleeful.
The AI's mocking voice grated against the unending alarm, but Leon forced himself to ignore both.
"EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE!"
"Damn it—at least give me a timer! How long do I have?" Leon's voice cracked over the alarms as he slammed the console.
"I have a question, new human. What year is it in the new calendar?"
Leon panicked. In the game, all it had taken was hitting the interact key—then everything had worked.
"Ugh! New calendar? What new calendar? If you mean Holfort's, then—wait. Language? Nihongo?!" He froze at the sight of the familiar kanji for sun, book, and language.
"That answer was sufficient. I've asked this same question numerous times, but it seems our kind has lost," the AI responded, as Leon clicked the language option.
"We lost to the new humans. Their overwhelming magic erased our civilisation," the AI's voice echoed, hollow with resignation.
'Just a second ago, the console's text was in English letters. Now this. And that constant refrain of "new humans"… what the hell was the AI getting at?'
"EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE!"
"You are trying to seize me, aren't you? Futile. I would rather self-destruct than allow one of the new humans to commandeer me," the AI said defiantly.
"Hey, I'm not even replying to you and your babbling nonsense," Leon muttered in Japanese, clicking through menus at random, searching for a way to cancel the self-destruct or claim ownership.
"You can speak—and read—Japanese?" the AI queried. "Your kind shouldn't be able to use that language at all."
"Well, my soul's pure Japanese. Rice and miso soup every morning," Leon drawled sarcastically, though panic gnawed at him—it had already been a minute and a half.
"Your soul? Are you referring to a cycle of death and rebirth?" the AI asked.
"Huh? I just need to end this self-destruct sequence, damn it. What are you talking about—and why can you understand Japanese?"
"EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE! EXECUTE SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE!"
Leon glanced back. The fighting above was swelling, drawing closer with every second.
As he turned back, the control panel bathed him in a beam of red light.
"Judging by your genetic information, you do indeed have traces of Japanese ancestry," the AI said. "Still—you are a new human, with fragments of the old. Curious. That should not be possible."
"You don't say. Since I'm part Japanese—part old human—and this was theirs, I can claim the complex, right?" He gave a humourless snort, sarcasm dripping from his tone.
"Shut up already! I need to stop this!" Leon snapped. The last words spilt out in Japanese—and the alarms cut out.
"Huh?" Leon blinked in disbelief.
"Ownership confirmed. You are now the master of this island, its facilities, and all within. Register a designation."
The silence pressed in, disorienting him—and without thinking, he spoke the name of the Lost Item ship that had lured him here.
"Designation accepted: Luxion."
The silence was shattered as alarms howled again, every wail branded with the word: intruder.
"We'll settle this later," Leon said. The ceiling split with a thunderclap, hurling debris, shattered drones, and scrapped metal to the floor—and through the wreckage, a figure descended.
Kanshou and Bakuya flared into his hands, other blades hovering at his flanks as Leon stared at the newcomer.
The blonde pushed herself upright, dust falling from her frame. Pale-gold hair spilt to her shoulders in loose waves. She wore an adventurer's garb—a cropped jacket with brass buckles, a short blouse exposing her midriff, a pleated skirt over fitted stockings, and boots scuffed from travel. A belt hugged her waist, pouches and dagger swaying at her hip.
'Why is the protagonist here?'
Leon froze. A dove and twin greatswords hovered above her, all woven from luminous threads, gleaming defiantly against the falling debris.
Blue eyes locked with grey. They flicked down to his blades, up to the swords above, then back to him. A heartbeat later, she lunged, shouting—
"Onii-chan!!"
Alarms still screamed overhead. Leon blinked. "Huh?"
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END