Kapitel 39: Sword Dance

[User, no effort can lead to failure to complete the mission given by the system.]

In the midst of hesitation, the system's voice again made Elijah realize what he should do. Elijah bit his lip, knowing that remaining silent would make someone come on stage to drag him down. Elijah felt he couldn't give up at the moment. Not when he had already sacrificed his pride just to look like a woman in front of many people.

"Heidi, give me my sword now!"

Although Heidi was surprised that Elijah suddenly shouted from the stage, the girl still moved quickly by throwing the sword that Elijah had left to her. Although the distance was quite far, Elijah was still able to catch his sword precisely. Elijah ignored the increasingly loud whispers, both from the audience and the judges of the competition. The teenager took a deep breath, then pulled the mithril sword from its sheath.

Elijah might not be able to dance, let alone imitate the traditional dances performed by most of the participants in this dance competition. However, Elijah could play his sword like a dance. Elijah combined the sword movements he had learned throughout time, then matched them to the tempo of the music that was getting faster and faster.

The beautiful mithril sword swung like it had no weight at all. Its sharp blade was visible to all. But in the hands of Elijah, who had owned the sword since he entered the academy, the sharp blade could not hurt Elijah in any way.

"Woah... he can really dance."

Elijah might not have noticed because he focused on playing with his sword on stage. But, thanks to his sword dance, the people who were originally mocking Elijah, who stand still on the stage, began to change their expressions to expressions of admiration. The sword dance is not something that anyone has ever done. On the continent of Rhodes, a sword, which was a symbol of destruction, was never used to dance something that was considered an offering to the gods.

Dancing for the gods while playing with a sword should have seemed like a way for someone to make an indirect challenge to the gods. However, when Elijah did it, the sword movements seemed to be purely to show how good he was at wielding a sword. Such skill could be interpreted as Elijah's way of showing that his power is dedicated to the sun goddess. At least, that's what the audience and judges felt when they saw the way Elijah played his sword with ease.

The music was getting faster, and Elijah's movements were getting sharper on stage. Elijah felt that the music made his movements stronger and faster. Elijah's movements got faster and faster until at one point, the music stopped as Elijah stopped playing his sword.

The audience was silent. Elijah thought his performance was a mess. Until when he was about to leave the stage, someone started clapping and was followed by another applause.

The sound of thunderous applause was heard from the audience. Elijah went backstage with a surprised face. Elijah was so surprised that he even ignored Elizabeth, who tried to praise his dancing skills.

No, what surprised Elijah was not that the audience's reaction was better than he expected. The reaction did surprise him. However, when the system provided another notification for Elijah, what the system said surprised Elijah more than anything else.

[The sun goddess liked the dance that User did for her. Will of fire, a passive skill that will make any fire released by the User twice as strong as usual, will automatically activate from now on.]

Elijah thought the sun goddess was just something created by humans on the Rhodes Continent. But unexpectedly, this figure really existed and could even provide Elijah with useful passive skills for him. Elijah was lost for words for a while. Elijah was silent until he calmed down enough to ask something to the system he had.

'That sun goddess... someone who really exists in this world?'

[Of course.]

The system's answer was short but directly answered Elijah's question for once. Elijah was left speechless once again. The teenager subconsciously clenched his hands into fists, then asked again the system that never said anything useful unless he asked directly.

'Then... is the Rhodes Continent a real world? If the god really exists, then the people are real too, right?'

The system not answering directly made suspicion rise in Elijah's heart. If the world he had been in all this time was not a game world filled with NPCs, then...

[Users need not worry. The residents, demon kings, and even gods in that world were all a bunch of NPCs created by the system. None of them were real, because they existed only to help the User complete the mission given by the system.]

The system replied to Elijah's doubts with a confident answer like that. Elijah may still frown for a while. However, when Elijah realized that being suspicious of the system's words would not get him anywhere, Elijah finally let go of the matter quickly.

Now that Elijah was no longer focused on the system, he finally noticed his bustling surroundings. Some of the competition participants were staring at him in whispers. While others looked at him in awe, including Elizabeth, who had originally captured the hearts of the audience.

"Wow, the way you dance is so beautiful, Araisa! I think everyone was really impressed with the way you played the sword on stage."

Elizabeth spoke with excitement. Then, in the next second, her excited expression turned into a confused expression.

"Even so... I can't believe you were actually able to talk all this time. Why didn't you want to say anything all this time? Are you worried because your voice sounds like a man's?"

It was only when Elizabeth brought up the matter in front of Elijah that he realized he had made a fatal mistake while on stage earlier. Due to the urgency of the situation, Elijah unknowingly yelled his real voice at Heidi. Elijah was grateful that Elizabeth assumed he wasn't talking because his voice was heavy like a man's. But the others ... Elijah didn't expect them to trust him as much as Elizabeth did.

Elijah was afraid he would be discovered by someone. But until the end of the program, no one asked why his voice sounded like a man's. By now, it was almost midnight. All the participants have shown their dancing skills. All that was left now was to announce who would be the winner and become the new target of the villains who loved to kidnap innocent women.

Thanks to his spectacular performance on stage, even if the participants who had already performed could leave backstage, Elijah couldn't move much as people recognized him wherever he went. Their initial weapon backfired on Elijah at this point. The man was stressed, especially when the MC started calling each participant to come on stage.

The winner of this dance competition was about to be announced. However, neither Elijah nor Heidi had found any clues about the criminal they had to catch. Elijah looked up at Heidi, who was sitting in the audience when she came on stage. As Elijah suspected, Heidi was also a little uneasy as they hadn't seen anything strange during the competition.

"Without a doubt, every participant's performance was beautiful and amazing. All the participants have dedicated their best dance to the sun goddess. But among all the participants, we finally chose the three dancers who stood out the most this year."

Elijah wasn't really listening to the host's words as his eyes were busy looking in all directions. Whether it was in the audience or among the participants, the villain must have been among them at this final event. Elijah silently clenched his fists in frustration. After he had done everything he could for this mission, Elijah did not want this mission to fail.

AUTORENGEDANKEN
Aurora_Ayaka

I made the scene of Elijah dancing while listening to LaArabesqueDanse (the song when Morgiana dances in the Magi anime). If you have the song, you can read this chapter while listening to the song.

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