Naturally, Dolnesia did not have the strength to drag me away.
It was not as if she used aura, or possessed an ability that enhanced her body.
But still.
Drawn along by the force of her pull, I found myself rising from the bench without realizing it, my feet naturally moving wherever she led me.
Was it because of the dizzying, sudden sensation of her against my forearm?
Or because of that strange whisper of hers, softly tickling my ear?
First, my legs went weak, and I obediently let her lead me away.
Then, remembering her brazen whisper, I blushed.
The spirit she meant obviously had to be that Tin Knight spirit... but did people normally phrase it like that?
This girl was awfully cheeky.
"Did you really have to put it that way when you said you were making a spirit?"
When I shot her an exasperated look, Dolnesia noticed my gaze, crinkled her eyes with a broad smile, and shamelessly asked back,
"Oh my. What on earth were you imagining all by yourself, mister?"
What had I been imagining all by myself, indeed.
At her brazen response, I let out an incredulous sigh.
But... had she always been this kind of character?
When we first met, she had had an eccentric side, but she had still seemed like a calm, proper young noblewoman, somewhat like Isabella.
I was pretty sure that had been her image in the game as well.
Whether or not she knew what was going through my mind,
Dolnesia looked at my face and smiled faintly before gently beginning to manipulate her spirit power.
Sliiide.
As though responding to her spirit power, space rippled, and Sancho appeared.
Once summoned, Sancho grew out his vines and thrust them into his own shadow, then began pulling out the pieces of armor he had collected so far, one by one.
Arghalia’s Magic Eye, dropped by Scaramuccia.
The gauntlet, a hidden piece Dolnesia had found—the one I had seen in the clubroom.
And finally, the hidden piece we had obtained this time: the Boots of One Who Arrived Home.
When Dolnesia manipulated her spirit power once more, something shimmering with a soft light appeared.
A spirit that had lost its heart, unable to move and capable only of sparkling because it did not yet have a body through which it could manifest in this world.
Ding!
[Quest: Create the Heartless Tin Knight.]
Create a body for the spirit that has lost its heart.
◈ Helmet (0/1)
◈ Armor (0/1)
◈ Boots (0/1)
◈ Gauntlets (0/1)
◈ Reward: ???
Perhaps because three pieces of armor had been laid on the ground and the heartless spirit had appeared again,
the system window popped up before me once more, as if urging us to hurry and make it a body.
Dolnesia carefully brought the spirit floating above her hand toward the armor.
Flash!
The spirit’s glow slipped into Arghalia’s Magic Eye, and all the armor on the ground began to rattle and shake violently.
Then, as if attempting to take shape on its own—
Clank!
The rusty boots snapped onto the lower half of the armor, while the gauntlets, as though drawn in, locked into the arm joints and assembled themselves.
Click, clank!
Then the armor, having completed its own form, began to rise slowly with a heavy sound.
Ding!
[Quest: Create the Heartless Tin Knight.]
Create a body for the spirit that has lost its heart.
◈ Helmet (0/1)
◈ Armor (1/1)
◈ Boots (1/1)
◈ Gauntlets (1/1)
◈ Reward: ???
With only the helmet that would serve as its head remaining, the spirit’s body had fitted together perfectly, like interlocking gears.
More remarkable still was that its current form was that of a complete Tin Knight.
The distinctive traits that had been visible moments ago had vanished without a trace.
The worn boots bearing the marks of time, the silver armor that had reflected the moonlight all the more brilliantly, and the gauntlets imbued with a mysterious green glow.
Strangely, as though all three parts had completely assimilated with one another, the pieces of armor that had each possessed their own design had changed into plain, crude tin, as if they had originally been one whole.
So all that was left was its head.
Only the helmet that would serve as its head remained now.
But we did not have a helmet on hand. Had Dolnesia kept one aside?
The moment I tilted my head in puzzlement,
as though responding to Dolnesia’s will, Sancho shoved vines into his shadow and pulled something out.
What appeared before me was an extremely familiar, utterly worn iron helmet.
"Do you remember it, mister?"
At Dolnesia’s teasing question, asked with her eyes crinkled in a playful smile, I let out a hollow laugh.
Of course I remembered.
It was the first ordinary-grade armor I had ever worn, the iron helmet I had been wearing when I saved Dolnesia from danger in Dreamland five years ago.
And it was the wandering knight’s helmet I had given her for the first time.
This girl...
"You kept this all this time instead of throwing it away?"
I had given it to her then to hide her face, but it was a common ordinary-grade item without a single option.
Its defense was ridiculously low, too.
Not just the helmet—even if you added together the armor, gauntlets, and boots I had worn back then, their defense would barely have reached 130.
It was literally a common junk item, worse than the helmets Logres soldiers wore...
And she had kept it instead of throwing it away.
"Why else? I kept it in case you tried to say something different later, mister."
Having received the worn helmet from Sancho, Dolnesia murmured those words with a small smile and moved to place it atop the empty head of the standing armor.
"Wait a moment."
I stopped Dolnesia.
That was because the Tin Knight spirit’s rank and stats were determined by the performance of the armor making up its body.
Yet the helmet she was about to use was an ordinary-grade junk item with no abilities whatsoever.
We could find it a better helmet, so was there any reason to deliberately lower its rank with that old thing now?
"That helmet is too much of a waste to use for its body..."
But.
Despite my attempt to dissuade her, her gaze did not waver.
"I decided on this from the very beginning."
Holding the worn iron helmet tightly against her chest with both hands, Dolnesia looked straight at me with a smile full of conviction.
"From the very beginning?"
"Yes, from the beginning. I did not care what armor or boots were used elsewhere."
Dolnesia lowered her eyes to the helmet in her arms and carefully stroked its surface with a tender touch.
"But just as you saved me and put this helmet on my head... I decided from the start that I would put this helmet on this child, too, so that I could save him."
Then she slowly lifted the helmet from her arms and placed it atop the Tin Knight’s head.
"And..."
Dolnesia grinned at me, her eyes shining even more transparently in the moonlight.
"This helmet suits my knight best."
[Quest: Create the Heartless Tin Knight.]
Create a body for the spirit that has lost its heart.
◈ Helmet (1/1)
◈ Armor (1/1)
◈ Boots (1/1)
◈ Gauntlets (1/1)
◈ Reward: ???
Clank!
The instant the helmet was placed upon its empty head,
the rusted surface of the old helmet began to peel away as though shedding skin. Then, as if it had always been part of it, it assimilated and transformed into the Tin Knight’s helmet.
Click, click!
Before long, the silence was broken by the sound of heavy metal joints locking perfectly into place.
Sliiide.
Beyond the narrow gaps of the tightly sealed helmet, a blue gleam began to flicker and shimmer.
Ding!
[You have completed the quest: Create the Heartless Tin Knight!]
[Dolnesia has received the reward: ???]
A plain tin body without a single ornament.
But that was precisely why it took the form of a heavy knight, seemingly sturdier than ever and as though it would smell of thick machine oil.
Clank! Thud!
The Tin Knight spirit respectfully dropped to one knee before Dolnesia, its liege.
Dolnesia gazed at her knight, finally complete.
And before my eyes, the final message quietly appeared.
Ding!
[Please name the spirit.]
The spirit’s name.
"So, what are you going to name it?"
I asked casually.
Dolnesia then began slowly walking, one step at a time, toward the kneeling knight.
"Its name?"
But why was that?
There was a peculiar certainty in her voice as she repeated the question.
As though, just as she had chosen from the very beginning to use the old helmet I had given her as this knight’s head, she had already decided on its name back then, too.
And I thought I knew what the knight’s name would be.
For some reason, I had that feeling.
Dolnesia approached slowly and gently placed a hand on its shoulder guard.
The knight’s body was so large that she had to raise her arm quite high even while it knelt on one knee. Yet, as though unwilling to make its liege go to such trouble, the knight bowed its head a little deeper.
At that kind consideration, Dolnesia smiled faintly and calmly declared,
"Your name is Quixote."
The very name I had used as an alias when I first met Dolnesia while saving her.
"Put a word meaning noble in front of it, and it becomes Don Quixote."
It was the name that had made Dolnesia smile without understanding why when she heard it.
The alias I had casually blurted out became the knight’s name, and the old helmet I had used to conceal my identity became the knight’s head.
And the Tin Knight that inherited my alias...
【Supreme-Grade Tin Knight Spirit, Don Quixote】
Clank!
[Name, Don Quixote. Confirmed.]
With a crackling mechanical voice, it displayed those words above its helmet and slowly rose to its feet.
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