Chapter no.73 Dark Souls

Chapter no.73 TO BE A KNIGHT?!

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Naruto sat cross-legged as the elevator rattled upward toward the Undead Church. In one hand, he flicked through the miracle scrolls, mentally reviewing their descriptions with the narrowed eyes of someone already feeling buyer's remorse.

[Item: Great Heal Excerpt]
[Description: Great miracle cast by advanced clerics. Restores high HP.
Great Heal Excerpt borrows from only several verses of Great Heal. As a result, it can only be cast a stark few times.]

Naruto hummed, rubbing his chin. Right. That explained why Petrus looked like he'd swallowed spoiled milk when he mentioned it. If Rhea was a high-ranking cleric, and this scroll was only an excerpt… then Petrus probably stole it. Cut and pasted divine scripture just to make a quick buck.

"What a bitch," Naruto muttered under his breath. Still, a powerful healing miracle had its uses.

He flipped to the requirements.

[Faith Requirement: 14]
[Spell Uses: 1]

He stared. Then stared harder.

"You're joking."

One cast? One?! For two whole levels of Faith? His eye twitched. "This is as useless as Petrus' bowl cut." With a grumble, he shoved the scroll back into his inventory. Maybe he'd come back to it if Hinata's mother ever needed more than the Estus could offer.

Onto the next.

This one looked… weird. No words. Just a smudge of paint, like someone had dragged a wet brush across the scroll in a lazy half-circle.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Okay…"

[Item: Homeward]
[Description: Great miracle cast by advanced clerics. Return to the last bonfire rested at. Would normally link to one's homeland, only the curse of the Undead has distorted its power, redirecting casters to a bonfire. Or perhaps for Undead, this serves as home?]

Naruto blinked. "…So it's just a miracle version of a Homeward Bone?"

Actually… that sounded useful. Instant teleport back? Could come in handy in either world. Especially if he had no Bones left and a backpack full of souls.

Then he checked the requirements.

[Faith Requirement: 18]
[Spell Uses: 1]

Naruto physically recoiled like he'd been slapped. "Six levels in Faith?! For one cast?!" At this point, he was starting to lose faith in miracles, period.

With a sigh, he pulled out the final scroll.

[Item: Seek Guidance]
[Description: Miracle of clerics on an Undead more guidance from other worlds. Guidance facilitates communication between Undead, but their value varies greatly. A balance of faith and wisdom is required.]

He squinted.

"…So it's just a miracle version of the Orange Soapstone?"

Still, he checked the stats.

[Faith Requirement: 12]
[Spell Uses: 5]

Finally. Something he could actually use. The Soapstone messages had helped him once or twice before. If this miracle uncovered even more hidden messages, maybe he'd actually get some useful hints. Or at least a few chuckles.

He rolled the scroll up just as the elevator ground to a halt with a groan. The ruined hall of the Undead Church stretched before him. Naruto glanced up to the second floor, half-expecting the Channeler to be there, dancing.

Nothing.

Even the Berenike Knight was gone.

Guess those two were like the Black Knights. Naruto frowned, disappointed that the Channeler's ridiculous robe was no longer available to loot. He'd really wanted to try it on, if only to mess with Kakashi.

But his disappointment faded as something caught his eye. A faint orange glow shimmered near the cracked floor. A Soapstone message.

"Blacksmith Ahead."

His eyes drifted to the Seek Guidance scroll still clutched in his hand. ...Wonder if this thing shows anything different.

He stepped forward, gripping the catalyst tightly. The scroll's text danced in his memory, and he recited the incantation with a reverence that surprised even him.

"O lost souls who walk between light and dark, let your wisdom pierce the veil of silence. By the grace of the divine, may your echoes guide my steps, your voices rise from the abyss, and your truths be laid bare before me."

The words left his lips like warm mist in the cold.

The vision this time was different.

Flickering, like candlelight in a storm, came visions that were rapid and disconnected, yet somehow linked. Not one… but many.

A woman in ragged white robes, her hands trembling as she traced a glowing symbol into the mud before collapsing, a hollowed shriek caught in her throat.

A knight, face half-melted from fire, dragging himself across blood-slick stone, his last act a prayer whispered into a cracked talisman before he died with his forehead pressed to it.

A young boy, no older than Konohamaru, hunched beneath a broken arch, drawing a symbol into the dirt with shaking fingers. His lips moved as if begging someone, anyone, not to take the same path he did.

An old cleric atop a cliff, wind howling around him, carving glowing lines into the rock with the very last of his strength. As he finished, he fell backward smiling.

Hundreds of them.

Dying, warning, praying.

Each one leaving behind a piece of themselves—not power from above, but something pulled from within.

Naruto's eyes snapped open, breath catching in his throat. His heart thudded, but it wasn't fear.

It was clarity.

The Seek Guidance miracle… it wasn't from the gods. It was a patchwork of will. Of desperation. Of hope. The final messages of the dead.

Naruto stood silent in the cathedral, the faint orange script on the stone glowing like dying embers.

Miracles don't have to come from gods, he realized as he remembered how Beatrice was able to use a miracle via magic. So then… "Can I make my own miracle?"

The thought struck him like lightning. If miracles could be born from human will—from soul, from memory, from meaning—then maybe… he could craft one himself. But how?

His thoughts shattered with a ping.

[Heavy Soul Arrow has been replaced by the attunement of the Seeking Guidance miracle.]

"Let's not get hung up on the advanced stuff," Naruto muttered. "Do what I can, for now."

He raised his hand and cast Seeking Guidance.

The air shimmered like hot air. The usual message "Blacksmith Ahead" remained. Then… shadows formed. Faint silhouettes, glowing like firelight on soot, flickered into existence. One knelt, pointing toward Andre's workshop.

"Blacksmith ahead."

Naruto blinked.

Then more appeared. One trudged toward the church doors, raising a spectral hand.

"Elevator ahead."

It walked two steps farther…

WHAM.

Naruto flinched as an illusion of a massive mace—just like the Berenike Knight's—crashed down from above, smashing the figure into glowing dust.

"Whoa…"

He let out a low whistle. Useful. But he frowned again.

"Still… one spell slot? For this?"

He could only attune a handful of spells at a time. Carrying around Heal, Soul Arrow, Homeward, and now Seek Guidance? He needed options, but the system didn't want to give them to him freely.

Then an idea sparked.

"Wait a sec… my clones can attune spells on their own, right? So what if I made a few in advance… sealed them into storage scrolls… each loaded with different spell setups?"

His grin returned.

"Emergency clone loadouts," he muttered. "One for healing, one for nuking, one for support… and they just pop out when I need 'em."

A workaround. Classic Naruto style. Until he had the attunement to manage all these himself… he'd outfox the system with good old Shadow Clone Jutsu. And it felt damn good to win at his own game.

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Naruto strode toward the bonfire, sitting down and stretching his legs with a relaxed sigh. "Hey, Andre!" he called.

From the forge below, Andre's gruff voice echoed up through the stone. "Well, you took your time!"

"Yeah, yeah. Ran an errand. Found Rickert."

"Did you now? That poor bastard still locked up in New Londo?"

"Yep. Some kind of cage. I could break him out, but... he wants to stay. Wouldn't say why."

"Hmph. Figures." A pause. Then louder: "So? You get the magic you were after?"

"Yeah. Picked up some soul sorcery. Still learning."

Andre gave a short, booming laugh. "A knight tossin' spells. Sounds like an Astoran noble's daydream."

"Is it really that rare?"

"You'd be surprised."

"Well, I'm not a knight yet."

"Damn right. You're a squire. Oscar's squire, no less. Don't start givin' yourself titles."

Naruto fell quiet for a moment. His fingers traced the hilt of his sword. "...Yeah. Squire of Oscar." He let that settle, then pushed the thought away. "So. Want to keep training me?"

"Weren't you going home?"

"I am but I'll leave behind clones to keep practicing with you."

"Good. Maybe they'll finally craft a functional smoking pipe."

Naruto blushed. "I'm getting better, okay?!"

Andre just grunted.

Naruto stood, ready to use the Ring of Sacrifice and return home. But then his eyes drifted to the towering silhouette of the Grand Fortress.

He had spotted Siegmeyer from a distance, the familiar round bulk of his Catarina armor standing motionless in front of the great iron gates of Sen's Fortress. The knight hadn't moved an inch since Naruto had last seen him, still lost in thought, still waiting. The world had shifted, but Siegmeyer had not.

A man of patience or a man trapped by indecision?

Naruto exhaled and stepped forward. "Sir Siegmeyer," he called out, straightening his posture.

The older knight blinked and turned, as though waking from a daydream he'd been lost in for hours. "Oh! Hello there, young squire," he boomed, his voice as jovial as ever.

Naruto glanced at the towering gate behind him. Still shut tight, still unmoving. "...I see you're still waiting for the gates to open."

Siegmeyer let out a hearty laugh, deep and booming. "Just goes to show good things come to those who wait! Hah hah hah!"

Naruto didn't smile. Not this time. In the time Siegmeyer had waited, Naruto had fought his way through the Undead Church, faced down the Moonlight Butterfly, descended into cursed depths, learned soul sorcery, boxing and blacksmith, healed a crippled girl, and slain an Undead Dragon. Fifteen days of hardship.

And this man had just... waited.

For a flicker of a second, frustration churned beneath Naruto's calm. But he buried it. Siegmeyer had earned his respect. He wouldn't let impatience sour that.

He stood tall, like a knight-in-training should. "Sir Siegmeyer," Naruto said, tone level, "may I ask you a question?"

The older knight perked up. "Oh? Ask away! I could use the company."

"Are knights allowed to use magic?"

Siegmeyer paused as Naruto noticed the subtle shift—the tension behind the armor, the way the knight's jovial presence grew guarded. "...It's complicated," Siegmeyer said finally.

Naruto waited.

"A knight can use magic," he said, slowly, carefully, "but to do so is to stray from tradition. It would be... frowned upon. A knight who practices magic risks being cast out by his peers."

Naruto frowned but didn't care, as he had lived his entire life as the outcast. He had no noble title, no true homeland. He wasn't even officially a knight.

"Why?"

"To answer that, you must know what knights were made for. We were created to fight the everlasting dragons. To slay a dragon was to prove one's valor and honor."

Naruto's thoughts drifted to the Undead Dragon and the scale he had taken from its corpse. The Dragon Crest Shield resting in his inventory. That knight had hunted the beast. And now...

"What happens when a squire kills a dragon?" Naruto asked.

Siegmeyer paused. "That squire would bring great honor to their master. And in many cases... would be knighted."

Naruto's lips parted then curved into a smile. That meant... he had brought honor to Oscar. But the warmth of that thought flickered. Can I call myself a knight now? Or would Oscar even approve of what I've become?

Siegmeyer continued, unaware of Naruto's spiraling thoughts. "But as for magic," he said, "it is distrusted for a reason. Because the one who first unlocked the secrets of sorcery was not a man. He was a dragon."

Naruto felt his gut tighten. "Seath the Scaleless."

"Indeed. A dragon who cast down his own kind, who sought knowledge above all else. He taught humans how to harness the soul, how to shape the world with thought and will."

"But he was still a dragon," Naruto said.

"And the knights... were made to kill dragons."

Naruto's eyes lowered. "So they couldn't accept that their greatest enemy became their greatest teacher."

Siegmeyer nodded. "Pride. Tradition. Fear. Take your pick."

"...Then why isn't magic forbidden?"

The older knight chuckled. "Because no matter how much knights protest... there's always another war. Another dragon. Another foe that demands more than steel can offer."

Naruto exhaled slowly. "So they turn to the thing they hate."

"They always have."

For a moment, they stood in silence. Then Naruto spoke, quieter now. "...If I keep using magic, I'll never be a true knight, will I?"

"Being a knight isn't about tradition. It's not about sword or magic. It's about protecting what matters. If magic helps you do that then use it, and hold your head high."

Naruto looked at him, genuinely startled. "Sir Siegmeyer..."

"Hah!" The knight laughed again, but there was no mockery in it. Only warmth. "Don't let the ghosts of old honor stop you from forging your own."

Naruto smiled, small but sincere. Then he turned toward the path leading home. "Goodbye, Sir Siegmeyer."

"Goodbye, knight Naruto."

Naruto paused mid-step. He glanced back. "I'm just a squire, Sir."

Siegmeyer's laugh echoed gently through the air. "The reinforced drake sword on your hip begs to differ."

"I... don't know if I'm ready to be a knight."

"Well, my dear friend, no one is ever truly ready for anything worth becoming. Readiness is a myth comfort tells itself before running."

"Can I really do this?"

"Surprisingly, you already have," Siegmeyer replied. "You stood for the weak. You bled for strangers. You raised your sword against evil not for glory but because it needed to be done."

Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it again. He took a breath and began to walk again.

Behind him, Siegmeyer raised his voice one last time. "May your sword be swift, your heart be steady, and your purpose ever your own. Walk forward, Naruto Uzumaki... for the world does not wait."

Naruto didn't turn back. He just walked.