"......What did you say?"
Vincent Blante, clan head of Blante, could not hide his astonishment.
"What you have just told me is true, I take it?"
At Vincent's question, the knight bowed his head.
"It is certain. Young Master Karon went down to a single unexpected blow from Young Master Ethan, without so much as a proper resistance."
"......Hah."
Vincent leaned back in his chair.
The knight standing before Vincent now, Chen, was one of the few loyal retainers Vincent trusted.
Chen had no reason to file a false report in this situation, so the report had to be true.
There would have been more than one or two witnesses in any case, so even without Chen the matter would have reached Vincent's ears.
"How did it look to you?"
At Vincent's question Chen withheld his words a moment, then spoke.
"......It was astonishing. Beyond belief as the body movement of an ordinary person who has not awakened mana. It was movement that used a heavy body weight to its optimal effect."
"Is it worth an assessment of that order?"
Chen was commander of the Black Lion Knights. The Black Lion Knights were an order composed only of the most elite among Blante's elite.
Coming from a powerhouse who had reached the realm of Master, of whom there were few even in Blante, and from the commander of a knight order, it was an assessment generous to the point of being hard to believe.
As a commander, Chen was notorious for being strict and for handing down stingy assessments.
"It was as though he had been deliberately concealing his strength all this time."
"......Very well. You may go."
Chen gave a light bow of the head and left the lord's study.
Seated in the lord's study, Vincent pushed his hair back and let out a breath.
"Heh heh."
The wastrel who had done nothing but give him grief was beginning to show him something rather interesting.
***
There was no hesitation in Ethan's stride.
'Because none of that matters right now.'
The ill-mannered little brother had supplied the beginning of the incident himself.
However much the clan treated Ethan as a child written off, he was nominally of the clan's blood, and Karon's elder brother.
Ethan had nothing to feel small about.
And he had no intention of standing there and taking a glove thrown openly in his face.
He walked the estate's corridors without hesitation and met countless stares, and the eyes that fell on him were as unfriendly as ever.
'......What's this?'
Ethan's stride halted mid-step.
A strangely grating sensation had brought his feet to a stop.
Before long he found the cause of it.
'It's that one.'
A man walking slowly toward him from up ahead.
A man whose expression gave nothing away, as if he were wearing a mask.
There was nothing special about him to look at, but Ethan could tell for certain.
'He's strong.'
It was the first time he had felt a sensation like this.
Every person carries a current of their own.
It would not be strange to call that superstition or oversensitivity, but Ethan did not write the fact off as superstition.
He had felt it often in his competing days.
Fighters who stood out for exceptional skill each carried a current of their own.
But a sensation at this level was a first.
'About the same as Nade?'
Ethan turned his eyes to Nade.
Nade, still wearing his smile, looked back at him.
"Is something the matter?"
"Who's that?"
"Do you mean Master Chen?"
"Ah."
It came to him.
One of the memories strewn in a mess through Ethan's head was pulled out.
'So that's the level once you're a knight commander.'
Ethan ran his eyes up and down Chen.
'If I fight him, I lose.'
Ethan felt it instinctively. It was not a question of whether he had the will to compete.
If Ethan fought Chen, he would lose without fail.
'So this is the difference between realms?'
A smile formed on his face.
A strange excitement rose in him as well.
He could become stronger.
Stronger than before.
Stronger even than in his Ryu Tae-sin days.
And it would not be tedious the way it had been then.
Because this world inside a novel was crawling with monsters that made no sense.
'Though in the end the one who climbs to the top is still me.'
It might be different if he knew nothing at all.
Ethan had confidence.
Ethan knew the windfalls the original's protagonist had collected.
"It has been a long while, young master."
Chen inclined his head slightly and passed by.
Ethan turned his head a little and lifted a corner of his mouth.
And he moved on without answering.
Chen watched Ethan's receding back with a strange look in his eyes.
'......Is this truly the same man?'
Watching from a distance had raised the question too.
The movement Ethan had shown then was too precise and too quick to write off as talent or reflexes.
It was movement like that of a man trained professionally.
'Though that could not be......'
That anyone in a sword clan would train in some vulgar hand-to-hand art or fighting art was out of the question.
***
Hoo.
Ethan drew a deep breath and looked ahead.
He had only come to stand in front of the door, and already his body felt as though it were prickling.
He could feel an overwhelming energy pressing down on him, a presence that pricked at his skin.
The man inside was a monster.
But Ethan was not afraid.
He was enjoying it, if anything.
'This really does suit me.'
He had taken up combat sports because he loved to fight and to take.
Gaining wealth and glory had not changed that essence.
But once he realized there were no rivals left, emptiness came over him.
His fighting will had faded long ago. He had always won without ever needing to want it badly.
For a man like that, a sensation like this was the first in a long while, no, the first ever.
Ethan raised a hand and knocked.
"Enter."
A voice like a lion's growl came over the door.
"Do try not to be too tense."
Nade still wore his smile as he looked at Ethan.
"I'm not tense."
Tension did not suit him.
Ethan snorted a laugh, opened the door, and stepped inside.
Inside, the first thing to catch his eye was furniture arranged with considerable neatness and order.
And then the man seated in front of him.
Seated as he was, there was no way to check his build properly, but Ethan sized the man before him up by eye.
'Height in the late 180s, weight around 90 kilos?'
Perhaps because he used a sword, he did not carry an overwhelming frame.
But Ethan could tell.
'Obscenely strong.'
People will liken a powerful man to a beast of prey.
But set a lion in front of Vincent and the lion would drop its tail and run.
Vincent was strong enough that you could tell without looking.
"I hear there was a disturbance."
Vincent spoke first.
"My brother does not know his manners, so I gave him a little instruction."
"......Manners? Hah. Did you say manners?"
Vincent gave a hollow laugh.
It was not a strange thing to say in itself, but the one who had said it was none other than Ethan.
"Are you telling me the things you have done all this time kept to your manners?"
"Back then, well...... let us call it a brief wandering."
"Hah. Your shamelessness is unchanged. Are you saying you have come to your senses now?"
"Precisely."
Ethan grinned. Vincent did not seem to care for the grin; his eyes narrowed.
'He has certainly changed.'
The Ethan of before had struggled even to lift his head in front of Vincent.
An arrogant wastrel who made a habit of outrages, and yet before Vincent he had been nothing but a frightened day-old pup.
That was what had angered Vincent most.
A vicious temper he could understand.
But fearing the strong and tucking his tail was something he simply could not overlook.
Ethan did not change easily, though, and he dragged incidents along behind him.
In the end Vincent stopped taking any interest in him.
At most, handing down a sentence of confinement when he caused an incident.
He had effectively cut his gaze away.
And then lately word came that Ethan had changed.
And from the two men he trusted most, at that.
'It was not a lie.'
He had made the summons half in doubt.
But Ethan had changed.
The eyes alone told him.
Right now, Ethan was not avoiding Vincent's eyes.
Vincent was drawing his energy up, faintly.
It was a level a mana user could withstand, but Ethan was an ordinary person who could not handle mana.
Which meant it was a level too heavy for him to bear.
And yet Ethan was bearing it defiantly, without a single change of expression.
The sight stirred something strange in Vincent.
Vincent snorted a laugh and withdrew the pressure.
"Then those words mean you have come to your senses?"
"I am past the age for losing my way over adolescence."
"Your tongue has certainly grown longer. You can answer for those words, I take it?"
Vincent's gaze settled on Ethan.
A cold, sharp gaze. Ethan did not shrink from it in the slightest.
"Of course."
"Good. Then I take it you will begin mana training from this day."
"No."
"......What did you say?"
Vincent's eyebrows twitched.
"Were the words you just spoke a word game, then?"
"I said nothing of the sort. Do not jump ahead of me."
"What do you mean?"
"As you know, I fear the sword, do I not?"
"......Hah. Go on."
Ethan's attitude could not have been more shameless, and it left Vincent dumbfounded, but he did not stop him.
Ethan continued.
"I need a little time."
"You still need time?"
"First, I intend to get this slab of flesh off me."
"You talk nonsense. Train, and flesh like that will come off on its own."
"Obviously. The problem is that in this body, training alongside the knights, I could not keep up."
"......Go on."
"Laying the foundation comes first."
"And you will train after that?"
"That is right."
Ethan grinned. Vincent let out a small sigh and fixed his eyes on him.
"Speak honestly. What are you scheming?"
Ethan shrugged.
"I am aware that my standing in the clan is past narrow and close to the floor. I have no wish to suddenly start doing conspicuous things from here."
"That sounds like saying you will dodge the competition."
"Hardly. I do not avoid a fight that comes to me. I am declining only because I can see a troublesome future in it. And I have no wish to put my neck on the line for a fight I cannot win."
"......Are you truly Ethan?"
Ethan grinned without a word.
***
Out of the lord's study, Ethan was satisfied with the result of it.
He had got what he wanted in the end.
The process had not been as difficult as he expected.
Part of it was that what Ethan wanted was a long way from a reward, which made it easy to extract.
An extension of the confinement.
What Ethan wanted was for the confinement to run longer and give him the time to shape his body.
If it were lifted now for no good reason, chances were high he would be dragged into more nuisance.
Plans stacked themselves up neatly in Ethan's head.
'First I have to get out of the domain.'
To make active use of the information he had read in the novel, he had to get outside the domain at the very least.
There was nothing to be gained by squabbling over scraps in a clan whose end would not be good anyway.
'Though I'll have to get mana.'
He had no intention of training by the orthodox knight's method.
Because here, too, there were cheats the protagonist went on to collect.
'And for that, first.'
Ethan looked down at his belly.
The roll of it was still generous, and still sloshing.
'I'll have to shake this goddamn fat off first.'
It was bleak.