THUD.
Kradil collapsed.
He had fallen before he could even swing his sword properly.
He did not get back up.
He lay sprawled flat on the ground, his body twitching reflexively from time to time.
“Huh?”
The sharp-featured apprentice knight stared wide-eyed at the unconscious Kradil.
A massive lump had swollen on Kradil’s head, and the foam that had filled his mouth was running down his chin.
“My goodness….”
Silence descended over the training grounds.
What had just happened was simply too unbelievable.
The one lying unconscious was not Young Master Rodos, but Kradil.
The knights’ minds had ground to a halt at a situation they had never even imagined.
They could not even comprehend how Kradil had allowed himself to be caught off guard.
Rodos, meanwhile, paid them no attention and readjusted his grip on the tomahawks.
He had struck Kradil with the blunt heads rather than the blades.
Only after some time passed did the knights finally regain their senses and begin moving.
“Take him to the infirmary!”
Kradil was placed on a stretcher and carried away from the training grounds.
Rodos watched him go and shook his head.
‘And he calls himself a full-fledged knight.’
In Rodos’s eyes, Kradil had been pathetic.
He had let his guard down.
Never lowering one’s guard was among the most basic of fundamentals.
Once the situation had been dealt with, Rodos returned to the dummy.
Kradil had wasted his valuable training time, which only meant that Rodos needed to train even harder.
THUD! THUD!
Heavy impacts echoed throughout the training grounds.
The other full-fledged knights who had witnessed the incident stared at the solemn-faced Rodos in astonishment.
“Is that really the youngest young master?”
Rodos had a broad, inverted-triangle upper body, with clearly defined muscles packed beneath it.
Even compared to the apprentice knights around his age, his physique was considerably larger and more solid.
“And he just went straight back to training as though nothing happened.”
No one had expected this outcome.
Kradil might have been caught off guard, but none of them had expected him to be knocked unconscious with a single blow.
“I admit it feels satisfying to see Kradil end up like that, but I am not sure how to feel about this.”
The knights were overcome with complicated emotions.
Kradil had always swaggered around while relying on his connection to Harka.
The sight of him abandoning a knight’s pride and fawning over a mage had always been unpleasant.
But even Kradil was a full-fledged knight who had reached the Low-Tier Expert level.
And such a man had been knocked unconscious by a single strike from a novice who had only just begun wielding weapons?
Even spreading the story would be enough to invite ridicule.
Worse still, that novice was the young master of a magic family.
In other words, a full-fledged knight had lost to a mage in a contest of weapons.
As fellow knights, it was deeply humiliating.
“It would be troublesome if the other Knight Orders heard about this.”
“Agreed. We need to make sure everyone keeps quiet.”
The other knights nodded.
***
“Interesting.”
Knight Commander Igrun, who had watched the entire scene, smiled faintly.
Unable to understand his reaction, the Vice Commander asked,
“What will you do? Kradil may have started the confrontation, but it does not seem right to simply overlook this. I will lodge a complaint with the family.”
“And what exactly will you say? ‘Your young master attacked one of our knights with an axe and knocked him unconscious, so please discipline him properly’? Those mages would laugh at us before we even finished speaking.”
“…….”
The Vice Commander could not answer.
There was nothing he could say.
If they made such a complaint, what would become of the Knight Order’s dignity?
“I will place Kradil under disciplinary confinement for one month. And starting tomorrow, intensify the training.”
“As you command.”
Having received his orders, the Vice Commander left the Knight Commander’s office.
Igrun chuckled in disbelief.
“This really is interesting.”
His instincts had not been wrong.
Part of him had hoped they were, but instincts honed over many years had proven accurate.
In the end, Rodos had indeed caused a stir.
Even in Igrun’s eyes, the strike that knocked Kradil unconscious had been flawless.
Rodos had read his opponent’s gaze and attacked at a moment Kradil could never have predicted.
There had not been a single wasted movement, and the strike had carried more than enough force.
Those were the movements of someone with extensive combat experience.
“He is like a Northern warrior.”
Rodos reminded him of the Northern warriors he had encountered in the past.
They had seemed far removed from civilization, yet each had gained formidable strength through methods of their own.
There were no rigid rules in the North.
Their movements were endlessly adaptable.
They had no fixed footwork or anything of the sort.
Igrun had learned that much when crossing blades with them.
“I should go speak with him soon.”
Igrun’s interest had been piqued.
To think that he would see the likeness of a Northern warrior in someone born from the bloodline of a prestigious magic family.
***
After finishing his training and returning to his room, Rodos stopped in front of the door.
Two maids were standing there.
“We have been waiting for you, Young Master.”
“I did not expect anyone to come at this hour.”
Rodos was taken aback.
A servant visited only once a day, in the morning.
No one ever came looking for him in the afternoon.
“We were instructed to escort you to this evening’s banquet.”
The evening banquet was an important formal family event held once every month.
“Tell them that I am still recuperating.”
Rodos answered briefly.
It was a refusal.
The time had not yet come.
He had no desire to show himself unnecessarily before he had properly developed his strength.
‘He has changed.’
The maids were surprised, but they did not show it outwardly.
Concealing one’s emotions was a fundamental quality expected of a servant.
Rodos had changed just as much as his newly muscular body suggested.
The old Rodos would have desperately wanted to attend the banquet despite knowing how he would be treated there.
It had been one of the few occasions when he could feel that he belonged to the family.
But now, that was no longer the case.
He spoke with an expression that suggested the entire matter was a nuisance.
What in the world had happened to him after the accident?
The maids rarely saw Rodos, so they had no way of knowing.
‘This is sudden.’
Rodos found it strange.
For the past six months, they had excluded him from the banquets under the pretext that he needed to recover.
Yet now, all of a sudden, they were telling him to attend.
“We were told that your recuperation officially ended today.”
“We were also told that your attendance at the banquet was strongly desired.”
The maids spoke firmly.
They did not reveal who had given the order.
It was not Marcos.
If it had been Marcos, they would have been required to say explicitly that it was an order from the Head of the House.
‘Someone saw it.’
Someone other than a knight had witnessed the moment he knocked Kradil down.
Rodos did not know who it had been, but it was undoubtedly someone from the family.
There was no way to determine exactly who without confronting the matter directly.
“Very well.”
Rodos nodded.
There was no need to overthink it.
He simply had to face it head-on.
That was the Northern way.
“I will prepare quickly.”
Rodos opened the door.
He intended to wash and get ready without delay.
The maids, however, followed him inside.
“There is not much time remaining, so we will attend to your preparations.”
Rodos frowned.
Having someone serve him during meals or bathing?
Such a thing would have been unimaginable in the North.
In the North, where everyone stood as equals, people learned from childhood to take care of themselves.
“I will do it myself.”
Leaving the maids outside, Rodos closed the door.
***
It was not long before Rodos opened the door again.
He emerged neatly groomed and faced the waiting maids.
“Let us go.”
“Young Master, what is that?!”
The maids were so startled that they even forgot their manners.
Two tomahawks were strapped across Rodos’s back.
“They are like extensions of myself.”
To a warrior, a weapon was as precious as life itself.
“Bringing such barbaric weapons to the banquet is extremely discourteous. You must leave them behind.”
The maids could not hide their bewilderment.
Attending a banquet while carrying axes?
It was behavior unimaginable within House Augustus.
“They are for self-defense.”
Rodos answered briefly.
He needed them to protect himself among those scheming mages.
“Even so….”
“My axes are my staff. I cannot open a Subspace, so I merely carry them with me.”
From his past experience, he knew that mages stored their staffs inside Subspaces.
“Understood.”
The maids could no longer argue and began leading him toward the banquet hall.
***
With two tomahawks strapped to his back, Rodos walked through unfamiliar parts of the estate.
This was the first time he had gone anywhere within the family grounds besides the training grounds.
The original owner’s memories told him what each place was.
Still, seeing and experiencing them with his own eyes was different.
The Main Castle of House Augustus was enormous and beautiful.
It was only slightly smaller than the Imperial Palace.
That alone spoke volumes about the family’s power.
The corridors were filled with works of art collected from across the entire continent.
The moment they reached a junction in the corridor, the maids stopped.
“Young Master, something unexpected has come up, so I am afraid we cannot guide you any farther. You will have to proceed on your own.”
After delivering the one-sided announcement, they quickly left before Rodos could even answer.
Rodos was left standing alone in the hall.
‘Something is going on.’
Years of instinct told him as much.
Someone had undoubtedly arranged this.
There was a strong possibility that it was the same person who had secretly watched what happened at the training grounds.
Rodos moved quickly.
He had become even more curious to see that person’s face.
Family mages were stationed as guards outside the dining hall where the banquet was being held.
They blocked Rodos’s path.
“Young Master, you may not enter.”
“Why?”
“We were ordered not to admit anyone who was not invited, even if they belong to the direct bloodline. Your name is not on the list.”
“I was invited.”
“We were not informed of that.”
One of the guard mages answered with a mocking smile.
Rodos could hardly believe it.
Was this truly the extent of their scheme?
“Whose order was it?”
“We merely follow our orders.”
The guard mages evaded his question.
Rodos became certain that the order had not come from the Head of the House.
“Move.”
“We cannot. We were specifically instructed not to let you inside under any circumstances.”
When Rodos refused to back down, the guard mages pointed their staffs at him.
“Ha.”
Rodos let out a short sigh.
This was unbelievably childish.
Why were mages always so cowardly?
When Rodos tried to walk around them, they blocked him once more.
“We told you that you cannot enter.”
Rodos moved both arms and shoved the guards aside.
Caught completely off guard by his strength, the mages lost their balance and fell.
“Urgh!”
“It does not matter. The door will not open anyway, Young Master.”
Ignoring them, Rodos drew his tomahawks.
The enormous doors were tightly shut.
Judging from the flow of mana, Locking Magic had been cast on them.
‘If something blocks your path, split it apart.’
Rodos swung a tomahawk at the firmly closed doors.
BANG!
The doors shook violently from the impact, and cracks spread across them.
Rodos swung again.
Two strikes were enough.
BOOM!
With a tremendous crash, the doors split apart, revealing the dining hall beyond.
Rodos strapped the tomahawks back across his back and stepped inside.
‘It is remarkably difficult just to get a meal.’