Like a puppet with its strings cut, Ernolf’s body tilted toward the floor. The boy ran like the wind and caught him in his arms.
‘What on earth is going on?’
Until now, he had been so busy dealing with the crisis that he could not think at all, but now it was time to do so.
Yet no matter how much he racked his brain, he could not understand what had happened.
What was certain was that he had awakened in the mine he had escaped from as a child, and that the brother who should have died then was alive.
‘Then I’m empty-handed again? My territory? My throne? Has Kazar the Invincible King become a mine slave again?’
Even after fifty years, Kazar remembered clearly what had happened then.
The mine’s administrator had suddenly summoned him and his brother, then asked which of them would work at the underground mine face.
The mine face was where slaves who were difficult to handle or useless were usually sent.
Kazar was a difficult slave to handle, while his brother, Tirad, was a sickly and useless slave.
“The new mine shaft we’re digging is up above. I’ll go to the underground mine face. You stay up there and look for a chance to escape.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Do you know how hard work at the mine face is?”
“I will go to the mine face!”
Before Kazar could stop him, Tirad stepped forward before the administrator. Kazar shoved Tirad aside and insisted that he would go instead, but it was useless.
The administrator sent the stronger Kazar to the site where they were digging a new mine shaft and assigned the sickly Tirad to the dangerous underground mine face.
It was a measure to separate the two, who had been caught attempting to escape a few days earlier.
***
While working in the new mine shaft, Kazar encountered a spider monster tearing its way out of a thick egg sac in the dirt.
“Ah!”
Startled, he accidentally knocked over a water bucket. The baby spiders recoiled in horror and disappeared into the cracks between the rocks.
‘Do they hate water?’
Kazar quickly picked up the fallen water bucket and remained on guard. He could not see them now, but it felt as if the monsters were hiding in the darkness and watching him.
After investigating further, he found traces of egg sacs throughout the new mine shaft.
‘If I use these bastards…….’
This time, he could escape. He felt certain of it.
It would not be difficult to use the monsters to cause confusion. The problem was rushing to where Tirad was and hiding with him in the pool of water at the mine face before the monsters attacked.
He had to arrive as early as possible, because even a slight delay would let the monsters harm Tirad.
The opportunity came far sooner than he expected.
“It is collapsing! Run!”
“Aah!”
Spider monsters had apparently been living inside the wall of the mine shaft they were expanding, and the shaft collapsed during construction. The spiders that lived in the dirt and rocks had already weakened it.
“Tiri, Tiri! Where are you?”
Kazar’s only sibling—his sole blood relative—was Tirad. Calling out his name, Kazar ran like a madman. Then he ran into the administrator and struggled with him.
“Get over here, bastard!”
Only after barely subduing him could Kazar run toward the mine face where his brother was again.
And a little later, Kazar found Tirad dead beneath a rock. It was the last sight he had of his fourteen-year-old brother.
***
Fifty years later, Kazar opened his eyes in the mine shaft again.
‘What happened? Where on earth is this?’
After looking around and smelling the dirt, he realized that this was the mine where he and his brother had been confined as children.
He could not tell whether this was reality or a dream. But instinctively, Kazar ran to his brother.
Yet his limbs did not move as he wished. His movements were heavy and sluggish, as though he had sunk deep into the sea.
‘Goddammit, this was before I awakened aura.’
Realizing why his body was so heavy, Kazar hid in a corner away from people.
‘There’s no time.’
Kazar took a deep breath and concentrated on awakening his Aura Heart.
He had been a Sword Master whose reputation was so great that none in the North could rival him. Reactivating his Aura Heart was not difficult, but the question was whether he could reach that place in time.
Whether this was a dream or reality was something to consider after saving his brother first.
‘Done!’
The moment his Aura Heart began its first beat, Kazar ran again. His body felt lighter and stronger than before.
“Tiri, Tiri! Where are you?”
He raced there like an arrow and caught a faint glimpse of him. This time, Tirad was not lying bloodied on the floor. He was standing there, perfectly fine.
Seeing his dead brother again, Kazar was so happy that his heart felt ready to burst.
Kazar rammed the administrator who was threatening his brother with his body, picked up a rock, and smashed his head in.
Rage boiled up at the thought that his brother had died in the past because this bastard had held him back.
After killing the administrator, Kazar returned to his brother while suppressing his killing intent as much as possible.
“I’ve been looking for you for ages. Couldn’t you hear me calling?”
The brother who had died so young looked even more gaunt and sickly than Kazar remembered.
Seeing him in a state worse than a beggar again, anger surged through Kazar, and he ground his teeth.
‘I won’t let you die here.’
Kazar slapped Tirad’s cheek to bring his stunned brother to his senses. If they were going to get out of here alive, they had to hurry.
“Let us go.”
The wrist he took to lead him away was chillingly thin. Kazar worried that he might break it, but fortunately—or unfortunately—he too was in a body like a beggar’s and could not use his full strength.
‘Goddammit.’
It was good that he had been given a chance to save his brother, but it was absurd that he had to live in this body again for a while.
“Why’re you standing there? Are you scared?”
“N-no…… No. My present circumstances are simply rather difficult. Do not mind me.”
“What’re you saying? And what’s with the way you talk? You sound just like an old man……”
Tirad was acting somewhat strange. His eyes darted about anxiously, and he could not focus at all.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. Monsters showed up in a newly dug mine shaft, so everyone’s in a panic. This time, we’ll be able to escape without being caught.”
“Monsters? What kind of monsters? And what do you mean, ‘this time’? Was there a time before this?”
Tirad may have been frail, but he had been sharper than anyone else in the mine. It was strange that he spoke as though he had forgotten being caught and punished for trying to escape the mine.
‘Why is he acting like this?’
Normally, Tirad should have been a corpse by now after being struck in the head by a rock falling from the ceiling.
Looking again, Kazar saw a bloodstain around Tirad’s head. He had not died as he had then, but the injury seemed to have made his mind a little strange.
‘It’s fine. As long as he is alive, that is enough. I can fix whatever is broken somehow later.’
‘I’ll get my brother out of here.’ Keeping that promise in mind, Kazar worked through his options.
The plan he had tried in his previous life—hiding in the pool of water at the mine face and escaping when the chance came—was a failure.
That was because, shortly after the spider monsters appeared, something more frightening showed up near the exit. It was not particularly strong, but it would be a burdensome opponent to deal with in this body.
‘This time, I’ll go straight to the entrance as soon as I find Tiri.’
Just then, his brother said something strange.
“Is there anywhere we can get water?”
No one could fail to know that water had pooled at the underground mine face and made expanding the mine shaft troublesome, yet Tirad was asking where to find water. He might have forgotten in his confusion, but it was a little strange.
When Kazar asked whether he was thirsty, Tirad said something even more surprising.
“Those things are afraid of water. If we drive them away by splashing water on them, we can secure an escape route.”
“How could we…?”
Kazar wondered how Tirad knew that, but the monsters were already on their heels, leaving no time to question him. To save his brother, Kazar ran at full speed toward the pool at the end of the mine face.
After scooping and throwing water until his arms trembled, Kazar returned to find Tirad facedown on the floor.
‘……Is he dead?’
His heart lurched with fear. So he deliberately mocked him.
“You look awfully comfortable. You aren’t dead, are you?”
Then his injured brother said something strange again.
“Do you know how Red-Spotted Spiders hunt their prey?”
“I don’t.”
“Once they capture prey, they paralyze its limbs, slowly dissolve it, and suck it dry.”
Right, those things were called ‘Red-Spotted Spider monsters.’ He had not seen them in so long that he had forgotten their name, so he was grateful to be reminded…….
‘Wait. How does he know the monsters’ name and habits so well? He spent his entire life as a slave, never learned to read, and had never even glimpsed a book from afar.’
Had he suddenly received a divine revelation? He looked like Tirad, but his actions and way of speaking made him seem like a completely different person. Kazar could not simply overlook it any longer.
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. They look like spiders, so they probably act like them too.”
They were only bigger; otherwise, they looked exactly like spiders, so it was possible to think that way.
It was somewhat strange, but after hearing the explanation, it seemed possible that Tirad had thought of it that way.
‘True, even as a child, he had a weak body but a sharp mind.’
Tirad had never been taught, yet he could calculate, and his memory was so outstanding that he did not forget what he saw once.
He was so intelligent it was remarkable, so it did not seem strange that he could infer that much about the habits of Red-Spotted Spiders.
“Get on my back.”
“It seems you have no intention of leaving me behind.”
Kazar had barely brought his dead brother back to life, and he was saying something so ridiculous.
“Shut up and get on already.”
“Is there perhaps a cart? My body is stiff, so I do not think I can get on your back.”
“You sure are demanding a lot.”
Kazar fetched a cart for his brother, who looked as though his entire body would break if he was so much as touched.
“Help me!”
“Who is there? Take me with you!”
“Hey! Hey!”
As he carried his brother on the cart toward the entrance, cries for help rang out from all around.
‘Ah, right. I almost forgot. I had such a beautiful time because of those bastards.’
He had to escape the mine quickly, but he was uneasy about leaving the administrators alive.
After the situation calmed down, they might come to catch the escaped slaves, or they might reveal their personal details to the enemy.
He needed to eliminate them for the plans he would make in the future. It would also let him settle the score over what had happened in childhood, killing two birds with one stone.
‘I just left then because I had no strength, but things are different now.’
He had the same frail body that was on the brink of starvation, but one thing was different. He had awakened his Aura Heart.
As Kazar passed through the mine shaft, he killed every administrator he saw.
“Look over there, Tiri. It’s the exit! Just a little farther and we’ll be outside! You can get out of here now too!”
Remembering the time he had had to escape alone and leave his dead brother in the mine, Kazar felt a lump rise in his throat.
But Tirad did not respond. As Kazar checked whether he was breathing, the surroundings suddenly grew dark.
When he turned around, that thing had appeared after all, blocking the mine entrance.
Kazar overturned the cart and hid Tirad beneath it, then drew his dagger.
“Stay here! I’ll save you in a moment!”
If he had not lost his original strength when he regressed, something like a Retchaka would not even have been worth one punch. But now, even if he fought with everything he had, it was uncertain whether he could win.
Boxed in with nowhere to move, Kazar watched a Retchaka tentacle shoot toward his shoulder. Then something unbelievable happened.
Tirad—the fellow who had dried up until he was little more than skin and bones—used magic.
“What was that just now? That was magic, right? Brother, you can use magic?”
Startled, Kazar’s heart nearly leapt into his throat. This was more surprising than returning to his childhood.
“Yes, it was magic.”
“Since when……?”
“Since a moment ago.”
“Wow…….”
Tirad was fated to become a mage. What was more, without the help of a Guide, he had awakened his Mana Heart through his own power—a ‘Self-Awakened One.’
Kazar had heard of them in stories, but he had never seen a Self-Awakened One in his entire life. Self-Awakened Ones existed only in legends.
‘The strongest humans in all heaven and earth.’
Even a Transcendent, said to be a being infinitely close to a god, was known to be something only a Self-Awakened One could become.
‘If he had not died in a place like this, he could have conquered the country……. No, perhaps the continent.’
Kazar felt bitter at the fact that such a person had lived miserably as a mine slave and died at fourteen.
‘If my brother had been alive, would something have been different? I had always wondered that, but it could change this much. This much…….’
Kazar’s previous life had been stained with betrayal. Not only the comrades who had shared life and death with him and the retainers he trusted, but even his wife and children had driven knives into his back.
So he had regretted that, if his blood brother had lived, he would have been on Kazar’s side and never betrayed him under any circumstances. Yet he was a mage. Kazar had never expected to gain such an extraordinary helper.
“Ha…… This is turning out to be quite interesting.”
Kazar quietly muttered as he stroked the head of his unconscious brother.
He did not know whose machinations had caused this, but he liked the situation very much.