Though he had forgotten most of what had happened in his childhood, Kazar vividly remembered the events of that night.
That night, Shakim’s unit had trampled the village in an instant. They had brutally slaughtered every man capable of fighting, raped the young women, then tightly bound them together with the children and loaded them onto carts.
Immediately afterward, Kazar had run madly across the plains for his life, with the Cornu Tribe pursuing him.
‘Shakim’s unit had been behind me, and that bastard was ahead, waiting in the darkness with a trap laid for me.’
Mercenary King Kasion.
At the thought of that man’s name, Kazar ground his teeth.
Kasion had used the young Kazar as bait to catch the Cornu Tribe. Contrary to his public reputation as a righteous man who followed chivalry, he was a despicable lowlife bastard.
When Kazar had been struck by arrows, trampled beneath hooves, and left lying there as a bloody pulp, Kasion had approached and said:
“I thought you would die, but you are rather quick. I can use you one more time.”
That voice still rang vividly in his ears.
***
“So where exactly is this safe place?”
“Up there, at the top of the cliff.”
At one edge of the broad plain was a place enclosed by cliffs on three sides. It was where Kasion’s Mercenary Company had once lain in ambush. With the Cornu Tribe at his heels, Kazar had needed to run there for his life.
At that time, Shakim had fled after Kasion cut off one of his arms, and Kasion had claimed the artifact ring Shakim had been wearing.
‘I’ll make those two bastards fight, then take the ring for myself.’
Barely three days after escaping the mine, Kazar had been given the chance to deal with two old enemies and obtain an artifact as well. He was in a good mood.
The artifact was not high-grade, but it was not bad for supplementing Tirad’s abysmally poor stamina.
Kazar set Ernolf down in a recessed crevice at the top of the cliff, then straightened. There was a strange tension about him.
“You look like you’re about to cause trouble. Where are you going?”
Ernolf looked at Kazar with eyes full of suspicion.
“Where would I be going?”
“So you’re not going?”
“Would you like me to?”
The conversation had somehow become tangled.
“No......”
Ernolf answered listlessly and sank to the ground. As he leaned his back against a rock, fatigue swept over him like a tidal wave.
‘There isn’t a shred of strength in this body. How am I supposed to get through this ordeal in a body like this?’
It seemed he had been dropped into the Warring States Period, a transitional era between antiquity and the Middle Ages, but this was simply too much.
Not only had he fallen from being a grand noble to the lowest social rung in an instant because the body he had possessed was an escaped slave, but the clothes on his body were rags too tattered to be used even as rags, and his stamina was garbage.
‘If I hadn’t awakened a Mana Heart, I’d literally be a beggar with nothing to my name.’
‘If I’m going to uncover the cause of this situation, I should first find a safe place to stay. No. Before that, I need to grow stronger.’
He needed strength to survive, earn money, buy land, and gain the leeway to devote himself to the investigation. There was a mountain of things he needed to do.
After worrying over this and that, Ernolf fell asleep in an instant.
Once Ernolf had fallen into a deep sleep, Kazar gathered branches and rocks, roughly blocking the entrance so the wind could not get in.
‘This should do, right?’
Kazar turned his gaze into the distance. On one side of the dark plain, a great blaze had risen and was steadily growing larger.
It was where the village Kazar and Ernolf had intended to go was located.
‘Shall I get started?’
Kazar stepped down the protruding rocks as though they were stairs.
Then he ran like the wind toward the burning village.
***
“Aaagh!”
“S-save me!”
“Mom!”
A single village was helplessly overrun by the nine Cornu Tribesmen who had raided in the middle of the night.
Children called for their parents until their throats tore, while parents searched for their children with blood-smeared faces. Blood splattered and flesh split wherever blades passed, while those fortunate enough to avoid the edged weapons were trampled beneath hooves as they fled, their bones crushed.
It took less than an hour for the Cornu Tribe’s elite unit to wipe out an entire village.
After trampling a resisting man to death beneath his warhorse as if crushing an ant beneath a fingernail, Shakim roughly seized a woman by the hair.
When he set fire to the woman’s house, the plunder unit waiting in the distance approached the village.
Behind the plunder unit gathering food and slaves, Shakim’s warriors chased women like beasts, as they always did.
As Shakim forcibly broke the resisting woman’s arm, one of the plunderers who had been cramming children into an iron cage let out a sharp scream.
Shakim turned his head like lightning.
“What is that?”
Some thief was riding one of the plunder unit’s packhorses and galloping out of the village.
“Get him!”
As he shouted at his subordinates, Shakim raised his bow and drew the string. The arrow flew through the pitch-black sky, shining as brightly as a meteor.
‘Did it miss?’
The sound of retreating hoofbeats continued.
An arrow whose trajectory had been adjusted with Aura almost never missed. Yet if it had missed, it meant that the fleeing bastard had either cut off Shakim’s Aura or possessed exceptional combat ability—enough to dodge an arrow fired by an Aura User while riding a horse.
“An Aura User in a backwater like this?!”
The Cornu Tribe never left behind any fighting force, so that they could raid easily again the following year. Aura Users and mana users were especially their highest-priority targets for extermination.
At Shakim’s command, the Cornu Tribe warriors charged like rabid beasts.
***
‘One, two, three, four...... nine. Oh, how adorable. Every last one of you came after me.’
As he ran, Kazar counted the presences pursuing him. Even then, arrows continued flying at him without pause.
Kazar flicked aside the arrow aimed at his throat with a finger and smiled faintly. Among the nine Cornu Tribe warriors, he could sense Shakim’s presence.
‘Good, Shakim. Keep following me.’
At the edge of the plain Kazar was running across stood a red rocky mountain and a forest packed with broadleaf trees.
After glancing at the rocky mountain where Tirad was, Kazar drew a graceful curve as he changed direction toward the forest.
The instant he entered the forest, several arrows flew at him from ahead. This time, they had not been fired by the Cornu Tribe, but by Kasion’s Mercenary Company, which was camped in the forest. The arrows struck Kazar’s Aura Shield and scattered in all directions.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The tree trunks struck by the arrows shattered apart.
“Who goes there?!”
“Stop at once!”
Along with the warning shots, members of the mercenary company shouted from deeper within the forest.
His lips stretching into a wide grin, Kazar urged his horse onward faster. The horse carrying him charged toward the mercenary company’s encampment.
A knight holding a longsword stood before Kazar as he charged toward the encampment.
It was Kasion.
Kazar stared coldly at him.
‘It’s been a long time, Father.’
Memories of his first meeting with the man in his previous life surged over him like waves.
「Well, look at this one. He has quite a fine presence, does he not?」
「Commander, does this bastard truly have an Aura Heart?」
「Yes. Judging by his appearance, he is a wandering beggar, yet he has an Aura Heart. Boy, join me. If you do as I say, I will awaken your Aura Heart.」
「Does a beggar bastard even know what an Aura Heart is?」
「If you wish to change your fate, you must begin learning now.」
As he ravenously tore off bites from the bread a mercenary had thrown him, Kazar had looked up at Kasion, who had seemed like a merciful angel.
Yet it had not taken long for Kazar to realize that it was the face of a beast looking down upon its prey.
「Once you can use Aura, even a beggar can become a king.」
Taken in by those words, Kazar had taken on every filthy and dangerous job for Kasion. Yet although he had escaped starvation, every reward and all glory had belonged to Kasion.
Mercenary King Kasion.
The man was called the king of mercenaries. And......
‘My second father.’
Kazar gripped the reins tightly and lowered his body.
Kasion raised his sword and brought it straight down. He looked ready to cleave both Kazar and the horse in two at once.
SWISH—!
A white Aura Blade sliced through the horse’s neck like a crescent moon.
‘Yes, this is Kasion.’
As if he had calculated it in advance, Kazar released the reins and flung himself into the air.
SLASH—!
The Aura Blade cut through the horse’s neck, brushed past the empty saddle, and flew toward a Cornu Tribe warrior pursuing Kazar.
“HAAH!”
The Cornu Tribe warrior cleaved Kasion’s Aura Blade in two. The Aura Blade split apart and cut down the surrounding trees.
At that moment, Kasion shot forward like a wedge and thrust his sword toward the Cornu Tribe warrior’s chest. The Cornu Tribe warrior raised his axe and blocked the sword’s point.
“How dare a barbarian!”
The Aura-infused metal glowed red-hot and shrieked as it collided.
SLASH—!
Kasion slid his sword along the axe and cut the Cornu Tribe warrior’s forearm. The metal bracer around the warrior’s arm was cut like paper and fell away.
The Cornu Tribe warrior roared and swung his axe at Kasion. The enormous battle axe stirred the wind.
Just as Kazar had intended, Shakim’s unit and Kasion’s Mercenary Company clashed.
Outnumbered, the Cornu Tribe warriors were soon surrounded by the mercenary company.
“HAAAH!”
Shakim smashed the heads of the charging mercenaries and enhanced his sight with Aura as he swept his gaze through the darkness.
‘Where is he hiding?’
He was searching for the young bastard who had led him into the mercenary company’s nest.
‘He erased his presence completely.’
A bastard capable of erasing his presence so thoroughly had fled through the village while making a conspicuous display of himself. He had clearly led them here on purpose.
‘He dodged an Aura arrow, and earlier, he dodged an Aura Blade too. He knows how to erase his presence as well. He’s no ordinary bastard.’
Judging from their reaction, it did not seem that the mercenary company had sent bait to the village to lure them into the forest. This had clearly been the work of that ratlike bastard.
‘What is he plotting?’
A bastard hiding in the shadows with poison in him was far more frightening. Shakim was more concerned with that bastard, who had erased his presence and was likely observing them, than with the mercenary company raging in anger.
“I will strip the skins from those savages and claim at least a bounty! Kill them all!”
Kasion shouted in fury. After seeing his subordinates killed by the hands of barbarians who had suddenly attacked, his rage had reached its peak.
Kasion mercilessly attacked the Cornu Tribe warrior blocking his path. Every time he swung his sword, the Aura wrapped around its blade hammered the axe with the weight of a boulder.
Aura also clung to the Cornu Tribe warrior’s axe, but there was a vast difference in skill between the two men.
Kasion split the helmet of the Cornu Tribe warrior blocking his way in half, then shouted:
“Who is the commander?! Show yourself at once!”
Watching Kasion sweep his surroundings with murder in his eyes, Shakim decided that he needed to break off the fight and retreat quickly.
“Warn the men in the village. We will withdraw when we find an opening.”
The Cornu Tribe had come to plunder in the first place, not to show off their strength and die in another people’s land.
Just as Shakim’s subordinate put his finger in his mouth to send a signal, a dagger flew in and cut it off.
“If you call in more comrades, do you think you will be able to defeat me?”
Kasion spoke with a broad grin stretching across his lips. At the taunt, Shakim wheeled around. Murderous intent rose from his blood-splattered face.
“You bastard!”
Shakim sent the mercenary blocking his path flying with a single slash and charged at Kasion. When their swords collided, white light scattered in every direction.
***
Kazar watched the moment their swords collided from within the darkness. Everything was unfolding according to plan, but Kasion’s swordsmanship was better than Kazar remembered.
‘Can’t those two bastards fight each other and die?’
Kazar considered stepping in when Shakim was at a disadvantage, taking Shakim’s ring, and attacking Kasion.
He could likely deal with Shakim, but with his current abilities, killing Kasion as well was beyond him. Since he had only recently awakened, it could not be helped.
RUSTLE.
As he watched for an opportunity to enter the fight between the two men, Kazar felt a cold presence behind him.