Kazar immediately twisted his body.
A violently spinning axe passed just beneath his chin with terrifying force.
Had he not dodged, his back would have been split like firewood.
“You rat bastard!”
Kasion’s subordinate pulled the axe embedded in the ground free.
“Rat bastard? Who, me?”
Kazar shrugged his shoulders as he shamelessly replied.
“Who? You brought those barbarians here and caused this mess......”
At the very moment Kasion’s subordinate shouted, Kazar slid low and drove his dagger into the inside of the bastard’s knee.
“Aaagh!”
The mercenary clutched his stabbed knee and swung his axe. The axe barely grazed past the crown of Kazar’s head.
Kazar braced himself against the ground with one arm, stretched out both legs, and kicked the wounded mercenary’s leg hard.
The mercenary lost his balance and fell to the ground. Kazar wrapped his legs around the fallen man’s neck and wrenched with all his strength.
CRACK—!
With the sound of his neck bone breaking, the mercenary’s body went limp.
‘Small fry.’
It had been three days since Kazar escaped the mine. By now, he had adapted considerably to his changed body.
His body had yet to reach its former state, and the quality of his Aura was terrible, but his movements were far smoother than before.
In his previous life, Kasion had used Kazar as bait to lure in the Cornu Tribe’s elite unit. He had done so to steal the spoils the barbarians had seized.
They were called a mercenary company, but in Kazar’s eyes, there was little difference between them and the Cornu Tribe.
The Cornu Tribe raided villages, and in his previous life, the mercenary company had raided the Cornu Tribe.
‘This time, I’ll raid them.’
Kazar wiped his bloodied dagger against his thigh, then leapt into the battlefield where the melee raged.
***
Though Shakim’s unit was the Cornu Tribe’s elite force, it could not match the strength of Kasion’s elite mercenary company.
While Shakim could make no headway against Mercenary King Kasion’s sword, the mercenary company’s Aura Warriors paired off and steadily pressed the Cornu warriors.
Before long, the nine Cornu warriors had been reduced to five. The Cornu Tribe had to make a decision.
“Shakim, I will open a path. Flee!”
A Cornu warrior shouted as he parried Kasion’s blade in Shakim’s stead.
“Where do you think you are going?!”
Seeing a small fry interfere with Kasion, two mercenaries joined the fight.
They pulled Shakim’s subordinate away, allowing Kasion to fight the enemy commander.
“HAAH!”
Kasion fiercely pressed Shakim.
His swordsmanship, developed through countless battles, contained innumerable feints.
Not only with the movement of his blade, but also with the tips of his fingers and feet, and even his eyes, he skillfully confused his enemies.
Kasion would appear to strike downward, only to change direction in an instant and slash sideways. The moment their swords touched, he would subtly move the tip of his blade to cut Shakim’s wrist, then disrupt his balance with a kick.
Compared to Kasion’s unpredictable and adaptable swordsmanship, Shakim’s sword as a plunderer was instead heavy and forceful.
“HAAH!”
The Aura wielded by the two men collided, and a shockwave of wind exploded.
As leaves, dirt, and grass mixed together and rose like a billowing cloud, Kasion’s sword aimed for Shakim’s chest.
Shakim pushed Kasion’s sword aside with his own.
Kasion did not give ground. Keeping their blades locked together, he slid his sword along Shakim’s.
SCREEECH—!
The two scraping blades threw off sparks.
When Shakim knocked his sword upward, Kasion spun in place like a top and changed the direction of his blade.
The tip of Kasion’s sword once more plunged toward Shakim’s chest.
Shakim tried to draw his body back and evade the blade.
Seizing that moment, Kasion’s subordinate thrust his sword into the opening. Shakim’s armpit was left dangerously exposed.
Shakim struck the sword thrust into his opening with his fist, knocking it aside, then tried to retreat and escape the danger.
Kazar did not miss that opportunity.
Sliding in as swiftly as a sled gliding across ice, he slashed Shakim’s thigh.
‘I’ll kill Kasion later. This bastard comes first!’
Kazar had made the two groups fight in order to kill both Kasion and Shakim, then seize the artifact. But after putting the plan into action, he realized that killing Kasion was still beyond him.
So he gave up one of his three goals.
“Urk!”
Kasion did not miss the moment Shakim staggered after the back of his thigh was cut. Kasion’s sword severed Shakim’s arm, which had been lifted into the air.
SPLURT—!
Red blood violently sprayed from the severed arm.
As blood poured down on him, Kazar grabbed Shakim’s fallen arm and swiftly rolled away.
CRASH—!
Kasion’s sword struck the ground right beside Kazar. Though the blade had not touched him, its sharp Aura tore his skin.
His left arm had been wounded, but he had no time to care. The instant he dodged Kasion’s sword, the swords of a Cornu warrior and Shakim narrowly passed his vital points several times.
“You are the one!”
After cutting down the Cornu warrior who had come to assist Shakim, Kasion shouted.
The bastard who had brought barbarians into the mercenary company’s encampment.
A pitch-black little devil.
That had been Kasion’s first impression upon seeing Kazar.
“Shakim!”
From a short distance away, a Cornu warrior led over a warhorse and called out to Shakim. Shakim caught hold of the approaching horse, mounted it, and fled.
“Pursue him!”
Kasion also turned to mount the horse one of his subordinates had brought over.
Kazar tried to escape through that opening.
The instant Kazar turned, Kasion threw a dagger at him.
THUNK!
The dagger embedded itself precisely between Kazar’s shoulder blades.
The Aura wrapped around Kazar’s body could block the Cornu Tribe’s arrows, but it could not block Kasion’s Aura. Struck in a vital point by the dagger, Kazar collapsed to the ground.
“Do not let a single one escape!”
After verifying with his own eyes that the dagger had struck its target, Kasion mounted his horse and chased after Shakim.
Listening to the hoofbeats violently striking the earth as they grew distant, Kazar recalled the past.
「I advised you not to act so rashly. Why did you not heed your father’s words? That is why you ended up like this. Tsk, tsk, tsk.」
On the day Kazar returned after killing the lord’s enemy in Kasion’s stead, he had instead been captured by Kasion and handed over to the lord.
The lord had needed a sacrifice to eliminate his political rival and bear the disgrace, while Kasion had needed the chance to remove his adopted son, who had grown stronger than him.
That night, Kazar had been branded a murderer, had the tendons in all four limbs severed, and had been thrown to hunting dogs as food.
***
Kasion, his stepfather, had not been the only traitor in Kazar’s life.
Friends and subordinates had stabbed him in the back, a favored concubine had poisoned his food, and his wife and child had joined forces with his wife’s family to depose him.
So a dagger lodged in his back was hardly anything remarkable.
‘It’s been a long time since I felt this pain fully.’
After becoming a Sword Master, Kazar had never suffered a serious injury in any battle.
Because he had regressed fifty years, he was experiencing sensations he had long forgotten.
‘It hurts like hell.’
The blade had struck a nerve, and the pain was enormous.
He had braced himself because he had deliberately taken the blow to play dead, but such monstrous pain washed over him that he wanted to lose consciousness.
After Kasion and the mercenary company chased after the Cornu Tribe, Kazar used the self-healing ability, one of an Aura User’s techniques, to block the pain and stop the bleeding.
Self-healing was a high-level technique, possible only for masters such as Shakim and Kasion, who had trained for a long time.
It was not a technique that a boy who was clearly just beginning to use Aura would attempt, so no one expected Kazar to still be alive.
This was Kazar’s second life. To the man who had been called an Aura Master in his previous life, using healing abilities was as easy as retracing a familiar road.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD.
As Kasion and Shakim grew distant, Kazar pulled out Shakim’s arm, which had been tucked beneath his stomach, and removed the ring.
When he slipped it onto his finger, the large ring shrank to fit Kazar’s finger perfectly. At once, a small magic circle wrapped around his finger before vanishing.
Thanks to the ring’s effect, vitality returned to his body, and his Aura abilities rose. Shakim’s ring was an artifact suited to an Aura User rather than a mage.
The mercenary company left behind the porters and three mercenaries, while everyone else went after the Cornu Tribe.
Kazar spread out his Aura and monitored the remaining mercenaries’ movements as he carefully pulled the dagger from his back.
SSSSS.
As he withdrew the dagger, the open wound neatly drew shut like closing lips.
Kazar threw Kasion’s dagger, which he had removed from the wound, at the mercenary guarding the luggage.
“Ghk!”
The dagger pierced the mercenary’s throat precisely.
“Th-that bastard... how is he...?”
The mercenaries saw the one they had left for dead rise with a grim smile and quickly drew their weapons.
He was the one who had risen unharmed even after taking Kasion’s blade. They could not underestimate him merely because he was young, so both men attacked Kazar at once.
However, Kazar slipped inside their guards faster than they could approach him.
FLASH—!
In the blink of an eye, Kazar closed the distance and drove his blade deep into the abdomen of the mercenary attacking from the right.
By the time a scream escaped the man’s lips, the sword he had held was already in Kazar’s hand.
With the stolen longsword, Kazar cut the throat of the mercenary attacking from the left.
THUD.
The bodies of the two men Kazar had struck fell to the ground almost simultaneously.
After dealing with all three mercenaries, Kazar took their money pouches, selected a sturdy horse, and mounted it.
The porters could only stare blankly. They did not try to stop him.
Right in front of the porters, Kazar stole the horse and leisurely left the mercenary company’s encampment.
After leaving the encampment, Kazar deliberately chose the forest path rather than the plain to avoid pursuit.
Just as he entered the forest and tried to catch his breath, a pitch-black arrow flew from the darkness and aimed for his neck.
Kazar ducked beneath the arrow, kicked the horse with his heel, and increased his speed. Arrows flew after him in succession with sharp whistles.
“Catch him!”
His luck was rotten. He had deliberately taken a wide route to avoid pursuit, only to be spotted by mercenaries.
Arrows rained into the ground, and a whistle rang out.
The mercenaries who came at the sound blocked Kazar’s path.
“Hyah!”
Kazar turned his horse’s head this way and that, trying to shake them off.
The Cornu Tribe members who had been heading in this direction at the sound turned around.
“Damn it, those barbarians noticed because of that bastard!”
The mercenaries grumbled.
“We will handle this side. The rest of you, catch that bastard!”
The mercenary company is divided into two groups. Most of them went after the Cornu Tribe, while three or four mercenaries pursued Kazar.
While fleeing, Kazar saw flames flash within the darkness. On a dark hill, Shakim and Kasion were fighting savagely as though they would settle the matter with their lives. Shakim, who had lost an arm, was visibly at a disadvantage.
‘Kasion. Next time, I’ll be sure to cut off your head.’
Kazar already knew where Kasion would go after leaving this place. Revenge would have to wait. For now, it was urgent that he shake off the mercenary company’s pursuit.
‘Ugh!’
Because he had driven his horse so hard to widen the gap, his wound reopened. His back hurt as though it were being scorched with kindling.
An Aura User’s healing technique was only a temporary measure that prevented death or incapacitation during battle. It was not actual treatment.
If he lost consciousness before receiving proper treatment, the wound would worsen instead, producing the opposite effect.
Kazar gritted his teeth and drove his horse faster. When the horse carrying him entered a small forest, three or four mercenaries followed after him.
He needed to slow down in the forest, yet the pursuing mercenaries were only about ten steps behind him.
Kazar considered grabbing a branch hanging ahead, leaping upward, and taking out the mercenaries following him.
But if he did that, there was a high chance he would be struck by the other mercenaries charging after them.
There was an Aura User among the pursuers. In his current condition, fighting an Aura User was dangerous.
It would be better to shake off the pursuit and flee, but the problem was that he had no particularly good move beyond running at full speed.
As he rode madly through the trees, a sudden gale blew from ahead.
“AAARGH!”
“What is this?!”
“NEIGH!”
The forest shook.
Leaves, blades of grass, and dirt swirled about, disrupting their vision, while horse cries, screams, and shouts mixed together.
As Kazar fled, he looked back.
Strangely, the gale swirled while avoiding only Kazar and the horse he was riding.
‘Magic? Could it be Tiri?’
Kazar flinched and stared into the darkness.
The impossible was true.
Somehow, Tirad had found his way there and was standing in the dark forest.
Even as Kazar stared in surprise, Tirad continued casting spells.
Thorny vines rose from the ground like a heat haze, then wrapped around the horses the mercenaries were riding.
As the horses struggled to free themselves, the mercenaries tore at the vines.
Just as they seemed about to escape the vines, another attack followed.
“Ghk... I-I can’t... breathe......”
The mercenaries clutched their throats in agony, while the horses that had struggled in the vines foamed at the mouth and fell one after another.
One of the mercenaries slashed through the darkness with an Aura Blade. An invisible barrier split open, and the surrounding air rushed into the crack.
Seeing that, Kazar realized what had happened.
‘So you trapped them in a Vacuum Shield.’
Kazar liked Tirad’s cleverness. Vacuum Shield was a lowest-grade technique, but it was effective for taking lives.
“HAAH!”
The mercenary who had torn through the barrier fired Aura Blades in every direction to determine the mage’s location.
Trees were cut down and toppled over, while severed branches came showering to the ground.
Kazar spread out his Aura and blocked the wind.
“Hey, Tiri! Did you come to greet me? Did you miss me that much?”
Instead of answering Kazar, Ernolf attacked the man who had come through the barrier.
‘Wind Bullet (Wind Bullet)!’
Air compressed into a mass as small as a pebble spun fiercely before firing from Ernolf’s fingertips.
The wind bullet collided with the mercenary’s Aura.
‘It isn’t powerful enough.’
Just as Kazar regretted the strength he had once possessed, Ernolf also regretted the mana he had once held.
But he was not alone.
Given an opportunity by Ernolf, Kazar did not miss the opening and slashed the enemy’s side. Ernolf immediately assisted Kazar as well.
‘Ice (Ice).’
Just as when he froze Retchaka’s feet, white ice solidified around the mercenary’s legs.
Because his opponent was an Aura User, the ice could not even hold for one second before shattering.
But that was enough.
Kazar’s sword sliced through the Aura User’s neck as swiftly as a flash of light.
“Huff, huff......”
After seeing Kazar deal with the last remaining enemy, Ernolf collapsed sideways.
Because he had overused his Mana Heart, his heart pounded as though it would burst, and his limbs gradually stiffened.
“Tiri!”
The moment Kazar cut down the enemy, he ran over and supported Tirad.
In his previous life, he had been unable to trust anyone. His stepfather, friends, comrades, retainers, wife, lover, and even his own flesh-and-blood child had all plunged blades into his back.
But now, things were different.
A brother had dragged his sick body here, poured out every last bit of his remaining strength, and now stood before him on the verge of collapse.
“How did you know I was here?”
“You—you called me, you damn bastard.”
Forcing his stiff tongue to move, Ernolf panted heavily.
“I called you?”
Kazar repeated the question in surprise, then muttered to himself as if he had realized something.
“Right, you felt it. Even after losing all of your memories, we were still one......”
Muttering incomprehensible words in a voice full of joy, Kazar removed Shakim’s ring from his finger.
“Brother, no matter what I do, you won’t betray me like those other bastards, right?”
The ring shrank to fit Ernolf’s finger, glowed blue for a moment, then fell silent.
As vitality returned to Tirad’s pale face, Kazar smiled quietly.