What is this?
Both arms are bound.
A blindfold covers my eyes.
Trussed up like that, I'm dangling upside down like a caught tuna.
But that's not the problem.
Air!
Breath, I can't breathe.
Water is forcing its way brutally into my mouth and nose.
GRRGLK!
The breath bursting from my mouth and nose scatters into foam.
And then.
Even the foam is gone.
Meaning there's no air left in my body.
Save me!
I thrash against the agony of water flooding into my nose.
But in the end.
My consciousness.
My consciousness is fading.
At this rate.......
I might die.
This can't be happening.
That was when.
"Hey, pull him out!"
"He's not moving!"
"Pull him out now, you fucking idiot!"
SPLASH!
My body was flung roughly onto the ground.
The dull impact rattled my nerves, then faded.
Proof that my consciousness was slipping away.
As I lay sprawled on the ground, a violent pressure slammed against my chest.
But my consciousness was already sinking, slowly, downward.
Consciousness fading means one thing.
Death!
Shit!
That can't happen.
I can't let it.
After everything I went through to regress.
Death the very moment I regress, what kind of bullshit is that?
My consciousness hasn't completely cut out yet.
Think.
I have to think.
A way to survive.
My breathing has already stopped and my consciousness is on the verge of shutting down, but I don't stop thinking.
There has to be a way.
No one in this world knows the human body better than I do.
I'm going to live.
I didn't regress just to die like this.
I didn't risk my life hunting Liches for some pathetic end like this.
That was when.
This!
Air.
Even as my consciousness faded, a single thread of air pushed into my lungs.
But a body that had already ground to a halt couldn't turn that air into breath.
That's how it would be for an ordinary body.
But I'm different.
The extreme art of bodily control honed through the witch's countless human experiments.
Its name: the Sovereign Body Art.
Slowly, I began by contemplating my body's condition.
A single thread of strength still remained.
Then there was hope.
Build it up.
Someone was repeatedly compressing my chest.
Chest compressions are meant to force blood from the heart into circulation.
In the process, the pressure on my lungs had let a trace amount of air seep in.
Divine luck.
The relentless pumping forced air into my lungs, carrying breath through my body.
As I barely clung to life by that thread.
The amount of air was minuscule, but I steadily accumulated it in my lungs.
The one compressing my chest.
I don't know who you are, but don't give up.
Push a little more air into my lungs.
Ten times, twenty times.......
A hundred.
That's enough.
That's all I need.
The chest compressions kept coming.
Slowly, I gauged their rhythm.
Press, release, press, release.......
Now!
I expelled all the air I'd stored in my lungs at once.
WHOOOOSH!
The compressed mass of air instantly forced the water blocking my lungs and airway upward.
"Cough, cough, BLEEEGH!"
The water poured out all at once.
Breathing returned in an instant.
And my hazy consciousness snapped into clarity.
"Haah, hah!"
Then I heard someone's labored breathing.
My eyes were still covered by the blindfold, so I couldn't see a thing.
"This bastard's giving me a damn hard time!"
The shrill outburst had barely started when.
CRACK!
A vicious blow struck my head.
Lightning flashed across my pitch-black vision, and once again, consciousness went dark.
***
"Hey, you bastard, I told you to go easy!"
The one who bellowed was a gaunt man with an irritable face.
And at the sharp end of the thin man's glare stood a hulking brute.
"The way that noble brat acts just pisses me off."
The big man was still seething, glaring at the figure pinned beneath the thin man.
Beneath the thin man lay a golden-haired boy.
Only about fifteen years old.
His name was Kalian Facial.
One of the Three Great Houses of the continent.
The Triarch, as they were known.
He was one of the Legitimate Heirs of House Facial, one of the three pillars that made up the Triarch.
Just moments ago, he had endured a vicious round of waterboarding and temporarily stopped breathing.
Fortunately, the thin man had rushed over and revived him with chest compressions.
But the thin man now stared at his own hands with a dubious expression.
'I was sure he was dead.......'
The two men lived with one foot perpetually in the grave.
And so they could sense death better than anyone.
That was why it was so strange.
When the thin man began the chest compressions, his instincts had told him clearly.
Kalian Facial would not survive.
And yet, against all odds.
While he had been desperately pumping the boy's chest on the off chance, he had gotten the feeling that the dead Kalian Facial had suddenly come back to life.
"Hmm."
The big man spoke to the thin man, who wore a puzzled expression.
"So what now? Going to just stand there?"
Only then did the thin man rise.
"Tie him up in the storeroom for now."
At the thin man's words, the big man asked.
"He's definitely not dead, right?"
"Ugh, you stupid bastard. I barely brought him back and then you cracked him over the head so he nearly died again. And now you're worried? If this guy weren't a knight, he'd have died long ago, you idiot!"
"If we can't pry the information out of him, how hard do you think the upper echelon will come down on us again?"
"Then go easy on him, you pig! Anyway, tie him up in the storeroom and let's go."
"Where?"
"A Carrier Pigeon came."
"Ah, for fuck's sake! They could just talk over a Comm Orb. Why do they always make things so damn annoying?"
"Because of eavesdropping, that's why."
"Fine, fine."
"Please, let's just do this right. Your family's lives and mine are on the line."
"Ah, who said I wouldn't?"
The big man finally snapped at the thin man's nagging.
Then he grabbed the fallen Kalian Facial by the nape of the neck and dragged him away.
***
My extinguished consciousness returned as slowly as the coming of dawn.
But my eyes were still covered.
The restraints were tighter than before.
My hands were bent back and bound, and I could feel something solid pressed against the center of my back.
I was probably tied to a post.
Earlier, I'd been too close to death to think about anything.
That's why it hadn't registered, but this makes no sense.
What in the world is going on?
My regression magic succeeded.
Dark Magic that succeeded by sacrificing no fewer than three Lich Life Seal Orbs.
Meaning my current situation should be something I experienced in the past.
But I have no memory of this ever happening to me.
By all appearances, I'm being held captive.
Before I lost consciousness, I was being waterboarded.
On top of that, if I hadn't known the Sovereign Body Art, I would have certainly died.
Kidnapping, captivity, torture, and a brush with death.
There's no way I'd forget something like this.
In other words, this never happened to me.
It never happened to me, and yet I'm living through it right now.
A contradiction.
A clear error.
But there's something even more important.
The fact that I am, in reality, living through this.
A mage's mind doesn't descend into chaos at times like these.
It assesses reality with the coldest rationality, and if a problem exists, it searches for the answer.
That is the way of a mage.
And the way to escape this situation.
Well, it's simple enough.
The date I set for the regression was May 4th, 1323 of the Derond Calendar.
My fifteenth birthday.
At this age, I'm a Third Circle mage.
A prodigy whose genius had been apparent from childhood.
A restraint like this, I could undo even with my eyes closed.......
Huh?
Eyes closed......?
Why?
Where is it?
My mana!
Wh-what is this?
The three Mana Rings that used to spin so beautifully in my heart are gone.
In their place, something entirely different emanates from a completely different location.
An energy I feel in my lower abdomen.
Energy stored in the lower abdomen.......
This is a Mana Core, a Dantian, isn't it?
A Dantian, of all things!
Why do I have something like that?
This makes less and less sense.
I'm losing my mind.
What in the world is going on?
"Mmrrgghhh!"
My words won't come out properly.
Because of the gag shoved in my mouth.
"Hngh, hnnngh!"
I try to steady my breathing, but even that wheezes out strangely.
With my mouth pried open by the gag, drool runs freely down my chin.
I'm going insane.
What do I do?
I try to move the mana in my Dantian, but I don't know how.
No, setting that aside, it doesn't respond to my will at all.
Mana and magic power are similar concepts, so it should naturally respond to my will.......
Ah, they must have blocked mana use when they tied me up.
Which means I wouldn't have been able to use magic anyway.
No, no.
That's not the point right now.
So how do I break out of this situation?
There is a way.
I didn't want to resort to this again after regressing, but the situation leaves me no choice.
I felt around behind me with my bound hands.
The surface of the post met my fingertips.
This will do.
I pressed my right thumbnail hard into the tip of my index finger.
Scrape, scrape!
I scraped the same spot repeatedly, like cutting with a knife.
The pain steadily built.
But I didn't stop.
"Grrrngh!"
Just as a groan finally tore from my lips.
Pop.
Blood welled from the tip of my index finger.
Good.
Without hesitation, I used the blood flowing from my finger to draw on the post.
A circle, then geometric patterns filling its interior.
I painstakingly traced the design I envisioned and completed it.
The instant I finished.
Scrape, scrrrape.
The sound of something being ground away rose from behind me.
And before long, the post I'd been tied to vanished.
"Ngh!"
I hurriedly threaded my hips and then my feet through the gap between my arms, which were still bound behind me.
With my hands now in front, I tore off the blindfold and the gag.
"Haak, grrk!"
I gulped down ragged breaths.
I bit through the bonds on my wrists with my teeth, then freed the restraints on my ankles with my liberated hands.
"Hoooo, hoo!"
Drawing a deep breath, I turned to look behind me.
The post I'd been tied to just moments ago.
A section of its base had been severed clean through.
More precisely, that section had rotted away and vanished.
My bound hands had passed through the gap where it had disappeared.
A trick of using the blood from my hands to rot the base of the post.
It was magic.
None other than Dark Magic.
The very Dark Magic that had given me great power after I lost my Mana Rings before the regression.
A decay spell, fueled by my own blood as the offering.
Free of my bonds, I examined my body.
An Inhibitor.
There must be an Inhibitor stopping me from using magic power, no, mana.......
Ah, this is it.
An iron collar around my neck.
The metal band encircling my throat like a choker was what inhibited my mana.
A padlock was attached to the clasp at the back.
I grabbed the padlock and shook it, but of course it wouldn't open.
On the off chance, I tried using Dark Magic on the collar with the blood from my still-open wound.
But it didn't work.
Since it's a device made to inhibit mana, or magic power, removing it with magic is impossible from the start.
If that were possible, countless mage and martial artist criminals would have been impossible to imprison.
Come to think of it, a Mana Restraint like this would be incredibly hard to obtain, and astronomically expensive.
Who are these people?
Anyway, the problem is, how do I get out of here?
I quietly surveyed my surroundings.
An underground storeroom.
They'd inhibited my mana and bound me, so of course they'd stash me somewhere like this.
But now that the bonds were off, everything in this storeroom was a weapon.
I rummaged through every corner and settled on a shovel.
Long, with a metal head, and in a pinch, the sharp edge of the blade would serve as a viable weapon.
But that wasn't all.
Using the storeroom's assorted junk, I made and set simple traps.
It was experience from before the regression, from the first time I broke free of my Inhibitor and escaped.
By the time I'd finished all my preparations.
Heavy footsteps sounded from beyond the door.
I darted back and pressed my back against the wall opposite the door, fixing my eyes on it.
"He's not dead, is he?"
"You saw him breathing fine earlier and you're still worried?"
"Who's worried about him? There's information we need to get out of the bastard, that's all."
"Tough bastard. We tortured him that hard and he still didn't talk."
The two men bickered back and forth beyond the door.
CREAK!
The old door opened with a grating noise.
Two men appeared as the door swung wide.
My eyes met theirs simultaneously.
"H-how!"
"K-Kalian Facial!"
The two men lunged at me in a panic.
Wait, what? Kalian Facial?
Why are they calling me that?!