[ Trait - Possessor’s Composure activates. ]
As the time of cold-water scrubbing through my brain returned, my frozen mind stirred and began doing its job.
I shuddered at the unpleasant sensation, yet I had no choice but to be grateful.
GRRROWL.
I had nearly just stood by and watched Emma face a Grade 6 magic beast, the Lycanthrope.
However, waking up mentally did not solve everything.
“...Why?”
I could not understand what had happened.
Either my eyes were wrong, my memory had been distorted, or Emma had definitely entered the second-year test zone.
Perhaps because they thought their objectives would overlap, the two had gone in separate directions the moment they entered. Still, Emma had entered through the same place as Gess, who was even now hunting Orcs through the crystal ball.
‘Then she should obviously be in the second-year zone...!’
However, the Lycanthrope facing Emma was unmistakably a Grade 6 magic beast.
Its gaunt body and the drool dripping from its mouth suggested it was not in normal condition, but even through the crystal ball, its gleaming eyes and sharp claws could not be hidden.
Seeing the Lycanthrope that looked ready to devour Emma at any moment, I urgently called for the examiner.
“Professor Nia! Professor Nia!!”
However desperately I called, the distance sound could carry through the forest had its limits.
No matter how much I called, Professor Nia gave no answer. I realized that I had been given two choices.
‘One is to wait for Professor Nia like this.’
It was a certain method that guaranteed my safety one hundred percent.
Professor Nia had said she would leave only for a moment in the first place.
The Nia Filoni of the original work was not the type to make empty promises, so if nothing had happened, she would truly return soon.
Then I could go to the Central Zone with her and rescue Emma.
However, while that method guaranteed my safety, it could not guarantee Emma’s safety.
Hrk. GRRROWL...!
The Lycanthrope was letting out a bizarre cry as though it were laughing, while Emma stood before it, frozen stiff like prey that had encountered a predator.
Perhaps, perhaps by the time Professor Nia arrived, Emma would no longer be of this world.
At the same time, though, the thought that Emma was a knight and might be able to hold out for some time invaded my mind.
Think about it. Were knights not superhumans with power equal to mages?
The opponent might be a Grade 6 magic beast, but it was exhausted. And Emma was a knight talented enough to be called the Traitor Lord....
GRIND!
I gritted my teeth with all my strength, hard enough to break my canines.
Because I realized that, at some point, I had stopped weighing my choices and started searching for a reason to flee.
When would Professor Nia return if I simply waited?
If I did not move, Emma was as good as dead. Now was not the time for useless hesitation, but the time to move my body.
‘Yes, this is right.’
Desperately suppressing the modern mind that screamed for me to run away, I drew the secret weapon from within my clothes.
The demonic sword Palakia, whose blade was so cleanly polished that it was hard to believe it had been abandoned in a corner.
With the power I gained through Palakia, I could obtain strength comparable to that of the Lycanthrope, at least in raw numbers.
Of course, how I handled that power would depend on my own ability....
“...For now, I need to try.”
Holding a golden dagger the same color as myself, with my blond hair and golden eyes, I stepped toward the distant sign that read [ Warning - Central Zone ].
They said that when a person was about to die, their life flashed before their eyes.
No one had ever told Emma whether that was true, but now she knew it was.
GRRrrrr....
The growl of a wild dog reached her ears.
Not a Lycanthrope standing upright on two legs, but a mere wild dog with four paws on the ground, no different from any other beast.
The Lycanthrope that had been staring at her until just before had vanished, and a wild dog had appeared out of nowhere. However, Emma was not surprised by such a meaningless thing.
Sob... Sob... Waaaaah....
A dark forest. A hungry wild dog and a crouching child.
This was Emma Novician’s past and trauma.
Mom... Sob... Daaad....
Though she was the heir to a baronial house, even if it was a desperately poor one, Emma no longer knew why she was in a forest after the sun had completely set, without even a single servant.
The past unfolding before her was a memory from at least ten years ago, one she feared more than anything and had wanted to forget.
GRRrr... BARK! BARK!
The Emma of that time had been far younger than she was now, not only physically but mentally as well.
As the heir who bore the duty of restoring her house, she had learned the sword. Yet she had been too young to point that sword even at a wild dog.
The dog clearly viewed her as prey. She should have picked up even a stone and fought back, but children often forgot what they needed to do.
BARK—!
Even when the wild dog finally charged at her, baring teeth slick with saliva, the young Emma was still crying.
The eyes of Emma Novician, who had now grown far older and earned the name of a Grade 3 Knight, were sunken terribly low and dark as she watched herself.
The wild dog kicking off the ground and charging, those gleaming teeth. This scene was a memory that remained in the deepest part of her mind, still inspiring fear.
It was also the reason she could not fight canine magic beasts....
Thus, as Emma watched her past memory unfolding at an extremely slow speed, she felt resentment.
She did not resent the wild dog or the Lycanthrope.
She resented Emma, who could not charge at the dog, and herself, who was terrified of the Lycanthrope.
Eek... Waaaaah....
A child whose best option was merely turning around and running away, yet who could not even do that properly.
Emma judged her past self to be a fool.
It was a terribly harsh judgment, considering she had only been around five or six years old then, but it had to be.
As the heir who would restore House of Baron Novician, she had received everyone’s expectations and support. She had decided for herself that she could never apply the same standards as everyone else.
Perhaps that was why she reacted so rebelliously to the chairman’s incomprehensible actions.
‘Because I have to succeed.’
Because she had to become an excellent knight and restore her house.
That was why she watched the chairman’s reactions, continually digging into whether he was trying to use her and whether some hidden intention lay beneath his actions.
GRRrrrrr......!
Ah, it seemed she had returned to reality.
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel the hot breath, the dreadful stench, and the eyes gleaming with murderous intent.
Thump. Thump.
Hearing the scream of her heart, Emma desperately tried to raise her sword.
She did not want to meet death by being as helpless as her past self, merely running away.
‘Move... Just move...!’
However, her arm rejected the command of her brain.
Her mind screamed that she had to fight now, but the arm holding the sword would not budge.
GRRrr... BARK! BARK!
Watching the Lycanthrope bark like a dog despite being a wolf, Emma realized that it was no different from the wild dog back then.
It was starved, desperately starved, and viewed its opponent only as prey that would sustain its life.
Then again, no one but Emma was likely to have stepped into the Central Zone in Calyps Academy’s 485-year history, so it was understandable that it would be hungry.
So the creature would soon charge.
So she would soon raise her sword... No, she had to raise it.
However, her sword would not rise.
“Please... Please, just—!!!”
Emma tried to lift her arm with every last ounce of strength, but her right arm would not move as though it were bound in huge chains.
Even until the moment the Lycanthrope charged, just like the wild dog from long ago.
BARK—!
The Lycanthrope was a Grade 6 magic beast.
Even if it was exhausted and starved, it was not a magic beast that a Grade 3 Knight could face.
Look. Even now, it was rushing at her faster than her eyes could follow, thrusting its snout toward her.
Watching the Lycanthrope thrust forward a throat as black and deep as a cave, Emma suddenly thought:
‘...Come to think of it, how did I survive back then?’
It was a futile thought for the final seconds of her life, but she meant it sincerely.
Perhaps because it had been so painful, the memory of that time remained in her as though it were footage from a crystal ball with damaged circuits, playing only in fragments.
Since she was still alive, the young Emma had clearly survived the wild dog, but the process that led to her survival was not especially clear.
‘Was it a mage, or a knight? I think someone wearing a robe saved me.’
Even so, as she followed the scattered fragments of memory and tried to recall them, someone seemed to have rescued her... No, someone had definitely rescued her.
‘Who was it? I mean....’
She had definitely been saved.
Someone had guarded the front of the child who could not even run far before collapsing again, blocking the charge of the hungry wild dog that wanted to deliver its prey its end.
Someone wearing a robe that fluttered in the wind, with a back as strong as a thick fortress wall.
Someone who said “I am glad” to her, just like in this moment—
“I am glad I was not too late.”
“.”
—A man of golden light, bright as the sun.
KRAAAASH——!!!
Honestly, I did not think I had ever moved this breathlessly since possessing this body.
The crises that had occurred until now were the kind that gave me headaches, not the kind where I had to run like mad against a time limit.
Huff. Huff.
I ran down the forest path, gasping for breath.
This zone called the Central Zone seemed to have an effect that pressed down on one’s mind merely upon entering it. I felt as though I was tiring more quickly than usual.
Even so, the only reason I did not collapse or fall was Noble Bloodline.
[ Trait - Noble Bloodline activates. ]
Perhaps it had decided that my running posture was not noble. It tried to control everything as it pleased—the order in which I extended my legs, their angle, and even their direction. Nobly, of course.
I resented my luck for only obtaining bizarre Traits, but I ran through the forest as it instructed. At last, I saw them.
BARK—!
The Lycanthrope was thrusting its filthy snout forward, while Emma stood before it, terrified.
At that moment, I poured all the mana gathered in my heart, save for the tiniest amount, into blocking the space before Emma.
GRR?
During the brief moment in which the Lycanthrope blinked at my sudden appearance, I moved the speck of mana I had left behind from my heart to my shoulder, from my shoulder to my arm, and from my arm to my hand.
“I am glad I was not too late.”
Whether those words were directed toward Emma or myself, I did not yet know.
Only one thing was certain right now.
I would blow away the filthy wolf before me and save my student.
Finally pushing the mana gathered at my fingertips into Palakia, I spoke the activation word that had been lingering in my mouth.
“.”
The demonic sword was so dangerous that even the chairman had left it abandoned.
It was not difficult to understand how much power it granted in exchange for taking the user’s mind and life.
THUD—!
Right now, my heart was convulsing as though it had been struck by a massive warhammer.
A heart that had held only Grade 2-level mana throughout its life now had to confront a sudden wave of overwhelming mana with its bare body and no breakwater. Naturally, it began to overload.
[ Trait - Possessor’s Composure activates. ]
[ Trait - Possessor’s Composure activates. ]
[ Trait - Possessor’s Composure activates. ]
The only thing holding up my collapsing body was my mind, which remained clear.
Within the brief instant when my mind could hold up my body—an instant that, in terms of time, would be expressed as 0.999...—I thought of the only method that could resolve this situation.
Even if, thanks to the Possessor's Composure, the demonic sword could not take my mind, if my body could not accept this overwhelming mana....
‘Then I would rather give it up.’
Give it up.
Rather than clinging to something I could not possess, I could release it all at once and make it into a dagger that would pierce the opponent’s heart.
A dagger made purely of mana, with no magic or incantation whatsoever.
Because it was pure, there was no way to stop it. Because it was pure, there were infinite ways to shape it. My dagger gradually took form.
The mana condensed over Palakia’s golden blade became a dagger as I wished and shot forward.
KRAAAASH——!!!
When the dagger, with power I had never imagined, pierced everything in a straight line that included the Lycanthrope.
All that remained was debris that seemed to be part of the silver wolf that had ruled a portion of the forest for hundreds of years.
“Ha ha....”
Only then could I collapse to the ground and laugh.