The noisy enrollment ceremony finally came to an end.
The trainees were each assigned a room.
The real training curriculum would begin tomorrow.
The other trainees either rested or went around getting acquainted with one another.
Shuren, however, was different.
He was training alone in a spacious clearing.
SWISH! WHOOSH—!
The wooden sword in Shuren's hand sliced sharply through the air.
‘Whew. That's a little better.’
Focusing solely on the sword cleared his mind.
Thanks to that, he could sort through the situation more clearly than when he was sitting still.
‘Because of that damn Family Head, I'm going to draw attention during this training program whether I want to or not.’
A new trainee who had caught the Family Head's attention.
Not only his peers aiming for the top ranks, but even trainees from earlier classes were bound to view Shuren with displeasure.
There would undoubtedly be all kinds of attempts to keep him in check.
And Shuren thought he understood why the Family Head was acting that way.
The Calamity Flame was unavoidable for anyone born with Flamer blood.
It seemed Theon had never even considered that the Flamer Family might have found a way to break the curse.
That was only natural, since Rak had never delivered the paper containing the method for breaking it.
‘He'd never imagine that Shuren is inside this body right now.’
That was probably why Theon had openly provoked him and treated him so leisurely.
He must have assumed Shuren would eventually destroy himself because of the Calamity Flame anyway.
‘If that bastard is coming at me openly, I can't just sit still either.’
First, Shuren needed detailed information about the Pellantz Family.
Everyone training here was connected to Pellantz in one way or another.
Even though this was his second life, charging ahead blindly could still put him in danger.
‘Just because I experienced the miracle of reincarnation once doesn't mean I'm guaranteed another life.’
He had only one life.
He needed to be careful.
That was why Shuren wanted to learn as much as possible.
But there were limits to how much information he could gather on his own.
For starters, Shuren's parents had virtually no connections with anyone else.
He could not blame them.
It was the result of the Pellantz Family thoroughly crushing them from every direction for two hundred years.
‘Do I have to do the legwork myself?’
That seemed difficult.
Information was usually obtained through trade or favors.
But thanks to Theon causing such a huge incident on the very first day, the number of people hostile toward Shuren had increased.
‘I could just grab one bastard, drag him somewhere secluded, and squeeze information out of him…….’
Shuren stopped thinking.
There was someone he could use without going that far.
‘If it's that bastard…….’
Someone who knew a great deal about the Pellantz Family.
And someone Shuren could handle easily.
WHOOSH—!
Shuren stopped swinging his wooden sword.
SWOOSH—!
Then he hurled it hard toward the bushes.
THUD—!
A sound that should never have come from a bush rang out.
“Aagh!”
A child struck by the wooden sword screamed and stumbled into view.
The one who had been hiding and watching him was Jake.
“Jake. Are you interested in me or something?”
“W-what?!”
“You've been hiding and watching me every time I train lately.”
“Ghk.”
Jake shut his mouth.
But his expression made it painfully obvious that he was wondering how Shuren had noticed.
“N-no.”
“You weren't?”
Shuren almost laughed at Jake's clumsy lie.
“I was on my way back to the dormitory.”
“Really? Then keep going.”
After saying that, Shuren deliberately looked away from Jake.
Jake had not expected Shuren to dismiss him so mercilessly and began fidgeting in confusion.
“What are you doing? Aren't you leaving?”
“Um…….”
Jake lowered his head.
Then, apparently having made up his mind, he lifted his face again and spoke.
“Teach me swordsmanship.”
He took the bait.
In truth, the request did not particularly surprise Shuren.
‘This reminds me of my previous life.’
Back then, whenever children secretly watched him train and then awkwardly approached him afterward, they always acted like this.
“Didn't you already learn plenty from that private tutor during the training center course?”
“That's……!”
Jake's face turned red.
Once the embarrassing subject came up, he had no answer.
“I…… got thrown away by my family.”
‘Well, look at this.’
Jake seemed to be trying to win sympathy.
Shuren decided to hear him out.
“After I lost to you last time, Father seemed furious. He told me to live quietly, like a dead mouse, from now on.”
Jake spoke calmly with a blank expression.
“But I want Father and the family to recognize me again.”
“Even after they cast you aside?”
“Father is violent…… but he's not a bad person. He gave me a lot of support.”
From the perspective of an outsider like Shuren, Atun's character seemed thoroughly rotten.
Still, Shuren had no intention of interfering in someone else's family affairs.
“I realized that if I want them to recognize me again, I have no choice but to get stronger. But I don't understand how anymore. Ever since meeting you, it feels like everything I believed about growth has been overturned.”
“Because of me?”
“I've been watching how you train. You're definitely extraordinary. So I thought if I followed you and learned from you, I might gain something too.”
A brief silence followed.
Shuren simply looked at Jake without saying anything.
“S-so…… could you teach me swordsmanship?”
Gulp.
Jake repeatedly swallowed from nervousness.
‘Would he…… really accept someone like me?’
Considering how he had behaved at the training center before, there was a good chance Shuren would refuse.
Shuren always trained alone no matter the circumstances, and he never joined forces with others.
While Jake grew increasingly anxious—
‘This bastard should know a fair amount.’
Shuren decided there was no need to grab some innocent person when he could simply extract information from Jake.
Jake was from the Pellantz direct line.
Even if his relationship with his father had been severed for now, the knowledge in his head had not disappeared.
“Fine. I'll teach you.”
“……R-really?!”
Jake's eyes widened.
He had never expected Shuren to actually accept him.
“But I have conditions.”
“What are they?”
“Do whatever I tell you without complaining. You said you want to grow stronger.”
“Okay.”
“And I'll ask you things from time to time. All you have to do is answer me.”
“What are you going to ask?”
“Information about the Pellantz Family.”
“Hmm. If it's something I know.”
“You're from the direct line. You know the Pellantz Family pretty well, don't you?”
“Yeah. To some extent.”
After receiving Jake's firm answer, Shuren grinned.
“Then shall we start today?”
“Right now?”
Jake looked startled, but there was anticipation in his eyes.
“What should I do first?”
As he asked, he fiddled with the wooden sword hanging at his side.
“Obviously, we start with the fundamentals.”
“I expected that. The fundamentals are obviously important, right? Make me do anything.”
“Then…… first, take your hand off that wooden sword.”
Jake looked confused at Shuren's words.
“What? Weren't you going to teach me swordsmanship?”
“Tsk. You agreed not to complain.”
“Y-yeah, but…….”
“I told you we're starting with the basics. Who said you were allowed to pick up a sword already? You can hold one later.”
“Y-yeah…….”
Satisfied with Jake's answer, Shuren smiled.
“Then we'll begin training.”
At that moment, Shuren's gaze changed.
There was an inexplicable madness in his eyes.
Jake grew nervous, but he had already decided to follow Shuren.
A short while later—
“Aaaaaagh!”
Jake's miserable scream echoed across the clearing.
***
The first day of training at the Knight Training Center arrived.
Shuren came early and prepared himself so no one could find fault with him.
The other trainees were arriving one after another as well.
‘There are a lot of faces I don't recognize.’
Shuren thought as he looked around.
He roughly remembered the faces of the trainees he had seen at the enrollment ceremony.
But there were people here he had never seen before.
‘They must be trainees from earlier classes.’
Their behavior was what led Shuren to that conclusion.
“Move faster.”
“Back in my day, I couldn't even imagine walking over like that.”
They were trying to discipline the new trainees for looking dazed.
‘Oof, those stares are sharp.’
Their gazes were especially harsh when directed at Shuren.
The seniors had not acted yet.
But they looked as though they were desperate for him to make even the smallest mistake so they could use it against him later.
On top of that, word had spread that some new trainee had caught the Family Head's eye.
Shuren was practically the nail sticking out.
“Huff, huff!”
Before long, Jake came running over and stood behind Shuren.
“Try not to show up late.”
“I'm not late yet!”
“You got here after me.”
Jake stopped arguing and merely caught his breath.
‘You worked me half to death yesterday! My muscles hurt so badly that even getting here today was torture!’
Jake raged inwardly.
He did not have the courage to say it aloud.
“More importantly, I have a question. Are we training together with the earlier classes?”
“Huh? No.”
“Then what are those guys?”
Shuren gestured with his eyes toward the swaggering trainees.
“Ah…… those guys failed.”
Shuren could not help letting out a snort when he heard that.
‘What? They failed, and they're still trying to discipline the freshmen?’
Maybe that mindset was exactly why they had failed in the first place.
“This place is completely ability-based. It doesn't matter when you entered. If your grades aren't good enough, you immediately fail. If you receive a failing grade, you repeat the course with the class that enters beneath you.”
“I see. What percentage fails each class?”
“At least twenty percent, I think.”
“Really?”
Shuren looked over the failed trainees again.
‘So they're basically the bottom twenty percent?’
In that case, their skills were probably nothing special either.
Shuren decided to ignore them.
A short while later—
The noisy atmosphere settled when the instructor entered.
“Good to meet you all. I am Baran, the instructor who will be teaching this course. New trainees, congratulations on your enrollment. As for you repeaters…… do better this time. You can't let the freshmen overtake you, can you?”
Instructor Baran spoke lightly, trying to ease the tense atmosphere among the new trainees.
CLATTER—!
At that moment—
The training hall door suddenly opened without warning, and a trainee walked inside.
The instructor frowned when he saw the newcomer's face.
“……So it was you. Try to move a little faster.”
Even after the instructor spoke, the boy walked in at an unhurried pace.
“Why's he here?”
“Didn't he get promoted?”
The failed trainees whispered among themselves when they saw him.
“Jake. Who's that? Why's everyone making such a fuss?”
“Ivan Pellantz. He's one of the direct line.”
“Really?”
Jake looked surprised, but Shuren was indifferent.
Direct line or not, if he had failed, did that not mean he was still part of the bottom twenty percent?
He was not someone Shuren needed to care about.
“The trainee who just entered is Ivan Pellantz. He is not a freshman. He belongs to the previous class, but he failed. He destroyed a fellow trainee's Mana Circuit.”
The trainees looked horrified when they heard the circumstances.
It would have been one thing on a battlefield where lives were at stake, but destroying someone's Mana Circuit at a mere Knight Training Center was strictly forbidden.
‘What? So he didn't fail because of his grades?’
In other words, he was a problem child.
Being strong enough to destroy someone's Mana Circuit meant the difference in their abilities must have been enormous.
Shuren became slightly interested in him.
“Today, I will inspect your mana. Each of you should have a mana cultivation method you learned. Begin now.”
At the instructor's command, everyone assumed their positions and began cultivating mana.
Everyone here belonged either to the Pellantz direct line or to a branch family.
Among them, the direct-line children began displaying the energy of water, showing off their power throughout the training hall.
The branch-family children also cultivated mana in their own ways.
FWOOSH!
And amid them all, an alien energy of fire surged upward.
Everyone turned toward the source.
It came from Shuren.
The trainees were bewildered by the unfamiliar fire energy.
Even more puzzling was how powerful it felt despite Shuren producing it alone.
“Hah, what the hell?”
The one who broke the silence was Ivan, the troublesome repeat trainee.
“Why's there a freak here?”
He said it while looking directly at Shuren.