And yet, its final scene held nothing but human blood, entrails strewn across the ground, and vomit.
It was a brutally cruel reality.
The only sounds were the cries of flocks of crows and vultures moving about in search of corpses.
FLAP!
A crow walking atop a corpse startled and spread its wings.
“Haa…….”
That was because the man it had thought was its dinner until moments ago was alive.
‘It’s over.’
Leonard Valantes, once called humanity’s greatest knight.
He let out a deep sigh and opened his eyes.
Then he recalled his past.
‘Where did it all go wrong?’
He had yielded the position of Head of House to his elder brother, the legitimate son, while he himself, an illegitimate son, lived as the commander of a frontier fortress and devoted himself to the sword.
That had earned him the title of greatest knight, and yet…….
Now he was reduced to waiting for death here…….
If there was anything slightly better about his situation, it was merely that he was waiting for death, unlike those who had already died.
He should have prepared sooner.
Rather than remaining content as the commander of a frontier fortress, he should have prepared to fight them.
‘No…… Maybe I could’ve stopped it from happening altogether.’
Countless regrets flashed through his mind.
But now, he was merely another ordinary man on the verge of death.
There was nothing he could change.
Leonard closed his eyes.
Then, with a faint smile, he thought,
‘I still have regrets, but it was a happy life nonetheless.’
His eyes slowly fell shut.
As he felt death drawing closer and closer, a sudden thought occurred to him.
‘If I could live again, I could live without leaving even these regrets behind…….’
A happy life, yet one filled with regret.
Given the choice, he didn’t want to leave any regrets behind, either.
The countless regrets he had just recalled were crushing Leo’s mind after he had consoled himself by calling it a happy life.
“Heh…….”
Leo let out a wry chuckle.
Living his life over again.
How absurd was that?
He thought there was absolutely no chance such a thing would ever happen to him.
“……How can this be?”
Until he opened his eyes again and confirmed that he had returned ten years into the past.
***
Chapter 1: He thought it had ended just like that.
At the very last moment, he had felt death.
‘Did I really…… come back?’
But when he opened his eyes again, there was not even the smallest scratch on his body, making it impossible to believe that he had been fighting only moments ago.
Nor did he feel any pain.
He had clearly closed his eyes amid countless regrets, so how could this have happened?
‘This isn’t a dream, is it?’
Leo sprang out of bed and rushed to the mirror in front of the washbasin.
Reflected there was his much younger self: Leonard Valantes, the illegitimate son of House Valantes who had once been closer to books than to the sword.
Soft, fair skin. Hands without a single callus, as though they had never once held a sword.
Instead of the keen gaze of a man who had traveled across battlefields and witnessed so much blood and so many human deaths, his innocent, Deep-gold eyes gleamed in the mirror.
“This can’t be…… I really came back?”
He could not begin to understand what had happened.
After examining his body for a long while, Leo glanced toward the bed.
‘Back then, yes…… It was like this.’
He had never seen this room again after being appointed commander of the fortress, but the sight of it brought his memories flooding back.
The room was filled with nostalgic keepsakes, beginning with the bedding his mother had embroidered for him by hand.
KNOCK, KNOCK!
Lost in his memories as he looked around, Leo turned toward the sound and spoke.
“Come in.”
“Young Master, did you rest well last night?”
At the sight of the attendant carefully opening the door and entering, Leo’s heart surged.
“Hans!”
“Yes, Young Master. I am Hans. More importantly, it is time for breakfast.”
Hans had grown up alongside him since childhood.
He was also a year older than Leo, and they had been as close as brothers.
In his previous life, Leo had not seen him even once after entering the fortress.
“I missed you.”
Leo pulled Hans into a fervent embrace.
Hans was briefly flustered by his young master’s behavior, but soon put on a sly expression and spoke.
“It seems you plan to make me do something difficult today.”
Even at Hans’s joke, Leo did not budge and merely held him tight.
When Leo did not release him for quite some time, Hans cautiously asked with a worried expression,
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? Did you have a nightmare last night?”
“Yeah…… I did. A truly terrible nightmare.”
The people he loved had fallen one after another, bleeding beneath the monsters’ merciless attacks.
Even when the four kingdoms of the continent, which were always snarling at one another, joined forces, it was not enough.
Even with Leo, who had effectively been the strongest human alive, they had been unable to stop those bastards’ advance.
But—
‘This time will be different.’
Leo clenched his fist tightly.
“Hans, what year is it by the Continental Calendar?”
Leo slowly released Hans as he asked.
“This year is 303 by the Continental Calendar, isn’t it? Why do you keep acting like this? Are you ill?”
Hans continued his familiar teasing, but Leo ignored it. His mind was fixed on one thing.
‘303?’
The moment he heard the year, a jolt of electricity shot through his entire body.
It was ten years before the final war.
An exclamation mark appeared in his mind, which had been filled with question marks.
He had returned from being the strongest knight at twenty-eight to being the eighteen-year-old illegitimate son of Count Valantes.
“Young Master, if you are late for breakfast, the Head of House will scold you again! Of course, I will be scolded even more…… Hehe.”
At Hans’s words, Leo blurted out without even taking a breath.
“Father is alive? Ah!”
“Y-yes? Of course…….”
“Let’s go.”
Leo hurried away.
‘Then Mother must still be alive, too.’
His steps quickened at the thought of seeing his parents again, the parents who had died around this very time ten years earlier.
***
Count Magenta Valantes, the Head of House of House Valantes, was a warrior known as the Absolute Shield of the Kingdom.
Of course, it was not only the current Head of House. House Valantes had guarded the southern frontier with distinction for generations.
Like an iron fortress, the house had never once surrendered the kingdom’s southern lands to barbarians or monsters.
It was also the kingdom’s foremost martial house, with every Head of House having earned the title of the kingdom’s greatest knight.
And the man standing at its pinnacle was Leo’s father.
“You may all begin.”
At his father’s solemn voice, everyone seated at the table picked up their utensils.
‘Mother…….’
Aria Valantes.
She had entered House Valantes as a concubine and given birth to Leo. Now that the lawful wife had passed away, she occupied the position of lady of the house.
The moment he first saw his parents, his emotions had burst forth.
He had wanted to run to his mother and embrace her just as he had embraced Hans.
But the instant he met his father’s cold gaze, he realized once again that he had truly returned to the past.
‘He was always especially cold toward me.’
His father had always been as cold as ice, but he treated Leo with particular coldness.
Was it because Leo was an illegitimate son born to a concubine?
That might have been part of the reason.
But there was a more fundamental reason.
‘I had no talent.’
Despite being a child of the kingdom’s foremost martial house, he had shown no talent whatsoever for swordsmanship.
Worse, he had been trying to become a scholar, something no one in House Valantes had ever done before.
He had been the greatest knight at the end of his life, but at this age, Leo was so frail that it was difficult to believe he carried the blood of House Valantes.
He was later acknowledged as humanity’s greatest knight, but by then, his father had already passed away.
“Why is that boy Jamie nowhere to be seen?”
Magenta’s deep voice settled over the dining table, where only the clatter of utensils had echoed.
“I heard he returned to the inner castle late last night…… I think that is probably why.”
At Aria’s reply, Magenta spoke in a dry voice.
“Jamie is the heir of House Valantes. Pay more attention to him.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Leo’s brow tightened slightly when he saw his mother lower her head.
‘I know she already pays him more than enough attention…….’
But Jamie was far too much of a wastrel.
More precisely, he was going through the storm and stress of adolescence.
‘This time, things will be different.’
Leo’s heart had always ached whenever he saw his mother being reprimanded for no reason.
Even setting aside the fact that Jamie was the legitimate son, his mother had always treated him with kindness.
Seeing her try to embrace Jamie to the very end had even made Leo angry.
‘Not only for Mother’s sake, but even considering what lies ahead…….’
Having apparently finished his meal, Magenta wiped around his mouth with a napkin and spoke.
“Do you plan to hole yourself up in the library and stare at books again today?”
His voice was very quiet, but it carried tremendous pressure.
It was enough to snap Leo out of his thoughts.
“He is still eating. Speak to him after he has finished.”
Ignoring his wife’s attempt to shield their son, Magenta stared at Leo with a cold gaze.
Meeting that icy gaze, Leo slowly set down his utensils and looked at his father.
Then he said,
“I intend to train in swordsmanship.”
A gust swept across the dining table.
“What did you say?”
The pupils of his father’s eyes trembled faintly as they met Leo’s directly.
The movement was minute, but Leo saw it clearly.
Looking at his father, whose Deep-gold eyes matched his own, Leo spoke again.
“Did you not say that a man of House Valantes should take up a sword and seek strength in the training grounds, rather than take up a pen and seek it in the library?”
At Leo’s bold answer, his mother looked back and forth between them with trembling, anxious eyes.
“Leo, your words are too confrontational. Apologize to your father.”
“Leave him. Now that he is baring his teeth like that, he looks somewhat like a man of House Valantes.”
At his father’s words, his mother fell silent and looked at Leo with concern.
“I am curious. How can something that did not change for eighteen years change overnight?”
“I had a thought. In a duel of swords where lives are at stake, life and death are decided in a fleeting instant.”
At Leo’s words, the coldness vanished from Magenta’s Deep-gold eyes, replaced by curiosity.
Looking into his father’s eyes, Leo continued.
“If a person’s life can come and go in a fleeting instant, could I not change as well?”
‘Just like now.’
Swallowing those final words, Leo met his father’s gaze with a resolute expression.
After staring into his son’s eyes for a long while, Magenta slowly rose from his seat and spoke.
“I will be watching.”
His father tossed out the words and walked out of the dining room.
Meanwhile, his mother, who had been anxious the entire time, looked at Leo and spoke.
“Leo, what were you thinking, saying such a thing?”
It was a rebuke, but the emotion mixed within it was concern.
He wanted to tell her not to worry, that everything would be all right, and so much more, but for now, he could only smile.
***
After breakfast ended, Leo spent some time with his mother before returning to his room.
He was overjoyed to see his mother again, but if he wanted that happiness to last longer, there was much he needed to prepare.
‘First, I need to regain my former strength.’
As soon as he entered his room, Leo began practicing the Mana Cultivation Method he had trained in his previous life.
He had already mastered it completely, and it was so familiar to him that he could practice it even while going about his daily life.
In his previous life, he had been twenty when he was posted to the fief.
Then, during a battle he took part in, a sudden barbarian ambush scattered the army.
Stranded in the heart of enemy territory, he had barely found his way back when he discovered an ancient temple. The relic he obtained there was—
‘Berserker Akedos’s Secret Manual and his sword.’
Baron Akedos Sugar, a knight of the Kingdom of Brahms.
He was a real person from the kingdom’s early days and had been an exceptionally promising young knight.
He developed his own swordsmanship and Mana Cultivation Method, and their power was so great that he was praised as the Sword of the Kingdom.
He was a genius among geniuses in every sense of the phrase.
By training from Akedos’s Secret Manual, Leo had been able to earn the title of humanity’s greatest knight.
The swordsmanship itself was exceptional, but the decisive reason had been his ability to use ‘Mana Blade.’
It was a realm that even his father, who was currently called the greatest knight in the Kingdom of Brahms, had failed to reach.
Moreover, no house in any of the many kingdoms across the Udiana Continent had ever reached that realm.
Yet Leo had achieved it.
He had not merely coated his sword in deep-blue mana. He had reached the realm where mana rippled and erupted like waves.
And he had been able to reach that realm solely because of Akedos’s Mana Cultivation Method.
Although Akedos had been called a genius among geniuses, he earned the dishonorable title of Berserker rather than becoming a great knight.
That was because he had approached a realm beyond Mana Blade, only for his mana to run rampant and drive him mad.
For that reason, Leo had never even considered pursuing a higher realm in his previous life.
But—
‘This time, I’ll surpass Mana Blade and reach an even higher realm.’
He had realized this during humanity’s final war.
This time, he absolutely had to attain that higher realm.
And there was a possibility that he could.
He could begin training the cultivation method four full years earlier than he had in his previous life.
The cultivation method was already circulating steadily through Leo’s body.
‘First, let’s organize the events that will happen in the future.’
Leo rose from his seat and walked to the desk.
Then he spread a blank sheet of parchment across it.
This was every bit as important as growing stronger.
He intended to organize the events that would occur and all the information he knew.
No matter how good his memory was, there might be things he would inadvertently overlook if he did not record them.
‘All right. Let’s begin.’
Leo took hold of a quill and was about to begin writing on the parchment when he stopped.
Then, in a quiet voice, he said,
“But you’ve been bothering me for a while now. Who are you?”
At his voice, the neatly arranged blanket fluttered, and a woman’s voice was heard.
-Can you see me?