“What? Some kid? Don’t tell me he knocked away the dagger I threw?”
“It was a fluke. Focus on the job.”
The attackers eyed me warily as I stood close beside Renia. But once they realized there wasn’t a speck of mana in my body, confidence filled the eyes behind their masks.
One of them stepped forward. Subtly displaying the sword hilt at his waist, he spoke.
“Hey, kid. Hand over the girl, and I’ll let you live.”
“You certainly make nonsense sound convincing. You’d willingly leave a witness alive?”
I knew how these thugs operated. I had no intention of falling for their coaxing. I took a step forward.
“Killing youngsters gives me bad dreams.”
“Keep the bloodshed to a minimum. We don’t want to leave a trail.”
“I know, I know.”
Apparently giving up on persuading me, the man in front drew a longsword from his waist and approached.
‘He’s definitely letting his guard down.’
My body was still that of a boy who hadn’t fully matured.
Compared with the body that had earned me the name Sword God before my regression, it was pitiful.
But that opened up certain strategies, too.
I raised my sword, imitating the clumsiest stance I could manage. The man’s expression darkened at the sight.
“Tsk. I never get used to cutting down little bastards.”
“C-come at me!”
“Haa….”
When I imitated a child’s nervous voice, the man shook his head.
“Don’t resent me too much. It’s all part of the job.”
Drawing close, he gave a bitter smile and swung his sword down at me.
His attack was slow, and his stance was full of openings.
“Gurk!”
―SQUELCH.
That was why he lost.
My sword had already deflected his blade and pierced his heart.
“Grrk.”
Bloody froth spilled from his open mouth.
He died with my sword still through him.
“Utterly careless.”
However young his opponent might be, how could he let his guard down against someone holding a sword?
At this point, he didn’t even qualify as third-rate.
“Wh-what the hell?!”
Someone shouted. Understandably, they were rattled. A child they had dismissed as worthless had killed an assassin who had spent years living by the blade.
But I had no intention of waiting for them to grasp the situation.
SWISH!
Using the corpse with its pierced chest as a shield, I charged straight ahead.
WHOOSH!
I flung the corpse at the hulking man standing farthest away and swung my sword at the thin man closer to me.
Our blades collided. My hand tingled from the impact.
Fortunately, perhaps because he had drawn his sword in haste, he hadn’t infused it with mana.
This was my chance. I pressed him without giving him time to concentrate.
“Urgh!”
Growing desperate, the man thrust out his sword.
SCREECH!
But contrary to his expectations, our blades scraped against each other, sending sparks flying.
“What?!”
Bewilderment filled the eyes behind his mask. My sword was already firmly positioned in the path of his intended strike.
I had read his attack.
Once might have been dismissed as a fluke. But my sword kept cutting off his next move, sometimes firmly, sometimes fluidly.
A single blade glided through the air as though dancing. Unable even to swing properly, he could do little more than retreat while keeping his vital points out of reach.
“Y-you bastard! What the hell are you?!”
He shouted because he couldn’t begin to understand what was happening.
“What else? A mercenary.”
“A mer…cenary?”
To me, it wasn’t any remarkable feat.
If anything, it was only natural.
I had spent a lifetime braving death.
I hadn’t been called the Sword God for nothing.
My swordsmanship was grounded entirely in actual combat. When it came to exchanging blows without mana, the difference between me and a novice like him was greater than that between heaven and earth.
“Gah!”
After only a few exchanges, my sword buried itself in his throat.
By then, the others had realized the severity of the situation.
“Damn it! Kill him! Kill him, no matter what it takes!”
The dark mage who appeared to be their leader gave the order, and the hulking man charged. A faint, milky-white film enveloped his raised axe.
Aura, a manifestation of skill through mana.
Only aura could block aura. But at this point in my life, I hadn’t begun using mana, so I couldn’t use aura.
I was at an absolute disadvantage. Even so, I didn’t hesitate.
WHOOSH!
A chilling rush of air struck my ears. The hulking man’s axe failed to touch me.
“He dodged it?”
He was aghast.
If I couldn’t clash weapons with him, I simply had to avoid being hit.
With a stamping step, I shifted my center of gravity and evaded his next attack. The instant his body swayed, I seized the opening and slipped in low.
As I did, I leaned my head back to avoid his swinging axe, but my body couldn’t quite keep up.
SLASH!
A thin red line appeared along my cheek.
The pain gradually brought my senses back to life.
Combat experience repeated tens of thousands of times was guiding my body of its own accord.
These familiar movements. These memories engraved deep in my bones.
Ultimately, it was this instinct that had kept me alive and brought me this far.
‘I’ve been given another chance to fight.’
This wasn’t a blessing bestowed by a god, nor a destiny ordained by some supreme being.
It was a mission Renia had given me, one I had to fulfill.
‘Then I’ll just have to see it through.’
I had a purpose.
The grand goal of killing the Sorcerer Archduke.
“…….”
Just then, my eyes met Renia’s as she watched from a distance.
Her eyes, violet as irises, curved.
‘In the end, it’s because of you, then and now.’
A second chance given to me by Renia.
I intended to live this second life to fulfill my mercenary contract with her as well.
But I wasn’t living solely for someone else. This life was for me, too.
I didn’t want to see the young Renia watching me from over there wear that desperate smile ever again.
Before I turned back time and now, Renia von Benheim was the largest piece of my life. The Sorcerer Archduke had all but torn that piece away.
My hatred for him.
I drew out the tiniest fragment of it.
SQUELCH!
My sword sank into the hulking man’s belly.
He went limp and died without even managing a scream.
“Damn it! Magic! Use magic!”
The leading dark mage shouted urgently.
The two mages began chanting.
For me as I was now, dealing with magic was somewhat troublesome.
“They’re casting dark magic. Dispel it for me.”
Renia answered in a bewildered voice.
“Wh-what are you talking about?! Dispel? How am I supposed to do that?!”
“…You can’t?”
“You want me to forcibly dispel someone else’s magic? I’m not some archmage. How am I supposed to do that?!”
I realized my mistake.
Without thinking, I had assumed I was fighting alongside the Renia from before my regression.
Like me, she was still an unripe fruit. She probably wasn’t used to this sort of battle, either.
“Die!”
Just then, a dark mage finished chanting and hurled an enormous black orb. I used the corpse whose belly I had just pierced as a shield to block the spell.
But there were two mages. Another black orb flew at me from the side.
Dark magic of at least the Third Tier. One hit from that sinister spell would kill me instantly.
But I paid it no heed and swung my sword horizontally.
My sword――.
SLICE.
Cut straight through the spell.
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
With the space between us clear, I could see the dark mage staring at me in horror.
Of course he was. A sword that wasn’t even coated in aura couldn’t possibly cut through magic.
- That’s an extraordinary talent.
But I could.
At first, I had thought anyone could do it. Only after meeting Renia had I realized I was special.
- Reagan, do you have any idea how absurd it is to discern a spell’s constantly shifting core with the naked eye?
- Is it that impressive?
- Extremely. It’s something even an archmage couldn’t accomplish. I certainly can’t, and I doubt even the Sorcerer Archduke could. It’s a transcendent kind of sight anyone would envy. It’s also why I recommended that you learn magic.
I could see it.
Even before seeing it, I could sense it instinctively.
Where to cut.
Where to thrust to collapse the structure of a spell.
I had cut through even the Sorcerer Archduke’s magic, however imperfectly. A spell cast by a mere Third Tier novice could hardly stop me.
“He cut through the spell? How?”
The dark mage blinked behind his mask in disbelief. He looked to his subordinate for the cause.
“Y-you idiot! Can’t you chant properly? Do you want to die?!”
“N-no, I chanted it correctly! This isn’t fair! You saw the spell go off properly!”
“Shut up! Is this the time for that?!”
Meanwhile, my sword was already hurtling toward them. SQUELCH. Another man hit the ground and rolled, his eyes wide open.
Now only one dark mage remained.
“Aaaaargh! Stay away!”
The dark mage desperately hurled orb after orb, but they lacked their earlier force. I deftly swung my sword and knocked them all away.
When his final desperate resistance came to nothing, he let his hands fall with a look of emptiness.
TAP.
The next instant, I sprang off a headstone in a horizontal leap.
The gap closed. Suddenly right before me, the dark mage’s face was filled with bewilderment.
“How in the world….”
Those were his last words.
My sword pierced him between the brows.
“…Wow.”
Renia had watched blankly as I disposed of the five assassins.
The scene looked as though a storm had swept through it. I stood over the scattered corpses, gasping for breath.
“Tsk.”
Every joint in my body screamed, and my heart felt ready to burst. Blood ran from the wound on my cheek, leaving a metallic taste around my mouth.
I had fought beyond my limits with a body that wasn’t fully developed.
‘I can’t believe this much has left me so weak. I’ll need to get my body into shape soon.’
Spitting out blood-tinged saliva, I turned around.
My eyes met Renia’s. Her eyes, violet as irises, were full of bewilderment.
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”
“Uh, y-yes. I’m fine, but….”
“Really? That’s good.”
When I grinned at her, Renia awkwardly smiled back.
“Um…. You’re all right, aren’t you?”
Renia cautiously tried to check my condition, but before she could continue, someone shouted from the entrance to the graveyard.
“My lady!”
Fortunately, they weren’t with the attackers.
“Lady Renia, are you all right?!”
It was a group of mages wearing pure white robes embroidered with Benheim’s crest. Their eyes widened at the chaos they had suddenly encountered.
The golden-haired mage at their head swiftly assessed the situation.
Traces of dark magic lingering in the graveyard.
Five masked figures lying dead on the ground.
And one suspicious individual holding a bloodstained sword.
…That was me.
“You bastard! You deserve to be torn apart for daring to target Lady Renia!”
The mages all pointed their staves at me.
Their suspicions were reasonable. By any measure, I must have looked like someone who had attacked Benheim’s daughter.
“Ah, w-wait! You’ve misunderstood! This person is…!”
The family’s mages acted faster than Renia could protest.
They were all experienced mages. Sentries of the family who had reached no less than the Fifth Tier.
“Damn it.”
I couldn’t even steady myself. It was the aftermath of the battle. With my current, insufficiently trained body, this was my limit.
FLASH.
Red light flashed before my eyes.
It was a stunning spell.
***
――DRIP――DRIP.
I opened my eyes to the sound of water dripping at regular intervals.
The room was utterly dark, with faint light seeping through iron bars. I instinctively grasped the situation.
‘A prison?’
Apparently, Benheim’s mages had thrown me into a cell while I was unconscious. They certainly had a heavy-handed way of doing things.
I raised my head. An elderly mage stood just outside the bars.
“He has awakened.”
When our eyes met, the mage turned and reported to someone behind him.
Struggling to sit up, I spoke to him.
“This is all a misunderstanding. I’m not with those men.”
“I know.”
The answer didn’t come from the elderly mage. Another man approached from behind him. He was a sharp-featured, middle-aged man.
“You’re….”
“Renia told me what happened. It seems there was a misunderstanding. A mage of my house behaved discourteously. As the head of House Benheim, I offer you my sincere apology.”
The man bowed his head.
Quite apart from the sincerity of his apology, his words kept circling in my mind. He had clearly called himself the head of the family.
At the same time, the torchlight revealed his features. Golden hair, violet eyes. Benheim’s hereditary traits, just like Renia’s.
In other words….
“Father-in-law.”
“What?”
My father-in-law—no, the head of House Benheim—stiffened.
“No, I… That slipped out.”
It had been a slip of the tongue.
I hastily shook my head.
In any case, the man before me was the head of Benheim, one of the great houses of magic.
I remembered his name, too. Stern von Benheim.
He was Renia’s father.
“There is much to discuss about this incident. However, I will leave thanking you for saving my daughter until later. Quite apart from that, there was a reason we needed to imprison you. Can you think of what it might be?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Will you say the same after seeing this?”
Stern pulled up a chair and sat down, then took a small pendant from inside his clothes. Only then did I realize that my chest felt bare. The pendant Renia had given me dangled from Stern’s hand.
“This was found among your possessions. It also happens to be something that should be in my family’s treasury.”
Stern’s gaze was filled with suspicion.
“Where did you get this?”
***