“…….”
Having opened his eyes, Theron could not grasp the current situation.
Rationally, coolly.
Theron had always maintained such a state, but.
“This place……?”
The walls were made of dark gray stone, and in the cracks between them, bluish moss had taken root.
Heavy air.
With just a single breath, the smell of mold seeped deep into his lungs.
Rotten wood and damp cloth.
Mixed with the smell of old blood, it clung stickily to the tip of his nose.
Theron's eyes shook.
How could he ever forget this place?
He had spent half of his life here.
“Is this…… a dream?”
Otherwise, there was no explaining it.
‘I definitely…….’
He had died surrounded by dozens of knights…….
But at that moment.
“…….”
Castillo's face rose before his eyes.
―Consider it an honor and close your eyes.
It felt as though he could hear those last words of his once again.
Theron always kept his composure, but for a moment, curses rose all the way up his throat.
He could still vividly feel the blades digging into his body.
“A dream……?”
Was he having this dream because of his vicious resentment and rage?
If not…….
‘I've come back…… to the past?’
Nonsense.
How could such a thing possibly be?
His head became tangled, and his thoughts multiplied.
But just then.
“Hey, what are you doing?!”
At someone's shout, Theron turned his head to look over there.
Short hair of a faded blue.
It was a boy with an angry expression, putting force into his large, glaring eyes.
“……Perka?”
It was a face he could never forget.
During the training back then, he had not survived to the end…… but he was the one who had learned the rules faster than anyone and built a quiet friendship with Theron.
‘Come to think of it, that guy helped me out quite a lot.’
He was the one who, because he was the room leader, had dragged Theron along when he could not adapt.
‘Though later…… he went and died from rotten luck.’
Memories of him flashed by swiftly, like a revolving lantern.
However, Perka, still wearing an angry expression, strode over and grabbed Theron by the collar, twisting it.
“I said, what are you doing?! If you keep dawdling like this, we'll be late for morning assembly!”
Behind Perka, two boys were looking at them with irritated expressions.
He remembered their names as well.
‘Renil…… Tioren.’
Those two had also died midway through training, but they had been fairly decent guys.
Only now did everything come back to him.
The current situation, and why these guys were looking at him with such angry expressions.
His thoughts still weren't in order, but for now, he decided to fall in step with them.
Theron lightly pulled the boy's hand away and said.
“Ah, sorry. Let's hurry.”
“……?”
At Theron's words, Perka frowned, yet tilted his head.
Because the expression and tone were so completely contrary to Theron's usual cowed demeanor.
But…….
“What are you doing? You said we were in a hurry.”
“Ah, uh…… right. Let's go, quick.”
He knew well enough that there was no ill will in the collar grab.
In this hellish place, there was just one thing.
If there was anything he had been lucky with, it was that the three who shared his room were fairly decent guys.
Of course, because of that…….
“Let's go!”
When Perka started running, the other three ran after him.
The way along the corridor to the first-floor lobby.
It was not a long way, but as he ran, his memories of this place grew clearer and clearer.
And when they arrived at the first-floor lobby.
‘Right…… it was like this.’
At the sight of the boys filling the lobby, Theron took his place with a calm expression.
Some five hundred trainees gathered in the lobby.
In front of them stood the instructors who taught them.
And the man at their center.
The one who held the position of chief instructor, and who held the greatest actual power on this damned island…….
‘Berton.’
A lean build.
His slit eyes looked at the trainees like awls, and the reddened veins on his pale skin gave off a strange sense of intimidation.
However, the moment he saw his face, memories from before flashed past.
The one who had tried to kill them…….
“……Hoo.”
Theron made an effort to calm his mind and looked around.
There were some five hundred trainees, but most of them lived divided into sections.
They trained separately as well, of course.
Yet for them to be gathered in one place like this…….
‘So I've come back to this time…….’
A faint crease formed between Theron's brows.
In one sense, it could be called fortunate, but it was the worst moment for us…….
“Attention!”
Just then, one of the instructors in front shouted loudly.
The trainees looked at the instructor with tense expressions.
Berton, the chief instructor at the center, looked at the trainees with cold eyes, then spoke in a low voice.
“You have all worked hard to endure until now. Starting today, to improve your skills, we will begin training that has advanced one stage further.”
“……Training that has advanced one stage further?”
“What's that……?”
For a moment, the atmosphere stirred.
It was understandable.
Until now, the training had mostly been swinging swords until their hands bled, or grueling physical training that did not stop even when the soles of their feet tore.
‘For a year, they drilled us in brutal physical training and swordsmanship, ruled us with the whip, and planted fear in us…….’
Because they then taught the ‘mana cultivation method’ that would turn those who endured into their puppets.
While watching Berton, Theron carefully observed his surroundings.
Surely, with a commotion like this.
“Silence!”
He had thought an instructor would take hold of it like that.
At the shout of the instructor beside Berton, the trainees gathered in the lobby shut their mouths tight, like mutes who had eaten honey.
A solemnity that pressed down on their shoulders.
Some could not even breathe loudly, keeping their lips pressed shut.
In the space where a blade-like tension flowed, Berton looked at the instructors on either side and nodded.
Soon, they handed out the thin books that had been piled beside them, one to each trainee.
“This is the mana cultivation method you will be learning from now on. Memorize all of it by tomorrow and train with it.”
And at the same time, they gave small boxes to the trainees.
What was inside the box.
Was something like a bead, tinged with a reddish glow.
“This will greatly aid the growth of your mana cultivation method from now on. All of you, swallow it right here.”
“Come, come, hurry up!”
“Swallow it into your mouths, now!”
As Berton spoke, the instructors moved busily and stood in front of the trainees.
At the instructors' urging, the trainees who had received the bead-shaped pills hesitated.
But just then.
“It seems you will only listen after you are punished.”
“I, I'll eat it!”
“I ate it!”
At Berton's single remark, almost like a mutter, the trainees recoiled in horror and put the pills into their mouths.
“…….”
Theron looked at the bead-shaped pill in his hand.
‘Death…… Sigil.’
This thing, whose name meant the seal of death…….
‘It does help the growth of the mana cultivation method, that's for sure.’
It was true that if taken early on, it gave an explosive boost to mana growth.
But as the stages of the mana cultivation method rose, it blocked the most important mana circuit, cutting off any progress beyond ‘a certain stage.’
And at the same time.
‘Later…… it can kill us at the will of the bastard who fed us the pill.’
True to its name, the seal of death, once this pill was taken, a small worm began to live as a parasite in the heart.
And according to the will of the one whose mana had gone into making the pill.
‘Once it's fully grown, the worm destroys the heart in a single stroke.’
It was truly a thorough plan to make puppets of them.
“What are you doing? Not eating it?”
An instructor approached Theron, glared at him fiercely, and said.
He knew.
That he could not avoid taking this Death Sigil right now.
Theron stared blankly at the Death Sigil in his hand, then, as if to show off, put it into his mouth right in front of the instructor.
GULP.
Having swallowed it in one go, Theron opened his mouth and said to the instructor.
“I ate it.”
“You may close your mouth.”
After seeing Theron even roll his tongue this way and that to prove he had eaten all of it, the instructor moved on toward the other trainees.
Surely, from now on, the worm in the Death Sigil would settle in his heart and grow.
But…….
‘I've got a move for everything.’
Theron had already been through every kind of rough ordeal in his past life.
He knew a way to deal with the Death Sigil, too.
“Keep this in mind. By tomorrow, memorize all of the mana cultivation method handed out today. There will be no training until tomorrow.”
“Dismissed!”
“Disperse!”
At Berton's words, the other instructors shouted loudly and dismissed the trainees.
The five hundred or so trainees, who were rarely all gathered together, scattered and returned to their rooms.
And…….
“A mana cultivation method…… How are we supposed to memorize this in one day?”
As soon as they entered the room, Renil threw down the mana cultivation method book he had been holding and said.
At that, Perka sat down and spoke calmly.
“Still, if we can't memorize it, we'll get in big trouble. Cram it in somehow.”
He opened the book and memorized its contents, but judging by his expression, he did not seem to understand very well what it was saying.
RUSTLE.
And Tioren, next to him, turned the pages without a word.
Apart from Renil's occasional curses, the room was quiet.
“…….”
It was only natural.
A mana cultivation method was not something those encountering it for the first time could easily understand.
Even in his memories of the past, after the first day, more than half of them had failed to memorize the contents and been beaten severely.
‘Still…… if this counts as luck, I guess it's luck.’
He could not know the reason he had come back to the past.
He had barely survived in this damned training facility created by the Valenruk family and lived as their loyal dog, and yet.
‘In the end…… killing and disposing of the dog once the hunt was over was their way.’
He had charged in, intending to at least kill Castillo in the end, but…….
‘Asbon Zionheart.’
The Third Prince's hands and feet, and a man of such martial might that he was counted among the strongest on the continent.
His body had already been too battered to fight against him.
In the end, he met his death by that man's sword without being able to do anything.
‘Is this…… a divine revelation telling me to try again?’
Try what?
For a moment, a question mark rose in his head, but finding the answer was not difficult.
Was it not obvious?
The Valenruk family, which had used them like cheap consumables and then thrown them away.
‘And…….’
One of the strongest swordsmen on the continent…… and the one who had plunged his sword into his heart.
Asbon Zionheart.
This time, my blade will pierce his heart.
If only for the sake of his past life, which had vanished so meaninglessly, like trash.
SHIFT.
Theron adjusted his seated posture and closed his eyes.
There was no need to look at the book or anything.
He already knew this mana cultivation method completely.
‘The Darkfin Mana Cultivation Method…… has its limit clearly drawn.’
Because once one reached the 6th Star, further growth became impossible.
Of course, even the 6th Star was a considerably high realm.
The knights of the Shadow Knight Order had all been at the 6th Star realm.
But to face Asbon, he would need to climb to the 8th Star realm.
It meant that from the realm he had reached in the past, the tail end of the 7th Star, he had to break through one more wall.
However…….
‘If I learn a different mana cultivation method, the instructors will find out.’
They were so persistent that they would put their fingers into the trainees' mouths to check personally whether the Death Sigil had been swallowed.
They would probably check everyone while they slept to see whether the Death Sigil had settled.
Would bastards like that simply let the Darkfin Mana Cultivation Method, one of the key points of this training, slide?
‘Not a chance.’
Now was the time to hide, and hide again.
Still, one fortunate thing was that he had arrived at a time when everything could be set right.
“Hooo…….”
Theron let out a low breath.
Now that he had set his goal, his tangled head felt clear.
If so, the first thing he had to do now…….
‘Before this bastard of a worm lodged in my heart grows…… I should get rid of it first.’
If he could not get rid of it now, a big problem might arise later.
Just like before.
As Theron closed his eyes and began the mana cultivation method, blue mana gradually began to seep in around him.
Tab 3