My monstrous strength rips aura apart.
Ridiculously enough, the moment I'd first realized that was this very battlefield.
'The humiliation led to the revelation, I suppose.'
In my past life, seeing aura for the first time made me take a step back.
Back then, I'd thought aura was something extraordinary.
It was a shameful blunder: aura was an ability I hadn't awakened even after more than a decade of training under Father, and with no real combat experience I'd lacked confidence in my monstrous strength.
"Jack, you are strong. Do not be afraid."
But Father's words erased the fear, and the me of that time charged at the knight to make up for the shame of that one-step retreat.
The knight scattered aura-laden sword energy at me.
'That's when the cheap iron sword got sliced by the aura.'
Having lost my blade, I swung my bare arm to block the sword energy.
It was instinctive defense.
RIIIP—.
In that moment, the knight's aura tore apart at my fingertips.
I was the only one who noticed.
The knight who'd unleashed the sword energy should've been able to tell as well, but—.
——FWEEEEEE!!!
At that exact moment, a whistle blew and our side declared defeat.
The royal herald's pronouncement ended the war, so the battle went no further.
But now.
This time, things were different.
The knight screamed at me.
"You kill one or two soldiers and your arrogance pierces the heavens!!!"
A smirk escaped me.
The battlefield was the same, but the view was entirely different.
A sixteen-year-old Jack's body.
But the one inside was the forty-year-old Jack.
And one carrying his Spirituality along with over twenty years of combat experience, at that.
What was this battlefield's true purpose?
I could read that kind of flow instinctively.
'A rigged defeat.'
If this had been some meaningless war, I might've let the humiliation of my first battle slide.
I could just pretend it never happened in this life.
But from the moment I'd signed that mercenary contract, I realized this battlefield was strange.
'It didn't add up from the very recruitment stage.'
The swarm of young soldiers on our side was the first clue, and the increasingly vivid memories from the past were the second.
In my previous life, that knight had slaughtered dozens of our soldiers.
'Sacrificial lambs for military merit.'
That's right.
In my judgment as Mercenary King Jack, this territorial war was designed to deliberately lose so that some mediocre bastard of a knight could pad his military record.
"War is not fought with strength, greenhorn."
The knight thrust his blade from atop his white horse.
The slash was wide and showy, scattered for display.
Agonizingly slow.
The aura was pathetically thin.
"War is fought with strength."
I bestowed the lesson upon the knight.
Then raised my cheap iron sword.
Swish—.
I blocked his blade's path.
Crude, with no particular form and no discernible technique.
'Force Point.'
What my monstrous strength could rip apart wasn't just people.
It ripped aura, magic, all sorts of things.
To my eyes, the aura's Force Point was plain to sense.
To be precise, the point where that aura would scatter.
CLANG—!
My cheap iron sword met the knight's gleaming blade.
Steel against steel.
A brief clash.
I aimed for the Force Point and moved my arm.
I drove my legs into the ground and thrust my upper body forward.
Don't they say a master never blames his tools?
SCRK—.
My cheap iron sword sliced through the knight's aura-laden blade.
In my past life, I'd lost my sword and ripped aura bare-handed, but now I managed it simply by meeting his blade.
It wasn't that I'd grown stronger or used some clever trick with my Spirituality.
My experience simply drew the best possible efficiency from this body.
'Strength is power.'
Strength. Monstrous strength.
It was perfection itself.
My life as Mercenary King Jack proved it.
"H-how......."
Seconds after the blades clashed.
The knight, too shocked to speak, finally let out a strangled gasp.
His eyes went to my sword.
Was he wondering if this cheap iron sword was actually some legendary blade forged by a master artisan?
That seemed to be the delusion in his mind.
"It's the difference in strength."
I delivered my final words and dropped my stance low.
I sprang lightly toward the knight.
The knight astride a warhorse that stood two meters at the withers was now below me.
I grabbed the bastard's armor and slammed him into the ground.
CRASH——!!!
Normally, the textbook move was to kill the horse to bring the rider down.
But a horse of this size warranted a different approach.
Up close, it looked like a solid animal.
'Too fine a beast for a knight of some backwater baron's house.'
The horse was my spoils.
The knight was my achievement.
"Get off—!!!"
Even without his sword, he was still a knight.
The bastard scattered aura wildly in resistance.
The ripples of aura scratched my skin slightly, but I paid it no mind and pinned the grounded knight with my knee.
I tore the seams of his armor apart and separated the plates.
Then I gripped his ribs and hoisted him up.
A knight's body was tough.
Skin reinforced through aura was like steel.
But this pathetic excuse for a knight lacked the achievement to back it up.
His reckless scattering of aura had drained his strength.
"Ghhk—."
The knight in my grasp gasped for breath.
The source of my disgrace, who in my past life had slaughtered dozens of young soldiers and ended the war early.
He couldn't kill a single enemy before ending up in my hands.
And.......
'Force Point.'
Found it.
***
"My, my....... Baron Panier had more ambition than I expected."
The inspector overseeing the territorial war murmured.
The heirs of both baronies watching the territorial war from the plain exchanged uneasy glances.
"I thought you would use up a few young soldiers and then surrender, like any other territorial war, but—."
The inspector of the Kingdom of Alton was a figure representing the king in overseeing territorial wars.
Addressed as 'Lord' and treated with deference by the nobility, they belonged to a bureau directly under the crown.
The records of this battlefield would be delivered to the palace as-is, categorized in documents measuring the 'ambitions of provincial nobles.'
"—I had no idea House Panier had a private soldier like that!"
Mikhail, the eldest son of House Panier who'd come in his father's stead, felt like he was losing his mind.
This war was rigged.
They'd agreed to let the opposing knight build military merit, then surrender and hand over some useless land they couldn't even use.
In exchange, they'd already closed a backroom deal to receive rights over a merchant company.
It was supposed to end with a few disposable mercenaries thrown into the fray.
Then some crazy bastard appeared.
"Lord Zick, th-that......."
"A valiant warrior who tears people apart and does not even fear a knight, in House Panier!!!"
The inspector exclaimed in admiration.
Yet there was a hint of regret in his gaze, as if he were looking at the massive mercenary as 'a man about to die.'
Because a mounted knight was approaching the warrior who'd torn a soldier apart.
'He's up against a knight now, so that crazy bastard will be dead soon enough.'
Mikhail, eldest son of Baron Panier, decided it was actually for the best.
The knight of House Hatia he'd made the deal with would earn an even finer military achievement than 'massacring dozens of pathetic soldiers.'
'The monstrously strong soldier who rips people apart' would be the one he killed to make his name in his very first battle.
With that, he'd achieve his goal of joining the military faction.
But then.......
SCRK—.
What?
Something unbelievable happened.
The knight's aura-clad sword was snapped clean by a cheap iron sword.
Wasn't that impossible for anyone who wasn't a fellow knight?
"......Young Baron Panier, have you been cultivating a knight without reporting to His Majesty?"
The inspector tilted his head sideways and asked.
"Th-that's absurd!"
Mikhail denied it immediately.
"An aura-clad sword was cut by a cheap iron blade. If that is not a seasoned knight skilled enough to conceal the form of his aura, then what on earth is it?"
The interrogation came fast.
Mikhail was at a loss for words.
'How did it come to this?'
Every soldier in this battle's front line was a mercenary.
And cheap mercenaries scraped from the poor at that.
Hadn't that been thoroughly confirmed from the recruitment stage?
'Damn it, I can't even explain that.......'
If he offered something like 'He's a mercenary we hired within the territory, so I don't really know!' as an excuse, it would be a disaster.
He'd hear, 'You mobilized mercenaries instead of your territorial army for a sacred territorial war? And ones made up mostly of commoners, at that?'
On top of that, it'd be tantamount to confessing the territorial war was fixed.
'Better to just surrender.'
Mikhail's mind raced.
He shot to his feet, raising his hand.
His ample gut caught on the table and stung a little, but he pushed through and shouted.
"House Panier—."
Declares defeat in this territorial war!
In accordance with His Majesty the King's decree, we acknowledge the victor's rights!
—That's what he wanted to say.
But.......
"Heavens!"
"G-good lord—."
Something unbelievable happened.
The monstrous mercenary who'd cut the knight's sword leapt up in an instant and slammed the knight to the ground.
The madman stripped the knight's armor and hoisted him into the air.
And the way he did it looked awfully similar to how he'd torn that soldier apart at the start of the fight.......
RIIIP——!!!
"Heavens!!! The k-knight....... ripped apart?"
The inspector stared wide-eyed, then turned to face the young Baron Panier.
At the same time, the eldest son of House Hatia, nominally the enemy in this territorial war, shot a glare at Mikhail.
"Young Baron Mikhail......."
In that gaze was an accusation.
The message was clear.
What happened to our deal?
Mikhail flinched and shouted.
"Th-this is all—."
A misunderstanding.
***
Strength is speed.
Strength is power.
Strength is destruction.
RIIIP——!!!
I ripped the knight apart.
And gained a revelation.
'The body I had in my past life and the one I have now are worlds apart.'
I understood just how different the forty-year-old Mercenary King Jack and the current me were.
Compared to my original monstrous strength, roughly 10%.
If my past Spirituality was 100, right now it felt like barely 1.
Having come back over twenty years, that was only natural, but knowing this was a critical task.
'I might not be able to rip a stronger knight in one go.'
Because I needed to gauge my limits.
With those thoughts, I surveyed my surroundings.
Whoooooosh———.
In the silence, only the guiltless wind howled.
As if the battlefield had frozen in place.
The enemy knight was dead.
In a larger battle, roaring cheers would erupt and our side would charge like madmen.
The enemy would look at me and scream something like, 'R-Rip-Anything Jack is here!' and scatter.
But this little territorial war of a minor kingdom's baronies was different.
"Huh?"
"Wh-what just......."
The recruits on our side, who'd never experienced a real battle, blinked in bewilderment.
The enemy's reaction, too, was quite unlike what I was used to.
"The kn-knight—."
"The knight......."
They seemed more concerned about their dead knight than about me.
Still, they stared at me like I was some kind of monster and scrambled to flee.
'First time seeing something like this, I take it.'
A phenomenon born from a total lack of experience.
None of them seemed to have processed reality.
It was only natural.
'A minor barony in a tiny kingdom.'
They were amateurs at war.
That's what produced these clumsy reactions.
For me, it was welcome news.
'About time this wraps up.'
Wars end in many ways.
Especially from my perspective, having lived as a mercenary, I'd had plenty of opportunities to witness wars end in all sorts of ways.
Sometimes, like now, the death of a single warrior signaled the end of a war.
The flow dictated it.
BWOOOOOOO———.
"The victor of the territorial war is House Panier! By the decree of the just and impartial King Wihar Alton, the victor's rights are hereby granted!!!"
Just as I'd expected, the royal herald, or whoever he was, announced the end of this war.
Now it was time to claim the knight's white horse and collect my pay.
'Spoils first.'
A battlefield fought under someone else, not my own company.
I needed to secure my spoils quickly.
I approached the horse.
Snort—.
Smarter than he looked.
The moment our eyes met, he realized his master had changed.
He bent his knees on his own, lowering himself so I could mount with ease.
"Wait."
I gathered the knight's stripped armor and climbed onto the white horse.
'Let's give him a light test.'
Once in the saddle, I tightened my thighs.
NEEEIGH!!!
The horse panicked.
But he didn't collapse or shift his posture.
'Sturdier and smarter than I expected.'
When I eased up slightly, the horse straightened his bent legs and raised himself.
A horse that could handle 30% of my monstrous strength.
Honestly, I couldn't fathom how some backwater baron's knight had gotten his hands on a horse like this.
'Not bad armor, either.'
A mediocre knight, yet he'd been wearing mithril plate.
The horse and the armor were my spoils.
'Got everything that matters, so—.'
I mustn't forget to pray.
This was Father's dying wish.
And one accumulated across two lifetimes, at that.
I prayed.
'I offer this battlefield to the War God.'
Dear piece-of-shit god.
If you're there, try doing something with this life.
—With that sentiment.
'Tch.'
As always, there was no answer.
But then, lo and behold.
Click—.
Something locked into place, and an insidious voice whispered into my ear.
[Find the War God's three Apostles to unlock a new Authority.]