Rohan and Hatz made their way into the Shadow Forest. Quite a few monsters too strong for trainees to handle lived here.
If several monsters appeared at once, even Rohan would be in danger.
'The last time I came here.......'
He hadn't felt any danger at all. Back then, his father had been with him.
It might be the only memory with his father Rohan had.
'After that, a few words in passing was all we ever exchanged.'
Along with cold looks.
Rohan shook his head. It couldn't even be called the past. It had actually happened later than now, and it was a future that had vanished with Rohan's regression.
"Hatz. From here on, stay sharp. One slip and you could lose your life in an instant."
Fortunately, Hatz was calmer than expected. His hand gripping his sword was shaking and his eyes darted around frantically, but considering he'd come here as a trainee, that much was fine.
Watching Hatz, Rohan smiled at the memory that came to mind.
'I couldn't even walk properly.'
Even with his father close by. Rohan wondered for a moment whether his father, disappointed at the sight, had given up on him completely then.
"Ah, and. You can't tell anyone about what I show here, for the time being."
"What do you mean?"
He must have been quite curious, because his frantically darting eyes locked onto Rohan. With a confident look, Rohan drew the sword from his waist.
"Stuff like this, for example."
Fwoosh!
Fire blazed up along the blade. Reflected in Hatz's eyes as he watched, the firelight blazed just the same.
"Y-You handle fire mana?"
It was a reaction closer to admiration than alarm.
Rohan nodded.
"You're not very surprised. You know what this means, right?"
"That you learned a mana cultivation method other than the White Ice Ring. I figured there was some reason, seeing how you're usually reluctant to show your mana."
Hmm. Rohan looked at Hatz with interest.
He had made him his Guardian Knight judging only by the swordsmanship he'd faced when they crossed swords at the tail end of his past life, but the guy had more going on in his head than he'd thought.
"Half right, but not the whole answer. It's true I was worried about the fire mana being found out, but I didn't bring out my mana because there was no need until now."
Hatz dropped his jaw in disbelief, then soon nodded in agreement.
"That's true. You beat the intermediate seniors even without the help of magic power."
"Not without the help of mana. Everyone only cares about drawing mana outward, but the real thing is how you circulate it inside to strengthen the body."
"Like this, you mean?"
Hatz thrust out the hand holding his sword. For an instant, his body and arm stretched forward smoothly as if gliding on ice.
"Yeah, that's it."
Hatz smiled with a proud face and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Whew. That's hard. I can barely manage it once like that. And you already handle it so freely. I really can't keep up with your talent, Lord Rohan."
"Y-You don't need to try to keep up with me......."
Rohan was flustered. In his past life, even at eighteen, he couldn't properly handle 3rd-Stage mana.
Hatz, who was figuring out how to circulate mana within his body on his own at just thirteen, was the real genius.
Rohan cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Anyway, once you get used to it, you won't break a single drop of sweat. If anything, moving with mana gets easier."
"Yes, sir. I'll train hard."
Along with the awkwardness, Rohan felt a strange sense of pride welling up. He was now in the position of teaching, the other way around, a kid he couldn't have come near in his past life.
Part of him wondered what a guy once called the Mercenary King was doing with kids.
But so what. Having come back against the flow of time could be called a talent of its own, couldn't it?
His past life had become something that never happened, thanks to Rohan's regression anyway.
In this life, many things would change because of him.
'I'll get stronger. Strong enough that my past self won't even compare.'
And he had to make people of his own. They too would become stronger than their own past selves.
"What are you thinking so hard about?"
At Hatz's question, Rohan came back to himself.
"Nothing much. Let's go."
Rohan headed deeper into the forest.
The Forest of Shadows. True to its name, darkness filled the spaces between the bare branches. The shadows formed a forest.
'Father made a mistake.'
In other words, using dark mana, Rohan could quickly search the entire forest. It meant he ran no risk of getting lost, the Shadow Forest's greatest obstacle.
The corners of his mouth rose. Having come this far, there would be no great difficulty. Of course, the monsters of this forest were still hard for him and Hatz to handle alone. But a mission that had looked impossible had become one well worth attempting.
'He must have meant to take me down a peg while I'm running wild, but he's given me wings instead.'
Gion would never take back words once spoken. The moment Rohan finished the mission, he'd have no choice but to move him up to the advanced course.
'Tch. I do understand it, though.'
Rohan, who had regressed, was still holding back his pace even now, but to anyone who didn't know, it was insolent conduct through and through.
Without Hatz, walking ahead, noticing, Rohan quietly released his dark mana. Rising like smoke from behind Rohan, the dark mana drifted toward the shadows hanging on the trees as if drawn by a magnet.
"There are fewer monsters than I thought."
Hatz said, looking back. Above his head, a huge beast's foot bristling with fur was coming down.
"Look ahead!"
As he shouted, Rohan dashed past Hatz and blocked the beast's foot with his sword.
BOOM!
At the heavy impact, Rohan's body tilted. Pushed back by the force, his feet slid backward.
Then flames rose along his sword. Fwoosh! The blazing fire pushed the beast's foot away.
Only then did Rohan see the beast's face. A round face wrapped in fur with a protruding muzzle, it looked like half bear, half wolf.
It was a beast found only in the North. Rohan had never fought one either.
But Rohan was not one to be flustered. His last life had been too rough for that.
Rohan stretched out the hand that wasn't holding his sword. Ice mana scattered and froze the monster's foot.
Its foot, which had just been scorched by fire, froze over in an instant, and the monster howled.
GWAAARGH!
Meanwhile, Rohan drove his sword straight forward. The red flame split the monster's hide and went in.
The sword that bored into its body burned what was inside. The beast howled, then froze with its mouth still open.
When Rohan pulled out his sword, the monster toppled backward. Hatz ran out and examined the monster's carcass.
Then he turned his head and looked at Rohan. His mouth was hanging wide open.
"What?"
Rohan smiled sheepishly. With Hatz looking at him as if he were amazing, he felt his shoulders lift, while at the same time the thought that, given his past-life experience, it wasn't quite right to be this pleased coexisted.
'Well, whatever. Might as well enjoy it.'
Having made up his mind, he put on a thoroughly arrogant look.
"You fully understand now why I told you to keep it secret, right?"
Hatz just nodded, his mouth still hanging open. Rohan went over and shut it for him with a hand under his chin.
"Don't just lean on me; fight up front yourself. What use is a Guardian Knight who stands behind the one he's guarding?"
"B-But you're too strong for me to guard, Lord Rohan."
"Do you think Ron is stronger than my father?"
Hatz hurriedly shook his head. That was absurd. It wasn't that Ron was weak.
Ron was one of the five strongest among the Baltrans. Among them, only Gion, the Grand Elder, and the Commander of the Black Wolf Knights could be said to be clearly stronger than him.
The problem was that one of them, Gion, was far too strong. He was the strongest warrior on the continent. If he and Ron fought, Gion would beat Ron within five exchanges.
"And yet Ron always runs ahead of my father and handles things. That's what a Guardian Knight is."
Hatz listened blankly to Rohan for a moment, then nodded. At some point his dull eyes had taken on a gleam.
"Understood. Just follow behind me, sir."
He turned and began to run on ahead. Rohan smiled, watching him.
'He seems to have gotten it a bit wrong, but leaving him like that won't hurt his growth.'
Rohan followed at a pace that kept him in sight. In truth, Hatz would hardly ever have to fight in front of him. The Rohan of his past life had been a mercenary, not the type to be protected by others.
Above all, Rohan had no intention of letting Hatz close the gap. However gifted Hatz was, Rohan had to be strong enough that even people like that could never catch up.
"Aaaagh!"
Hatz's scream rang out from ahead. A few more steps, and he saw Hatz fighting a monster.
It was a low-grade monster. It looked like a lizard and had a stronger grip than you'd expect, but no other means of attack, so it wasn't hard to deal with.
Hatz kept leaping up to dodge the lizard's tongue.
Thirteen was still a child. His body was too small and his strength too lacking to take on a monster.
Still, Rohan left him to it.
'I'm going to raise him tough.'
He had to be able to take something like that on his own. Instead, Rohan decided to keep other monsters from approaching.
Rohan turned to the right, toward where snow piled on the branches was pouring down. As the swaying branches drew closer, he felt tremors in the ground too.
What's coming?
Rohan opened his eyes wide, his sword resting on his shoulder.
Before long, the monster came into view. It was still quite far off. Even so, it was so enormous he could see it clearly from a distance.
'A Behemoth.......'
They were creatures that could be seen even outside the lands beyond the Wall. Rohan naturally recalled a memory from his past life.
'Right after I got kicked out of the Andelian family, I ran into one of those and went through hell.'
Compared with then, the situation was worse now. The body of a mere eleven-year-old, and only two fire rings.
Pushing his son into a place like this.
In his previous life, he'd have been doing nothing but lamenting about his father.
But things were different now. Rohan's lips curled into a grin.
'Here comes an opponent truly worth testing my strength on.'
The White Revenant had been the stronger opponent. But it had lost an arm to Rohan's surprise attack, and it had let its guard down and fallen to Rohan before it could go all out.
A Behemoth was different. Monsters knew nothing of carelessness. And it didn't look hurt anywhere.
Flames blazed along his blade. In his left hand, with a crackling shiver, mana was freezing and thawing over and over.
And over the head of the Behemoth approaching.
A black shadow was coming down.