“……”
What in the world had happened?
Ian Berger blinked. Many things entered his field of vision.
There was a sheer cliff, though it was not particularly high, and trees painted in autumn colors. More than anything else, however, the sky drew his gaze.
It was blue and filled with white clouds. The sunlight was warm as well. He stared blankly at the dreamlike, peaceful scene for quite some time.
‘I was certain I had died, but I survived?’
First, he tried to sit up.
However—
“Ugh.”
The moment he put strength into his arms and legs, a groan escaped him, and terrible pain raced through his entire body.
“Urgh…!”
For an instant, the pain was so intense that it robbed him of breath. Then the cliff suddenly caught his eye.
‘Did I fall from there without realizing it?’
A throbbing headache washed over him. All at once, he felt as though he had experienced this exact situation a very long time ago.
Once the thought occurred to him, every part of the scenery before him began to look familiar.
He swallowed hard. It had been when he was a child. No, when he was young would be more accurate. Had he been around eighteen?
He had once gone hunting in the mountains and foolishly leaped from a cliff while chasing a deer.
‘It cannot be.’
With great difficulty, he raised his head and looked beside him. A deer lay there, completely limp.
“Ha….”
Was this a dream? Yet the pain was far too vivid for him to dismiss it as one.
Surely he had not returned to the past?
“Y-Young Master! Young Master!”
It seemed that he had.
There was no mistaking the gamekeeper’s urgent yet familiar voice ringing in his ears.
His head hurt. It was difficult to continue thinking.
A sudden wave of exhaustion swept over him. Ian felt his eyes closing of their own accord, and without even managing to resist, his consciousness rapidly faded.
***
“……”
When he regained consciousness, he was lying in a comfortable room, tucked beneath a warm blanket on a soft bed.
The pain that had made him feel as though his limbs were being torn apart had vanished without a trace.
Had a priest treated him while he was unconscious? He had no memory of it.
More importantly, he was so comfortable that he almost wished this moment could last forever. However, he could not remain like this indefinitely.
Ian forced himself upright. The first thing he needed to determine was where he was.
‘This is… my room at the villa.’
There was the bookshelf packed with countless books he had never read, and even the display cabinet filled with expensive bottles of liquor he had collected without worrying about anyone’s disapproval.
Everything was exactly as he remembered it from his youth. A sight he had believed he would never see again was spread out before him.
“…Have I truly returned to the past?”
He muttered as he toyed with the finely crafted figurine of a knight holding a sword and shield beside his bed.
Everything was far too realistic for him to deny it. If anything, all the years he had lived since then now felt like a dream.
‘How?’
Every result had a cause.
However, even after combing through his memories one by one, he could not recall anything that might have served as a clear catalyst.
‘Was it because I was the only one left alive at the end?’
That could not be it. The Champion had survived as well.
‘Was it because we defeated an Outer God?’
That was possible.
‘Or was it because that place was the Grand Temple of Hamir, the Fourth Lord?’
The Fourth Lord Hamir was also known as the Heaven-Defier. Ian had heard that Hamir governed time. Could those stories have been true?
He was confused.
“……”
Ian decided not to torment himself by thinking about it any further. Judging by the outcome alone, this was clearly a good thing.
He had been given another chance.
Fortunately—
Incredibly—
The Spirit Star he had obtained at the end of his life had not disappeared when he traveled back through time. It still shone clearly within his mindscape.
Perhaps this time, he could truly break through the wall and become an Ascendant, a Level 6 existence respected by all.
‘I do not know how any of this happened, but this is an opportunity.’
There would probably never be another.
Not that he intended to ask for a third chance.
His heart soared with joy, but his thoughts grew calm instead. He needed a plan. He had to decide what to do.
‘Where should I begin?’
Working as a treasure hunter naturally forced one to acquire all manner of miscellaneous skills and deal with many different kinds of information.
At the time, he had learned those things only because he had no other choice, but thanks to that experience, countless possibilities came to mind. Unfortunately, there were very few things he could do immediately.
‘I am not skilled enough.’
His age was not a problem. If his memory was correct, he had been eighteen when he fell from the cliff, roughly two years after his coming-of-age ceremony.
‘Eighteen…. It would have been better if I had returned a little further into the past.’
That was regrettable in several ways. Had he returned earlier, he would have had far more options.
He placed the knight figurine back where it belonged and attempted to rouse his mana.
He felt it begin in his heart and flow through his blood vessels. Ian’s expression hardened.
‘Just as I thought.’
Compared to the mana he had possessed shortly before his death, it was not only unbearably crude but pitifully insignificant.
“Ha.”
A hollow laugh escaped him. Then again, this was only natural.
Ian recalled the bitter experience he had endured during his coming-of-age ceremony.
As a child, Ian had wanted to become a hero. He had been born with talent, and he had come from a renowned noble family.
However, when he encountered the wall known as true genius during his coming-of-age ceremony, he lost his confidence and abandoned his dream.
Looking back, it had been nothing particularly significant, but at the time, the shock had been devastating.
In any case, the only reason he possessed even this much mana was entirely because of his family.
‘My family.’
House Berger.
The family guarded the eastern defensive line of El Karda, one of the empires contending for supremacy over the continent. Its power was so great that few would dare provoke it.
Its financial resources were equally considerable, and the family spared no expense in supporting talented individuals.
As a direct descendant, Ian had been one of those who benefited from that support. Yet even after consuming a high-grade elixir, he had failed to fully absorb its power.
Eventually, he even began neglecting his training, disappointing not only his father but the other members of the family as well.
The gazes of those who could not bring themselves to voice their displeasure, yet looked upon him with obvious disapproval, remained vivid in his memory.
Pathetically, he had been unable to endure their judgment and eventually fled the family under the pretense of becoming a treasure hunter. However, that would not happen for several more years.
‘It is not too late.’
He could still turn everything around if he gave it his utmost effort. No, he could do far better than he had in his previous life.
Ian turned his head and looked out the window. The faint light of dawn was beginning to spread across the sky.
‘Perfect.’
At this hour, the training ground would be empty.
He threw off the blanket, climbed out of bed, and opened the wardrobe wide.
Among the clothes covered in a thick layer of dust, Ian found the training outfit he had once worn regularly.
He had brought it with him from the main estate when he came to the villa, but he had never actually worn it here.
‘It is a little tight.’
He had gained some weight, but the greater issue was that his frame had grown considerably.
He had been sixteen at the time of his coming-of-age ceremony, and he was now eighteen. In a way, it was only natural. He had still been in the middle of his growth.
Even so, the clothes were not uncomfortable enough to hinder his movement, so he opened the door and stepped out.
Perhaps it was because he was lightly dressed, but the air was rather chilly. That realization drew a hollow laugh from him. Anyone else from his family would have found it absurd.
Those who bore the name Berger inherently wielded a flame with the grandiose name of Evilbane.
Once their abilities reached a certain level, they became largely unaffected not only by heat but by cold as well.
That level was not even particularly impressive. Most members of the family achieved it by his age.
In other words, his current accomplishments were poor.
Unable to hide his bitterness, Ian shivered once and walked down the corridor lined with soft carpeting.
Perhaps because the sun had only just begun to rise, the villa was utterly silent.
His destination was the training ground, which was covered in fine sand. Since it was autumn, fallen leaves lay everywhere. At the same time, their presence made it clear that the place had not been maintained at all.
The training ground was surrounded by walls to prevent outsiders from peering inside. After entering, Ian lightly loosened his stiff body with a warm-up before beginning to run.
As he continued without resting, sweat began to form across his body. Strangely—no, mysteriously—he did not feel particularly tired.
‘What is this?’
He felt as though he could continue.
‘Did I have this much stamina at this age?’
Even a dulled blade still retained an edge. It seemed that all the time he had spent hunting had not been wasted. However, when he began running at full speed, the strain gradually became noticeable, so he stopped.
Ian steadied his slightly ragged breathing and grinned.
‘Not bad.’
For someone who had not used mana, this level of basic stamina was fairly impressive.
Wiping the sweat trickling down his chin with the back of his hand, Ian looked around.
Training grounds usually had a storage building for weapons and armor. Naturally, this one did as well.
Fortunately, the storage room was not locked. When he opened the door, the comparatively warm sunlight illuminated the dark interior.
“Oh.”
Just look at all this dust. No one had cleaned this place at all.
When he removed the cloth covering one of the racks, wooden swords of various sizes were revealed. He picked one up. It was so heavy that it felt as though an iron core had been embedded inside it.
“It is made of camphor wood.”
Camphor wood was famous for being hard and heavy. Ian searched for anything else that might be useful, but all he found were a few sandbags.
“……”
Suddenly, he remembered the broken sword he had wielded until moments before his death.
‘Could I obtain it again?’
He had been deeply attached to the weapon, so he would have liked to recover it. Truthfully, however, the chances were slim.
It was not merely because he had found it in an unnamed ruin. The sword had not been stored in a warehouse or a chest. He had happened upon it on the body of someone who had died only a short time earlier.
‘Enough. There is no need to cling to it.’
He would obtain something even better in this life.
Ian tightened his grip around the wooden sword.