‘This is the true form of the seventh Demon Sword.’
FLICKER—
Ikael's eyes swayed along with the faint light emitted by the Demon Sword.
What stood before him was no longer a scrap-iron Demon Sword.
A blade a handspan wide extended far upward, and its mysterious red light made him stare at it in a daze for a long while.
The light was red like trees that had grown after drinking blood.
The hilt, like an emperor's grip, upheld the red blade.
“This is the Demon Sword…”
After standing there and gazing at the Demon Sword for a long time, Ikael turned away.
Ikael headed straight for the training hall.
Without borrowing the power of the Burning Tower, the Demon Sword had returned to its original rough appearance.
WHOOSH—
Ikael lightly swung the Demon Sword once.
He felt a pressure that made the darkness more eerie, but it was still far from the Demon Sword's true form.
‘The stronger you become, the more the Demon Sword will reveal its true form. Now, this fellow is your right arm.’
Recalling Denta's words, Ikael felt vexed.
SWISH, SLASH.
Ikael slashed downward with the Demon Sword.
‘I'll grow stronger.’
He would grow strong enough not to need to rely on some Aura Tower.
When the day came to stand against Kairon, he would never be outmatched.
SWISH, SLASH.
‘Once again.’
As he swung the sword despite his aching body, his arms felt as though they would fall off, and both feet nearly sank into the ground beneath the Demon Sword's weight.
But Ikael did not stop.
There was a thought that kept unpleasantly stabbing at his heart.
‘Back then, all I did was withstand Kairon's sword energy.’
The moment when he had been completely overwhelmed by Kairon's Dark Aura returned to Ikael's mind.
THROB—
One side of his chest throbbed unpleasantly.
An ordinary eleven-year-old boy would never have had his pride hurt over something like this.
Rather, being able to take even one move from Kairon would be enough to boast about for a lifetime.
Kairon was called the Genesis Sword, after all.
But Ikael could not accept it.
‘Kairon Fel Recrit.’
The name he had staked everything on in his previous life.
And the name that had ultimately returned as a blade.
WHOOSH, WHOOSH.
Before he knew it, Ikael had swung the Demon Sword for the hundredth time.
The eleven-year-old boy's body was screaming, but Ikael's eyes were sharp.
‘In this life, I'll never hand my life over to you.’
The fact that he had been targeted so easily was unbearable to Ikael.
He would be the only one who got to discard.
This time, he swore that he would take everything from Kairon before discarding him.
***
“Young Master Ikael, where did you go last night? Everyone was worried.”
“For a walk.”
“While you are ill!”
“More importantly, did you simmer the demonic beast crow bones properly?”
Ikael cut off the maid before her nagging could grow longer.
The maid was uneasy.
“Well, I asked the kitchen to boil them, but no matter how long they simmered them, nothing came out. Even though they made the fire extremely hot.”
‘Since it was a monster that lived in a volcano's lava fields, perhaps it's only natural that it won't infuse over an ordinary fire.’
Ikael thought of one solution.
“Have the forge do it, not the kitchen.”
“Pardon?”
At Ikael's command, the demonic beast crow bones were sent to the forge.
Only after the master blacksmith smashed the bones into small pieces with a hammer and set them to boil above seething molten iron did the bones finally melt.
A specially made pot was needed simply to withstand the boiling temperature.
Thus, the demonic beast crow bone soup was complete.
It looked cloudy and thin, like a watery soup.
“Young Master, please try it!”
SLURP.
Ikael took a mouthful. Then he immediately put down his spoon.
“Urk!”
“Young Master, are you all right?”
COUGH. COUGH.
Ikael coughed hard as though he had choked.
‘Old man Denta, what on earth did you give me!’
The instant he swallowed a mouthful of the crow bone soup, his throat felt as though he had swallowed a fireball.
But he endured it for just a moment.
WARMTH—
An unfamiliar, warm energy spread through his body.
‘This is…’
Forgetting that his throat had been blocked, Ikael focused on the sensation.
The hot energy stretched to the tips of his fingers.
It was the very sensation he had felt only when his concentration reached its peak during aura cultivation.
CLINK.
SLURP—
Ikael ate the soup in silence.
Before he knew it, his entire body had grown warm.
“Young Master, does it suit your palate?”
This was not a matter of taste. Ikael was enduring the sensation of swallowing fireballs.
‘It's an elixir. With every spoonful, the energy in my body grows hotter.’
If the aura he had accumulated at Bakuba Volcano had been weighing excessively on his body, Denta's elixir was gently loosening the congealed energy.
It was as though he were eating aura whole and digesting it.
“How many demonic beast crow bones are left?”
“There are plenty left.”
“From now on, have it prepared for me every day.”
If a single bowl of soup did this much, Ikael looked forward to what would happen when he consumed all the demonic beast crow bones.
At the same time, Denta's discerning eye frightened him.
‘Old man Denta, did you discern the traits of my aura after seeing me only once?’
Ikael had not told anyone that he had been born with hot Desert Aura.
Yet Denta had noticed the traits of Ikael's aura and even gifted him an elixir suited to them.
He was an eccentric, but a genius.
‘A frightening old man. I should give him a gift when I visit later.’
Ikael knew that using the Demon Sword Denta had forged properly was the greatest gift he could give the eccentric blacksmith.
***
After drinking the demonic beast crow bone soup, Ikael's body recovered as though he had been washed clean.
He had not fallen ill from a simple accumulation of fatigue. Excessive aura had congealed inside him.
Thanks to circulating it with the crow bone soup, the powerful Aura Circle that had been burdensome for an eleven-year-old body felt far more comfortable.
Once his body had warmed, Ikael headed to the Lower Training Hall out of habit.
‘My personal training hall will be ready soon, so I should use this place until then.’
Kairon had ordered a private training hall made for Ikael.
Having passed the test of having the Demon Sword forged, Ikael would now have a training hall. It was only natural for a child of Recrit.
‘Even the Lower Training Hall has grown familiar in its own way, so it's a little sad to say goodbye soon.’
But Ikael encountered a new problem.
“Young Master Ikael's here!”
“Everyone, gather with your swords!”
‘These bastards…’
Whenever Ikael appeared at the Lower Training Hall, knights carrying swords rushed toward him in a crowd.
The reason was this.
“Let us follow Young Master's training!”
They wanted to imitate Ikael's training method exactly.
‘Why are they copying me so insistently?’
Whenever Ikael looked back, the knights pretended not to notice, so he could not openly say anything.
SWISH. WHOOSH.
Ikael merely repeated the simple movements of swinging the Demon Sword.
The knights followed Ikael's movements as though they were studying a secret manual.
Among them, several bold knights actively approached Ikael.
“I definitely want to become Young Master Ikael's knight!”
‘My knight.’
First the Demon Sword, then the training hall, and next would come the time to select his own knights for a Knight Order.
That meant.
‘I'll be able to make my own side.’
The selection of Ikael's knights was approaching.
***
The junior knights in the Lower Training Hall were apprentice knights.
They had to advance one step and become intermediate knights to be recognized as full-fledged knights.
Only then could they cross Bronze Castle's threshold.
Becoming intermediate knights and crossing Bronze Castle's threshold was every knight's dream.
‘I was the same.’
In his previous life, having only just come up from the desert, Ikael had been happy simply to hold a proper sword.
When he became an intermediate knight and entered Bronze Castle, he had been so excited that he could not sleep.
But there was an honor greater than becoming an intermediate knight: joining a Knight Order of Recrit's siblings.
To look toward the same place as them and sow blood and sweat on the same ground—joining a Knight Order of Recrit's siblings—was in itself an enormous honor.
Of course, to do so, it was not nearly enough merely to take the test well. They had to catch the eye of a Recrit sibling.
‘The knights here must be hoping for that as well.’
“Young Master Ikael, I truly want to enter your Knight Order.”
“Me too. I'll devote my life to you!”
Seeing this made it clear that things had truly changed greatly from his previous life.
‘Entering a Knight Order of Recrit's siblings is an enormous honor. But the Ikael Palace Knight Order alone had a different meaning.’
In his previous life, the Ikael Palace Knight Order could not truly be called a Knight Order.
The sickly Ikael had stayed in bed, so the Knight Order had naturally become an afterthought.
They received their salaries regularly, but could expect nothing more.
While the Knight Orders of his other siblings gained experience on the battlefield, the Ikael Palace Knight Order was left to guard a sickbed.
The complaints of the knights of Ikael Palace were still vivid in his memory.
‘Damn it. I came all the way to Recrit's Bronze Castle only to end up in Ikael Palace!’
‘That place is a grave!’
‘To come all the way to Bronze Castle only to nurse someone sick!’
The Ikael Palace Knight Order was where knights who had failed their promotion tests went because they had no other choice.
‘That was how it had been in my previous life.’
Now the atmosphere was entirely different.
Whenever Ikael appeared in the Lower Training Hall, the knights lingered around him.
They wanted to catch Ikael's eye and enter his Knight Order somehow.
“Young Master Ikael, I'll serve you with my life!”
“All right.”
Ikael replied casually and concentrated on swinging the Demon Sword.
WHOOSH, TAP.
“Whoaaa…”
Ikael was only performing a vertical cut, the most basic of sword strokes, but the knights revered him.
It was merely a movement they must have repeated countless times, but perhaps it looked different when Ikael did it.
Either way, Ikael did not care.
As the days passed, knights began to trail after Ikael.
They peeked at him and copied his movements.
WHOOSH—
“Hah!”
‘Why are they suddenly shouting battle cries?’
It felt as though Ikael himself were teaching swordsmanship.
It was while the training was in full swing.
“Hey, Ikael. Do you like that scrap-iron Demon Sword?”
An unwelcome face pushed through the crowd of junior knights.
It was Isitor.
Jealous that the junior knights were following Ikael one after another, Isitor had come to pick a fight.
Thanks to him, the atmosphere of training came to an abrupt halt.
The knights immediately sheathed their swords and showed respect to Isitor.
“Did you really go to Bakuba Volcano? Volcanic Blacksmith Denta would never give you a piece of scrap iron like that.
I don't know what kind of boast you made, but it's not even funny.”
Isitor shouted so that everyone could hear.
SWISH.
Ikael continued concentrating on vertical cuts by himself and replied.
“Brother Isitor, you should hope that I like this sword.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What if I start coveting your Cresen? You won't have a sword to use.”
“Y-you bastard!”
Isitor clenched his fist, but Ikael was faster.
WHOOSH—
“What, do you want to take me on?”
Ikael pointed the Demon Sword at him.
The murderous intent of the heavy lump of iron grazed Isitor's neck.
“…Hmph, acting so high and mighty over a mere sword.”
Isitor replied timidly.
But he knew best, even as he spoke.
Ikael's Demon Sword was absolutely not a lump of scrap metal.
‘What's this sword…?’
Isitor gulped.