Underground caverns were dark by nature. Without a torch, you couldn't see an inch ahead.
But the dungeon was different.
Floor, walls, ceiling.
Flames flickered everywhere, so while it wasn't bright as day, it wasn't entirely dark either.
"Phewww."
I caught my breath, then wiped the beads of sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. I drew my inhales and exhales thin and long, steadying my body.
And so I walked to the second chamber.
SCRAPE— SCRAPE—
A grating sound, as if something were clawing stone across the ground. This time, it wasn't a beast-type demonic beast.
Magma Turtles.
"Damn."
The worst kind of demonic beast to deal with.
Before the regression, I'd fought countless demonic beasts in fierce battles.
In dense forests.
In desolate deserts.
In raging rivers.
On cliffs with the sea at our backs.
In volcanic zones.
In frozen snowfields.
So when it came to demonic beasts, no one knew more than I did—and the Magma Turtle was notorious for being a nightmare to handle. There was a reason it was called "the bane of Knights."
SCRAPE— SCRAPE—
They moved. Twice the size of an Ember Wolf. Truly as large as a house.
Between the rock-like segments of their shells, magma flowed like veins, radiating heat beyond any flame.
Their tough hide wouldn't so much as scratch under most impacts.
And their speed—disturbingly fast for turtles—was a significant threat on its own. There were thirty of the things.
I formed a plan immediately.
Time was not on my side.
A swift, decisive battle was the only answer.
'The weak point is the soft belly.'
I unfurled twelve scrolls.
Six [Spike Rock].
Six [Metal Attribute Enhancement].
Combining the two scroll spells.
I designed a magic trap.
My comrades before the regression had nearly had a heart attack when they saw this. How could I impart form and will onto a different element's magic? I didn't know. It just came easy—what was I supposed to do about it?
I channeled mana into Thunder Strike.
CRACKLE.
I moved rapidly between the Magma Turtles, planting trap spells on the floor.
Following my movements, the Magma Turtles charged at me, swinging their massive legs to flatten me. It felt like being hammered by pillars. I leapt away to dodge. But.
CRASH—!
One of them tucked its head and limbs into its shell, rolled itself into a ball, and slammed into me.
"HURK!"
It felt like being hit by a cannonball. I was sent flying into the wall in an instant. Blood poured from my mouth on impact. The pain was as if every organ inside me had burst.
But. Boulder-like beasts were still rolling toward me, so there was no time to nurse the pain. I kicked off again.
CRACKLE. I moved fast, but kept getting grazed by their shells along the way.
"Guh."
I cried out and kept moving without rest.
Burns marked my body in places. My ribs and sternum were broken. Blood ran from the corner of my mouth.
And yet, through all of it.
I analyzed each pursuer one by one as I moved. It was an operation that required an extraordinary level of mental calculation.
Roughly one minute of that. I barely managed to maneuver them all into position.
"Rise!"
At my shout, the ground began to shake. As if an earthquake had struck.
RUMBLE— BOOM!
Spike rocks erupted from the floor. The hardened metal tips of the spikes pierced the soft bellies of the turtles, punching through with ease.
CRACK—!
Viscous blood began pouring from their mouths and bellies. The blood from their massive bodies drenched the floor.
They'd been skewered. Their shells remained unbreached to the end, of course. But not a single Magma Turtle survived having its belly impaled.
RUMBLE—
The next door opened.
"Hah. Haah. Haah."
The wounds stung. It hurt. Exhaustion as if every drop of stamina had drained. But what could I do?
I walked, enduring the throbbing pain.
FLASH—
April Sprout restored my body. Without even this, I'd have collapsed long ago.
The dungeon was filled with pure mana, so my mana recovery speed was remarkably fast. But. Not even as a joke could the situation be called good.
'I have to hurry.'
I needed to finish before my body fell apart completely. A place where a single moment of carelessness meant death. I honed my senses even sharper.
When I reached the final chamber—the center of the cavern—something descended from an opening in the ceiling.
ROOOOAR—!
A savage roar struck my eardrums. If I hadn't shielded my ears with mana, they would have burst.
"Insane."
The third chamber. The boss of the first floor was a single creature. But it was on an entirely different level from what came before, so numbers no longer mattered.
Dark crimson scales. Vertically slit pupils. Flames spewing from its mouth. Its body was roughly the size of a Magma Turtle, but when it spread its wings, it was four times that.
A Red Wyvern.
It flapped its wings and took flight. It spat blazing fireballs from its mouth.
BOOM— CRASH—
The fireballs rained down and exploded.
The ground became a pit of fire.
If not for Thunder Strike and [Ice Barrier], I'd have been reduced to a charred husk.
FLAP!
A single beat of its wings unleashed a tremendous wave of scorching wind. The kind that made you wonder if it was even possible to break through.
On top of that, the wyvern's aerial maneuverability made pursuit impossible.
Damn.
I steadied my breathing again.
The stronger the enemy, the more desperate the situation—the hotter my fighting spirit burned.
But conversely, I kept my head ice-cold.
I loaded into my body every ounce of experience from my pre-regression life, where war had been my home.
I spoke to the ring artifact Thunder Strike and the sword artifact Snowpeak Blossom.
"I'm sorry."
I released the limiters on both artifacts. To burn through their entire remaining lifespans in a single burst. A forbidden act that would incinerate both caster and device—but there was no other way.
The remaining magic scrolls.
I consumed all thirty-six sheets of [Ice Wall] as well.
"Carve a path!"
CRACK! CRACK-CRACK—!
A massive wall of ice rose up, cutting across the vast underground cavern. It created a single corridor between the Red Wyvern and me.
"Come."
A short, decisive battle.
Neither side hesitated.
I poured every last drop of mana from the Star Ring and Core. With [Attribute Conversion] still active, I had become a thunder god wielding cold ice and lightning.
The Red Wyvern, too, held hellfire in its jaws and howled with savage fury.
FLAP—
It flew, and in that instant.
I threw the daggers—Blast Strike.
WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH!
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM— CRASH—!
Blast Strike detonated wherever it hit, each impact destabilizing the wyvern's flight.
In the split second its concentration scattered.
RUMBLE—
I charged like a bolt of lightning and swung Snowpeak Blossom at the wyvern's head.
Karsen-style Classical Swordplay, Revised.
Flickering Blue Flame.
CRACK—!
We crossed past each other.
I landed a short distance away.
"HACK!"
The overwhelming impact forced blood from my mouth. My insides were wrecked. My entire body screamed as if it were breaking apart.
And on the opposite end.
CRACK-CRACK—
The Red Wyvern's head froze solid. Its crimson eyes had already faded to white.
Sparks crackled. Its head split into six pieces and dropped, lifeless.
RUMBLE—
"That's how it's done."
Despite my trembling legs.
A sigh of victory escaped me.
I'd felled a wyvern.
Thunder Strike crumbled to dust on my finger.
Snowpeak Blossom in my hand.
SNAP! Broke apart.
FLOP.
I collapsed where I stood.
My body weighed a thousand tons.
I lay still and rested.
What would my old comrades say if they saw me like this? They'd laugh and say the great Duckie was struggling with something like this. The thought made me smile.
April Sprout worked to repair my body, pushed to its absolute limit—but I could feel its lifespan running out too.
I dragged my exhausted body upright. My flesh was at its limit; the Star Ring and Core felt utterly empty.
But I stubbornly forced myself to move, and I trudged forward. There was still work to be done.
At the far end of the chamber stood a table carved from stone. On it sat two glass vials—one sky blue, one vermilion.
From one, I sensed heat. From the other, cold.
No doubt about it.
The [Flame-Frost Dragon's Breath].
That said, why were there two?
One for the fire dragon's breath, and the other for the ice dragon's? Something like that?
I wanted to drink them immediately, but I held back. Even elixirs have grades. The Flame-Frost Dragon's Breath was at least S-rank, and an elixir like that could kill you if taken carelessly. I needed to prepare my body to accept it as fully as possible.
I went to put the vials in my cross-body bag—and stopped. My body was so battered that the bag was torn to shreds.
I had no choice but to tuck them inside my clothes.
Then.
RUMBLE—
A section of the cavern wall cracked open and collapsed.
"Good. They're here."
Between the fallen debris, vermilion stones were visible. I knew exactly what they were.
Sun Stones.
Precious raw stones that radiated warmth, each one comparable to a high-grade artifact.
I rested my weary body briefly, then sifted through the rubble and collected several Sun Stones.
From now on, these would be my cash flow.
But.
Something else strange caught my eye.
A jet-black, smooth sphere.
"What is...... that?"
Searching through every memory from before the regression. I'd never seen anything like it. It looked almost like an egg...... Hm? An egg?
"Hmm......"
On second look, it really was an egg. I had no idea what kind, but my gut told me to take it.
I tore a strip from my clothes and wrapped the egg.
Then I left the dungeon.
Inside my clothes: two vials.
Several Sun Stones.
And one egg.
***
Back in my room, I secured the spoils and then found a clean needle and thread to stitch my wounds shut myself.
After that.
Arnica.
Comfrey.
Calendula.
I blended high-grade herbs into a recovery potion and downed it.
A single handful of these herbs was worth over 10 million zeni, but I didn't skimp.
Now was not the time to be stingy with herbs or money. It was the time to use everything and grow stronger.
Then I sank my body into the bathtub. I tapped Isgrain into the water as before.
TAP— TAP—
The medicinal properties clung to every cell and began their work. They soothed my ravaged blood vessels and coaxed my displaced organs back into place.
Little by little.
Very little by little, I felt better.
A few days and I'd be fully recovered—and once I was, my body would surpass its previous limits.
'Another one of Duckie's tricks, learned from the Resistance.'
I lay back in the tub and thought of my comrades from before the regression.
My first encounters with them in the previous life hadn't been pleasant.
—The hell is this moron?
There were those who cursed me on sight.
—We'll be holding a funeral soon. Might not even be able to recover the body.
Those who treated me like a walking corpse.
—You're really the third son of House Karsen? The Lord and the eldest there are...... ugh, never mind.
And those who compared me to Father and my eldest brother. For the record, this one was the worst.
In any case. To them, I was a half-baked half-wit, the idiot who'd be the first to die on any battlefield. We were never going to get along.
But I survived against all their expectations.
Through countless battlefields, I lost eyes, limbs, and organs—yet I never died. I kept the resistance against the demons alive to the very end.
By the final days, I'd earned everyone's recognition and risen to the Resistance's leadership. The comrades who'd looked down on me died before I did.
And.
Every time, I wept bitterly.
—You're the one who lives and changes things.
—If the myth is true, it's all on you now.
—I didn't want it to end like this......
—Sion. Live.
—Don't look back. Go!
I climbed mountains built from the bodies of my comrades.
I rowed through rivers of the blood they shed.
At the very end, I shouldered all of their sacrifices and placed my final gamble.
That was how I earned this last chance.
How could I ever use it carelessly?
I spent roughly two days focused on recovery.
Roman fussed about what on earth had happened, but I told him I'd be fine soon and left it at that.
In between, I mined Sun Stones from the dungeon's first floor, and since they were found in every chamber, the yield was substantial.
Right around the time my wounds had fully healed and my body had surpassed its previous limits.
Orders came down from the Inspectorate.
『Red Fang Subjugation Operation.
Operation Commander: Rui Daiken.
Adjutant: Sion Karsen.
Attire: Civilian (plainclothes).』
"......Hm."
Before the regression, the Red Fang subjugation operation had taken place much later. Back then, Rui Daiken and "her" had been the operation leads.
I'd heard there were a few complications, but they'd completed the operation without much trouble.
'It made front-page headlines.'
That was probably the moment her reputation spread across the entire North.
But now. She'd been replaced by me in this operation. If I distinguished myself here, I'd claim the fame that would have been hers.
"......"
The ripple I'd created had come back as an entirely different picture.
Do I regret it?
Not at all.
This too would serve as groundwork for changing the future, so I just needed to keep pace.
I opened my wardrobe and looked for clothes to use as my disguise. To subjugate the Red Fang. Time to investigate properly.