The two days given before the finals.
After drafting the letter to Doctor Krombell, I descended to the underground ruins and resumed my training.
I would never stop training, no matter the circumstances. Not on the day I dueled Rui Daiken, not on the day I fought the next opponent, not even after the finals against my childhood friend Silvia Maier.
I would treat the daily training as more important than any of those events, and when it was time for something big, I would handle it as casually as my regular training and come back.
It would be a long, grueling road, but I had to walk it. There was no other way.
INHALE—
EXHALE—
Long, thin breaths. I stimulated the flame dragon vein, drew in pure mana, and stacked mana methodically into the Core and Star Ring.
PULSE— PULSE—
The Flame Dragon's Breath stored in the Core and Star Ring throbbed. It resonated with the flame dragon vein. The knotted power gradually unwound and spread through my entire body.
HUMMM—!
The Flame Dragon's mana rode the blood vessels and permeated every corner of my body, then returned to the Star Ring and Core, tempered by my very being.
The reward from conquering dungeon floor one—the Flame-Frost Dragon's Breath—had not been a single item. It was split into the "Flame Dragon's Breath" and the "Frost Dragon's Breath," and I had taken only the former.
From that day forward, my mana growth had accelerated exponentially.
HUMMM—
The two forces, the Core, and the Star Ring resonated together, shaking the entire underground cavern.
I was certain. No Knight or Mage could build mana faster than I could.
After a long session of mana circulation, I dusted myself off and stood.
In this era, few walked the paths of both Mage and Knight simultaneously. Each held too much pride in their own discipline.
But the moment the demons rose and humanity fell into peril, every human would grasp for power by any means necessary.
I would simply walk that path a little early, and fortunately, my bloodline held the buds of both possibilities.
Mother was an Archmage.
Father was a Grand Master.
When the two of them led the house, money, power, and prestige—nothing was lacking.
After the two married, House Karsen—once a mid-tier Northern family—had become the de facto ruling house of the North. Before anyone knew it, it was called a grand duchy.
They'd governed wisely despite wielding absolute, untouchable power. Everyone had revered House Karsen.
But.
After Mother passed away.
Father had abandoned every venture the house had been running. Beyond the minimum territory management and Northern demonic beast subjugation, he did nothing but the paperwork demanded by the Central Empire.
Effective seclusion.
I hadn't understood as a child, but now I did. Father's sense of loss. His despair.
But Father. Now is not the time for that.
I wanted Father to stand again. But that was still a distant hope. I had no idea how to make it happen. And I didn't think it was something that could be forced.
So. I would simply plan for the future. I would clear the shadows hanging over the North and fill the void left by Father and Mother myself.
I brought both hands together as if gripping a sword and assumed my stance. Then I drew mana from the Star Ring and constructed the form of a blade.
WHOOSH—
A blazing Flame Sword. It smoothed out until it looked like a real blade.
Magic improved with practice, too. The "form" had grown more solid—even the heat no longer leaked out uncontrollably.
I held the [Flame Sword] and kindled flame Aura atop it.
WHOOOOSH—
The Aura blazing over the fire-forged blade radiated light. The vermilion glow cut through the darkness and spread.
I assumed a firing stance. The goal was to launch "sword energy"—a technique said to require at least Intermediate Knight level.
Just as magic infused fire with "form," I made the flame Aura denser. More solid.
I pieced together memories of what Knight Master-level comrades had told me before the regression.
—Just harden the Aura and launch it, yeah? You can't do this?
—Hah. Hopeless. Fine. I get it.
—Then try pulling the Aura thin and long first. Like drawing thread from a spool. Start with that.
—Oh? You actually did it? Okay. Next—you know how a loom weaves fabric? Weft and warp crossing to form a surface. That.
—Feel the Aura settling onto the blade?
—Now slash that refined Aura off the edge. That's all there is to it.
Words I couldn't properly understand back then now appeared with crystal clarity. I refined the Aura and hardened it.
WHOOSH!
The Aura condensed low along the blade. Settling onto the edge. I swung and sheared the Aura free.
SWISH—!
The burning Aura flew through the air. A vermilion slash—crescent-shaped. It soared through the dark cavern and struck the far wall.
CRASH———!
A massive explosion. Scorching heat blasted outward. The power exceeded anything I'd imagined.
"Hah. Hah."
I caught my breath. Euphoria flooded my skull. I hadn't expected to be able to fire sword energy this soon. The feeling was incredible.
And.
One person came to mind.
"Silvia. Just wait a little longer."
I didn't let go of the sword. This was only the first step peeled away. Tonight, I would train until dawn.
***
As technology advanced, wired communication equipment was being installed in larger cities one by one.
But the infrastructure was still woefully insufficient, so no small number of enterprises made letter delivery their primary business.
In that regard, North Wing was the premier courier company in the North.
They employed not only trained pigeons and crows but also the "Snow Hawk," a bird capable of flying through the North's brutal cold.
People called them the fastest, most accurate wings in the North.
The problem was that animals could only be used within the North.
To deliver a letter beyond the Northern border required a human courier—and the price was steep.
But conversely, North Wing's creed was that with enough money, they would deliver swiftly to even the most treacherous terrain.
The letter Sion Karsen had entrusted them with at great expense was assigned to their finest courier, P.
And now.
Courier P thought:
'Is today my last delivery?'
Deep in the mountains, far from any city. A valley in the middle of nowhere. A laboratory tucked into a hollow between dense trees. The difficulty of finding it was fine—that was the job.
But. The laboratory's appearance was bad. Eerie, one might say.
Iron plates haphazardly welded onto stone walls. A roof cobbled together from scraps of cloth, odds and ends, and copper sheeting.
The kind of place that looked like it would half-leak in rain and half-collapse under snow.
Instead of a door, a creaking wire screen hung at the entrance, plastered with drawings that anyone would find bizarre.
Scraps of wood with "CAUTION: EXPLOSIVES" and "DO NOT ENTER DURING EXPERIMENTS" scrawled in red letters were scattered about.
The inside was worse.
A wooden-plank floor with gaps wide enough to creak with every step. Machine parts that periodically threw off small sparks.
The sting of gunpowder chemicals in the nose. The smell of scorched metal. All of it mixed together into a haze that scrambled the mind.
'What the hell is this place?'
And yet.
Courier P felt a strange sense of deja vu.
'There's a bizarre kind of order here.'
At the center of the junk heap was a spotlessly clean workbench, and on it, an unidentified machine lay disassembled and neatly organized.
Clearly bizarre, yet unmistakably touched by meticulous hands—what a contradiction.
The courier set the letter on the cleanest-looking desk, shouted "Letter for you!" at the top of his lungs, and fled the laboratory without looking back.
Then the floorboards flipped open and a roar burst forth.
"SHIT!"
Doctor Krombell. He paused his ongoing research and climbed out.
In his hand was a boomerang finished in steel.
"Which bastard is making noise while I'm working! Come out right now! Otherwise this boomerang will carve your skull into something real pretty!"
......
......
Naturally, no answer came.
"Hmph."
Doctor Krombell twisted up his unwashed, filthy hair—tangled with ash and grease—and pinned it loosely in place, seemingly unconcerned with appearances.
He fumbled for his glasses, put them on, and surveyed the scene.
And.
He found the sealed letter on the desk. He strode over and tore it open.
His eyes darted frantically.
"Wh-WHAT? Who's gonna fade away as an eccentric? What kind of baaaaastard wrote this?!"
Doctor Krombell fished a pebble-sized capsule from his pocket.
CLICK—
He twisted the capsule. With a POOF, white smoke billowed up.
In an instant, his grease-stained, chemical-reeking body was completely transformed.
The grimy genius eccentric became, in the blink of an eye, a gentleman in a gleaming black suit.
He pressed a fedora down over his head, and every trace of his previous appearance vanished.
"I was running short on research funds anyway. Perfect timing."
He pulled out another capsule and flicked it onto the floor.
BOOM—!
Smoke engulfed the laboratory like an explosion. Pitch-black bizarre machines, golem parts, broken glass bottles......
Everything was swept away as if into thin air.
In mere seconds, the entire ruin of a laboratory had been packed into a single capsule.
Standing alone in the clearing smoke, Krombell flipped up the brim of his fedora with a fingertip. A manic smile curled across his lips.
"I'm going to beat him to a pulp!"
The furious shout echoed.
Krombell drove straight for the North. He knew perfectly well that House Karsen was the ruling family of the North.
But.
Sion Karsen?
He'd never even heard the name.
'Let's see what kind of sucker I'm dealing with.'
Doctor Krombell drove a car he'd personally modified.
VRRROOOM!
An engine roar like a charging bull echoed across the rugged mountains.
***
Having arrived in Northern territory at breakneck speed, Krombell stopped at a tavern first.
The classic method for gathering intelligence.
He ordered a drink and asked the locals what kind of man Sion Karsen was.
"Sion Karsen? Heh, the disgrace of the great House Karsen."
"Hate to say it, but the way he's been running around at the Inspectorate—it's almost pitiable."
Tipsy sympathy, dismissive waves, sneers—one after another.
Krombell nodded along, thought 'so he is a nutjob,' and pressed on.
He drove for a full day and arrived at the outskirts of Seiren, the Northern capital.
He stopped at another tavern and asked the same way—but this time, the answers were unexpected.
"A friend of mine saw it firsthand at the Kaiseus arena. Apparently he overwhelmed the genius Knight Rui Daiken."
"Don't be ridiculous. That half-wit?"
"Everyone around here's been saying the same thing."
"I heard it too. They said he released a blazing Aura at the arena."
The voices no longer carried ridicule. If anything, quiet anticipation simmered beneath them.
Krombell drained his glass and curled his lips.
"Ahh! Northern booze hits the spot!"
The failure of a swordsmanship house manifested Aura? And flame-type Aura in a land brimming with frigid mana?
"Sion Karsen."
Krombell's eyebrow quirked.
"One madman's enough, and that's me."
Where the hell did you come from, you lunatic?
Doctor Krombell's eyes glittered with curiosity.