The moment the ambush succeeded, Johan inwardly cheered.
'That felt good.'
Disguising Pilstain as a Wandering Knight had been a masterstroke.
The mage noticed the ambush too late and cast a shield, but the mana-infused mace shattered it and cracked the mage hard across the head.
"Urgh...... You're Johan......"
"You're still not dead after that?"
Though badly injured and bleeding heavily, the mage displayed cockroach-like vitality.
"Chi-Chimera...... Protect me......"
"SKREEE!"
The Chimera he had hidden nearby appeared, and the mercenaries recoiled in horror.
"What the hell is that monster?!"
"A Chimera! It's a Chimera!"
One sharp-eyed mercenary recognized it immediately.
Johan wondered which admirable bastard it was, only to see that it was Yodu.
Like the mercenary captain he was, Yodu shouted until the veins stood out on his neck.
"Chimeras are living weapons sold by the Gorai Magic Tower! Their hides are tough, so don't use swords! Beat them to death with blunt weapons!"
Johan, who had been about to finish off the mage, was seized by an irresistible impulse.
Every second mattered, but he could not overcome the urge.
"How did you know that?"
"Some crazy lord hired Chimeras for a Territorial War! My old workplace went under because of that bastard, so I struck out on my own!"
"I see......"
Johan had thought Yodu had simply shown off the talent Johan had seen in his previous life and walked a smooth road through the mercenary world, but apparently there was a whole story about his old workplace collapsing and forcing him to go independent.
It was interesting enough that Johan wanted to stay up all night listening to it.
"Urgh......"
Of course, he could only hear it after killing the mage.
Johan swung his mana-clad mace.
To his surprise, the mage endured by wrapping himself in a barrier.
'This guy is incredible!'
He was still casting magic despite the severe injuries from Johan's blows.
According to what Womanizer Johan had learned at Relic Academy, the academic consensus was that an ordinary mage became unable to cast spells the moment his concentration broke.
"You received combat mage training! Mercenaries! Guard me! I have to finish off the mage first!"
"The Chimeras are too strong!"
"Hold out! Once the mage is dead, the Chimeras will stop!"
"Is that true?"
'How the hell would I know?'
Johan had only learned magic at the level of general education.
Once again, rage welled up at Womanizer Johan for neglecting his studies because he was too busy indulging in wine and women.
'When I enroll this time, I'll make sure Auto-Progress studies hard.'
"Trust me! Die! Die!"
Johan swung his mace as though possessed.
The mage looked ready to die at any moment, yet stubbornly held on.
The few seconds he bought allowed one Chimera to break through the mercenaries and close in.
SWOOSH!
Just as Johan was about to respond to the threatening sweep of its forepaw—
BANG!
Pilstain slammed his body into the Chimera.
"I'll protect you, Young Master!"
"Pilstain!"
Johan was moved for only an instant.
The moment he saw that the Chimera had not been pushed back even a single step, he sighed.
The Chimera screeched and attacked Pilstain.
Johan kicked Pilstain in the side and shoved him away.
"Worry about keeping yourself alive!"
"Urgh!"
Pilstain went flying and rolled across the ground, clutching his side.
Johan prepared for the Chimera's follow-up attack.
But the Chimera glared at the rolling Pilstain.
Even the Chimera that had been fighting the mercenaries turned to stare at Pilstain.
'What? Why? Does Pilstain give off some kind of pheromone that attracts Chimeras?'
Come to think of it, the Chimeras had always killed Pilstain before Johan.
He had assumed it was only natural given the circumstances, but it seemed worthy of deeper investigation.
After killing the mage, of course.
"Skull!"
The Chimera's fixation on Pilstain created an opening.
CRUNCH!
When Johan landed the blow, a heavy impact traveled up through the mace.
Blunt weapons definitely worked better than swords. After a few more blows, the Chimera crumpled under the repeated impacts.
[Achievement Acquired!]
[Chimera Elimination]
After killing the Chimera, Johan closed in on the mage he had continued keeping an eye on.
The mage, who had been leaning against a tree to catch his breath, pulled a wand from his waist and aimed it at Johan.
"Regeneration Enhancement, Regeneration Enhancement."
Johan reflexively circulated the mana inside his body.
But all he felt was strength surging through him and vitality overflowing. Nothing seemed wrong.
'What did he do?'
Regeneration Enhancement was healing magic. Had the mage meant to use it on himself and accidentally cast it on Johan?
His thoughts were tangled, but his actions were simple.
Johan aimed another blow at the mage.
WHOOOSH— CRUNCH!
The mage twisted aside, and the blow struck his shoulder instead, but that was fine.
He would not dodge the next one.
The pain should have left him groaning, yet the mage viciously forced out another spell.
"Regeneration Rampage."
An itch spread across part of Johan's body.
It was far worse than a mosquito bite.
He wanted to scratch it, but if he left the mage alone, there was no telling what else the man might do.
"Just die already."
The mage stared straight at the mace and shouted.
"The temple cannot treat you! In the end, you'll come to the Magic Tower on your own......"
THUD!
The blow finally finished the mage.
Fortunately, the Chimera collapsed at the same time.
"W-We survived."
"Jackson! Jackson, you bastard! Get a hold of yourself!"
"I was going to marry Jane back home once I saved enough money......"
He was making a fuss over wounds that would not even kill him.
To Johan, a veteran of death with enough experience to earn the Sunfish title, those wounds were not fatal.
'At worst, he's seriously injured.'
That much could be healed without a single aftereffect if they found a temple or a healing mage.
"Shit. I almost died."
Yodu, whose chest had been slashed by a Chimera, also dropped heavily to the ground.
The way he casually gathered up bandages and wrapped himself looked impressively practiced.
"Sir Knight! Are you all right?!"
"Ah, it's all over now, so I'm fine."
"Young Master! Y-Your hand!"
"What about my hand?"
It was a little itchy. Johan looked down at it and recoiled in horror.
"What the hell is this?"
Millet-sized bumps repeatedly rose on his hand and vanished.
Boils also swelled up.
When he touched the itchy part of his neck, he felt a hard lump.
As he circulated the mana inside his body, he sensed that the flow around the affected area was abnormal.
[Wow. This is serious.]
Just as the Status Window Goddess casually remarked, it was serious.
Johan closed his eyes and focused on stabilizing his mana.
'That mage said I'd end up going to the Magic Tower on my own, didn't he? If the temple really can't treat this...... Huh, it's stabilized.'
The itching disappeared, and the lump on his neck vanished.
The boils on his hand remained, but they no longer itched.
[That stupid bastard Goren. What did he think would happen if he used an offensive spell derived from Mana Rampage on someone who overcame Mana Rampage?]
Hearing the Goddess grumble made it finally feel like everything was truly over.
Relieved, Johan calmed Pilstain down.
"It's fine. We can have the boils drained."
"Is that so? Thank goodness."
The mercenary captain approached.
"Lord Johan. Things got so strange that I never had the chance to bring it up, but what about our payment......?"
"Right. We should have discussed that."
How much should he give them?
Johan did not really know how much mercenaries were paid.
Back on Earth, there was a method people used when they did not know the going rate.
For once, Johan decided to make use of the advantages of being a modern man.
"Name your price."
"Pardon?"
"It was basically an escort request, and we killed the mage, so the job is complete. It wasn't especially dangerous either......"
Several wounded mercenaries widened their eyes.
Yodu also rubbed his chest, but Johan deliberately ignored him.
"......Calculate it yourself. And one more thing. Collect the Chimera and the mage's corpse and take them to the Barony of Raks. They dared attack a noble, so they should pay the price."
What was a family for if not to deal with annoying matters?
Johan was busy preparing to enter the academy, so he would dump the problem on Baron Raks.
'I can repay him after I earn some later. If I can't, then there's nothing I can do.'
"Collect your compensation from the Baron as well. If you'd rather get it from me, come find me in the Empire's Relic Academy Special Territory. Is there anything else you want?"
Yodu looked at Johan.
Johan felt the thread of fate connecting them from his previous life.
'I don't know about the others, but Yodu seems like he'll come find me later.'
If Johan had known he would deal with the mage this way, he would have set the Save Point to now.
The restriction that allowed him to designate one only once per run was painfully frustrating.
"Something else I want...... I don't think you're someone who'll end his days as the son of a frontier baronial house, Lord Johan."
"Oh. Why not?"
At the end of the twins' lives, Yodu had thrown out the meaningful line, 'Would things have been different if we'd had an older brother?'
Even if the person himself had changed, did the will carry over?
"Because of the perfection of your Wandering Knight disguise and the shameless...... no, because of the scheme with which you eliminated the mage...... no, because of the depth of your cunning."
"Hmm. I see."
Was that an insult or a compliment?
Either way, it annoyed him, so it felt like an insult.
"I have a feeling I'll meet you again someday, Lord Johan."
"Oh."
Johan thought of the Gather the Twins Challenge.
Could he actually complete it now?
"You. Become my comrade......"
"So I'll tell you what I want the next time we meet."
"......Then let it happen next time."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Then I'll see you next time."
He could not expect to be satisfied in a single bite. There would be more than enough opportunities anyway.
Now that Johan knew Yodu was a mercenary captain, Johan, as a regressor, could find a way to meet him again if he truly set his mind to it.
Johan did his best to ignore the heat rising to his face and parted ways with the mercenary company.
***
Magic on the Arcana Continent was the exclusive domain of the privileged.
There was no special reason for it.
Mages were monsters that devoured money to train.
The Magic Towers sold magic at exorbitant prices to cover the costs of training mages and funding research.
The Empire had developed magic to such an extreme degree that it invented a Magic Item called the Teleport Gate, but the usage fees were so expensive that few people actually used them.
Even academy students and professors regarded the gates installed in foreign countries as "symbols of vassalage."
Johan had come to a margrave's territory specifically to use one of those gates.
'Thank goodness academy applicants can use the gate for free.'
That was the kind of generosity one would expect from the Empire that dominated the Arcana Continent.
The benefit was available only to applicants, so Pilstain and the mercenary company could not come with him.
If the Barony of Raks had been wealthy, they would have sent servants and escort knights with him, but it was a poor territory.
After riding alone in a carriage through the Empire, Johan arrived at the Academy Special Territory without incident.
'So this is the Academy Special Territory.'
The Academy Special Territory was so developed that, if not for the architectural styles and the way people dressed, Johan might have mistaken it for a modern city.
Compared with the Barony of Raks, a typical medieval rural territory, the difference was greater than that between Seoul and a country farm back on Earth.
They were countries on the same continent, so why was the gap this extreme?
'It's not like they took land from another dimension and pasted it onto this continent.'
Every region had its own history, so the theory that the continent had been assembled from fragments did not even qualify as a conspiracy theory.
Johan walked through the Academy Special Territory with practiced ease.
"Prospective cadet! If you're looking for an inn, please come stay with us!"
"If you need spare uniforms or textbooks, please visit our shop!"
"Skewers made from Black Cow, a specialty of the Empire!"
The Black Cow skewers were delicious.
The cattle were not raised in cramped enclosures but allowed to roam across broad fields, so the meat was excellent.
Johan wanted to buy other snacks as well, but if he spent his living expenses too freely, Auto-Progress might develop a habit of wasting money.
During the journey, Johan had formed a hypothesis about Auto-Progress.
It seemed to be heavily influenced by Johan's small, everyday actions.
It was almost like a young child watching and imitating a parent.
Parents naturally tried to raise their children in the right direction.
Johan felt the importance of proper upbringing more keenly than ever.
'Even if Auto-Progress lives my life for me, it's still my life in the end.'
If he taught it bad habits, the place where he died might change to a gambling den or a prison.
He had already died once after making a name for himself as a womanizer. This time, he might die after making a name for himself as a gambler.
He could not afford to lose the academy environment, where he could grow safely, over some trivial mistake.
'For now, I should restrain myself as much as possible.'
The closer he got to the academy, the more lavish carriages appeared, along with increasingly polished men and women who were obviously members of noble houses at a glance.
"So this is the academy I've only heard about. Even the main gate is magnificent."
"I'll hone my skills at the academy and become an Imperial Knight!"
The prospective cadets marveled at the academy or declared their ambitions upon seeing it, but Johan was unimpressed.
'It's still just a university.'
In Korean terms, it was about the equivalent of Harvard or MIT.
'......It suddenly looks incredibly impressive.'
Johan joined the line in front of the exam guide and renewed his determination.
'This run, I'll suck every last drop out of this place before I graduate. That way, I won't have to go through academy life again in the next run.'
He was not worried that he might fail the exam.
He had taken it in his previous life too.
He vaguely remembered the questions and was confident he could score higher than he had back then.
At least... he was confident until he saw the exam questions.
[Achievement Acquired!]
[Flunking Student]
'No. Why are the questions different?'
They were even harder.
There was no helping it. He would regress and take the exam again.
'But how do I regress? Is there another way to reset?'
[You're going to reset just because you failed an exam? No! Even if this is only the Trial Version, you still have to live properly!]
The Status Window Goddess suddenly overreacted.
'What's with her now?'
He had no idea why she was acting like this, but judging by her reaction, there might be room for negotiation.