Chapter 56

Two people were running across a field on the outskirts of Satus.
A helmeted guard and a young boy struggling to follow him.

Before long, the two arrived at the underpass where a noisy crowd had gathered.
The boy looked back down the road he had run from, gasping for breath.

“What is it? Are you worried about that knight?”

It was a question from the guard who had brought him here.
The boy whipped his head around and answered irritably.

“Worried? As if. I’m alive, and that’s all that matters.”

Unlike his words, the boy’s gaze remained fixed on the village.

“He won’t die, so don’t worry.”
“I said I’m not worried!”

The boy glared at the guard.

The guard shrugged.
His feet began moving toward the village again.

“Where are you going?!”
“To the village.”
“Are you crazy? Didn’t you see that flying snake bastard earlier?!”
“I thought you said you weren’t worried?”
“That’s not worry! I’m asking why you’re going off to die!”

Only then did the guard properly look down at the boy.

Light brown hair that had become a tangled mess.
Clothes stained with mud and blood.
Wounds left on his arms and legs.
It was an appearance that made one feel pity without meaning to.

“No one is going to die. Not me, and not that little knight either.”

He wiped the blood flowing down the boy’s face.
The boy shoved his hand away as if startled by the touch.

Slide.

The guard took off his helmet.
Dark red hair flowed down.
Beneath it, a man in his thirties with a gentle impression was revealed.

Clap!

When he clapped his hands.

“Huh?”

The boy could not believe his eyes.

The thick armor the guard had been wearing vanished in an instant,
and had changed into a sharply tailored tailcoat.

Rumble.

The sound of something colliding came from the village far away.
The man loosened his tie slightly and gave him a smile.

“My name is Lars. As you can see, I’m a magician. I can guarantee I’m fairly skilled, so don’t worry.”
“I said I’m not worried!”
“Suit yourself.”

Rumble rumble.

The collapsed streets of Satus.
There, with the sound of collision, a massive cloud of dust surged upward.

“Kuhak!”

Serpens was sent flying backward.

Before the dust had even cleared, Serpens staggered to his feet.
Even as the sword hilt slipped because he couldn’t put strength into his grip, and even as his vision blurred, he didn’t let go of his sword.
The bleeding from his back hadn’t stopped, and the muscles in his legs spasmed as if they had been torn to shreds.

“Hss……. Hah…….”

A few steps away from where the boy stood.
The Wyvern growled and flapped its wings.

Two of its teeth had been broken.
The boy’s sword had made them that way.
A battered thirteen-year-old boy had met the Wyvern’s attack head-on with his own strength.

‘I feel like I’m going to die.’

Reason was whispering to him.
That he could not win in his current state.
That he had to run away right now.

But right now, he had no time to listen to the whispers of reason.

“……Ha, hahahaha!”

A hollow laugh burst out.
Dirt clung to his blood-soaked face, and his right eye was already swollen so badly that he could not open it properly.
And yet his hands and feet were still taking a stance to fight.

It was truly strange.
What made him think he had to grit his teeth and stand against it?

He had lost too much blood.
He could feel his body dying.
It was clear that he would collapse from blood loss before long.
Wouldn’t the pain at least lessen if he gave up before then?

Even as he thought that, his body stubbornly took its stance again.

It was truly strange.
He wanted to grit his teeth and stand against it.
He didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if this was a village he had any particular affection for.

“Phew…….”

But this, at least, he wanted to accomplish no matter what.

That was why he took his stance again, just as his instincts told him to.

Black light slowly seeped from the boy’s body.
His heart pounded as if it would burst.
His vision went completely dark, but his sharpened energy sense took the place of his eyes.

A mixture of many emotions overflowed, burning the boy’s inner self.
Those emotions took form and covered his body.
The sword in his hand vibrated and answered as if responding to that energy.

“Come at me, you winged snake bastard. I’ve beaten a lizard twice your size before!”

The Wyvern spread its wings and charged once more.

Serpens did not dodge that charge.
Instead, he met it head-on.
He was sent flying again by the collision of that massive weight, but this time, his sword cut across the Wyvern’s upper snout.
The sensation of flesh tearing.
Hot blood splattered across Serpens’s face.

Pabat.

The boy crawled up from the ground and rushed at the monster.
His knees buckled, and his left arm hung limp.
But his right hand was still gripping the sword.
No, now it looked as if the sword was gripping the boy.

When a rat turns aggressive, even a cat is bound to flinch.
The Wyvern, which had hesitated for a moment, stepped back and let out a roar.

A faint tremor reflected in its golden eyes.
The beat of its wings rising above the rubble was a kind of warning.
But that warning did not work on the boy now.

Tadada.

His breaking body rushed at the monster.
Sparks began to fly from the red energy that had been wavering like black smoke.

Whoooom.

Black Aura bloomed like flame from the tip of Serpens’s sword.
Its movement had neither form nor control.
It was raw killing intent created by blind rage and survival instinct.

Pat!

The boy kicked off the ground, leapt up, and swung his sword wide in midair.
The Aura went ahead of the blade and tore through space.

When the shockwave grazed the Wyvern’s nape, a pain-filled roar covered the street.

“Hah……. Haa……!”

Serpens’s breath came as if it were about to cut off.
But his eyes burned even redder.

It was a way of fighting that felt too alien to be called human.
The hand gripping the sword was already drenched in blood from ruptured muscles, and his body’s balance had collapsed.
Even so, he moved.
Not to live, but to cut something down.

The more he bled, the sharper he became.
The more pain he felt, the rougher he became.

The Wyvern’s thrashing movements began to look slower and slower.

The boy’s eyes were still closed.
Now blood blocked his sight, and he could not open them even if he tried.

Only energy sense.
That one technique he had learned before became the boy’s sight.

Serpens leapt up again.
This time, he twisted his body in the air with the recoil of his Aura.
It was a blow that swung not just the sword, but his entire arm, and drove it down.

Boom!

The Wyvern’s head was slammed into the ground, and a massive shockwave burst out.
The ruins of buildings shook, and dust rose.

Then Serpens climbed onto the Wyvern’s back and brought his blood-soaked sword down several more times.
He endured its violent struggle and dodged the tail it swung.

The sound of sword and scales clashing.
The sensation of cutting through muscle beneath those gashes.
Blood spattering upward as he cut through that muscle.
Black energy completely covered the boy’s body.

At that moment, the boy’s silhouette distorted.
The wavering haze that scattered looked like wings, and the rise near his head looked like horns.
It was only a subtle change that was hard to see, but he was slowly changing into a bizarre form that looked far removed from human.

Thud.

At last, the giant monster lost its strength and collapsed beneath the boy’s feet.

Thuk. Thuk. Thuk.

But the boy’s sword didn’t stop.
Using his whole body, he frantically cut and cut again.

Then, in an instant, the boy’s head turned.
Another massive pressure was approaching.
His energy sense was warning him.
Another threat powerful enough to crush the Wyvern.

Serpens slid down along the monster’s spine.

“Haa……. Haa…….”

And then.

Pabababat.

He broke into a run.

‘I’ll get rid of it. Get rid of it. I have to get rid of it.’

The boy ran.
He ran, putting all his strength into his right arm.

He had to eliminate the threat.
This life would end soon anyway.
In that case…….

‘I’ll die with the threat.’

He ignored the warning of his energy sense.
Both reason and instinct restrained his body’s movements.
But the boy ran forward.

“Good grief. Just what did you learn from bro?”

The threat muttered.

“When your instincts warn you, you’re supposed to run away. And what’s with that look, kid? You look like you could die any second.”

The threat held a hand forward.

“Kraaaaaah!”

The moment the boy thrust his sword.

“Then shall I fix our little knight’s problem?”

The dark-red-haired threat in a tailcoat smiled and firmly set his middle finger against his thumb.
His finger snapped in an instant.

Crack!

And struck the very center of the boy’s forehead.

“Uaaaah!”

Serpens jolted up as if he was having a seizure.
Both hands felt all over his body.
His gaze also followed his hands, sweeping over the places where there had been pain.

“I’m fine……?”

The boy looked around with a dazed expression.
A dirt floor where weeds had sprouted here and there.
Walls that had risen as if to trap him.
It was a place that felt familiar, yet distant.

“……!”

Then he sensed a terrifying presence behind him.
The boy’s head whipped around.
But when he directly faced the presence he had been wary of, he instead let out a relieved sigh.

“Hah……. You scared me!”
“……?”

At the top of the wall.
Lucas was sitting there silently.

“It seems you came back safely.”

His voice was as blunt as ever.
That voice, which felt as if he had not heard it in a thousand years, was strangely welcome.
At the same time, hearing his words made him realize something.

‘That place wasn’t reality…….’

The Satus where he had been fighting the Wyvern until just now was not real.
The pain and emotions had felt so vivid that he had mistaken that place for reality.

‘Come to think of it, I think I was trying to learn something…….’

The boy looked up at Lucas and blinked.

“I really couldn’t use killing intent at all…….”
“There is no need to mind that. It seems a way was found to develop something else.”
“Something else?”

At that moment, someone draped an arm over Serpens’s shoulder.

“This body appears.”

It was Lars, crouching beside the boy.

Lars was grinning as if something pleased him greatly.
Serpens looked back at him with the corners of his mouth awkwardly raised.

“Bro! I fixed it!”
“I suppose you did. That is why you went in.”
“Do you know how hard it is to adjust someone else’s Aura? This isn’t something you should accept so bluntly.”
“I know such things are not that difficult for you.”
“Haha! That’s not wrong.”

For some reason, Serpens’s forehead throbbed when he saw the man standing beside him.

Slide.

Lars removed his arm from the boy’s shoulders.
At the same time, the walls that had risen began to slowly sink.

Thud.

Lucas came down from the wall and approached the two of them.

“The kid does feel similar to you, bro, but rather, he’s different because he’s similar.”
“…….”
“If you’re the type to drive others into a corner, bro, this one drives himself into a corner.”

Serpens quietly listened to the two adults’ conversation.
It was still difficult to understand.
But that was because there might be something he could understand.

“For now, I intend to leave the safeguard I placed before to some extent. Until he can handle basic Aura, the risk of a rampage is still too great.”
“If you still have to leave a safeguard, did you really fix the problem?”

Lars shook his head and said.

“The rampage isn’t the problem. That is also part of our little knight’s power. It is still immature, so rather than controlling it, he’s at a level where he would be swallowed by it.”
“Was this not originally about fixing the rampage? Then what did you mean when you said you fixed the problem?”

Lars’s fingertip pointed toward Serpens, who was staring blankly.

“Let’s say I opened up a possibility!”
“……?”
“I would infer early Aura use as the cause, but the real problem was our little knight’s life force being gnawed away at high speed when he rampaged.”
“You fixed that?”
“Correct! Even if he rampages, he will no longer draw on his future life.”
“Future?”
“There is nothing I can do about the moment he rampages. To begin with, the condition for triggering the rampage is being on the verge of death, isn’t it? If he moves his body like that when he needs immediate treatment, it would be stranger for him to get farther from death.”
“That is true.”

Lars shrugged.

“Through the conjured world, I also grasped our little knight’s ability and cultivated his will!”

At the same time, he wore a bright smile on his lips.

“Until he grows, I have placed a safeguard that will automatically drain his strength if signs of a rampage appear, so he shouldn’t be eroded by his Aura for a while.”
“……Understood.”
“Of course! As our little knight grows, the power of his Aura will also grow stronger, so if he doesn’t want to be eroded, he’ll need to train steadily!”

Lars’s gaze was directed at Lucas,
but he raised his voice as if telling Serpens to take it deeply to heart as well.

“Now we need to raise the kid before the meeting…….”

Lars sent Lucas a glance.
A silent agreement formed between them.
Serpens took one step back in unease.

“Let’s raise the intensity of his training, bro. Our style.”
“Understood.”

Lucas drew his greatsword.
Serpens’s eyes trembled rapidly.

‘Our style?’
Was there any phrase more unsettling than that?

And that unease proved correct.
For a moment, Serpens could not understand what had happened to him.

“Kuhuk!”

But when he felt the fear of death spread from his abdomen through his entire body,
and saw Lucas’s greatsword piercing through his stomach, he finally understood the situation.

Tiriring.

The sound of music rang in his ears.
He could understand it instinctively.
That no matter what happened, he would not die until that sound ended.

“Now then, let’s turn our little knight’s cursed Aura into a blessing.”