Chapter 9

Chapter 9. I Tried Walking a Different Path (1)

"Stop!"

In an instant, Miguel dashed across the training ground and lunged at the masked man.

Fortunately, the masked man seemed to regard Miguel as the greater priority rather than me.

Miguel’s hand moved swiftly. At the same time, the masked man, turning his body, swung his arm as well.

Clang!

Along with the sound of steel rebounding,

"Urgh."

I heard Miguel groan.

The masked man was still standing where he had been, but Miguel, who had charged at him, had already been shoved backward.

Miguel held the longsword of the ducal house of Gresia’s knight order. In the masked man’s hand was a short dagger.

A long sword and a dagger. Miguel had charged in, while the masked man had defended from a standstill.

And yet the one who groaned, the one who was driven back, was Miguel.

'Damn it, is even a knight no help?'

That assassin was far too strong.

"People will be here any moment."

"Weak. I have more than enough time."

With those words, the masked man lunged at Miguel this time.

It was too fast for Miguel, burdened by armor, to evade.

Miguel swung his sword to block, but the place where his blade cut through held no masked man.

The masked man appeared behind him.

To my eyes, it looked as though he had teleported through space. It was no different for Miguel. He lost sight of the man for an instant, and the very next moment—

Slash.

Miguel’s head flew into the air.

'Good God!'

Miguel had been dealt with that easily.

The absurd sight left me stunned.

Unfortunately, I had no time to remain shocked.

This time, it was my turn.

"Ghk, ghk."

The masked man approached me as I let out pained, choking groans.

He stared straight at me, then swung his sword again.

At the final moment, I heard a distant shout, but the footsteps were already too late.

Darkness fell.

[You have died. Restarting from the autosave point.]

---

When my vision brightened again,

I felt no pain.

The place where I stood was not the training ground, but the interior of the family mausoleum.

Before me stood the Duke, wearing a surprised expression.

'I came back.'

Back to the very day I had awakened.

Perhaps because of the agony I had just experienced, my face twisted of its own accord.

The Duke, who had been looking at me with puzzlement, opened his mouth.

"You have awakened."

Just as he had before, the Duke declared my awakening at once.

"Gasp."

"That is impossible."

This time, I heard the groans of those who had gone unheard before.

I looked around once more.

The people’s expressions were no different from before.

Those who were shocked, angry, impressed, or envious.

But my heart was different.

'I got far too carried away.'

With someone trying to kill me, I had let my ability intoxicate me and had stood out far too much. I had sworn so firmly that I would be careful after awakening.

I wanted to find the culprit immediately, but my age and my still-insufficient skill held me back.

For now, I had to bow my head lower and hide myself more deeply.

"Very well. What ability did you inherit?"

At the Duke’s question, I fell into thought for a moment. I could not give the same answer as before.

I had to avoid the Duke’s eyes.

"I think it is some sort of ability that makes my body stronger, but... I am not really sure."

The Duke’s brow furrowed slightly.

It was obvious he did not like my muddled answer.

"A body-type ability, perhaps? I believe Sir Carlos the Hero had something similar among his abilities."

"Who can say? We will know once it is tested."

Was it because my answer had changed? The Duke’s reaction was different from before.

Amid the mocking laughter of others, the Awakening Ceremony came to an end, and the next day I found myself standing in the training ground with Knight Miguel.

It was not a setting with Knight Commander Alonso present, nor was it the ducal family’s training ground in the forest behind the mansion.

Instead, I was tested by Knight Miguel in one corner of the vast training ground used by the knight order.

The knights training there, along with their squires, stole glances at me.

"By the Knight Commander’s order, I will be testing you, Young Master. Please do your best."

Knight Commander Alonso did not appear, but the test itself was no different from before.

Running until I collapsed, followed by repeated sword swings.

Those who had initially been sneaking looks at my training gradually lost interest as time passed.

Perhaps it was a case of a much-hyped feast with nothing to eat. The young master reputed to be so clever had skills that failed to live up to the rumors.

For a child of my age, I seemed diligent enough, but each of them had apparently worked just as hard when they were young.

Covered head to toe in dust and sweat, I breathed in ragged gasps.

'Phew. So this is about how it goes if I stop just before leveling up.'

It was not easy to adjust the pace of my training so precisely that I would avoid leveling up.

Fortunately, my young body exhausted itself quickly. If I had been even a little sturdier or older, I would surely have leveled up before tiring out.

"Your stamina and rate of growth do not seem to be abilities that stand out clearly. For your age, you seem fairly exceptional, but..."

Miguel also seemed somewhat disappointed. I had been worried, but it seemed that no one had noticed anything.

"Though, have you perhaps learned swordsmanship somewhere else before? The path your blade takes is very clean."

Still, the familiarity in my swordsmanship had been noticed.

The month of training I had undergone remained in my mind, even after returning.

But now was the time to examine the inherited ability I had received on Awakening Day. Miguel did not press the matter of swordsmanship any further.

"Well done. I will report to the Knight Commander now, so return and rest."

With that, Miguel turned away.

Neither the Knight Commander nor the Duke had appeared, and Miguel himself looked disappointed, so it seemed that this time I would be able to slip out of the Duke’s notice.

And if that happened, then I would be able to move at least a little farther away from the threat of assassination.

I stopped Flora as she started to come toward me and swung my sword a little more.

Downward strike, then a sweep.

After swinging the sword some ten times with all my strength, I felt power spreading through my limbs.

The sensation of my body strengthening and growing. It was exactly like leveling up.

The power that was now circulating through my body was the very same power I had felt just before the masked man killed me.

I drew that power out and pushed it into the sword.

Wooooong.

I could feel some kind of invisible film wrapping around the blade.

Tap.

When I traced a line across the ground, a deep crack split the earth amid a spray of sandy dust.

The crack stretched farther than the reach of my swing. It was the invisible film wrapped around the sword that had done it.

'So this is mana...'

I examined the wooden sword.

Was it really mana? My inherited ability was supposed to be one that did not use mana...

And yet, as far as I knew, only mana could do something like this.

Just what secret did my inherited ability hold?

In my mind, I saw again the Duke’s eyes from the previous cycle.

The eyes of a beast stalking its prey.

---

Just as Knight Miguel’s disappointed expression had suggested, I drifted out of the Duke’s interest.

Neither the Knight Commander nor Knight Miguel came to see me again, and the excessive training stopped.

I had returned to the life of an ordinary six-year-old.

Well, thanks to the rumors that I had once been some sort of genius, it was still difficult to regard me as a truly ordinary child.

Twice a week, I took lessons from the scribes, and the rest of the time I lived quietly, reading books in the vast library. For the first time in a long while, I was able to spend peaceful days.

I stayed as quiet as possible. After the test, I received no more swordsmanship training, nor did I practice the mana I had felt when I died.

Perhaps because of the memories of the training I had already received, I felt unbearably restless in a way that seemed almost strange, but I endured it and moved only between the library and my room, attending nothing but the lessons given by the scribes.

As I kept my head down and passed the days in silence, the people who had once been startled by my awakening gradually returned to normal.

My eldest brother ignored me just as before, and the second young master gradually began mocking me again.

And when I met my older sister in the corridor—

"Are you all right? You are not sick anywhere, are you?"

She looked at me with an adorable expression and fussed over me with concern.

The sight of a seven-year-old little lady tilting her head and worrying over me looked like something I might only have seen in a television advertisement in my previous life.

"Why? Did someone say I am sick?"

"Other people kept saying things like that."

"Lady Elena!"

At her words, the maid following behind her hurriedly called out her name.

"Ah, I made a mistake. I was not supposed to say something like that, was I? I am going to get scolded."

Even the daughter of a noble house had many rules she was expected to observe. Of course, unlike an illegitimate son like me, she was not ignored.

"So you are not physically sick? Then is your heart hurting?"

She took a step closer and placed a hand on my head.

"Then I will heal your heart."

Before I could say that was not it, Elena’s hand began to glow faintly.

Her inherited ability had activated.

"Get well quickly. Do not hurt anymore. Let all the scary ghosts go away, and let your heart be filled only with beautiful feelings!"

Together with words that sounded like something out of a shamanic rite from my previous life, a warm energy seeped into my mind.

Her inherited ability, different from the priests’ holy arts, was Cure.

It was an ability that healed people with emotional problems, people whose minds had broken down, or those who had been brainwashed by enemies. It was an ability inherited from her mother’s family line.

She was not yet capable of undoing something as severe as brainwashing, but it was more than enough to ease one’s heart and fill one’s chest with warmth.

Part of the reason my relationship with Elena was not bad, unlike the others, was because of her kind nature, but another reason was that the inherited ability she had received did not carry much weight.

"Do you feel better now?"

"...Yes."

It was difficult to tell her that I had actually been perfectly fine even before she used her ability.

"Mm. Good. Since I used my ability on you, you should show me yours too. Mother says she wants to see it as well, so come visit soon."

She spoke as though she wanted to drag me there with her immediately, but that was impossible right now.

"It is late. Your teacher is waiting for you."

"Hing. Can I not skip it just for today? Dance practice is hard."

"You may not."

She was only seven, and she was already practicing dance. Was it preparation to raise the value of the Duke’s daughter, who possessed such a useful ability as Cure?

The thought crossed my mind for a moment, but I had something important to deal with today, so after saying my farewells, I left.

Today marked exactly one month since Awakening Day.

The very day I had died at the hands of the masked man in my previous life.

Soon, the hour of my death would arrive.

I sat in my room and waited for a message to appear before my eyes.

The line stating that the danger had passed and [Autosave] had been created.

But even after the afternoon passed and the sun went down, no message appeared before me.

I kept waiting. Late into the night, and even into the next day.

But no message appeared.

'Then that means the danger has not passed, does it?'

It seemed that unless the assassin became unable to kill me, no message would appear.

A sigh escaped me.

I had lowered myself as far as I possibly could, and yet the effect had been minimal.

As I sat there sighing, a soft voice suddenly sounded right in front of me.

"Alex, what is wrong?"

When I came to myself, a beautiful noblewoman was looking at me.

Maria de Gresia.

The Duke’s second wife.

Officially, she was my stepmother. Of course, it was not as though I would ever call her Mother.

"Alex is truly strange. Even now, he is sighing like an adult."

Elena, seated beside Maria, seized the moment to complain about me.

If it had been a grown woman saying it, I might have been annoyed, but hearing it from a little girl whose feet did not even touch the floor as she sat in her chair could only make me smile.

"See? Even the way he smiles is strange."

Hm. So my attempt at a smiling expression had failed.

The Duchess merely laughed softly as she watched her pouting daughter and me in my embarrassment.

I was currently meeting the Duke’s second wife because I was keeping the appointment Elena had unilaterally made the day before.

The place was the Duchess’s private drawing room, modest yet beautiful, perfectly suited to her atmosphere.

Maria sometimes invited me like this through Elena.

It was nothing more than an ordinary tea gathering with sweets laid out in front of us and casual conversation passing back and forth, but thanks to the gentle warmth of both her and my little older sister, the atmosphere was not bad at all.

Well, from the Duchess’s perspective, perhaps she merely wanted to watch the charming antics of small children, but compared with the first Duchess, who would not so much as spare me a glance, she was little short of an angel.

Hm. Come to think of it, was this because of an inherited ability too? But Elena’s ability was an active-type one that had to be activated directly.

Well, whether it was because of an inherited ability or simply because of her personality, it was not a bad thing.

Now that my thoughts were tangled because the danger had not truly disappeared, it was not bad to sink into this cozy atmosphere for a while.

'But what are the Duchesses’ abilities?'

My sister and even my little brat of a second older brother had each inherited abilities from their mothers’ families.

But the Duchesses’ own abilities had not really been made known.

I needed to look into that.

In the end, I had failed to avoid the danger, so now I would have to find out who it was that wanted to kill me.

That evening,

I picked up the sword again.