Chapter 6

Chapter 6. Iwan (1)

‘I still can’t let my guard down.’

Right now, he did not have the body of the adult Alexei I, a man with sturdy muscles, but the body of Aslaf, a fifteen-year-old boy. The muscles needed for swordsmanship had not developed yet. His body would not move as quickly and sharply as he imagined in his head.

“Hyah!”

Tyron raised his sword and attacked. If they had been fighting with the same weapon, Aslaf could have fought with ordinary swordsmanship, but if he clashed against Batangkara’s sword and Tyron’s brute strength, the wooden sword would break.

Tyron charged in and brought his sword down with all his might. Aslaf held the wooden sword sideways and pushed forward the part where he had tied the stone, blocking the blow.

CLANG!

The stone and sword rang out as sparks flew.

“Huh? You blocked it?”

When his plan to break the wooden sword in a single blow failed spectacularly, Tyron’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open.

“How can this be? Batangkara’s sword can’t even break one wooden sword?”

He stared at his sword in disappointment.

The problem was not the sword, but the fact that Tyron had failed to put his strength into it effectively. And it was also because Aslaf had wrapped a stone tightly around the wooden sword. Although Batangkara’s sword had failed to break the wooden sword, it had shattered part of the stone and left a deep mark.

“Then take this!”

Tyron swung his sword wildly from the side like a windmill and advanced one step at a time.

He swung it so hard that each swing sent the wind rushing toward Aslaf with a whoosh.

‘Attacking the same way over and over like that.’

Having read his move, Aslaf lightly extended his sword forward when Tyron approached. Then, when Tyron swung his sword, Aslaf withdrew his own and quickly stepped back.

“Whoa!”

Tyron, who had put his weight into a sideways swing, staggered as the centrifugal force of the heavy sword cut through empty air and made him step wrong. Just as he hurried to regain his balance, Aslaf stabbed the back of Tyron’s knee with the wooden sword.

It was only a blunt piece of wood, so it did not cut him, but Tyron took the blow to a vital point, dropped to his knees, and fell to the ground.

“Ugh!”

Tyron, who had sprawled flat on the ground, hurriedly got up. His face reddened with humiliation, and he snorted in fury.

“You damn bastard!”

He cursed and thrust his sword straight forward. If that blade struck Aslaf squarely in the chest, it would be powerful enough to kill him.

However, it was an obvious attack driven purely by emotion, so it was not much of a threat to Aslaf.

Aslaf dodged to the side and struck Tyron’s wrist with the wooden sword, making him drop his sword.

“Ow!”

Tyron grabbed his wrist and groaned. He picked up the sword and charged again, but each time, Aslaf dodged and made him drop it. Eventually, Tyron exhausted himself and panted for breath.

“You should stop here. This is enough for today.”

Aslaf leaned on his sword and spoke to Tyron, who was sweating so badly he could hardly breathe.

With his pride shattered, Tyron’s lips trembled as if he could not believe this was happening.

“Y-you, wh-when did you learn swordsmanship like this?”

Slow-witted Tyron only realized he could not defeat Aslaf after being hit and dropping his sword more than a dozen times. Far from defeating him, he could not even touch a hair on his head.

“Th-this can’t be. I’ve practiced swordsmanship for years. I’m Baron Lenke’s only son and heir.”

He could not accept that he had lost to Aslaf, who had never learned swordsmanship and had not even been acknowledged as an illegitimate son.

“Hyah!”

He attacked again and again, but Aslaf dodged as if peering into his mind and knowing how he would attack, then counterattacked in ways Tyron had never seen or heard of, forcing him to his knees every time.

“This makes no sense. How did you move your feet and get behind me in an instant?”

Tyron was dazed as though possessed by a ghost, bewildered by the sword style he was seeing for the first time.

Before they knew it, the sun had tilted and darkness had fallen. When the sound of wolves howling reached them, the flock of sheep bleated anxiously, urging them to go home.

“So this is where you were, young master.”

Juan came looking for them. Since Tyron had not returned even as the day grew late, the baroness seemed to have sent him to find him.

Seeing Tyron with his hair disheveled, drenched in sweat, exhausted like wilted scallion kimchi, and trembling, Juan sensed that something unusual had happened.

By contrast, Aslaf was as peaceful as a grazing sheep.

“What happened?”

“N-nothing. Don’t try to find out.”

With his face red, Tyron snapped curtly. Because of his pride, he could not say that he had dueled Aslaf and lost.

“Who told you to ask me questions? Don’t speak before I ask you.”

Taking his anger out on Juan for no reason, he shoved him aside, mounted his horse, and went home alone.

“What did you do to the young master? Why is he like that?”

Startled, Juan hunched his shoulders and cautiously asked Aslaf.

Aslaf clicked his tongue and scratched his head.

‘Maybe I should’ve lost on purpose.’

He had been pissed off because of what Tyron said about his mother, so he had taught him a little lesson.

Now that he had angered Tyron, Tyron would certainly take revenge. For a moment, Aslaf wondered if he should have just let himself get beaten and ended it there. But there was no need to bow to a bastard like that. He planned to leave this place as soon as he was ready, and he would not have to deal with Tyron anymore.

He drove the sheep home and put them in the pen. As he was about to go to his quarters, the butler called him.

“Aslaf. What trouble have you caused this time? The young master says you insulted a noble by imitating swordsmanship with some nonsense moves, and he ordered you locked in the storage room.”

“For how many days?”

“Who knows? Until the young master’s anger cools, I suppose.”

If Aslaf had known this would happen, he thought he might have scattered the sheep across the field and run away then and there. But if he was going to travel far, he needed to prepare food, clothes, and some money, and he had not even decided exactly where he would go.

‘It’s not as if anything terrible will happen just because I leave a few days later.’

When Aslaf entered the storage room, the butler locked the door.

‘Phew.’

He flopped down onto a pile of hay and stared up at the ceiling. It was so dark that he could not see anything.

‘This works out. I needed some quiet time to sort out my thoughts anyway.’

He tried to think of a suitable place to go.

‘Who might give me work?’

Among the people he had met in the cities he had wandered through as a gypsy, he thought of kindhearted merchants who seemed likely to give him a job. He also weighed the prospects of where it would be best to find employment.

‘Auntie Emily, who ran the fish shop, was kind.’

She had liked him so much that she had once said she wished he were her son. However, he knew nothing about fish and had no interest in them either.

‘Granny Rosie, who ran the clothing shop, liked me too.’

Noblewomen also visited Granny Rosie’s clothing shop, so it might be good for building connections. However, there was not much work for a male servant in a clothing shop.

‘The arms dealer Jacques?’

One person flashed through Aslaf’s mind. He was an arms dealer who sold armor and weapons in a port city called Pordis.

‘That place would be good, wouldn’t it?’

Aslaf had no connection with Jacques and did not know him, but Alexei I had been a regular customer of his for decades and knew him well. After recovering the memories of his past life, Jacques had come to mind. Since Aslaf had recovered knowledge about weapons as well, working for an arms dealer would be as easy as eating cold porridge.

Knights and nobles came to an arms dealer as customers, so the prospects were bright too. Hearing various bits of high-level information and building connections would be useful later.

“Achoo!”

The dust rising from the haystack made him cough.

His sleeping place was uncomfortable, and as he tossed and turned with one thought after another, sleep would not come.

Late at night, just as he was finally about to fall asleep, a light flickered like a ghost in the pitch-dark storage room.

‘What is that?’

He walked toward the light visible in the pitch-black darkness. When he peered out through the crack in the storage room door, Tyron was standing outside with a torch.

‘Tyron? Don’t tell me.’

Tyron poured oil around the storage room and set it aflame with the torch. He was trying to burn Aslaf to death while making it look like an accident.

Thick smoke quickly billowed up, and the wooden storage room blazed fiercely.

Aslaf slammed his body into the door, but the door, firmly barred from outside, did not budge.

Scorching heat and acrid smoke seeped in together.

‘Damn it.’

Aslaf went to a corner of the storage room where hay was piled up and dug through it. Once he cleared away the haystack, there was a narrow gap between the storage room floor and the wall. It was a gap he had discovered before after seeing a cat go in and out of the storage room and following it.

However, while the gap was wide enough for a cat to pass through, it was far too narrow for Aslaf. Only his head went through, and his shoulders got stuck.

Aslaf looked around for an axe. When he struck the narrow gap with the axe hanging on the wall, pieces of wood broke apart. After striking it three or four more times, the hole widened somewhat.

‘Done.’

When he tried again, this time his shoulders and waist passed through safely.

The fire had spread quite far, and the storage room had become a huge ball of flame.

“Fire!”

People came running from every direction with buckets of water to put out the fire.

“Aslaf is inside the storage room!”

The butler shouted, his face turning pale.

Hidden in the darkness, Aslaf hesitated over whether he should step out and say he was safe.

Since Tyron wanted him dead, it did not seem bad to let him believe he was dead for the time being.

“Young Master Tyron ordered Aslaf locked in the storage room earlier.”

“What do we do? The flames have already spread too far.”

“It’s too late to save Aslaf.”

The people murmured in confusion, but all they could do was stare helplessly at the burning storage room.

Aslaf was hiding and watching when he heard a sorrowful scream.

“Aslaf is inside? No!”

Without any fear, Iwan kicked the door of the burning storage room. The charred black door collapsed easily after several kicks. Iwan threw himself into the storage room with nothing protecting him.

“Iwan! No! It’s dangerous!”

People grabbed his arms from behind and tried to stop him, but Iwan shook them off and ran into the burning storage room as it collapsed in flames.

“Aslaf!”

‘Iwan!’

From where he was hiding, Aslaf nearly called his name without realizing it and hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand. He could not believe what he had seen. Iwan had jumped into the blazing flames to save him. He was Aslaf’s closest friend, but Aslaf had not known he would so blindly and recklessly rush in to save him.

“Aslaf! Where are you?”

Iwan’s voice reached him. It did not sound as though he would come out before finding him.

‘At this rate, Iwan will die.’

Aslaf pushed himself back into the storage room through the gap he had escaped from.

“Iwan!”

After returning to the storage room, Aslaf searched for Iwan. There was no answer, perhaps because Iwan had choked on the smoke and collapsed. Scorching heat wrapped around his body. It was not a very large storage room, but it was night, and the acrid smoke made it impossible to see anything.

Aslaf fell around the floor, searching to see if Iwan had collapsed. His hand caught a soft foot. He lowered his body, held his breath to avoid inhaling the smoke, grabbed the foot with both hands, and pulled. However, smoke entered through his nose and choked him.

“Hff! Hff!”

Each time he breathed in little by little, smoke filled his lungs, and his throat grew raw.

At the moment he barely dragged Iwan out of the storage room through the narrow gap, the burning roof of the storage room collapsed with a crash.

“Oh no! What do we do?!”

The people, unaware that Iwan and Aslaf had escaped through the rear of the storage room, lamented in grief.

Aslaf hoisted the limp Iwan onto his back and moved to a safe place away from the storage room. After rolling into the dark bushes and catching his breath, Aslaf checked whether Iwan was breathing. Perhaps because he had already inhaled smoke, he was not breathing.

“Wake up! Iwan!”

Aslaf shook Iwan with all his strength to wake him. Iwan still did not respond. Aslaf had also inhaled a great deal of smoke, and his mind grew hazy.

That was when a hallucination unfolded before Aslaf’s eyes.

‘What is this?’

A man was kneeling with his body bound in ropes. An executioner wearing a black hood stood before him with a large, blue-edged sword.