Chapter 6

The Genius Knight Who Devours Memories

Chapter 6

“I’m going crazy.”

Those were the first words Creed uttered after thinking for quite some time, pressing a hand to his forehead.

“Fine. I should take responsibility for what I said.”

Creed spat out the dirt remaining around his mouth as he spoke.

‘Just as I expected.’

There was another reason he had specifically asked to be sent to the Fourth Squad.

The Fourth Squad was strong, and each member had a distinct personality, but they were tightly united around Creed.

“Before that, let me check something.”

Creed snatched Rohan’s hand and examined it from various angles.

After inspecting his hand, he wore an expression of incomprehension.

“Strange. There’s no sign at all that you’ve ever held a sword... I don’t know where you learned swordsmanship, but yours was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“...”

“It was like... several different styles of swordsmanship mixed together... but at the same time, it felt like there was nothing that was actually your own.”

“My own?”

Rohan’s eyes widened.

Since he had been using swordsmanship from his memories, in a way, it was only natural.

But he was surprised that Creed had been able to discern even that much from a single short spar.

Creed had not simply been trying to subdue Rohan.

He had been analyzing Rohan’s swordsmanship during the spar.

Creed continued.

“Yeah. It was like taking random scraps of cloth and stitching them together into clothes. You managed to make something that looks like clothing somehow, but if you sew on any more scraps, it’ll reach the point where you won’t even be able to tell it’s clothing.”

“...”

Clothes made by stitching together random scraps of cloth.

It was only natural, since he had been performing swordsmanship by retracing the memories of multiple people.

Rohan himself had clearly felt it while swinging his sword.

He had combined the swordsmanship from several people’s memories, but it was like a flame that flared brightly for a moment before vanishing.

A blaze burning wildly without a center.

Like a leaf unattached to a tree.

He needed something at the center to bind it all together.

That was probably what Creed meant.

“Of course, I nearly got caught by your haphazard swordsmanship too... but if you firmly establish your own first and then layer that method over it, it could become good swordsmanship.”

“...My own.”

“Yeah. Your sword.”

It was separate from growing by killing people.

Because that was merely imitating memories.

‘My own sword.’

It felt as though he had been given a problem he could not solve immediately.

It was a mountain he would have to overcome if he wanted to grow.

How much time had passed?

“Alright.”

Clap. Creed clapped his hands as though trying to change the mood.

“Back to the point. Let’s hear it. Who the hell are you to try to command the squad?”

He looked genuinely curious.

A rookie who had only been in the unit for a single day.

Just what did he want command authority for?

“I’ll tell you in advance, there’s a high chance I won’t grant your request. Especially if it’s for personal business.”

Creed said so beforehand.

At this point, it seemed he would refuse no matter what Rohan asked for.

Rohan spoke calmly.

“Even if it’s to catch Noxis spies?”

“Huh?”

Creed’s eyes widened at the unexpected words.

Noxis spies?

Were there more spies besides Hans?

Even more unbelievable words came from Rohan’s mouth.

“I’m going to catch the Noxis spies soon.”

It was truly a bolt from the blue.

______________

The daily life of the Fourth Squad did not change much.

For three days, breakfast consisted of mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes.

Every morning, Rohan caught animals such as rabbits or pheasants and roasted them to eat,

while Creed and Johanna still showed no interest in breakfast.

Every morning, Kaisen drooled over Rohan’s food but stubbornly refused to ask for any.

As always, Rohan would offer once, saying, ‘Eat,’ and if Kaisen refused, he would not offer again.

“Damn it!”

Kaisen would watch Rohan eat everything to the very end, then head off to morning training with a curse.

For three days, Rohan watched his back as he joined the training.

Only three days had passed, but Rohan was already able to keep up around the middle of the pack during the morning run.

It was thanks to running additional laps around the training ground during personal maintenance time to improve his stamina.

On the first day, he had added ten laps.

The next day, he ran twelve.

From the day after that onward, he ran fifteen extra laps.

Even when he was completely out of breath, he did not stop.

Most soldiers rested, saying the enemy would surely attack soon.

It had been quite a long time since either side had engaged in battle.

The soldiers found the lack of fighting strange.

This place, where the White Wolf Knights and the Black Dawn Knights faced each other, was famous for having the most frequent battles.

Not a single soldier was happy that there had been no minor skirmishes.

It was the calm before the storm.

No one was unaware that a brief peace often came before something major happened.

After running around the training ground, Rohan focused on building strength.

Creed taught him strength exercises from beside him.

The day after he first started exercising, his body hurt so badly that he could barely move,

but as he kept using his body, by the third day he could move reasonably well.

His body seemed a little firmer.

Or perhaps not.

Afterward, he practiced swordsmanship.

Creed watched over this as well.

He still seemed not to like Rohan very much, but...

Creed was a man with a strong sense of responsibility.

Like him or hate him, Rohan was now a member of his squad, and Creed had a duty to help his squad members grow.

Rohan did not dislike that either.

As always, Creed called Rohan over that day.

“Follow me. Bring your sword.”

“Yes.”

Rohan followed Creed without complaint.

The two moved to one side of the training ground and took their positions.

Until then, they had not exchanged a single word.

Shing-! Rohan silently drew his sword, and the blade reflected the sunlight with a cold gleam.

“Nothing improves your skills like actual sparring. Think of it as real combat and come at me—ugh!”

Clack. As always, Rohan attacked before the squad leader even finished speaking.

It was the squad leader who had brought up real combat.

Rohan had no intention of listening while an enemy rambled on.

Rohan swung his sword repeatedly, and Creed blocked it.

Clack, clack!

Creed defended against Rohan’s sword even more skillfully than during their first spar.

The swordsmanship from the soldiers’ memories had begun to reveal its limits.

“You haven’t improved. Your sword is still all over the place.”

Rohan had sparred with Creed for three days, but he had made no progress.

Rather, the more they sparred, the more Creed seemed to understand about Rohan.

‘Why am I not improving?’

Was it because he was relying on memories when he swung his sword?

At some point, Rohan began to feel as though he had run into a wall.

He tried altering the sword path to create variations, but Creed saw through them almost immediately.

Pow! Rohan was struck in the solar plexus and rolled across the ground.

He could not breathe, but the moment he fell, Rohan sprang back to his feet.

“That attitude is good. Losing your balance on the battlefield means death.”

Creed gave Rohan advice from time to time.

Even while biting his lip, Rohan tried to take the words to heart.

He too would have to go to the battlefield soon, and Creed was a veteran who had lived by the sword for more than ten years.

The fact that he had survived meant he was strong enough to do so.

Rohan raised his sword and charged again.

Until now, he had persistently attacked the right side, so he intended to add variation and redirect the sword toward the left.

Clack. But this too was blocked.

“The more I dissect your swordsmanship, the cruder it looks. It has no weight. It’s light.”

Rohan felt frustrated.

He could obtain swordsmanship by absorbing memories, but this was not the correct answer.

He could not shake the feeling that he had nothing that was truly ‘his own.’

But Rohan did not know how to fix it.

“A sword follows the emotions of the one wielding it. The sword of someone who loves battle is sharp. On the other hand, a coward’s sword is timid. I swing my sword while finding joy in improving.”

Clang. The sword that struck the wooden sword vibrated sharply.

Now that Rohan thought about it, Creed’s sword was meticulous.

As though he wanted to make use of everything he had ever learned.

Creed tapped Rohan’s sword with his wooden sword.

“But your sword is like a corpse. It has no purpose. Why do you swing your sword? What are you trying to cut?”

Rohan’s hand gripping the sword twitched for a moment.

Rohan had only ever recalled memories and practiced swordsmanship.

He had never thought about what he was swinging his sword for.

‘Why do I swing my sword?’

To become stronger?

Then why did he want to become stronger?

The faces of those Rohan had killed flashed through his mind like scenes before death.

The Noxis soldier whose heart he had first stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Hans, whose identity as a spy he had sensed before cutting his throat.

And the five soldiers who had been captured as Noxis prisoners.

Cutting them down.

And cutting again.

What he had felt while absorbing their memories was.

Pleasure.

Unmistakable enjoyment.

Absorbing a predator’s memories and encountering another predator.

The fact that he was drawing one step closer to Reinag.

The pleasure of steadily climbing higher somewhere Reinag knew nothing about.

The resolve that one day, he would kill him.

In the end, did not every sword lead toward Reinag?

To kill him, Rohan would not hesitate to slaughter anyone.

Reinag...

Reinag...

The moment he thought of him, his mind became astonishingly calm.

It felt as though a path had been carved into his purposeless sword.

Rohan recalled each moment when he had killed someone.

When he drove a sword into a heart.

When he cut down an enemy’s throat.

When their memories were injected into him.

When those memories led him to another person to kill...

Goosebumps rose across his body.

At the same time, grin. The corners of Rohan’s mouth twisted upward.

Adjusting his grip on the hilt, Rohan swung his sword forcefully.

A straightforward horizontal slash from left to right.

The sword path was obvious, so Creed raised his wooden sword directly into its path.

To block Rohan’s sword.

Slice-.

But the sound that came from the wooden sword was different from usual.

For an instant, Creed’s hand became lighter.

The wooden sword he had raised before him had been cleanly cut in half.

Whoosh, thud. The broken piece of the wooden sword that had flown into the air belatedly stabbed into the ground.

‘That sword was coated in mana?’

Creed stared at Rohan with startled eyes.

When he turned his head, he was even more shocked.

Rohan wore a strange expression.

An ambiguous expression that looked as though he were smiling and angry at the same time.

But one thing was certain.

The corners of his mouth were raised.

And.

‘Killing intent.’

An enormous amount of murderous intent was pouring from him.

______________

- Use any means necessary to reduce the strength of the knight order.

Fourth Sub-Platoon Leader Rainer.

Wearing a black robe pulled over himself, he crumpled the paper in his hand.

Between the folds of the crushed paper, the symbol of Noxis’s Black Dawn Knights, a black sun emblem, could faintly be seen.

Once the magically enchanted paper had fulfilled its purpose, it turned to ash and scattered into the air.

‘Damn it, I haven’t accomplished much.’

He rummaged through his clothes and took out a piece of paper.

It was a report regularly detailing the movements of the White Wolf Knights.

He tied it to the leg of a raven used as a carrier bird.

The raven’s eyes stared at the eyes beneath the hood.

It recognized the iris, and only someone it had identified could command it.

Flap-. After recognizing the eyes beneath the hood, the raven flew far away.

“Fuck!”

Watching the departing raven, Rainer clenched his teeth and shouted.

Number Five.

In other words, if Hans had just done his job properly, there would have been no need for all this trouble.

Once his identity as a spy was exposed, the atmosphere within the knight order had also become tense.

Because rumors had begun spreading that there were more spies within the knight order.

As a result, it had become even harder for the infiltration team to act.

‘Just what the hell is that brat?’

The brat named Rohan.

Rainer had also been drinking rum at the scene when Rohan killed Hans.

At first, he had not thought much of it.

Because even members of the same infiltration team concealed their identities from one another to prevent internal exposure.

Even he had not known Hans was a spy.

When Hans was revealed to be a spy, Rainer nearly fainted.

Just how had that brat discovered Hans’s identity?

Even the spies themselves did not know one another.

‘And why did he have to join the Fourth Platoon...’

On top of that, he had been transferred into Rainer’s own platoon.

Already confused, Rainer now had to be even more cautious in his activities.

‘I have to kill him.’

Rohan was clearly a dangerous variable.

He might know more information about the spies inside.

And Rainer had to clean up the mess Hans had left behind.

There were roughly ten days left until the operation to seize the supplies began.

Within that time, he had to reduce the strength of the White Wolf Knights.

‘I have to win the operation somehow.’

Because that was the only way he could survive.

He slipped a hand inside his robe and checked the paper.

He could feel the coded message meant to be posted on the bulletin board.

It was time to carry out the operation.