Chapter 2

The Swordsmanship Genius Possessed by a God — Chapter 2

What on earth was going on?

Allen recalled what had happened before. His last memory was of swallowing the bead and having his body torn to pieces by the demons.

If he wasn't dead, then what was this?

Why were the events of the day of his first mission unfolding before his eyes?

“Look at this dumbfounded bastard.”

“Hey, hey! Aren't you going to snap out of it?”

“Hey, rookie!”

Smack!

The bandit's palm struck his cheek once again.

It hurt. Enough to leave his cheek stinging.

More than feeling offended, the pain brought him sharply to his senses.

“It's not a dream... Why am I here?”

At Allen's muttering, the bandits snickered once again.

“Why, you ask? You've got a pretty face, so we figured you might be useful for something.”

“What family are you from? If your family's got money, there might be a way for you to survive. Otherwise, we could always sell you as a male prostitute.”

“Bwahahaha!”

On the day Allen turned eighteen and came of age, he received his first mission from his family.

It was a commission the family had received to eliminate bandits who were disrupting trade in a neighboring kingdom.

A simple, easy mission with nothing particularly remarkable about it.

And yet Allen had spectacularly failed that very first mission.

‘Is this a dream?’

Judging by how much his cheek still stung, it wasn't a dream.

Could it be some kind of nightmare illusion conjured by the demons?

No. If that were the case, there would have been at least some trace of it, and the creatures before him would not have been mere bandits but far more vicious monsters.

After considering several possibilities, he reached a conclusion.

“It's real!”

“Argh, you scared me! Why the hell are you suddenly shouting, you crazy...?”

The startled bandit, who had raised his hand, froze in confusion.

Because Allen was smiling so brightly in this situation.

‘They're real people.’

How many years had it been since he'd seen people other than demons or members of the Suicide Squad?

They were filthy, foul-smelling bandits, but he was happy to see even bastards like these simply because they were human.

After seeing nothing but demons and demonic humans, these fellows almost looked adorable and charming to him.

And what made him happiest of all was—

‘I've returned to the past.’

He had returned to a time before everything began.

‘I've really come back!’

Hahahaha—

Allen laughed aloud. He could not contain his joy.

The bandits stared at him as though he were insane and came to a conclusion.

“...Did we scare him too much?”

“Looks like the shock drove him mad.”

They even felt a little sorry for him, wondering how terrified he must be to behave like that. But that didn't mean they could simply leave him alone.

Whoosh! Whoosh!

The bandit who appeared to be the youngest approached, carrying a large club.

“What the hell are you laughing at, you bastard? Stop laughing and answer me. I asked where you came from!”

Allen, whose spirits were soaring, answered.

“Vishken.”

“...?”

Silence descended upon the warehouse.

The bandits doubted their ears.

A bead of sweat even formed on the forehead of the youngest bandit, who had heard Allen's answer from right in front of him.

“W-where did you say?”

“Vi... Vishken...?”

“H-he says he's from Vishken?”

Vishken.

A family whose name was invariably mentioned whenever the greatest powers on the continent were discussed.

The family alone possessed power comparable to an empire, and every swordsman belonging to it was renowned for extraordinary skill.

It was a prestigious family of swordsmanship, said to be capable of wiping out a small nation simply by dispatching a single sword division.

That was Vishken.

Perhaps that was why.

“Puhahahaha!”

“So he really is a lunatic.”

“He's saying he's a swordsman of Vishken?”

“Looks like he's so desperate to live that he's throwing around whatever name he can think of. What a fearless bastard.”

“As if a weakling like you could ever belong to Vishken, even as a ghost!”

None of the bandits believed him.

The idea that this nobody they had captured was a swordsman of Vishken was so absurd that even a passing dog would laugh.

Yet despite their disbelief, the mere mention of Vishken from Allen's mouth had made them tremble with fear.

Because the name Vishken inspired a primal terror.

‘I figured they'd react like this.’

In truth, Allen was embarrassed too. He remembered that even back then, he hadn't been able to answer honestly for that very reason.

And he wasn't even an ordinary swordsman of Vishken.

He was a direct descendant of the Vishken family, its youngest son, no less.

‘If I told them Axion Vishken was my father, they'd probably laugh themselves senseless.’

The son of the continent's greatest swordsman, kidnapped by bandits!

It was truly something that should never have happened. And the reason this impossible event had occurred was Allen's innate constitution.

The Curse of Mana Deprivation.

Every human was naturally born possessing at least a tiny amount of mana.

Swordsmen and mages developed their abilities by accumulating that mana and learning to wield its power.

However, those afflicted with the Curse of Mana Deprivation were born without even a trace of mana. Since they were innately incapable of sensing mana, they could not accumulate it either.

It was quite literally the worst possible constitution for becoming a swordsman or mage.

‘Of all people, I had to be born with a rare constitution that supposedly appears only once every few hundred years.’

Allen had despaired over that fact, and after confronting the harsh reality of his circumstances, he had run away from his family.

And this mission had been the incident that triggered it.

“Strange, isn't it? I find it strange too. Why someone like me had to be born into Vishken of all families.”

“This bastard still hasn't—”

“But you guys, you know...”

Swoosh.

Allen raised both hands.

At some point, the ropes binding his wrists had come undone.

“Don't you think you tied these a little too loosely?”

“...!”

Thwack!

In an instant, one bandit's jaw was smashed, and he collapsed.

Brushing the dust from his body, Allen caught the falling club and gripped it.

“Who tied these ropes? You need to learn how to tie proper knots. Or did you just tie them carelessly because you didn't mind if I escaped?”

“You bastard...”

“Just kill him!”

“No, don't kill him! Sell him as a male prostitute!”

Dozens of bandits charged at him in a mob.

Watching them, Allen gripped his club like a sword.

Wielding the club in place of a sword, Allen plunged into their midst.

Thwack! Thud!

Crunch!

The sounds of breaking bones and bursting flesh echoed through the warehouse. Allen could feel his weakened body and youthful heart.

‘My body's weaker... but it's nice to be young again.’

Eighteen years old.

Though his training was incomplete, physically, he was at an age when his body was at its prime.

If he had returned to an even younger age, his shorter arms would have altered his sense of distance. Fortunately, there wasn't much difference now.

His trained physique was gone, but the extreme combat instincts he had honed while fighting countless demons until just moments before remained entirely intact.

One enemy with each strike.

With movements as fluid as flowing water and precise blows, Allen subdued the bandits.

Crunch!

Then, as the sound of another bandit's skull cracking rang out, the bandits charging toward him hesitated.

Each time one of them fell, another lost the will to fight.

“H-he was this strong?”

“Then why was he captured so easily?”

“Don't tell me he did it on purpose...?”

A thought suddenly flashed through the bandits' minds.

“C-could he really be from Vishken?”

“Eeeeeek!”

They had dismissed his claim of being from Vishken because his abilities had seemed so lacking. But now, that claim had suddenly become believable.

Having beaten down half the bandits in an instant, Allen shook the blood from his club and spoke.

“It might sound ridiculous, but I'm actually really happy to see you guys right now. That's why I'd feel bad killing you.”

Allen looked over the bandits' faces and continued.

“You're all too ugly to sell as male prostitutes, so I'll make a special exception and sell you to the guards instead.”

_________________

Inside the warehouse, where all the bandits lay defeated.

Allen moved his body this way and that.

‘I need to train some more.’

Having a younger body was nice, but it didn't move quite as smoothly as he wanted.

For his body, which possessed no mana, training and more training was the only path to survival.

Once the noisy bastards were out of the way, a thought suddenly returned to him.

‘But why did I suddenly return to the past?’

Only one possible reason came to mind.

‘Was it because of that bead?’

The mysterious bead the demons had been desperately searching for in the human world.

He wondered whether swallowing it might somehow be connected to his return to the past.

If so, what exactly had that bead been? What was its true nature that it could make something as impossible as reversing time possible?

Just as he was becoming lost in thought—

—Kill.

A faint voice came from somewhere.

Allen looked around.

Then he asked the bandits lying on the floor.

“Did someone just say something?”

But the answer came from an entirely different direction.

Bang!

Someone kicked open the warehouse door from outside and burst in.

The moment Allen recognized the person's face, his expression brightened.

“Brother!”

“—Allen?”

A man with unusually silver hair, holding a sword as white as his hair.

He was none other than Allen's older brother, Lucas Vishken.

It was thanks to Lucas that Allen had managed to escape this place alive in his previous life.

Lucas had received a mission from the family and opened that very door to rescue Allen.

Lucas entered the warehouse with a puzzled expression.

The scene inside was completely different from what he had feared.

Dozens of bandits lay sprawled across the floor, while Allen stood holding a club dripping with blood.

Anyone could see that Allen had beaten down all the bandits and was about to escape.

“At least it wasn't the worst possible outcome. I thought you'd be sitting here helplessly as a captive.”

He did not praise Allen.

Then again, this situation should never have occurred in the first place, so that was only natural.

As Allen remembered him from this period, Lucas had been an extremely difficult person to deal with. Strangely enough, whenever Allen made a mistake, Lucas would appear before him, and every time, Lucas would reprimand him.

Sure enough, Lucas's lecture was only beginning.

“Your mission was deemed a failure, so I was assigned a mission of my own. To rescue you.”

“Was it such a difficult mission that even you had to get involved, Brother?”

“I was the closest.”

He was emphasizing that this was the only reason he had come.

“Because of you, Vishken has been left without two of its swordsmen. On top of that, as Father's son, you've damaged the family's prestige. Regardless of whether the mission succeeds or fails, you won't be able to avoid a reprimand.”

“I see.”

Allen nodded and said,

“Thank you.”

“...?”

“You came before it was too late. Thanks to you, I survived.”

In the past, he had shouted at the top of his lungs. He had insisted that even if his brother hadn't come, he could have escaped on his own. That he hadn't failed yet.

Pride.

What was so important about it that he couldn't even thank his brother, who had rushed all the way here to save him?

Ironically, this time he really could have escaped on his own, even without his brother.

And so these were words he had failed to say back then, words he had left unspoken until now.

“Thank you for saving me.”

“...Are you all right?”

The fact that Lucas was asking him this confirmed that his brother had never disliked him.

Why hadn't he noticed this side of his brother back then? No, why hadn't he even tried to see it?

“Other than being hungry, I'm perfectly fine. Why? Do I look unwell?”

“No. If anything, you look better than I expected.”

“After nearly dying, I've finally come to my senses.”

Allen looked up at the sky beyond the door Lucas had broken down.

As he gazed at that sky, a certain determination settled in his eyes.

“...And thanks to that, I think I've figured out how I should live my life.”