Chapter 2

Mad Swordsman of the Shadow World (2)

“...”

When Theron opened his eyes, he could not grasp his current situation.

Rationally, calmly.

Theron had always maintained such a state, but.

“Where...?”

The walls were made of dark gray stone, and bluish moss had taken root in the cracks between them.

Heavy air.

With just a single breath, the smell of mold seeped deep into his lungs.

Rotten wood and wet cloth.

Mixed with the scent of old blood, it clung stickily to the tip of his nose.

Theron's eyes trembled.

How could he possibly forget this place?

He had spent half of his life here.

“Is this... a dream?”

There was no other explanation.

‘I definitely...’

Had died surrounded by dozens of knights...

But at that moment.

“...”

Castillo's face appeared before his eyes.

—Consider it an honor and close your eyes.

It was as though he could hear those final words again.

Theron always maintained his composure, but for a moment, a curse rose all the way to his throat.

Even now, he could vividly feel the blades digging into his body.

“A dream...?”

Was he having this dream because of his bitter resentment and rage?

If not...

‘Are you saying... I've returned to the past?’

Nonsense.

How could something like that possibly happen?

His thoughts became tangled and complicated.

But then.

“Hey, what are you doing!”

At someone's shout, Theron turned his head and looked over.

Short, dull-blue hair.

It was a boy glaring with wide eyes and an angry expression.

“...Perka?”

It was a face he could never forget.

During their training in the past, he had not survived to the end... but he had learned the rules faster than anyone else, and the two had quietly formed a friendship.

‘Come to think of it, that bastard helped me quite a lot.’

Because he had dragged Theron along when he could not adapt, simply because he was the room leader.

‘Though later... he died an unlucky death.’

Memories of him flashed past like a revolving lantern.

But Perka, still wearing an angry expression, strode over and twisted his fist into Theron's collar.

“I asked what you're doing! If you keep dawdling like this, we'll be late for the morning assembly!”

Behind Perka, two boys were staring at him with irritated expressions.

He remembered their names as well.

‘Renil... Tioren.’

Those two had also died during training, but they had been fairly decent fellows.

Only now did everything come back to him.

The current situation, and why they were staring at him with such angry expressions.

His thoughts were still unsettled, but for now, he decided to play along.

Theron lightly removed the boy's hand and said.

“Ah, sorry. Let's hurry.”

“...?”

At Theron's words, Perka frowned and tilted his head.

Because his expression and tone were completely different from the timid Theron he usually knew.

But...

“What are you doing? You said we were in a hurry.”

“Ah, ah... right. Let's go quickly.”

Theron knew there was no malice behind him grabbing his collar.

In this hellish place, there had been exactly one thing.

If he had been lucky in any way, it was that the three fellows who shared his room were fairly decent people.

Of course, because of that...

“Let's go!”

As Perka started running, the other three ran after him.

Along the corridor toward the first-floor lobby.

It was not a long distance, but as he ran, his memories of this place gradually became clearer.

And when they arrived at the first-floor lobby.

‘Right... this is how it was.’

Seeing the boys filling the lobby, Theron calmly took his place.

Around five hundred trainees had gathered in the lobby.

In front of them stood the instructors who taught them.

And the man at their center.

The man who held the position of chief instructor and possessed the greatest authority on this damned island in practice...

‘Berton.’

A thin build.

His narrow eyes stared at the trainees like awls, and the reddened veins beneath his pale skin gave him a strange air of intimidation.

But the moment Theron saw his face, memories from before flashed through his mind.

The man who had tried to kill them...

“...Hoo.”

Theron forced himself to calm down and looked around.

There were around five hundred trainees, but most of them lived separately in divided sections.

Naturally, they trained separately as well.

And yet, if they had all gathered in one place like this...

‘I've returned to this time...’

A slight crease appeared between Theron's brows.

In one sense, it could be called fortunate, but for us, this had been the worst possible moment...

“Attention!”

At that moment, one of the instructors standing in front shouted loudly.

The trainees looked at the instructor with tense expressions.

Berton, the chief instructor standing at the center, looked over the trainees with cold eyes before speaking in a low voice.

“You've all worked hard enduring until now. Starting today, we will begin a more advanced stage of training to improve your abilities.”

“...A more advanced stage of training?”

“What's that...?”

The atmosphere immediately grew restless.

It was understandable.

Until now, their training had consisted mostly of swinging swords until their hands bled, or brutal physical conditioning that did not stop even when the soles of their feet split open.

‘For a year, they instilled fear in us by teaching grueling physical training and swordsmanship while ruling us with the whip...’

Because afterward, they taught those who endured the ‘mana cultivation method’ that would turn them into their puppets.

Even as Theron looked at Berton, he carefully observed his surroundings.

With this much commotion, surely.

“Quiet!”

He had expected an instructor to seize control like that.

At the shout of the instructor standing beside Berton, the trainees gathered in the lobby clamped their mouths shut as though they had been struck mute.

A solemn pressure weighed upon their shoulders.

Some pressed their lips tightly together, unable even to breathe loudly.

Amid the blade-like tension filling the space, Berton looked at the instructors on either side of him and nodded.

Before long, they began distributing the thin books stacked beside them, one to each trainee.

“This is the mana cultivation method you will be learning from now on. Memorize all of it by tomorrow and practice it.”

At the same time, they handed small boxes to the trainees.

What lay inside the boxes was.

Something like a bead giving off a reddish glow.

“This will greatly aid the growth of your mana cultivation method from now on. Everyone, swallow it here.”

“Come now, hurry up!”

“Go on, swallow it!”

At Berton's words, the instructors busily moved around and stood before the trainees.

Urged on by the instructors, the trainees who had received the bead-shaped pills hesitated.

But then.

“Do you need to be punished before you'll listen?”

“I-I'll eat it!”

“I ate it!”

At Berton's single remark, almost like a mutter, the terrified trainees hurriedly put the pills into their mouths.

“...”

Theron looked at the bead-shaped pill in his hand.

‘Death... Sigil.’

This thing, whose name meant the seal of death...

‘It certainly does help the growth of the mana cultivation method.’

It was true that taking it early on provided explosive assistance to one's mana growth.

But as the level of one's mana cultivation method increased, it blocked the most important mana circuits and prevented one from advancing beyond a ‘certain level.’

And at the same time.

‘Later... they can kill us according to the will of the bastard who made us take the pill.’

As befitted the name Death Sigil, once this pill was swallowed, a small bug began parasitizing the heart.

And according to the will of the owner of the mana infused into it when the pill was manufactured.

‘Once the bug matures, it'll destroy the heart in an instant.’

It was truly a thorough plan to turn them into puppets.

“What are you doing? Why aren't you eating it?”

An instructor who approached Theron glared fiercely as he spoke.

He knew.

He knew that right now, he had no choice but to take this Death Sigil.

Theron stared blankly at the Death Sigil in his hand, then deliberately placed it in his mouth right in front of the instructor.

Gulp.

After swallowing it in one go, Theron opened his mouth and spoke to the instructor.

“I ate it.”

“You can close your mouth.”

After watching Theron even move his tongue around to prove he had definitely swallowed everything, the instructor walked toward another trainee.

From now on, the bug inside the Death Sigil would undoubtedly settle into his heart and begin to grow.

But...

‘I have a way.’

Theron had already experienced every kind of hardship imaginable in his previous life.

He also knew how to deal with the Death Sigil.

“Remember this. Memorize the entire mana cultivation method distributed today by tomorrow. There will be no training until tomorrow.”

“Dismissed!”

“Dismissed!”

At Berton's words, the other instructors shouted loudly and dismissed the trainees.

The roughly five hundred trainees, who rarely had a chance to gather all at once, scattered and returned to their rooms.

And...

“A mana cultivation method... How are we supposed to memorize this in a single day?”

The moment they entered the room, Renil threw down the book containing the mana cultivation method and spoke.

Perka sat down and calmly replied.

“Still, if you can't memorize it, you'll get punished badly. Just cram it into your head somehow.”

He opened the book and tried to memorize its contents, but judging from his expression, he did not seem to understand much of what it meant.

Rustle.

Beside him, Tioren silently turned a page.

Aside from Renil occasionally muttering curses, the room was quiet.

“...”

Naturally so.

A mana cultivation method was not something those encountering it for the first time could easily understand.

Even in his memories of the past, after the first day, more than half of them had failed to memorize the contents and had been beaten mercilessly.

‘Still... I suppose I'm lucky, if this can be called luck.’

He did not know why he had returned to the past.

He had barely survived this damned training facility created by the Valenruke family, only to live like their loyal dog.

‘In the end... their way was to kill and dispose of the dog once the hunt was over.’

At the end, he had charged at them intending to kill at least Castillo, but...

‘Asbon Zionheart.’

One of the Third Prince's closest men, and someone whose martial might ranked among the strongest on the continent.

By the time Theron had fought him, his body had already been utterly ruined.

In the end, he had been unable to accomplish anything before dying by that man's sword.

‘Is this... a revelation from the gods telling me to try again?’

Try what?

A question mark briefly appeared in his mind, but finding the answer was not difficult.

Wasn't it obvious?

The Valenruke family, who had used them like cheap expendable tools before throwing them away.

‘And...’

One of the strongest swordsmen on the continent... and the man who had driven a sword into his heart.

Asbon Zionheart.

This time, my sword will pierce his heart.

If only for the sake of the past life that had vanished meaninglessly like garbage.

Shift.

Theron adjusted his posture and closed his eyes.

There was no need to look at the book.

He already knew this entire mana cultivation method.

‘The Darkfin mana cultivation method... has a clearly defined limit.’

Once one reached the 6th Star, further growth became impossible.

Of course, even the 6th Star was a considerably high realm.

Every knight of the Shadow Knight Order had reached the 6th Star.

But to face Asbon, he would have to reach the 8th Star.

He would have to break through one more wall beyond the realm he had once reached, at the very edge of the 7th Star.

However...

‘If I learn a different mana cultivation method, the instructors will discover it.’

They were obsessive enough to stick their fingers directly into the trainees' mouths to confirm whether they had swallowed the Death Sigil.

They would probably check while everyone slept to make sure the Death Sigil had properly settled into place.

Would people like that simply overlook the Darkfin mana cultivation method, one of the most important points of this training?

‘Absolutely not.’

For now, this was the time to hide, and then hide some more.

But there was one fortunate thing: he had returned to a point when everything could still be set right.

“Hoooo...”

Theron slowly exhaled.

Now that he had decided on his goal, his previously tangled thoughts seemed to clear.

Then the first thing he needed to do now was...

‘Before that bastard bug settled in my heart grows... I should remove it first.’

If he could not remove it now, it could cause serious problems later.

Just like before.

As Theron closed his eyes and began practicing the mana cultivation method, bluish mana gradually began seeping into the air around him.