Butterfly Effect
Butterfly Effect
Outside the barrier, Western Front.
The stench of blood and rotting guts pierced my nose on the wind.
The faces of the first-year Academy students, raised like flowers in a greenhouse, turned pale all at once.
Some noble scions gagged and fell to their knees.
I indifferently walked past that hellish scene and looked up at the massive barrier erected in front.
My brow furrowed.
In my memories of the previous timeline, the destination for the first semester practical evaluation was the 'Southern Front,' the safest and most rearward location.
So why had the training site been changed to the West, the blood-soaked frontlines?
The reason was clear.
This Western Front outside the barrier was originally the bloody frontline commanded by Valian, Vice-Captain of the Imperial Knights.
He, who hadn't even set foot in the Academy in my previous life, had been appointed as an instructor here because of a variable: me. The butterfly effect of that big shot's appointment had forcibly dragged the first-year training site—which should have been safe—up to his home turf, the Western Front, where he could easily control it.
The causality I twisted. The butterfly effect.
For a moment, the proposition that the old wizard Walder had whispered in my ear flashed through my mind.
'Doubt everything.'
My regression had changed the course of events.
If so.
Was the fact that Ines, who saved the world in my previous life, had been abandoned as an empty-headed simpleton also because I returned to the past?
"......."
My heart sank to my feet.
A terrible sensation, as if my breathing had stopped and the blood in my veins had turned ice cold.
But I bit my lip hard, forcibly suppressing that chilling hypothesis to the bottom of my reason.
I didn't have time to be buried in this kind of poison of doubt and let it gnaw at my sanity.
At this time in my previous life, when the first-years were training peacefully in the South.
This Western Front was completely 'collapsed' due to an unexpected, massive calamity.
70% of the resident personnel became food for beasts, and that horrific meat paste included the corpse of Vice-Captain Valian.
I scanned the forest ahead with coldly sharpened eyes.
That man must not die yet.
Not until I have completely devoured and imprinted his aura Mental Image into my underdeveloped body.
"Enemy attack! It's a pack of Blood Wolves ahead!"
The practical training began with the guard's urgent shout.
Dozens of low-level monsters tore through the bushes, drooling as they poured out.
"Maintain formation! Don't step out recklessly!"
"Stab from behind the shields!"
The instructors and senior knights roared at the trembling students.
A textbook training session of setting up shields and safely dealing with monsters.
However.
Ta-at!
I completely ignored that stupid order, broke formation, and dashed out alone.
"Hey, you crazy bastard! Get back in line!"
The instructor's profanity rang out behind me, but I didn't give a damn.
It wasn't some heroic desire for points or praise.
My insides were boiling with a terrible, blood-draining impatience.
Ines, whom I left at the campsite.
I had given her a shirt soaked in my scent. She had learned how to endure for quite a long time now.
Rationally, I had calculated that 'she could easily hold out for this amount of time.'
But my instinct was different.
'Still, you never know.'
I couldn't delay.
Besides, to prevent the collapse of the Western Front that would erupt within a few days, I had overwhelmingly insufficient time to search the forest thoroughly.
I didn't have the luxury of waiting for my turn behind the cumbersome shield formation.
"Grrr!"
A leaping wolf bared its teeth at my throat.
Slash!
I didn't even look, just swung my dagger and sliced open the beast's jaw.
I broke through the spraying blood and dove into the next beast's embrace.
Thud! Crunch!
I stabbed the heart, crushed the cervical spine.
A mechanical and ruthless slaughter without a shred of emotion.
The most blind slaughter, excluding any flashy swordsmanship, just cutting off the beasts' breath even one second faster, swept across the blood-stained battlefield.
"Ugh, ughhh!"
The battlefield after the training ended.
In front of the horrific reality where blood and guts were splattered, the noble scions, who had been like flowers in a greenhouse, were sitting on the ground, vomiting stomach acid.
From those arrogant lips that had mocked me on entrance day, only disgusting vomit and delirious nonsense flowed out.
I stood in the middle of that hellish vomit field and indifferently wiped the blood from my sword onto my clothes.
"Hey, you son of a bitch!"
Just then, a noble scion who had been crouching on the ground retching approached me, veins bulging.
His legs were trembling with fear, but he was snapping at me to forcibly hide that pathetic fear.
"Because you went crazy and left the formation alone, the formation got tangled! Do you know how much trouble we went through because of you?!"
A clear case of forcing the issue and blaming others.
If I hadn't dashed out and sliced up half the wolf pack, those idiots who couldn't even hold their shields properly would have had their throats ripped out long ago.
"And what the hell is that cruel and disgusting method of yours? Do you feel better only when you deliberately spray blood and guts everywhere, you lowly commoner bastard!"
A shallow self-justification to shift the blame for his own insignificance, having pissed himself in front of the horrific reality of the Empire's frontlines, onto my cruelty.
I didn't even feel it was worth responding to, so I averted my gaze. I didn't have time to entertain this kind of whining.
"Are you ignoring me, you bastard?!"
Just as the guy was reaching out to grab my collar in anger, it happened.
Tap, tap.
Heavy footsteps approached. It was Valian.
The noble scion swallowed his breath and stepped back at the Vice-Captain's cold spirit.
Valian stood in my way as if he didn't care about the whining noble at all.
"Breaking military law and leaving the formation is a serious crime that would send you to the brig immediately."
A biting reprimand worthy of a true knight.
However, Valian's heavy eyes held not anger, but unmistakable admiration.
"However, thanks to you rushing out first, there were no casualties in the main unit."
He tapped my shoulder.
"Especially those eyes of yours. Very good."
Valian stared into my eyes and murmured lowly.
"Reading the enemy's minute muscle movements in advance, and using their trajectory and power perfectly against them—a beast-like method. Is it because of your experience hunting monsters before coming to the Academy? Anyway, I acknowledge that skill."
Half reprimand, half high praise.
Valian added heavily.
"If this training ends safely, I will formally introduce you to the Imperial Knight Captain, 'Carlyle'-nim."
A radical scouting offer to recommend a commoner student to the head called the Sword of the Empire.
It was an honor that would have made an ordinary student weep with emotion and kneel.
"Thank you."
I bowed politely on the outside, but inside my head, only blood-red calculations were spinning furiously.
According to the memories of my previous life, there were only 3-4 days left until the disaster struck.
Within that time, I had to find the 'culprit' causing the monsters to go berserk and tear them apart.
There was only one way.
For the remaining time, I had to forcibly circulate aura in this underdeveloped body, and search the surroundings of the frontlines alone, pushing past my limits even at the cost of tearing my bones and muscles.
Naturally, my body would be wrecked and my blood vessels would burst, but it didn't matter.
Because the 'Fake Saintess Clarice and the priesthood,' who were to be dispatched as an Academy consolation group, were scheduled to accompany this frontline training.
Even though they were disgusting, nauseating hypocrites who had stolen Ines's place.
Solely for the sake of 'efficiency,' I planned to use their powerful healing holy power as an excuse to fix my torn body in an instant and search the forest thoroughly by myself.
As soon as I returned to the campsite, I first checked my tent where Ines was.
Fortunately, she was sleeping soundly, clutching the shirt I had given her.
I let out a sigh of relief and immediately turned my head to scan the encampment.
But.
"......."
No matter how much I searched the entire campsite, I couldn't see the flashy golden tents symbolizing the Church or the Holy Knights in priestly robes.
Today, in the previous timeline.
Ines had come down to this Western Front mixed in with the consolation group as the real Saintess, and it was the day I had my 'first meeting' with her amidst the monster attack.
Naturally, I had calculated that in this life too, the Fake Saintess Clarice and her group, the faces of the Church, would be accompanying this training as a consolation group.
But there was no trace of the Church anywhere.
Feeling puzzled, I went to find Valian, who was in the tent, and asked him directly.
"Vice-Captain-nim. Are the Saintess-nim and the priesthood who were supposed to come as a consolation group not here?"
Valian's brow furrowed heavily at my question.
He sighed and answered.
"The Saintess-nim is not coming."
"...Yes?"
"A few days ago, a terrible incident occurred within the Academy where a low-level priest, a close aide to the Saintess, went missing. The Church judged this as a precursor to an assassination and, citing safety reasons, completely canceled the Saintess's deployment to the frontlines."
"......!"
My footsteps stopped dead.
My breathing froze cold.
The low-level priest who went missing a few days ago.
At the request of the old fox, Walder.
The very priest I had personally infiltrated the dormitory to knock out, stuff into a burlap sack, and kidnap.
My thoughts stopped.
Butterfly effect.
One of the causalities I had inadvertently twisted was becoming a massive snowball I couldn't have imagined, tightening around my neck.
Because of the one crime I had committed.
The perfect healing battery that would have healed my torn body in an instant and enabled infinite searching—the Fake Saintess and the priesthood's joining—had been completely aborted.
The chessboard I had set up had been wretchedly overturned by my own hands.
There was no means of healing.
Now, I literally had to grind my own flesh and bones. Without a single miracle of healing, I had to find the culprit of this coming destruction alone.
A terrible penalty of having to endure for 3 days without any means to recover torn muscles.
"...Ha."
I gritted my teeth. The taste of bitter blood wetted the tip of my tongue.
The noble scions in the safe tent, vomiting and trembling, and the desperate battlefield where I had to shoulder this terrible penalty alone.
The damn reality keeps pulling me into the abyss of despair.
Even so.
I have to do it. For Ines.