Pain
Klaus glared at Ion with eyes full of murder, then strode forward and slammed his sword down.>
Clang! The blade met Ion’s in a ringing clash that carried the force of a war hammer.>
The man’s build was giant, his strength equally monstrous. It was almost believable.>
Even so, Klaus’s eyes widened a fraction when the impact landed. He was clearly surprised by the power he had just felt.>
Before he could recover, Ion swung his left fist in a wild, free-swinging arc. Klaus parried with his sword, only to tilt his head sharply backward to dodge the follow-up strike.>
Whoosh! The wind that whipped past the edge of his nose felt like a blade.>
Klaus had barely finished the motion when Ion’s right foot shot forward, sweeping low and planting itself in the spot where he had expected the body to roll.>
Ion raised an elbow to block, scrambling to his feet, but his right arm already ached. If he had been even a split second slower, the bone might have shattered.>
“You’re handling a knight’s stance better than most, I’ll give you that!”>
“And you strike me as far stronger than a mere mercenary,”>
The word “mercenary” hit Klaus like a slap. His face twisted in disgust.>
“A knight from a family that never even held a barony title dares to speak of ‘mercenary’?>
“Did you dig up my background too? And what about you—mixing in some giant’s blood?”>
“You bastard! If it weren’t for that estate rebellion, I would have become the Count of Badfelt Kingdom!”>
Ion hadn’t known any of that. The name sounded more like Badfelt than Baskar, and he had only just realized the reason that very moment.>
“But right now I’m facing you with steel, not ghosts. The glory of the past is useless in the present!”>
“Exactly! From this moment on, I’ll rewrite my glorious history!”>
Klaus stomped forward again, sword already slicing down in a wide arc.>
Ion tilted his blade at an angle, letting the steel slide off harmlessly.>
Clang! Even the shockwave traveling through the sword was immense.>
The moment the sword slipped, Ion lunged in to thrust, only to pull back at the last second. Klaus’s swinging fist had arrived just a heartbeat too late.>
Whoosh!>
The black blade slashed downward again the instant the fist passed.>
Ion offered his sword once more, intending to deflect and then drive forward into the gap. But Klaus’s knee suddenly rose, blocking the thrust and forcing him to leap back.>
The moment he landed, Klaus’s sword came crashing down.>
Klaus was a veteran who combined raw strength with decades of battlefield experience. Ion’s feints and misdirection had no effect.>
Ion gripped the hilt tighter and took a firm stance. He had to face him head-on.>
He may not have known it, but he possessed the very strength needed to match Klaus.>
Klaus caught the change in Ion’s posture and let out a savage grin.>
“You figured out that grabbing won’t work, did you? But a direct frontal assault is even more useless! Thanks to this thing called ‘Pain’!”>
With one hand he switched his black sword to a two-handed grip. The weapon Ion had just used to kill those lieutenants had been called ‘Pain’ by Sergio’s subordinates.>
This time Ion struck first, thrusting straight ahead.>
Clang! Klaus parried, and sparks exploded from the impact.>
Ion kept thrusting relentlessly, one after another.>
Ching ching ching!>
Each clash sent brighter sparks flying. Klaus’s lips curled into a thin, almost amused smile.>
Ion saw it too. While driving the thrust, he wondered what had gone wrong. The sparks were slightly larger than before.>
He stepped back and stared at the blade.>
“…!”>
The wavy pattern etched into the steel was unmistakably the work of Dennis, the master blacksmith of Reinen Estate. It wasn’t a famous sword, yet Dennis had sworn it would be stronger than any other. The blade was both hard and razor-sharp.>
But the teeth of the waves had been chipped away. If he kept fighting, it might break mid-swing.>
Klaus noticed Ion’s shocked expression and laughed.>
“See? That’s the true power of ‘Pain’!”>
It wasn’t merely sharpness. Ion’s ordinary sword had begun to lose its edge after only a few exchanges. He was one strike away from catastrophe.>
The armor was no safer either. Lina the witch had simply said “trial.” She hadn’t promised victory—she had merely said she would tell him what to do if he won. Whether prophecy or prediction, the final step was always Ion’s alone.>
If the sword broke, he would simply take up the mace at his hip.>
Ion leaped forward and thrust again.>
Before Klaus could parry, he twisted the blade’s angle and drove it deeper. Klaus caught the blade in both hands to stop it.>
Clang! The moment the sword locked, Ion seized the crossguard and swung the pommel toward Klaus’s face.>
Whoosh! The heavy pommel was almost like a club. Even a warrior like Klaus would have to dodge it.>
Klaus twisted sideways, but his enormous frame made the motion clumsy. The gap was exactly what Ion needed.>
He sliced once across the thick thigh.>
“Hah! You bastard!”>
The cut was shallow—only a faint trickle of blood—but Klaus’s eyes blazed with rage and he swung again.>
An angry man was a dangerous man.>
He dodged the next slash, then cut short again across the same leg, leaving another wound. Klaus was powerful and experienced, but his size guaranteed openings. Ion, who refused to yield to raw strength, could exploit them.>
Clang! He blocked Klaus’s sword and lunged for the gap again.>
Skach!>
The black blade slipped between Ion’s longsword and his own, slicing clean through the middle. Nearly half the blade had vanished in the blink of an eye.>
The moment the sword flew free, Klaus was still grinning victoriously, teeth flashing. Ion rushed in without hesitation, slamming the half-broken blade forward while drawing the mace in his left hand.>
“…!”>
Klaus’s reaction slowed. He had not expected an opponent to refuse to retreat and keep pressing even with a ruined sword.>
He raised his own sword to block the mace, then drove the blade sideways against Ion’s throat.>
Time seemed to stop. Every motion felt agonizingly slow.>
The half-broken sword carved a long, deep red line across Klaus’s neck. The black blade had already sunk halfway into the thick handle of the mace.>
Squish!>
Blood gushed from the gaping wound. The black sword had severed the mace’s handle, but Klaus no longer had the strength to move.>
Still spitting blood like crimson mist, he dropped the sword and collapsed backward onto the ground.>
Boom!>
Ion let out a sigh of relief as he looked at the broken sword and the mace that had lost its head.>
‘If I’d been a split second slower, the mace and my body would have been flying together!’>
The moment Klaus stopped breathing, his remaining strength flowed into Ion. His limbs grew heavy, but the fatigue of battle vanished.>
―Kung! Kung! Kung!>
Before Ion could even sense the surge of power, Lotte’s furious barking echoed from behind him. He turned to see Sergio and the mounted mercenaries charging toward him on horseback.>
“Now’s the chance! He’s exhausted! Kill him!”>
Ion threw down the broken sword and grabbed Klaus’s blade.>
For a single heartbeat, a strange character flashed faintly inside the hilt at the point where the weight was reduced and the blade was designed to sink easily.>
The grip felt strangely familiar.>
Ion sprinted forward to meet the oncoming enemy line.>
* * *>
“This is the best!”>
Klaus’s black sword whistled through the air, leaving nothing intact. Its edge was sharp enough to sever human flesh and bone in a single stroke. It was lighter than Ion had expected, yet far more lethal than a normal weapon.>
Klaus and Ion were both far stronger than ordinary knights, but this sword was useless in their hands without the proper strength. No amount of sharpness would let it cut anything if the wielder lacked the power.>
To cut bone, you needed bone-crushing strength. Ion possessed it.>
He slaughtered Sergio and every mounted mercenary who charged him, while the ordinary mercenaries who came after were finished by Lotte. When the wolf caught a fleeing soldier by the ankle and brought him down, Ion delivered the final blow.>
Lotte was now a fully grown young wolf. Her strength was excellent, and she grew more skilled with every second.>
After finishing all the runners, instead of the sheath he had used before, Ion took the sword that had been strapped to Klaus’s waist and sheathed the black blade.>
He then searched the corpses—Klaus’s, Sergio’s, and the others—and took whatever weapons and coin pouches were worth keeping. The coin he tucked into his belt; the weapons he loaded onto the horses that had fled earlier. He had only been able to catch a few of the mounts that had escaped the day before, but ten horses were enough to gather them quickly.>
Ion tied twelve horses together and turned toward Gorzi Estate, the opposite direction from which he had come.>
There were still mercenaries left at the Kval Mercenary Group’s camp, but with the captain dead, there was no reason to attack. Even though the unit had some discipline, they were nothing more than hired swords at heart. They would fall apart the moment they thought of revenge rather than fight properly.>
>
It took longer than he expected because he was leading the horses himself, but it was not difficult. Lotte, turned into a wolf who could understand commands, guided them effortlessly.>
·>
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Two days later, Ion arrived at Gorzi Estate and sold the horses.>
There were three ways to become a knight: earning the title through deeds in war or estate battles, inheriting it naturally from noble blood, or, like Ion, being born the son of a knight.>
Every method required two things: armor and a horse. That was why they were the true symbols of knighthood. A combat horse cost about one gold; even the riding horses used by mercenaries cost sixty silver. Ion had received six gold for twelve horses, some of which were not pure battle steeds.>
With the blood still seeping through his clothes and the Gamizon armor that no longer smelled of sweat, he bought fresh garments and found a room at the inn run by the cheerful fifty-year-old Marcio.>
After days of sleeping rough, he spent five days bathing, eating to his heart’s content, and resting deeply at the inn.>
Now it was time to move on.>
Before leaving, he changed into lighter clothes and went down to the dining hall for dinner.>
He ordered the thin, broad bread of the Baskar region, beer, bread, a thick stew instead of the usual stew, and meat and bones for Lotte to share.>
In the Baskar lands, the wide flat bread was far better dipped in stew than eaten plain.>
They enjoyed the meal and beer, and soon the other customers began talking.>
―The Kval Mercenary Group is finished!>
―What? The one stationed past the plain?>
―How many men were there?>
―Doesn’t matter. The captain is dead. It’s over.>
Five days had passed; such gossip spread naturally in any inn.>
Ion, who couldn’t hear the conversation directly, learned everything anyway. The story had traveled from the very place where it had happened.>
―The guy who received the giant’s blood?>
―How? There was no war involved. It was a duel with a knight. I heard he’s a monster.>
―No, the knight was the real monster. They say he killed half the entire mercenary group alone. Where did you hear that?>
―I came to the Gorzi plain this time. The villagers nearby who clean up mercenary corpses told me about a man as large as a giant. A merchant saw him carrying corpses on his back. He said the knight is somewhere around here. He sold a lot of horses at the market. The description matches exactly. So he must be here somewhere. Red wolf? Young knight?>
―He could be staying at this inn, maybe. The merchant laughed as he spoke, but his companion tilted his head and looked toward a corner.>
―Eh?>
―Why?>
―That guy…>
―Eh?>
After emptying their mugs, both men rose. Lotte stood up beside Ion, and the other guests at the inn lowered their heads, avoiding eye contact. To them, the young knight who had slain a monstrous captain and dozens of mercenaries would look like nothing less than a demon.>
Ion climbed the stairs to his room with Lotte by his side.>
* * *>
The next morning.>
After preparing to leave, he went down to the dining hall.>
Yesterday the eyes that had looked at him had been full of fear. Today they sparkled with something warmer, almost welcoming.>
While ordering food, Ion wondered why. Marcio, the innkeeper who brought it, answered instead.>
“Sir Knight, this meal is on the house.”>
“Why?”>
“When the Kval Mercenary Group participated in the estate war with Cooluzi Estate, they slaughtered innocent people and oppressed us.”>
“Is that so?”>
“Yes. Many of our regular customers were among those who suffered. We simply can’t take your money.”>
“Mmm… I’ll eat well, then.”>
“Please enjoy it.”>
It wasn’t just Marcio. The other guests’ eyes were also friendly.>
After finishing the meal and leaving the inn, Ion rode up onto Lotte’s back. It made him even more noticeable to the townspeople.>
―Look over there!>
―Oh! That’s him!>
More people started whispering once Ion became clearly visible.>
―He doesn’t look that strong from the outside?>
―He must be that strong.>
The talk had moved from mere curiosity to stories about mercenaries.>
―I hated mercenaries, but this is fine. They turned bandit and blocked roads, collecting tolls. They couldn’t even pay the villagers for the vegetables they supplied to the camp!>
Ion heard every word and slipped out through the northern gate.>
From Gorzi Estate, only two days of travel northwest would take him into the central region and beyond to the north. He had never been there before, but he had heard too many stories. He was finally heading to the place he had dreamed of seeing—the end of the north, the Ice Wall.>
The Ice Wall was, quite literally, a massive barrier of ice. It marked the very edge of the northern lands. Beyond it lay a region no one had ever explored: Extimus.>
Those who had actually seen the wall spoke of it as a sight that must be witnessed once in a lifetime, even if only once.>
Because of his regression, Ion had spent more than half his life in the south and died there. Now he wanted to see the true northern end with his own eyes.>
Peacefully crossing two days’ distance, he prepared to make camp between the central and northern regions. He would build a fire, cook something, eat, and rest.>
Lotte suddenly perked up, ears forward, and stood alert.>
In the direction she was looking, a small light flickered.>
It was moving closer to a campfire, and soon a blonde woman carrying a lantern appeared.>
He had never seen her face, but something about her felt strangely familiar.>
“Long time no see, Sir Knight.”