Nine Deaths, One Life

No matter how much I supplemented my stamina, that first day, one hour was the absolute limit of my young body.

Especially since I'd been moving while sustaining No-Mind and Still Clarity at once, the felt time was less than half of that — and the disconnect between mind and flesh was almost unbearable.

Even so, that dissonance shrank little by little as the days went by.

The people around me, on the other hand, were having a much harder time adjusting to my transformation.

The knights of the order called me a mad dog, half in awe and half in dismay.

The maids watched me train myself to the bone with pitying eyes, convinced I was pushing this hard because of the shock of nearly losing my mother to an unjust execution.

……Honestly, viewed from the outside, it wasn't a completely wrong conclusion.

The helplessness and despair I had felt that day were beyond anything words could describe — a memory I had no desire to relive a second time.

And so, as I wore through my days like this, word of what I was doing to myself apparently reached my mother's ears as well.

One day, while I was borrowing the training grounds as usual and working my body to its edge, I felt her arms wrap around me from behind, heavy with sorrow.

The moment she touched me, the No-Mind state I'd sustained with the power of my words shattered, and I turned my head back slowly — realizing, rather late, what was actually happening.

"I'm so sorry……"

Her trembling hand reached out and brushed the sweat-soaked hair from my half-glazed eyes, her voice breaking with grief.

"……"

I never wanted to see you like this again.

So why.

"I never knew you'd been driven to such a cliff's edge."

Ah.

I see.

So Mother was thinking the exact same thing as the maids.

Well, of course — to anyone else, a boy with no talent for magistery grinding his body down like this would look like nothing more than self-destruction.

It was a misunderstanding more than fair enough to invite, I thought, and after spending a considerable amount of time soothing and persuading her, I was finally able to throw myself back into training.

Thanks to the ongoing effects of Leaps and Bounds, I could now clearly feel the change in myself — small as it was — and that alone was a considerable joy.

Stamina gains registered far more reliably than strength gains; the one-hour limit of that first day had, over these two months, leapt all the way to three.

Though admittedly, that was only because I was layering Healing, Cure, Stamina Recovery, and Fatigue Recovery all at once.

Stamina aside, raw strength was much harder to feel in concrete terms.

Which made sense — this was still the body of a child who hadn't finished growing. Fundamentally, there was only so much to be done.

Even so, I could now swing not just a plain wooden sword, but one with an iron core laminated in thin plates, without the slightest difficulty.

And as my body gradually matured, I finally took up the word I had set aside for later — Acceleration.

Acceleration means, at its heart, nothing more than a change in speed.

In other words, a word that let me freely adjust that value anywhere along the limit line my body could endure.

If someone asked how it differed from Lightspeed, the word I'd once grasped so greedily — the difference was this: with Acceleration, the speed always stayed within the threshold my flesh could bear.

Lightspeed, by contrast, ignored that threshold entirely, forcing the velocity upon me whether my body could survive it or not.

So when I asked the System — if I ultimately obtained an Aura Master's body, could Acceleration carry me not to lightspeed, but at least to the speed of sound?

But, the System added, if I mastered the word Adamantine, then for a single fleeting instant, acceleration up to the speed of sound would become possible.

Since I still had consonants and vowels to spare anyway, I decided to experiment — fully mastering Adamantine and tasting the speed of sound through Acceleration.

PA-ANG──!

It lasted only an instant. All I did was bring my palm down in a strike.

A crack of noise that felt like it would split my eardrums, and a violent gale erupted outward in a great expanding ring.

When I slowly unclenched my fist, my skin stung and burned as though scorched, heat rising off the surface in waves.

So that's what it was……

Only now did I understand just how ignorant I'd been back then, trying to pour the power of my words into Lightspeed so carelessly.

Don't let greed run ahead of you.

Start with what you can do, and take each step firmly.

Keep at it, and one day when you look back, you'll see how far you've come — ten thousand paces from where you started, at the very least.

Even as I trained my body, I never neglected to refine my pure command of the word-power itself.

After all, pushing my body past its limits to reach the level of an Aura Master without any aid from magistery was — at its core — so that I wouldn't have to waste powerful words on opponents who required no such force to subdue.

In the end, what it takes to bring down an enemy beyond expectations is, fundamentally, a single devastating word.

When the Demonic Tree had once bloomed in full and the Demon King's army descended, if Aura Masters and Overlords alone could have held the line, the First Emperor would never have been so exalted.

Granted, legends still speak of that war — but the one who earned the towering credit, in the end, was the First Emperor himself, who wielded the power of the Dragon Tongue.

I had no way of knowing how distorted and inflated those tales had become, but the truth remained: a power beyond conventional standards had been needed.

Honestly, it still doesn't feel quite real……

The essential reason I strained like this, after all, was so I would never again have to watch happiness crushed beneath my feet, so helpless, so despairing.

Trying to feel a sense of crisis over a Demonic Tree that hadn't even bloomed yet — how much could I really feel, here and now?

But I knew all the same that if I failed to stop it when the time came, this very moment would vanish before I knew it. So I steadied my breathing once and began to focus.

With Swift and Decisive already mastered, I had fifteen seconds free of any word-count limit — the key would be concentrating all my firepower within that window and forcing a conclusion.

Several powerful words came to mind at once.

One Against a Thousand.

Peerless Under Heaven.

Strength to Topple Mountains, Spirit to Dominate the Age.

But these words were spears, not shields — if I couldn't finish the fight within those fifteen seconds of concentrated firepower, I would need some means of protecting my own body as well.

The simplest candidates that came to mind were Reflection and Evasion.

I tried combining Immortality, but the combination failed.

What's more, any word containing Absolute or Invincible refused to combine at all.

So in the end, I concluded that the most practical option was Nine Deaths, One Life.

By its meaning alone, a single use would let me escape nine separate deaths.

Judged by cost-effectiveness, it was easily the most efficient word available.

When it came to testing a newly mastered word, there was naturally only one man for the job: Sir Brand.

So I asked him to walk with me to a place where eyes rarely strayed.

Among the imperial family's private estates was a forest used chiefly for grazing game and hosting hunting tournaments.

Today's physical training could wait until after we'd verified the effects of Nine Deaths, One Life.

"With the intent to kill me — why don't you try swinging that sword at me?"

"……"

"Don't worry. I'm asking because I'm truly confident."

The Empire's sole prince using his own body as a guinea pig would be absurd enough on its own.

And with Sir Brand being the target of the experiment, to boot — of course he would hesitate.

But if not him — the man who had stood beside me for so long — who else would indulge me in an experiment like this?

"Are you certain about this, Your Highness?"

"Yes."

After a long moment of wavering, Sir Brand readjusted his grip on his sword.

"Nine Deaths, One Life."

Then, in a voice pitched low enough that Sir Brand couldn't hear, I infused the word with the power of my tongue.

"I'm coming."

Nod.

He answered with a dip of his head — and with a whistle of cleaved air, the sword in Sir Brand's hand, Quasar, vanished from my sight.

At my current level, tracking the blade's arc was still beyond me, so I simply made my peace ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with it.

After all, Nine Deaths, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠One Life was in effect. There was no way I would actually die.

"What in the—!"

Along with Sir Brand's startled cry, one of the deer grazing in this forest suddenly bolted out of nowhere, slammed into his back, and went bounding off in a panicked flight.

Thanks to that, Sir Brand's sword grazed past my side by a hair's breadth and plunged into the ground instead.

So that's how it works?

From the way things unfolded, Nine Deaths, One Life seemed less like a technique and more like a passive effect — an immense, invisible force of fortune stepping in to avert each of my nine deaths.

Which was only natural, I supposed. It's called Nine Deaths, One Life precisely because you miraculously survive moments you should, by all rights, not survive.

Sir Brand steadied his stance and thrust at me again in quick succession.

This time, a nearby ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tree came crashing down between us, cutting off the distance entirely.

"……What in the world — are you beloved by the gods themselves?"

"Who's to say?"

I was just as bewildered as he was, but I had to admit — this word was a lot more fun than I'd expected.

The third time, the ground itself caved in and swallowed Sir Brand into the earth.

It had rained the day before, so he clambered up out of the sodden mud, caked from head to toe, crawling back like a revenant returned from hell.

By this point, an fierce, burning determination was blazing in both his eyes.

Fair enough. Even I would have developed that kind of stubborn streak.

The fourth time, a sudden violent gust of wind rocked my body and stole my balance.

Thanks to that, Sir Brand's sword — which should have found its mark — never touched me at all.

The fifth time, a bolt of lightning fell out of a perfectly clear sky.

"There's no way lightning would actually—" Sir Brand froze mid-sentence, staring in open astonishment.

Honestly, viewed on its own, didn't this whole situation make me exactly what he'd called me — a child beloved by the gods?

"Damn it all!"

I hadn't done a single thing, and yet Sir Brand — battered into a wreck by the world itself — began to seethe with killing intent.

"Just one hit! Please! Just let me land ONE hit!"

"UWAAAAAGH!"

A dazzling column of water burst violently up from the waterlogged ground.

Bobbing atop that geyser — a stream that looked for all the world like a waterfall running in reverse — Sir Brand went airborne and scattered a rainbow across the sky above me.

Steam was curling off the water in visible wisps, so it was probably a hot spring that had erupted.

An entirely unexpected harvest.

From now on, even against an opponent stronger than me, I could afford to play it cocky — to bluster that I'd gladly concede them nine strikes.