Chapter 5
Episode 5
Three months had passed since Logan made his promise to his father.
As Logan descended from the ancestral mountain and made his way toward the inner-city mansion, the servants and retainers who spotted him—or even caught a distant glimpse—quickly veered away to avoid him.
It wasn't just his infamous reputation that made them do so.
"A... a beggar?"
"Why is there a beggar in the inner city...?"
"Shh! Keep your voice down! That's the Grand Prince."
"That... beggar?"
"Shut your mouth, you fool!"
No matter how quietly they whispered, Logan's heightened senses picked up every word with crystal clarity.
But he paid them no mind.
Right now, his focus was entirely fixed on one thing.
'The timing is almost here.'
His memories weren't precise enough to pinpoint the exact day, but within a week, the incident would occur.
The second goal he needed to achieve after honing his personal combat prowess—
'Money.'
And the event that would grant him that money was now just around the corner.
'I can do this.'
Uuuung—
The unwavering Force responding to his will, his transformed body.
The tangible growth in his abilities filled him with confidence that his next objective would be just as achievable.
"Ugh! Did you spend the last three months rolling around in a pigsty?! What in the world were you doing up in the ancestral mountain?!"
"Training."
"What kind of training involves rolling in filth?! Oh, my nose..."
Scrub scrub.
Splaaash.
Rick grumbled under his breath while furiously scrubbing with a brush and dumping buckets of water over Logan.
Though he kept his distance, his entire body radiated reluctance to get any closer to the filth (?) clinging to Logan.
But given how the water ran black—almost like sewage—there wasn't much he could say.
"So... anything interesting happen while I was gone?"
An awkward attempt at small talk.
"Nothing much. With you gone, the estate was so quiet... Ahaha! What I mean is... it was boring. Yes, very boring. Absolutely."
"......."
"W-Wait, now that I think about it, there was something! But it's..."
"What?"
An unexpected answer came back.
The Grand Prince had fled to avoid sparring with his younger brother.
Too afraid of being compared, he abandoned everything and went into seclusion.
A coward like that didn't deserve to be the heir of a knightly family.
Over the past three months, rumors had spread and twisted Logan's closed-door training into something far more unflattering.
Pfft.
"How ridiculous. Though I can guess who's behind it."
"Y-You said you wouldn't care about rumors, right? Right?! You shouldn't get worked up over this!"
"Yeah, it's fine. It'll all be resolved once I meet Father anyway."
His father, a High Knight, couldn't possibly be unaware of his awakening.
The moment his father acknowledged his growth, these rumors would vanish on their own.
But Logan's complacent assumptions were shattered in a single day.
On his way to report the end of his training and meet his father, Logan encountered a situation he never could have anticipated.
"What did you just say?"
"According to Family Law, even direct blood relatives cannot meet the family head without prior notice."
Logan turned back with a dumbfounded expression, only for Rick to mutter hesitantly:
"It is technically a law from a few hundred years ago..."
What kind of absurdity was this?
"I met him just fine three months ago."
"Then the guards on duty at the time were negligent in their duties, Young Master."
Logan stared silently at the knight in his forties blocking his path.
'This never happened in my past life...'
It was only natural that making different choices would alter the future, but he never expected those changes to result in worse treatment.
And then, in that moment, Logan's heightened senses picked up the hushed conversation of soldiers hiding inside the estate.
"Is the knight out of his mind? That's still the Grand Prince."
"Who knows? He's always been reckless. Says he's retiring soon. You bet on him leaving, didn't you?"
"Think he'll actually go? Or will he throw a tantrum?"
"They say he's a coward who got scared of a fourteen-year-old. So he'll probably leave, right?"
"Either way, the knight's the one who'll take responsibility..."
"We were on break, so we didn't see anything."
Now, at this very moment, Logan could fully grasp just how rock-bottom his reputation had sunk.
"There are no soldiers available to deliver your message right now. Please come back another time, Young Master."
Coupled with the knight's shamelessly smiling face, Logan's patience finally snapped.
'Ha, this bastard...'
Logan had never been the docile type to begin with.
But decades spent as a mercenary and independence fighter—far removed from the comforts of nobility—had forced an unnatural amount of restraint into his once-reckless nature.
He had no intention of rising to such shallow provocation...
But one thing bothered him.
No one...
'Cared.'
The knight's surroundings, the estate's interior.
Many servants and retainers watched—some openly, others subtly—but not a single one intervened.
Most, no, all of them pretended not to see or even laughed among themselves.
Not one person stepped forward to reprimand the knight's excessive behavior—not even with a disapproving glance.
Logan had known his past self was despised and his reputation in tatters, but experiencing it firsthand was different.
'Was it really this bad? This is... problematic.'
His original plan had been to visit his father, show him his growth, earn his recognition, and gradually rebuild his standing.
But that plan was scrapped the moment he realized—
'No need to postpone this.'
Logan had mentally dismissed the insults, but the flames in his chest—still housed in a young body—transferred to his eyes as calculated fury.
"What's your name, knight?"
"Dominen, Young Master."
The knight answered with a grin, now openly mocking Logan.
"Right, Dominen. You've insulted me under the pretense of an obsolete law."
"......Excuse me?"
"I, Logan MacLaine, challenge Knight Dominen to a duel in recompense for this unjust insult."
Logan's indifferent tone left Dominen's face stiff with shock.
Slap.
The training glove Logan pulled from his coat struck Dominen's breastplate before falling to the ground.
Until it landed, everyone stared at Logan in stunned silence.
Rick was the first to regain his senses.
"Y-Young Master! You can't!"
Before Dominen could respond, Rick desperately shouted and stepped between them.
From his perspective, Logan was still the same brat who had lost to his younger brother not long ago.
Challenging a knight to a duel? Unthinkable recklessness.
But—
"It's fine, Rick. He's already a washed-up has-been anyway."
Logan only provoked the knight further.
"Young Master?!"
Rick turned back, his face pale with horror, but Dominen's expression had already twisted into something ugly.
Logan held no official title within the family yet.
But as the heir of a knightly house, he was still considered a squire until adulthood.
And while it wasn't against tradition for a squire to request a sparring match with a full-fledged knight—it was even encouraged—a duel was another matter entirely.
Dominen could have refused without consequence.
"What? Planning to decline, Sir Dominen? If you'd rather tuck your tail between your legs and run from a 'coward,' be my guest."
But Dominen couldn't refuse.
The moment the Grand Prince struck his pride, all memory of his own mockery vanished from his mind.
'Washed-up has-been?!'
No matter that his opponent was the Grand Prince—no man could endure such an insult.
As a knight of MacLaine, dueling a direct blood relative would have severe repercussions, even if he won.
But Dominen couldn't think of that now.
Rage had consumed his reason.
"I accept your challenge."
Gnash. His teeth ground together as if they might shatter.
What began as a dispute at the estate's entrance soon moved to the knights' training grounds.
The knights who had been training suddenly found themselves spectators—and witnesses—to the impending duel, watching with keen interest.
Of course, none of them expected Logan to win.
Their curiosity lay in how long the Grand Prince could last against a knight—or how pathetically he would be crushed.
Every knight present had seen Logan humiliated in his public sparring match against Ronian not long ago.
But...
'They must be wondering—am I truly that weak, or is Ronian just a genius?'
If he defeated a knight here, what kind of rumors would spread?
Logan found himself curious about the aftermath before the duel had even begun.
And fortunately, his chosen sacrificial lamb was doing an excellent job of stoking his fighting spirit.
"......Take care of yourself, Grand Prince."
Though Dominen's teeth were clenched in fury, his tone remained polite.
Despite instigating the conflict, he lacked the nerve to hurl insults at a direct blood relative in front of so many fellow knights.
"The official spar between Logan MacLaine and Knight Dominen will now commence! For safety, weapons will be restricted to wooden swords! May both combatants give their best!"
The knight who had been arbitrarily assigned as referee wore a troubled expression.
His only recourse was to confiscate their live steel and restrict their weapons—but even wooden swords could kill in the hands of a Force-wielding knight.
Yet Logan's stubbornness left no room for backtracking.
'Whatever happens, it's not my fault. Please, Sir Dominen, go easy on him.'
As the referee fidgeted nervously, Dominen—contrary to expectations—charged at Logan first.
"Haaah!"
A faint red haze rippled from Dominen's body as he lunged—proof that his Force was leaking out.
A sign of poor control, but to the untrained eye, it was an intimidating sight.
'I'll teach you some manners.'
Whoosh!
The wooden sword whistled through the air before splitting into three separate afterimages—each aimed at Logan's upper, middle, and lower body.
'I'll end this in one strike!'
Dominen couldn't forget the earlier humiliation.
His advancing age, the rising generation of knights beneath him.
Nearing his forties, he had already accepted his position at the bottom of the knightly order—53rd rank—and resolved to retire soon.
He had planned to coast through his remaining days as a knight, handling minor duties while enjoying his final years of service.
But the Grand Prince's words had ignited the last embers of his pride.
'I'm not washed up!'
Though Dominen lacked talent compared to his peers, years of experience had granted him his own signature technique.
Since he had already decided to retire, he would use it to crush the Grand Prince in one move—teaching the spoiled young master a lesson in humility.
Watching Logan stand frozen before his Triple Kill technique, Dominen was certain of his victory.
But—
Crack!
"Ghk!"
A sharp impact echoed through the training grounds, followed immediately by Dominen's shrill cry as excruciating pain shot through his wrist.
Thud.
Roll roll.
The wooden sword clattered to the ground as Dominen staggered back, clutching his wrist.
For a moment, the training grounds fell into stunned silence.
"What's the point of a feint if you can't even move your wrist? Don't tell me this is all a knight is capable of?"
Logan's mocking voice shattered the silence, laced with disdain.
As if waiting for his cue, gasps of disbelief erupted from all sides.
"Th-That's impossible!"
"The Grand Prince did that?"
"I didn't even see it!"
The servants and retainers murmured in shock, but—
"......A Force user?"
"The Grand Prince?"
"......Huh."
The most stunned of all were the knights.
For years, Logan MacLaine had been nothing more than a stain they wanted to avoid—a talentless troublemaker who caused nothing but headaches.
A reckless disgrace they wouldn't even approach.
And yet, that very same disgrace had just done the unthinkable.
While the normally disciplined knights whispered among themselves, more shocked than the servants—
"Referee, I'd like to give Dominen another chance. What do you say?"
Logan's voice cut through the murmurs, drawing all eyes back to him.
"......Y-Yes, of course. Dominen, are you... alright?"
The dazed referee looked at Dominen with wide eyes, but Dominen—his face now redder and more twisted with fury than before—nodded stiffly.