I Tried Walking a Different Path (1)
I Tried Walking a Different Path (1)
"Stop!"
Miguel dashed across the training ground in an instant, lunging at the masked man.
Fortunately, the masked man seemed to target Miguel instead of me.
Miguel's hand moved swiftly. At the same time, the masked man spun around and swung his arm.
Clang!
The clash of swords rang out.
"Ugh."
Miguel groaned.
The masked man stood his ground, but Miguel, who had lunged forward, was suddenly pushed back.
Miguel held the longsword of the Duke's Knights Order. The masked man held a short dagger.
A longsword against a dagger. Miguel, charging forward, against the masked man, defending on the spot.
And yet, it was Miguel who groaned and was pushed back.
'Damn it, is even a knight useless?'
A mere assassin was far too strong.
"People will be rushing here any second."
"You're weak. There's plenty of time."
With those words, the masked man lunged at Miguel.
He moved too quickly for the armored Miguel to dodge.
Miguel swung his sword to block, but the masked man was nowhere to be seen where the blade swept through.
The masked man had appeared behind Miguel.
To my eyes, it looked as if he had teleported. Miguel seemed to think so, too. He lost track of the masked man for an instant, and then—
Slash.
Miguel's head soared into the air.
'My God!'
Miguel had been defeated so easily.
I was utterly dumbfounded by the absurd sight.
Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to be surprised.
This time, it was my turn.
"Ugh, ugh."
As I let out painful groans, the masked man approached me.
He stared intently at me, then swung his blade once more.
At the last moment, shouts rang out in the distance, but the footsteps came far too late.
Darkness fell.
[You have died. Restarting from the Automatic Save Point.]
My vision brightened once more.
I felt no pain.
I wasn't on the training ground anymore. I was inside the family sepulcher.
The Duke stood before me, looking startled.
'I've returned.'
To the very day of my awakening.
Perhaps because I could still feel the pain from just moments ago, my brow furrowed on its own.
The Duke looked at me with a puzzled expression, then opened his mouth.
"You have awakened."
Just as he had back then, the Duke immediately declared my awakening.
"Gasp."
"No way."
Groans from the crowd reached my ears—groans I hadn't heard before.
I looked around once more.
The people looked just as they had before.
Some were shocked, others angry, admiring, or envious.
But my mindset was different now.
'I stood out too much.'
Someone was trying to kill me, yet I had been so drunk on my ability that I'd stood out far too much. I had resolved to be careful after awakening.
I wanted to find the culprit right away, but my young age and lack of strength held me back.
For now, I had to keep my head down and hide even more.
"So, what ability did you inherit?"
I fell into thought at the Duke's question. I couldn't give the same answer as before.
I had to avoid attracting the Duke's scrutiny.
"It seems to be an ability that makes my body sturdier, but I'm not really sure."
The Duke's brow furrowed slightly.
He was clearly displeased with my clueless answer.
"Could it be a physical type? I think there was a similar ability among the powers of the Hero Carlos."
"Well, we'll find out once we test it."
Perhaps because I'd given a different answer, the Duke reacted differently this time.
The Awakening Ceremony ended with the others ridiculing me, and the next day I found myself on the training ground with Knight Miguel.
Knight Commander Alonso wasn't there, and this wasn't the Duke family's training ground in the forest behind the mansion.
Instead, Knight Miguel was to test me in a corner of the massive training ground used by the Knights Order.
The knights and their squires training on the field glanced at me.
"By order of the Knight Commander, I will be testing you, Young Lord. Please do your best."
Although Knight Commander Alonso didn't show up, the test was no different from before.
It consisted of running until I collapsed, followed by swinging a sword.
The people who had been stealing glances at my training gradually lost interest as time passed.
Perhaps it was a case of 'much ado about nothing.' The young lord, rumored to be brilliant, fell short of the hype.
He seemed to work hard for a child his age, but they had done at least that much when they were young.
I was covered in dust and drenched in sweat, gasping for breath.
'Whew, if I stop right before leveling up, it's about this much.'
It wasn't easy to keep my training precisely balanced so I wouldn't level up.
Fortunately, my young body tired easily. If I had been even a little sturdier or larger, I surely would have leveled up before I got exhausted.
"It doesn't seem to be an ability that clearly boosts endurance or growth rate. Though you seem quite outstanding for your age..."
Miguel also seemed a little disappointed. I had been worried, but it seemed everyone was oblivious.
"By the way, did you happen to learn swordsmanship elsewhere? The path of your sword is remarkably clean."
But my familiar sword skills had been exposed.
The month of training I'd undergone remained in my head, even after I returned.
But since this was a chance to evaluate the inherited ability I had received on Awakening Day, Knight Miguel didn't pry any further into my swordsmanship.
"You've worked hard. I will report to the Knight Commander, so please return and rest."
Having said that, Miguel turned around.
Since neither the Knight Commander nor the Duke was in sight, and Miguel also looked disappointed, it seemed I could escape the Duke's gaze this time.
If so, I might be able to escape the threat of assassination, even if only a little.
I stopped Flora from coming closer and swung the sword a few more times.
Striking down and swinging.
After swinging the sword about ten times with all my might, I felt power surge into my limbs.
My body seemed to be growing stronger and larger. It was indeed a level-up.
The power circulating through my body now was exactly the same power I'd felt just before dying to the masked man.
I drew that power out and channeled it into the sword.
Hum.
I could feel an invisible barrier enveloping the sword.
Swish.
As I drew a line on the ground, a deep crack carved through it, accompanied by a cloud of sandy dust.
The crack extended beyond the range of my sword swing. It was precisely what the barrier enveloping the blade had achieved.
"Is this mana...?"
I examined the wooden sword.
Was it really mana? My inherited ability was definitely one that didn't use mana...
Yet, as far as I knew, only mana could achieve such a feat.
Just what secret did my inherited ability hold?
The Duke's eyes from the previous loop flashed through my mind. It was the gaze of a beast of prey targeting its quarry.
Just as Knight Miguel's disappointed expression had suggested, I slipped from the Duke's attention.
Needless to say, neither the Knight Commander nor Knight Miguel came to find me, and there was no excessive training.
I had returned to the life of an ordinary six-year-old child.
Still, after being rumored to be a genius for so long, it felt a little strange to think of myself as an ordinary child.
I took lessons from scribes twice a week and spent the rest of my time reading books in the massive library. For the first time in a while, I was enjoying a peaceful life.
I kept as quiet as possible. I didn't receive any swordsmanship training after the test, nor did I practice the mana I had felt when I died.
Perhaps the memories of my training left me strangely restless, but I held back, moving only between the library and my room and attending the scribes' lessons.
As I bided my time in silence, the people who had been shocked by my awakening returned to their usual selves.
My eldest brother ignored me as before, and the second young master began to tease me.
And my sister, whom I ran into in the hallway...
"Are you okay? You're not sick anywhere, are you?"
She worried about me with an adorable expression.
The sight of a seven-year-old little lady tilting her head and worrying about me was something you'd only see in a TV commercial in my past life.
"Why? Did someone say I was sick?"
"Other people were talking about it like that."
"Elena!"
When she said that, the maid accompanying her hastily called her name.
"Ah, I made a mistake. I shouldn't talk about things like this, right? I'm going to get scolded."
Noble daughters had plenty of rules to follow, too. Unlike a bastard like me, though, she was never ignored.
"You're okay physically? Then is your heart hurting?"
She took a step closer and placed her hand on my head.
"If your heart is hurting, I'll heal it for you."
Before I could even tell her that wasn't the case, Elena's hand began to glow faintly.
She was activating her inherited ability.
"Get well quickly. Don't be sick. Let the scary ghosts go away, and let only beautiful thoughts fill you up!"
Along with words that sounded like something from an exorcism in my past life, a warm energy seeped into my mind.
Her inherited ability, which differed from the holy magic of priests, was 'Cure'.
It could heal those with emotional issues, broken mental states, or those brainwashed by enemies. It was a power inherited from her mother's family.
Although she didn't yet have the ability to resolve brainwashing, it was more than enough to ease the mind and warm the heart.
The reason my relationship with Elena wasn't bad, unlike with my other siblings, was partly her kind heart, but also the fact that her inherited ability wasn't considered especially significant.
"You're okay now, right?"
"...Yes."
It was hard to tell her that I had been perfectly fine even before she went to the trouble of using her ability.
"Mhm. Great. That's right—since I used my ability, you should show me yours too, Alex. Mother says she wants to see you as well, so come visit soon."
She spoke as though we should go together right away, but I couldn't do that now.
"I'm late. My teacher is waiting."
"Hing. Can't you skip today? Dance practice is so hard."
"No, you can't."
She was only seven, and already practicing dance. Was this preparation to raise the value of the Duke's daughter, who possessed the excellent ability of 'Cure'?
The thought crossed my mind briefly, but I had important business today, so I said my goodbyes and left.
Today was exactly one month since Awakening Day. It was the day I had died at the hands of the masked man in my previous life.
My time of death was drawing near.
I sat in my room, waiting for a message to appear before my eyes.
A notification stating that the crisis had passed and an [Automatic Save] had been made.
But even after the afternoon passed and the sun set, no such message appeared before my eyes.
I kept waiting, late into the night and even into the next day, yet the message was nowhere to be seen.
'In that case, the crisis hasn't passed, has it?'
As expected, unless the assassin became unable to kill me, the message wouldn't appear.
A sigh escaped my lips. I had kept my head as low as possible, but it hadn't been very effective.
As I sighed, a soft voice came from directly in front of me.
"Alex, what's wrong?"
When I snapped out of it, a beautiful noblewoman was looking at me.
Maria de Gracia. The Duke's second wife. Officially, she was my stepmother, though I would never have reason to call her Mother.
"Alex is really strange. Even now, he's sighing like an adult."
Elena, sitting next to Maria, took the opportunity to tease me.
If an older woman had done that, I might have been annoyed. But coming from a little girl whose feet didn't even reach the floor as she sat in the chair, it only made me smile.
"Look at that. Even his smile is weird."
Hmm. My acting smile was a failure.
The Duchess only chuckled softly as she watched her daughter speak poutily and me look flustered.
I was meeting with the Duke's second wife to keep the promise Elena had unilaterally made yesterday.
The venue was the Duchess's private parlor. It was modest yet beautiful, perfectly suited to her atmosphere.
Maria occasionally invited me through Elena, just as she had now.
It was an ordinary tea party where we chatted over snacks, but thanks to her and my young sister's affectionate behavior, the atmosphere wasn't bad.
Well, from the Duchess's perspective, she probably just wanted to see the children's cute antics. But compared to the first Duchess, who wouldn't even spare me a glance, she was practically an angel.
Hmm. Come to think of it, was this also thanks to an inherited ability? But Elena's ability should be an active-type power that has to be triggered directly.
Well, whether it was due to an inherited ability or just her personality, there was nothing bad about it.
With my mind cluttered because the crisis hadn't disappeared, indulging in such a cozy atmosphere wasn't a bad idea.
'By the way, what are the Duchesses' abilities?'
Both my sister and my little brat of a brother had inherited the abilities of their respective mothers' families. Yet, nothing was particularly known about the Duchesses' abilities.
I needed to look into it. In the end, since I had failed to avoid the crisis, I now had to identify who was trying to kill me.
That evening, I picked up the sword once more.