I Tried Walking a Different Path (2)
I Tried Walking a Different Path (2)
"I want to train!"
How would a knight react if a six-year-old suddenly showed up and said something like that?
Especially when that child was the illegitimate son of the ducal family he served.
The result was right in front of me. Knight Miguel's eyes darted around, his expression incredibly awkward.
His face practically screamed for someone to help him, but all the other knights looked away, avoiding both me and Knight Miguel.
Watching Miguel look so utterly bewildered, I chuckled inwardly. As expected, unlike the other knights, Miguel was naive.
"You are still so young, and I would need permission from the Commander or others..."
He mumbled hesitantly, but I was already prepared for this.
"I have already received permission from the Knight Commander."
At my words, Miguel's expression grew even more troubled.
He was a naive and kind knight, but he wasn't completely unaware of the situation around him.
Unlike in my previous life, I wasn't a son who carried the Duke's expectations, but merely an illegitimate child who had been completely cast aside.
If he took charge of my training, there was a high probability that his future as a knight would become somewhat bleak.
Yet he couldn't bring himself to ask the other knights, who were all pretending not to see.
"Sigh, if you have permission from the Commander, then I suppose there is no helping it."
In truth, the Knight Commander's permission was conditional: I could train only if the knight in charge agreed.
But there was no need to tell the person in question that part.
"You are far too young... But since you have an inherited ability, let's start with the basic training that squires receive."
I silently endured the training.
The grueling runs and sword swings made it feel as though my arms were about to fall off.
I had done it before, but it was still just as agonizing.
Still, because I knew I could overcome it, the pain was entirely bearable.
My skills grew by leaps and bounds.
The people who had ignored my training at first gradually began stealing glances at me.
But that was all.
Unlike in my previous life, when I showed growth far beyond that of an ordinary human, now I merely seemed like a diligent and highly talented knight cadet.
"Do you perhaps have any intention of becoming a knight? If you keep going like this, I think you will become a truly magnificent knight."
Miguel was delighted by my rapid growth, too.
But I wasn't showing him everything I was capable of.
The training outdoors wasn't even half of my daily routine.
I continued training even after returning to my room.
Since the room was spacious and I still remembered the indoor exercises I had learned in my past life, I could train hard enough to thoroughly abuse my muscles.
Huff. Huff.
After finishing my workout in the room, drenched in sweat, I said, "Now, shall we move on to the next step?"
I called out to Flora, who was dozing on a chair she'd brought over beside the door.
"Flora!"
"Yes?"
Startled by my sudden call, Flora jumped up. When she realized I was the one who had called her, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Have you finished your workout? Please don't overdo it. You are still so young."
Perhaps embarrassed that she had been dozing off, she put her hands on her hips and voiced her concern.
I simply stared blankly at the chair, and her face turned bright red as she gaped like a fish.
Enough playing around. I got straight to business.
"It seems like it'll be hard to sleep in this room. I think I'll have to sleep in the guest room today."
When I said that, Flora looked around the room.
The floor was damp with sweat in several places, and things were scattered everywhere from my training.
"Sigh, you've made quite a mess today. Understood."
Seeing that the room was far messier than usual, she left to prepare a place for me to sleep.
Fortunately, she didn't notice either how much messier the room was than before or that she'd been able to doze off despite the mess.
From that day on, I used training as an excuse to keep changing the room I slept in.
I kept moving between the guest rooms and empty rooms in the mansion, and Flora and the maids grew increasingly frustrated with my sudden behavior.
"Is your body not feeling well from all the training? If you're going to keep moving from room to room like that, you should just sleep in Mother's room with me."
During tea time, my mother voiced her concern, too, but I shook my head.
Sleep with my mother? There was absolutely no way I could do that.
As I kept changing my sleeping quarters, rumors began to spread throughout the mansion: the awakened illegitimate son was acting strangely every night.
That his mind had gone mad as an aftereffect of the awakening. That he had developed sleepwalking. There were even stories claiming it was because he had a habit of wetting the bed every night.
Moreover, when people heard that the maid who knew where he slept changed every single day, they all shook their heads.
And so, one night, after another month had passed, an uninvited guest arrived at one of the empty guest rooms in the mansion.
Outside, the sky was heavily overcast, hiding both the moon and the stars, and the room was pitch-black with the lamps extinguished.
The window opened with a soft creak.
And then, a man dressed in black and wearing a black mask slipped into the room.
Even though the room was dark, he seemed to see everything perfectly.
Scanning his surroundings, the masked man advanced toward the bed without making a single sound.
The bed was covered by a blanket that bulged in the middle.
He glared at the bulge, then suddenly whipped back the blanket.
Whip.
On the bed, beneath the blanket, lay a pillow and another rolled-up blanket.
He stared intently at the blanket, then smirked.
"Clever kid. Were you hiding there?"
He drew a sword from his waist and thrust it down beside the rolled-up blanket.
Thunk!
At that moment—
"Ugh!"
With a low groan, a small figure darted out from under the bed.
A young child. It was me, hiding beneath the bed.
A sharp pain shot through my leg.
Glancing down, I saw that my pajama pants were torn and blood was flowing from a puncture wound in my leg.
"You dodged that? Impressive."
Pulling the blood-stained sword from the bed, the masked man looked at me.
"I even held my breath... How did you know?"
"Do you really think holding your breath hides your presence?"
I could practically see his smirk through the mask. But his smile vanished instantly.
"Seeing your actions just now and how you endure pain, I shouldn't treat you like a mere child, despite your appearance."
'Actually, you are more than welcome to treat me like a child.'
I muttered inwardly, tightly gripping the sword hidden behind my back.
"More than that, there's something I'm curious about."
He spoke slowly, looking at me as blood dripped from my leg. His demeanor was completely relaxed.
"Changing your room every night, and even sleeping hidden under the bed... How did you know in advance that I was coming?"
Though I couldn't see his expression, he seemed incredibly curious.
This wasn't a situation where I could afford to act my age. The pain made it hard to care about such things anyway.
I had realized an assassin would come because the 'Automatic Save Point' message hadn't appeared.
Since I had been training at the training ground with the Order of Knights, there was no way I'd be attacked there like in my previous life.
And there was no way I'd be attacked inside the Duke's mansion during the day, so as long as I didn't go outside, the assassin had no choice but to come for me at night.
To avoid having the assassin come at night, I had diligently moved from room to room, just like I'd seen on TV in my past life, but the assassin had still found me in the end.
But there was no need to explain all that to the assassin.
"Then, if I ask whose orders you're under to kill me, will you answer?"
At my counter-question, the assassin's eyes curved.
"What an interesting child. If we had some time, it would have been nice to play together."
At that moment, my entire body stiffened as if I were bound tight. I couldn't move a single finger.
It was the exact same sensation I had felt when I died before.
Back then, I had been lucky enough to break free right before dying, but this time was different.
Enduring the pain, I began to awaken the power hidden deep within my body.
The power I had felt right before dying. A power called mana, which definitely wasn't part of my awakened ability.
During these past two months, I had done my absolute best to awaken this power called mana, just as I had worked to increase my physical strength.
Since I was still young, I couldn't achieve anything grand in such a short time, but I had managed to awaken the power to the level I wanted.
Crack.
First, enough to shatter the assassin's power that was binding my body.
"You shattered that?"
The moment the assassin's eyes widened, I swiftly moved the hand I had hidden behind my back.
Swish.
The assassin lunged forward like lightning, and I threw the sword in my hand—not straight ahead, but toward the window.
Crash!
With the sound of shattering glass, the sword shot out the window.
Whoosh!
The mana-infused sword sliced through the night sky with a sharp sound that didn't seem possible from something thrown by a mere child.
At the same time, the assassin's sword, having closed the distance in an instant, pierced my chest.
Clang!
Sparks flew from my chest, and I was blown backward.
"You blocked it?"
The assassin stared at his own sword, bewildered. The blade had shattered, leaving only half of it intact.
Cough.
Having crashed against the wall, I coughed up blood.
Damn it. I guess things don't work out like they do in the movies.
In movies, a tray hidden against your chest could block even an enemy's bullet.
Even though I wore protective gear beneath my pajamas and had even slipped a steel plate inside, I couldn't believe I'd suffered a wound this close to fatal.
Even considering that I was in a child's body, all my training until now felt utterly meaningless. What's worse, the assassin hadn't even used mana yet.
A faint light began to emanate from the assassin's half-broken sword.
It was mana. If a normal sword could do this to me, blocking that would be completely out of the question.
"Can't you just leave me be? I'm going to die anyway."
I muttered to him, coughing up blood.
"Are you really six years old?"
He looked at me, dumbfounded, but kept advancing.
"Confirming the kill."
Damn it, how diligent of you.
This was no joke. This was a wound that even a priest would find difficult to heal. Although I had prevented the sword from piercing all the way through me, the inside of my child's body was already a complete mess.
"But you'd better run away quickly..."
Thanks to the broken window and the sword I'd thrown, everything outside was in absolute chaos.
"An enemy!"
"Search the area immediately!"
Lights began turning on one by one in the mansion's rooms, and the guards and knights on duty came rushing over here.
"I have plenty of time to escape."
The assassin remained relaxed. But I could sneer right back at him.
"Will it really be that easy?"
Why had I insisted on the guest room?
It was precisely because it was close to the Duke's study. Since the Duke had been staying up all night in his study lately due to his increased workload, there was no way he wouldn't notice this commotion.
Boom!
The sound of a door shattering echoed from afar.
Crackle!
And then someone sprinted down the hallway. The sound reached the front of the door in an instant.
Bang!
And the door blew apart.
"Damn it!"
The assassin threw away his half-broken sword and hurled himself toward the window.
At that exact moment, the Duke stepped through the doorway.
He quickly scanned the room. His body flinched when he saw me leaning against the wall.
He took a step toward me, but stopped in his tracks when he saw my condition.
His young son sat slumped against the wall in a pool of blood. The boy's left chest was caved in, and a sword was embedded in his right chest.
His son stared at him blankly.
The Duke's face was no longer the expressionless mask I had always seen.
Regret, pity, sorrow, darkness, conflict.
A complex mix of emotions flickered across his face, but in the end, he turned his head away.
"An assassin! Alex has been hit!"
Bellowing at the top of his lungs, he gave me one last glance and leaped out the window.
As he disappeared through the window, I coughed up blood once more.
"Cough... Even though I'm just an illegitimate son, is he really leaving me behind just because I look beyond saving?"
Even if he looked remorseful at the end, it would be hard to forgive him in the future.
"Aaah! Young Lord!"
Immediately after, Flora came rushing in, wearing only her pajamas.
She screamed when she saw me.
"A priest! Madam! No, how could this..."
I called out to her as she panicked. This wasn't a wound a doctor or priest could heal. There was something I had to ask her before I ran out of breath.
"Who... who did you tell that I was sleeping here?"
Because I kept changing rooms, a night-duty maid had once again slept in the adjacent room, just as in my childhood.
I had told only the night-duty maid where I was sleeping, so she was the only one who could know where I was that night.
That way, if an assassin came, I would know who had leaked the information.
And yet, the person on duty tonight was Flora.
Could it really be her? No, there was no way.
When I died last time, I had clearly seen her stabbed by a sword with my own two eyes.
If Flora hadn't been stabbed to death in my previous life, I might have suspected her now.
At my question, she shook her head frantically.
"No, please. Don't speak. You can be saved."
I shouted at her as she babbled nonsensically.
"Tell me right now!"
With a pale face, she stammered out an answer.
"Ah, th-that... Elena asked me, so..."
Mid-sentence, her face turned completely white.
"No... No way, that's impossible."
Damn it, my sister?
I couldn't believe it either.
My vision gradually darkened.
Flora's screams grew fainter and fainter, and at the final moment...
Thud.
The masked man's severed head was tossed in front of me.
Behind the masked man's severed head, the Duke came into view.
Unfortunately, I couldn't tell what expression he wore.
My vision went completely black.
[You have died. Restarting from the Automatic Save Point.]
When I opened my eyes, the Duke's expressionless face was staring down at me.
It was my third Awakening Day.
I turned my head.
Various faces passed before my eyes, and then I saw my sister, Elena.
She told my sister?
I looked at the woman standing beside her.
The second Duchess.
Maria de Gracia was looking at me with a smile on her face.