How Rian Limeberg Became a Top-Tier Knight Master
How did Rian Limeberg become a top-tier Knight Master, you ask?
Simple. I got lucky. Met the right people, too.
After getting run over by a truck in the real world and waking up as a miner's son in the Marcel Barony, I found myself reminiscing about that very first day.
Come to think of it, "miner's son" is a pretty fresh setup. Usually it's a serf or a noble's kid, isn't it?
One day, not long after I'd been dropped into this world as some otherworldly brat, I was bringing my father his lunch at the mine when a pile of collapsed rock came down on top of me. I was dug out barely conscious — half-dead, honestly. And that's when, just like the classic fantasy novel cliché, fate brought me face to face with one of the knights who'd joined the rescue effort.
"How about becoming my disciple, boy?"
"Me? Why?"
"I like your eyes. That's all."
"I shall call you Master from this day forward!"
My master was a knight of the most utterly common rank in the Marcel Barony — but when it came to teaching, he was the best in the Empire. Under that fine man, I served as his training disciple for a full five years.
Turns out when you transmigrate, you don't get a status window or any special powers like a proper protagonist. But all the mountains of knowledge I'd soaked up from binge-reading web novels? That's what made me a genius.
People used to call me a prodigy — the kind who takes one lesson and improves it into two. Take this exchange, for instance:
"Master! Practicing my aura circulation in this posture seems way more effective!"
"What in the world is that bizarre position?"
"It's called the lotus position! It's the mandatory meditation stance in every martial arts novel ever written!"
"Oho! It was uncomfortable at first, but the more I do it, the better it feels!"
Where the traditional method had you gripping a sword with both hands to feel your aura, I switched to sitting cross-legged instead. And then there was this:
"Master! Isn't footwork the most important thing in combat?"
"Why do you think so?"
"No matter how hard you swing, one good step like this lets you evade and counter in a single motion. Combine that with aura manipulation like so, and boom — the Rian-style technique is complete, right?"
"Madness! You've invented a way to channel aura through your footwork instead of your weapon! What a brilliant idea! How did you even conceive of this?"
When I created my own original technique and movement art, I'll never forget the look on my master's face. He stared at me like he was seeing some kind of monster.
"Master, I won."
"Ghh — how did you know where my attack was coming from?"
"It was easy, actually. I just calculated your attack trajectories in advance and the openings sort of presented themselves."
"Bwahaha! You're the finest disciple I've ever had! The treasure of Marcel!"
Every time I applied something I'd learned from web novels, my master would faint dead away in astonishment. His reactions were always top-tier. A true teacher, in every sense of the word.
I miss him. I should pay him a visit one of these days.
I didn't become a muchkin in a year or two like in the web novels, but I kept training, and eventually I climbed all the way to the top-tier realm. Experience really does beat everything.
Every year or two, my experience and skill kept stacking up, and I grew stronger without even trying. And now, thirty years later?
I am insanely strong. Like, unofficially the strongest on the Eastern Continent.
"Um, Sir Rian?"
"What?"
"We're technically on duty, so could you at least fix your posture..."
Right now I was guarding Lady Lisanne alongside this lump of fresh-meat rookie. My posture? Sprawled comfortably on the sofa, of course — legs stretched way out and fidgeting around, because that's the point. You expect me to stand at attention for a job at my level?
Besides, Lisanne and I are childhood friends!
"Lady Lisanne has also complained about it, sir. She says you're interfering with her work."
"It's fine. She doesn't mean it."
"Still, I suppose it is a bit of a nuisance..."
"Ughhh, so boring. Time moves so damn slow here. I'm dying of boredom~ bored, I say~! If an assassin would just pop up out of nowhere, that'd be primo entertainment."
"Sir Rian, words can become seeds of fate. You really shouldn't say things like..."
"Scared? What's there to be scared of? Anyone who shows up gets hacked in half anyway."
"......"
Twenty years had already passed since I became a guard knight working at Lisanne's side. The job was mind-numbingly dull, but it was also a far sweeter gig than I'd expected.
Catra County's signature product really is those crisp, crunchy apples. Might as well send Master about ten boxes while I'm at it.
Picture it: me, lounging on a sofa, munching on a red apple. Six-hour workdays. Zero hard labor. All I have to do is trail after a lady like a lovesick puppy. Stuff my face till it bursts at tea parties and banquets with nobody saying a word. No overtime, no late nights, no annoying bosses. And the pay is ridiculous.
Where else in the world would you find a gig this golden? Aside from the boredom, it was the ultimate work-life-balance job.
"Sir Rian, honestly, I don't think guard duty suits me. Spending time so pointlessly like this... I'd rather swing my sword a thousand times in the training yard..."
Good grief. A fool wasting his work-life balance on all the wrong things. Time for a firm correction.
I turned to the rookie knight standing at attention like a stone guardian statue and gave him my wisdom.
"Hey, Carlson. Training only works if it's efficient. You can swing a sword at empty air a hundred days and a hundred nights — you'll never reach my level that way."
My behavior was that of a certified half-slacker, but when the strongest man in the territory — skill-wise, anyway — doles out advice, the rookie's eyes went wide and sparkly.
Heh. Guess I'd better teach him, then.
Open those ears wide and listen up, kid! This is a golden tip you couldn't learn anywhere else.
"Don't waste your body grinding away at pointless drills. Work your head first. Figure out how you can grow with maximum efficiency for minimum effort. There's a saying: if the body is weak, the head suffers, and if the head is weak, the body suffers. A fight is won in the mind before anything else. Got it, Carlson?"
The blonde knight scratched his head as he absorbed the advice, then replied, "Thank you, Sir Rian. But my name is Carlton. Lewis Carlton."
"Right, right. Of course, Sir Race Calton."
"It's Lewis Carlton, sir!"
"Yes, yes, I've memorized it perfectly. Sir Lewis Colton."
"......"
A man who mentors his junior knights — don't I look just magnificent? A reward, please, for the man who fed life-giving advice to a promising young successor~
Ooh, this apple's crisp too. Delicious.
"Rian! You!"
Lisanne, who'd been diligently stamping documents at her desk this whole time, shot to her feet and pointed at me.
"Learn people's names properly! You've been working with Sir Carlson for over three months and you still... oh! Sir Colton. I'm so sorry. Being around this idiot has me confused too."
"It's Carlton... Lewis Carlton, my lady..."
Haah, his name really is tricky. Maybe I should just stick to nicknames like I always do.
"How about Gold-ppi, like before? I'm confident this one's absolutely unmissable."
"Please just mispronounce his actual name. That nickname is never happening."
"Tch."
Golden Peep. Honestly, I think it's great...
But every time the kid hears it, he shudders violently all over. Does he hate it that much?
"We're just about finished here."
Lisanne stretched and settled back into her seat. She often helped manage the territory's affairs in place of the aging Count Catra. That was supposed to be the heir's job, but the Catra heirs were all far too young — so she had no choice but to pitch in.
"You wrapped up early today?"
"Who do you think I am? Top graduate of the Academy."
"Uh, right. The Academy... from fifteen years ago, you mean?"
"HRRK! You wanna die?!"
Lisanne was a remarkably capable talent — fitting for a character who played the villainess in the original story. Even the notoriously strict Count Catra never had a single complaint or correction about her work.
"Hey, I'm curious about something."
"What? Ask away."
Lisanne fixed her gaze on me.
Tch, what's she curious about now? Don't tell me it's the color of my underwear? She'd have seen it this morning, though?
"Do you like whores?"
"Pfft — cough, cough! I nearly swallowed an apple because of you!"
I mean, who just blurts out do you like whores to a man out of nowhere? There were curveballs, and then there was this. Was she actually insane?
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You. You treat Lady Katrin incredibly well. You moved her to a new house. Changed her maids. Assigned promising knights as her guards. You even took her daughter on as your disciple."
"Uh. Guilty as charged."
"The Rian I know hates hassle above all else. So why are you being so generous? Don't tell me you've actually fallen for that woman?"
"Hmm... no comment."
"What does 'no comment' even MEAN?!"
With Lisanne hopping mad in front of me, I paused to think.
Now that she mentions it... from an outsider's perspective, I can see how it'd look like that.
The troublemaking mother and daughter of the family, and me — a complete stranger — fussing over them. It would look exactly like that, wouldn't it?
Maybe I needed to adjust my stance a little...
"You've changed, you know."
I tilted my head at Lisanne's words. Changed? What exactly have I changed?
"Did you forget what you said back then? If you want to take Lisanne, you'll have to kill me first. You declared it in front of all the Catra knights."
"Uuugh, that black history..."
The incident that made me burn permanently into Count Catra's memory. The reckless days of my youth, when I threw tantrums, raised hell, and acted like a complete lunatic to block Lisanne's forced marriage into Catra. Thinking back on it now, the sheer audacity. A greenhorn who'd only just reached the entry level of Master, picking fights with veteran knights who could fly circles around me.
Aaaagh, I want to burrow into the ground. Too mortifying to show my face to the world.
"You were seriously cool back then. Now you're just a full-blown old man."
"I am an old man. How old do you think I am? Also, you're an auntie yourself, ma'am."
"Out! You're fired! Get out!"
"I'm sorry! Forgive me!"
Our Golden Peep watched me and Lisanne scuffle with a strange look in his eyes. He probably hadn't adjusted to Lady Lisanne's true nature yet. She lays the ladylike act on thick around anyone she's not close to.
Anyway, I supposed I'd better soothe the sulking Lisanne. Once she's in a mood, she mopes around like a wounded puppy.
"Lisanne, I'm still the same. If you ever make up your mind, I'll take you to the capital any time you—"
"Hey! No matter how well I do, I'll never rise above a count, maybe a margrave at best. And I don't want some title-only noble with no land to my name."
"......"
Right. I still love Lisanne, even now...
I'd always been ready to take her hand and walk out of Catra whenever she wished. But her reality and mine were different. Different values, you could say.
"I'm going to make my daughter the heir to Catra County. And I'll take Marcel too. Wait for me until then — just that long."
"...Good grief. That's another five years, at least."
"It's land worth the wait."
Lisanne, with whom I'd built my history, never became the villainess of the original story — but she was still as greedy and ambitious as ever.
For someone with neither greed nor ambition like me, it was a bit incomprehensible. Which was probably why I'd gone on living here at her side as a nameless knight.
Either way, that tottering woman was mine to protect.
"Sir Rian, it's time for the shift change."
Two knights stepped into the office. Finally, shift change? I've been waiting for this moment!
"There you are, MaxFox."
"Senior, it's Marcel de Charingham Peroni."
"Yep, MaxFox-MaxFox MaxFox."
I honestly wonder how someone like that became the treasure of Marcel — why Master praised him until his mouth wore out is a genuine mystery.
That brown-haired knightess was a fellow native of the Marcel Barony, my junior under the same master, and a relative of Lisanne's. She'd come over to Catra County three years ago, and now she served as Lisanne's left hand.
The royal-guard-captain position, so to speak. And the right hand? Obviously, that's me. My position, for the record, is strategic weapon.
Anyway, her nickname is MaxFox — as in, "maximum fox."
Doesn't it fit her perfectly? Truly a nickname that rolls right off the tongue.
"Tsk tsk, MaxFox. Is that any way to speak to a senior brother like the sky itself?"
At my rebuke of her insolent junior behavior, the cheeky brat just shook her head and opened her mouth.
"Sigh. Sir Rian, the Knight Commander of Catra requests a private meeting. Please stop by the knight order's headquarters on your way home... Now go, please. You're in the way."
"Whoa, hey, at least let me say goodbye to the lady!"
"Don't posture. You'll see her again tonight anyway. Out. Now."
Thanks to my junior shoving me out the office door, I didn't even get a proper farewell from Lisanne.
But why was Colton standing there with his eyes all sparkly?
"To reach the rank of Knight Master at such a young age... She may be from another territory, but Lady Peroni seems like a truly remarkable knight."
HEY! Why the double standard?! Why the double standard!
And I'm the better knight, yet the kid rates that whippersnapper higher than me?!
"You're plenty impressive too, Sir Rian. Except for the laziness. Oh! And please, please fix the name thing. Do it outside the walls and you'll get cut down."
"Salgal! I win at everything."
"Heh heh heh. I'm sure you do, sir. Then I'll see you tomorrow. Get home safe!"
I sighed as I watched Carlton flee like a man escaping a fire — because my workload had just grown. The Knight Commander's summons. I could guess the reason well enough. Probably because of Katrin.
You see, when I take on disciples, I take them in batches. Why? Because teaching several students at once is efficient, obviously. I'm a terminal efficiency junkie.
So the Commander calling for me must mean he wants to attach promising young knights of the order to me as students.
However it may look, I am the strongest knight in the East. Unofficial, of course — but insanely strong.
"Whew. Better hurry before the old geezer starts nagging."
I set off at a leisurely pace toward the west, where the Catra Knight Order made its home.
So it's disciple-raising for the first time in five years. Things are about to get busy.
After Katrin, how many new disciples would I end up with? I hoped they'd at least be talented ones. No — talent's overrated. What I really want is grit. Actually... you know what? Hard workers who cut corners smartly would be even better.