chapter 1
Chapter 1: After training at The Free Ropan, We Decended The Mountain
"Descend the mountain."
A gentle yet crystalline voice rang out.
The greatest swordsman on the continent.
The silver-haired elf before my eyes—her hair scattering like crystal—had always stood in that very place. A pair of swords she had never once been seen drawing hanging at her waist.
At the mountain's peak, she simply existed with lofty grace, her snow-white silver hair billowing in the wind.
"This concludes your training."
"……Pardon?"
A dumbfounded sound slipped from my mouth.
The silver-haired elf glanced down at me briefly.
"Are you deaf? I said it is finished."
I was momentarily at a loss for words. Finished? That couldn't be right. Just yesterday alone, I had nearly been killed countless times at the hands of that lunat—no, my esteemed Master.
"Master, am I not still lacking? Just yesterday alone—"
"You were a greenhorn when you arrived, and ten years have already passed."
"A mere ten years."
"It is time enough for mountains and rivers to change."
In response to my answer, Master snapped her fingers. Then, a distant snow-capped mountain peak suddenly let out a tremendous crash and began to crumble.
"……That doesn't seem like a matter of time."
"Then what manner of matter is it?"
"Ah, well."
Master countered. I was about to reply but quickly sealed my lips shut.
"But of course! After about ten years, it's about time my lower back started giving out anyway! As expected of you, Master!"
"Hearing you say it that way, I find myself starting to worry about your lower back as well."
"Ah, there is no need to concern yourself with my lower back."
‘This absolute psychopathic lunatic.’
Keeping words I could never speak aloud locked within my chest—
"Is this truly alright?"
Even so, I could not fully conceal my doubt and asked hesitatingly.
"The reason I sought you out was—"
"Yes, yes, to become stronger."
As though her ears had grown calluses from hearing it so many times, Master waved her hand dismissively.
"Indeed, the you of that time was a feeble greenhorn."
She then answered with composure.
"As were all those who boldly sought me out."
"……"
"And yet you alone were different."
‘Different.’
At those words, my heart began to beat fiercely for the first time.
"Right now, you would rank within the top ten of the continent, at the very least."
"!"
As I stared wide-eyed in bewilderment, Master added—
"Probably."
"……Probably?"
"I have not fought with the old ones at the top in so long that I cannot say for certain. At minimum, from fourth place upward. It has been so long since I shut myself away up here. And there is no guarantee that a new rookie has not emerged in the meantime."
The swordsman who never draws her blade.
One of the continent's top ten in strength. Among those very ten, the monster known as the "Second" spoke.
"……But if they remain as I remember them, the current you could challenge even third place."
‘What on earth? ‘
I could not say anything for a long while.
Among the ten strongest on this earth, I could contend even with third place.
In other words, setting aside the woman before me and the single one above her, there was no one left on this earth who could match me.
Master had already lost interest and was gazing up at the sky.
"I speak this in the name of Heavenly Sword. Hear me, foolish disciple."
The eyebrow of the elf, who had tilted her face up toward the sky, was raised ever so slightly, as if in amusement. A brief silence settled once more.
"You have grown strong."
"!"
"These words come from none other than me."
—The greatest swordsman in this world, who has never once drawn her blade.
"So descend the mountain."
She added once more, as if driving in a nail.
"There is nothing more for you to learn here, from me."
I closed my mouth. She rarely uttered such words. I could not pretend to be ignorant of the meaning those rare moments carried.
Truly……it was finished.
"I understand."
I bowed my head. And while keeping it bowed, I hesitated briefly before speaking.
"All this time……I am truly grateful for everything, Master."
Words of gratitude offered from the heart. The elf tilted her head slightly for a moment.
"Grateful?"
"Yes."
"Grateful for what?"
"Pardon? Well. You worked so hard looking after me in all sorts of ways."
"I did?"
That inhuman, sage-like response left me briefly speechless.
"Ha—for a foolish disciple, you say rather admirable things."
While I was thinking of what to add, the elf pondered briefly and murmured.
"I found our training together enjoyable. Quite so."
"What……?"
"It is the first time a human has endured this far. The first to grow this strong, the first to have 'advanced' this far."
She paused for a moment. Then, over that perpetually frozen expression, she let slip a faintly thawing emotion.
"It was truly a pleasure."
It was an unguarded smile.
Before that smile, I swallowed back a hollow laugh. Suppressing the words did you eat something wrong as they surged up my throat.
"Is that so?"
"It is."
Master had already returned to her mask of cold indifference as though nothing had happened, and waved her hand.
"Go."
I bowed my head. And turned away.
"Someday again—"
In the very instant I turned and glanced back, Master's figure was no longer there.
As though nothing had ever existed in that spot from the beginning.
"……"
Whoooosh.
A biting gale, cold enough to freeze solid, swept in from all directions. I quietly cast my gaze downward.
The sheer cliff leading down the mountain came into view.
I recalled the time I had first climbed up this mountain range.
It had been nothing short of hell. Blizzards, rockfalls, storms, monsters, and even a relentless barrage of energy-driven gales. It was not something an ordinary human could endure.
The me of ten years ago had been no different.
Ernst Büschel. The eldest son of Büschel County.
Having been reincarnated into this wretched romance fantasy web novel—and having realized I was an extra destined for a ruinous death.
To avoid every last one of those death flags, there had been only one answer that 'Ernst Büschel' could arrive at.
‘I have to become strong. Overwhelmingly so.’
Simply keeping my head down and living quietly would not be enough.
Absolute power that would let me protect my own life no matter what insane developments came my way.
The body I had been reincarnated into was, honestly speaking, not a completely talentless wreck.
One could even say it had rather exceptional potential. It was capable of lightly thrashing a few of the Family's knights.
And that was exactly the problem.
Mediocre talent, at times, is worse than having none at all.
The original Ernst had been intoxicated by precisely that worst kind of mediocre talent.
A frog in a well, acting as though he were the greatest genius on the continent, and in the end—a third-rate extra whose head was lopped off in one stroke as a piece of cathartic satisfaction for readers.
Destined to make a move on the main heroine and catch the eye of the prince, only to be instantly killed by the overwhelming gap in their abilities.
That had been my predetermined end.
To escape that meaningless death, I had no leisure to dabble in the Family's swordsmanship.
And so I wrung out every bit of original knowledge I had in my head.
‘The Academy? A prestigious knight order?’
I threw all of it out. The likelihood of me reaching parity with those monsters through such half-hearted training was zero percent.
The world is unjust, and the world inside a novel is several times more unjust.
There was only one answer.
……The shortcut that led directly to the recluse who, by the setting of this world, stood at its very pinnacle and possessed absolute power. And yet, as an existence, was treated as nothing more than a plot device—a thoroughly outside party.
Fortunately, knowing the original work as I did, there was no better option than this.
The swordsman who had never once drawn her blade and yet reigned at the peak—the continent's greatest elven swordswoman.
Heavenly Sword, Sillia.
And so—I had spent ten years under her. Under that psychotic elf.
She had indeed never once drawn her blade, and what I had learned was not swordsmanship either.
The greatest swordsman in the world no longer uses a sword.
It had taken ten years to understand that secret.
And so, ten years later, I had, without realizing it, turned my back on that mountain and was descending.
‘So I descend.’
Ten years. Even for the black sheep eldest son of a county family, disappearing without a word for that long was absolutely no ordinary matter.
How was I supposed to explain myself when I returned? Thinking about it, the weight of the past I had forgotten came pressing down on my shoulders like a load of luggage.
‘Well, what choice do I have?’
I had no choice but to take a step off the edge of the cliff.
Crunch.
Despite stepping lightly, the solid bedrock crumbled and left a deep footprint.
The energy-laden gale that had torn at my limbs ten years ago now felt like a refreshing breeze.
‘Ahh, feels great.’
The vicious magical beasts partway up the mountain, which had charged at me when I was climbing, now ran away frothing at the mouth the moment they heard my footsteps.
"At this level……wouldn't this be a pretty splendid result for an extra?"
Master's talk of third place on the continent was probably a little exaggerated to tease me. Regardless, the death flag from the original work was something I could easily shatter.
With a considerably lighter heart, I bounded and leaped my way down the mountain.
Thwap!
Leaping through the air and plunging straight down, the climb that had taken half a year ten years ago was over in half a day.
The sensation of earth beneath my feet was different. Not the rough, hard bedrock of the cursed mountain range, but soft soil well-tended by human hands.
At last, I had returned to the mortal world.
To that very world where civilization and intellect flourish!
"Haa."
Instead of the stench of blood from magical beasts and thick energy, a faint but distinctly human smell drifted past my nose.
‘Now that I'm going back, what excuse do I give?’
Ten years already. Even if I had been the disgraceful eldest son cast out by the Family, vanishing without a single letter would have caused an uproar.
My father might have clutched the back of his neck and collapsed, and my half-sibling who used to look at me like an insect might have quietly rejoiced and taken the heir's seat.
‘Well, it doesn't matter.’
I had no desire now for something like the heir's seat of a county family. All I needed was one safe corner of a room to hide in, away from the mad developments of the original work.
Take a few beatings, endure some mistreatment, and live quietly. I now had the strength to do that.
I set off with light steps toward Büschel County.
The territory in my memory was not lavish, but it had been a fairly lively place.
On either side of the wide approach road leading to the lord's castle, tall rows of trees had lined the path……
"……Huh?"
I stopped walking.
I rubbed my eyes and looked ahead again, but the scenery had not changed. Yet it was different.
The lush avenue of trees from my memory was nowhere to be found. In their place, only blackened stumps stood grotesquely in a row.
On the road itself, instead of wheel tracks, deep trench-like grooves twisted and crossed, as though something enormous had swept through.
A foreboding feeling crept up my spine.
I put force into my legs and kicked off the ground.
Bang!
The ground exploded as both legs shot forward like an arrow. In an instant, I covered several kilometers and arrived at the lord's castle entrance.
At the castle of the old Büschel County—my very hometown.
I came to a dead stop.
"What……is this……?"
A hollow murmur escaped my lips.
The lord's castle of Büschel County.
The home where I was born and raised, returned to after ten years.
‘Where did my house go?’
It had been reduced, quite literally, to an enormous pile of ash with not even its shape recognizable.
Collapsed castle walls, the charred remains of blackened spires, the acrid smell of smoke stinging my nose.
As though a great dragon had unleashed its breath, the entire lord's castle had crumbled into heaps of charcoal.
A low wind blew, and black ash dust brushed past my face.
A peaceful, safe corner room?
To hell with that. My only sanctuary, my future hiding place, had been the first thing in the world to be completely destroyed.
"……Excuse me."
It was then.
Breaking the ashen silence, a cautious voice came from behind me.
I reflexively turned my head.
In one corner of the collapsed castle wall's ruins. Where a guard post must once have been, a crude wooden shack of unknown age had been built.
Someone was peering through the gap in that worn shack's door.
A slender-framed woman wearing a faded robe pulled low over her head.
"Wh-why have you come……to this ruin……?"
Her voice was trembling faintly. In her hand, a rusty short dagger was gripped tightly, likely for self-defense.
I tried my best not to appear threatening as I studied her carefully.
Though dirty with ash, the soft golden hair spilling from beneath the robe and her oddly drooping eyes—
Even if ten years had passed and she had shed her childlike features and grown considerably, she overlapped with the face remaining in my memory.
Definitely not the face of my half-sibling who used to look at me like an insect.
Then, of all the golden-haired ones remaining in this ruined Büschel Family, there was only one.
"……Chloe Büschel?"
At the name I inadvertently spoke, the woman's shoulders gave a violent flinch.
The eyes revealed beneath the robe went wide in disbelief. The short dagger she was clutching trembled faintly.
"M-my name……how do you……?"
She flinched and stepped back in alarm.
The 'brother' in her memory would have been a shallow, ill-tempered blond delinquent.
I scratched the back of my head.
How was I supposed to explain this?
‘I'm your older brother, but I ended up like this because I went a little too hard with my training in the mountains—would she even believe that?’
"……It's me. Ernst."
I had tried to say it as gently as possible, with a trace of my old tone.
But unfortunately, what came out of my mouth was a heavy metallic rumble, like a starving beast growling.
At that fearsome voice, my little sister's complexion turned white as a blank sheet.
Yet even amid that fear and bewilderment, she did not forget the 4 syllables I had enunciated clearly.
"O-older……brother……?"