Chapter 14
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Even Rolling on the Dirt Floor, the Boy Smiled (2)
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“That brat Blanc really became Sir Edwin’s disciple?”
“Y-Yes, that’s right. They even set up a separate training ground for Baron Blanc in one corner of the garden...”
“Baron? What baron! It’s just an empty title! He’s nothing but a freeloader mooching off the Tolome family now!”
Yonas, making no effort to hide his fury, hurled the cup he was holding at the wall.
Trembling maids stood beside the shattered cup as it broke with a loud crash.
“I couldn’t last half a year under that brutal training myself! You think that annoying little punk can endure it?”
The attendant bowed as low as possible, trying to calm Yonas, who was grinding his teeth and glaring fiercely.
“Y-Yes, exactly. There’s no way that kid could possibly hold out.”
“You think so too, right!?”
No one in the room could stop Yonas, blinded by jealousy.
All they could do was endure and hope his mood would settle.
Just like that, Yonas, unable to contain his rage, suddenly lifted his head as if struck by a brilliant idea.
“Right! No one can endure that training anyway. As his older brother, I should stop his pointless struggling before it even starts!”
Yonas rationalized his absurd excuse.
“You there! Go to the Alchemist Guild and get some poison! You’ve done this before, so no mistakes, got it?”
The attendant Yonas pointed to bowed even lower, practically pressing his head to the floor.
“Y-Yes, understood, Master Yonas!”
Back when Yonas was Sir Edwin’s squire, two others had lasted longer than him.
But those two hadn’t quit because Edwin’s training was too harsh. They had the strength to continue.
“It’s a disgrace to the family if someone outperforms me, the heir to the Tolome line! This is for the Tolome family!”
The two squires who had returned home were said to tremble even now at the mere mention of Tolome.
Blanc’s daily routine was simple.
He ate breakfast at dawn, paid his respects to Count Bartolomeo, then headed to the training ground.
Mornings were spent meditating to cultivate his aura, wrapping his body in White Lightning, followed by swordsmanship lessons with Sir Edwin after lunch.
“Plant your toes firmer! Dragging your feet like that makes it hard to change direction!!”
“Either use formal speech or informal—pick one and stick to it! Sir Edwin!”
“That’s up to me, you whelp!”
Ever since deciding to teach Blanc his swordsmanship, Edwin had gone all out.
“Why won’t you teach me the techniques I asked for and just keep drilling footwork!?”
But far from actual swordplay, Edwin endlessly hammered lower body conditioning and bizarre footwork.
Finally losing patience, Blanc asked if he could learn sword techniques instead—only to catch a straight punch to the head.
Edwin didn’t care whether Blanc held a baron’s title or not. He had every right not to.
‘He’s not going to teach me the good stuff easily, huh.’
But if Yonas were here, he’d burn with even greater inferiority over Edwin prioritizing footwork.
The Knight of Swiftness, Edwin, drew his power not from the sword tip, but from his toes.
“It’s to control space. Every battle starts with measuring distance and seizing your opponent’s footing!”
Even as he explained, Edwin roughly corrected Blanc’s poor stance with a knee strike.
“Ugh!”
About now, he’d vomit once.
And while Edwin stepped away for work...
“Urghhh.”
“Told you so, didn’t I? If you’d just bailed with me, it wouldn’t have come to this.”
Izrelin twirled her pretty new parasol boastfully in front of Blanc, who grimaced through a horse stance.
She probably just wanted to show off her purchase, but Blanc had already seen through her.
Edwin had initially disliked Izrelin interrupting Blanc’s training, but now he allowed her to watch from the side.
He judged her teasing would strengthen Blanc’s focus and mental fortitude.
“Got nothing to say to me?”
“Breakfast was good.”
“Besides that.”
“Dinner’ll be good too.”
Izrelin tormented Blanc in a different way from Edwin, but to Blanc—who’d rolled through thirty rough years—it was child’s play.
When Blanc refused the response she wanted, she spun the parasol right in front of his face.
“Hey!”
Blanc squeezed his eyes shut and held the horse stance.
“Waaahhh...”
About now, Izrelin would storm off crying.
Blanc held the horse stance until Emilia arrived with Rakshar, bearing a late lunch-slash-snack, then wolfed it down.
Emilia carried the maximum she could manage from afar, for the growing Blanc and the reclusive Rakshar.
Even accounting for Blanc’s exhaustion and vomiting, she made the trip twice daily with heavy loads—a true act of devotion.
Lately, things were easier with Billy, the butler apprentice, helping carry food.
“Billy, you looked into the Steel Bank?”
“Yes, my lord. But the founder’s identity isn’t in the records, so...”
“Fine. Leave what you found on my desk.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Billy was Tolome family staff, but Blanc now commanded him without hesitation.
Billy seemed fine starting fresh under the new Cardmus heir, serving Blanc with full effort.
“Training resumes once you’re done eating!”
As Bartolomeo’s bodyguard knight, Edwin had prior duties that pulled him away midway, but those absences grew shorter by the day.
Partly Bartolomeo’s consideration, but mostly Edwin’s growing focus on teaching Blanc.
Under Edwin’s guidance, Blanc rolled on the dirt again, a mix of joy and sorrow at the fact.
‘I’m really gonna die.’
Even for Blanc, who’d returned with grim resolve after thirty years, the grueling training was hard to bear.
A normal fourteen-year-old Blanc—unregressed—would’ve fled long ago.
‘But this is all I can trust!’
With Ulrich missing, everything was uncertain. Only he could be relied on.
These were precious lessons he couldn’t learn in his past life. Blanc’s talent, acknowledged even by the supreme swordsman Gornas Valtazar, had been squandered by lost time.
Compared to that past despair, this bodily pain was almost sweet.
“Smiling? You find my training funny, Baron? Amusing, is it?”
Edwin bristled at Blanc smiling amid training that demanded total focus—but was stunned by the reply.
“Yes, Sir Edwin. It’s so funny, I can’t help it. Why’s the training so soft?”
Blanc barely stood, clutching trembling legs, but his eyes burned fiercely, staring Edwin down.
“Guess I need to make Izrelin cry more tomorrow. She keeps begging you to ramp up my training, right? To torment this Blanc more.”
It was news to Edwin, but he couldn’t deny it.
He tailored training to Blanc’s fragile fourteen-year-old body—for maximum efficiency without injury.
Efficiency here meant maximum torment.
Blanc was already enduring his body’s absolute limit.
Other boys would flee in tears; Blanc laughed through it.
And even taunted for more.
Edwin was dumbfounded.
‘Never seen a freak like this...’
Even after fifty-six years, Edwin had never met his type.
Blanc dragged his weary body home as the sun dipped red.
That was his routine, faithful to his current life. Evenings were for regressor Blanc’s activities.
After dinner post-training, he pored over Billy’s Steel Bank documents.
If leaving Tolome, his first stop would be the Tower of Mirage in the Red Desert.
Meeting Ulrich was best. He’d planned to seek him there—until finding Ulrich’s message at Wilhelm I’s statue.
‘So where’s Ulrich from this era?’
If the Ulrich he knew had gone to the past 190 years ago, what of this timeline’s Ulrich?
Past-life Ulrich had guarded the Tower as Illusion School head in Goddess Calendar year 354.
But...
‘He’s gone...’
The current Illusion School head was another mage. No famous mage named Ulrich Tideman existed.
Timeline discrepancies aside, this Ulrich’s total absence was inexplicable.
This timeline’s non-regressed Ulrich—ignorant of Blanc, the Void, the future—should exist.
Yet he didn’t.
Among the three regressors, Ulrich Tideman, Illusion School head, was central.
They’d built power around him to lead against the Void. Strictly, Blanc was just a pawn Ulrich prepared.
But he was trapped 190 years in the past. No current Ulrich. The last regressor unfindable.
Given Ulrich, the remaining one might’ve failed regression too—leaving Blanc to handle it all.
—Follow the golden guidance and call the name of my disciple.
‘Follow the golden guidance means check the Steel Bank.’
Unlike his past life: Wilhelm I’s golden statue.
Unlike past life: Ulrich’s message in the legal code.
Unlike past life: The Steel Bank’s existence.
All anomalies traced to the Steel Bank.
‘I need to go to the Steel Bank.’
His sole clue: the Steel Bank. And his disciple.
‘His disciple...’
Blanc clearly remembered Ulrich’s disciple.
Her pitch-black pupils, void-infected and empty, staring wide.
He’d plunged the blade into her heart in his previous life.