The Newbie Slicer

"Young Master, please, I'm begging you..."

"Whew, done already?"

"I c-can't go on any more..."

And so ended nearly half a day of sparring with the soldiers.

Right—time to start checking them.

I had been so absorbed in the drills that I'd forgotten all about it for a moment.

Oh?

It was one of the skills I'd set out to obtain. Covenant with the northern blades, it seemed, came with related skills attached.

I nodded along as I read the description. A Normal-grade resistance skill, identical to its in-game counterpart. Better than nothing, though this one had a poor reputation too.

Using it will be a different story.

Frost Step had been like that. So had Northern Swordsmanship. What mattered was never the stats on a screen—it was how a skill performed in a real hand.

I sheathed my sword with a light motion and looked the soldiers over.

"Good work, everyone."

"Not at all!"

They answered with grins despite the cuts and bruises scattered across them. Thanks to the past several days of training side by side, I could honestly say we'd grown rather close.

"Oh? It isn't?"

"Uh, r-right! It is! Good work! Please, just spare us the sparring..."

Or not?

"Keep up the hard work from here on, everyone."

"With respect, Young Master, you could stand to take it a little easier yourself..."

The moment I rested a hand on my sword hilt while eyeing the joker, he bolted under the pretense of resuming drills, and laughter spilled out of me despite myself.

Now, if only I could handle mana.

Of course, that would be nothing like the training I'd done so far. Moving the body and learning the sword had been possible even back on Earth; grasping mana meant learning an entirely new sense from scratch. Naturally, the difficulty was in a different league altogether.

Which was exactly what made it fun.

Accomplishing what you could already do versus succeeding at what everyone called impossible—no one needed to tell me which victory tasted sweeter.

I was just turning toward Tarian to put Cold Heart through its first test when—

"Ian."

"...?"

"I have something to discuss."

My brother had appeared out of nowhere. Seeing an expression on his face unlike his usual one, I stole a quick glance around.

"Is something the matter?"

"Something you'd do well to know about."

"Understood."

At that grave look, I fell quietly into step behind him.

Thus we arrived at the house's meeting room—where I found Tarian and the captain of the guard wearing the same heavy expressions as my brother.

"What's happened, that you all look so grim?"

"Allow me to explain, if you would."

The captain of the guard stepped forward, and what he had to tell us was simple.

"So—a dungeon has appeared outside the territory?"

"Yes. The recent monster attacks appear to stem from it."

"So its sudden appearance drove the beasts from their old habitats?"

"That is correct."

At the abrupt news, I quietly studied Tarian and my brother. Both wore the look of men turning a problem over.

I gave it serious thought as well—and then gave my answer.

"Isn't this actually a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠good thing?"

...

A beat of silence. But I saw a different opportunity in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it.

A dungeon.

One of the countless content types in Last Savior. A place that showered you with rewards, provided you cleared it.

So all the better, really.

Among the game's many systems, dungeons leaned heavily toward growth. I could predict plenty of events, but with five years still to go before the main story began, a great many of them simply hadn't happened yet. Besides, dungeons had a habit of spawning mid-game like this, which made them devilishly hard to find in the first place.

And the ones that existed from the start were hell to clear.

All of which added up to one conclusion: a freshly spawned dungeon was, frankly, a gift.

"Well, sure, it's a danger to the territory as of right now, and it's an unknown space—but all we have to do is clear it, isn't that so?"

"Hmm."

Kain began to weigh it in earnest. His hesitation was understandable enough—from where my brother stood, there was no telling what might come crawling out of that place.

Such was the setting.

No one ever knew what lay inside a newly spawned dungeon. Plenty of my characters had died raiding dungeons with zero intel. Which was how memorizing every dungeon I'd ever entered and trawling the community forums had become second nature.

Anyway—a dungeon in the North.

I combed through my memory with care. Perhaps thanks to the Great Invasion, the North was positively riddled with dungeons—so riddled, in fact, that only after chasing the thread a good while could I barely recall which one yielded which rewards.

Going by the location, there was one.

And that let me answer with certainty.

"We clear it, of course."

"I see you're eager to take the field yourself."

The dead-on read made me sheepish for no good reason. It was simply true.

I wanted to test them.

I had honed a whole arsenal of skills by now. Never once had I accepted a skill as merely a skill—I tempered each one until it became mine alone.

"Besides, you did say you needed live combat, Tarian."

...

Under my brother's doubting gaze, Tarian spoke up.

"It is a fine opportunity, I grant—but it will be dangerous."

"It would be. If I were going alone."

The pact Tarian had sworn was bound entirely to my education. He was no vassal of the territory; he had come purely as a sword instructor.

"And you mean to miss your disciple's first real battle?"

...

"Hmm, true enough. With Tarian along, there should be no trouble."

Perhaps aware of how close this came to strong-arming him, my brother and the captain kept stealing glances at Tarian. But I was certain he would accept.

Pretending otherwise—that's his idea of fun.

Honestly, I'd sensed it from the very first day. Every time I hammered at a wall without giving up, his eyes would gleam.

Maybe he expects something from me.

I had no way of knowing that, truthfully. One thing was certain, though: he would not refuse this offer.

"Let's see just how much you've grown."

"Understood."

The tone was gruff, but the consent came swift.

"Then I will make preparations at once."

"No need for haste. The news only arrived today."

"Ah."

"All that steady training—you've changed a great deal."

I shrugged under my brother's gaze as he said it.

"Yes, quite a lot."

"As I said before—it's a good look on you."

"Then I'll have to show you more of it."

"Haha, and as I always tell you—don't push yourself too hard."

Watching my brother speak with that gentle smile, I steeled my resolve once more. At the very least, I would not stand by and let House Rashid fall.

Not that it mattered.

I'd never intended to, anyway.

Time flew. With a new goal set, the thought that I couldn't sit still dominated my mind.

"Whew."

Training continued without pause. It wasn't only about awakening mana, either. While continually putting Northern Swordsmanship and Frost Step—both all but mastered now—through their paces alongside Cold Heart, I worked just as hard to fulfill my covenants.

Not easy, this.

The covenant terms kept climbing in difficulty as the days passed. Even as they began skewing toward endless sparring, I never abandoned the work of building stamina and strength.

Thanks to which, the strength had come in for real.

I'd felt it firsthand already—both my strength and stamina could now overwhelm your average soldier. Of course, that wasn't all. The work of sensing mana pressed on as well.

A sense I had never once felt in my life.

Mana was something I had only ever seen on a screen, so actually reaching for it left me grasping at empty air. Which was why sensing mana and making it my own was taking comparatively longer.

"This isn't easy."

"Once you find the feel of it, you'll manage in no time."

I shrugged at Tarian, who somewhere along the way had taken to looking at me like I was some kind of monster. Lately I was half dying to know what exactly he took me for.

"'In no time'? Just what level do you take me for, exactly?"

"Your level right now already surpasses the average Sword Beginner."

"I can't even sense mana."

"You'll manage it regardless."

A snort of laughter escaped me at that. Sword Beginner—the stage where one truly begins to wield a blade. Master mana from there, and you rose to Sword User, a rank above. And Tarian was a knight at the very top tier of Expert.

Honestly, handicap or not, the fact that I'd landed a clean hit within a single day still strained belief.

Maybe I'm more talented than I gave myself credit for?

I entertained the thought for all of a moment before shaking my head. Letting idle wind go to your head was a recipe for ruin. In the first place, save for a handful of great houses, the true geniuses congregated in the heart of the Empire—think of the ratio of future Sword Masters and archmages, of monsters like the Sword Masters sworn to the imperial family itself.

So for now, my aim was to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tarian. And beyond that, to surpass him.

"Anyway, the preparations should be just about wrapped up."

"I heard the personnel arrangements were finished as we speak."

"He's thorough in these matters, I'll give him that."

"He is a fine lord."

I nodded readily at the praise for my brother. Kain Rashid truly was a remarkable lord—far too good a man to rot away in a small northern territory like this. And across this life and the last, the only family who had ever cherished me.

So I had to save him.

The more talented people at my side, the better. So I meant to gather up the North's talent—Tarian, standing right before me, included.

Everything, for the sake of survival.

Holding back the Great Northern Invasion—and every other ruin racing toward us—would demand a mountain of preparation. With that in mind, I calmly combed my memory for dungeons that should exist around this era. The North fell to demonification not long after the game began, so I needed to retrace my steps with some care.

The Ancient Warriors' Tomb.

Played the normal way, it was a dungeon you'd only reach well into the future. Which meant it was one House Rashid was never supposed to clear.

They probably never even dared to try. No Tarian back then, and my brother as head of the house could hardly march out in person.

The enemies within were, quite literally, the ancient warriors of the North. In the future, once the land had fully demonified, I remembered it as a dungeon of brutal difficulty.

But not now.

This was long before the game's opening—obviously, the North still stood. Which meant demonification never even entered the picture. Which meant I could clear this dungeon at a far gentler difficulty than the future ever offered.

Couldn't pass this up.

No matter how I turned it over, a chance like this could not be wasted. I looked around, my steps somehow lighter.

"The moment the soldiers are ready, we move out."

"Understood."

With Tarian falling in obediently behind me, I headed straight for my brother. Perhaps from the extra burden of recent days, Kain Rashid's face had grown darker still—piled atop his crushing workload, the sudden push to organize the expedition had left him visibly worn. My conscience pricked at me, briefly, before I tucked the feeling away.

"Brother."

That much, I could repay in full down the line.

The reward from this dungeon was weapons—and not merely one, but a sizable stockpile of them.

And the most important of them all was Frostfang.

I knew it well enough. Covenant fodder I had plenty of, but nothing worthy of becoming my true arm. My rank might fall short of bonding with it for now—but what harm was there in securing a fine blade in advance?

"Ian, there you are. You mean to head out?"

"Yes, that's the plan."

"Good. Be careful out there. And don't get hurt."

"Spare me the worry. I'll return safe and sound."

"See that you do."

"When I'm back, I'll expect a grand feast."

"What? Y-you rascal."

My brother said it with a hand resting on my shoulder, his eyes on me. I couldn't name the emotion buried deep in that expression, but one thing at least I knew.

Better to finish this quickly and come home.

Only then could this man finally breathe easy.

"You lot again?"

"If the Young Master rides out, we ride with him."

"There are no soldiers like us anywhere, after all."

"Captain, be honest—it's the reward money..."

"Hey, hey. Quiet."

"Oh?"

I snorted, sweeping my gaze over the faces of the soldiers tagging along. Familiar faces, every one—the men I'd seen so often during Frost Step training. My heart settled accordingly.

"I take it you enjoyed rolling in the snow with me?"

"Ah, that's, well..."

"A soldier talking back?"

"My apologies!"

"Let's do this properly."

Trading jokes all the while, I led them out through the castle gates. The townsfolk beyond the outer walls watched us go with anxious eyes, so I tossed them a simple wave.

Well, then.

These were feelings the game had never once given me. Growing close with soldiers. Calling Kain my brother. Things I couldn't have dreamed of before.

I never expected this, in so short a time.

I thought back on my old life, lived without a single piece of family. Back then, it had been an era of doing whatever it took. But now the feeling ran a little different—there were people here who acknowledged me when I saw something through.

"You look in high spirits, Young Master."

"Well, can't complain."

"Is that so?"

I shrugged at Tarian's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠faint puzzlement and quickened the pace. The northern winter was bitter. Snow had fallen of late, too, leaving the roads treacherous even on horseback. A forced march was only to be expected.

Naturally, even mid-march I did not neglect the sword. Clearing the dungeon mattered, but growing mattered more. Which was exactly why I needed to train in every gap I could find.

"Might I ask something that has me curious?"

"What is it?"

"You're forever switching between weapons. Is there a reason?"

I studied Tarian, who asked as though genuinely curious, and considered for a moment.

"Just... none of them fit my hand."

"I see. Then it seems we must prepare for that as well."

"It's fine. It'll sort itself out."

I waved off his concern. There was no need to mention that a new weapon was already waiting for me.

Ideally, the next tier up.

Every skill I'd acquired so far had been Normal grade. To claim the next one, I would need to raise my rank another step.

Epic grade was beyond hoping ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for.

Rare, at least—if I managed that much, I could grow twice as fast as I was now. With any luck, the live battle ahead would lay that very foundation.

"Young Master—monsters."

And so, before we had even fully left House Rashid's territory, the enemy showed itself. Monsters with the presence of a colossal bear fused with a wolf. The snowfield wolf-bear—a pack hunter so vicious that players had dubbed it the Newbie Slicer.

Or so it was supposed to be...

Shluk—

The instant I gave my sword a casual swing, the wolf-bear's head went sailing through the air.

"Why is this so easy?"

"And why on earth is this one's name like that...?"

The questions simply refused to stop.