Chapter 2
"..."
Theron opened his eyes.
He could not understand what was happening.
Logical.
Calm.
Cold.
Theron always maintained that state of mind.
Yet now...
"Where... am I?"
The walls were made from dark gray stone.
Bluish moss grew between the cracks.
The air was heavy.
With a single breath, the smell of mold seeped deep into his lungs.
Rotten wood.
Wet cloth.
The smell of old blood.
All of it mixed together and clung unpleasantly to his nose.
Theron's eyes shook.
How could he possibly forget this place?
He had spent nearly half of his life here.
"Is this... a dream?"
There was no other explanation.
I definitely...
He had died.
Surrounded by dozens of knights.
But then...
"..."
Castillo's face appeared in his mind.
Consider it an honor... and close your eyes.
Those final words seemed to echo in his ears.
Theron was normally cold and controlled, but curses nearly escaped his mouth.
He could still clearly remember the sensation of blades piercing his body.
"A dream...?"
Was his hatred and anger so powerful that they had created a dream like this?
If not...
Did I... return to the past?
Impossible.
How could something like that happen?
His thoughts became tangled.
But then...
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
Theron turned toward the voice.
A boy with short, faded blue hair was glaring at him.
His large eyes were filled with anger.
"...Perka?"
It was a face Theron could never forget.
During their training in the past, Perka had not survived until the end.
Still, he had learned the rules faster than anyone else and had slowly become Theron's friend.
Come to think of it, he helped me a lot.
Back then, Theron had struggled to adapt.
Perka had dragged him along simply because he was the room leader.
And later... he died because of terrible luck.
Memories of Perka flashed through Theron's mind.
Perka walked over angrily and grabbed Theron by the collar.
"What the hell are you doing?! If you keep moving this slowly, we'll be late for morning assembly!"
Two other boys stood behind Perka with irritated expressions.
Theron remembered their names as well.
Renil... Tioren.
They had also died during training.
But they had been decent people.
Now everything returned to Theron.
The situation.
The reason all three of them were looking at him angrily.
His thoughts still had not fully settled, but he decided to go along with things for now.
Theron gently removed Perka's hand.
"Ah. Sorry. Let's hurry."
"...?"
Perka frowned and tilted his head.
Theron's expression and tone were completely different from the timid boy he knew.
Still...
"What are you doing? You said we're in a hurry."
"Ah... Right. Let's go."
Theron knew Perka had not grabbed him out of hatred.
In this hellish place, there had been one piece of good luck.
The three boys sharing his room were actually decent people.
Of course, because of that...
"Let's go!"
Perka started running.
The other three followed him.
They ran through the hallway toward the first-floor lobby.
The distance was short.
But while Theron ran, his memories of this place became clearer and clearer.
When they finally reached the lobby...
Right... This is how it was.
Theron calmly took his place after seeing the crowd of boys filling the lobby.
Around five hundred trainees had gathered.
Their instructors stood in front of them.
And standing in the center was one man.
The head instructor.
The man who held the greatest power on this cursed island.
Berton.
He had a thin body.
His narrow eyes looked like sharp spikes as they swept over the trainees.
His pale skin and visible red veins gave him a strange, threatening appearance.
The instant Theron saw him, memories from his previous life returned.
The man who had tried to kill them.
"...Haah."
Theron forced himself to calm down and looked around.
There were around five hundred trainees, but they normally lived in separate sections.
Their training was also conducted separately.
For everyone to be gathered here...
So I've returned to this day...
A slight wrinkle appeared between Theron's brows.
In one sense, he was lucky.
But this day had also marked the beginning of one of the worst things that happened to them.
"Attention!"
An instructor shouted loudly.
The trainees immediately became tense.
Berton looked over them with cold eyes before speaking quietly.
"You've all worked hard surviving until now. Starting today, we will begin a more advanced stage of training to improve your abilities."
"...More advanced training?"
"What does that mean...?"
The trainees began whispering.
It was understandable.
Until now, their training had mostly involved swinging swords until their hands bled or running until the skin on their feet tore apart.
For one year, they build our bodies, teach us swordsmanship, and beat fear into us with whips...
After that, they taught the surviving trainees the Mana Method that would turn them into puppets.
Theron watched Berton while carefully observing the surroundings.
With this much noise...
"Quiet!"
Exactly as he remembered, an instructor beside Berton immediately shouted.
The lobby fell completely silent.
The pressure in the room felt suffocating.
Some trainees were so frightened that they barely dared to breathe.
In the sharp silence, Berton nodded toward the instructors beside him.
They began handing thin books to the trainees.
"This is the Mana Method you will learn from now on. Memorize all of it by tomorrow and begin training."
At the same time, the instructors handed each trainee a small box.
Inside was a reddish, bead-like pill.
"This will greatly help the growth of your Mana Method. Everyone will swallow it here."
"Come on. Hurry!"
"Swallow it!"
At Berton's command, the instructors moved among the trainees.
The boys hesitated after receiving the bead-like medicine.
Then...
"It seems you need punishment before you understand orders."
"W-We'll eat it!"
"I swallowed it!"
Berton had barely muttered the words before the frightened trainees hurriedly put the pills into their mouths.
"..."
Theron looked down at the pill in his hand.
Death Sigil.
A name that meant an imprint of death.
And...
It really does help the growth of the Mana Method.
If taken early, it dramatically accelerated mana growth.
But as the Mana Method advanced, the Death Sigil blocked the most important mana circuits.
It prevented a person from advancing beyond a certain level.
And more importantly...
Later... the person who created it can kill us whenever they want.
Once swallowed, a tiny parasite began living inside the heart.
And depending on the will of the person whose mana had been used in its creation...
Once the parasite matures, it can destroy the heart instantly.
It was a perfect way to turn them into puppets.
"What are you doing? Why aren't you swallowing it?"
An instructor standing in front of Theron glared at him.
Theron understood.
There was no way to refuse the Death Sigil right now.
He stared at the pill for a moment.
Then, while making sure the instructor could clearly see, Theron placed it in his mouth.
Gulp.
He swallowed it in one motion.
Then he opened his mouth.
"I swallowed it."
"You can close your mouth."
Theron even moved his tongue around to prove there was nothing hidden inside.
Satisfied, the instructor moved toward another trainee.
The parasite inside the Death Sigil would now begin moving toward Theron's heart.
But...
I already know what to do.
Theron had gone through countless terrible experiences in his previous life.
He also knew how to deal with a Death Sigil.
"Remember this. Memorize the Mana Method you received today by tomorrow. There will be no other training until then."
"Dismissed!"
"Dismissed!"
At Berton's order, the instructors dismissed the trainees.
The five hundred boys scattered and returned to their rooms.
Then...
"A Mana Method...? How are we supposed to memorize all of this in one day?"
The moment they returned to the room, Renil threw his book down.
Perka sat down calmly.
"We still have to memorize it. If we don't, we'll be punished badly. Just force it into your head somehow."
Perka opened the book and began memorizing it.
From his expression, however, it was obvious he barely understood the contents.
Flip.
Tioren silently turned the pages beside him.
Other than Renil occasionally cursing, the room remained quiet.
"..."
That was only natural.
A Mana Method was not something beginners could easily understand.
Theron remembered that after the first day, more than half of them had failed to memorize it and were beaten terribly.
Still... maybe I should call myself lucky.
He had no idea why he had returned to the past.
He had barely survived this cursed training facility created by the Valenruke Family.
Afterward, he had lived like their loyal dog.
And in the end... once the hunt was finished, they killed the dog.
That was simply how the Valenruke Family handled things.
At the end, Theron had tried to kill Castillo.
But...
Ashborn Zionheart.
The Third Prince's sword.
One of the strongest warriors on the continent.
By the time Theron fought him, his body had already been completely exhausted.
In the end, he had died to Ashborn's sword without accomplishing anything.
Is this some message from God telling me to try again?
Try what?
The question appeared in his mind.
But finding the answer was not difficult.
Of course there was only one answer.
The Valenruke Family had used them like cheap tools and thrown them away.
And...
There was also Ashborn Zionheart.
One of the strongest swordsmen on the continent.
The man who had driven a sword through Theron's heart.
This time, Theron's sword would pierce his heart instead.
For the sake of his previous life, which had ended like worthless trash.
Theron adjusted his posture and closed his eyes.
There was no need to look at the book.
He already knew this Mana Method completely.
The Darkfin Mana Method has a very clear limit.
Once it reached Six-Star, growth became impossible.
Of course, Six-Star itself was still considered very high.
Every member of the Shadow Knights had reached Six-Star.
But to fight Ashborn, Theron needed to reach Eight-Star.
In his previous life, he had reached the very end of Seven-Star.
This time, he needed to break through one more wall.
However...
If I learn another Mana Method, the instructors will notice.
These people were so obsessive that they had shoved fingers into trainees' mouths just to confirm that they had swallowed the Death Sigil.
They would probably inspect them while they slept to make sure the Death Sigil had settled properly.
There was no chance people like that would ignore the Darkfin Mana Method, one of the most important parts of their training.
Absolutely impossible.
For now, Theron needed to hide.
Hide everything.
Fortunately, he had returned to a point where he could still correct everything.
"Haaaaah..."
Theron slowly exhaled.
Now that he had chosen his goal, his confused mind became clear.
Then the first thing he had to do was obvious.
Before the bastard parasite inside my heart grows...
I need to remove it.
If he failed to remove it now, it could cause serious trouble later.
Just like before.
Theron closed his eyes and began circulating mana.
Faint blue mana slowly gathered around his body.
