The Knight Who Devours Magic - Chapter 2

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 2. Ten Years Later
“Young Master, Master Muno!”
“Are you listening?”
Just before entering the Mountain Range, voices called from both sides.
“I’m listening.”
A soft exhale.
Muno answered half-heartedly and shook off the memory of ten years ago.
This was no time to dwell on the past.
A sharp throb.
– My body…….
‘Shut up.’
He barely endured the headache that came each time a voice echoed in his mind, then checked his equipment.
He swung the fitted Leather Armor to make sure it didn’t catch or hinder him.
He tested the Iron Chains wound around his limbs—in place of the gauntlets and greaves of knights—then checked the Greatsword on his back before nodding slightly.
Fitting steel armor to a body that hadn’t fully grown was impossible given the circumstances of the Drasen Territory.
‘This gear is enough.’
While he was checking, soldier Rom’s voice continued.
“The suspected location where a creature might be…….”
Muno let the information he already knew go in one ear and out the other, remembering once more what his father had told him before.
– Your Side Effect appears to be a remnant of that Heretical Sect’s experiments.
He recalled his father’s face as he said those words, the expression of regret.

– To cast all of it aside, your best hope is to master Gangtechsul yourself and undergo Awakening.
– But because of the Magic Power flowing from those Iron Chains connected to your body, you cannot learn our clan’s Gangtechsul through normal means. And if you try to tear them away by force, you feel pain…….
Everything was my own failing, so I had no right to blame others.
So I tried to live satisfied with what I lacked.
But now, I simply couldn’t do that anymore.
– Wretched human, surrender your body now!
A sharp throb.
“Ugh…….”
The demon in his head.
He had to take risks now—if only to be rid of this terrible headache that had been growing worse in recent days.
No matter how dangerous the method.
– But if you truly must overcome this, there is only one way.
– In the classical manner used by ancient warriors: throw yourself into mortal combat and awaken the secret of Gangtae through your own ordeal.
– But I don’t wish to urge you down that path, Muno. You can live without pushing yourself so hard…….
‘Father’s words are always right.’
Ten years since he’d met his father, and Muno had never known him to speak falsely.
– You are my son. My precious treasure, Muno.
But the intensifying headache hadn’t stopped for even a moment in recent days.
And as pain and reason began to stir, he found himself growing aware of the voices around him.
– That foolish adopted child is bringing shame upon the Drasen Clan’s honor.
– Why does the lord permit such a monster…….
A sharp throb.
‘I hate being called a fool. Not anymore.’
And besides.
– Surrender your body!
A sharp throb.
“Kgh.”
Losing himself was something he hated even more.
This demon in his head had to be driven out.
But he couldn’t ask his parents’ permission to risk his life.
So then.
‘I’ll just do it.’
And besides…….
“This is just a scouting run, really…….”
He couldn’t venture forth with soldiers in tow.
They would stop him—no, protect him—to the very end.
“Don’t follow me.”
“……Excuse me? What did you just say, Young Master?”
“Don’t follow me!”
Muno drove his weight down through his legs, kicked hard against the ground, and launched himself forward in a burst of speed.
Thump-thump-thump.
“……Young master?!”
The voice trembled with confusion, then grew louder and more frantic.
“This won’t do!”
“Young master!!”
“Chase him!!”
Thump-thump-thump.
Shouts echoed from behind, but Muno ignored them and pressed on.
Soon the voices faded until they disappeared entirely.
Yet Muno paid it no mind.
Even without having undergone his Awakening, his body already transcended that of an ordinary human.
There was no chance the soldiers would catch him in such a short span of time.
After running for some distance, once he neared his destination, he quieted his footfalls and sharpened his senses, taking in everything around him.
‘It should be somewhere near here…….’
He turned over the information he’d gathered before setting out, keeping his focus sharp as he searched for his quarry.
It had to be close by.
A foe worthy of risking his life for—and yet one he might actually have a chance of defeating.
‘Where…….’
He drew on every sense with desperate intensity, and his keenest faculty—his sense of smell—caught a sickening blend of blood and musk on the air.
“Found it…….”
The moment the words escaped his lips, he changed direction and bolted toward the distant Mountain Ridge, away from the forest.
And there, just as he’d anticipated, his prey came into view.
“Snarl!?”
“Shriek!”
“Growl.”
The target of this culling.
And enemies worthy of wagering his life against at this very moment.
“Snarl!”
“Screech!”
“Howl!”
A pack of Gnolls—creatures with the heads of dogs and bodies of men.
‘Let’s go!’
Clank-clank-clank.
The moment he steeled himself and raised his Greatsword, the Iron Chains wound around his limbs unwound and fell free.
And in that same instant, the pack of Gnolls, bristling with crude weapons, was already rushing toward him.
“Snarl!”
“Howl!”
Even the smallest of them towered over most human men, and the largest exceeded two meters in height, wielding a Halberd nearly as massive as its own frame.
Nearly thirty monsters, armed with physical prowess that far surpassed any human’s.
A horde that even a formal Knight versed in the secret art of Gangtechsul—the technique that elevates human flesh—could not face alone. Yet Muno threw himself at them without hesitation.
— If you face a formidable pack, dispatch the weakest first, thoroughly and without mercy.
“Yaaaaah!”
“Shriek!”
Crack.
Recalling his father’s words, Muno’s Greatsword shattered the smallest Gnoll’s crude wooden club and drove straight through the creature’s skull.
“Gurk?”
With a final death rattle, the small Gnoll crumpled.
“Roooar!”
Bang-bang-bang-bang!
In the same breath, Gnolls swarmed from all sides, but the Iron Chains extending from his limbs moved as though possessed of eyes, deflecting every weapon that came his way.
“Shriek!?”
“Yelp!?”
“Ha!”
Stunned by this sight beyond their comprehension, the Gnolls faltered for a moment—and in that pause, Muno’s Greatsword swept horizontally, cleaving another creature in two at the waist.
Rip-tear.
“Guh, guh-guh-grrr…….”
In that moment.
“Shriiiiek!”
The massive leader of the pack let out a howling screech, and in that unguarded moment, brought his halberd down like lightning toward Muno’s front.
The trajectory was clear.
‘Upper left, descending at an angle.’
The instant he read it, Muno threw himself toward the creature’s right side.
Clatter.
At the same moment, four chains attached to his limbs bound the creature’s limbs fast.
With the Greatsword he’d been holding high since his dive, he drove it toward the creature’s heart.
The same winning pattern he’d executed countless times in monster hunts.
But then.
“Shriek!”
Before the blade could even touch the creature’s skin.
Whip.
As if scorning the chains’ restraint, the pack leader’s knee flashed forward like lightning and struck Muno’s abdomen.
Crack.
‘Gasp!’
In that shocking instant when clarity returned and even the throbbing pain receded, a massive axe-blade was already bearing down on his face.
The creature’s halberd, swung even as it knocked him back.
Against such a lightning-quick attack, the Iron Chains instinctively bunched together and shielded him.
And at the same time.
Hum.
His ‘ability’ engaged, warping the halberd’s trajectory ever so slightly.
But.
Crack!
Thud.
“Gasp!”
Even so, he barely escaped being cleaved in two; the dizzying impact sent him crashing to the ground regardless.
“Roar!”
Enraged that things weren’t going its way, the pack leader screamed and brought its halberd down again in a relentless barrage.
Still numb with pain, Muno used his four Iron Chains to brace himself against the ground instead of his faltering limbs, scrambling desperately out of harm’s way.
The halberd crashed down like thunder where he’d just been.
Bang!
“Roar!”
Missing its mark again, the pack leader fixed him with burning crimson eyes and howled.
“Snarl!”
“Growl.”
The other creatures, which had circled at a distance, began charging toward him.
A dizzying sense of crisis flooded through him.
‘I’m going to die…!’
He’d charged into this fight expecting such circumstances, yet now that the moment arrived, his limbs felt increasingly frozen.
But even as his body went rigid, the Iron Chains, responding to his will to survive, intercepted the creatures’ attacks.
Clatter.
Clang! Clang!
Only when the gleaming weapons whisked past him did clarity finally return.
A Knight does not retreat.
As his father’s voice echoed in his mind, the countless battles he’d fought before moved his body by reflex.
“Hah!”
Clang!
Shriek.
Crack.
He parried attacks with his Iron Chains and, in quick succession, brought his Greatsword to bear, striking the creatures down.
And then.
Boom!
The instant he barely dodged the pack leader’s halberd as it reached his face.
Whip-crack.
The four Iron Chains coiled around the creature’s neck and began to tighten.
Unlike before, all four chains focused solely on its throat.
Fortunately, this time the creature could not ignore them.
“Shriek!”
Thud. Thud.
“Gasp!”
Each time Nol’s leader, his eyes burning ever redder, swung the halberd in a desperate frenzy, Muno’s body—tethered by iron chains—barely dodged fatal blows only to be hurled again and again against the jagged stone of the mountain ridge.
Bang. Thud.
Thud.
‘Ugh…’
With each violent impact, the world spun sickeningly before his eyes.
This vertigo, this sensation of death hanging so close—yet somehow it felt as though he’d endured it before, in some distant echo of memory.
– I wanted to live like a human being….
A voice, both familiar and strange, reverberated through his mind.
“Kyaaaagh!”
The raging form of Nol’s leader and the tide of other Nols surging toward him filled his vision—and in that moment.
His father’s voice rose again in his thoughts.
– Life is seized, not given.
– You are a shining life that survived even that terrible ordeal, my son.
– You can do anything, Muno.
……Can do it.
In that instant, even as agony threatened to steal his consciousness, he abandoned the lost greatsword and clenched his fists instead.
Crack.
At the same moment, he seized the iron chains and hauled his own body up and over Nol’s leader’s head.
“Kyaaaagh!”
– Surrender your body! If you want to live!
“Shut…”
He drove his knee directly into the gaping maw of the massive Nol, foam already gathering at its lips.
“…up!”
Bang.
Then he hammered his fists toward those burning red eyes that fixed upon him.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
With every punch, he was beating not just the Nol before him, but the demon whispering in his own skull.
“Die!”
Crack.
“Die!!”
With each blow, his entire body burned with surging blood, and strange strength began to flow into his limbs with terrifying intensity.
Bang. Bang. Bang!
“Kyaaa……”
Yet Nol’s leader, even as crimson veins burst across those scarlet eyes, refused to fall—and more Nols were creeping closer by the moment.
As the danger mounted, his father’s voice and that other, unfamiliar-yet-known voice began to overlap and merge.
– Trust yourself, Muno.
– Surrender your body…!
“Shut up!!!”
The moment his will crystallized into absolute resolve, that other voice—that alien whisper filling his mind—shattered and dispersed in an instant.
And in its place, only the familiar voices took root.
– Life is seized, not given.
– You can do anything, Muno.
– I wanted to live like a human being….
‘Yes—I can do it!’
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Power flooded into his clenched fists, fiercer with each blow.
The blood boiling in his veins rushed upward, consuming his mind, and then—with a soft snap—his reason shattered white and scattered like snow.
– Bang!!!
And moments later.
“My lord!!?”
“By the gods!”
“Get him!”
When the knights and soldiers who followed caught sight of Muno, he lay unconscious atop the corpse of Nol’s massive leader, surrounded by the extinguished bodies of the entire Nol pack.
His body had grown visibly larger, and both the iron chains and his hair were stained black.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————