The Son-In-Law of the Magician Is a Transcendent Sword Master - Chapter 2
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 2
It took three days to face reality.
At first, I was skeptical. I thought it was a terrible dream. But as one day became two, and two days became three, I couldn’t help but accept it.
I hadn’t woken up from the dream.
This was reality.
‘Ten years ago…’
I sat blankly in the mercenary camp, organizing my thoughts.
I, who should have died by the Archmage King’s hand, had returned to the past ten years ago.
There was plenty of evidence. The mercenary group members who should have been in their graves were alive and well, and the old club placed beside my bed was definitely the weapon I had used during my apprentice days.
‘…I’ve returned to the past.’
For some reason, at the moment of death, I had regressed ten years into the past.
I thought it was impossible, but if the reality unfolding before my eyes was this realistic, there was no reason not to believe it.
I had regressed. I accepted that fact. Then the remaining question was how and why I had regressed.
Even during my half-lifetime of wandering the world as a mercenary, I had never heard of anyone turning back time.
Then who exactly, and for what purpose, had turned time back to the past?
Was I truly the only one who knew this fact?
Why specifically ten years ago?
Various questions rose one after another to the surface of my consciousness.
However, there was one place I could guess.
‘…Could it be this pendant…’
I stared at Renia’s pendant swaying on my chest. The groove in the center of the pendant was wide open. Strange-shaped runic characters glowed faintly inside the groove.
Renia had said there was a final runic character inside the pendant that she hadn’t been able to interpret yet. If there was a reason for my regression, nine times out of ten this object would be the cause.
If Renia had arranged all this and passed the pendant to me…
“That woman left me with an unnecessary task.”
An opportunity had arisen.
An opportunity to set the world right.
I’m not a hero who strives to save the world, and I’m certainly not a saint.
I’m just a mercenary.
If a mercenary receives a commission, they must properly carry it out.
Looking at the pendant, I recalled the message Renia had left me in my previous life.
“She hired me without permission, after all.”
The contract with Renia seemed to continue even now that I had returned to the past.
Her goal was to kill the Archmage King.
“This time, I’ll definitely kill him.”
Then I would simply fulfill Renia’s wish.
The Archmage King would plunge the continent into chaos seven years from now.
Since that was when he officially raised his army, he would have been steadily conducting groundwork from before then.
As soon as the Archmage King raised his army, he destroyed the magical noble families including Benheim and stole their secret techniques. He probably intended to use them as fertilizer to reach the 9th circle.
The remaining grace period was about five or six years.
‘I need to start preparing from now.’
It was time that was sufficient if sufficient, and insufficient if insufficient.
To defeat the Archmage King, I had to become stronger than in my previous life.
First, I needed to check my physical condition.
———.
I concentrated my consciousness and examined my body.
Due to the harsh mercenary life from a young age, my body itself was quite well-trained. However, there wasn’t even a speck of mana within my body.
Compared to my body when I was called the Sword God before regression, this was a wasteland that couldn’t even match a dried spring.
At this time, I wasn’t in a position to enter the concept of mana.
To use mana, one must form a mana core within the body. The method of forming a mana core is sold very expensively under the name of mana cultivation techniques. The price is not at a level that a boy doing odd jobs in a third-rate mercenary group could afford.
However, before being a vagrant, I was a swordsman who had reached Sword Master with just an old sword.
Even without learning mana cultivation techniques separately, I could enter the realm of mana through sensation alone. And I could reach Sword Master within the next seven years.
Since I had done so in my previous life, if I followed that same path, I could reach my previous level faster this time.
‘No.’
But I had no intention of following the exact same steps as my previous life.
I had given my all but couldn’t even take one of the Archmage King’s arms. The gap between him and me was more stark than heaven and earth.
Then I had to become stronger than in my previous life. To oppose the Archmage King, humanity’s most vicious mage, I needed to reach a higher level than him.
Just then, I recalled something Renia had said to me several times.
– When I look at you, Reagan, I feel sorry.
– Sorry? What do you mean by that?
– Your environment didn’t match your talent. If you had grown up in a good environment and systematically built up your skills, you would have reached a level incomparable to those lowlifes by now.
– …It’s all meaningless talk now anyway.
It had been meaningless talk.
But now it was different.
I had returned to the past and possessed knowledge and experience of the future.
As Renia had said, the environment was now set for me to systematically build up my level from the beginning.
“Sword Saint… or 9th circle.”
The limit for humans as warriors was Sword Master, and the limit as mages was the 7th circle. This was common knowledge. However, before my regression, I knew two mages who had surpassed the limits.
Renia, who was 8th circle, and the Archmage King who had transcended even her level.
There was already precedent.
Then it was possible for me as well.
“Let’s do this.”
I steeled my resolve.
Now that I had set my goal, it was time to devise the means.
“First of all….”
I raised my head to look at the ceiling. True to the mercenary camp, the torches hanging above the tent were swaying precariously.
“…I should collect the overdue money first.”
* * *
“What? Reagan is acting strange?”
“Yes. He must have eaten something wrong.”
Mercenary Captain Gerkin frowned as he looked at his tearful subordinate.
“What did he eat wrong? Poisonous mushroom soup?”
“No, it’s just… He seems like a completely different person.”
“A different person?”
“The guy who used to work without complaint hasn’t been eating or sleeping for days. Yesterday he beat up a senior like a dog on a hot day! He even beat up a fellow who came to stop him! Don’t you think he’s possessed by an evil spirit? We should call a shaman who’s said to be skilled….”
“Shut up, what nonsense are you spouting in broad daylight?”
“It’s not nonsense! Most of the mercenaries living with him are afraid of him! At this rate, someone’s going to bite their tongue and die….”
Listening to his subordinate’s complaints, Captain Gerkin felt his temples throbbing.
In the end, these guys couldn’t properly handle one rebellious low-rank and were asking for help from him, their captain.
Gerkin sighed deeply enough to make the ground cave in and said.
“Isn’t that just puberty?”
“…Ah, that might be it!”
The subordinate nodded enthusiastically at Gerkin’s words.
Puberty.
Certainly, men at that age tend to develop groundless confidence.
“Fine. Call him over. Once I give him a good scolding, he’ll come to his senses. It’s about time to establish some discipline anyway….”
Clank.
Before Gerkin could finish speaking, the barracks door opened.
Soon, a boy with ash-gray hair entered the barracks—Reagan.
“Haha. They say even tigers come when you talk about them.”
Gerkin grinned as he looked at Reagan.
Immediately after, Gerkin was overwhelmed by an intense sense of unease.
‘This kid, were his eyes always like this?’
Reagan. A boy who had just turned eighteen and was a low-rank member of the Black Hyena mercenary group led by Gerkin.
Feeling sorry for him begging without parents, Gerkin had been feeding and housing him in exchange for odd jobs for five years now.
During all those years of watching Reagan, Gerkin thought he was like a wooden puppet.
He spoke little and would carry out any task given to him, even if it broke his body. He was that kind of tool-like boy.
Gerkin wasn’t a slave trader, but he knew well that boys like Reagan were equivalent to first-class slaves. He had even planned to sell him to a slave trader if his body broke down and became useless.
However, the atmosphere Reagan gave off now was quite different from just yesterday.
Though he was just a third-rate mercenary, Gerkin had been eating with his sword for over ten years, so he could tell.
Those eyes couldn’t come from an ordinary boy. They were the eyes you could only find in seasoned swordsmen who had rolled through battlefields countless times and cut down dozens of people.
“…So you were here, Captain. I have something to say.”
Was it because he was intimidated by those eyes?
Gerkin couldn’t show any reaction until Reagan approached him and spoke up.
Reagan sat in the chair across from the table and said bluntly.
“I want to quit the mercenary group.”
“…What?”
Gerkin frowned as he looked at Reagan’s face. His expression was calm. If anything, he seemed to have his thoughts elsewhere.
He wanted to nod readily, but that would tarnish the captain’s authority. Gerkin frowned and answered in the lowest voice possible.
“Kid, you haven’t even been in my mercenary group for three years.”
“I know. But I still plan to quit. Mercenary work doesn’t seem to suit me.”
“…Hmm. If that’s truly your intention….”
It was nice being able to use him cheaply, but it’s a shame there’s nothing to be done.
The moment he thought that.
“How much severance pay will you give me?”
“…What?”
“I need to travel far. I need travel money, and since I’ve worked without pay for over three years, you should give me the overdue wages. Didn’t you say you’d give it to me when I became an adult and kept the lump sum for me?”
Give me money.
For Gerkin, who was a mercenary to his bones, those words were like touching a sore spot.
“You, what the hell are you talking about? Are you in your right mind?”
“Yes. I’m perfectly sane. You should give me what you owe. Did you think I wouldn’t know that you were living off others’ backs and planning to sell me to slave traders when I became useless?”
Reagan said with a frown. How did he know? While Gerkin was momentarily speechless at being hit right on target, Reagan continued his barrage.
“I know you gambled away all the money you said you’d give me later. I also know you embezzled the advance payment from a recent commission to drink with your cronies. Did you think the members didn’t know and would let it slide? Living like that is a perfect way to get stabbed in the back.”
Gerkin’s face turned red and blue at the rapid-fire criticism.
He thought he had hidden it well, but where did this Reagan kid pick up all this information?
“Hey, shut up! The others can hear you!”
Gerkin hastily cut off Reagan’s words.
Sure enough, the faces of the nearby members were darkening.
“Then you must have done something shameful. If you don’t want to hear it, just give me my overdue wages.”
Reagan said curtly.
“You, you little…!”
Gerkin could no longer hold back. The strange atmosphere emanating from the boy before him no longer registered as something Gerkin needed to be wary of.
“You suddenly show up saying you’re leaving the mercenary group, and now you’ve finally lost your mind! What about all the food and shelter I provided! How dare a little brat like you demand money from me…!”
Crack!
In that moment, his vision flipped.
A scabbard flying at the speed of light struck Gerkin’s temple.
Before he knew it, Reagan held a scabbard in his hand.
That scabbard was none other than Gerkin’s own.
How had he stolen it, when had he swung it?
The sword strike was too fast for the eyes to follow.
Could that really be a sword wielded by a brat not even of age?
Gerkin’s thoughts ended there.
“You should have listened when I was speaking nicely.”
In his fading consciousness, Reagan was merely scratching the back of his head as if annoyed.
* * *
As I left the mercenary group, a money pouch filled with silver coins hung at my waist. The jingling sound of metal. The corners of my mouth turned up. Money always puts one’s mind and body at ease.
Meanwhile, inside the barracks, mercenaries who had each taken a beating were groaning and rolling on the floor.
“…Was I too harsh?”
My hand had been a bit heavy.
However, Gerkin, the captain of the Black Hyena mercenary group, was among the worst scum I had ever encountered.
The other mercenaries had also tried to subdue me following Gerkin’s orders, so it was unavoidable.
Before my regression, I had rotted in that mercenary group for a full five years.
Five years, five whole years.
The money I received when leaving that place.
The compensation for working with bone-grinding dedication and sacrificing my youth was four silver coins.
A pittance so small I couldn’t even put food on the table.
Not only that, but Gerkin had even tried to sell me to slave traders. Back then, being young, I had no place to voice my grievances, but now it was different.
A regressor. Though in an untrained boy’s body, I had enough strength and skill to take down several ruffians.
I had secured a good sum of money, and I’d taken his quality iron sword as spoils of war, so I could handle any dangerous situations that arose during travel.
So I called for a carriage.
The gray-haired coachman frowned seeing me alone, but when I subtly opened the money pouch at my waist, he smiled broadly and bowed obsequiously.
“Where shall I take you?”
I didn’t hesitate.
I had already decided where to go.
“Benheim.”
All I had left after my regression were memories of the past.
In that case, shouldn’t I go meet that detestable woman who had burdened me with such a heavy load?
“Please take me to Benheim County. I’ll pay whatever you ask.”
Upon hearing my words, the coachman raised the corners of his mouth with interest.
“Haha. Benheim County… Are you also going to Benheim?”
“‘Also’?”
“Aren’t you going to Benheim to become a mage like the others?”
The coachman spoke as if it were nothing new.
“Please explain in detail. Must one go to Benheim to become a mage?”
“Ah, you must be a young man who knows nothing. Benheim periodically holds examinations to take mages from outside the family as disciples. Though the treatment is poor compared to blood-related inner disciples, there are so many riffraff trying to grab onto the lifeline of a renowned mage family in this harsh world. Ah, not that I’m saying you’re one of them…”
“…Hmm.”
Hearing the explanation reminded me of the last night I spent with Renia.
Back then, Renia had explained about her family. The Benheim Count’s Family, unlike the other Four Renowned Mage Families, wasn’t closed off and was hospitable to outsiders, taking in talented individuals to teach them magic.
Listening to the coachman’s story, it seemed those words were true.
“So, are you also thinking of becoming a mage, young sir?”
At the coachman’s words, I fell into thought for a moment.
Then someone’s gentle voice surfaced in my consciousness.
– It’s alright. Mr. Reagan has more outstanding magical talent than you think. More than someone like me. Even if you had learned magic instead of the sword, you would have achieved greatness.
Words Renia had said to me on our last night as she handed me the pendant.
‘…She said I could succeed as a mage too.’
Having made my decision, I chuckled and said to the coachman.
“Yes, sir. I think I’ll try being a mage in this life.”
“This… life?”
“It’s a long story.”
The coachman tilted his head with a puzzled expression.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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