Chapter 4 …
“Tell me again. Who’s behind you?”
Ikael’s voice was as sharp as a blade.
Rodon rolled his eyes and looked down.
Ikael’s blade pressed down on his neck.
‘Could it be… he’ll really cut me?’
Surely, he wouldn’t dare. At least, not if it were the Ikael of yesterday.
Rodon swallowed nervously.
The Ikael before him was no longer the frail boy from yesterday.
For some reason, an aura of a seasoned swordsman radiated from the body of the eleven-year-old Ikael, as if he had transformed overnight.
‘But I can’t just spill the truth.’
If he recklessly revealed his backers, he would face an even more horrifying fate.
‘Well, then, it’s do or die.’
“Master Ikael, you can’t do this to me! I am your tutor, here to teach you!”
But Ikael didn’t flinch.
“Dismissed.”
“Master!!”
“Or should I cut you right now?”
Clack-
This time, Ikael gripped Recruit’s sword, Crescen.
The sword, a symbol of Recruit’s bloodline and authority, emitted a sharp metallic sound.
“…!”
Rodon immediately grasped the implication.
‘Recruit.’
Ikael was the youngest son of the Recruit family. Only he had the right to touch that sword.
Yet Rodon had recklessly laid his hands on it. That alone was enough justification for Ikael to strike him down.
Rodon, intending to pressure Ikael with the sword, had been outmaneuvered instead.
Finally, Rodon slumped his head and was quietly dragged away.
Before the door closed, he glanced back at Ikael.
‘The Ikael who never seemed to mind being ignored… feels like a completely different person now.’
The intensity in Ikael’s eyes burned like that of a desert warrior.
Rodon dared not voice his thoughts and swallowed them internally. His own safety was far more urgent.
Night fell.
Ikael sent both the maid and the servant out of his room.
“I’ll sleep early. Don’t come in.”
“Yes, Master Ikael.”
Click-
The maid and servant closed the door carefully behind them.
“It seems Master Ikael was shocked by what happened earlier, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. The tutor being dragged off by knights out of nowhere—it’s a total shock!”
“What happened? Tell me!”
“I don’t know all the details. I was outside since class was about to start, and suddenly the tutor was dragged out of the room.”
“Good heavens!”
The servants couldn’t have imagined that it was Ikael himself who had threatened to take the sword from the tutor, even hinted at killing him, and locked him in suspicion.
To their eyes, Ikael was just a frail eleven-year-old boy.
But Ikael paid no attention to the servants’ chatter. His focus was elsewhere.
“Huuu…”
He sat on his bed, concentrating all his energy in his dantian.
‘Aura Training.’
Today, he would succeed, no matter what.
He could feel the energy flowing through and around his body—the sound of breaking eye crystals, the sensation of the bed sheets brushing his skin.
‘And I will gather it all into my dantian.’
But…
“Huuu—”
With his exhale, the aura dispersed.
‘What’s wrong with me!’
Thump.
Ikael lightly struck the wall with his fist. He had to suppress even his frustration. A frail master born into the strongest sword family was this powerless.
‘Once more. Just one more time.’
He tried repeatedly, but the result was the same. The aura nearly gathered, only to vanish like smoke.
‘The cold, freezing aura of the Recruit family is definitely flowing through my body.’
Whenever he attempted the aura training, a chilling energy ran through his veins—but it refused to reach his dantian, as if the channel were blocked by a rock.
Eventually, Ikael collapsed on his bed, drenched in sweat.
‘It’s maddening to fail at something that used to come naturally.’
In his previous life, he had performed aura training countless times until he became a 7-star knight. At that point, he could manipulate half of his aura to redirect a river.
But now, his body was as unresponsive as trying to light a water-soaked matchstick.
‘Maybe this body can’t handle it.’
Ikael wanted to uncover the secrets of this cursed body, but his stamina ran out. His eyelids grew heavy.
Knock-knock-
Just before dawn, a knight tapped on his window, and Ikael realized he had dozed off from exhaustion.
“Master Ikael.”
“Yes.”
Ikael hid his sleepiness and sat upright.
Swish-
The knight handed him a piece of paper from the shadows.
“We have confirmed the contents you urgently requested, Master.”
“I see.”
The single word snapped Ikael fully awake.
He had asked them to find out what medicine he had been taking. Taking the paper in hand, he was silent for a while.
The knight bowed deeply.
“Master, I regret to inform you, but that medicine…”
Crunch.
Ikael crumpled the paper with his hand, his small fingers whitening from the force.
—A medicine that destroys the dantian.
There was no doubt about the contents. In his previous life, he had entrusted a loyal Recruit knight with the task, so it was unlikely to be a lie.
Ikael’s silver eyes flashed.
“Where is Rodon now?”
“That… he committed suicide the moment we removed his gag. There was no time to intervene. I apologize, Master.”
Ikael nodded slowly. He had not yet asked who was behind it, but the answer was already clear.
‘It must be one of the Recruit brothers.’
Anyone who hated him—the posthumous Ikael—so much that Rodon had to die after revealing the medicine’s secret? It had to be a member of the Recruit family.
‘Now it’s certain.’
He knew exactly where to go.
Kairun… and the Recruit family.
He would drive his sword into their midst someday, and eventually, everything would be under his feet.
‘If there is power to be gained, I will exploit it fully.’
The name Recruit was synonymous with power. If keeping the name gave him strength, he would use it fully.
‘But if the name Recruit stands in my way, I will cut it down. No matter when.’
A name clenched in his fist, only to be crushed by Ikael’s own hand—that was Recruit.
Day broke.
Ikael headed alone to the training grounds.
“Stronger!”
“Hup!”
The grounds were filled with knights, their heat dimming the brilliance of the morning sun.
Each child of the Recruit family had their own training ground, arranged in order of birth.
The eldest, Exitor, had the innermost ground, followed by Lire, Sentor, Peletor, Hector, Ishitor, and so on.
‘But there is no place for me.’
Even at the outer gates, there was no training ground for Ikael.
Ikael had been denied not only a training ground but also the legendary Recruit sword and formal sword lessons due to his frail body.
But now, suspicion crept in.
‘Was my frailty truly the reason, or just an excuse?’
Knowing the tutor had given him a suspicious medicine that damaged his dantian, he could trust nothing.
‘What is the state of my body now? How damaged is my dantian?’
Even a month after stopping the medicine, Ikael had yet to succeed in aura training.
Though the dantian wasn’t entirely destroyed, damage was evident.
‘To be unable to wield freezing aura with a Recruit body… this is serious.’
Yet it was too early to give up.
The Recruit family, being the strongest sword lineage on Earth, had bodies of unmatched strength. Their bodies could withstand the freezing aura that would stop blood in its tracks—a feat beyond mere words.
‘The heights others spend a lifetime to reach, the Recruit family achieves as if taking baby steps.’
In his previous life, he had envied the Recruit body. Despite attaining the rank of a 7-star knight through talent and effort, the wall of Recruit still loomed above him.
‘And now that superhuman body of Recruit is in my hands.’
Ikael was also a Recruit. Even if his dantian was damaged, he still possessed the Recruit physique.
It was time to test his body directly.
He made his way through a back route to the outer wall, to the lower-level training grounds.
The lower grounds were for knights before they received their formal titles. Not as prestigious as the inner grounds, but safer to move freely without the gaze of siblings or servants.
‘The succession battle in a supreme sword family like Recruit is unimaginably brutal. It would be foolish to draw attention with a weak body.’
As Ikael reached the lower grounds, he heard someone crying in a corner.
“Sniff… sob…”
A boy huddled in the corner, crying.
‘Black hair… must be a desert boy.’
Ikael headed toward him, not out of interest in the boy, but to acquire the armor and wooden sword discarded nearby to hide his identity.
“Let me borrow this.”
The boy lowered his head silently.
‘Assume he agreed.’
Swish-
Ikael removed his hood.
He skillfully donned the armor piece by piece, even putting on the helmet. He now looked every bit a lower-level knight.
It reminded him of his first time holding a wooden sword in the lower training grounds in his previous life.
‘It’s been a while. Just like when I was that crying boy.’
Back then, he had felt it was irreplaceable, no matter what fine sword was offered.
The lower grounds were filled with knights of ranks 1 to 2, all dreaming of entering the inner city someday.
Lost in thought, he moved forward, when a voice called from behind.
“You… I’ll kill you someday.”
“…What?”
The desert boy glared at him.
“I’ll take my armor and my sword back from you, several times over, someday.”
Ikael let out a faint laugh.
The boy’s face was battered, his limbs thin as a spider’s, yet he glared at Ikael as if he could kill with his eyes—just like Ikael once was.
“…Oh, how frightening.”
Ikael ignored him and continued to the training grounds.
Crack-
Having been idle for days, his body was stiff.
‘By swinging the sword today, I’ll know the limits of my body.’
Just as he prepared to grasp the wooden sword…
“Hey, desert boy.”
A voice called from behind. A large figure approached.
“You still here? After getting beaten like that?”
The man clearly mistook Ikael for the owner of the armor.
Press-
Without a word, he pressed Ikael’s helmet with his fist.
Press—Press-
“Stepping on the inner city with dirty desert feet! Only northerners like us can enter there!”
Hmm.
Now Ikael understood why the desert boy’s face had been battered before.
“You desert brat, is your tongue dead?”
Ikael didn’t respond, making the man swing his fists.
Thunk-
The helmet shook violently. Ikael clutched the straps tightly to prevent it from coming off.
“Haha, weakling. Holding onto your helmet shows you know fear?”
No.
‘If the helmet comes off, my identity will be revealed.’
Ikael pressed the helmet down further to hide his silver hair and eyes.
The man continued to taunt, unaware of whom he had provoked.
“If you have a complaint, speak now. I’d love to punch you to death.”
“Same goes for me.”
“What?”
Ikael’s eyes swept over him.
This would be a fine opponent to test his strength.
“You desert brat, what are you saying?!”
The man swung his fist.
And then…
Bwaak!
Kwa kwa kwang!
“Ugh, ugh!!”
The man stared at the sky. Ikael’s fist was already pressed sharply beneath his jaw, though the man didn’t even notice when it happened.
