Chapter 44…
The battlefield cleanup didn’t take very long.
Thanks to the Magic Corps that had come with Isabella.
The magic they could use wasn’t only for offense.
Wide-area healing.
It couldn’t restore severed limbs or bring someone back from the brink of death.
But it boasted such excellent restorative power that ordinary injuries could be cured instantly.
Thanks to that, countless knights and soldiers had their lives saved.
Dante watched them with an admiring expression.
If they — Isabella, himself, and those mages — joined forces?
“We could truly finish it.”
They could write a history completely different from his previous life.
The duchy could avoid having vast territories taken, and the people would be spared death.
Things Isabella couldn’t accomplish before — he could accomplish in this life.
“You opened the Stigma?”
On the road toward Belladium, Isabella — who had not asked anything until now — suddenly spoke.
“You noticed, of course.”
“Mm. I can see it.”
It was obvious, but she had opened the Stigma long ago.
No — she had reached something beyond that.
Someone with Isabella’s senses could not have failed to notice Dante’s condition.
“You’re really something else.”
Even Isabella, counted among the continent’s greatest geniuses, had no words for Dante’s rate of growth.
“I was lucky.”
“Don’t say ‘luck’ so easily. You know why, don’t you?”
Humility can sometimes be poisonous.
Dismissing as mere luck the level all knights aim for was wrong.
Even if it was just polite modesty, it was disrespectful to the knights who were still grinding away.
“My thinking was short.”
Dante bowed his head slightly.
He hadn’t thought of it that way until now — saying he was lucky was sincere.
But as she said, it wasn’t a word to be tossed off.
“It’s fine in front of me. But be careful saying that in front of other knights.”
“I understand.”
While he reflected on himself, Isabella asked, “You said your trait is infinite, didn’t you?”
“As far as I feel, yes.”
“Hmm.”
She paused in thought, then spoke.
“Do you know that there are kinds of traits?”
Dante cocked his head.
“I heard that each knight awakens their own trait…”
“No — not that kind. It’s more of a classification.”
A classification?
Dante still didn’t understand.
Isabella smiled and began to explain.
“The trait most knights awaken is elemental power.”
Water, fire, ice, lightning — the common and easiest traits to awaken.
“Most knights gain this elemental power.”
He’d never heard that before — not at Rittergut Academy, nor from Mileon.
“You haven’t heard before?”
“No.”
“This concept was only established recently.”
So only those who keep up with recent developments knew about it.
If he hadn’t heard it in his previous life either, it had likely always been that way.
“Elemental power is strong, but it has limits.”
“Limits?”
“Usually it ends at awakening. People with real talent don’t get elemental power — they get different kinds of traits.”
So the trait that awakens differs by talent.
“And those talented ones…?”
“Phenomena. Traits that twist physical laws or the principles of nature.”
Isabella looked at Dante and continued.
“For example: gravity, vibration, speed.”
“Unlike simple fire or ice, these are precise and comprehensive abilities.”
“Right. But they’re much harder to awaken. Even among young geniuses, only a very small fraction obtain them.”
Dante nodded.
Indeed, most knights he’d seen so far had awakened elemental power.
“There are other types too.”
“Yes. You, your father, and I are like that. Oh — and that kid Mileon, too.”
He didn’t know his father’s trait.
He couldn’t even guess, having never seen his father’s true power.
But he did know Isabella’s and Mileon’s traits.
‘Sky, and moonlight.’
They seemed like forces of nature itself.
“Concepts.”
Isabella spoke quietly.
“In a generation, fewer than ten of them. Only chosen ones can possess such traits.”
Dante’s infinity was one of them.
Belladium’s castle gate swung wide open.
Beyond the heavy iron gate, the fortress scene was rather euphoric.
News had apparently already spread that the Nouargaron that had appeared at Outpost One had been exterminated.
Dante walked quietly beside Isabella, looking at cheering soldiers.
He could hear his name called from here and there.
It was not strange — he had experienced this countless times over the past three years.
As if used to it, he crossed the main road of the fortress, then turned his head.
He saw unfamiliar people.
White robes, silver ornaments, and crystal daggers at their waists.
Their clothing was clearly different from knights or soldiers.
‘Mages.’
They were definitely mages belonging to the Magic Corps.
“That’s Beratis. Commander of the Empire’s 3rd Magic Corps, and the central commander of this relief force.”
Isabella, noticing Dante’s gaze, pointed to one of them.
Short, neat black hair, a gaunt build, and sharply cut eyes.
Even a stranger could guess a sharp temperament from his looks.
But appearance didn’t matter.
Dante’s endlessly expanded senses skimmed their insides, not their exteriors.
“Amazing.”
“Right? He’s not commander of the Magic Corps for nothing.”
The mana radiating from Beratis was unimaginably massive.
To exaggerate: he seemed like he could crush a Behemoth with mana.
“I’d heard mages have far more mana than knights.”
“We walk different paths. He probably has even more than I do.”
Isabella smiled.
“And equally powerful. As you said, they’re absolutely necessary on the battlefield.”
Dante nodded.
The Magic Corps’ power exceeded that of ten legions.
If they made a concerted effort, wiping out a kingdom might not even take a week.
There had been times when that was the reality.
Their firepower was that overwhelming.
It was then.
Had he felt eyes on him?
Beratis slowly approached.
A few mages followed behind him, and they stopped in front of Dante and Isabella.
“Your Highness Isabella.”
He bowed politely.
Contrary to his looks, his voice carried weight.
“Please forgive me for arriving late and failing to accompany you earlier.”
“Don’t be silly. You weren’t lounging around — you were supporting elsewhere.”
Just before the report of Nouargaron’s appearance, a Behemoth had invaded the Outpost 100 area.
The Magic Corps had rushed to support there, so they couldn’t be at Outpost One.
“However…”
“It would have all been over by the time you arrived anyway. This one solved it; I only watched.”
At her words, Beratis’s eyes turned to Dante.
“It’s an honor to meet the successor of Lord Zenon.”
He knew Dante’s identity.
After all, the one who had called the Magic Corps so desperately had been Dante.
He couldn’t not know.
“Is it true you dealt with a dragonling?”
“It’s literal. Dante’s sword cut that thing into thousands of pieces. We couldn’t even recover a body.”
Upon Isabella’s words, Beratis’s eyes widened.
“Did you really face Nouargaron alone?”
He knew the creature’s name.
‘Well, mages are smart and knowledgeable.’
It wouldn’t be strange for them to know Nouargaron.
“Yes.”
Dante answered, and Beratis — who had been inspecting him with a surprised expression — uttered an admiring sound.
“You opened the Trace of the Stars. At your age…”
Dante was about to reflexively say he’d been lucky, but, feeling Isabella’s look, he kept his mouth shut.
He couldn’t think what to answer.
Isabella, watching Dante’s awkwardness with amusement, answered for him.
“If you saw how he trains, you wouldn’t be able to talk about age either.”
She patted Dante’s shoulder.
“I can say without doubt: I’ve never seen a knight work harder than Dante.”
Her face flushed.
He had indeed been training hard recently to break through walls.
But he never expected to be praised like that.
Isabella’s compliment made him feel embarrassed more than proud.
“…Thank you.”
He had to at least say thanks.
She chuckled again.
“Truly amazing.”
Beratis looked at the flushed Dante in admiration.
“A knight only did what a knight should do.”
“Right. The problem is no one else does it.”
Was she enjoying teasing him?
Isabella continued making Dante uncomfortable.
Phew.
For someone who’d lived decades, this experience was unfamiliar.
He decided to quickly change the subject.
“Commander Beratis. Have you ever heard of something called Erebos?”
“Erebos?”
Isabella clearly had not heard of it; she blinked and cocked her head.
Beratis did not.
His expression hardened in an instant.
“Where did you hear that name?”
His voice — already weighty — dropped to a tone that felt oppressive.
It was as if the air itself pressed down on their shoulders.
Dante paused a moment, then spoke.
“Beyond the Derkan Plains, in the Murodia Mountains — the place called the Sleeping God’s Spine. Erebos has appeared there.”
The cause of the monster waves, the root of all this calamity.
Dante looked at Isabella.
“If we kill that thing, this war will end.”
