CHAPTER 01………………………………………..
To have luck like this on a graduation exam! Adamas’s green eyes gleamed.
—Question 1. Describe a method to revive the fallen Mano Marquisate in the year 623 of the Imperial Calendar.
At the Francisco Academy, Understanding History was a mandatory course everyone had to complete to graduate.
With an obscure frontier history appearing so boldly as the very first question—something no one had expected—confusion was written all over the students’ faces.
Of course, for Adamas, it was a most welcome question.
I dedicate all this glory to my father in heaven, who spoke to me every night about the Mano Marquisate and Sapeiros.
Lifting the corners of his lips, Adamas confidently wrote the opening sentence.
—Mano Sapeiros, who died in the 16th Ushi–Baran Battle in the year 620 of the Imperial Calendar, must be kept alive.
“This is ridiculous! Me—me getting twelve points?!”
No professor in their right mind would give a score like that. Adamas hurried to find the professor.
“There was no plan in your answer for saving the marquisate,” the professor said calmly, looking at him.
“Sapeiros was a swordmaster. Naturally, if he had lived, the Mano Marquisate wouldn’t have fallen.”
“The question asked you to think realistically, taking history into account. What you wrote is no different from a novel!”
“I wrote properly about Mano. Most people don’t even know where the Mano Marquisate was.”
“Yes, well, the only thing remotely passable was your extensive geographical knowledge of the Mano region.”
“Professor!”
“Stop bothering me and leave at once!”
The professor waved him away and shouted.
The moment Adamas stepped out of the office, he heard a tongue click behind his back.
“Tsk tsk, those Manos. Dressing up some kid who only gets two lines in the textbook as a ‘genius swordsman’ and parading him around. A swordmaster, my foot!”
His eyes burned as he returned to the dormitory. He was furious. When the tears finally spilled over, resentment welled up inside him.
“Why am I crying, like an idiot… I knew it. From the start, the people of the Empire hate ‘Mano’…”
About a hundred years ago, the Mano Marquisate at the southernmost edge of the Francisco Empire fell to an invasion by the Kingdom of Roviana.
With the flood of refugees came all kinds of problems—public order, food shortages, environmental damage. Imperial citizens claimed that beggars from the frontier were ruining their livelihoods and persecuted the Mano refugees.
“This is all Sapeiros’s fault. He shouldn’t have died…”
Wrapped tightly in a winter blanket, Adamas muttered.
Mano Sapeiros.
The war commander and knight commander of the Mano Marquisate who died in the 16th Ushi–Baran Battle.
All the surviving people from the marquisate praised him as a genius swordsman, but Imperial historians denied his legacy.
They argued that a young knight like Mano Sapeiros could never have been the commander of a marquisate’s order, and that no matter how ruined a territory might be, having a seventeen-year-old as war commander was absurd.
A tragic swordsman whose abilities and achievements were all denied, barely mentioned at the very end of modern history textbooks.
Thinking of Sapeiros, Adamas wiped away his tears.
“Sniff… Dad, I miss you. I’m really having a hard time.”
At the end of his gloomy thoughts, the face of his late father surfaced in his mind.
His father had been the first person to tell him about Sapeiros.
“They said he was a true genius… a magnificent swordmaster… Was that all you wanted to believe too, Dad? Just escapism?”
Reality couldn’t always be pleasant, but Adamas was fairly resilient by nature.
For an orphan who lost his parents early, for a refugee from the Mano Marquisate, for a mere first-circle mage…
He’d thought that once he graduated from the academy, he could find a good job. But after ruining his graduation exam, that hope was gone.
A chicken-coop-like single room in the dormitory. Even the rattling of the window in the cold wind sounded mournful.
Adamas curled up.
I promised Dad I’d become a great mage…
Unable to fight off the drowsiness pouring over him, a small green light flashed from Adamas’s right hand.
In his dream, Adamas saw his father’s final moments.
“I’m sorry, my child. This ring is the only thing I can leave you. Live well… please…”
With a trembling, bony hand, his father slipped a green beetle ring onto the middle finger of Adamas’s right hand and breathed his last.
“No, Dad. Open your eyes! Please!”
In the dream, Adamas grew younger and younger. Soon he was a tiny child, sitting on his father’s lap and kicking his feet.
“Sapeiros was truly an outstanding swordsman. Whenever the marquisate was in danger, they say he unleashed a blue aura just like his own blue eyes.”
“Wow. He must have been really pretty. Then I’ll marry Ros someday!”
“Hmm… that might be difficult.”
“Why not! I’m going to marry Ros!”
Why not, indeed. He was someone from a hundred years ago. Even in the dream, Adamas laughed. He missed his father, who would break into a sweat trying to placate his younger self.
Sapeiros had been Adamas’s first love. His father constantly praised him, so perhaps it was inevitable.
“Shh! This is a secret, but you see, our Mas is actually—”
At that moment, there was a loud bang, like something exploding. His vision suddenly flared bright.
The next instant, Adamas found himself standing barefoot in the middle of a battlefield, wearing pajama top and thick cotton pants.
Boom, boom—
Firebolts flew overhead. A magitech tank shattered with a crunching sound.
Was his exam stress really that bad? He’d never had such a violent dream before.
Whoooosh—bang.
Another firebolt exploded and plunged into the river.
“Am I really this imaginative? Where on earth is this place?”
That was when he heard it.
“Move! Hurry and cross the river! Everyone, cross the Baran River!”
A man shouted at the top of his lungs.
A young man swinging a long, slender rapier without hesitation. Sweat-soaked jet-black hair and a blue aura visible even from afar.
That’s Sapeiros, isn’t it?
What an incredible dream, Adamas murmured to himself.
“Cross the Baran River!”
His voice, hoarse from shouting countless times. Listening to Sapeiros’s booming calls, Adamas roughly ran a hand through his hair.
The sensation of hair slipping between his fingers was far too vivid.
Why is this dream so clear? Don’t tell me… I didn’t actually die, did I?
At that moment, a green light flickered briefly over Adamas’s right hand.
Green light? He quickly looked down at the back of his hand. He wore several rings, but only one was green—the one on his right middle finger.
A beetle-shaped ring carved from opaque green natural agate. His father’s keepsake.
“Come on. It’s a dream, right? A dream. I don’t believe in stuff like this. Time slip is still just a hypothesis.”
Even among scholars who believed time slip might be possible, opinions were divided. Above all, there were no records of anyone returning after going back…
Kaboom! Another earth-shaking explosion rang out.
“Aah!”
Adamas covered his ears, shut his eyes, and dropped to the ground.
“It’s a dream. It has to be a dream.”
There was no way his father’s keepsake had time-slip magic. If it did, he’d have told him long ago!
“Okay, wake up! Please! One, two, three!”
But no matter how many times he opened and closed his eyes, reality didn’t change.
“Get up! Cross the Baran River! If you cross, you’ll live!”
The desperate shouts kept pounding his ears.
Most of the soldiers followed Sapeiros’s command, slicing through the river as they swam.
Now, outside the river, Sapeiros was practically the only Mano-Fran soldier still alive and moving.
“No, even for a dream, this is too much!”
Did he really believe that just crossing the river would let him survive?
Biting his lip hard, Adamas forced himself to stand. Damn it—of all dreams, why this one?!
“Cross the river! I’ll hold them here!”
No—you should cross first.
“Cross the river! If you cross, everyone lives!”
No. Everyone dies.
If you don’t cross that river.
That was history.
Barefoot, Adamas ran toward Sapeiros.
“Move! Aaah! Get out of the way!”
He shouted. Even if this was only a dream, he couldn’t let that man die.
When Sapeiros finally came into view, Adamas took a deep breath.
He quickly scanned Sapeiros’s condition.
Sapeiros was covered in blood. He had no helmet, no armor. His bloodstained leather undergarment was fully exposed.
No—at least wear greaves and iron boots. Isn’t it dangerous to fight like that?!
The most dangerous injury was his left shoulder.
“At least he’s managing to hold a dagger in his left hand.”
His right hand, gripping the rapier, looked somewhat better, but even that was fully occupied with deflecting blades flying at him—he couldn’t even think of attacking.
“You jerk. You’re half dead and still screaming your lungs out! If this is a dream anyway, wouldn’t it be nicer to dance at a ballroom? Why a battlefield?!”
Swallowing the surge of emotion, Adamas quickly pulled a carnelian ring off his left pinky and clenched it tightly.
“It was fun while it lasted, Andalusite. Meeting you at the night market was really a stroke of luck.”
The opaque rose-colored gem flared red in an instant.
“Eat this, you filthy beggars!”
Adamas hurled the ring at a Roviana soldier charging toward Sapeiros’s shoulder.
“Take this—hell’s left-hand fireball!”
The fireball exploded with a bang, making the Roviana soldier stagger. In that opening, Sapeiros neatly stabbed the soldier in the abdomen with his rapier.
“Wow!”
For a first attempt, their teamwork was incredible.
Nice, genius knight!
Amazing. Truly.
Beaming, Adamas looked at Sapeiros and shouted,
“Why are you just standing there?!”
“Huh?”
“Run! Hurry!”
