Chapter 16: Chapter 16

‘Did you abandon the spear, Dane?’

As a proponent of the spear who would claim the spear is always better than the sword, this feeling was heartbreaking.

At that moment, he thought of Duke Thermion.

That bastard senior of his clearly must have said something deceiving. If not, Dane would not be swinging a sword around when he had been training so well with the spear.

Count Sogres, feeling heartbroken, was going to approach Dane when…

“Ha…”

The stance in which Dane was swinging his sword felt extremely familiar.

Why was it?

How could that be for a kid who had never swung a sword before?

Even the aura he was emanating could measure up to someone who had trained in swordsmanship to some extent.

Woosh swoosh!

But if you consider that Dane’s body, it was strange. He could not understand this.

When in the world did Dane learn this?

When he was five? Or from a book?

He couldn’t know for sure, but he was certain about one thing.

‘He has… talent in swordsmanship, too.’

It seemed ridiculous, but it was clearly true.

Otherwise, he would not be able to explain Dane’s sharp movements, footwork, and the force by which Dane was expressing his swordsmanship.

Is this even possible?

All this time, he had never seen Dane hold a sword once. And he was sure Dane had never been taught it either.

But… Are those basic skills a part of his abilities?

Unless he was training in his dreams, this was unbelievable.

I guess—

This is what ‘talent’ means, too?

“Haha.”

Count Sogres broke out into a hearty laugh.

He wondered about the full details behind Dane learning swords.

However, even before that, he had to confirm one thing.

“This castle is far too limiting for that child.”

He had been holding onto the feeling of wanting to keep his son at the castle for a long, long time up until now. That feeling was now slowly dissipating.

If Dane had that great amount of talent, he could not hold Dane here.

Rather, the moment Dane showed talent in even just one specialization, be it spearmanship, assassination, magic, or summoning, he could no longer be restrained to the castle.

The count had just been trying hard to disregard it.

But now that Dane had shown talent in swordsmanship as well, it had become too difficult to continue disregarding it.

‘Did Duke Thermion teach him?’

That would be even more unbelievable.

Regardless of Dane’s relationship with Duke Thermion, there would be no way the Duke would have taught Dane swords without letting the count know.

“Greetings, Count.”

Amid all his thoughts, he was greeted by Herman.

“You’ve come out here early, no?”

“The young master asked to come out here an hour earlier.”

“An hour, was it…”

“Shall I call the young master over?”

“No, it’s fine. Let’s wait until he is finished.”

Count Sogres was lost in thought while Dane was wielding his sword.

A while later.

“Father, you were here?”

In the middle of his training, the moment Dane noticed Count Sogres, he put his sword down and ran over. It seemed Dane’s gaze was on Dragon Tail that his father had brought with him, but that was only for a short while.

“When did you learn swords?”

“……”

“I suppose… because of your talent.”

He nodded as if he knew that all along.

Dane looked as if he wanted to say something but closed his mouth again.

Count Sogres asked resolutely, “Dane, aren’t you curious about the world?”

It was an abrupt question from his father.

“Spears and magic, assassination, summoning… and now swords. If I were any other person, no one would believe that I had a child with talent in them all.”

Count Sogres continued.

“Obviously, the world is not made up of just this castle. Dane, there is much you don’t know. I’m thinking… this castle is far too small to contain a talent such as yours.”

Count Sogres was very serious.

With Dane’s level of talent being so excessively high, having him stay at the castle would be a huge disfavor to him.

The count realized he could no longer hold onto him with his paternal desires.

That is why he asked Dane if he was curious about the world.

“I am curious.”

And Dane’s response was ‘Indeed.’

Very much so.

How the world is.

How much his talent can rise in this world.

And above all else, what the world is like beyond the battlefield and outside the confines of the castle.

These were the thoughts Dane was wondering about inside his head.

Count Sogres smiled at Dane’s response.

He was disappointed, but it was inevitable since his son wanted this.

“Good. Then you’ll need to get ready to step out into the world.”

Count Sogres took Dragon Tail out.

“I brought this with me today intending to give it to you.”

“This is…”

“Yes. It’s Dragon Tail. On your first birthday, it reacted to you.”

He held Dragon Tail out to Dane.

“You want to hold it?”

Dane took hold of Dragon Tail without hesitation.

And at that moment—

Voom voom voom!

Dragon Tail reacted as if it had been waiting.

It was reacting even more strongly than it did when Dane was one year old.

Count Sogres looked dumbfounded and then burst out into laughter.

“Hahaha…”

Spearmanship.

Assassination.

Magic.

Summoning.

And even swordsmanship.

One has to wonder if this was a genius level of talent to include all those. But once he saw Dragon Tail’s reaction, he became greedy.

Greedy to make spearmanship stand out the most among all those talents.

“At the very least, I will make sure to properly teach you spearmanship before sending you off. Be ready.”

The count was warning Dane that he should expect the training to be intense. Dane nodded his head as if he had been waiting for it.

“Absolutely.”

Count Sogres smiled, quite pleased.

“Someday this spear will become yours, Dane. Until that time comes, make sure to improve your skills so you don’t bring shame to this spear.”

Dane provided an unexpected response to that statement.

“Rather than for Dragon Tail, I’ll improve my skills to not bring shame to your teaching, Father.”

‘Of course. As expected of my son.’

He began to feel disappointed again that he would have to send his son off in a few years.

After having my swordsmanship be ‘discovered’ by Father, I returned to my room and was lost in thought for a while.

The battlefield.

It was a still world.

Even if the front lines moved, my own life did not change. I set up camp, cleaned weapons, ate tasteless food, and headed out to battle.

There were only two ways of escaping it.

Be discharged or die.

But for me, I had no place to return to if I was discharged so I remained there.

“Even then, I wondered about the outside world.”

However, the knowledge that I had to return to the battlefield someday made me hesitate.

As I was born and raised on the battlefield, I was unable to imagine what life would be like outside the battlefield.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

I was curious about it when I saw how happy soldiers were to receive discharge orders.

I wondered what it would feel like to return ‘home.’

But when faced with death, I had my eyes opened to a completely different world from the one I knew… ironically, it made me curious about the outside world.

How I could use the talents I never thought I’d get to use outside the battlefield. How would the world receive me? What would I be able to achieve in this world?

“Whether it’s the academy or somewhere else…”

If the promise I made with Leila to go to the capital was vague before, I suppose I could say that it had become a bit more defined now.

Until just now, I only had thoughts of remaining in this warm and inviting place for a long, long time, but thanks to Father’s words, my thoughts changed.

“Talent, huh.”

Honestly, it would be ridiculous to let this talent go to waste.

And that is why I resolved myself, once again.

“Let’s go. To wherever.”

But only after I have prepared properly.

However, at that moment…

“Seems you’ve really made your decision, son.”

Mother, who had come in at some point, was standing in my room.

“Mother?”

I jumped out of bed.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t enter without knocking. Even though I knocked, you were so lost in thought you didn’t hear me.”

“Ah….”

Mother approached carefully and sat next to me.

She asked with a bit of a reluctant expression, “So you’re curious about what it’s like outside of the castle, Dane?”

I realized the mistake I made then.

My sisters had all left the castle.

Sometimes they returned, but only for a brief visit.

And later, when they become engaged, the castle will become a place they only visit occasionally.

As a result, I was the only one left, and now I was speaking of being curious about the world.

It felt like I had momentarily forgotten the precious feeling of family I had not been able to experience in my previous life.

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

“Why are you sorry, Dane?”

Mother stroked my head.

“I know. I know how incredible your talent is. How extraordinary it is. Even if you don’t want it, the world may want you.”

“But Mother. I would also be fine with staying here for a long, long time.”

Mother burst into laughter as if she had heard something cute.

Mother’s green eyes examined me. Those green eyes my sisters had been unable to inherit, but I had.

“If born in House Sogres, you must head out into the world. Of course, I would love for you to stay here for a long, long time, as well… but I don’t believe the world would let you do so.”

Mother’s hand moved from my head to my hand.

“That’s why you should go out into the world as you wish, Dane.”

As I wish.

At those words, my eyes opened wide.

“…I want to see the world. And…”

I brought forth the best response I could give.

“I’ll come back often to tell you about what I’ve seen, Mother.”

Mother flashed the most radiant smile.

“Thanks, Dane. You’re really considerate of me.”

She embraced me.

The comfort of her warm embrace felt like a dream for a brief moment.

But it was only for a moment.

“Then, like your father, I guess I will have to prepare you to send you out into the world.”

Like Father…

“Originally I was going to teach you tracking one step at a time, but I’ll begin by also adding how to lay traps and avoid them.”

As if it had just come to mind, Mother added, “You need quite a variety of skills for assassination. It’s important to know about the traps that exist in this world. Tracking skills, skills to avoid tracking, and even skills to hide bodies all exist. Ah! That’s right. You need to learn about the structure of the human body. Depending on the stab, you could assassinate a target silently with just a pinhole-like wound.”

I felt dazed.

She is even including murder.

And why are there so many to learn, Mother?

“Oh and um, dagger skills are a necessity. Well, since you have talent in swordsmanship, you should be able to learn daggers easily, maybe? Anyhow… I’ll be teaching you a whole lot, okay?”

First Father. And now I predict another intense training.

Having too much talent can be a problem, too.

Should I… tell my sisters about this or not?