Reincarnated as the Descendant of a Fallen Noble

Chapter 9:  First, This Damned Body. (4)

The next day, early morning, in the backyard of the Daphne mansion.

Hardin trudged in holding a wooden sword to this place where no one was around.

“Haaah.”

How exhausting…

The fatigue from last night still hadn’t faded, dark circles were heavy under my eyes, and I couldn’t stop yawning.

My body felt this way partly because I’d almost died while forming the core, but there was an even bigger reason.

 L-Lord Gadolph has collapsed!

 There’s a ghost over there! A ghost appeared!

Because of the unexpected ghost commotion that erupted in the middle of the night, there had been a huge uproar.

‘Seriously… it was a complete mess.’

The knights and retainers had rushed over to catch the ghost, and the entire mansion descended into utter chaos.

 Begone, evil spirit!

 No, it’s not an evil spirit, that’s Hardin, Hardin!

The knights were swarming everywhere.

If things had gone just a little wrong, I might have been branded an evil spirit and physically exorcised by the Lord. What kind of ridiculous ordeal was this?

 It’s me, me! I’m not an evil spirit!

 …Hardin?

In the end, I barely managed to explain that I was me… and the whole incident was wrapped up after I received the physician’s examination.

Great, wonderful, a truly happy ending.

If there was just a tiny problem, it was that after all the ruckus all night long, the exhaustion hadn’t gone away at all…

‘Still, well, at least I recovered my mana.’

Hardin let a faint smile appear.

The core I earned through this wretched suffering.

I had to properly confirm what kind of power it held, whether it was as usable as a mana circuit.

In my heart, I’d wanted to experiment right away last night, but…

‘If I’d done that, the chaos would never have ended.’

It left me feeling strangely drained.

Hardin stared vacantly into the air.

“Is there really nothing easy in this world?”

I’d been treated like a ghost?

If my subordinates who had gone to the afterlife had seen me like this, they’d have burst out laughing.

Damned bastards… I’d like to see them in my shoes, as if there was any other way.

Scratching my head, I reached the inner part of the backyard.

The corners of Hardin’s lips curled up in a smirk.

“This should be just right.”

A large tree stood planted in front of me.

Its trunk looked thick enough that I could beat on it with all my strength without much trouble.

It was just the right target to test how strong I was now.

‘Huu… let’s do this.’

Hardin gripped the wooden sword and took his stance.

I closed my eyes for a moment and sensed the energy in my lower abdomen.

‘My mana capacity is… around 1-star Beginner.’

Knight ranks usually ranged from 1-star to 5-star.

And within each star, there were Beginner, Expert, and Veteran levels.

That meant the amount of mana in my body was no more than the level of a newly awakened 1-star knight.

Of course, since I’d only just reawakened my mana, it was inevitable… but after all that torment, the power I’d gained being only this much made a sigh escape my lips.

‘In the old days, I used to go around beating up even those 5-star bastards…’

If I was starting off like this, when in the world would I ever climb back up to that level again?

The thought felt so distant that a sigh slipped out of me, but for now, even this much was something to be grateful for.

After all, this was still much better than dying or being left without any mana at all.

‘Let’s think positively, positively.’

Normally, when ordinary people started training to become 1-star level, the time required was at least six or seven years.

Some even spent up to ten years pounding away at it, so… the fact I’d achieved 1-star wasn’t really a bad accomplishment for my age.

‘All I have to do is keep getting stronger from here.’

Anyway, my head was already filled with the subtleties of Wave Swordsmanship and countless experiences from my past life.

If I used all of that as a foundation and pushed forward quickly, I’d easily surpass my former self by the time I reached the same age as before.

‘…Is this what they call fighting against yourself or whatever?’

In any case, the important thing was to focus on the present for now.

Hardin let out a snort of air through his nose.

‘Alright, let’s start by… drawing out the mana.’

I concentrated my mind and pictured drawing power out of the core.

Thump!

My heart gave a powerful beat, and I felt energy rapidly spreading throughout my whole body.

Uuuuuuuung!

A blue light pooled in my eyes, and strength surged through every muscle.

‘Rigidization.’

A basic technique commonly used by mana users of 1-star and above, reinforcing the entire body by infusing it with mana.

Just by using this, one’s physical abilities grew several times stronger, creating a clear distinction between a knight and an ordinary person.

And the mere fact that blue light glowed from one’s eyes was proof of being a mana user.

With a normal wooden sword, I wouldn’t be able to leave a single mark on that tree, but if I used Rigidization…

‘At the very least, it should have the impact of an axe strike.’

Taat!

Manjo Second Style… Demon Whale, horizontal slash.

I stepped forward and forcefully swept the sword sideways.

At first, it moved out slowly, then in an instant… the flow of mana twisted and burst forth.

A motion I had performed tens or hundreds of thousands of times in my past life.

The wooden sword followed that motion and struck the tree.

TaaAAAAck!

With a dull thud, the sword was pathetically blocked by the tree.

I slowly withdrew the sword to check, and there wasn’t even a scratch on the bark, let alone any gouge like an axe would leave.

‘…Huh? What is this?’

Hardin tilted his head.

This was strange. I was sure I’d done it correctly.

I had sent the mana down my arm, put strength into it properly…

Taaack! Taaack!

‘What the hell?’

I tried swinging the sword again and again, but the result didn’t change.

‘This is right, isn’t it? Like shooting threads from the mana circuit… huh?’

What was this? Why wasn’t it working?

Taaack! Taaack! TaaaAAAck!

How many times had I swung the sword by now?

“Bullshit?”

Like water in a heated kettle, Hardin began to simmer slowly.

Taaack! Taaack!

Each time I swung, the heat in my forehead rose, and my hands grew numb.

But unable to accept this reality, I kept repeating it for a long time.

“Why! Why is this happening!”

At last, the boiling heat inside me erupted.

In that moment—

Puh-ooom!

Along with a sound of something bursting inside me, a hot sensation spread through my lower abdomen.

‘Huh?’

W-Why was this happening all of a sudden?

“Hup!”

At the same time, Hardin’s sword accelerated beyond his control, cutting through the air without restraint.

The moment it touched the tree—

Kwa-jijijijik!

The wooden sword sliced straight through the trunk and emerged on the other side, emitting a white burst of steam.

‘…What the hell?’

Why had the sword pierced through the tree…

While Hardin blinked in bewilderment,

Jjeojeojeok!

The tree in front of him began tipping closer and closer.

Was that… about to fall over…

“Goddamn it!”

Kuuuuung!

Hardin reflexively leaped aside, and the tree crashed down onto the spot he had just been standing.

I… I almost turned into jerky.

“…What the hell was that just now?”

I’d cut down a whole tree with a single strike? And with a wooden sword, no less?

Hardin stared blankly at the sword in his hand, then crouched in front of the fallen trunk to inspect the stump left behind.

The outer surface had been roughly torn apart.

“It… really does look like I did this…”

This was… strange. No matter how much I used Rigidization, it shouldn’t have been anywhere near this powerful at my current level.

The amount of mana in my body had obvious limits…

No matter how skilled I was, the most I could do was use the mana I had; I couldn’t create more out of thin air.

“L-Let’s try it again.”

Snapping out of my daze, I grabbed the sword once more and took my stance.

This time, I aimed at a tree about half as thick as the one I’d just felled.

“Huup!”

Just like before—make the mana erupt from within!

Buuuuuung!

Clenching my teeth, I swung the sword.

Tuk!

But the sword was stopped flat, pathetically blocked again.

I couldn’t even scratch the bark, just like the very first attempts.

“…Why is it doing this again?”

I… I had no idea what the reason was.

Uuuung! Pshhh! Uuuung! Pshhh!

Each time I swung, something felt like it was about to burst out, but then the energy fizzled away.

“Haaah… haaaah… Why… why am I this exhausted? All I did was swing the sword a few times.”

It felt like I was already running out of mana. Even considering how worthless this body was, this was far too soon…

Just as my breath rose up to my throat—

‘Could it be…’

A sudden thought flashed through my mind.

‘…Did I burn up all my mana in that single strike just now?’

W-Wait, I’d better check.

Hardin closed his eyes and examined the core for a moment.

He immediately felt that the mana it had held was completely drained.

So that meant I’d used everything in that one swing that felled the tree…

‘This… this is a bit… no, very different from a mana circuit, isn’t it?’

What the hell was this system supposed to be?

This was strange. Way too strange.

While Hardin was stroking his chin—

“Over here! T-That sound came from over here!”

“Y-Yes, over there!”

He heard the voices of the servants shouting in the distance.

‘For now… I should get out of here.’

If I got caught again, it’d only turn into another hassle.

Without hesitation, Hardin dashed off in the opposite direction of the voices echoing nearer.

---

A short while later.

“Huuuu… Haaa…”

In a remote thicket where no one else was around.

Several trees around me had been smashed to pieces, and I sat calmly at the center, taking deep breaths.

The cultivation method of Wave Swordsmanship, Blue Hole.

It was a way to absorb mana.

Every time I inhaled, the mana scattered in the surrounding air clung to my skin and was quickly drawn into my body.

That process repeated for some time as the minutes passed.

Flash!

Hardin opened his eyes and gave a faint smile.

“Now I’ve got a rough idea.”

After trying all sorts of nonsense for several hours, I thought I’d grasped some of the differences between the core and the circuit.

First of all, there was a difference in the speed at which mana was emitted and absorbed.

Ttak!

When Hardin snapped his fingers, blue flames shot up from the tip.

See? It hadn’t even been that many hours of cultivation, and I’d already recovered this much.

With a mana circuit, you had to consciously draw in external mana for ages to replenish it, but this thing pulled mana in on its own… and if I used a cultivation technique, the speed multiplied several times over.

The core felt like it was drawing in mana itself from the outside.

‘Now I get why that squid bastard was so strong.’

It was probably the reason Shagrath had attacked endlessly like a wellspring that never dried up no matter how much mana he used.

Of course, there was a decisive difference between me and him.

‘The size of the core.’

His core was so massive it was like stuffing an entire house inside him.

That was why he could keep absorbing mana no matter how much he burned through.

Compared to that, mine was honestly no bigger than a tiny rat pellet…

‘Well, it’s still not bad.’

Even so, it was several times faster at recovering mana than an ordinary mana circuit.

The real problem was…

‘When I release the mana.’

Hardin slammed his fist into the ground.

Kuuung!

The ground dented with a clear imprint of my hand, and steam began to rise from the spot where my fist had been.

“Huuu…”

This… the core’s mana output speed was too fast. Far too fast.

If I had to compare it, it was like going from shooting a small bow to firing a giant ballista.

So was that a good thing?

Well, the power itself was fine. The faster the output, the stronger it became.

The problem was… it now took much more strength to fire off even a single “ballista bolt.”

Controlling the force felt absurdly difficult, like trying to dance on ice.

“Huuu… out of breath again.”

Hardin panted, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

If I couldn’t manage this power properly, I’d collapse from exhaustion in the middle of a fight.

Even I, Hardin, was struggling with precise mana control.

Still, if I wanted to find some kind of silver lining…

‘I think this could actually be a good match with Wave Swordsmanship.’

One of the core principles of Wave Swordsmanship was the circulation of force.

It specialized in making the most efficient use of any mana at your disposal.

If I could blend that with the core’s ability to discharge mana at lightning speed, I’d definitely be able to create a synergy.

So then…

‘Maybe… this isn’t so bad?’

A strange certainty welled up from within me.

A power that rampaged like a mad dog, completely unrestrained.

If I could just learn to control it properly, I felt an intense conviction I could become far stronger than I had ever been as Varlach.

The corners of Hardin’s lips slowly curled upward.

‘…You damned squid. I’ll make good use of your power.’

With this, I’d devour the entire Empire.

You can watch from the afterlife and grind your teeth in frustration.

Hardin nodded to himself and rose to his feet.

“Alright.”

Well, I’d done enough performance testing for now.

‘What should I do next?’

Even a thousand-mile journey started with a single step.

Now that I’d taken that first step… I had to decide what came after.

I scratched my chin and fell into thought.

‘First of all, I should at least inform everyone that I’ve recovered my mana.’

I could tell by how everyone acted around me.

This body—Hardin Daphne—was regarded no better than trash by almost everyone.

Just revealing this alone would be enough to regain some of their confidence.

‘Though… simply announcing it is a little boring.’

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so if I could make it impactful—like bam!—the effect would be much greater.

‘Should I say it during a family council meeting? Or…’

Honestly, part of me just wanted to march straight into the knights and beat every one of them half to death.

Thinking of how those bastards used to laugh at me made me want to split their skulls in two.

Besides, swallowing up the knights and using that as the foundation to rebuild the house rapidly could be another way to restore the family.

However…

‘That won’t work.’

Hardin closed his eyes for a moment, recalling what Gadolph had told him.

 The current Knight Commander? That would be Sir Mulgybson.

 And what kind of person is he?

 I don’t know him well myself… but he’s served our house faithfully for over thirty years. He has a good reputation and the Lord trusts him deeply. But why do you ask about Sir Mulgybson?

I slowly shook my head.

There was an old knight who had devoted over thirty years of loyalty to this ruined house… and I was going to forcibly snatch his position?

‘If I did that… the people’s trust…’

Even for someone as reckless as me, that wasn’t an option.

A dozen ideas rose and fell in my head.

With my hands clasped behind my back, I let out a deep sigh and began walking.

While I was heading back toward the mansion—

“Hmm? What’s this?”

I spotted Gadolph and a few servants gathered in the middle of the path, murmuring nervously.

Hardin walked up to Gadolph and asked,

“What are you doing here?”

“Y-Young Master! Where have you been all this time?”

“Why? Is there some problem?”

“There is! A very big problem!”

“So, what is it?”

Unlike me, who felt indifferent, Gadolph looked ready to pass out from anxiety as he pointed back toward the mansion.

“Someone has come from the Calpion Viscounty!”

“Calpion… Viscounty? Who’s that?”

That name… I felt like I’d heard it somewhere before.

Why did it sound so familiar?

While I struggled to comb through the blurry memories—

Gadolph looked at me like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You don’t remember even that?”

“No.”

“You used to say over and over that their house was our family’s vassal—until our ears bled.”

“Vassal house?”

Wha… what…?

In that instant, Hardin’s eyes went perfectly round.