The Company Commander Regressed

Ch. 4



Chapter 4

City Hall was in chaos.

Refugees were being handed their rations: half a slice of rye bread per meal. After days of hunger, resentment was inevitable.

“If we hadn’t sold Light, we’d be in the same boat.”

“We’d have eaten it instead.”

“Roasted, maybe?”

“Look, a poster.”

Someone cut the chatter and pointed to a newspaper sheet taped to the wall—about the war. The gist, boiled down:

1. The seal that had bound the Demon King for a century broke.

2. The awakened Demon King declared war to usher in an age of demon beasts.

3. Special Task Force Captain Marcello Arnes’s heroics barely let us build a defensive line.

That was all.

“Almost easier when there’s no grand reason.”

“Saves us overthinking.”

The “grand reason” would surface later, but I saw no point in sharing what only I knew.

“Alright, that’s it! No more left!”

The soldier doling out bread shouted; the crowd’s anger flared.

“You’re hiding more!”

“We’re citizens too!”

Troublemakers appeared.

“Let’s hand in our forms and get back to the inn.”

The moment I spoke—

“I can’t live like this...!”

A man yanked out a dagger and seized the tall man beside him—black hair, blue eyes, just under a hundred and ninety centimeters tall. Kinjo Shua.

“M-Mago!”

“Give us more! I know you’re hoarding!”

He pressed the blade under Kinjo’s jaw. Soldiers set down their bread knives and drew swords.

“You bastard—drop it!”

“Put the knife down!”

“I lost my house and my wife—I’ve got nothing left, got it?”

The man’s voice rose, using the crowd as shield. One slash would wound more than one person. The soldiers needed to take control, but their hesitation had already cost them. Cracking down hard would backfire—he’d really lost everything. Public morale would snap; tomorrow’s riot would be worse.

“Drop the knife—now!”

“Stay back!”

The blade kissed Kinjo’s throat. I was the only one close enough to act. I met the man’s eyes.

“D-don’t even think it!”

He stretched out the dagger; both his gaze and the blade’s edge converged on a single, needle-sharp point. A ringing filled my ears, mingling with the surrounding noise.

“So it’s true... Mago, you’ve got weapon phobia...” Kinjo muttered.

The man shoved the blade closer.

“Weapon phobia? You scared of knives?” He sneered.

“Mago, I’m fine—back off, or you’ll—”

“Say something, damn it!”

He crept nearer, face ugly with contempt, already certain he’d won.

“Mago! Leave it to the soldiers—!”

I closed my eyes. Just... closed them.

“Scared of knives, me?”

“Huh...?”

The ringing faded. Every remaining sound came through crisp: soldiers swallowing, the dagger trembling in the man’s quivering hand, Kinjo’s controlled breathing.

Then—plip.

A single drop fell.

As if someone had hurled a boulder into the dead center of the lake, a Blue Wave exploded outward.

It swept everything in its path—people, objects, even the grains of sand wedged between the flagstones—caressing each one before letting it go.

Everything the ripple brushed against now poured into my sight.

“If this had happened before, that’s how it would’ve ended.”

There was no light.

The world looked wrung-out, color drained away.

The landscape revealed by the spreading circle was nothing but black and white.

I hadn’t conquered the fear; I’d simply sidestepped it.

The world in front of me had changed.

* * *

I burst out in a single breath.

Before the man could react, my fist crashed into his face.

He toppled backward, balance gone, body floating for an instant in mid-air.

I chased even that moment, diving after him—top to bottom—straight into his abdomen.

The punch folded him in half and slammed him to the floor; his mind snapped off like a light.

The dagger spun from his grip, clattered flat, and whirled like a top.

I turned my back on him and found Kinjo staring, slack-jawed.

He prodded his own throat; blood slicked his fingers, but the wound was no deeper than a scratch.

The soldiers circling us broke into nervous chatter.

“W-what just...?”

“He had his eyes closed, didn’t he...?”

They split into two groups.

Half pinned the fallen man; the rest sheathed swords and crowded me.

The one in front spoke first.

“Um... thank you, first of all.”

“No. Don’t mention it.”

“Where are you from?”

“His house.”

I jerked a thumb at Kinjo.

“Ah—no, I meant your hometown.”

“No idea.”

“Then maybe your name...?”

“Mago.”

“Sorry? That’s... it?”

“No family name.”

“If you weren’t trained by a clan, who taught you?”

“Nobody, really.”

“Can’t tell us your teacher’s name?”

“There isn’t one.”

I waved them off and stepped back.

“Are you two traveling together?”

“What kind of work do you do?”

Questions kept coming.

“We’re just—”

I flicked my eyes at Kinjo: hand them the papers and let’s go.

Kinjo pulled two folded sheets from his coat.

A soldier took them.

Across the top, five bold characters: Enlistment Application.

“We’re recruits,” Kinjo said.

I nudged him.

“Let’s move.”

“Where?”

“Where else? The inn.”

“Not a hospital?”

“You’re not that hurt. The hospital’s packed; leave the bed for someone who needs it.”

“I need it...!”

We left amid that half-joke, half-whine.

The soldier unfolded the papers.

“Recruits, huh. Haha...”

“Means they start as trainees next month.”

“If I’d enlisted a year earlier I could’ve competed with that white-haired guy. Lucky break, I guess...”

* * *

“Weapon Phobia, right?”

Kinjo asked over dinner on the inn’s first floor.

I answered with a small nod.

“My father told me once. Said it’s a trauma thing. Makes you easier to use.”

My spoon froze mid-air.

“Ah—sorry. Shouldn’t have repeated the last part.”

“Forget it. That’s the sort of thing he’d toss out without thinking.”

“Nothing else scares you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Your standard’s pretty vague.”

“I know. It’s weird.”

He tapped my temple.

“I get it up here.”

“No point asking if you’ve ‘gotten over it’—you must have tried everything already.”

“You know me. It’s exactly what you think.”

“Then what was that earlier?”

Kinjo stacked his empty dishes as he spoke.

Noble table manners, perfect to the last crumb.

“You closed your eyes.”

He leaned in, dead serious.

The question, of course, was how I’d moved as if I could still see.

“How did you do it?”

“Well...”

I couldn’t tell him I’d learned it fighting the Demon King’s army.

Instead I described the sensation, piece by piece.

It felt like a drop of water hitting the floor at my feet.

A ripple spread from it.

Everything the ripple brushed arrived in my eyes, exact and instant.

And then—

“And then you saw everything? In black-and-white?”

Kinjo cut in.

“Huh? I never mentioned black-and-white.”

“Right?”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“From who? I didn’t figure it out until the very end.”

“The very end of what?”

“Anyway.”

“Yeah, anyway. The reason I know is simple—I learned it at school. You know I graduated from the Magic University.”

Kinjo shrugged.

“Mago, that thing is called mana.”

“Mana? You’re saying I was casting magic?”

“Obviously. What did you think it was?”

“Just... my senses cranked to the max?”

“What are you, some beast?”

He drew a breath and went on.

“Mana is the medium that triggers magical reaction. It’s inside the body and out in nature—floating in the air, for instance. The difference between using internal mana or external mana is what separates novice mages from great ones.”

“Sounds almost scholarly when you put it like that.”

“I just told you I learned it in school!”

“Why didn’t I know? If I’d had this from the start I could’ve saved myself a lot of trouble.”

“Makes sense you didn’t. You already had a body.”

“Meaning?”

“You never needed it. By the law of the wild, you were born strong—top predator from day one.”

“But I instinctively knew I had to tap mana too?”

“Exactly. Your body must’ve realized it needed to read mana to survive. Call it awakening. Probably happened back then.”

Kinjo tapped his chin.

“The day my house—our city—burned in the war.”

He offered the theory he’d puzzled together.

He was wrong.

It had been two weeks before my death in the previous life, when the 63rd Platoon was wiped out by a silver-haired woman from the Demon King’s army.

Still, if Kinjo was right, my body had taught itself to read mana on instinct.

At the very brink of death.

After I’d planted all those graves in the Silver Tomb.

“So, Mago.”

He unfolded an index finger.

“Novice or arch-mage, everyone hits the same wall: mana runs out. Some just carry more, but nobody has an endless tank.”

“Which means I can’t walk around with my eyes shut forever. I know.”

I hadn’t skipped the experiments either.

I just couldn’t find a way to stretch the limit.

Hard to improve something you don’t even realize is magic.

“Right. In your words, there’s a cap on how many times you can use your ‘lake,’ and how long it lasts.”

“How do I raise it?”

“Simple—train your mana. You, however, don’t need to train your body; it’s already maxed. First step is to find your lake’s ceiling. Can you do it again now?”

I shut my eyes as if to boast.

The moment a droplet hit, a ripple swept outward.

The first floor of the inn unfolded in monochrome.

Kinjo held up his left hand.

“Mago, guess. How many?”

“Three.”

I answered without hesitation.

He then raised two fingers on his right—thumb and forefinger.

“Right hand two, left hand three.”

“Now?”

“Both hands are clenched.”

“Huh? Something feels off...”

Kinjo rose from his chair.

He walked toward me, slow and deliberate.

“Mago, what about now?”

“Only your left pinky is raised. Why’d you stand up all of a sudden?”

“N-now?”

“Both hands are down. What’s going on?”

“What the—how are you doing that...?”

He tapped my shoulder.

To open my eyes and look at him, I had to turn my whole body.

He was standing behind me.

“You can see all the way behind you...”


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