Episode 5: Training (1)
“Victor! What on earth is going on here?”
Paul Haxen, the head of the Haxen family, grabbed Victor, demanding an explanation.
Victor, his voice lacking confidence, recounted the events that had unfolded in the city.
As expected, Paul Haxen didn’t believe him.
“Where did you come up with such lies?”
“I-It’s true!”
“Damian has never even held a sword in his life! And you’re telling me he killed dozens, including a squire?”
Victor felt utterly wronged.
What made it worse was that even to him, his story sounded absurd.
“This won’t do! I’ll send someone to verify this myself!”
Paul Haxen immediately dispatched his butler to the city of Landwork.
The butler, who left at dusk, returned by lunchtime the next day.
“Well, what did you find?”
The butler hesitated before speaking, only opening his mouth after Paul Haxen urged him.
“Victor was right. There was a massacre at a tavern managed by the Black Serpent. Rumors are spreading all over the city that the culprit was a nobleman.”
Paul Haxen clutched his head.
The confusion was so overwhelming that he felt dizzy.
“Thank you. You may leave now.”
The butler bowed and exited the room.
Once the butler was gone, Paul Haxen turned to his wife.
“Did you hear that? It seems our boy has really caused quite the stir.”
Paul Haxen was well aware of the Black Serpent, as it was often a topic of conversation among the nobility.
“This is serious. The Black Serpent won’t just let this slide.”
It was a blow to his pride, but the Haxen family was a minor one, lacking the power to withstand retaliation from such a formidable organization.
“I just can’t understand it. As far as I know, Damian has never learned swordsmanship. So how…”
His wife gently took his hand.
“Honey, I don’t know the full story, but… isn’t it a relief?”
“A relief? What do you mean?”
“At least Damian didn’t come back beaten up, right?”
Paul Haxen looked incredulous.
He was about to ask if she was joking, but her expression was sincere.
“I’m just as confused as you are. But isn’t it better that he came back having fought rather than having been beaten?”
“Though this was more than just a fight…”
Paul Haxen replied with a bitter expression.
“Don’t worry about the Black Serpent. How could mere thugs touch the nobility?”
He had plenty of counterarguments, but Paul Haxen held his tongue.
He knew it was best to empathize with his wife at that moment.
“We’ll talk to him about it later, when things have calmed down.”
”…Alright.”
Paul Haxen let out a deep sigh.
“So, what is he doing now?”
“He’s running, apparently.”
“Running?”
Paul Haxen looked puzzled.
His wife spoke as if it were nothing.
“He said he’s too out of shape, so he’s been running laps around the estate since dawn.”
The morning after returning from Landwork.
Damian Haxen got out of bed at the crack of dawn.
His body, accustomed to laziness, craved more sleep, but he resisted with superhuman willpower.
Damian changed into comfortable clothes and stepped outside.
“How long has it been since I last felt the morning air?”
During his time as a Death Knight, Damian had been trapped in his own body, deprived of freedom.
The coolness of the morning air felt incredibly refreshing.
Before starting his morning training, Damian took out a glass vial he had brought with him.
It was an elixir he had taken from Andersen Holm.
He drank the elixir straight from the bottle.
The elixir immediately transformed into vitality, spreading throughout his body.
“More effective than I thought.”
Damian’s task now was to absorb all the vitality from the elixir.
The best way to absorb vitality was through physical activity.
The more he pushed his body, the faster the vitality was absorbed to aid recovery.
“Hup, two, hup, two.”
Damian began running along the perimeter of the estate.
Having never trained before, his running speed was abysmal.
He was slow, and it didn’t take long before he was out of breath.
“Huff, huff.”
Still, Damian didn’t stop running.
It was grueling, but he could feel the vitality from the elixir being absorbed rapidly.
In truth, Damian knew little about training the human body.
He was merely replicating the training methods he had learned from his mercenary days.
‘It was a knight family’s training method, after all.’
The leader of the mercenary group he had once been part of was, surprisingly, a former squire.
Everything he had learned came from the knight family he had trained with.
Knight families, known for raising generations of knights, were famous for their efficient training methods.
‘The leader always said that running was the foundation of all training.’
He insisted that nothing was better for building stamina and cardiovascular endurance than running, making the members run every morning.
Though there had been complaints at first, it didn’t take long for them to realize the leader was right.
‘What I need most right now is stamina.’
Swordsmanship was important, but stamina was the priority.
With his current poor stamina, even swinging a sword would leave him exhausted.
‘Once I build up my stamina, I’ll focus on swordsmanship.’
In his past life, Damian Haxen had defeated countless strong opponents, absorbing their techniques and reaching new heights.
He had reached a level no one in history had ever achieved.
Damian had named that level “Divine Sword.”
‘Some might call it arrogant.’
But he had no intention of changing the name.
The level Damian had reached deserved such a title.
The fact that he had vanquished the mighty being known as Akrich with a single strike was proof enough.
However, for now, it was impossible to manifest the “Divine Sword.”
‘My stamina is just too weak.’
The higher the level, the greater the strain on the body when manifesting it.
With a body that tired from just a few swings, he couldn’t hope to manifest the Divine Sword.
‘And I’ll need to create a new swordsmanship.’
In his past life, Damian had honed his swordsmanship based on his Death Knight body.
Now that he was human again, he couldn’t use the swordsmanship he had developed back then.
He needed to create a new swordsmanship suited to a human body to manifest the Divine Sword.
‘I could create a decent swordsmanship now, but… I won’t settle for that.’
He had no intention of merely regaining his past strength.
He aimed to create an absolute swordsmanship that surpassed his Death Knight days.
He wanted to reach a level far beyond the Divine Sword.
‘I’ll also need to learn a new mana cultivation technique.’
Mana cultivation involved absorbing external mana and storing it within the body.
To become a knight, mastering mana cultivation was essential.
‘All the mana cultivation techniques I know use dark mana.’
Dark mana and regular mana were entirely different forces.
He needed to learn a new mana cultivation technique that used regular mana.
He had learned a mana cultivation technique from the leader during his mercenary days, but it was of low quality.
Though the leader was a former squire, he had been expelled during training and hadn’t learned any advanced techniques.
‘There’s so much to do, and so little time.’
Damian Haxen was in a hurry for a reason.
Besides his family’s happiness, he had another goal to achieve.
‘Dorgo.’
Having returned to the past, Dorgo would still be alive.
Dorgo’s goal was the extinction of humanity and the creation of an empire of the dead.
Without dealing with Dorgo, he couldn’t ensure his family’s happiness.
‘I need to reach the Divine Sword as soon as possible to kill him again.’
Dorgo had spent centuries preparing for humanity’s destruction.
However, in this life, without Damian, he wouldn’t achieve his ultimate goal.
But he would undoubtedly bring harm to the world in some way.
‘Peace can’t be achieved without killing him.’
Dorgo had mastered all dark magic, excelling particularly in creating undead.
The undead he created were not only powerful but also possessed strange abilities and intelligence.
They could think, learn, and had unique abilities, making them incredibly dangerous.
‘Especially the three demon kings he created were nothing short of disasters.’
Dorgo had the audacity to call his three masterpieces demon kings.
But when one considered their power, no one could argue the title was undeserved.
Each of the three demon kings had the strength of an entire nation.
‘Though they were weaker than me.’
As a Death Knight, Damian Haxen had been strong enough to overwhelm them.
Even if all three attacked at once, they were no match for him.
But that was in his Death Knight days. Now, he couldn’t afford to be complacent.
‘Soon, Dorgo will reveal himself.’
If Damian’s memory was correct, in a few years, the undead created by Dorgo would appear in the world.
They would begin their activities to gather the resources needed for war.
During his mercenary days, he had taken on missions to eliminate undead, leading to his encounter with Dorgo.
‘Before that, I need to gain the power to kill him.’
Returning to the past hadn’t reverted his emotions to their former state.
Damian Haxen’s heart still burned with hatred for Dorgo.
‘I will kill him, no matter what.’
With that thought, Damian Haxen quietly ground his teeth.
Several days had passed since Damian Haxen began his training.
In that time, he had changed remarkably.
“Hup, two, hup, two.”
At first, it was hard to tell if he was walking or running, he was moving so slowly.
But now, his running speed had increased significantly.
“Hup, two, three, four.”
His stamina had improved so much that he could run for over an hour without feeling exhausted. It was proof of his dedication to training. Of course, the elixirs played a big role too.
Without absorbing the energy from the elixirs, he wouldn’t have been able to improve his stamina so quickly.
His early morning run only ended when it was time for breakfast.
“Now this is what I call a good run.”
Damian Haxen sat under the shade of a tree, catching his breath. He opened the lid of the canteen he had brought along and took a long drink.
“Ah, refreshing.”
Even after running for over two hours, Damian’s training wasn’t over yet.
Today, he planned to add a few more exercises to build his strength, all techniques he had learned directly from the mercenary leader.
“Why has the Black Serpent been so quiet lately?”
Since that day, the Black Serpent hadn’t made any moves.
“Are they plotting something?”
Once his stamina was up to par, he planned to deal with the Black Serpent once and for all. With his elixirs running low, he also intended to visit the city of Landwalk soon to restock.
“Enough rest. Time to get back to it.”
Damian stood up and resumed his training.
Damian’s training finally wrapped up around noon.
As he made his way back to the mansion, drenched in sweat, he noticed several luxurious carriages parked out front.
“Where did these carriages come from?”
They were clearly not the kind of carriages used by ordinary people.
As Damian approached to check the insignia, he heard a frantic shout.
“Young master! Young master!”
Victor came running, stopping in front of Damian, panting heavily.
“Something’s happened! You need to go to the drawing room immediately!”
“What’s going on?”
“People from the House of Lionbloom are here!”
Lionbloom.
The name sent a shiver down Damian’s spine.
“Don’t tell me the second son of Lionbloom is here?”
“How did you know? The second son and his guards have come to our estate!”
Damn it.
Damian pressed his palm to his forehead, a headache already forming.
‘So it’s already happened. I’ve tangled with the second son.’
One of the biggest incidents from his past life had already come to pass.
“Thanks for letting me know.”
Damian thanked Victor and sprinted towards the mansion.
He burst into the drawing room, where his family was gathered.
His father, mother, sister, and brother were all there.
“Damian?”
They exclaimed in surprise.
Without a moment to respond, Damian’s gaze shifted.
“Oh, you’re here?”
Across from where his family sat was a face he wasn’t pleased to see.
“Sorry for dropping by unannounced. But I couldn’t wait any longer.”
A mischievous grin.
A smaller frame than Damian’s, yet surprisingly muscular.
He didn’t need to rack his brain to remember this man’s name.
“Damian Haxen, how do you plan to pay for hitting my face?”
The second son of the House of Lionbloom.
Erwin Lionbloom asked Damian with a smirk.