Chapter 7

“Amon Coster, step forward.”

Amon answered with a booming “Yes, sir!” and hefted a weapon.

The blade felt most at home in his hand.

He closed the last pace to the orc dummy, sword held single-handed.

A long, steady breath—

—and the dummy’s left arm spun away before anyone blinked.

Gasps rippled through the trainees; the instructor’s voice cut through them.

“Amon Coster. Hit the deck.”

Amon’s face asked what he’d done wrong.

“My order was plain: use the back, not the edge.”

“Sorry, sir! But—I did use the back!”

A brittle silence.

If he’d swallowed the protest he’d already be back on his feet, but Amon never could leave well enough alone.

He wanted everyone to hear.

Loud and proud: I can lop limbs off even with the flat.

Exactly the Amon Coster I remembered—so unchanged it was almost comforting.

His little show cost him laps around the yard.

“Mago, you’re up.”

Now it was my turn.

Sword, spear, arrows—

every option looked impossible.

Begging Kinjo for an enhancement spell would only earn me a beating.

Last time I’d hesitated, asked, “May I just use my fists?”

They let me—and then used their own to pound the lesson in.

Worse, the whole camp learned my weakness.

Today I earned the nickname Unlucky Marcello.

I couldn’t repeat that mistake.

My fingertip finally landed on...

“The Chief Instructor himself?”

More precisely, his shoulder.

I picked the wooden rod he always carried.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

He strode over, staff in hand.

“If you wanted a thrashing, you should’ve said so, Mago.”

“No, sir!”

“This is your choice, huh? Where would you like it?”

He jabbed the rod’s tip into my chest, hard.

“Pick one of the three—or shall I pick for you?”

Kinjo shot me a worried glance.

The Chief Instructor slipped his foot between floor and spear-shaft, flicked the weapon up with a dancer’s grace, and planted it in my hands.

I stared at the shaft.

“Eyes on the shaft, then what? Look at the point. Then look at the target.”

He shoved the spearhead until it nearly touched my nose.

An invisible weight pressed between my eyes.

It hurt.

But I couldn’t push it away.

The tinnitus I thought I’d beaten began to whine.

I drew the deepest breath I could.

“Mago, what are you doing?”

Contempt glittered in his eyes.

Line met line, forming a point—

a point ready to—

“Begone.”

“Go home.”

“I can do it.”

“Do what?”

Nowhere left to retreat.

This was the cliff-edge.

I closed my eyes.

A blue ripple swept the world.

The instructor’s spear tore itself from his grip and slammed into mine.

I lunged and smashed the dummy’s head.

A spear with only one edge.

I struck with the shaft as ordered—yet the dummy’s head snapped clean off.

Raw strength had done the cutting.

“That white-haired kid didn’t even open her eyes...?”

“Never looked and still took the head clean off...?”

The whispers circled.

Amon, still jogging his penalty laps, slowed long enough to shout, “What’s the fuss? No obstacles, eyes shut—just swing forward. Even I could do that.”

“Mago!”

The instructor’s roar cracked across the yard.

“Who told you to close your eyes?”

The instructor strode forward, stick raised high, every step vibrating with rage.

“Open your eyes right now. You plan to face Demon Beasts like that?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And that’s the skill level that earns the top rank and a place in the Special Task Force?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You little—...!”

He whipped the rod in a blazing arc.

I felt the air split before I saw the weapon.

Reflex alone snapped my left arm up; the stick cracked in half.

The two pieces clattered to the dust.

“W-what...?”

The instructor could only stammer.

A heartbeat later I opened my eyes, and color flooded back into the world—gray haze, muffled ears. I shook my head to clear it.

“Amon. You said even you could do it?”

Kinjo’s voice drifted over.

Amon pretended not to hear and jogged away.

* * *

My punishment was thirty laps of the training field—

thirty laps, the same number as the vampires we’d someday fight.

Amon was already running; he’d finished fifteen.

I had to do double.

I lengthened my stride and caught him.

“Hey! This isn’t a race!” he yelled without breaking pace.

We ran side by side while the instructor called the next cadet, scattering the tension.

“You shut your eyes, didn’t you?” Amon asked.

“Yeah.”

“Never close your eyes, no matter how scared. We’re soldiers now. If your mind’s that weak, how will you survive?”

“What?”

“You got lucky. Imagine that had been an enemy—you’d already be dead.”

He thought it had been luck.

“All that talk about making top rank and joining the Task Force—just bluster, huh? Scared so bad you shut your eyes.”

“...Fine. You’ve made your point.”

“I’ll be the top ranker. Rely on luck and you’ll never beat me.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I muttered.

Between breaths I spotted a familiar face stepping up.

“Kinjo’s turn,” Amon said.

Apart from magic, Kinjo’s skills were... average.

That word fit best.

Tall, long-limbed, reasonably muscled—but his stance was awkward, his grip on the sword untrained.

“Feels like textbook average,” Amon nodded.

The instructor probably wrote the same on his evaluation sheet: No sword comprehension; average stamina.

“Belle Red. Step forward.”

She stood and lifted her blade.

“Think Belle still has the strength to swing after all those push-ups?”

“Belle?”

“She charged the dummy earlier, remember? Thought it was real.”

“Come to think of it, she didn’t show much skill just now.”

“Skill?”

Belle faced the orc model.

A long breath, and white mist rose from her skin.

“What is that...?” Amon squinted.

The rest of us mirrored his confusion.

She twisted her sword with a thumb, flipped it edge-down as ordered, and struck in a single flash.

A sharp scrape rang out as the blade slid along the dummy’s spine.

The orc shape rippled like heat-haze—then tore apart, cloth shredding under the cut.

Sand poured down in a violent rain.

The trainees erupted.

Some wore faces slack with fear at the sheer, crushing strength.

She was the talent I had to recruit, the one I’d identified in my last life from the data I carried over.

Of the 66th Class, Belle Red was the core.

“No way that clumsy hack counts as swordplay... So much for the Red name being one of the Empire’s Three Great Houses...”

Amon’s words tumbled out faster and longer than usual.

He was rattled—badly.

—Mago. Belle’s just like us.

As Kinjo had once said.

Belle was like Kinjo and me.

It wasn’t only vengeance that drove her.

A soldier who couldn’t bear the sight of a blade.

A mage stripped of every means to attack.

In short, someone with a fatal flaw.

“Hurk—”

Belle’s knees folded and she dropped to the sand.

An instructor sprinted toward her.

For a heartbeat he must have thought she’d burned herself out and collapsed unconscious.

But the soft, steady rise of her chest told them she was only asleep.

In her first life she’d died never having learned to wield her clan’s unique magic, never having found a way past her weakness.

This time, I wouldn’t let it end that way.

“Ha...!”

Amon let out a dry laugh.

He’d tensed for a moment, yet his eyes already claimed the top seat again.

“Next. Louise Murphy. Step forward.”

Louise Murphy.

Her hair was the same pale gold as Amon’s, but straight and long, falling like silk.

Eyes the color of her hair—liquid gold.

And, impossible to miss, skin white as fresh snow.

She nocked an arrow, drew, and sent it straight through the left eye of the orc dummy.

“Not bad.”

Amon sounded almost pleased.

While Amon and I jogged the yard, the rest of our classmates took their turns.

The instructor dotted marks on the evaluation sheets, then barked:

“Form up—everyone except those two.”

The two, of course, were Amon and me.

“Basic training ends today. Starting tomorrow we prep for the exams.”

He raised his right hand and spread four fingers.

“Four tests in total.”

He tapped the stack of papers under his arm.

“Besides the tests, these individual competency evaluations also count toward your final score.”

His gaze swept the ranked line of trainees.

“Special Task Force slots are open to the top ten; the knightly orders, top twenty. From now on you’ll carry a rank, and that rank will be posted on the board for all to see.”

The first gate to the Special Task Force had opened.

It felt like a new vertical line scoring across the horizontal timeline of our lives.

“Dismissed. Take your break.”

The instructor glanced at Amon and me—then looked away as if the words weren’t meant for us.

We kept running.

“Amon.”

“Yeah?”

“One lap. Catch me if you can.”

I kicked into a sprint, pulling ahead.

“This isn’t a race...!”

* * *

The Chief Instructor sat halfway up the stairwell, touching a match to a cigarette.

He watched the resting trainees through the smoke.

A month since the 66th had arrived.

He had them pegged now.

He began to write.

First:

[KINJO SHUA]

At the same moment, Kinjo nudged Mago’s shoulder and flicked his eyes sideways in urgent semaphore.

“Mago. Eleven o’clock.”

His voice was low—look, but don’t stare.

“What?”

“Hurry...!”

Mago turned, annoyed.

Eleven o’clock.

Gold hair, gold eyes.

Louise Murphy.

“Never seen anyone that pretty in my life.”

“You never saw anyone like that even back in Aquaella?”

“Never. Even if you scoured the whole world, you’d be hard-pressed to find a beauty on Louise’s level...”

“No matter how pretty Louise is, stop staring at her guts.”

“These days I can see her muscle fibers instead.”

[Possesses Reinforcement (Fire) Magic and Clairvoyance]

“When did you ever try that...?”

“Not on Louise—on you. A body as monstrous as yours makes my curiosity boil.”

“Sounds creepy.”

“Oh, about Louise. She changes the way she ties her hair every single day, so lately the other trainees and I have a bet on what style she’ll show up with next. Want in?”

‘So they’re doing it again this time.’

“You game?”

While Mago and Kinjo kept talking, the instructor’s pen scratched just as fast.

Beneath Kinjo Shua’s name:

[Louise Murphy]

He jotted down the other trainees’ traits as well.

“Mago, Louise is insane with a bow, too.”

[Former Hunter from the Capital Outskirts]

[Exceptional Archery]

“She was a hunter, after all.”

[No other notable traits]

“She’ll know herbs and traps inside out—she’ll be a huge help. It’s not just archery.”

Remembering her past life, Mago disagreed with the instructor’s assessment.

“Help with what, exactly?”

“Well... with whatever comes next. Wherever we end up.”

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