The biting night wind of Aethelgard could not stop my steps. I sneaked out of the healing ward just as the midnight bell chimed, leaving the sleeping nurse snoring at her desk. The wound on my shoulder still throbbed, held in place by tight bandages, but I needed open air.
In the darkest corner of the abandoned outdoor training area, I came to a halt. An expanse of hard dirt and rotting wooden dummies were my only witnesses.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began to re-evaluate this new "vessel" of mine.
In my world, the law of energy is absolute. All forms of power originate from one invisible source in nature, Mana. How a person cultivates Mana is what distinguishes their caste on the battlefield.
If you absorb Mana and force it to merge with your muscles or weapon, that energy will manifest as Aura. A layer of light that can cleave steel or withstand a sledgehammer blow. That is the path of Knights like Sir Vance.
However, if you channel Mana directly into your brain, letting it mix with imagination and mental will, that energy will bend reality into tangible elements. That is Magic, the privilege of nobles and tower mages.
I swallowed hard, trying to concentrate a tiny sliver of Mana from the night air and guiding it slowly to my head. I merely wanted to imagine one small spark of fire at my fingertip. Just one spark.
Thump!
Instantly, a blinding pain pierced my skull like a rusted nail driven in by force. I staggered, clutching my head. The dark Sanguine Core raged inside my chest, violently rejecting the flow of Mana to my brain.
Instead of allowing Mana to turn into Magic, the Sanguine Core brutally hijacked that energy, crushed it, and injected it directly into my red blood cells.
My body heated up instantly. My muscles tensed, pumping terrifying pure physical power until my veins bulged blue. The air around me felt heavy.
I canceled the flow before my blood vessels burst again, panting heavily while leaning against a wooden dummy. Wiping away a drop of blood flowing from my nose, I let out a hoarse laugh.
Just as I suspected. This curse is still the same as in my first life. My magic gate is permanently closed. My brain will never be able to manifest Magic. In exchange, this blood magic grants me monster-level physical strength.
"No magic, no long-distance miracles," I mumbled to the quiet night. "Only muscle, blood, and steel. Not bad."
When I returned to my healing ward bed an hour later, something was out of place. A thick parchment envelope with a red wax seal bearing a crossed-swords logo lay on my blanket.
I tore the seal. The writing was brief, convoluted in typical bureaucratic fashion, but its essence was incredibly clear.
...For outstanding performance in the arena duel evaluated by the academy council, Cadet Kael Draven is officially promoted from the Basic Class to the Middle Class, effective today. Therefore, Cadet Draven is required to participate in the standard Middle Class curriculum: Survival Expedition in the Forbidden Forest next week. You have been assigned to Group 4.
I lowered the letter. My eyes narrowed in the dimness of the room. In the next bed, the snoring of Cedric, whose nose was still bandaged, sounded like a choking pig.
Promotion. How amusing.
In this academy, elevating unprepared cadets to the Middle Class was the most frequently used method of legal execution by nobles. The Forbidden Forest is the habitat of mana-mutated wild monsters deliberately bred by the military.
Furthermore, I was placed into Group 4. This was a group typically populated by the "Blood Sword Faction." A collection of middle-class cadets comprised of mercenary knights and poor hunters who were often hired as shadow executioners by the Nightbane faction.
Orvelis Nightbane surely thought he was very smart. He packaged my death warrant in a shiny promotion ribbon. He wanted me quietly slaughtered in the middle of the forest by my own teammates, or torn apart by wild monsters.
However, what Orvelis did not realize was that he had just handed me the key to a treasure vault.
To strengthen the Sanguine Core so it would not destroy my own body, I needed to absorb the blood of mana-bearing creatures. The Forbidden Forest was filled with monsters whose blood I could convert into fuel. I actually needed an official reason to enter that forest without being suspected as a deserter.
The only problem was that I could not fight forest monsters from the front while my back was targeted by Blood Sword executioners. I needed someone to guard my blind spot. Someone equally crazy, equally strong, and someone who hated nobles just as much as I did.
Only one name crossed my mind.
My footsteps led me down a gravel path at the back of the academy, far from the pristine marble pillars and luxurious dormitories. Here, the fragrant smell of perfume was replaced by the sharp aroma of horse manure, wet straw, and sour sweat. The area of stables and obsolete logistics warehouses.
My mind drifted, pulled back by memories from my first life.
I recalled the torrential rain that never seemed to stop in the defense trenches of the Vaelor Frontlines. The booming sound of magic cannons that made the earth tremble. At that time, my stomach had been empty for three days.
A massive soldier from the infantry corps shifted in the mud, sitting beside me. Without saying a word, he broke off a piece of dry wheat bread as hard as a brick, and offered half of it to me.
Ragnar Holt.
Ragnar was not a hero with a tragic past or noble ideals. He was just a foul-mouthed wheat farmer's son who enlisted in the military academy and was accepted due to his physical talent. However, his delinquent blood did not suit the Aethelgard hierarchy. He was expelled in his second year for breaking the jaw of a young Viscount who spat on his shoes.
After his expulsion, the academy threw him to the frontlines as a disposable soldier, the place where we eventually became brothers in arms.
Unfortunately, I also remembered clearly how that story ended. I remembered the sound of tearing flesh when five enemy spears pierced Ragnar's chest because he pushed me out of the line of fire.
In the past, I mourned his corpse because I had no power to change anything. This time, let alone dying on the battlefield, I would not even let him be expelled from this rotten academy.
The sound of groans of pain from behind a pile of empty wine barrels shattered my daydream.
I diverted my steps toward a blind alley between the wheat warehouse and the horse stables. There, three cadets from the Middle Class lay sprawled on the muddy ground. Their blue uniforms were dirty, their faces battered and covered in bruises and blood. One of them groaned while clutching his stomach, while the other two were unconscious and motionless.
In the midst of that chaos, crouching atop a wooden barrel, was my target.
Ragnar Holt.
His appearance was not much different from my memory, only slightly younger. His body was large and densely muscular, clad in an academy uniform with the top buttons left carelessly open. His brown hair was messy like an unkempt lion's mane. He was staring boredly at the afternoon sky, his jaw moving rhythmically chewing a piece of Jager root, a bitter wild plant often chewed by poor soldiers to fend off hunger and sleepiness.
A rare nostalgic smile formed on my lips. My heart warmed, the familiar feeling of the war trenches seemingly embracing me.
I stepped forward, letting my boots crunch on the gravel to announce my presence.
"Still fond of chewing that bitter root, Old Bear?" I greeted, my tone of voice more relaxed than I had used with anyone since returning to the past.
Ragnar's jaw movements stopped. He turned his head slowly. His dark brown eyes stared at me. There was no flash of recognition there. Of course, in this timeline, we were merely strangers.
And worst of all, in his eyes, my uniform and posture shouted one word very clearly: Noble. And my family name, Draven, was indeed the family of a former Baron.
Ragnar's eyes sharpened, turning cold and savage like a predator disturbed from its rest time. He spat the remaining Jager root from his mouth to the ground, then spat carelessly. Slowly, he stood up from the wooden barrel. His towering height intimidated my currently thin frame.
"I do not know who you are or what hole you crawled out of, Young Master," Ragnar growled, his voice heavy and raspy, radiating raw hostility.
I could see the air around his right fist distort slightly. A thin golden light, basic-tier Aura, began to envelop his knuckles. My veteran war instincts immediately screamed a warning. Ragnar might never have been to the battlefield at this point, but his killing instinct was entirely natural.
"But looking at that clean noble face," Ragnar continued, his jaw muscles tightening, displaying a crazy crooked smile. "I think you need a punch to the jaw."
Before I even had time to open my mouth to explain, Ragnar already charged. His speed far exceeded his body size.
Without warning, his Aura-coated right fist shot forward tearing through the air, aimed directly at the center of my face with the intent to crush my nasal bone in a single deadly strike.
Damn it. This was not at all the warm reunion I had imagined.