Ch.37Chapter 37: My Greatest Enemy Is Myself

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The early morning bustle, unsuited for this hour, was gradually subsiding.

Shizu’s tear-stained eyes, which had burst into crying shortly after entering my room, were now clean after a quick wash.

Her disheveled hair, which had become messy as she made a beeline for my room without thinking twice, was now neatly arranged by my hands.

“You have different classes today, right? Then I’ll see you at lunch.”

Unlike the gloominess she showed when I told her about my dream of turning to ashes, Shizu now wore a bright expression as she leisurely left my room, firmly believing that the “magic spell” had worked its function.

I had wanted to invite her to have breakfast together before she left the room.

Just like yesterday, I wanted to see her happy expression while eating breakfast, to be a little closer to her like now.

But I decided against it, thinking I would be wasting her precious time by making her stay longer, so I simply waved goodbye as she left.

Creak.

The slightly stiff door closed, and Shizu’s retreating figure disappeared from my sight.

“Thank you so much for brushing my hair after such a long time.”

Those were her final words, filled with incomparable gentleness.

And so, the silence that had been present when I first woke up returned to the room.

“Phew…”

The anxiety I felt when I saw Shizu enter with that gloomy expression naturally turned into relief, releasing a sigh from my lips and simultaneously relaxing the tension in my body.

“That was exhausting.”

Comforting her while she wore that gloomy expression until just now brought far more psychological fatigue than the physical exhaustion from yesterday’s sparring session with her.

“Still a crybaby as always.”

Do people know?

That the genius who is said to have awakened the most brilliant talent since the founding of the Cradle, the hero training institution boasting a thousand years of history, is actually a girl who fears many things and cries easily.

“That’s why I need to protect her…”

I must not allow her to experience the tragedy of the previous timeline that erased gentleness and sadness from her expression, replacing them with anger and passion.

“I need to become stronger.”

I will become strong enough to shield her from the countless malicious forces that will try to break her will, and still remain unscathed.

“Let’s go then.”

My task is set.

Training is all that matters.

I will pour everything into training except for the time spent eating, sleeping, and attending classes, to become a shield that protects the radiance of light that will dispel the darkness looming over this world.

My steps toward the outdoor training ground were filled with unwavering cheerfulness that couldn’t be broken by yesterday’s eventfulness or the recent incident.

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The outdoor training ground.

This is where a boy who wanted to become a brilliantly shining hero to protect the world after entering the Cradle trained daily until he realized he was merely stardust.

It’s also a place where the majority of the Cradle’s students have cultivated their desires to become shining stars themselves, with traces accumulated over nearly a thousand years to form a single history.

It’s no exaggeration to say that this place has stood alongside the Cradle for so long that evidence of its history is abundant everywhere.

The traces left on the ground by students practicing their martial arts through forms and patterns.

The faint marks of sword strikes and trajectories of various weapons etched into the indestructible training dummies in the corner, somehow overcoming their divine protection.

All of these could rightfully be called the accumulated strength of the Cradle over its thousand-year history.

What I felt upon entering the outdoor training ground after such a long time was an indescribable nostalgia.

It was a nostalgia that instilled determination in a pathetic man who had his spirit broken by feelings of inferiority when he was protected by the precious person he wanted to protect, now resolved not to repeat the same failure after experiencing death twice.

And besides nostalgia, something else greeted me.

“Oh… you’re here too?”

It was Excel, who for some reason looked extremely depressed, unlike yesterday.

I was about to call out to him with a raised hand out of gladness, but…

“…??”

His voice when he first called me, and his appearance from a distance, seemed unusual, so I observed his condition for a moment.

Standing at the exact opposite end of the training ground entrance, there was something strange about him.

His slightly rough breathing, which easily revealed that he had been immersed in training until just now.

The beads of sweat flowing from his forehead and elsewhere further proved this.

Moreover, in one hand he held Keraunos, the replica of the legendary thunder spear passed down through generations of the von Bernstein family heads, which should have naturally exuded the dignity created by the faint lightning energy it emitted.

“Sigh…”

But from him, there was no trace of a martial artist’s dignity displaying majesty—only sighs heavy enough to sink the ground.

‘How strange.’

Throughout my entire life before regression, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him with such a depressed expression.

Despite appearances, he was a future great hero who protected humanity by confidently displaying his martial prowess against the overwhelming forces of demon gods, only slightly inferior to Shizu.

He was a man of such fortitude that even when faced with curses from those who could be called incarnations of evil, rather than becoming depressed, he would display such sharp wit that it would further irritate his opponents. Why was he so depressed now?

“What’s with all the sighing this early in the morning?”

I approached him slowly, speaking in my usual tone to find out the reason, but…

“Sigh…”

Instead of answering my question, Excel just let out another sigh identical to the one he’d breathed earlier.

By this point, I was becoming worried, so I hurriedly moved toward where he was, but…

“Haa… I really can’t train today. I’m leaving first, so take your time.”

With a lifeless voice revealing his lack of motivation, he quickly passed by me and left the training ground.

The expression revealed as he brushed past me showed a color that anyone would define as worry and the melancholy nestled within it.

“…Truly puzzling.”

Unlike my previous life, where I had such meager talent that I failed to awaken and couldn’t stay at the Cradle.

And unlike me, who miraculously succeeded in awakening my abilities before turning 18 and only then took my first step as a hero, he had a much brighter future ahead. What could possibly be troubling him so much?

I wanted to follow him immediately and ask, but…

Given that my training time was already shortened by spending time with Shizu, I needed to use it more efficiently.

“I’ll ask him casually when we’re in class later.”

With that, I abandoned the thought of following him.

After all, we would be attending the same theory classes, so there would be plenty of time to ask.

Time to begin training.

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Before starting training, I needed some preparation to execute the simple yet incomparably straight and powerful sword strikes I had seen in my dream.

The most straightforward option would be to wield the dragon sword that had become mine, but no matter how directly it was bestowed upon me by Director Belpheus, the Cradle strictly prohibits the use of weapons with sharpened edges unless they are practice weapons.

That’s why Excel was training earlier with a replica of his family heirloom thunder spear that didn’t have a forged spearhead.

I had applied for a replica of the dragon sword to be made during a break from training in the awakened-only training hall yesterday, but even with the Cradle’s skilled blacksmiths, it would take a few more days, so I couldn’t use the dragon sword for practice now.

For immediate training, I had no choice but to use a sword of similar size to the dragon sword from the makeshift armory here at the training ground.

With that thought, I turned my gaze toward the makeshift armory, and…

“Shit…”

A curse that had naturally stuck to my lips from my rough life before regression automatically slipped out.

This was because only swords at extreme ends of the spectrum, with screws loose here and there, were available for my swordsmanship.

There were no bastard swords to speak of, only short swords with short, extremely light blades optimized for light fencing that could barely be called longswords.

And greatswords so large and heavy that they straddled the boundary between enormity and crudeness, never offering the option to be wielded with one hand under any circumstances.

Only these two types of swords were greeting me.

“Who the hell took all the bastard swords that were here?!”

Following the curse, I unknowingly infused ki into my voice and wailed at a moderate volume, but…

“Ah…!”

I realized it as soon as I shouted.

It had been just a few days.

I remembered how my past self, feeling desperate that no amount of effort would lead to successful awakening, had broken every single bastard sword in the makeshift armory while continuing a miserable sword dance in the outdoor training ground as if venting frustration.

“Haa… An idiot whose impulses in the head always beat up reason rather than respecting it.”

With this realization, I unhesitatingly cursed my past self first.

Reflecting on the teaching of my father and sister that the greatest enemy in my life is myself, which wasn’t wrong in the slightest.

Despite winter approaching, the fairly warm weather that was good for outdoor training suddenly felt resentful, but now was not the time to blame anyone.

Who could I blame for this situation where my current self was suffering due to the actions of my past self with only childish temperament?

I had come to the outdoor training ground full of expectations, but now I was in a situation where I could only perform the sword techniques I wanted at the awakened-only training hall after morning classes. The current time was 7:45 AM.

Soon I would have to go for breakfast.

“Haa…”

The sigh that naturally escaped as I felt troubled was undoubtedly more concentrated with lamentation than the one Excel had breathed here earlier.