Chapter 174: Realization (1)

Again, I was cut by the sword before I could even draw Jinta. As my right hand’s cross-section came into view, my head was severed and fell to the ground.

The severed head instantly returned to normal, and my doppelganger, as always, dropped my head and stepped back a few paces.

“How long do you intend to keep up this pointless charade?”

“Obviously, until I win.”

Despite the Swordmaster calling it pointless, there was some progress.

Before, I couldn’t even perceive the sword coming at me before my head fell off. Now, I could briefly glimpse the sword’s trajectory.

This was clear evidence that my eyes and body were gradually adapting to my doppelganger’s sword.

If this copy was a perfect replica of me, I just needed to become stronger than I was when it was created.

In this environment where I could start over no matter how many times I failed, it wasn’t impossible.

‘…I can do this.’

Even now, I was slowly getting stronger, bit by bit.

If this doppelganger’s physical abilities were on par with mine, landing even one effective hit could make its form crumble, just as it had done to me.

One chance, just one was enough. If I could land a single attack, I could secure victory even with a slow Baldo technique.

“…Here I go.”

As I placed my hand on the sword hilt and charged at my doppelganger, it thrust Wolffang forward, just as it had done for the past few weeks.

There was distance between us, so normally Wolffang’s blade shouldn’t have reached me, but it had the power to make that possible.

The blade extended forward like a bullet fired from a gun, aiming for my body.

It was an ability that merely extended and retracted the blade’s length, but when combined with incredible speed, it transformed into hundreds of thousands of spears.

Wolffang’s blades approached me at such a tremendous speed that I momentarily thought the number of blades had multiplied.

Even as I sharpened all my senses to dodge as best I could, my doppelganger, which had copied even a Swordmaster’s predictive abilities, had Wolffang’s blade waiting wherever I tried to escape.

“Ugh…!!”

I’d lost count of how many times I’d been turned into a pincushion by now.

The Swordmaster seemed to feel the same way, sighing and speaking in a tone of exasperation.

“Even a goldfish would learn faster than you. How long do you intend to keep up this futile effort?”

“…It’s not futile. Look there.”

Still lying on the ground, I pointed at my doppelganger’s white uniform.

The pristine white uniform, once spotless, now had a red stain on the chest from the blood that had splattered while cutting me.

“It’s not even a cut, just a bit of blood splatter. Are you trying to prove your growth with something so trivial?”

“Yeah, until now I couldn’t even get close enough for blood to splatter, but now I’ve come this far.”

You could argue that not touching at all was the same thing, but the fact remained that I’d made a little progress.

“By the way, you’ve been talking a lot more recently. Are you getting anxious that I might actually succeed?”

“……”

Taking his silence as affirmation, I got up again, my body fully restored.

I gripped Jinta’s hilt tightly and once more charged at my unscathed doppelganger.

Naturally, getting just one step closer wasn’t enough to make a big difference, and I was once again chopped up like a pig in a slaughterhouse, rolling on the ground.

Determined to land even a single hit, I kept pushing forward even as my body was being dismembered, sacrificing flesh and bone alike.

“Oh…”

As I kept advancing, for the first time, my movement surpassed my doppelganger’s prediction.

The Swordmaster’s expression, which had initially been one of disdain, gradually began to contort.

——

“W-what on earth is happening?”

Faced with this nightmarish scene that seemed too unreal to believe, I interrogated Hori repeatedly, but no proper answers were forthcoming.

For the first few days, it was just coughing up blood-tinged phlegm or blood flowing from his eyes and ears. Each time, we’d clean his body with a damp cloth and inject medicine, and he’d quickly recover. We felt relieved, but this latest development was far from normal by any standard.

Suddenly, his left eyeball burst as if pierced by a spear, then his waist was cleanly cut as if by something sharp, only to reattach itself.

“This is the potion you made!! Say something!!”

“E-even if you ask me, I never imagined something like this could happen…!!”

Was this bizarre phenomenon occurring because we used demonic ingredients in the potion?

Even when I pressed Hori, the creator of the potion, she could only cry and say she didn’t know, offering little help.

“Don’t you have any guesses?! There must be something!”

“I really don’t know!! Moreover, this is completely different from the side effects I anticipated, so I have no idea what’s going on…!!”

Finally, realizing that no answers would come from badgering her, I turned to the priest and Headmaster Marina for help, grasping at straws.

“…These strange occurrences don’t seem to be side effects of the potion. Look at these wounds. Don’t they look like sword cuts? A demon’s essence wouldn’t cause side effects like this.”

“…Our investigation also shows that when Ian was injured and regenerated, we couldn’t detect any demonic energy, or even mana. Of course, no energy manipulation either.”

“N-no energy manipulation either?”

If there was no mana detected, let alone demonic energy, how on earth was he regenerating?

I looked at the priest with this question in mind, but he just glanced at Headmaster Marina as if passing the buck.

“…I’m ashamed to say I don’t know either. Regeneration without using demonic energy, energy manipulation, or mana, and these mysterious wounds that keep appearing and disappearing – it’s all far beyond my understanding.”

She added, as if to drive the point home, that even if we called other Archwizards, we probably wouldn’t be able to figure out what was really going on.

“Then what should we do now…”

“One fortunate thing is that while Ian keeps receiving wounds that look fatal, all of these wounds have been regenerating.”

I’m not sure if this could be called a silver lining, but at least Ian wasn’t going to die.

In the end, the Headmaster and the priest, unable to offer any real help, left the mansion promising to research further, leaving only the original household members behind.

From then on, hellish days continued endlessly.

On the bed, Ian was being butchered like a pig in a slaughterhouse and regenerating every day, while I could do nothing but watch.

Hori, who had always been cheerful despite her twisted sense of direction, now sat silently in a corner of the room with her head bowed.

I’d rather see her act carelessly and inconsiderately like before than see her so depressed.

Lady Julia’s overall mood was similar to Hori’s, but with one difference – she didn’t avoid looking at Ian.

The savage, negative emotion in her dull, unfocused eyes as she stared at Ian being dismembered and regenerated for hours on end was different from mere depression or gloom.

Even Jinta and Wolffang, who rarely spoke in front of us normally, now refused to answer when spoken to, as if following their master’s lead. The spacious room was filled with silence.

“Lady Jessica… Let’s take a break. I’ll watch over him while you rest.”

“…I appreciate your consideration, but I don’t think I’d feel any better leaving here.”

Even when Lady Nana suggested this while checking on Lady Julia’s condition, I had no intention of leaving.

If anything were to happen to Ian while I was away, I’d regret that moment for eternity.

So I ended up eating and sleeping in this room, unable to leave Ian’s side.

The strange phenomena, which initially occurred almost once a minute, gradually decreased in frequency over time. Recently, they had reduced to about once an hour.

Since we didn’t know the nature of this phenomenon, we couldn’t tell if this was a good sign or a bad one, but believing it to be the former helped calm our minds a little.

And then finally, a day came when he suffered no injuries except for slight superficial wounds.

“…Huh?”

How should I describe this sensation?

Suddenly, it felt as if Ian before my eyes had transformed into something other than human, and my heart raced as if gripped by fear.

I wasn’t the only one who felt this change. Everyone who had been sunk in despair suddenly jolted up as if struck hard on the back of the head, and stared at Ian.

As if responding to this, Ian, who hadn’t moved at all until now, abruptly sat up.

“……”

Ian had finally woken up after weeks, but the change was so dramatic that no one dared to speak, unsure if this was really Ian.

After sitting up without even opening his eyes, Ian finally spoke for the first time.

“I have reached the pinnacle of Baldo.”

“Thank goodness…! He’s normal!!”