Chapter 4 : Two Different Auras

Chapter 4: Two Different Auras

I had come to the past.

And not just any past—it was the Age of Magic, ten thousand years ago.

Who would have thought the Book of Fate had such a function!

To simply marvel and move on… honestly, it was far too absurd, but,

I didn’t care.

‘If I really did cross over to the past, ten thousand years ago….’

If that was truly the case,

then there was only one thing I needed to think about right now.

Beyond the flickering torch-lit corridor… there….

‘There really is an Elixir, isn’t there?’

A miraculous medicine that could restore not only severed limbs, but even a damaged Aura Core.

All doubts melted away before the name Elixir.

What the Book of Fate really was, how I would return to my original era… things like that.

Those were problems for later.

The Elixir was right there…!

I could take back what I had lost…!

Thump.

For the first time in a very long while, my heart began to beat again.

*         *         *

“Thankfully, the Elixir is safe. The offering is intact as well.”

The man with the hood pulled low lifted a glass vial, no larger than a finger, from one side of the altar.

At that moment, I hesitated.

‘Should I strike?’

Should I kill them all right now and seize the Elixir?

There were twelve people in total.

Six hooded figures who had come with me.

And six warriors guarding the altar.

Even so…

‘Isn’t it worth trying…?’

My heart growled.

It urged me to act at once.

But,

I cast a sidelong glance at the man who seemed to be their leader.

That man unsettled me.

The others posed no threat at all, and yet…

my instincts kept warning me against him.

‘…This is ten thousand years ago. I don’t know this era.’

I forced my seething heart to calm down.

This age was known as the Age of Magic.

An era that had produced supreme magical relics that could never even be dreamed of in the modern times.

‘For all I know, he might use magic. I need to be cautious.’

Fighting against a magician had always been tricky and dangerous.

If it was already so in the modern era, then how much more so here, in this so-called Age of Magic?

‘For now, I’ll gather information while I look for an opening.’

Blending into the group, I observed the situation.

The leader gave his orders.

“Search for the intruder in pairs. Kaltic, Kroom—you take the eastern corridor. Seirung, Totun—the western corridor. Seruas, Ransen—the northern corridor. I will guard the altar here.”

At that moment, I was startled once again.

‘He… knew my name?’

Clearly,

he had called me Ransen.

Just in case, I checked my senses once more.

There was nothing amiss.

Arms, legs, toes, shoulders, fingers.

All were mine.

I was, without a doubt, Ransen who had lived in the year 1351 of the Continental Calendar.

My right prosthetic arm and left prosthetic leg were the same as before, and the wound I had received from Nagi still throbbed with pain.

The Book of Fate was in my chest pocket, and at my waist hung the longsword I had always used.

All of my belongings were intact, with nothing added except for the black hooded robe draped over me.

If that was the case,

‘Is this… some kind of illusion state?’

They shouldn’t have known me, and yet they did.

Not only that, they had mistaken me as one of their comrades.

Only powerful magic that interfered with the mind could produce such a result.

‘The Book of Fate… just what is it?’

It let me travel through time,

made me comprehend ancient words I had never even heard of before,

changed my attire,

and even tampered with the minds of the people around me.

Even if it was an ancient relic… could such a thing be possible?

My thoughts grew muddled.

But for now, I shoved aside all the questions that came to mind.

What mattered was the problem before me.

“What are you standing around for? Hurry up.”

One of the hooded men—

the shortest of them all—approached and tapped my shoulder.

‘So this one is Seruas.’

The comrade who would search the northern corridor with me.

For the time being, I followed after him, turning things over in my head.

‘Now, what should I do?’

Since the group had split into east, west, and north, should I take them down one by one?

No. Perhaps I should look for the intruder first?

I was also curious about how people of this era fought.

As I debated, advancing into the northern passage, a sound reached my ears.

A strained, unnatural breath, held down and let out in a thin trickle.

‘Lucky me.’

It was the intruder.

If it weren’t, there would be no reason for anyone to hold their breath in such a way.

Judging by the aura I felt, the intruder seemed to be about the level of a Low-grade Expert.

‘But why is he doing that? Just circulating aura a little would be enough to erase the sound….’

I glanced at Seruas. Surely, he would have noticed as well?

But,

‘…He didn’t notice?’

…What was this?

An intruder who claimed to be an Expert yet used such a pathetic excuse for stealth, and Seruas, who failed to sense it.

In modern times, even someone who was merely an aura user, not even an Expert, would have noticed right away….

‘So swordsmanship development is lagging behind?’

A civilization pouring everything into magic while neglecting the sword?

It was a perfectly plausible theory.

Well, I would find out soon enough.

Up ahead, a corner.

The intruder was hiding right behind it.

Seruas was charging recklessly straight toward it.

The clash was imminent.

I sharpened my senses.

Just how would the people of this era fight?

Skaak!

A chilling metallic note rang out.

In my fully focused eyes, the entire scene passed by as if in slow motion.

From behind the corner, bursting out with a flash, came a blonde-haired woman.

She wore silver armor, and on her sword shimmered a haze-like aura.

Startled, Seruas hastily raised his blade diagonally to block the strike.

His sword, too, was wrapped in the same haze-like aura.

The woman’s sword cleaved Seruas—

cleanly in two.

Sword and body alike, as smoothly as slicing tofu.

A shiver crawled prickling up my spine.

‘…What was that? She split both the sword and the man at once…? How?’

Looking only at the result, there was nothing remarkable.

I myself could easily cleave through both steel and flesh together.

But, it was impossible to do it in that way.

‘No… her sword was rather slow, wasn’t it? And why is the cut surface so clean? There wasn’t even much sound.’

If it had been me—

I would have had to swing my blade at least twice as fast.

And I still wouldn’t have left such a pristine cut.

With my Sword Aura, a strike of that destructive force would have shattered the blade with a crash, and the flesh would have been ripped into ragged tatters.

By contrast, her slow sword had parted Seruas softly, as though he had always been two separate halves from the beginning.

Even the blood welled out from the cut belatedly.

And there was something else strange.

‘That’s supposed to be Sword Aura… is it really?’

Sword Aura was the realm where the blade itself was dyed with the color of aura.

Yet the woman’s sword bore no color.

Only a transparent haze wavered faintly along the edge.

‘Different… completely different. Has swordsmanship here developed along a totally different path from our era?’

Curiosity and tension toward this unknown power flared together.

I widened my eyes and observed her intently.

Thud.

Seruas’s body collapsed. Between the falling corpse, the woman’s blue eyes seemed to blaze.

Sreeng!

The instant her foot kicked off the ground, I ducked my head.

Her silver blade passed just above my hair.

An electrifying sense of peril I had never once felt before sent goosebumps racing across my skin.

Even without her sword touching me, strands of my hair fluttered as they were sliced by the haze flowing along her blade.

Was that something like Aura Threads?

To be cut without even being touched by the sword…

The more I saw, the less I understood.

‘…For now, I’ll clash head-on.’

Observation alone had its limits.

I summoned forth my Sword Aura with all my strength and crossed blades with her.

Jjeooong!

From the clash of blades burst a shockwave of recoil.

“Kyaaak!”

The haze enveloping her sword shattered into pieces.

The woman staggered backward under the force of the impact.

I was a little taken aback.

‘What? Its durability is pathetic.’

I hadn’t expected it to break in a single clash.

‘But….’

This, too, was strange.

‘My blade’s edge is damaged?’

That feeble, frail aura had actually forced its way through my Sword Aura and nicked the steel?

‘What a truly bizarre power….’

I glanced down at my chipped blade for a moment.

The woman, who had staggered backward, muttered with a pale face.

“Sword Steel? No, that’s not it… something’s strange.”

So she was flustered too.

Good. I wasn’t the only one confused.

From her perspective, it was my sword that seemed strange, wasn’t it?

‘Time to confirm.’

Sword Aura, in the end, was nothing more than refining mana into aura and embedding it into the blade.

In my era, that was common knowledge… but here, it didn’t seem to be the case.

They were producing this haze-like energy by some method I couldn’t even guess.

‘Still, it’s manageable.’

I had to admit—it was astonishingly sharp.

But that was all.

Its durability was far inferior, and even the technique of reinforcing the body with aura seemed primitive.

It didn’t seem like she could use magic either….

If that was truly all there was to it, she was no match for me.

Woooong—!

My blade was deeply dyed in dark blue Sword Aura.

‘Maybe I should capture her? If I drag back the intruder… I might be able to create an opening.’

If I lulled them into carelessness and launched a surprise attack, I might be able to deal with that ominous leader easily.

How should I capture her? Should I sever her legs?

I was considering such things when, sensing the oppressive weight of my Sword Aura, the woman retreated a step, then shouted furiously, as if enraged.

“Do you feel no shame? For a swordsman like you to stand with cultists who kidnap children…!”

Her words struck my head like a hammer.

“…Children?”

The familiar word stirred an instinctive reaction in me.

She bared her teeth and growled.

“Playing dumb? We’ve already found the traces. Where are the children? Don’t tell me… they’ve already… been used as living sacrifices?”

Her fury blazed like a firestorm.

Children?

Kidnapping?

Living sacrifices?

I instinctively stepped back.

Staring at her quietly, I asked flatly,

“How old?”

“…What?”

“The children who were kidnapped. How old are they?”

“Ha? Still pretending ignorance until the end….”

“How old.”

Sensing my killing intent, she flinched, then answered with wary eyes.

“From seven to fifteen years old. Thirteen in total.”

The moment I heard that answer, I made up my mind.

“What are you planning…?”

In front of the bewildered woman, I calmed my aura until it was as still as death.

With my ears wide open, I sharpened my senses to even the faintest vibrations beneath my feet.

As time passed in silence, her eyes turned sharp once more.

“You… you were waiting for reinforcements? Coward!”

From the tip of her readjusted blade, that haze-like aura began to rise once more.

At the same time, behind me, the voices I had been waiting for rang out.

“Seruas is down?”

“Join forces.”

It was the hooded ones who had gone east to search.

Whether there had been some kind of device attached to Seruas’s body or not, not long after his death I had sensed their presences drawing near.

Perfect. That saved me the trouble of going to find them.

Hooo—

I waited until they were just about to pass right by me.

I let the strength drain from my shoulders.

And then—

Now!

At the perfect moment, I exhaled sharply and swung my sword in a wide arc.

Skeurck!

Tchuggk!

The circular path carved by my blade caught two necks at once.

“Gkkk!”

“Urgh!”

With the bubbling sound of blood frothing in their throats, the two men’s bodies slid wetly across the floor.

Beneath their twitching frames, blood pooled thick.

Good. That left three of them, didn’t it?

“Wh-… what are you doing?!”

The woman’s eyes went round, her mouth gaping open.

I guess she was shocked, seeing me suddenly cut down my supposed allies.

I answered simply.

“I changed my mind.”

When you thought about it, there was no need for me to fight this woman, was there?

Those cultists—or whatever those suspicious hooded figures were—needed to be dealt with anyway. It was better to side with her than waste time.

And besides… that woman. She had come here to rescue children.

‘I know that feeling all too well.’

I gave my sword a quick shake and slid it back into its sheath.

With a tilt of my head toward her, I said,

“Let’s be allies. I was never one of those cultists to begin with.”

“…What?”

She really was a bit slow.

Was betrayal such a foreign sight to her?

“Never mind that. Light up that haze of yours and pretend you’re fighting me. Hurry.”

That way, it’d be easier for me to kill them as they came rushing in.

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