Everyone lowered their heads.
“Don’t get that deflated, though. Keep your confidence, always. You’re men.”
“Yes.”
“Grandfather is taking an interest in you.”
“Yes?”
“He told me that if I find talented people in Martial Star Hall who look like they’ll be loyal to Heavenly Martial Castle, I should push them forward.”
“Th-that’s really true?”
“Yeah. Everything you’ve received so far was all given with Grandfather’s—meaning the Lord of the Castle’s—permission. Be grateful to him.”
The four of them were moved.
Then they turned their bodies toward where Jeok Mugun was and bowed.
“We’ll give you our loyalty!”
Seeing that, I grinned.
People of Heavenly Martial Castle should be loyal to Heavenly Martial Castle.
I had no intention of stealing Grandfather’s people, anyway.
But I didn’t know.
That when they said they would give their loyalty, that included me, too.
*****
The next day.
I headed straight for where the rank administrators were.
They were called Ascension Officers, and their job was to help so there would be no difficulties in training.
“You want to change rooms?”
“Yes. All four of them challenged Rank Six, so I’m the only one left and it’s lonely.”
The Ascension Officer looked over my paperwork, then snorted.
“You don’t need to worry. The kids in that room won’t make it to Rank Six.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“They haven’t made it up the whole time. The kids in that room are failures.”
The word failures grated on my nerves.
For now, I held it in.
“Do you have a room you want?”
“I want Room Seven.”
At the words Room Seven, the Ascension Officer’s expression subtly changed.
“Why that room? Is there something you want?”
“I heard that room is good.”
“Oh? Sounds like you heard something?”
“Is it not allowed?”
“It’s not that it’s not allowed. It’s just that...”
The Ascension Officer trailed off.
I didn’t say anything. I pulled a pouch from my robe and held it out.
He took it, felt the heavy weight, and smiled.
“Iron?”
“It’s silver.”
“Hoh.”
Silver, and it’s this heavy.
“Ha ha ha! You want to go to Room Seven? Then you should go! Of course! I’ll move you right away.”
He filled out the forms, and in an instant, I was assigned to Room Seven.
After confirming the assignment, I tucked the paper away, then held out my hand.
“What else do you need?”
“Hand it over.”
“What?”
“Give me back what I gave you.”
“This little—? Are you speaking casually to me right now?”
“Yeah.”
The Ascension Officer stared at me for a moment with a dumbfounded look, then snorted.
“Fine. You must think I’m a joke because I’m sitting here like this. You picked the wrong person.”
A presence like a live volcano surged out of his body.
“Ha ha ha! Even if I look like this, I’m a Top-Peak level martial artist—Eight Stars. Well? If you kneel and beg right now, I’ll forgive you.”
“You talk too much.”
WHAM—.
THUD—.
He went out in one hit.
I picked up the pouch of silver he’d dropped, put it back into my robe, then slung him over my shoulder and started walking.
*****
SMACK—.
“Guhhk!”
The burning pain on his face snapped the Ascension Officer awake.
Maybe he couldn’t process what was happening, because he looked around with a blank expression.
Then he spotted me and made a dazed face.
What?
He’d been talking to me, then he’d gotten hit by something and his memory cut off—
Why had his memory cut off?
He couldn’t understand.
He looked around again. There wasn’t a single person in sight—just an empty wasteland.
There wasn’t a place like this in Martial Star Hall.
“Feeling a little more awake?”
“What are you? And where is this?”
“I’m a Rank Seven trainee, and this is inside a formation I made.”
“A formation?”
“Yeah. I wanted to have an honest conversation with you, so I set it up. Don’t worry. No matter what happens in here, nobody outside will know.”
“Am I... kidnapped right now?”
“You catch on fast.”
He looked absurdly stunned.
Kidnapped by a Martial Star Hall trainee.
Too embarrassing to even tell anyone.
There was only one way to get over that humiliation.
Crush the brat in front of him.
The problem was the formation.
If he crushed me, would he be trapped here forever?
“I’m the central axis. If you beat me, the formation breaks.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why tell me that?”
“Because I want you to come at me.”
“Come at you?”
“Yeah. You can’t accept it, can you? So confirm it again for yourself. What—do you need a weapon? Anything you use?”
At my question, the Ascension Officer answered without thinking.
“I use a sword.”
“A sword. Wait.”
When I muttered something toward empty air—
“Huh? Wh-what is that?”
A black circle formed, swirling in midair.
I shoved my hand in and pulled out a sword.
“This is neat, right? It’s a spell-art—one kind of sorcery. It’s really convenient.”
I held the sword out to him.
After seeing me use sorcery, the Ascension Officer decided I’d used heretical sorcery to knock him out.
That made sense.
“Here. Take it.”
He took the sword with a conflicted expression.
Inside, he thought:
I don’t use just any sword.
He took it while thinking that, and then—
“Huh?”
He froze.
It fit his hand perfectly, and it was light—at minimum, a famed blade.
As soon as it settled in his grip, he swung it out of habit.
Comfortable.
Had he ever felt this comfortable while swinging a sword?
This was a top-grade famed blade—one he’d never encountered in his life.
And I was just handing it to him?
Was I generous?
Or was I just overflowing with confidence in my sorcery?
“What. You like it?”
He nodded.
“Then keep it.”
What was this?
Give poison, then give medicine?
Begging to be let off, now?
He clenched the sword and thought:
Just watch out for his heretical tricks.
He tightened his focus and glared at me.
“Your eyes are going to pop out. Stop tensing up and come at me.”
Even if he wanted to go easy, my tone pissed him off.
“Fine! Since you gave me a good sword, I’ll go easy on you with one arm!”
Sword in hand, he lunged at me.
An opening!
There were too many gaps.
Was he weak in real combat because he was a spell-art user?
Thinking that, he aimed at my left arm.
The moment he was about to take it clean off—
WHAM—.
The blade struck my forearm with a dull impact.
An impossible situation.
My arm should have been severed, but instead, the sword bounced back.
Was this real?
Was it a sword with no edge?
He brought a finger to the blade—
And even with the lightest touch, his finger cut.
It was terrifyingly sharp.
That sharp, yet it hadn’t cut my forearm?
Had he been bewitched by the heretical sorcery inside this formation?
Then he needed to snap out of it.
He bit his tongue, forcing pain through his body.
And his hazy mind cleared.
So it was heretical sorcery.
With that conviction, he tightened his grip again and charged—this time prepared to kill.
“Heavenly-Staff Bright-White Sword!”
WHIRRR—!
Sword qi tore toward me like it would bore through my entire body.
In that instant, I saw it.
My fist coming up.
It was ridiculous.
He was throwing sword qi, and I was punching into it?
He thought I was insane.
But the result was the opposite.
KRRRK—KAGAGAK—!
My fist knocked every strand of sword qi aside as it closed in.
“This crazy—!”
WHAM—.
THUD—.
He blacked out again in one hit.
SMACK—.
A slap, and he jolted upright again.
That was the beginning.
All night long, he repeated it—passing out, getting slapped awake, passing out again—countless times.
SMACK—.
He sprang up.
The moment awareness returned, he dropped flat on the ground.
“I—I was wrong! P-please, talk! Talk!”
His swollen face was drenched in tears.
“Do you know what you did wrong?”
“I—I didn’t return the silver pouch.”
“No. You haven’t been hit enough.”
“W-what? That’s not it?”
It was strange.
That really was all he’d done wrong.
Was it wrong that he attacked me?
“D-did I offend you by daring to attack you?”
“No.”
Watching him flail in confusion, I shook my head.
“You’re still far off. Get hit some more.”
His brain spun.
He had to figure it out before he got hit again.
The answer I wanted.
But no matter how much he thought, the only wrongs were what he’d already said.
Unless—
“I—I took a bribe!”
My fist stopped mid-swing.
I crouched down, smiling, and spoke.
“Say more.”
So that was it.
He gauged my mood.
It felt like he shouldn’t say any more.
“Th-that’s all.”
I grinned.
“Yeah. Okay.”
WHAM—. WHAM—.
This time, he didn’t pass out.
He realized it.
How big of a blessing it had been to pass out.
With every hit, he felt like the part that got struck was being erased from his body.
Then I heard myself mutter.
“Tough bastard. Should I grab someone else and ask them instead?”
Even through the pain, goosebumps exploded across his skin.
That wasn’t just talk.
I meant it.
“Yeah. Let’s grab someone else and ask.”
I decided, stopped hitting him, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) and stared him down like a predator.
“Bye.”
He hurt so badly he could barely breathe, but the will to live dragged superhuman strength out of him.
“I-I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!”
“No. I’ll ask someone else. Bye.”
“I—I took money to cover for the Cloud Ladders, and I knew they were getting promoted through cheating, and I still looked the other way!”
He squeezed his eyes shut and spilled it all.
“...Tell me in detail.”
He lived.
He exhaled in relief and began unloading everything.
“Originally, the only way to ascend ranks was the Seven-Star Ascension Tower.”
“I know.”
“But one day, the Strategist said the Seven-Star Ascension Tower was too inefficient, and he introduced a new method—challenging a higher-rank trainee and ascending by defeating them—the Overlord-Seat Ascension Method.”
“I know.”
“At first, all the trainees welcomed it. The passionate trainees kept challenging higher-rank trainees nonstop, and the higher-rank trainees kept working nonstop to protect their seats and climb even higher.”
It was an ideal method.
“The problem is that it has a loophole. No matter how often you ascend or get demoted, you don’t get expelled from Martial Star Hall, so people started using that to make money. And others started using them to push their own children into higher ranks.”
“And you were supposed to stop that.”
“At first, we did. But... the temptation of the money they offered was bigger. We did it once or twice and nothing happened, and after that we got bolder.”
“What kind of person is this Strategist?”
“The best. He’s the highest meritorious retainer of Heavenly Martial Castle who built Heavenly Martial Castle with the Lord of the Castle, and he knows everything that happens in Heavenly Martial Castle like it’s in the palm of his hand.”
“And Martial Star Hall gets to this state, and he doesn’t know? You really think that makes sense?”
At my words, the Ascension Officer spoke carefully.
“There are rumors that lately the Strategist has... changed a little.”
“Changed?”
“Yes. How do I put it. Unlike the Strategist of before, he feels sharper. Stranger. Different. Anyway... a lot of people say they’ve felt that.”