“My fondest memory?” Jake asked, a bit confused at the sudden question. He didn’t know why the Sword Saint asked him, much less why he had such a sincere look in his eyes. Like the answer to his question genuinely mattered.
Thus Jake considered it seriously. When he thought about fond memories, he was surprised as he quickly noticed something… none of them were from before the system. He tried to remember some positive memories from before and did find plenty. That time they went to the theme park, and Jake had just gotten tall enough to ride all the “wild” attractions. Or when he won his first big archery competition.
But… comparing them to the post-system ones, they seemed so much less. The first time he got a notification from a kill, the times he defeated any of the Beast Lords… his victory over the King of the Forest… the D-grade Storm Elemental he bombarded from long range… the damn blue mushroom… Altmar Golem… so many memories appeared over those traditionally happy childhood memories.
Yet, one memory emerged before any of the others. One that had been the beginning of Jake’s true journey into this new world.
“It was the first day of the tutorial… I was with my colleagues, and we made a camp to wait out the night. I was on watch alone. Ah, I need to add that we didn’t do jack-shit for the first many hours but just walked around and sometimes fought weak foes. Everything except killing a big boar was a waste of time. During this night, we were ambushed… three men came for me. All of them were several levels above me - all of them stronger and faster.
“By all accounts, I should have been fucked, but instead, I felt like I awakened after sleeping for a long time. Suddenly the world was more vivid than ever before, and I fought the three ambushers. No, I didn’t just fight them. I dominated and killed all three of them while barely taking a scratch. That was my first true fight to the death and the first time I ever killed another human. The euphoria I felt when I stared out into the night as I stood victorious… is something I will never forget,” Jake finished as he shared. It truly was his most precious memory. It was the day he stopped being Jake the office worker and became Jake the Primal Hunter.
Across from him, the Sword Saint nodded along to his words. He smiled as he looked at Jake. “In some ways, we truly are similar. My fondest memory is not one I have ever shared… one I have been embarrassed to regard as my fondest.”
He leaned on his sword as he sat down, making it clear this would not be a short story.
“When I lay dying, expecting my life to end at any moment, I recalled so many memories of my life. My marriage, the birth of my children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. The day my wife passed, and the day I buried my firstborn son. I remembered all of it oh-so vividly, happy and sad times both,” the Sword Saint said as he sat there.
His body was covered in wounds. They both knew a winner was clear, and Jake merely stood there and listened. “Yet out of everything… I remembered one thing. One event that shaped me more than anything else. My fondest memory and my fondest moment as I looked back upon my life.”The Sword Saint spoke as his eyes lit up, and he remembered ages past. Jake did not choose to interrupt him but simply listened as he heard the man speak with genuine passion and emotion. Even more so than anything before.
”It was during a war… a terrible time. Young men and women died, believing there was honor in such an honorless time. Oh, were we foolish. We thought ourselves heroes, and we wanted to stand out and bring praise upon our names and families,” the Sword Saint began as he stared up towards the sky, reminiscing what happened so long ago. Yet, there was a small spark of something else in the air Jake couldn’t quite recognize.
”We achieved nothing but to prove our own foolhardiness as we unwisely tried and go above and beyond our call of duty. You see, we were not the defenders at this time but the attackers. In a foreign land, unknown to us besides a sparse few hours around a table and a small booklet that only one of us had read. This is all the knowledge we wandered in with. We had no personal animosity towards the enemy but solely went to war due to our national pride demanding it and our honor not allowing us to say no.
”There, we fought and battled faceless enemies as we got further and further from home. Deeper and deeper into the unknown, we fared, but all we found on our way was desolation and desertion. The villages ransacked and destroyed as our foes retreated,” he said, as his look turned sour, yet that spark remained.
”My squad and I tried to be clever. To get ahead and make ourselves stand out - so we went where we were not supposed to. A single vehicle and not enough rations were all we had. How could we have known our journey would end as it did? Perhaps we should have… but we were young and dumb.
”Our only means of transportation broke down in the middle of nowhere, and as we tried to fix it… it came,” he said, as his voice slightly cracked and his hand still holding the sword shook.
Jake stood there, silently listening. He felt that the old man truly looked and sounded like he was back in the past… that whatever happened back then was so thoroughly etched in his mind that he didn’t need any wisdom or magical stats to remember every detail perfectly, even if it happened nearly a century ago.
”The snow fell. The biting wind from the north descended on us like a merciless beast as winter arrived. Ill-equipped and lost, we tried to return home, but we were too far away from anyone else. We had to seek refuge in a small abandoned village, with only a few drafty houses left standing.
”From there… the longest winter in my life began. A squad of four, we tried to keep ourselves warm and our spirits high. They were my brothers and felt as close to me as my family at the time. I trusted every one of them with my life, and they trusted me with theirs. Which is why what came next was so hard,” he said as tears fell from his eyes. His hand gripping the sword handle hard enough to make blood fall to the ground below from his wounds.
”Our rations were… limited. We all knew it from the first day. The small book told of the brutal winters of the land. A winter we would never survive… so the hard choice was made. The hardest choice… made. We knew not all could survive… so we chose.
”The rations would last enough for only one of us. Haruto was the first… he simply asked for the one who remained to tell his family he died with honor and to take care of his wife and child before he ended himself. Ibuki followed him soon after, leaving only his brother and sister in the care of the survivor. The final two were Aoto and me.”
The old man spoke with so much pain it was almost tangible. Jake felt the intense pain in every word.
”I had a clan… and so did Aoto. We were both the only heirs remaining and had no children. We were the last of our bloodlines, so if we died, our lines would end. There was no good choice… so… we flipped a coin. I won, and with tears in his eyes, he nodded in recognition and brought the gun to his head.”
Jake felt the words almost echo as he saw the tears flow down the Sword Saint’s cheeks as he stared up towards the sky. Jake felt like he saw clouds far above but couldn’t quite make them out. He looked back at the old man and saw that glint in his eyes had never disappeared, and Jake now recognized it…. enlightenment.
Something was changing as he felt like the atmospheric mana was affected somehow. Not just the mana… everything seemed to be influenced.
”That winter was so long… so lonely. Every day was a struggle to simply stay alive, every second torture. Cold, alone, forgotten and abandoned. After the first month, my family would have no doubt received news of my death. After the second, they would have come to believe it. The third and fourth? My funeral had been long held by then.
”I cannot even begin to explain how it felt. I have experienced torture more than once in my life, but those months… were more than torture. There was not a day I didn’t consider joining my fallen comrades… but I had made a promise to them. One I would keep. I was also simply not willing to accept death. Not a single fiber of my being believed that winter was supposed to be my end before seeing at least one more spring,” Miyamoto said as Jake noticed something more.
It was faint... but he felt like he saw tiny snowflakes falling. He saw them even in his sphere… and he couldn’t detect any mana or energy… they’re real. Not constructs, but real snow. He looked over at the onlookers, and they saw it too, as slowly a faint white blanket of pristine snow fell upon Yalsten.
”But the body can only last so long; willpower only take one so far. We had underestimated the relentlessness and mercilessness of winter. It was rougher than even those that came before it, more adamant than anything my squadmates could have expected.
“Yet I lived. Day after day, I weakened, but I remained. Until finally a day… I heard a tap.”
The old man suddenly livened up, seemingly unbothered by his wounded body, as he smiled and stood up.
“One tap, and then another. I had been half-asleep, dehydrated, and starved. Yet, I recognized it right away. I managed to lift myself off the ground and pushed myself to the door. I will never forget opening it that day and seeing the rainfall upon the snow as it melted.
“It was… magic. For the first time in months, I felt hope; I felt a desire to truly live and believed that I would make it. I laughed out loud and yelled far louder than I thought a man in my state should ever be capable of. Then, however… a moment of pure relief and happiness swiftly changed as I heard another sound, barely not muffled by the rain.”
The Sword Saint turned far more serious as he continued his narration - Jake not even sure if the old man knew if anyone was still listening.
“As mentioned, the winter had been long… far longer than usual. It had disrupted not just me but the natural balance. Spring had come later, and the animals suffered for it… especially those who usually hibernated through it. For before me stood a bear, far larger than I had ever seen, thin and starved as it stared at my willow form.
“We met each other’s eyes.. and we both knew at that moment. One of us would become the sustenance to allow the survival of the other. Or… perhaps only I thought that, for clearly, the bear did not view my small and weak form as a threat. Which under usual circumstances, it really shouldn’t have been.”
He raised his sword slowly from the ground as he held it towards the sky as if to show it off.
“I had no guns or bullets left; all of them used to try and hunt for food during this time. I had no way to fight except for one thing. When I left home, I had taken with me an heirloom. Something many families and clans did back then. I had chosen the sword that had been passed down to me. This very sword I hold in my hand.
“The bear stared me down as I felt its intent… and I drew. My body hurt. My bones protruded from my skin as I had not eaten for weeks and barely had some melted snow to keep me alive for the past few weeks. Yet, as I stood there, sword in hand, the rain falling upon me, I felt none of this. All I felt was the rain upon my skin and hope for survival.”
His eyes lit up as he showed his teeth. Jake felt the mirages of snow around him turn to water as he felt the atmosphere shift. He was not the only one who closely observed the odd happenings either. Caleb, Carmen, and many others looked with a mix of confusion and astonishment as they silently watched, listening to the story.
“Two starved beasts we clashed, sword against claw. Needless to say, I was no match in strength, barely a match in agility, and utterly outmatched in durability. It was a battle I was not meant to win, but one I at the same time couldn’t afford to lose. Couldn’t see myself losing.
“Time after time, we clashed, blood was spilled, and my blade, dulled by the weather and lack of maintenance, was barely able to penetrate the skin of the beast. The beast seemed unaffected and kept pushing me back. My body was fraught with pain. Yet at the same time, I felt my body overflowing with more power than ever.”
Jake looked on silently as he felt the subtle gathering of energy, the Sword Saint at the center. It felt like the world itself was feeding him power as he stood there, seemingly unaware of all that was happening.
“The battle was long and painful, the physical difference larger than I could have imagined. Neither of us was willing to die or surrender, and neither willing to give up. At one moment, I slipped on the wet snow below my feet, which made me unable to dodge as the bear hit me in the side. I felt my arm break, my ribs bent, and the air was knocked out of my lungs. I rolled and fell to the ground, my body bloody and broken. Yet I stood once more, my left arm useless - my blade still in the other.
“A final time, the beast came. It charged me, seeing my weak form. I stood there, staring at the beast with my blade raised as the rain hit the tip of the blade. I saw it slide down the edge, and at that very moment, a miracle happened. The rain-filled clouds above parted as faint rays of sunlight fell upon my blade, reflecting the rainwater as it blinded the bear.
“I did not think. I simply felt at that very moment that the world had chosen to assist me. I was one with it, as I was one with my sword, and I merely swung a single time. My blade moved through the air as it parted the raindrops, and when it met the neck of the bear, it did not stop. An impossible strike cut the head off without any resistance. I never even felt the impact in my arm as I stood there victorious, the beast dead beneath me. All I felt was warmth despite standing in tattered clothes in the melting snow, a single ray of sunlight bathing me.”
The old man finally looked at Jake, the glint in his eye more evident than ever. More energy than before gathered towards the Sword Saint as Jake stared back into his eyes as he felt something.
Deep within, he felt an emotion he hadn’t felt for a long time..
“After that, I used the bear’s body to provide food, clothing, and other necessities till I was rescued by happenstance nearly a month later when all the snow was gone. I returned to my home, became the leader of my clan, paid my dues, and never spoke of those months ever again. Yet that day in the rain never left me. The feeling of shame that came from the thought that the deaths of my comrades and those months of torture had all been worth it - for that one fight - never left me. My desire to experience such a thing once more… never left me. I merely forgot it.”
Jake felt the world change at that moment as sunlight penetrated down from a sunless sky and rain fell upon Yalsten, visible for all to see.
“I believed that my second chance was another opportunity to help my clan. I believed my job was to bring upon a season of growth and push my clan into an eternal summer… at the cost of confining myself to my own personal winter as I abandoned selfishness for the good of others. Now I realize… my second chance was not for that…
“So as the snow melts and I usher the season of change.”
Jake suddenly knew what that feeling he felt was. It was the same feeling he felt the first day he stood before the three humans that night.
“As winter ends and the rain falls.”
A feeling of competitiveness that could not be born from fighting beasts and monsters of the multiverse.
No, it was one that could only be realized through fighting those of his own species to stand at the apex. Jake did not comprehend what was happening and quite frankly didn’t care to know. He just wanted to see the result.
“So let it come.”
Jake grinned as rays of sunlight bathed Yalsten, and the rain fell upon his skin. He felt the atmospheric mana of the entire area skyrocket to entirely new levels as if the system itself fed more into Yalsten out of nowhere. He felt an aura wash upon him that made him aware that whatever monster stood before him was on another level than anything he had ever faced before.
“My…
He felt his own heartbeat and bloodline revel as he drew his scimitar and pushed Limit Shatter to 30% without any hesitation.
“Springtime Advent.”