I confidently declared that I would take his head next time, but in spite of that declaration, I died several more times.
In battle after battle, I died over and over again.
I spent dozens of those repeated fights saving Haede.
As if mocking the notion that my desperate struggles could ever reach him, his golden spear mercilessly pierced my entire body.
And so, once again, I had no choice but to repeat death.
But I did not think those deaths were meaningless.
Because only after enduring those deaths was I able to reap something from them.
After dying around ten times—
———!!!
The horse he rode dissolved into fire and wind.
At last, with both our feet planted on the ground, I managed to drag him into the so-called second phase, where we clashed with nothing but sword and spear.
Then, after dying another ten times—
I saw a frigid chill flying in from behind him.
Frost swept over him in an instant, followed by countless streams of water rushing toward Scaramuccia.
Scaramuccia, in his current state, was protected by his Evil Eye, so the water streams—which could be considered physical attacks—did not work on him. But frost was undeniably classified as magic.
Naturally, he took damage, and his entire body began to freeze. That razor-sharp cold severely weighed down his movements.
The streams of water that followed did not reach his body, but they were more than enough to grievously wound the horse he was riding.
Water shot in from every direction pierced straight through the horse’s neck, and it let out a scream of agony.
That was not the end. What next tore across the battlefield was a crimson sword aura, fired forth like an explosion as black hair streamed behind it.
When that violent sword aura charged directly at the horse, Scaramuccia hurriedly raised his golden spear and blocked the strike.
"I was wondering why you kept not coming back to the dormitory. So this is where you were?"
Why was that sly smile so welcome?
Dante smiled at me, ready for battle with a sword formed from condensed frost.
"Sorry. I was a little late bringing them here."
Angelica spoke calmly and without expression, even as she continued exchanging blows with Scaramuccia.
And then—
"Overdoing it again...!"
Dolnesia bit her lip as she summoned Sancho.
After dying another ten times, I finally succeeded in buying enough time for Dante, Dolnesia, and Angelica to join the battlefield.
I could feel it in real time.
Every time I died to him, I was becoming that much stronger.
It was not because my stats or skills had grown.
Everything returned to the beginning whenever I died, so those numbers were meaningless anyway.
Nor was it because, as I had done while sparring Angelica, I had made Sail Swordsmanship my own and adopted the strategy of becoming a monster like him.
Unlike Angelica, where it had been a sparring match that could end once I broke her weapon, this was a life-or-death battle that would end only when one of us took the other’s life.
And even if I used the same skill, all it amounted to was thrusting a little faster and a little harder.
I had already given up on defeating him with the same techniques by my tenth death.
I had simply experienced death dozens of times.
Been beaten senseless by his golden spear dozens of times.
And as I desperately clung to him, again and again, so that his golden spear could not reach Haede—
I had simply begun to see it. And now, I could finally swing accordingly.
Yeah. If this were a martial arts novel, I suppose you would say I had gained enlightenment.
Nothing had changed physically, but mentally, I had grown.
Where his spear would swing.
Where I had to swing to put him in a difficult position.
What I had to do to make things easier for myself.
What I had to do to make things more fucking miserable for him.
Not a prediction that saw the possibilities offered by a skill.
Experience accumulated through death and pain.
Didn’t they say that pain which did not kill you made you stronger?
No matter what the fuck that bastard did, he could not kill me in the end.
That was how my senses grew numb to death.
How my attachment to life was brutally worn away.
And by the time the repeated retries had become as familiar as breathing—
You were the only thing I could see in my world.
Yeah.
It seemed that after getting killed by you around twenty-five times, I had become awfully attached to you.
A newbie crusher.
A kind teacher who drilled the terror of gimmicks into me with my entire body.
A grateful mentor who drove a spear into my chest and taught me what death was.
So if I did not call that bastard Teacher, what the hell was I supposed to call him?
I had no idea what I was even saying.
All I needed to do was focus on winning.
It seemed that after dying more than twenty times, my mind had begun filling with useless thoughts without my realizing it.
Just as my thoughts were growing deeper—
His golden spear once again targeted Haede.
As I always had, I blocked his golden spear.
Then—
He twisted the golden spear and brutally knocked away my sword, then mercilessly thrust his spear into the wide opening created by the recoil.
The tip of the golden spear I had seen so many times.
If that golden spear lodged itself in my body again, I would have to retry once more.
Thinking this retry must be another failure, I let out a sigh and, just as I was about to consider how to die without pain—
The tip of the golden spear did not reach my body.
With the sensation of floating, my gaze turned away from the spear tip and toward the library ceiling.
Partly because Kafka had seized the collar at the back of my neck in her teeth and pulled me backward.
KWA-BOOOOM—!!!!
And partly because Angelica, Kyle, and Sancho had lunged in from the side and knocked the spear off its path.
It might also have been because lightning blossoming from Isabella’s fingertips and frost swords dancing to Dante’s command surged toward him.
The party members had desperately blocked his golden spear to save me.
I could not hide my confusion.
Why?
I could not die anyway.
Even if I died, all I had to do was start over.
Dante, Angelica, and Dolnesia might not know that, but—
You, who went back into the past with me, did not need to be so desperate, did you?
It was a waste of mental energy, if anything.
When we retried, our bodies might return to their original condition, but that did not change the fact that we were fighting battle after battle without rest.
In other words, mental fatigue was inevitable.
Why were they so desperately putting themselves in harm’s way to stop me from simply dying and starting over?
"You almost died just now."
Kafka spoke as she gently set me down on the ground.
It was a small rebuke, perhaps. A remark that seemed to carry a hint of worry.
"I know."
I brushed it off as though it were nothing.
The moment I raised my sword and tried to charge into the battlefield again—
Something gently caught hold of my collar.
It was different from when she had roughly clamped her wolf jaws around my collar to pull me out of Scaramuccia’s spear’s path.
Kafka merely held the hem of my clothes gently, with the touch of a frail person’s hand.
It was frail.
Unlike those rough teeth.
In truth, she had been strengthened by Orlando’s Muscle Cultivation Method, so she probably did not lose out to her wolf form in strength.
Yet it was frail.
Her hand was ancient, and frail.
Such a frail human hand.
Now that it held me, I could have easily pulled free with the slightest exertion.
But perhaps because it was so terribly frail—
I simply could not bring myself to shake it off.
In the brief silence, a short chain of thoughts followed.
Before me, the battle was raging.
Angelica had defeated the lowest-ranked member of the Frank Knights in a sparring match, but this was not a sparring match where aura had been restricted. And with her own Evil Eye, she could not harm that monster.
Even so, through her terrifying skill, she was somehow keeping the one-armed Sword Master tied down head-on.
But even without an Aura Blade and with one arm missing, Scaramuccia was still unquestionably a Sword Master.
Only someone with Angelica’s overwhelming skill could bind him from the front, yet merely holding him down was her limit. She could not spare any attention for the horse.
Of course, Dolnesia’s Sancho and Rocinante, along with Kyle, were attacking the horse.
And Dante and Isabella were filling the gap in damage.
That allowed Angelica to face Scaramuccia from the front without worry, but—
It was a perilous situation, one that seemed as though it would collapse at once if even one person dropped out.
But.
If I joined them here, even Scaramuccia, a Sword Master, would have no choice.
So I could not stop here.
When we could press him, we had to keep pressing without pause.
An opportunity like this—
I could not guarantee it would come again, no matter how many more times I died.
"No, Ian. You don’t understand."
Her narrow, slitted eyes stared at me.
I could not see her pupils, but I knew her eyes were fixed on my face.
"You were trying to die. When that spear was about to reach your chest, you gave up the will to live."
Kafka’s reproachful words were not wrong.
I had been trying to die. I had thought that if I was going to die anyway, it would be better to die quickly.
If there was no chance of winning even if the fight continued—
Then dropping my sword and starting from the beginning was the better and faster option.
Was that a problem?
But I did not have time to argue with Kafka right now.
I had to rejoin the battlefield quickly.
Dolnesia, Dante, and Angelica would have no problem even if time turned back.
But Isabella and Kyle were different.
They were beings unaffected by time, so if they died here, I could not guarantee they would come back to life even if we turned time back with a Dreamland ticket.
So—
I had to shake off this hand and go.
They could not die, so I, the one who would return even if I died, had to take their place...
"Let’s run away, Ian."
Kafka, still holding my collar with that frail hand, said those words.
Run away?
Why?
"I understand that even if we die, we return to the beginning through those Dreamland tickets you told us about."
"Kafka... We can talk later..."
I told her we could talk later because there was no time, but—
"Listen."
Kafka opened her eyes wide and tightened her grip on my collar.
Her blue eyes, visible through her narrowed eyelids, looked at me.
Of course, even with more strength behind it, her grip was still frail.
I should have been able to shake it off with ease.
Then why could I not shake off her hand and head into the battlefield with my sword?
I had to shake it off.
Shake it off quickly and raise my sword.
Then fight and die.
Die, and win.
All I had to do was die as many times as possible before Kyle and Isabella died.
If it seemed impossible to win, I could just die.
If Haede died first, I could just die.
After all, I would keep coming back to life.
Death was nothing to me now.
That was why I had to shake off her hand and head to the battlefield at once.
But—
"Can you guarantee that the Dreamland tickets will keep turning back your time forever?"
I could not break free from that frail hand. Not at all.
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