Damn Reincarnation

his Empty Sword, the power that Eugene had held in his hands barely reached the heights that Hamel had held in his heyday.
This brought Eugene great joy.
He thought he’d be reaching the Sixth Star of the White Flame Formula soon, but for the moment, Eugene was still stuck at the Fifth Star of the White Flame Formula.

Even so, he had managed to hold in his hands the same level of power he had once held in his prime.
So what if he hadn’t managed to control it properly? He might not be able to control that level of power now, but he would be able to control it in the future.
As long as he could improve his proficiency in the technique through hard work, he just needed to keep training until he could easily use the complete version of the technique.

‘If I lower my standards in terms of the balance, I can increase the number of layers.
However, the power won’t be as explosively amplified as before.
For now, this is the optimal configuration, and I have no choice but to further adjust the details as things progress…,’ Eugene gathered his thoughts and raised his head.

Alchester still had a look of admiration on his face.
Eugene had yet to find any clues regarding the dragon, but he had already reaped an excellent reward for coming to the Dragonic family just by acquiring this Empty Sword.

“Thank you very much,” Eugene said sincerely.

The black spots he had seen earlier, their intense color, remained stubbornly stuck inside Alchester’s mind.
Instead of feeling jealous and resentful of this young genius in front of him, Alchester was wondering whether he could apply what Eugene had shown him to his own swordsmanship.

‘…How amazing.
Even though I’ve been practicing the Empty Sword for decades… to think that my eyes would be opened to its further possibilities,’ Alchester marveled.

That was why Alchester couldn’t help but feel that it was all the more bizarre.
The level of skill that Eugene had just shown was so high that it seemed impossible for him to have reached such heights at the mere age of twenty, even considering the fact that he was a genius.
Alchester felt like he could sense the skills of a warrior who had trained for decades coming from Eugene.

“…I’m the one who should be grateful instead,” Alchester belatedly responded with a smile and a bow of his head.
“Thanks to you, I feel like I can still learn something new at my late age.”

Alchester had thought that he had been close to the limit of what could be reached, but it turned out that was just an absurd and delusional arrogance on his part.

Without erasing the smile drawn on his face, Alchester continued speaking, “It seems that there’s no longer any need for me to supervise your sword practice.”

“You’re overpraising me,” Eugene humbly denied.

“No.
I seriously mean it.
In the first place, your sword… it’s already so perfect that I don’t know what to advise you on.
The only advice I could give you was tips on how to practice the Empty Sword,” Alchester readily admitted.

At first, he had thought that he would be able to at least spend a month giving Eugene just such advice, but Eugene had become so proficient in the Empty Sword that he didn’t need any advice in only two days.
And now, after a week, Eugene was already able to reach up to the second stack all on his own.

“…I’ve heard a lot about you from Leo as well.
Leo seems to enjoy your tutoring a lot,” Alcester remarked happily.

“It’s all thanks to the fact that Leo listens well,” Eugene prevaricated.

After disciplining that brat in their first meeting, Eugene had guided Leo in his mana training.
Since his talent was outstanding, Leo quickly understood Eugene’s instructions.
Although it was impossible at the moment, in a year or so, Eugene expected Leo to be able to develop his own sword-light.

“…I have nothing more to teach you, so I’d feel guilty to keep you in our mansion any longer.
You may return to the Lionheart clan whenever you wish,” Alchester said, feeling that this was the right thing to do.

After his son had learned the basics of mana from Eugene, starting four days ago, the two had begun holding lessons outside, with Eugene also guiding Leo into learning martial arts.
At first, the knights sworn to the household had been dissatisfied with their one and only young master being taught by a member of the Lionheart clan, but after seeing Eugene tutor Leo, they no longer expressed such dissatisfaction.

Although he was just tutoring a child, they couldn’t help but acknowledge the physical capabilities that Eugene had revealed.
No matter how many rumors they might have heard about Eugene, it was much quicker for them to understand what kind of person he was by looking at him with their own eyes instead of just hearing about him.

Given his youth, Leo had a lot to learn, but Alchester had nothing more to teach Eugene.
It was impossible to teach Eugene any of their other Secret skills, apart from the Empty Sword, and it was also impossible to lecture this child on his basic skills when his basic skills were just as polished as Alchester’s.

“If you say so, then I will leave tomorrow,” Eugene said after bowing his head.

He left the training ground.
It was late at night, and the air was cool — perfect weather for a walk.
Eugene went straight across the garden to the mansion without tossing a backward look at the training ground.

[You’re leaving? But you haven’t discovered anything specific yet, have you?] Mer asked with a puzzled expression.

Only for Eugene to reply with a grin, ‘There are a few things that have caught my eye.’

During the week spent at the Dragonic mansion, Eugene had reduced his sleeping time to look around the mansion in the early mornings.
He avoided the eyes of the many servants and knights and didn’t even step close to the floor Alchester was on.

We are bit.ly/3iBfjkV, find us on google.

That said, he hadn’t neglected to explore that floor.
He had just done so in daylight when he was relatively free to act; he had devoted himself to his search while pretending to be looking at the art displayed on the top floor.

But he hadn’t found any traces of the dragon.
There weren ’t even any special locations in this mansion like the Lionheart estate’s leyline.

After struggling to find anything, Eugene decided to rethink the matter from the beginning.

‘Back to the Dragon Fear,’ Eugene recalled.

If a ten-year-old child was capable of unconsciously exuding Dragon Fear, there was no way that it would have gone unnoticed.

But when he had used a perception spell, he hadn’t been able to look inside Leo’s body.
It wasn’t because of the magic resistance in Leo’s body that his spell had failed to see through Leo.
If Leo had that much magic resistance in the first place, then Eugene wouldn’t have been able to force the stream of water that Leo had shot at him back into the kid’s own mouth and nose.

When Eugene first felt the Dragon Fear, he had been casting a detection spell while holding Leo’s wrist.
So Eugene thought that Leo had unconsciously resisted his magic and exuded the Dragon Fear in response.

But that wasn’t the case now, was it? The Dragon Fear was just a simple warning from somewhere else.
But a warning against what?

After organizing all the things that he had learned in the past week inside of his head, Eugene stopped walking.

He was in front of Leo’s room.
The door was locked.
There weren’t any traces of people in his surroundings.
From the moment Eugene entered the mansion, he had cast an invisibility spell and hid his presence as much as possible.
Eugene placed his hand on the doorknob and immediately cast a spell.

The door opened without a sound.
Eugene slipped into the room.
He saw Leo sleeping on top of his large bed, dead to the world.
Eugene dispelled the invisibility spell and approached Leo.

He cast another detection spell.
It still didn’t work.
Eugene kept up the spell as he looked around the room.
There was nothing special.
Eugene checked on Leo, then placed a hand inside his cloak.

Eugene pulled out a small dagger and held it close to Leo’s neck.
He didn’t release any killing intent.
However, his actions showed no signs of hesitation.
The moment his sharp blade touched Leo’s neck, however…

Whoosh.

The same Dragon Fear as last time attacked Eugene.

[Sir Eugene…!] Mer called out.

Eugene didn’t freeze, immediately springing into action.
Where had it come from? The feeling was fleeting and light, but now that he was aware, he had enough time to figure out the truth.
Eugene’s eyes quickly scanned the room.

His eyes landed on the closed windows.

Crackle!

Lightning flashed up from his feet, and Eugene’s body accelerated explosively.

“…Huh?” Leo woke up, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

‘I thought I heard something just now…?’

But there was no one inside his room.

* * *

Caught up in a floating sensation with his feet being lifted off the ground, Eugene felt like it was being stretched out and then quickly pulled somewhere else.

‘A Warp?’

The floating sensation ended in an instant.
The ground suddenly reappeared, but Eugene landed on his own feet without any unsteadiness.
Then, without any loss of composure, he lifted his head.

A dangerous feeling pressed down on his whole body.
As if to tear his entire existence into pieces, a wave of violent Dragon Fear poured at him from the front.
Eugene felt like every hair on his body was standing on end, but even as this feeling of intimidation washed over him, his shoulders remained upright.

“…Just who are you?” a voice demanded.

In front of a fireplace, a woman with red hair that was even brighter than the flames of the log fire was glaring at Eugene.
She seemed to have been reading until just recently, as she was sitting in an armchair with a thick book resting on her lap.

“I’m Eugene Lionheart,” Eugene replied without avoiding her gaze.
“…Are dragons these days all so voyeuristic?”

Eugene slowly turned his head and looked behind him.
An entire wall on one side was made of glass, and like a piece of stained glass, it was divided into dozens of different screens that each reflected a different scene.

Among these screens were some showing Leo’s room, the hallways of the mansion, the garden, and even the training field.

“…How did you find out?” the dragon spoke up once more.
“You shouldn’t have been able to find the door with your magic.
I changed the entire Draconic incantation so that you wouldn’t be able to peek at it with your irritating detection spell.”

“But you didn’t do that on your first day, did you?” Eugene asked.

“…How could I have known that Akasha’s owner would come to visit and cast a detection spell?” the dragon muttered with a click of her tongue.

As expected, the Dragon Fear that Eugene had first sensed from Leo wasn’t because Leo himself was resisting the detection spell.
The dragon who was watching through the glass window had sent him a warning, fearing that her peeping would be exposed by the detection spell.
She hadn’t sent a warning again after that because she had changed her Draconic incantations to evade Eugene’s detection magic.

“…I know that there’s no actual dragon blood mixed into the blood of the Dragonic family,” Eugene spoke up without any concern on his face.
“Also, I’ve actually experienced Dragon Fear personally.
When you first sent the Dragon Fear as a warning, I was convinced that a dragon was here.”

“…You say that you’ve felt Dragon Fear before…,” the dragon muttered as the Dragon Fear that had been oppressing his whole body disappeared.
The dragon tilted her head slightly to the side as she blatantly stared at Eugene’s face before eventually saying, “…Eugene Lionheart, a descendant of the Lionheart clan.
Did you hear about me from Carmen Lionheart?”

“No,” Eugene denied.

“As it should be,” the dragon nodded.
“Her meeting with me was accidental, and she even swore an oath in Draconic.”

It seemed that even this dragon hadn’t suspected that Carmen would get the urge to show off whenever a mention of the word ‘dragon’ came up.

“…If you know about Dragon Fear, that means you must have met a dragon.
But I can’t believe that.
There’s no way that you, Eugene Lionheart, could have met a dragon,” the dragon insisted.

“I have no reason to lie to you,” Eugene argued.
“I met a dragon—”

“No.
You definitely have never met a dragon,” the dragon interrupted, narrowing her eyes.
“My name is Ariartelle, a member of the Red Dragon Flight and the only dragon to still keep her eyes open.
Since I have never met you before, when you claim to have met a dragon, it must be a li—”

This time it was Eugene’s turn to interrupt, “I am Hamel.”

Ariartelle froze with her mouth open.