WeTried Translations

Translator: Dawn

Editor: Dawn

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Genius Knight of a Fallen Race

Chapter 19

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The Most Dangerous and Powerful

“Don’t make such a fuss!”

Just as Shan was rejoicing at finally being able to handle Spirit, a blunt remark struck his ears.

“As I said before, Spirit naturally takes root once the body is pushed past its limits! Considering how many times you used potions that other knight houses would hesitate to use even once a month, this is actually late! Even if I’d trained a monkey, it would’ve grasped Spirit by now!”

As Sir Darkal scolded him sharply, Shan lowered his head with a sad expression, nodding obediently. He might not have had a strong sense for money, but he knew how expensive the chemicals he had consumed and soaked in were.

“Anyway, training with enhancement potions ends here!”

“…Really?”

“Yes! You’ve felt it too, haven’t you? Your physical growth has stopped recently.”

As he said, Shan’s body had barely grown at all over the past few weeks despite the brutal training. It was as if the strength, durability, and stamina permitted to this body had reached their limit. That was why the training in recent weeks had felt even harder. Without the reward of growth, it had felt like nothing more than meaningless self-abuse. 

If he had been forced to continue that for even a few more months, or even weeks, he surely would have gone mad. Or he would have run away in the night, unable to endure it any longer.

“So from now on, just maintain your body so it doesn’t rust. Though a human body always has the bad habit of weakening if you slack off—”

“Yes!” Overjoyed, Shan cut off Sir Darkal’s lecture and shouted in celebration.

That hellish training is finally over!

“Don’t get carried away, you fool!”

The old knight, who had been shouting loudly, began coughing. The cold winter air was starting to stab at his worn lungs. After catching his breath, he spoke in a somewhat weakened voice.

“Anyway, you’ve worked hard. Today is a rest day, so don’t waste my time and get lost!”

His blunt tone hadn’t changed at all from half a year ago. Shan nodded quickly and disappeared without even cleaning up the sliced scarecrow. He wanted to brag to Roden and the others that he could now wield Spirit. Silence settled over the garden after Shan left. Sir Darkal reached out his wrinkled hand and slowly traced the cut surface of the scarecrow.

“Hah…”

He let out a quiet chuckle, then suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter from deep within. Even as coughing overtook him again, he kept laughing.

“He actually did it… he really did it! That crazy little bastard…”

At first, it had only been to break his ego. A once-in-a-generation genius and a teenage boy—both were beings with endlessly inflated egos. And a boy who was both? The outcome was obvious. So to firmly establish a hierarchy during training, he had deliberately imposed unreasonable conditions. 

Unlike ordinary knight trainees, Shan’s combat ability already surpassed his own—if he wasn’t careful, he would lose authority. Such harsh knight training could never be achieved without the master forcefully driving it forward. 

Yet from the very first day, Shan had pushed his body to its limits, exhausting every ounce of his muscle strength. What most people failed to endure, even under threat of being stabbed, he had accomplished through sheer will.

The second time Sir Darkal was shocked was three days later, when Shan’s body had already fully recovered and resumed physical training. Normally, whether through healing miracles or recovery chemicals, the human body was not strong enough to fully return to its original state in just three days, not to mention the mental strain.

However, Shan not only recovered completely in three days, but he also managed to push his body to its limits again during what was supposed to be a light second training session. He had abnormal levels of bodily control, endurance, and recovery. After confirming all of this, Sir Darkal immediately scrapped the original training plan and rewrote it.

Thus began the horrific schedule of pushing the body to the point of requiring recovery chemicals every three days. He even forbade those who had undergone knight training to explain what normal training was like. If Shan learned that such extreme training was normally done only once a month, he might realize how unfair his situation was.

From then on, it was truly a time of bloody suffering. Watching Shan grow more and more worn down each day, Sir Darkal himself became increasingly anxious, though he didn’t show it. Even with a normal schedule, five or six out of ten people would fail to endure it and give up. The chances of failure were extremely high. Perhaps this was what it feels like to keep sharpening an endlessly thin, fragile razor blade.

Please don’t break. Just a little sharper…

He had repeated that in his mind while driving that small body to its limits. More than once, he had been tempted to loosen the schedule just a little. He was human, after all. Watching a disciple he had personally taught for half a year suffer like that weakened his resolve. If a little more time had passed, he might have given in. But today, at last, he had achieved results. After endless endurance and perseverance, the gamble had succeeded.

“Spirit is greatly influenced by the mind…”

Over many years of teaching knight trainees, Sir Darkal had discovered a remarkable secret—those who awakened Spirit faster and under harsher conditions tended, on average, to possess stronger Spirit. It was a secret not widely known, since the strength of Spirit was difficult to measure and varied greatly between individuals. Perhaps only a few long-established knight houses knew of it.

In truth, how strong one’s Spirit was didn’t matter that much in physical combat. Drawing that power into the material world required stamina rooted in the body. Too little Spirit was a problem, but even a knight with enough Spirit to split a mountain in one blow would collapse from exhaustion before using it.

However, that spiritual strength was immensely powerful in the realms of spirit and the mystical. A knight with a strong Spirit possessed great resistance to magical abilities. That was why knights could hunt monsters like basilisks, which could turn living beings to stone just by being seen.

“This is Spirit forged by melting his body every three days for half a year… Unless his spiritual aptitude is abysmal, he’d stand in the front ranks among all knights in history.”

The Alto boy he had raised was, quite literally, a combat weapon crafted by the goddess herself. He possessed the agility that seemed to challenge human limits, control more precise than the most refined machines, the ability to read an opponent’s thoughts, and exceptional combat intelligence. Once his body fully matured, he would be able to defeat anyone.

What such a monster needed was resistance to non-physical attacks—a soul so powerful that no evil magic, curse, or monstrous force could pierce it. To overcome even those attacks that couldn’t be dodged by sharp eyes or swift movement—that was what made a truly supreme knight. Like an artist who had completed a masterpiece, Sir Darkal smiled broadly, his wrinkled face filled with satisfaction.

***

When Shan announced that he could now wield Spirit, the Weavers' mansion was thrown into an uproar. Roden was the first to rush over, lifting Shan up and spinning him around.

“You finally did it! Congratulations!”

Shan complained about being dizzy, but couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face. Of course, gaining Spirit was great, but what made him even happier was that he no longer had to endure that dreadful training. After telling about his Spirit to the servants he was close with, Shan went to inform his patron, Kalion Weavers.

“Half a year, huh… That’s certainly fast.”

The old merchant simply nodded, but couldn’t hide the upward curve of his lips. As a sponsor, he had already heard some details from Sir Darkal about the brutal training. The next day, after stirring up the mansion, Shan met Sir Darkal in the garden as usual. That day’s lesson was finally about the Spirit he had longed for.

“What do you think Spirit is?”

“The ability to strike harder, stab better, and block more effectively.”

“What a shamelessly ignorant answer. Good. Very good!”

Despite his gruff tone, Sir Darkal’s face was filled with satisfaction. Strangely excited, he looked almost as if he had been drinking.

“What Spirit is, in simple terms, is the power to produce the result you want by consuming both mental and physical stamina! There’s no need to know more than that. In fact, it’s better not to! You shouldn’t limit yourself!”

With that shout, Sir Darkal drove the wooden stick in his hand into the ground. The stick, which should have shattered against the frozen earth, sank smoothly into it.

“Do the same! Strike it with the strongest resolve you have! Strike with the will to pierce it even if it’s made of steel!”

Letting the shouting pass through one ear, Shan quietly looked back and forth between his stick and the ground. 

I will pierce it. Even if the ground is made of steel...

Repeating that to himself, he drove the stick down with force. Just like Sir Darkal had shown, it plunged into the ground. At the same time, a dizzying wave of exhaustion washed over him. It felt as though he had been running for hours. His strength drained in an instant, and he collapsed to his knees. The sudden loss of stamina made him retch. He had felt something similar the first time he used Spirit, but this was many times more intense.

“Well? It’s exhausting, isn’t it?”

The old knight laughed as if he had expected it.

“From now on, your training will be controlling Spirit. You can think of it as refining your mind! You will learn how to imbue your actions with Spirit. And when you do, you must know how to control the amount! You must control that to become a complete knight!”

Spirit, being a power of the mind, grew stronger the more desperately one desired something. However, great power always came with great consumption. Using enough Spirit to cut steel when only cutting straw would just waste energy. Therefore, a knight had to maintain composure and use only the necessary amount.

“Composure…?”

It seemed far removed from Sir Darkal, who was always shouting. As Shan wondered that, the old knight continued explaining in his usual rough tone.

“Especially in battle, people tend to waste Spirit when they get excited! No matter how skilled one may be, they will collapse from exhaustion! Someone like that is worse than an above-average mercenary!”

Hearing that, Shan recalled the battlefield he had seen half a year ago. He remembered the knight who had cut down enemies in an instant—only to collapse from exhaustion and be dragged away in a net. To avoid ending up like that, it was necessary to train in properly distributing Spirit.

Shan ingrained Sir Darkal’s training method into his mind. Fortunately, compared to the previous physical training, this mental training felt almost easy. He only had to cut objects like wooden sticks, leather, cloth, or bundles of straw. The key was to cut exactly halfway, no matter the target. This was to internalize how much effect came from how much Spirit.

However, there was one thing he didn’t understand—the concept of “mental exhaustion.” He had been told mental stamina recovered more slowly than physical stamina, yet he never felt mentally drained when his body was often exhausted first. When he mentioned this, Sir Darkal simply told him to stop worrying about nonsense and focus on training.

Fortunately, Shan’s natural precision seemed to apply not only to the physical but also to the mental. At first, the unfamiliar sensation confused him, but after three days, he could roughly control his stamina usage. After a week, he could adjust Spirit depending on whether he used wood, metal rods, blunt weapons, or sharp blades.

After that, he learned various applications. Instead of cutting or piercing, he could strike like a hammer to knock opponents back, or propel himself forward by kicking off the ground. He also trained to sense and counter the Spirit imbued in an opponent’s attacks. After a month, Sir Darkal finally declared the end of his knight training when all of that had been mastered.

“You’re still a fool with much to learn, but there’s nothing more I need to teach you now! Here, take this!”

Written in cursive on fine paper, the document was difficult to read but legible thanks to his studies.

“This document certifies that Shan, an Alto, possesses the martial ability and refinement befitting a knight, as attested by Darkal of the Cordo family, his instructor…”

Thanks to the past half year, Shan understood what this paper meant. If he ever became a villain, the mere existence of that document would ruin Sir Darkal’s honor. Though they had built little personal affection due to the constant harshness, Shan found himself unable to look at the bald old man and lowered his head.

“…Thank you, Master.”

“Don’t speak in that sniveling tone like a girl! It disgusts me!”

Truly, he was consistent to the end.

***

A few days after Sir Darkal left, Shan was invited to dinner by Kalion. It was to discuss what he would do next. With even the servants dismissed, only the three of them sat together as Kalion spoke in a low voice.

“I’ve learned something about your enemy.”

As always, without others around, he seemed like a very imposing figure.

“The enemy… mine?”

“Yes. The one who destroyed your village was the Steel Lion Legion, correct?”

According to the Alto mercenary Kob, who had joined the troll hunt, that was the case. After hearing this from Roden, Kalion used his merchant network to discover who had recently hired them.

“According to recent information, their employer is Count Barlic.”

Roden, sitting beside him, looked shocked.

“Wait, wasn’t he…?”

“Yes. The territory that started the Libert’s civil war belongs to his faction.”

The land near Willow Village had been under Baron Mahosel, who was a vassal of Count Barlic. In other words, Barlic had released mercenaries into his own lands to massacre people. All to fabricate a justification that he had been attacked first.

“Blinded by power, he killed the very people he was supposed to protect… Nobles...”

Roden sighed at the horrifying truth. Kalion glanced at his son, then looked at Shan.

“If you wish to take revenge, I would recommend joining the Duke Moraen faction as a mercenary. There is no place better than a battlefield to quickly gain fame.”

If Shan entered the war as a mercenary, building a reputation would be easy. Sir Darkal had already declared that Shan could kill several knights at once. Though no one in Libert would grant knighthood to an Alto, someone would surely take an interest in a young mercenary who carried the heads of knights after he returned to Pendia after great achievements. However, Shan shook his head and refused.

“To be honest… I don’t really feel like taking revenge anymore. I’ve already had enough of that.”

Those mercenaries had killed Priest Ador, and probably Celina too. But killing them had already settled that connection. He had no desire to go to war just to take revenge on the one who ordered them. It wasn’t that he disliked fighting—he simply had a different plan.

“I’m thinking of exploring the Demon Realm instead.”

“…That’s too dangerous.”

“A battlefield is the same. If I want to build a reputation, I have to take risks anyway.”

The Demon Realm to the east of Pendia was both dangerous and full of opportunity. Hunting powerful monsters and collecting their remains could bring wealth and fame, and finding relics of the old Alto Empire would be beyond estimation in value. Compared to war, it was more dangerous but offered greater rewards. Shan pointed at Roden beside him.

“More importantly, Roden can’t come with me to a battlefield.”

“…Me?” Roden blinked, chewing his food. “I’m studying to inherit my father’s business, you know.”

“But you haven’t let go of your weapons yet. I need you. You’re my first squire.”

Shan poked his friend’s thick arm. Over the past half year, Roden had trained enough to maintain his strength despite focusing on business. If he hadn’t, Shan wouldn’t have tried to bring him along. There was no point dragging someone who had lost their passion for the warrior’s path. Hearing his own words reflected back at him, Roden looked dumbfounded, then shook his head.

“Man… when you put it like that, I can’t really refuse, can I?”

The two of them burst into laughter together.