Chapter 3: Return (2)
I had returned to the past.
Naturally, that made no sense.
It was a thought I had come up with myself, yet even I found it utterly absurd.
But what if I truly had returned to the past?
Then everything could be explained.
Why the scars I had acquired on the battlefield were gone.
Why my hands were as white and pristine as those of a sheltered young nobleman.
Why my level was Level 1. Why every one of my stats had fallen to zero.
If I was currently not the Predator of the coalition army but the delinquent son of a count’s family, then every piece of the puzzle fell perfectly into place.
“Even so, there’s no way that—”
Rooooooar—!!!
The Ice Troll’s roar shattered my thoughts.
Perhaps it believed that I was standing there blankly because I was terrified. The Ice Troll approached with a grin, treating me like prey it had already caught.
I still did not know exactly what was happening, but—
‘I can deal with those questions later.’
The Ice Troll before me came first.
An Ice Troll was by no means an easy monster to defeat.
Its regenerative abilities were formidable, but the strength produced by its enormous body was even more destructive.
A delinquent who had spent years immersed in gambling and pleasure could never defeat such an opponent.
However—
Tap!
I kicked off the snow-covered ground and charged forward.
Perhaps the Ice Troll had not expected me, whom it had assumed was merely terrified, to suddenly rush at it.
Rooar?!
The Ice Troll flinched in bewilderment.
The distance between us rapidly narrowed.
Even if I had returned to the past, my memories remained intact.
My experiences from countless battlefields and innumerable encounters with death were still with me.
Whenever someone asked who my teacher was, I always gave the same answer.
My teacher was the “battlefield”.
I straightened my hand like a blade.
The creature still had not recovered from its confusion.
The Ice Troll was a monster that reigned as a predator within these snowy mountains.
For that reason, it probably never imagined that it could become the prey.
I drove my blade-like hand straight into the Ice Troll’s chest.
But it failed to pierce the Ice Troll’s hide?
“Damn!”
I had made a mistake.
I was no longer the Predator of the coalition army. Every ability I had acquired through Predation was gone.
Furthermore, this was not the well-trained body I had possessed during my time with the coalition army.
The steel-like body I had forged across countless battlefields no longer existed.
This was the body of a count’s delinquent son who had spent his life gambling and indulging in pleasure.
With such a weak body, I could not even scratch the Ice Troll’s hide, much less tear out its heart.
‘Damn it.’
I quickly pulled back my hand and reached toward my waist.
Even in the past, I had at least carried a thin rapier at my waist under the pretense that it was a weapon for self-defense.
It was the kind of rapier typically carried by young noblemen purely for show.
It possessed virtually no practical value in battle, but a blade was still a blade.
Rooooooar!!
The Ice Troll’s roar violently battered my eardrums.
Having finally recovered from its confusion, the Ice Troll fixed both eyes on me.
My thoughts raced.
My survival instincts pierced through my mind.
I could not retreat here. I had to settle this fight.
I stepped forward again with the foot I had begun pulling back.
Among monsters that walked on two legs, the Ogre was unquestionably considered the apex predator.
An Ice Troll could not compare to an Ogre.
However, it was still a ferocious monster powerful enough to be called a “predator”.
And that monster was directing its hunger toward me.
Its vicious bloodlust—
The very gaze it directed at me overflowed with seething violence.
I read the violence and killing intent contained within that gaze.
‘Now!’
Whoosh!
The Ice Troll’s massive fist narrowly grazed my side.
Yes, it had only grazed me.
Agonizing pain tore through my entire body, making my mind buzz. My mouth fell open on its own, releasing a soundless scream.
Its destructive power was astonishing.
....But I endured it. I had to endure it.
I gritted my teeth. I forcibly clung to my fading consciousness. Through sheer tenacity, I forced my eyes wide open.
Now it was my turn.
Sharpening my senses, I thrust the sword toward the troll’s chest.
Stab!
The rapier pierced the Ice Troll’s hide.
Although the sword had been chosen purely for appearances, my past self had at least brought one of reasonably good quality.
Rooaargh—!
The creature released a pained roar and swung its hand again. I opened my eyes wide and focused on its movements.
If it caught me, I would die.
But I did not retreat.
I lowered my posture as far as possible and avoided the hand sweeping toward me.
As I slipped inside its reach, I put even more strength into the hand gripping my rapier.
Stab!
The rapier sank deeper into the Ice Troll’s chest.
But the creature did not fall.
What could I possibly expect from a rapier made almost entirely for show?
I had never expected to bring it down with a single strike anyway.
‘Found it!’
Through the tip of my sword, I felt the Ice Troll’s heart beating.
A troll’s unrivaled ability was its regeneration. The key to that regeneration lay within its blood.
Once its heart was destroyed, it could no longer circulate blood, significantly weakening its regeneration.
In other words, the heart was a troll’s weakness.
Rooar—!!
The Ice Troll cried out in alarm.
It swung its hand again to restrain me, but I pierced its heart first.
Splurt!!!
As its heart was pierced, blood erupted like a fountain.
I quickly retreated.
The Ice Troll’s flailing hand instantly lost its strength and swept uselessly through the air.
Its gigantic body tilted and crashed to the ground with a boom, causing a small tremor.
◆You have defeated an Ice Troll!
◆You have acquired 120 Combat Experience!
◆Your level has increased!
◆Your level has increased!
◆Your level has increased!
Messages filled my vision.
Without realizing it, I tilted my head.
“That killed it?”
Honestly, I was bewildered. The heart was indeed a troll’s weakness.
However, merely piercing it with a rapier should not have been enough to kill one.
Ordinarily, its heart would have to be hacked apart with a Bastard Sword saturated with Aura before it would die.
Furthermore, this was an Ice Troll.
It was a troll variant whose regeneration had been enhanced to its absolute limit.
It was the very monster the emperor had captured en masse and turned into potions.
To an Ice Troll, this gaudy rapier was less threatening than a toothpick.
Even if I punctured it dozens of times with this weapon, it would still be questionable whether the creature would die.
“Was it a weakened specimen?”
That seemed to be the case.
Now that I looked closely, it was extremely emaciated. It appeared to have starved for nearly a month.
Since blood was the key to its regeneration, its regenerative capabilities varied according to its “nutritional condition”.
Compared to other monsters, starvation was particularly fatal to Ice Trolls.
“No wonder.”
I had thought the attack that grazed me had been surprisingly bearable.
If I had encountered a healthy specimen, I probably would have suffered considerably.
There was a high probability that I would have been the one to die.
I could only say that I had been extremely fortunate.
“Come to think of it, my past self encountered this Ice Troll too.”
And I survived.
More precisely, I managed to escape.
Considering that I had escaped this Ice Troll despite my pathetic stamina, it clearly had not been a healthy specimen.
Still, an Ice Troll was an Ice Troll.
Once the tension left my body, the place it had grazed began to hurt terribly.
“I think it broke a few of my ribs—Urgh!”
When I felt the area with my fingertips, pain like my bones were being crushed surged through me.
It had only grazed me, yet I had ended up in this condition.
Such a thing would have been unimaginable with the body I had trained as the Predator of the coalition army.
But the body of a count’s delinquent son was far too weak. In this condition, even moving or breathing was difficult.
◆You have cleared the Tutorial Quest [What the Hell Is Going On?!]!
◆[Inventory] has been unlocked as your reward!
◆You have acquired 200 Quest Experience!
◆Your level has increased!
◆Your level has increased!
◆You refused to flee from the Ice Troll, faced it in battle, and seized victory!
◆Amazing! Truly amazing!!
◆You have received [Stats +1] as an additional reward!
Messages poured across my vision one after another.
Judging from all the talk about leveling up and stats, something must have changed within the [Player Information] I had seen earlier.
But I could check that later. For now, I needed to take care of my body.
“I think I need immediate treatment….”
No matter how I looked at the snowy mountains, this was not an environment where I could receive medical treatment.
That left me with only one option.
“An Ice Troll’s ability was something I never managed to acquire through Predation before.”
Predation.
Ice Trolls were monsters native to my homeland, but I had never acquired their abilities through Predation.
Part of the reason was that I had awakened my Predation ability relatively late.
By the time I discovered it, the emperor had already driven the Ice Trolls to extinction.
“An Ice Troll’s regeneration….”
I carefully extracted the heart from the fallen Ice Troll.
Appropriate for its massive body, the heart was nearly as large as my head.
Its warm heat proved that the creature had only just died.
“Whew….!”
I took a deep breath and brought the heart to my mouth.
Crunch.
The heart’s tough muscle was crushed between my teeth.
Thump!
My own heart began pounding violently.
My breath caught as though someone were strangling me, and the entire world turned red.
It felt as though my reason itself had been stained crimson, and my consciousness began cutting in and out.
....This was a side effect of Predation.
My Predation ability came with several “restrictions” and “side effects”.
The first restriction was that I could not acquire an ability from a heart that had completely lost its life force.
In other words, I could obtain an ability only by “personally” consuming a “living heart”.
The workaround of eating the heart of a dead corpse did not work.
However, that was merely a restriction. It was difficult to consider it a genuine weakness of Predation.
The most dangerous drawback of Predation was its “side effect”.
Whenever I used Predation, I was consumed by “madness”.
Even if only temporarily, I lost my reason and became no different from a monster.
Unfortunately, even the Saintess’ miracles had been unable to remove Predation’s side effects.
Because of that, I could not use Predation carelessly.
With Ian’s help, I eventually gained some degree of control over it, but it remained impossible for me to grow infinitely stronger.
As expected, even though I had returned to the past, the side effect remained unchanged.
I had merely become younger. I had not become an entirely different person, so that was only natural.
It was not as though I had forgotten about the danger.
But I had no other choice.
There was no suitable treatment available here. This was the only method I had to heal my shattered ribs.
More importantly, refusing to acquire an Ice Troll’s regenerative abilities when they were right before me would be idiotic.
Hissssss—!
A dark crimson mist stretched toward me as though invading my mind.
Before long, I would lose my reason.
Then I would become no different from a monster. I could only be thankful that there were no people nearby.
That was when it happened.
“The footprints continue this way!”
A loud shout suddenly rang out.
When I turned toward it, I saw armed soldiers pushing through the snow as they ran toward me.
“He’s here! We found Lord Adrian!”
The entire area erupted into commotion at the soldier’s words.
Someone behind the soldiers hurriedly rushed forward. Her dreamlike silver hair seemed drenched in moonlight.
The silver strands reaching below her shoulders fluttered elegantly in the snowy wind before settling back down.
Her skin was as white and immaculate as the snow piled upon the mountains.
Her large, sparkling eyes resembled perfectly carved rubies, while the delicate shadows upon her face further emphasized her beauty.
Her eyelashes curved slightly upward. Her lips were as red as a ripe apple.
That woman possessed pure and delicate beauty, like the thin petals of a flower—
“Brother!”
Seraphia cried out, relief and delight mingling upon her face.
But I did not feel the same. I was not happy to see her at all.
Seraphia.
The Monarch of Frost.
The coalition army’s greatest enemy.
The witch who had taken the Hero Ian’s left arm.
Thump!
My heart pounded violently as the madness of Predation surged explosively.
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