After an unknown stretch of time—

Ravian suddenly felt something prodding his shoulder.

He tried to move. He managed a little, but the pain was crushing.

’Damn it. Did I doze off?’ Ravian thought, struggling to open his eyes and look around.

And the instant his eyes opened, he found the man standing before him once more—tall, fully masked, mysterious, and calm. Who else could it be?

Antonius. Karius’s right hand and shadow. Only this time, he was alone, without Karius.

"W-What?" Ravian asked, still half asleep.

"The carriage is waiting outside. Let’s go," Antonius said in an utterly calm voice, stepping closer to carry him.

"No," Ravian said, raising a hand to stop him—and Antonius halted where he stood.

Ravian planted his hands on the floor and pushed himself upright.

"Ugh—damn it!" he hissed, feeling as if his back had been pieced together again and hadn’t quite settled into place yet.

Antonius’s eyes widened slightly beneath his hood as he watched.

Given the state Karius had left him in, the boy shouldn’t have been able to move for some time, not without proper treatment from a healer—yet here was that same weak, harmless young man, standing rigid as a post despite the pain plain on his face.

’Truly impressive willpower,’ Antonius thought, watching Ravian work his body upright inch by inch until his posture straightened.

"Are you certain you don’t need my help? There’s no reason to endure all this pain when I could simply carry you to the carriage," Antonius said, seeing Ravian bite down on his lips just to hold himself upright in a stance that could barely be called straight.

"No, I’m fine. The only condition under which I’ll let someone carry me is when I’m dead," Ravian said, frowning through the pain, and began walking out of the house without so much as a glance at Antonius.

Antonius nodded, then followed him out.

The moment they stepped outside, Ravian saw the same carriage in which he’d seen George before.

’As expected, things haven’t changed much from before. The only difference is that I didn’t kill Max this time—and I got beaten half to death by that old man,’ Ravian thought as he walked toward it.

But then something occurred to him.

’System, wasn’t it possible to absorb Max’s Records too?’ he asked, suddenly remembering—amid all his scramble to survive—that he’d overlooked something so important.

[No, Host. Neither Max’s soul nor the souls of his two friends meet the requirements for extracting their Records. A certain element must exist within the power of their souls for you to devour them.]

’Huh? What element is that?’ Ravian asked; this was the first time he’d heard of such a thing from the System.

[They must be connected to Sins or Virtues.]

’Huh? Sins? Virtues? What’s that supposed to mean?’ Ravian didn’t follow.

[You’ll have to discover the rest yourself, Host. But don’t worry. If you approach someone who meets those requirements, I’ll let you know.]

’And why all the mystery?’ Ravian frowned at the System’s reply.

But a sound soon cut off his train of thought.

The door of the noble carriage swung open, and two people appeared inside.

George, head butler of House Dmitri, and Karius Dmitri, master of House Dmitri.

"Get in, boy. We’ve been waiting here for you a good while. Who’d have guessed you’d fall asleep the moment I left?"

Karius said with a laugh, having begun to shed his stern look now that he’d confirmed Ravian’s innocence and that the boy had no ties to that gang whatsoever.

’It seems he confirmed for himself that what I said was true,’ Ravian thought, noticing that Karius had returned to the nature he’d known from the previous loop.

’Did someone bring him the information? Or did he dig it up himself?’ he wondered, his eyes drifting to the bag—now nearly double its earlier size, plainly showing that Karius had already finished what he’d come to do.

Karius followed Ravian’s gaze and found it fixed on the bag at his feet inside the carriage.

"Oh? Curious about what’s inside, and why it’s grown?" Karius asked, looking thoroughly eager to reveal its contents.

"No, no—please, I’m fine," Ravian said quickly, then climbed into the carriage and sat across from them, while Antonius simply vanished the moment they’d left the house.

As soon as Ravian was seated, George studied him for a few seconds, then rapped on the inner wall of the carriage to signal the driver to set off.

Since he already had the information he needed, Ravian didn’t strike up any conversation with George this time. He just sat there, trying to settle into a position that didn’t aggravate his back.

Karius noticed Ravian’s discomfort and felt genuinely sorry for him. He was only a teenage boy who’d done nothing wrong, yet here he was, barely able to sit upright for the pain in his body. And the resemblance between Ravian and his dead son only made it harder on Karius.

"Don’t worry, boy. You’ll be fine once Claria treats you. She’s a skilled girl—and afterward, you can come to me so I can teach you a fighting style that suits you," Karius said, trying to ease Ravian’s suffering.

’Huh? Is he worried about me?’ Ravian asked himself, taken aback by the reaction—and his suspicion was confirmed when he caught the pity in Karius’s eyes.

"Pfft! Bwahahaha!" Ravian abruptly burst out laughing inside the carriage.

’So that old man does have a conscience—one that finally decided to wake up after I nearly lost my spine,’ he said inwardly, laughing more at his own luck than at the situation itself.

Both George and Karius were startled by the sudden shift; one moment the boy had been calm and seemingly frail, and the next he was laughing hysterically.

’Oh god, I hope I didn’t crack his skull too hard by accident earlier,’ Karius thought, concerned.

But beside him, George soon caught on to something in all of this, and his eyes went wide as he whipped around toward Karius in disbelief at what he’d heard.

"What did you say, my lord? Teach him? Have you taken this boy as your disciple?!" George exclaimed, unable to believe his ears.

And now Karius was hemmed in—Ravian’s laughter on one side, George’s stunned questions on the other.

...

A few minutes later, George had satisfied his curiosity, and Ravian had stopped laughing some time ago.

The carriage finally reached the city’s border fortress—the place behind which, somewhere, lay the true source of all of Ravian’s suffering.

Then Ravian and Karius stepped down from the carriage together.

"Here we finally are, at my favorite place—the Fortress of Light, known to enemies and allies alike as the Wall of Light," Karius said proudly, throwing his arms wide as he approached the fortress gate with Ravian.

"Yes, yes, I’ve heard all this nonsense before. All I want to know is who the son of a bitch was that caused my death in there," Ravian said in a voice barely above a breath.

"Hmm? What did you say, boy? I didn’t catch it," Karius said, turning his head toward Ravian, though neither of them broke stride.

"Nothing, Master. I’m just excited to get treatment from a healer," Ravian said—the pain already beginning to recede thanks to his unique physique.

"Oh! Did you just call me Master?" Karius stopped walking altogether, in complete disbelief, and looked at Ravian.

"What? Am I not allowed to?" Ravian asked with a smile.

"Hahaha—of course you are, of course! Now that’s my disciple!" Karius said with a laugh, clapping Ravian on the back a few times.

Bam!

Bam!

The smile on Ravian’s lips turned red—literally.

"Pfft!" Ravian spat out more of the blood he’d been holding in his mouth for a while now.

"Oh—oh, sorry, sorry! Damn it—take him, Antonius, get him to the Death Squad camp over there, quickly!" Karius said in a panic, shoving Ravian off in a certain direction. In the next moment, Antonius appeared right there and propped Ravian’s body against his own.

"As you command, Lord Karius," Antonius said, and the three of them hurried toward the fortress gate.

And once again, Ravian heard a sound powerful enough to make his eardrums tremble.

Creak!

Creak!

The bolts of the fortress gate groaned as it swung open to receive the new arrivals.

And there in plain sight, the countless tents appeared once more, along with the sounds of training shouts, cheers, laughter, and a hundred other noises.

’Here we are again. But I promise—this time will be nothing like the last, whoever you were, the one responsible for what happened,’ Ravian swore inwardly as he passed through the fortress gate alongside Antonius and Karius.