I looked down at the splintered wood in my hands. The mental firewall remained active, an anchor suppressing the surge of post-combat exhaustion and preventing the same "crash" that had nearly compromised me during the ceremony. I felt no flush of victory, no primal heat from the kill, nor the shivering horror of the ordeal. I felt only the cold, hard logic of the result.
To me, this hadn't been a fight; it was a stress test to establish a biological baseline. I needed to know exactly where I stood in this fort, and this world, compared to a baseline human. I needed to prove myself that I could face the challenges ahead—that I could protect my loved ones and secure their future.
I looked up at my father, who was waiting for an explanation.
"The spear reached its structural limit, General," I replied. My voice was flat, devoid of a child's tremor, carrying only the faint rasp of physical exertion. "A fractured shaft is a known failure point. Attempting a second kill-stroke with compromised wood would have risked my safety for a redundant outcome. I chose to maintain my stance; an unnecessary execution could have provoked an erratic death-throe. Most living creatures flee once the threat level becomes absolute."
"You forgot your sidearm, Zaemon," Dad said. His voice boomed, his eyes narrowing as he gestured to the conspicuous gap on my belt where a dagger should have been. "A knight with a broken spear is a corpse unless he has a backup. You calculated the dimensions of fight perfectly, but you failed to calculate the redundancy of your own gear."
I looked down, the weight of his critique hitting me harder than the boar's charge. He was right. My focus on the hybrid style and my eagerness to see the results of my effort had been so absolute that I had treated the spear as a perfect extension of myself. I had unconsciously ignored the fundamental law of the field: even the best tools fail. I had left the sidearm behind because I felt safe in the arena. It was a mistake born of 21st-century arrogance—the subconscious belief that the 'simulation' had safety protocols. In a real battle, some animals don't run; they fight until their last heartbeat stops.
I realized then that while I had learned how to hunt, I had not learned how to prepare for war. I was still thinking like a man from a world of safety, not a warrior in a world of monsters. I didn't just need more drills; I needed the baptism of real combat.
The result of all this hard work was that my physical control had increased significantly. I had secretly practised my movements until they became second nature, but I had still failed a basic check of war.
Dad reached out, his massive, scarred hand hovering over my shoulder as if debating whether to comfort a son or inspect a weapon. He didn't touch me. In his eyes, I saw a flicker of intense pride quickly swallowed by a gnawing worry. To him, a six-year-old boy should be panting, bragging, or terrified. Instead, I stood on the blood-soaked ground in the settling dust of a kill, clinically analyzing the splinter patterns of a broken shaft.
"You think like a well-made construct, Zae," he murmured, his voice dropping too low for the veterans to overhear. "You move with the experience of a soldier, but you fight with the heart of a golem. A machine is efficient, yes—but a machine breaks when the world stops following its programming."
He turned back to the crowd, his voice regaining its command to hide his private unease. "Clean the arena! The Heir has shown you the Wedge! Now, back to your drills!"
I felt the weight of their collective gaze. The experienced soldiers weren't looking at a child who had survived a hunt; they were looking at their future Lord, unsettled by my lack of adrenaline—the absence of tears, the stillness of my hands. To them, my clinical explanation felt haunting. But the young recruits? They were simply bewitched by the display of lethality from their "Star Lord."
In that moment, I understood that a man is never just one person to everyone else. My father wanted a son; my mother wanted a child; but the Star Fort... the Fort wanted a General.
As I prepared to head back, I activated my sonar to monitor the shifting tides of the crowd. My processing had improved; I could now easily distinguish the voices of seasoned veterans from those of the raw recruits by their tone, pace, volume, and choice of words.
"Look at his hands," a recruit whispered. "They aren't shaking. They're perfectly still."
"He seems unfazed by the blood and gore," another added, his voice thin with awe.
"He's so young, yet he executed those moves with the precision of a veteran."
"Whoa, if he can do it, then I can too!" a younger voice chirped.
"Surely he is the son of the Berserker after all," a veteran grunted. "Were any of you that cool-headed the first time you faced a beast ?"
"If he can fight two injured boars, I can take on a healthy adult!" the recruit boasted."You? Fight an adult?" his friend laughed. "You can't even maintain your posture through a basic drill."
"His style, though," another soldier mused. "It's different. A perfect balance between the Flow and the Boar styles. It needs polishing, but he doesn't seem tired, even though that kind of movement should put a massive burden on a child's body."
"Why aren't we being taught that?" a recruit asked. "Will they teach us later?"
"It appears they are focusing on developing their signature fighting style for their family."
Amidst the sea of idle chatter, I caught a far more intriguing exchange.
"So, he really mastered it," a woman's voice said—Nina. "What's your opinion, Herald? Did you expect this?"
"If you'd asked me before today, Nina, I would have said it was impossible," Herald replied, his tone grim. "But in hindsight, the signs were there."
"Now that you mention it," Nina said, "he was improving day by day. It was as if the God of Fight himself analyzed the flaws of the previous day during the night and corrected them for the next morning's training."
"Olford has been in charge of him for the last two months, right?" Herald asked.
"He definitely didn't report this level of progress. From the look on Master Sama's face, he was as in the dark as we were."
"Olford is going to be chewed out for this—and we might as well be," Nina whispered. "Let's get out of here before the General starts looking for someone to blame."
The conversation perplexed me. I remembered asking Olford three days ago if he had reported the development of my fighting style to my father. He had told me he would wait until I improved it further or provide the details few hours before the exercise itself. It appeared the sudden timing of today's trial hadn't given him time to submit the report; he had left the fort that same day and only returned this evening. This time he had severely underestimated my father's mind—and his temper.
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Olford POV:
I returned late from the site inspections where the new villages are to be established. Even though we are barely keeping our heads above water financially, our exile into the wild has finally become marginally profitable following the costly rebuilding of the Star Fort. We had spent nearly every coin in the coffers to reach this point; the margin for error is non-existent.
In the Kingdom, the establishment of new settlements is usually done only on safe, fertile land. They are left to fend for themselves until they reach a level of self-sufficiency that justifies further crown or ducal investment—unless, of course, the land is resource-rich. Our move to establish villages in this non-resource-rich area, however, is driven solely by the influence of young Zaemon.
I still remember how, over the last six months, he began to ask pointed questions about our resources, expenditures, manpower, financial situation and geography. He seemed to have a voracious appetite for the political and economic realities of the Sanni Forest and the Kingdom at large—knowledge he had clearly been triangulating from Lady Zeni and Master Arka. When I asked why he didn't go to his mother directly with these questions, he replied that he didn't want to trouble her during her rest, as she has been frail since his birthday. He noted that his father and Master Arka were far too busy to be bothered with a child's curiosity.
That admission melted my heart. I finally understood: the boy has been lonely from the moment of his birth. I saw his dedication to learning and training as a desperate attempt to gain their attention—a child's plea to finally stand alongside his parents.
To comfort him, I decided to entertain his curiosity, but I was met with a profound surprise. His capability to link disparate pieces of information—to see the economic and political impact of our decisions—is remarkable. I truly believe that, given time, his mind will surpass even my own. Seeing his hardwork I didn't see the harm in letting him "play" at being a future Lord; I never expected that his "play" would lead to a combat style this soon that would leave the General speechless.
Now, as I walk toward the training grounds, I realize I may have made a grave mistake in keeping his progress a "surprise" for Sama. He does not like surprises, especially when they involve his own son.
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