[Your Physique has slightly increased.]
['Power' Awakening Progress: 91.75%]
The boy named Reinhardt was, in fact, a Transmigrator. He had lived in this war-torn Extraordinary World for sixteen years and had long since blended in.
Giant Dragons plundered villages.
Great nations warred endlessly.
The Abyss Legion invaded the civilized world.
Mages sold their souls for power, hiding among the people and waiting for the chance to wreak havoc.
Conquerors from foreign lands plundered resources, schemed to rule the world, and used their Mighty Power to enslave all living things.
Reinhardt was born in a remote, rural town. At the age of six, his parents died in a sacrificial ritual plotted by Mages. He hid in a cellar for three days and three nights without food or water, becoming the town's sole survivor.
To survive, he became a servant in a nobleman's castle at age seven. At eleven, he gave the young noble lady who frequently bullied him a harsh beating, stole her jewelry, shaved her head bald, and finally escaped the castle to fall in with the Dark Scale Raiders.
At thirteen, the Dark Scale Raiders tried to rob a Mage disguised as a merchant and were completely wiped out. It was said their souls burned in the Mage's lantern for three days and nights, their screams bloodcurdling to hear.
Reinhardt, who had been cooking back at the Raiders' camp, was lucky enough to survive.
He later fled from the famine-stricken lands to Sea Eagle City, where he apprenticed with a shoemaker. Unfortunately, the stingy old drunkard froze to death on the roadside that winter.
After wandering Sea Eagle City for three months, he happened upon a recruitment drive for the Steel Knight Order's Squire Training Camp. Deciding to give it a shot, Reinhardt barely scraped through the initial test and successfully joined, becoming a knight's attendant. For three years, day in and day out, he has trained diligently to this very day.
His system activated when he was ten. After six years of grinding, he had specialized in brawling, never passing up a chance to fight a strong opponent and relentlessly stack his Steel of the Heart!
He had finally pushed his 'Power' awakening progress to where it was today.
Robie's trio reliably contributed 2.5% to his progress every month. 'Come to think of it, I really should thank those three,' he mused.
"Robie! You bastard—! Stop! Don't run!"
Robie's thigh was injured. Though it was only a flesh wound, the young noble was pampered and delicate, with an especially low tolerance for pain.
Now that Reinhardt had broken free, his face was covered in blood, and he looked absolutely savage. His vicious glare made it seem like he wanted to tear someone apart just to feel better.
Robie's sturdy frame trembled. Unpleasant memories of past beatings flooded his mind, and he abandoned his two followers, bolting without a second glance.
Compared to an Official Knight, Reinhardt might be known as the camp's 'sickly weakling', but having passed the initial test, his Physique was still far beyond that of an ordinary boy.
Among the attendants in the training camp, Reinhardt was downright infamous throughout the Steel Knight Order. Everyone knew he was the kind of guy who fought with complete disregard for his own life.
He was not only harsh on himself during his daily Physique training, but he was also an absolute terror during Combat Techniques sparring!
It didn't matter if he got hurt; what mattered was that even if he broke an arm, he would, in retaliation, have to land a punch on his opponent's face!
It had gotten to the point where attendants in the training camp would run as far as they could the moment they heard Reinhardt was looking for a sparring partner. It simply wasn't worth risking life and limb against him in a routine training session.
Only the young noble Robie was headstrong enough to keep trying. Years ago, after a clash between the two, he had boasted and sworn in front of Knight Carlos and their fellow attendants that if he couldn't make Reinhardt submit, he would do whatever the shorter boy told him to do.
That was why he came looking for trouble with Reinhardt every so often, but unfortunately, he always ended up crawling away, bruised and battered.
In the Steel Knight Order's camp, the sight of Reinhardt chasing after Robie and his two cronies caused quite the ruckus, drawing hearty laughter from the observing Lord Knights.
"Robie! The day you beat Reinhardt into submission, I'll petition the Knight Commander to have you join the Vanguard Brigade!"
"If Lord Duval knew you were acting like a frightened rabbit in the training camp, I bet he'd disown you! HAHA!"
"Reinhardt! You just wait... OUCH—my nose!"
Robie clutched his nose as blood streamed from both nostrils. The pain brought tears to his eyes, and the sight of him frantically running for his life was a comical contrast to his burly, tough-guy physique.
For a moment, the air of the Steel Knight Order's garrison was filled with mirth.
「Meanwhile.」
In front of the command tent of the Knight Order's garrison, a pair of beautiful eyes curiously watched Reinhardt as he chased Ober all over the place like a madman.
The boy, who looked particularly small and thin in the knight camp, seemed determined not to stop until he landed a punch on his target!
"They're running wild in the garrison. Don't the Knights do anything about it?"
"You mean Reinhardt? He's Knight Elias's attendant. The training camp instructors believe he has the potential to awaken Power, but I don't share that opinion."
The young woman wore a fashionable, court-style, pale yellow gown. Beneath her heavy great cloak, the lines of a corseted waist and a dark red jacket were faintly visible.
The harsh climate of the Northern Lands had nipped at her, leaving the tip of her nose and her fair cheeks slightly red.
Her hands, tucked into black leather gloves, were held demurely in front of her. A few strands of black hair escaped her large, furry hood to fall across her forehead.
With her emerald-green eyes and delicate appearance, she was a particularly conspicuous sight in a Knight Order garrison filled with bare-chested, muscle-bound men.
The Knight speaking with her stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He had a well-proportioned build and held his chin slightly raised as he spoke. This, combined with his already somber eyes and an aquiline nose, gave him a frighteningly cold and sinister air. He seemed less like a Knight and more like a nobleman or politician skilled in courtly intrigue.
The young woman watched as Reinhardt finally caught Ober and gave him a sound thrashing. Gently rubbing her hands, which were stiff from the cold, she remarked, "His Physique is indeed a bit lacking compared to the others in the training camp."
"Miss Eliza, it's cold out here. Shall we go inside?"
...
Reinhardt spat out a mouthful of blood, wiped his mouth clean with his sleeve, and shot Ober another vicious glare, frightening him so much that he took to his heels and fled.
He called up his character attribute panel on the system interface.
[User: Reinhardt, Knight's Attendant.]
[Mental Trait: Tenacious.]
[A life of hardship has forged you into an unbreakable man of steel. Grants immunity to mental-type Extraordinary Powers of your current Level. Be tough! Stay tough!]
[Physical Trait: Keen.]
[Your movements and senses are exceptionally sharp. You excel at analyzing combat situations and formulating battle plans in real time. A qualified Knight always hides a bit of cunning beneath a brave exterior.]
[Innate Trait: Basic Steel of the Heart.]
[Six seconds after entering combat, your first attack against an enemy will increase your base Physique.]
['Power' Awakening Progress: 93.75%.]
[Combat Techniques: Street Fighting, Basic Knight Swordsmanship.]
Reinhardt glanced at the 93.75% awakening progress and raised a hand to steady a slightly loose front tooth. Those cold numbers on the system interface were the result of six years of gritting his teeth, taking beatings until he spat blood, and forging his path forward one punch at a time!
He had discovered through experience that triggering Steel of the Heart on the same person multiple times resulted in a cooldown period of varying length.
The stronger the opponent, the longer the cooldown.
Robie's talent and strength were already showing signs that he was on the verge of condensing his own Power. The cooldown for his Steel of the Heart was exactly one month. Moreover, the bastard came from a major noble family. If he hadn't repeatedly suffered defeat at Reinhardt's hands, he would have undoubtedly been the brightest new star in the training camp!
He had inherited the incredible talent of his father, the Sky Knight Duval. At only sixteen, he already possessed a formidable Physique on par with an Official Knight. Next to an ordinary person, he looked like a thick, solid door.
Unfortunately for him, he had run into Reinhardt—the boy who escaped from Mages at six, had been fighting since he was eight, brushed with death in times of war and chaos, and was now the most desperate man in the training camp, all for the sake of condensing his Power!
His Physique was only considered "poor" by the standards of the Steel Knight Order's garrison, a place in the Northern Lands where knights took bare-chested cold showers in temperatures of twenty degrees below zero!
Sir Elias was over two meters tall with the physique of a giant bear, yet even he couldn't crack the top ten for physical strength in the Steel Knight Order, to say nothing of a "shorty" like Reinhardt who was not even 1.8 meters tall.
Reinhardt shook his aching right hand and walked slowly toward the rest tents. As he passed the command tent, he wondered, 'What's the young lady of the Hearn Family doing here at Frostfire Fortress?'