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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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Chapter 43
"If you tell the truth, I'll give you this."
"T-That..."
"Alright, I'll be generous. If you tell the truth, I'll make this for you every day during snack time for the next week."
"Gasp?!"
At my shocking proposal, the elf's eyes darted around wildly.
She seemed to be in extreme distress.
Technically, since her employer was Melissa, she wasn’t obligated to obey me.
However, I was also duty-bound to catch her after she had run away.
"Don't worry. You won’t be treated unfairly because of this. Melissa is the one who did something wrong—you'd only be passing the truth along to me."
"I-I don't know anything, Young Master."
Oh.
So she’s still loyal to the head of the household.
Well, if she had given in this easily, I might have been disappointed.
"Alright. I'll add coffee cookies to the deal."
With that one statement, she was utterly defeated.
"I think... the Lady mentioned going to pray..."
See?
Don't assume all I make is ice cream.
Satisfied, I handed her both the ice cream and the coffee cookies I had prepared in advance.
Her face was a mixture of guilt and the pure joy of tasting such exquisite snacks.
"Anyway, don’t worry. You didn’t confess directly, and if Melissa has any sense, she won’t hold this against you."
"Y-Young Master... you really don’t understand people’s hearts."
Ignoring the elf maid's small rebellion, I grabbed a wooden practice sword and a smoke bomb before heading out.
Just then, a panicked servant came running towards me and shouted excitedly as soon as he saw me.
"Ah! Young Master! I have an urgent report, but the Lady isn't here..."
"I’ll fetch her, so just report to Melissa later."
I kept walking, completely ignoring the servant’s desperate cries.
Who would come all the way to this rural backwater?
Even if someone did, unless it was an imperial noble or someone of similar status, I had no intention of paying attention to it now.
I couldn't forgive Melissa for running away at such a crucial time.
A church, huh?
She wasn’t exactly a devout believer, so there was no way she had gone there to pray.
In fact, our church didn’t even have a priest currently residing in it.
It was just an empty building where the local villagers occasionally went to seek peace of mind through prayer.
There was no way she had gone there for that reason.
Which meant the reason was obvious.
But hiding there wouldn't make her hard to find.
After all, it was a place where she and I used to hide when we got into trouble as children.
Sure enough, the church showed no signs of recent visitors—it was locked up tight.
So much for "free prayer."
The people of Cascadia preferred to pray privately anyway.
"Melissa?"
I stepped inside the church and called out to her.
No response.
"Melissa, tonight’s snack is a brand-new ice cream flavor."
Still no response.
A worn-out chair, wooden statues, and a goddess statue stood at the center of the church.
Sigh.
After all I do for her, this is how she repays me?
I placed a hand on one of the walls.
Creak... Crackle...
Only the sound of old wooden planks creaking echoed through the empty church.
No real changes occurred.
This was the secret space we used to hide in when we were kids.
But since it hadn’t been used in years and had likely been renovated, the secret space was now completely sealed off.
"Huh. So the hiding spot is gone? When did they block it off?"
My voice echoed hollowly through the old church.
"You made a promise to learn, and now you run away just because it’s a little tough?"
I turned away indifferently.
Then, without hesitation, I pulled out the smoke bomb I had prepared and removed the safety pin.
It was a rather expensive military-grade artifact, but this was the territory of a borderland margrave.
Military supplies like this were in abundance.
I casually tossed it into a gap in the wall on the other side of the church.
Then, without hesitation, I stepped outside and spoke.
"Remember that one time? After I got into trouble, you caught me and gave me ten seconds to run?"
Back when I was much weaker than Melissa, she would playfully chase me down before mercilessly tying me up and dragging me before my father.
And every time, my father would praise her and give her delicious treats.
Meanwhile, I would get severely scolded.
Of course, since I had actually caused trouble, I couldn't really complain.
Even with my past-life memories, this just proved that boys are still kids at heart.
That smug little sister of mine, telling me to run for ten seconds before she caught me—those memories stuck with me vividly.
"I’m generous, so I'll give you three minutes. Honestly, what kind of head of a noble household runs away like this? How disgraceful."
"Cough! Cough!!"
A girl’s harsh coughing echoed from behind the wooden slats.
It was just a smoke bomb, but in her current state, she wouldn’t be able to control her breathing properly.
The effect was bound to be overwhelming.
I folded my hands behind my back, stepped outside, and gazed up at the sky with my eyes closed.
Then, I began to count.
"179 seconds, 178 seconds."
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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"You... you crazy bastard!?"
Melissa's panicked scream sounded like a beautiful melody to my ears.
Grabbing a nearby branch, I conducted her screams like a maestro leading an orchestra.
"As your instructor, I can be either a demon or an angel, depending on your attitude. Understood?"
‘You absolute lunatic!’
Melissa cursed inwardly as she took off at full speed.
She was at the early Expert stage.
In other words, she had surpassed the limits of ordinary people.
However, in her current state, she was struggling to fully utilize her previous strength.
That’s right—she had abandoned her old training methods and swordsmanship to learn a new style from Leon.
It was like wearing unfamiliar clothes.
Every movement, every breath—everything felt awkward to her.
And then, there was Leon’s training method, which pushed her to the brink with a wooden practice sword.
It was absurdly intense, to say the least.
Her brother, Leon, had suddenly become overwhelmingly strong overnight.
Perhaps the reason behind his strength was this absurd training.
—Or so she thought for a moment.
Shaking her head, she quickened her pace.
Nonsense.
Leon’s martial prowess was beyond the realm of normal.
It was to the point where she could believe that another person had taken over his body or that a future version of Leon had returned to the past.
Not that it would explain his abnormal amount of aura or necromantic mana.
“There’s no doubt about it. He’s a doppelgänger.”
Even though she knew it was unrealistic, she couldn’t think of any other way to describe the madman of a brother who was relentlessly following her.
What was even more terrifying was that he was humming a tune and leisurely keeping pace with her, yet she couldn’t widen the distance between them.
Utterly exhausted, Melissa only managed to reach the mansion before collapsing onto the training ground, lying flat on her back, gasping for breath.
“I give up… I’m dead… I’m really going to die.”
“First, your lower body. The Heavenly Demon Divine Sword is useless if your foundation is weak.”
“No, no. Just… let me rest for a bit. I also have work to do…”
“Work? You mean this?”
Leon smirked and waved a thick stack of documents in his hand.
Processing paperwork was one of her more taxing duties, but ever since training had begun, it had practically become her only refuge.
“……”
“You’re going to do it, right?”
In the end, Melissa strapped on the monstrous training equipment—something called a training tool but better described as a torture device—that Leon had prepared.
Then, with a rare, pitiful expression, she teared up and pleaded.
“Leon… No, Brother… I’m really exhausted…”
Seeing her sorrowful face, Leon let out a sigh, stepped forward, and gently took both of her hands.
Then, as if comforting a crying child, he smiled warmly.
“Stop the act. Because after this, you have to do this too.”
Leon nonchalantly pulled something out of a prepared sack.
A needle threaded with string and a handful of beads with holes in them.
“W-what is that?”
Feeling a sense of unease, Melissa instinctively took a step back.
Leon calmly tossed the beads into the air.
And then—
Pa-pa-pa-pa-pak!!
In an instant, he threaded the falling beads with the needle.
“The key to the Heavenly Demon Divine Sword is flexibility and precision.”
Though it was a technique that unleashed an overwhelming force, that was only the result.
The process required not brute strength but rather flexibility and fine control.
Melissa stared blankly at the sight before her.
“That’s your task.”
“…How?”
“That’s for you to figure out. Oh, and once you get a little used to it, I’ll add debuffs like confusion or paralysis.”
“How am I supposed to do it under those conditions?”
“When you reach a state of extreme aura control, you gain resistance to curses. Don’t worry, I’ll adjust the difficulty.”
Leon’s training was missing a screw.
It wasn’t structured training but rather a nightmarish regimen, seemingly built on practical combat experience.
Melissa felt the blood drain from her face.
At this rate, she genuinely felt like she was going to die.
‘Think! I need to find a way to get out of this…!’
They said that humans could display superhuman abilities in life-or-death situations.
A sudden realization struck Melissa.
“Ahem! I would love to continue training, but I have an unavoidable issue to deal with first.”
Seeing Leon’s expression slightly sour, she cheered internally.
“What is it?”
“As you know, we’ve received ownership from the royal family. But mining operations require a massive amount of money. Do you realize? Given our current financial situation, our family doesn’t have the initial capital to manage and extract resources from the mine.”
Though it was a ploy to escape, it wasn’t entirely false.
In fact, it was her biggest concern.
Mining?
That required money.
The problem was where to get the initial funds for development.
Loans were an option, but she didn’t have anything she was willing to risk as collateral.
As Leon stroked his chin in thought, she smirked internally, feeling triumphant.
That is, until she saw what he did next.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Leon pulled out an enchanted pouch from his coat, and Melissa froze.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!!
A mountain of treasures spilled out from the bag, their origin unknown.
It turned out that the loot from Tyvel Cascadia’s underground mansion was far greater than what Melissa had been aware of.
“We’re filthy rich. Just focus on training.”
“You… You lunatic… Just where did you rob all this from?”
“Where else? Tyvel’s estate. That bastard had a ridiculous amount of secret funds stashed underground. I kept it for an occasion like this.”
His grin felt like the smile of the Grim Reaper.
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HELHEIM SCANS
[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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