'I have just… killed someone.'

  It was an odd feeling to take someone's life.

  He didnt feel the sharp pang of guilt he'd been warned about in books or movies. It wasn't the instant remorse they always talked about.

  It was quieter than that. Stranger, a more confusing feeling.

  He looked at his hands, stained red, trembling slightly.

  Did the act make him different from who he had been just seconds before?

  A hand touched his back—firm but not too forceful.

  He turned.

  Thereon stood beside him.

  No smirk. No dry remark. The usual sarcasm had vanished. His eyes held something softer now. Not pity. Not pride.

  It was Understanding.

  The kind of look only someone who had killed before could give.

  He followed Thereon's gaze briefly, half expecting someone to call out, to scream, to rush to the dead man's side.

  But there was no crowd.

  Most of the bystanders had fled the moment steel was drawn.

  And yet… he felt eyes.

  Watching.

  Not from the street—but from behind windows, shadows, and doorways cracked just wide enough to glimpse what no one wanted to admit they had seen.

  But there was another gaze he felt even more strongly.

  His own.

  Not him standing here now, but a version of himself just hours earlier.

  The boy who blinked awake behind a tavern counter. The student who clung to reason and rules, who thought he could survive this world with clever words and quick analysis.

  That boy was watching, too.

  Watching a murderer.

  And he looked horrified.

  Albrecht tore his gaze away from the dead man at his feet, trying to find the other attacker—the larger one with the greatsword. But at first, he couldn't see him.

  He was looking too high.

  He could only see something when his eyes dropped to the ground where the man had once stood.

  What remained wasn't a body. It was more like a stain—a grotesque smear of blood and crushed limbs sprawled unnaturally across the cobblestone.

  His armor had caved in like paper, twisted around him. His sword lay discarded nearby, untouched.

  It took Albrecht a moment to even register what he was seeing.

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  Just complete, unnatural compression, like the man had been crushed by an invisible wall.

  There was no wound, no visible slash or gash, just a body crushed flat as if the world itself had slammed down on it.

  Albrecht hadn't even noticed it happen.

  One moment, the man had stood frozen, and now…

  Gone.

  He didn't need to ask what had happened. Thereon had done it. Silently. Effortlessly.

  'It has to be Authority… what a frightening power.'

  "This is what it means to be a swordsman. This is what it takes."

  Thereon's voice cut through the silence, steady and neither cold nor warm. Just true.

  "If you can't live with that, then don't draw your blade in the first place."

  He stepped closer, eyes flicking to the corpses on the ground.

  "It's not the well-fed, well-armed ones you should fear."

  He gestured toward the fallen attackers with a tilt of his chin.

  "Instead, it's the pale and hungry ones. The desperate kind. The ones with nothing left to lose. Men who love death more than you love life."

  Thereon's gaze met Albrecht's.

  "Do you still want to learn Swordsmanship from me?"

  It was the first time Albrecht had seen him this serious; not even when he'd spoken of Albrecht's father had his expression been so firm, so direct.

  But Albrecht already knew the answer. He'd known it from the moment he woke up in this world

  "I do," he said, lowering his head. "I want to become your disciple."

  Thereon let out a loud chuckle and slapped him twice on the back, hard enough to make him wince.

  "No need to get all formal, princess."

  Albrecht groaned.

  'Ugh…'

  "Why do you keep calling me that?"

  "You remind me of a story," Thereon said with a grin.

  "There was this pampered princess. She had white hair like you, got robbed, dragged halfway across the kingdom, barefoot and sobbing. But by the end of it?"

  He paused and raised an eyebrow.

  "She'd learned to gut a man with a spoon."

  Albrecht blinked.

  "What kind of stories do you read?"

  "The useful kind," Thereon said, smiling.

  'Joking in a situation like this… I guess that's my new life.'

  The bodies still lay where they had fallen. The blood hadn't dried yet.

  But thinking about the dead wouldn't bring them back. It wouldn't change anything.

  So what if that man had a family? A home? People he cared about?

  Albrecht had those, too. Or had. And in this world, that could be everyone's story: loss, duty, desperation.

  Maybe that's just how it was here.

  He took a breath, steady but quiet. His ribs ached. His arm throbbed. But his resolve didn't waver.

  There was no time for mourning strangers. No room for guilt he couldn't afford to carry.

  "Can you move? That last hit looked rough," Thereon asked, glancing at Albrecht.

  "Yeah," Albrecht said, brushing blood from his fingers.

  "Don't worry about it."

  Thereon didn't press the matter any further. His voice hadn't been full of concern anyway, more like curiosity. But whatever he was thinking, he let it go.

  Instead, he said, "We'll have to leave. I don't like lingering after a fight. Especially one this messy."

  "Are we leaving Vaelmont now?" Albrecht asked.

  Yes. I always travel light," Thereon replied while pulling out a map from his pouch.

  "Okay. I just need to grab something first."

  Thereon raised an eyebrow but didn't object.

  "Ten minutes. No more."

  Albrecht nodded and immediately broke into a sprint. His destination hadn't changed. He had been heading there anyway before everything went sideways.

  The familiar wooden sign of the clothing shop swung gently in the evening breeze. He burst through the door.

  "Isla!"

  She appeared from behind the counter, her face paling as she caught sight of him.

  "Albrecht! What happened to you? Is that… is that blood?"

  She looked horrified, eyes wide, voice shaking.

  Only now did Albrecht take a moment to look at himself.

  'So that's why everyone was staring…'