i think it's because (it's not me)Ch2 - The Knight Who Never Was

!TW!: blood (mentioned), violence (briefly described)

The knights’ training grounds were directly behind the academy’s main lecture buildings, so Renrae caught a glimpse of the stream of students heading in for that day’s orientation event as well. As Renrae lagged behind the rest of his group to surreptitiously eye the crowd of children dressed in the same teal-blue uniforms that marked them as aspiring sorcerers of the prosperous kingdom of Vae, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of longing. kbstPj

He wanted to be among them, exchanging class schedules and gossip about the latest rune incantations. But as it was, no matter Renrae’s enthusiasm for the subject, one fact still remained: Renrae’s body couldn’t hold a single drop of mana, so it was a total fantasy for him. Sorcery was not his destiny.

Whack.

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“Are you trying to get as many demerits as you can?”

Renrae rubbed his sore head as he peeked up through his messy fringe of hair to catch a glimpse of Gaxen’s irritated face. EupPZX

“Sorry,” Renrae whispered back sheepishly, casting one last, longing glance towards the academy students filing in through the gates before following Gaxen to where the rest of the knight candidates had walked onto a wide, grassy expanse behind a greenhouse building.

The cadet leader with the long hair, who’d introduced himself as Uae Kaen of noble house Kaen, was facing the group with a long bow in his hands. Renrae filtered out Kaen’s words in favor of glancing at the way Kaen stood with a sharp, scrutinizing gaze. When Kaen began demonstrating the technique he expected them to master for the first round of testing, Renrae began subconsciously musing over Kaen’s posture to himself.

The guy’s obviously been trained very well. I’m no expert, but I can tell that every movement is calculated seamlessly. There are no unnecessary shifts in his weight, nor hesitation in his form. Of course, he’s a nobleman’s son, so it’s not surprising that his technique is flawless. Aiyo, this might be much more difficult than I thought…

The thing was, Renrae hadn’t gotten to where he was with skill alone. If he’d just relied on instinct throughout these years, he would’ve written himself into the kingdom’s history as the most extraordinary flop that could’ve ever existed in the knight’s order. Renrae’s build was lacking, and his frame was thin. He couldn’t build muscle easily, and his stamina left much to be desired. And while his coordination wasn’t terrible, he had no instinct when it came to the sword. If Renrae hadn’t worked his butt off all these years, he would’ve still been stuck at the children’s stage of hitting a wooden post to practice.

No, Renrae didn’t have some kind of innate talent that helped him to hone his skills. Instead, Renrae had an incredibly good memory, and he put that to good practice. Every single technique he’d ever seen before was added to his repertoire of attacks and counterattacks that he could pull out at will. The only problem therein lay in him having the speed, agility, and stamina necessary to pull off those moves, and that’s where his rigorous, self-disciplined training had come in.

To be honest, Renrae really wasn’t cut out for this whole knight business, especially when compared to some other people. If he’d been born with an instinct for swordsmanship, he could’ve become an elite knight by now with all the practice he’d put in.

However, Renrae wasn’t exactly hopeless either. He had a scary ability, and the resolve to see it through, and that made him a formidable opponent. He always had to work twice as hard as the rest of his peers, but he could now reliably beat half of them any time of the day.

Truth be told, someone else might’ve told Renrae that he made a great knight. But in Renrae’s eyes, he could only ever be lacking. n8JRZq

But that was his problem, not anyone else’s.

“…ugh…”

A muffled groan of pain was swallowed behind clenched teeth. A trickle of scarlet painted a thin line down from the corner of bleeding lips to the tip of the chin.

Renrae had barely managed to survive through the first two rounds of hellish examinations before he’d finally been cornered by a group of no-good wannabes during a scheduled breaktime. qDKdF8

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Idiotic jackasses, the whole lot of them.

“Gbc’a ufa lc beg kjs, mbwwbcfg agjrt,” bcf bo atf ygeafr meggfcais qlcclcu Efcgjf vbkc klat bcf ybbafv obba rqja bea.

Efcgjf yilcxfv jr j rqgjs bo rqlaaif rqijaafgfv jmgbrr bcf uglwf-rwfjgfv mtffx, jcv j oibbv bo lgglajalbc rcjqqfv tlw bea bo tlr qjlc-oliifv raeqbg, pera fcbeut atja tlr wjrx bo lcvloofgfcmf rajgafv ab mgjmx.

Yeah, okay, so what if he was a bastard? So what if he was trash? He still had more worth than these groups of lousy losers who weren’t even equal to an orc’s contempt, goddamnit! HIA2J

Renrae’s lips pulled up shakily into a contemptuous smirk that could’ve annoyed a corpse into reviving, and he began the happy procedure of digging himself deeper into his own grave.

Who the hell cares anymore…! 

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“Go…piss yourselves and die,” Renrae ground out through a throat that stung from being strangled and forced to eat dirt. Literally.

The only answer the group of bullies gave him was to knock his head harder against the ground. Once. Twice. GkLzS6

By the seventh time, Renrae had started to lose consciousness. He was only half aware of his surroundings, only vaguely aware of the warmth that was coating the back of his head, to know that the slackness in his limbs was a very bad sign of his current body condition. Pain spiked through every fiber of his being continuously, but he also couldn’t feel many nerves in his body anymore.

Heh. Well, whatever.

“Prince Kaikoi-za!”

Ah. That name… QuC 6e

The memory washed over him for what felt like an eternity spanning a single second, before Renrae was biting down on whatever was gripping his chin like a vice. There were startled cries around him, a roaring sound in his ear, and another dull burst of pain spiked through his abdomen. Something sharp cut him, and then Renrae was collapsing back into the dirt. There were muffled shouts, and another wave of commotion around him, and then suddenly Renrae was blinking himself out of his daze after an indeterminate amount of time had passed.

Shaaaaaaaa….

Birds chirping. Grasses swaying. Sunlight fading.

For a moment, Renrae debated moving at all. Maybe he could just stay here in the dirt, behind this shed in the middle of nowhere, and pretend that this piercing headache and these bruised limbs had nothing to do with him. izJ H2

Renrae sighed, immediately wincing at the pain that shot through his core at that slightest of movements. Goddamn, another cracked rib. On second thought, make that…

Renrae cautiously ran a trembling hand across his torn and bloodied front, moving slender fingers past the gaps in the earth-brown garb of the knight candidates uniform to gently probe at his bruised and bloodied skin.

Yeah, make that several cracked ribs. Goddamnit. 

Renrae bit his cracked lip and slowly moved his head to the side. This field… d0lJov

Ah. He was behind the abandoned shed on the outskirts of the knight’s training area, the part that bordered the edge of the forestlands that encircled the back half of the academy grounds.

Dieties only knew how long he’d been left out here. He’d probably missed the latter half of the knight examinations. He was willing to bet that it only took them the two seconds necessary to cross out his name before they’d judged him to be disqualified, no deliberations necessary.

They wouldn’t accept any excuses either, as Renrae knew well from his time in other knight companies. And this was the knight order that spat out guards for His Royal Majesty and His Royal Highness, for dragons’ sake. They were bound to be far stricter and far less forgiving.

Renrae spent exactly two seconds mulling over his options before he decided that he’d basically hit the deepest bottom of the deepest pit in the darkest minds imaginable. What did it mean for him, exactly? LDrci6

“I’ve…got nothing…to…”

One finger, one arm, one leg at a time. Renrae clenched onto one of the protruding wooden slats of the dilapidated shed and painstakingly pulled himself up by his fingertips. It was agonizing, and it was aggravating, but he kept at it until his body was shaking and his limbs were trembling.

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It hurt, but he had to keep going. His right arm hung limp, but his left arm was still functional. He was nauseated, dizzy, and short-of-breath, and every movement sent the world spinning around him for longer and longer periods at a time, but Renrae was still alive. As long as he was still alive, he could still think. As long as he could still think, he could still move. As long as he could still move, he would go after…him…

Renrae wasn’t sure what happened, but he suddenly found something damp brushing against his cheek. For a long time, he couldn’t figure out what it was. This gritty substance beneath his skin…No, he was laying on the ground. Or wait…did he fall down? He briefly remembered the sky revolving around him. Or no, that was just him collapsing back down. He couldn’t feel his fingertips anymore though. He should be able to feel the smooth pebbles nestled in the dirt, right? Ah, but his eyes felt so very heavy…he really just wanted to take a nap… 2Eavz7

Koi’tte…I miss…you…

For the second before he fell into oblivion, Renrae was aware of a crystal-clear voice ringing out through his head. He thought that maybe the crown prince was nice enough to have come to save him, even way out here on the outskirts of the academy where the knights trained, where the prince had no reason to be because he was an outstanding sorcerer who was slotted to attend Veill Academy’s first-year group this summer.

But Renrae knew the truth. The voice was nothing more than a memory, and the warmth was nothing more than blood seeping through his skin.

Crown Prince Kaikoi Valmoun wasn’t someone who saved others. He wasn’t someone who noticed others to begin with, and he wasn’t someone who Renrae could reach. That made him an impossibility for Renrae, so Renrae knew for sure… clfnLy

“Young master.”

Renrae squeezed his eyes closed tighter, trying to forget the pain. His body hurt, but his heart hurt more.

“…young master.”

Geez. Years after watching that bastard from afar, and Renrae still thought of him like some kind of lovestruck fool. He’d seen his dark sides, and he’d seen his worst flaws. He knew nearly everything about him, and he knew he wasn’t exactly a great person. And yet…those moments when he did shine like a star, when nobody else saw it, Renrae would… p ZW9e

“Young master…”

Damn, what was Renrae even doing? He couldn’t seem to forget him, even though that guy sure wasn’t aware of his own existence, so it was all hopeless from the start. From his perspective, he’d never even met Renrae…which was Renrae’s own fault, of course, because he…was a total coward. Too scared to get too close, but too scared to truly leave him behind. Always hiding in the shadows.

“Are you alright…”

Renrae flinched at the hand that cautiously touched his shoulder. His eyes finally flew open at the unexpected contact, and he stared for a moment at the scene that greeted his sight. LnVrE1

Thick, heavy drapes shrouding the impossibly wide windows that opened out to a scenic back garden straight out of the pages of a fairytale. Intricately woven tapestries hanging on gold-patterned walls that arched way over the canopy of his bed like—

Wait.

Canopy?!

Renrae’s mouth slackened in shock. “What…what—!” 4ORrYF

A concerned-looking elderly servant reached a pacifying hand out. “Y-Young master, please calm down!”

This blasted man keeps calling me that title like he finds this really funny—!

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Renrae whipped his head between his lavishly decorated surroundings and the immaculately dressed butler trying to calm him down before deciding that someone must’ve thought of the brilliant idea of using him as a sacrifice for some demonic ritual for one of the lesser-known demon cults out there.

That made a lot of sense, Renrae realized, much more so than his other theory that Crown Prince Kaikoi-za had saved him after he’d fallen unconscious in the knight training grounds. Syca3b

Because looking down at his own body…looking down at his own body…

Renrae stared. Whatever the butler was saying became a dull humming sound in his head that was accompanied by a steadily building whistle like steam from the kettle.

His hands. They were…unscarred. His chest was unmarred, his hair was slightly longer and a light silver color, and his throat, no wait, his voice—

“I…” XK dc3

The butler fell silent at Renrae’s quiet mumble. He patiently waited for Renrae to speak, which was such a sharp contrast to the way people had always treated Renrae before.

Renrae slowly turned honey-gold eyes to stare at the butler’s calm black ones.

“I’m…”

Renrae swallowed, and then his lips were curving up into a graceful smile, lighting up his entire face in a brilliant glow of youthful vigor and elegant gentleness. JN3DoZ

“Hungry. I’m hungry,” Renrae ground out through stiff facial muscles that were just barely twitching. All his years of putting on a poker face was starting to pull off, because this was the goddamn demon of all poker faces.

Smile, just keep smiling. That’s what the owner of this body is always doing, anyway. Right?

God damn it all to hell.

yamyam has something to say: uBLP84

(╥ω╥) sorry ya’ll, this week’s update was super delayed cuz it’s nearing exam week (rip my life) plus tech week for my singing crew was this week too aaaaaaaaah so guess how many hours of sleep I got?? GUESS WHEN I ACTUALLY WENT TO SLEEP EVERY DAY???? urk >< but umm posting this was a bright spot in an otherwise exhausting day…I hope ya'll enjoyed mehehe~ till next week, and thx so much for all the love and support you guys have jettisoned my way!! //><// *a bouquet for all my marvelous readers* (〃ﾉωﾉ)ﾟ*✲ﾟ*｡⋆