The familiar stone archways of the Sword Sanctuary came into view as our group crested the final hill, their weathered surfaces catching the afternoon sun like aged bronze.

The scent of steel and sweat hung in the air—a metallic tang that spoke of countless hours of dedicated training.

As we approached the main courtyard, Sauros’s weathered face suddenly transformed, years seeming to melt away as his eyes locked onto a familiar silhouette.

“Eris!” His voice cracked with emotion, carrying across the training grounds like thunder.

The red-haired tempest that was Eris Boreas Greyrat spun around at the sound, her practice sword still gleaming in her grip.

For a heartbeat, she stood frozen, disbelief flickering across her features. Then recognition blazed in her amber eyes like wildfire.

“Grandpa!” The word tore from her throat as she dropped her weapon, arms spreading wide as she sprinted toward the old lord.

The distance between them vanished in seconds, and when they collided, the force of their embrace nearly sent them both tumbling.

I felt my chest tighten at the sight—raw, unfiltered joy in a world that had offered precious little of it lately.

Giving the reunited family their moment, I caught Ghislaine’s subtle nod of approval before making my way toward a more familiar figure.

“Hey there!” I called out, raising my hand in greeting as I approached Isolte.

She turned from where she’d been observing the reunion, offering me one of those gentle smiles that somehow made Claude’s constant rambling about her make perfect sense.

The late afternoon light caught the silver threads in her dark hair, and I could see why my head knight had fallen so hard.

“Hey Mike, what brings you here?” she asked, though her attention kept drifting back to the emotional scene playing out behind me.

Beside her stood a girl with deep blue hair that seemed to shimmer like ocean depths—Nina Farion, if Claude’s intelligence briefings were accurate.

“I’m here to keep an eye on the lord there,” I replied, letting my gaze wander meaningfully around the sanctuary grounds. The lie came easily—too easily, perhaps.

Isolte’s knowing look told me she saw right through it. “I see. You’re running away from all the paperwork in the office.”

Damn this girl. The observation hit closer to home than I cared to admit.

There was something unsettling about how she looked at me—not with suspicion or calculation, but with the warm familiarity of old friendship. How can she be this perceptive? She looks at me like we’ve known each other for ages…

“Huh? How do you know about that?” I questioned, fighting to keep the surprise from my voice.

“I’ve heard a lot from Claude.” Her expression softened, taking on that fond, slightly exasperated look that people got when discussing someone they cared deeply about. “He’s quite taken with you and always talks about you and the other companions he had in Arbalest. Hearing him recount all of your traits, even your habits… It’s actually kind of creepy, but he repeated it so much it stuck in my brain.”

The casual way she spoke of Claude’s affection made something uncomfortable twist in my stomach. What the hell? You’re not even my big sister or mother. Don’t look at me with those kinds of eyes.

“Claude did? Hell, that man has already spilled our secrets! Is this what they call ‘love makes you blind’?” I complained, though I couldn’t quite inject real annoyance into my voice.

The idea that Claude—calculating, paranoid Claude—had become loose-lipped about his precious subordinates was both touching and mildly horrifying.

“I can see you’re being defensive toward me,” Isolte observed with that same gentle smile. “Chill, Mike. I won’t cause you any harm.”

The blue-haired girl beside her—Nina—suddenly bristled like an angry cat. “What kind of conversation is this? I don’t understand how you can read all these underlying words and expressions from this boy!” Her outburst cut through our exchange like a blade through silk.

“Keep it down, Nina. He’s my man’s brother,” Isolte said with casual authority, and I felt my eyebrows climb toward my hairline.

“My man?” I couldn’t resist the smirk that tugged at my lips.

The effect was immediate and devastating. Color flooded Isolte’s cheeks like spilled wine, and she pressed her hands to her mouth in mortification.

The composed sword-woman who’d faced down bandits and monsters was undone by three simple words.

Nina’s laughter exploded across the courtyard—rich, raucous, and utterly delighted. “My man!” she repeated between gasps, doubling over with mirth.

“Ahahaha!” Without warning, she took off running toward where Eris was still embracing her grandfather. “Hey! Eris, listen to what Isolte said about the most villainous man she ever saw!”

“Wait, Nina! Stop it! I misspoke!” Isolte’s mortification reached new heights as she gave chase, her usual grace abandoned in favor of desperate speed.

Claude, my man, your advances toward her all this time seem to be working…

I watched the impromptu chase scene with amusement, noting how Eris looked up from her grandfather’s embrace to observe the approaching chaos.

Sauros, for his part, seemed genuinely pleased to see his granddaughter surrounded by friends her own age.

The old lord’s weathered features had softened with something approaching contentment—a rare sight in these troubled times.

“So that is the current Sword God’s daughter, Nina Farion, huh?” I muttered under my breath, studying the boisterous blue-haired girl who was now dramatically reenacting Isolte’s embarrassment for Eris’s benefit.

“That’s right, she’s Lord Gal Farion’s daughter.” The voice came from behind me, smooth and cultured. “May I know who I’m speaking to?”

I turned to find a young man approaching—early twenties, brown hair kept neat, with the kind of bearing that spoke of noble training but not noble birth.

His sword hung at his side with the casual ease of someone who’d learned to wear it like another limb.

Slipping into my merchant’s smile—polished, professional, and revealing nothing—I extended my hand. “Ah, pleased to meet you. I am Mike Arbalest. I’m currently accompanying the lord of Fittoa, Sauros Boreas Greyrat, and have to intrude upon the Sword Sanctuary for a week.”

“Pardon my rudeness, Lord Arbalest.” He bowed with practiced precision. “I am Jino Britss, the one in charge of being your guide while staying in the Sword Sanctuary.”

I see, so this guy is Jino Britss, huh?

My mind immediately began cataloguing what Claude had told me about this particular individual. Potential future Sword God, according to the fragmented memories Claude carried.

Raw talent that needed the right push to fully manifest. In the original timeline—or what Claude called the “prime timeline”—this man would become someone significant.

Based on the information Claude gave me, he has the potential of a Sword God. How could I get him to progress faster?

The gears in my mind began turning. With our failure to secure the Dragon God as an ally, having another powerful sword user as backup could prove invaluable.

The dungeon that would manifest—that would manifest, according to Claude’s fragmentary visions—was an unknown quantity that would demand every advantage we could muster.

Claude’s projection magic remained our primary intelligence gathering tool, but it came at a terrible cost. The memory of his breakdown after sharing those visions with our inner circle still made my ribs ache in phantom pain.

Four months of emotional instability, two months of hospitalization for the rest of us—the price of accessing Claude’s fragmented memories of alternate timelines was steep indeed.

What’s happening inside the dungeon is something we don’t know, and having Claude regularly use his projection magic will damage him.

The projection magic wasn’t sustainable as a long-term solution. It allowed others to enter Claude’s mindscape, to experience his memories as if they were their own, but the backlash was savage.

When he’d shared those visions with me, Somar, and Ash, something had gone wrong. The memories came with emotional resonance intact—every moment of failure, every death, every crushing defeat that his alternate selves had endured.

For four months afterward, Claude had been a walking powder keg. We’d learned to approach him carefully, watching for the telltale signs that his hand was drifting toward his sword hilt.

The day he’d finally snapped and attacked us, we’d realized just how much control he’d been exercising all along.

Even in his fury, he hadn’t drawn his blade—hadn’t tried to kill us, though he’d certainly beaten us within an inch of our lives.

I’m not exaggerating things; I have two broken ribs, several fractures, and bleeding in several locations. Fortunately, we were in the HQ, or else we would have died from all the injuries we sustained.

The memory of that beating still made me wince. Claude’s usual calculated brutality had given way to something raw and desperate—the accumulated anguish of watching his other selves fail again and again.

It was the first time any of us had seen him completely lose control, and it had been terrifying.

Anyway, coming back to the topic of how to make Jino Britss improve himself…

Over the following days, I observed Jino carefully, noting his interactions with the other sanctuary residents. His technique was solid but lacked the killer instinct that would separate him from merely competent to truly exceptional.

More importantly, I could see the longing in his eyes whenever Nina Farion was around—the kind of hopeless yearning that would hold him back if left unaddressed.

On our final day at the sanctuary, as I watched Isolte, Eris, and Nina engage in their usual three-way sparring session, I made my decision.

The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the training grounds, and somewhere in the distance, I could hear the rhythmic clang of practice swords meeting shields.

“Jino Britss…” I called out casually, settling onto the stone bench beside him.

He glanced over, his attention divided between our conversation and the dynamic battle unfolding before us.

Isolte moved like liquid lightning, her blade work complementing Nina’s aggressive assault while Eris bulldozed through their combined defenses with raw determination.

“You do know that Isolte is taken by the Cloud King, and Eris already has her beloved, right?” I said, letting the words hang in the air like smoke.

The effect was immediate. Jino’s face flushed crimson, and he began stammering denials with the fervor of a man caught in a compromising position. “No, no, no! I’m not eyeing any of them!”

It’s kind of cute seeing this swordsman act so pure about romance. “Is that so?” I pressed, enjoying his discomfort perhaps more than I should have. “Then you don’t mind if Nina Farion comes to the isle holding another man’s hand?”

The change in his expression was subtle but telling—a tightening around his eyes, a barely perceptible slump in his shoulders. When he looked at Nina again, there was something wistful and pained in his gaze.

“I don’t mind, as long as she’s happy with her choice,” he said quietly, the words carrying the weight of resignation.

There it is. The response I’d been expecting, and exactly the attitude that needed to be shattered. “I see, so you’re a fainthearted bastard who doesn’t want to choose the hard path and waits for the dish to be served,” I said bluntly.

Jino stared at me as if I’d just slapped him, shock written clearly across his features. Good—shock meant I had his attention.

“My Head Knight says a man who can’t express his feelings to a woman is a coward,” I continued, letting Claude’s voice echo through my words. “There’s no one more cowardly than a man who fears rejection and lets the one he loves slip away without resistance. Even if you’re rejected—hell, especially if you’re rejected—if you like the girl, go and pursue her with everything you have!”

He stared at me, then back at Nina, his mind clearly wrestling with concepts that challenged everything he’d told himself about his situation.

The child of a Sword God—that alone was a hurdle that seemed insurmountable to someone with his background and self-esteem.

“Then what can I do? It’s not like I can defeat the Sword God,” Jino said dejectedly, his voice barely above a whisper.

“First, tell Nina how you feel. Then train so hard you’ll puke blood to improve!” I declared with the kind of confident authority that came from having watched Claude browbeat recruits into excellence.

“It’s easy for you to say that…”

“Of course, I won’t deny that the words are easy to say. But do you think you can do anything else?”

“Okay, I understand,” he replied, though his tone suggested he was anything but convinced.

Something in his resigned acceptance triggered a memory—fragments of Claude’s projection magic, glimpses of timelines where this man had fought beside us, bled beside us, died beside us.

The emotional resonance was faint but unmistakable, and I found myself speaking before I’d fully decided to reveal our hand.

“To tell you the truth, my Head Knight and leader of Arbalest can see the future.”

The words hung in the air like a thrown gauntlet. Jino’s head snapped toward me, suspicion and disbelief warring in his expression.

I could hear Nina’s laughter from the training ground, Eris’s shouted challenges, the normal sounds of life continuing around us while I prepared to shatter this man’s worldview.

“From the start, Arbalest was created to completely turn around the bad future he sees,” I continued, the words flowing with gathering momentum.

“Although we couldn’t fully prevent the Mana Calamity, because of our preparation, we managed to save more people than what Claude originally witnessed.”

Jino’s skepticism was visible, but I could see it wavering as he processed the implications.

The Mana Calamity had indeed been predicted, had been prepared for—facts that lent credence to my outrageous claim.

“We all thought the Mana Calamity was the end, that we’d start living normally again, enjoying our time growing into adulthood. BUT!” My voice rose with passion born of frustration and fear. “We were wrong!”

The words came out in a rush now, years of suppressed anxiety and desperate hope spilling forth like water from a broken dam. “The tragedy won’t just end with the Mana Calamity! After one year of peace and all the hectic work we did to save people from the disaster, another catastrophe is coming. It’s not just one region that will feel the effects—it’s the entire world!”

I slammed my fist against the stone bench, feeling the impact jar through my bones. The pain was nothing compared to the frustrated rage that had been building for months. “If Claude could just share what he sees with other people, it would be easy to ask for their cooperation! But why? Why is it so hard for us to create allies?”

My voice cracked with the weight of it all—the isolation, the burden of knowledge that few would believe, the crushing responsibility of trying to save a world that didn’t even know it needed saving.

“It starts here, in the Sword Sanctuary, with the death of all the practitioners. A group will be formed to guard the border between the Sword Sanctuary and the other side, but they’ll ultimately fail, allowing a mass of undead to escape and wreak havoc across the Central Continent!” The words tasted like ash in my mouth. “That’s all we know from the future. We don’t even know what happens in the end.”

The admission of our ignorance—of Claude’s fragmentary, incomplete knowledge—felt like confessing to a terminal illness.

We were fighting blind, making preparations based on glimpses of possible futures, and the weight of that uncertainty was crushing.

I slumped back against the bench, feeling suddenly ancient despite my youth. “Now, let’s leave the truth of this matter aside for a moment, Jino,” I said, noting how he’d gone pale, how his hands had unconsciously clenched into fists.

I was dimly aware that our conversation had drawn an audience—several sanctuary residents had stopped their activities to listen, their faces reflecting various degrees of confusion and concern.

“Huh… what is it?” Jino’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Let’s just imagine an apocalypse,” I said, staring up at the blue sky visible between the sanctuary’s walls.

A gentle breeze stirred the air, carrying with it the scents of grass and distant mountains—peaceful sensations that felt surreal given our conversation. “At that crucial moment, you could save the woman you love, but you can’t because you lack the strength. What would you feel then?”

I stood slowly, my joints protesting from sitting too long on the hard stone. The afternoon light seemed different now—sharper, more precious, as if I was seeing it through the eyes of someone who knew how easily it could all disappear.

“Would you let your beloved woman die in your arms as a result of your lack of power? Could you live with that?”

As I spoke those final words, I let myself remember the projection Claude had shared with us—the memory of his fourth incarnation’s final moments.

The crushing weight of failure, the desperate regret of a man who’d tried everything and still fallen short.

The projection magic didn’t just show us images; it conveyed the full emotional experience, and even now, weeks later, the phantom pain of those feelings made my chest tight.

The heartrending confusion Claude had at the end was really devastating. Neither me, Somar, nor Ash could release ourselves from grief even after a week.

I couldn’t begin to imagine how Claude remained functional carrying memories of not just one such failure, but three separate incarnations that had met gruesome ends in dungeons they’d tried to clear.

The psychological toll should have broken him completely, yet somehow he continued forward, driven by a determination that bordered on the inhuman.

Jino’s hands were trembling now, clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. Good—that meant the message was getting through.

I was preparing to deliver some final encouragement when rapid footsteps interrupted the moment.

“Boss! It’s urgent!”

One of our Division I operatives appeared as if from nowhere, his usual professional composure completely shattered.

These were men trained to maintain their poker faces under the most extreme circumstances, and seeing one of them in open panic sent ice through my veins.

“What is it? You can speak freely here,” I said, though my mind was already racing through worst-case scenarios.

“We need to return to HQ immediately and send the distilled Troll Blood to Millis HQ!” His words came out in a rush as he gestured frantically toward where our transport waited. I could see Ash already mounted and ready, his face grim with urgency.

“Tell me what’s happening!” I demanded, even as I began moving toward our departure point.

“It’s Master Claude! He’s sustained mortal injuries. We need to get him the troll blood as soon as possible!”

The world seemed to tilt sideways. Claude—brilliant, paranoid, seemingly invincible Claude—reduced to desperately needing healing potions to survive.

The implications crashed over me like a wave, and I found myself running without conscious decision, leaving behind the peaceful sanctuary and its confused inhabitants.

Not now, I thought desperately as wind whipped past my face. Not when we’re so close to being ready. Not when the world still needs saving.

But fate, it seemed, had never much cared about timing.

___________________________________________

✨ Enjoyed the chapter? Dive deeper into the story world!

I’ve started to share my source here, and thinking to create a AI based video by story telling the story, I already had a testing video for another fanfiction of mine.

Check them out and let me know what you think! Your feedback really helps me grow.

📺 YouTube: EternalLibrary
🎵 TikTok: @library3550
📸 Instagram: @libeternal