I Fought Kal'tsit? Seriously?

He continued, "Since Randall didn't stop you, that means you didn't come in here to cause trouble for Anthony. He wouldn't ruin his own reputation for someone else's bounty and sell out a target he'd promised to protect. So whether you want to take Anthony out and judge his unknown past, or help him escape and start a new life, you have to get him out of here first."

As if wrapping things up, Gerald snapped his fingers. "In other words, you're either some hotheaded kid who charged in after doing a little research beforehand—or you're a major figure powerful enough that even Randall has to give you a wide berth."

"And no matter which one you are, there's no way you can take Anthony away in full view of everyone—unless you completely unleash your Originium Arts and expose your identity in the process."

"But I'm different." Gerald smiled. "If you free me, they'll only think I used some special trick to get out of my shackles. They won't trace it back to some ordinary prison guard."

Saria fell silent for a while, then nodded. "You want to leave the prison."

"That was always the plan, but doing it through you is safer." The ears atop the young man's head twitched lightly, and the fur at his temples gave off a faint silver gleam. "You help me unlock these shackles, I save myself the trouble of sprinting across the wilderness, and I can take Anthony out too. You get to extricate yourself from this. It's good for everyone."

Saria said nothing.

The silence in the air gradually fermented into something stifling, especially oppressive within this enclosed space. Yet both of them were patient by nature. Even as they faced off, they maintained their own calm composure.

"I've read your file."

She finally spoke.

"I know why you were arrested, and I understand some of the reasons and circumstances behind those events, though the deeper information has likely been deliberately concealed."

"You are the greatest uncertainty in this prison, especially after becoming Anthony's friend—but no matter how deeply I understand your motives and grievances, as an outsider, I cannot arbitrarily grant you freedom over something whose full truth I do not know."

Gerald nodded. "Understandable. Unlocking my restraints means taking responsibility for a problem that was never yours. It wouldn't be unreasonable for you to refuse."

"However." Saria's attitude seemed to shift slightly. "I want to know: if you intend to escape this prison, what is the latest you would do so?"

"Four months."

Gerald answered decisively. "It can't be any later than that. If it goes beyond that point, I'll directly choose to return to Columbia through the wilderness."

After hearing that answer, Saria pondered for a moment, then finally nodded as though she had reached a conclusion. "Five days from now, Mansfield Prison will arrive at Trimonuts. Some prison guards will be allowed to leave the prison and enter the city that day."

"What?" Gerald was completely confused by that. "You want to let me off at Trimounts?"

Saria shook her head, but her gaze carried an unshakable resolve. "I told you, I have no right to judge your past."

"But your notes told me that someone filled with compassion, someone who still wishes to heal the wounded and save the dying even in such circumstances, deserves a chance to choose their future."

"Five days from now, I'll bring every book on the reading list. I've written annotations in them, so they shouldn't be too difficult to understand."

"For these four months, you can choose to ignore me and leave through the wilderness. There need not be any transaction between us."

"Or, you can spend these four months learning everything in those books. I will remain in this prison as well and explain whatever you cannot understand. Spend these four months convincing me. Tell me who you are. Then I will share the responsibility for setting you free."

"If you commit wrongdoing again in the future—then all of it will be blamed on me."

Saria's tone was calm, without the slightest fluctuation in either voice or inflection.

It was as though she had never seen those horrific photographs in his file. From beginning to end, she had never hesitated over her words.

"...You're going to trust a prisoner you've known for less than two hours? Is there something wrong with your head?" Gerald couldn't help saying.

"This was a transaction proposed by you. I merely added my personal conditions to it. I fail to understand how you arrived at the conclusion that there is 'something wrong with my head.'" Saria replied flatly.

"No, even so." Gerald seemed to laugh in exasperation. Even his breathing briefly lost its usual steadiness. "Put another way, if I decide to massacre people across Columbia in the future, are you going to take the fall for me?"

"I will kill you and restore order to where it belongs."

Saria nodded, answering Gerald's question. "And then, yes, I will bear the crimes you committed. Even if you would escape this prison no matter what."

After a long silence, Gerald was the first to lose their staring contest, his gaze drifting down to the rough, uneven floor.

This Mansfield Prison was really old. It looked like it had been built last century.

But no matter how conflicted he felt, he had to respond.

Thus, his tangled thoughts eventually condensed into a long sigh. Gerald raised his head, looked at the woman before him, and slowly said, "You look like some rigid old traditionalist, but at your core, you're just as much of a gambler as any madman."

At those words, Saria frowned slightly, a trace of severity showing at the edge of her plain brows. "This is merely a choice made based on rational judgment. Do not—"

"Yes, yes, I know. One thing is one thing, right?"

What he didn't say was that this world had never lacked people willing to ignore the rules in pursuit of their own goals.

But someone like the woman before him, someone who forged her principles into an unyielding shield, required a will far stronger than anyone could imagine—and madness beyond that of ordinary people.

Gamblers wagered their fortunes and lost everything.

The strong wagered their strength and convictions, winning the stakes held by the weak.

Then, depending on the person, they either ruled them or offered them shelter.

The former were ruthless.

The latter were madmen.

And the woman before him was a madwoman among madmen.

"Ah, that's why great figures are great figures. Every action you take is upright and beyond reproach, yet somehow you have this power that makes others willingly accept your conditions."

Gerald extended his right hand, where the blood had only just scabbed over. "Pleasure working with you. Now, will you finally tell me your name, Miss Guard?"

"Saria, Director of the Rhine Lab Defense Division."

The woman, as unwavering as a diamond, extended her unexpectedly soft hand and firmly clasped Gerald's right hand.

"Pleasure working with you, Mr. Gerald."

Kal'tsit, Is the Supply of Extra Lives Still Enough... Hm??

From after lunch onward, Anthony didn't see Gerald again for the entire day.

It wasn't until evening, after yard time had ended, when he returned to his room in Zone C, that he caught a glimpse of the Pegasus leaning against the wall, his hair a complete mess.

His ears drooped straight down at a hundred and eighty degrees, and even his tail hung limply. He looked as though his spirit had been completely drained, utterly haggard.

When Anthony blinked again, he saw only Gerald scribbling and stopping at lightning speed in the notebook beside him, muttering incomprehensible incantations under his breath as he wrote.

Gerald, inside the room, sensed his brother's gaze and looked up. Nothing but endless emptiness remained in his eyes. That single glance frightened Anthony, who still had hopes for life, into hurriedly returning to his own nest while quietly mumbling a few words of apology for the unintended offense.

Diagnosis: driven insane by medical studies.

Meanwhile, Gerald numbly lowered his gaze back to the book and continued his painful journey.

If Saria had already reached the point where all fields of knowledge blended and connected seamlessly during her university years and even her entrepreneurial period, then he was currently relying purely on the enhanced memory he had gained after transmigrating to cram everything into his head. Only after building up enough of it could he naturally connect all the knowledge points together.

The crucial part was that this volume consisted of the purest, most straightforward kind of knowledge that simply had to be memorized in full. Medical students were tested on entire books, and Saria had handed him more than twenty of them. On average, he needed to finish one each week.

Trying to make a little pony(?) who had spent nearly his entire first life fighting—excluding those negative twenty-five years of experience—catch up to Terra medical students' ten years of accumulated knowledge was still far too naive.

But seriously, there would never be a second chance in his life to receive personal guidance from a researcher at the forefront of the age.

Even if he had to force the knowledge down his throat and cram it into his brain, Gerald didn't want to let this opportunity pass him by. Having lived one life already, he knew especially well that even if his hands were rubbed to pieces by the rope, he still had to cling desperately to this possibility that might change his entire life.

If all he could do was kill, then above him were the world's strongest rule-makers, whom he could not defeat, while below him, humanity and morality bound him tightly.

Without the anchor called family, he had wasted his prime and accomplished nothing.

No longer thinking about anything else, Gerald shook out his hand and continued battling the knowledge in the book.

By the time the prison's sleep bell rang, the notebook at his side had gained more than ten pages of densely written notes.

Pegasus speed really was a tremendous help.

Following old habit, he silently gazed for a while at the photograph that represented his past. Then he set the book and notebook beside his pillow, pulled the thin blanket over himself, and let his thoughts gradually occupy his consciousness.

After last night's bizarre dream, everything seemed different today.

Barton had sent him long-awaited intelligence. The new prison guard was Rhine Lab's famous Defense Division director, and not only had she made a deal with him, she had promised to bring him new books in five days.

It was as though his time had begun moving again.

Gerald's body slowly relaxed. His shoulders sagged as he loosened his muscles from his chest all the way to his toes, sinking himself into darkness.

I hope I can have that good dream again tonight.

And so windblown sand and blood once more soaked his entire body.

The scene was almost exactly the same as last time. The light felt no different from reality, as did the heat carried by the sun and the wind singing in his ears—no, this was reality.

Because the wind at his side had never deceived him once in the past twenty-odd years, and the wind here was the same.

Gerald even had the leisure to stroke the sword in his hand as he waited for the hooded figure to leap down from the cliff and walk toward him alongside the monster.

"Why do you aid Kazdel's resistance, nameless Pegasus?"

The exact same words, like moving heavenly music sounding beside his ears, sent his mood soaring. Even the look in his eyes changed from the coldness of last time to fervor.

A repeating dream.

That meant he could spend countless nights fighting opponents far stronger than himself to the death, pushing his life to the brink again and again.

His life would become fertile ground for experience and skill, allowing him to improve without end.

Studying medicine by day and martial arts by night—where else could he find an arrangement more perfect than this?

As for asking what era this was—that could wait until after the fight!

Bang!!

Wrapping wind around his feet like boots, Gerald pushed his Originium Arts to their limit from the very start.

Since he didn't need to focus solely on killing his opponent, every extra moment he could prolong this battle, every additional glimpse he could get of the techniques she displayed, was a victory to him.

The blade seemed to vanish from this space for a second. When that flash next appeared before the hooded woman—or rather, Kal'tsit—the Pegasus was only a single step away from her.

The sword momentum carried by that instantaneous burst crashed into her blade like light. The immense recoil traveled through her hilt and into her arm, causing even her movements to briefly stiffen.

Seeing that, Gerald pursued without hesitation. His blade suddenly pressed downward, and the sound of it tearing through the air exploded beside them.

Her sword could only barely deflect the descending strike amid that stiffness. Her blade turned with the force, then stabbed toward his throat once more.

His peripheral vision caught that glint. He immediately withdrew his blade, and with the rotation of his body, raised it diagonally at an extremely tricky angle.

Clang!!

For the first time in all the battlefields she had seen, this Feline general felt the sensation of being suppressed.

Her sword nearly flew from her hand, but in the next instant, she gripped it tightly again. Riding that force, she slid to the side, lifted her blade from the flank, and countercut downward with crisp, decisive speed.

Only to fall into the embrace of the wind.

Kal'tsit's sword tip cut into colorless, shapeless air. The instant it pierced the outer layer, most of its power was slowed, and it merely grazed Gerald's chest, raising a shallow streak of blood.

"...A wind shield?" she murmured, the doubt in her voice deepening. Her feet had stopped moving altogether, leaving her standing where she was.

Gerald did not answer. Borrowing the wind's push, he leaped backward and widened the distance.

Wind was formless by nature. What gave it shape was the sand on the ground.

Scarlet blood was swept up by the wind as well, circling around him and protecting his body like a layer of flowing armor.

"You should not be here." Kal'tsit raised her head slightly, revealing her cold, elegant face. "Hogel's sword, and his Originium Arts... But he has no descendants as old as you. His oldest child is only fifteen, which does not match the physiological traits you display."

The instant he heard that name, Gerald froze in place.

The Originium Arts around him still showed no sign of stopping, but at that moment, even he, who had regarded everything as a dream, could not ignore the name the hooded woman had just spoken.

"I... What if I said I was his brother?"

Even Gerald himself didn't know how to respond to the question before him. The casual words he used to brush it off had barely left his mouth before he regretted them.

For one thing, his face didn't look old enough to have a fifteen-year-old child.

And for another, if he went back through his family's genealogy, all he needed to do was open the first page to learn that his ancestor, Hogel the Windchaser, who had earned great military merit and restored the family's honor—

Had no brothers at all.

As for why—

"When I found Hogel, he was still an infant, and his family had already perished." The person hidden beneath the hood calmly spoke words shocking enough to shatter stone. "And I have no memory of teaching you swordsmanship."

"Traveler from the future."

How to Defeat an Ancestor-Level Lynx

All right, all right.

Let's sort this out. The woman before him had not only adopted his grandfather, but was also a ruthless figure who had led a coalition army of three nations.