The Hero Returns

Those who practiced the Sage Arts would come to possess something called "Dao energy," not magical energy. And this power's "color" was completely different from the latter energy source.

Was that the reason why Su-hyeun could sense an aura similar to the Sage Arts emanating from the knights outfitted in silver armor, who were gradually closing the distance as they rode on horseback?

"How do they know the Sage Arts…?" he thought.

Tap—

When Su-hyeun stood there with a stiff expression, the blacksmith lightly shook him by the waist.

"What's the matter, young man? Making that scary face and all." The blacksmith hurriedly signaled to Su-hyeun to start smiling. "They are the protectors of the world we live in, so it's not nice to make that kind of a face, you see."

Su-hyeun bowed his head as his apology at the blacksmith's advice and shifted his gaze back to the knights.

There were about 20 of them in total. The pure-white horses they were riding trotted past the street as the gathered crowd showered them with respect.

Su-hyeun's gaze was locked on one particular knight leading the group from the front—the only knight to have his helm off to reveal his face and his white hair.

"So, it's him," Su-hyeun thought.

The master of the aura Su-hyeun had sensed was coming from that knight.

It wasn't him alone; the other knights were also letting out similar auras, but none of them were as concentrated as the helm-less knight's.

"Is he like the commander of the knight order? In any case…"

Su-hyeun began gradually leaking just a little bit of his own aura.

"I don't need to search for information anymore, it seems," he said to himself.

And so, when Su-hyeun revealed his presence just a little…

"Company, halt."

The helm-less knight leading the group raised one hand while pulling on the reins of his horse with the other. At the same time, the other knights following from behind also stopped their horses.

Their gazes now focused on one spot.

…Right where Su-hyeun was.

"You're not a knight, it seems" The knight who must have been the commander directed the horse to leisurely approach Su-hyeun's position. He looked down from his saddle and said, "Are you a wandering swordsman? I wish to speak to you for a moment if you will."

It was done.

Su-hyeun cried out in elation inwardly.

* * *

Driiip—

Hot tea was poured into a cup.

Su-hyeun and the white-haired knight before him, Binladen, exchanged small talk and picked up their teacups at the same time.

"Thank you for the tea," said Su-hyeun.

"The tea served in this place is of very high quality. Although, I don't know if you like drinking tea."

"Yes, I do like them."

Su-hyeun took in the aroma of the tea first.

Indeed, this was good-quality tea. He took a sip of the warm tea and asked, "By the way, is this fine? I thought that your schedule was busy, considering that you were on your way back to the palace?"

"A short break will not be frowned upon. Besides, I'm sure nothing major will happen, anyway. The empire has been fully unified, after all."

A unified empire—this was the backdrop of the trial Su-hyeun had been given.

Not once in this continent's history going back tens of thousands of years had it been unified under one ruler.

However, everything changed with the rise of the empire. It unified the whole continent 100 years ago, and it had not been broken apart yet.

"Where did you learn to wield a sword, young man?"

Drinking his tea, Binladen finally got to the main topic.

"It's self-taught."

Su-hyeun didn't hesitate with his reply. He already expected this question to be asked, after all.

"Self-taught?"

"Yes."

"You mastered 'aura control' by merely training yourself? Friend, looks like you're lying to me right now."

Binladen didn't seem to believe him.

But that was only obvious. No matter how great a genius you were, it would be almost impossible to master the Sage Arts without anyone's supervision unless you were the progenitor of the art itself.

"The Sage Arts is called aura control in this place, it seems," Su-hyeun surmised inwardly.

He expected the people to call the Sage Arts with a different name in this place, but even then, the unfamiliar name still came across as a bit awkward to his ears.

Su-hyeun put the teacup down and with a hardened expression, replied to Binladen's accusation, "Honestly speaking, I can't remember the truth."

"You can't remember?"

"Yes. I can't remember anything about myself since about a month ago. My name, my background, not even where I learned the swordsmanship from. It's as if…" Su-hyeun looked up toward the ceiling and continued, "I've suddenly fallen out of the sky."

As he spoke, he didn't forget to make an expression that showed longing.

His expression was not the only thing that changed; his eyes also seemed to have moistened with a barely held emotion. This was the repertoire Su-hyeun had often relied on for a while now.

"No other excuses are as convenient as amnesia, after all," he thought early on.

If he chose to be honest and said that he had no knowledge whatsoever of this world, then people would naturally start suspecting him. When others asked how come he didn't know anything, he couldn't come up with any sensible answers other than, "I just fell out of the sky one day."

Somewhat predictably, though, amnesia sounded a lot more believable compared to the story of falling from the skies or the Tower of Trials itself.

However, being suspected didn't mean much to him, anyway.

"If the empire has unified the continent, then I don't need to worry about others suspecting me as a spy from a rival nation," he thought.

Unsurprisingly, Binladen the knight looked at Su-hyeun with pity.

Since there was no possibility of a spy coming from another country or even from another fiefdom, the white-haired knight figured that Su-hyeun didn't have any reason to put up an act like this.

"Oh, my…I should apologize for unfairly suspecting you."

Binladen seemed genuinely apologetic just then.

Su-hyeun smiled inwardly. One careless slip-up and he could've really laughed out loud at Binladen's earnest response. "No, it's alright. I'm fine."

"Actually, I did sense a faint amount of aura coming from you, friend. As the aura control is the discipline of the knights, I was initially thinking that maybe a wandering knight taught you the basics of it."

"Is that so?"

"Is it possible for you to show me your swordsmanship? From the looks of it earlier, you may have lost your memories, but you didn't lose your grasp on how to handle the aura."

Su-hyeun nodded at Binladen's suggestion and stood up from his chair. "Alright."

Binladen was taken aback by the response that came right away as if Su-hyeun had been waiting for the suggestion all along. "Eh? So soon? Why don't we enjoy our tea first? Its wonderful aroma will be lost once the tea cools down, you see."

"No need to worry about that, actually," Su-hyeun replied while picking up his sword resting by his side. "It'll be over before the tea cools down."

* * *

The knight order led by Binladen boasted 20 knights, so, with him included, it would be a knight order with a total of 21 men.

And that knight order had gathered around to spectate on Binladen and Su-hyeun's sparring session.

They found this event quite interesting.

Binladen was famous for his unwillingness to move his butt. Unless it was for something major, he would not draw his sword, and besides during individual training time, he could hardly be seen sparring with someone else.

He also used wooden swords instead of real swords when training the members of the knight order. Therefore, it was only natural that the knights would become interested in this sparring.

However, that only lasted for a few brief moments.

"The commander, he…"

"He…Did he lose?"

The sparring ended in less than 30 seconds, puzzling all the spectating knights from the looks on their faces.

Su-hyeun stood on his feet.

On the other hand, Binladen was kissing the ground with his butt.

The tip of Su-hyeun's blade was pointing at Binladen's throat. With that, the victor and loser had been clearly decided.

Binladen remained sitting there with a dazed expression. He thought to himself, "Sure, let's see how skilled you are," when he heard Su-hyeun said it would be over before the tea cooled down, but the outcome simply exceeded his imaginations.

"Just how…did I lose?"

Binladen didn't even know how he lost just then.

Su-hyeun withdrew the sword at those words that acknowledged defeat and extended his hand. "That was unfortunate."

"It was unfortunate? Huh, huhuhuh…"

Su-hyeun didn't say anything else—nothing about what was unfortunate here or how Binladen lost the spar. He didn't explain anything.

But the reason for that was simple—there was no need.

There would be no other way to describe how or why Binladen lost than to say he was much weaker than his opponent this time.

He muttered, "This…Well, things did really turn out as you've predicted."

Indeed, the tea shouldn't have gotten cold yet.

Although some time had been wasted because the knight order members gathered around to spectate, the spar itself only lasted 30 seconds at most.

Not only that…

"He went easy on me," Binladen realized.

When their sparring session was in full swing, Binladen had gotten the impression that Su-hyeun was going easy on him.

Despite that, the white-haired knight's balance had crumbled at the last moment, and Su-hyeun's blade was placed underneath his chin even before he could figure out what happened.

In other words, it was a perfect defeat.

"Friend, would you like to accompany us back to the imperial palace?"

Binladen asked as he took hold of Su-hyeun's offered hand to stand back up.

As for Su-hyeun, he formed a surprised expression at that question and asked back in a "surprised" voice, "The imperial palace, you say?"

"That's correct. You said you lost your memories, didn't you? Which means that you don't have anywhere else to go. You probably don't remember your family either."

"Well, you're right, but—"

"Since that's the case, let us travel together. I'd dearly like to introduce you to his majesty the emperor."

Su-hyeun formed an expression of deep contemplation for a little while because he figured answering right away would come across as a bit too strange.

And so, a short while later, he voiced the answer he had decided on at the beginning. "Alright, let's."

"Haha! You made the right choice. Maybe we'll end up as one family later on."

Su-hyeun's reply brought about a loud peal of laughter from Binladen.

While the knight patted him on the shoulder, Su-hyeun felt relieved inside.

"As expected, entering a bigger pond is better for gathering information," he thought.

Su-hyeun aimed to find out two things: one, what or who this "predator" could be and, two, where it might be hiding.

Finding out necessary information should prove to be easier inside the imperial palace when compared to getting it from regular citizens. Without a doubt, the majority of useful information from all corners of the continent would be gathered in the palace, after all.

And so, Su-hyeun accompanied Binladen to the imperial palace.

* * *

Clack, click—

The sounds of hooves rang out at a fixed interval. It might have been a long time since Su-hyeun rode a horse, but that didn't mean he had forgotten how to.

As he followed on horseback from right at the rear of the knight order, he kept his gaze fixed on Binladen's back. Su-hyeun's mind was replaying the sparring session he had with the white-haired knight, which took place earlier.

"Where would he be situated in this world's hierarchy?"

Their spar lasted around 30 seconds, which admittedly wasn't that long. However, if you asked him if it proved to be a letdown, then he would answer that it wasn't the case at all.

"His level was higher than I thought."

Binladen had trained in the Sage Arts, which seemed to be referred to as "aura control" in this world.

However, Binladen was human at the end of the day. He definitely couldn't be compared to Sun Wukong, the Bull Demon King, the Roc Demon King, or the other transcendental existences like them.

Even then, Su-hyeun evaluated Binladen's skills quite highly. The latter possessed the skill level that rivaled an average S-Rank awakener.

"If there's a chance more people like him can become my allies…"

Su-hyeun tried to imagine just what kind of existence the "predator" could be.

For some reason, he had a feeling that that title didn't belong to a human. Quite likely, the creature might be closer to a monster than a person.

If that was the case, he might get assistance from fellow humans like Binladen or even the empire itself.

If the empire's forces were teeming with skilled individuals like Binladen, and he was able to get their help, then that alone could become a powerful strength he could rely on.

"But if I flip that around, doesn't that mean the monster is so strong that I'll need the help of these people?"

He felt more and more curious about just what this predator could actually be. But his worries were growing just as great as well.

And so, after riding on horseback for another 30 minutes or so…

"We've arrived," said Binladen who rode in front of the group. He turned his head toward Su-hyeun and said, "So, what do you think? I'm sure you can't remember it, but since I didn't recognize your face, it must mean this should be your first time seeing the imperial palace."

While waiting for the palace gates to open up, Binladen got closer to Su-hyeun and began chatting with him.

However, for some reason, Su-hyeun didn't respond. It was as if his soul had been spirited away; he simply stared at the mouth of the massive imperial palace in utter silence.

"Fella, what's gotten into you?"

"Ah, I beg your pardon? Did you say something just now…?"

"Friend, looks like you got too absorbed in sightseeing just now. But I understand where you're coming from. Everyone who comes here for the first time does that. Hahaha!"

Binladen thought that the cause of Su-hyeun's dazed state was the imperial palace's majestic scale.

Su-hyeun smiled back awkwardly and mumbled some reply. Of course, he wasn't so stupefied because of such a simple reason.

"Just who…?" he thought.

The distance must have been considerable, yet he could still sense it.

He could sense an overwhelmingly massive presence that even managed to dwarf this majestic and humongous imperial palace, making it look shabby in comparison.

With that, Su-hyeun became certain of it.

He was sure that somewhere within this palace existed an incredible monster.