Well, yesterday was quite the ordeal.
Apparently the sight of me drenched in blood was enough of a shock to trigger one of young Aiolette's clingy episodes—the first one in a very long time.
She'd mostly grown out of them once she'd built up some real strength, but this was nearly two years in the making.
From the moment we left the dungeon heading back to the dormitory, all the way to our room, she refused to let me out of arm's reach for even a second. I was sweating through the whole thing.
She even tried to sleep in the same bed, if you can believe it.
And the possessiveness that kept flaring up in between—that wasn't funny at all. It was genuinely unsettling.
It was like catching a glimpse of the Aiolette from the game. The villain version. The one I'd known before I fell into this world.
Still, after spending the entire holiday glued to her side, she'd calmed down enough to head off to class. That much, at least, was progress.
Getting her to stop talking about skipping entirely took more convincing than I'd like to admit.
Ah—for reference, Stellar Academy runs on a credit system.
Students choose their own courses within their allotted credits. Simple enough.
Unfortunately, Aiolette had enrolled primarily in mage-track lectures, while I'd signed up for knight-track courses, which meant time apart was unavoidable.
*Then again, maybe that's for the best.*
Given her current state, a little distance might actually do her some good.
A bit of breathing room ought to clear her head, right?
*The problem with Aiolette is that she likes me too much.*
Anyway.
That was how I found myself with rare free time on my hands—and I used it to return to the dungeon Aiolette and I had visited before.
There was something I needed to verify.
The dungeon still bore the marks of Aiolette's rampage. Every last one of them.
The unfortunate part was that the monsters hadn't respawned yet—apparently her massacre had been thorough enough that no matter how long I waited, nothing showed up.
*There were so many things I wanted to test.*
Things like how much my physical capabilities had improved, or what changes had come over ⟨Sword Saint⟩.
Still, I managed to confirm at least one thing.
*⟨Heart-Sight⟩ is definitely stronger.*
Whether it was thanks to the Hero's Blood or not, my Heart-Sight had sharpened to a new edge, feeding me a constant stream of information about my surroundings.
"This is strange."
It wasn't just terrain and traces of monsters anymore.
"How do I even describe this…? Mana residue?"
It was a peculiar sensation.
Beyond simply detecting mana—I could perceive how it had moved, what phenomena it had caused.
The echoes of the past, all of it flowing through Heart-Sight.
I hadn't had any complaints about Heart-Sight's performance before, but this was something else entirely. A whole new world.
*Hero's Blood was this broken all along?*
Or maybe there was some kind of interaction between Hero's Blood, Sword Saint, and the World's Trial that I hadn't accounted for.
But that wasn't what mattered right now.
The mysterious voice I'd heard immediately after drinking the Hero's Blood.
*It felt like it had been waiting for me.*
I was certain that meeting whoever owned that voice was the best way to resolve the questions piling up in my head.
"Well, I do have a suspicion or two about who it might be."
I'd drunk the Hero's Blood in this dungeon's Core Room. And among the figures connected to this dungeon—those with access to the Core Room and a link to the Hero's Blood—
"There are only two."
The Red Dragon and the First Hero.
I already knew what the Red Dragon's voice sounded like.
Which left only one possibility.
*The First Hero.*
Honestly, I had no idea how someone from a thousand years ago could know who I was, or what connection she had to Sword Saint and the World's Trial.
And the First Hero had only ever been mentioned in passing in *Saintess & Hero*—I didn't know much about her as a person.
But if the First Hero was the one who'd dropped me into this world and pressed Sword Saint into my hands—
*I have to meet her.*
And if the opportunity arose, I'd very much like to punch her once.
Lost in thought, I walked on—and before I knew it, I was standing right outside the Core Room.
The door had been left open ever since Aiolette forced it, and it remained that way now.
I stepped through and inside, the mana stone I'd left behind in the chaos of last time was still there, pulsing with mana.
Feeling that pulse, I quietly drew my sword.
*Shhring.*
[Trait ⟨Sword Saint⟩ activates.]
[⟨World's Trial⟩ is nullified.]
The moment the blade cleared the scabbard, my vision brightened.
The mana echoes that Heart-Sight had been feeding me came into sharp, vivid focus.
From the movement of mana radiating off the mana stone to the ambient mana drifting freely through the air—all of it.
*This is going to take some getting used to.*
Honestly, it was overwhelming.
Too much information flooding in at once.
My vision was so saturated with data that I could barely parse any of it.
Even so, one thing stood out unmistakably.
Behind the altar where the mana stone floated—an unidentified stele.
In the midst of the Core Room's swirling mana, that stele radiated a presence that felt distinctly out of place.
The mana contained within it blazed with an intensity like the sun hanging in the sky—fierce heat and blinding light.
I couldn't believe I'd missed it the last time I was here.
*Maybe it was sealed so that only someone who'd drunk the Hero's Blood could perceive it.*
More importantly, this stele was an object I didn't recognize.
I prided myself on knowing *Saintess & Hero* better than anyone—a veteran who'd dug into every corner of the game. I knew every background object in every scene. And yet this stele was something I had never seen before.
Which meant it hadn't appeared in the game at all.
"Excuse me—First Hero? Voice-person? If you're watching, could you explain this?"
You spoke to me so naturally last time. Why aren't you showing up now?
*Fine. Can't be helped.*
If she wouldn't come out on her own, I'd have to make her.
I approached the stele.
Up close, I could see something inscribed on it.
A language I didn't recognize.
Not the Imperial tongue. Not Korean either.
*The language of the First Hero's era, maybe?*
I touched it. I knocked on it. Nothing. Complete silence.
"Then there's only one option left."
I drew a slow breath and raised my sword high.
I was going to cut this stele.
*Come out if you don't like it.*
The moment I made up my mind, everything cluttering my vision vanished in an instant.
And what remained was only what I needed to make the cut—rendered in perfect clarity.
A single blue line stretching toward the stele, as if to say: *here*.
The line was far more vivid than anything I'd seen before.
*Has Sword Saint's effect grown stronger too?*
Right now, I felt like I could cut through anything.
I swung along that line.
The image I held in my mind: the sensation of cutting through a training dummy.
The most precise strike I was capable of, Heart-Sight and Sword Saint pushed to their limits.
"Heart-Cutter."
*Shk—*
The blade passed through the stele without the faintest resistance, as though cutting through air.
*Shhk.*
A beat later, the perfectly bisected stele slid apart, left and right, smooth as silk.
From the gap between the two halves, mana surged upward—incomparably more than anything the stele had emitted before.
*Flash—*
Then the stele erupted with blinding light that swallowed my entire field of vision.
"Ngh—!"
I squeezed my eyes shut on instinct.
The light that had exploded as if to consume the entire Core Room gradually contracted, gathering into a single point—and began to take shape.
The Core Room, worn and aged by the passage of time, vanished entirely. In its place stood a Core Room that looked freshly built, clean and untouched.
*Is this… showing me something that happened in the past…?*
A single figure stood in the Core Room before me.
I wanted to see them clearly, but black lines—like scribbles from a ballpoint pen on a notepad—obscured their form, making it impossible to make out their exact appearance.
But I knew who it was at a glance.
There couldn't be two monsters like that in existence.
Even as a remnant of the past, the presence that transcended time was unmistakably abnormal.
They were simply standing there—and yet Heart-Sight and Sword Saint screamed warnings at me like a pair of alarm bells.
*That's the First Hero. The hero of a thousand years ago—!*
In one hand, the First Hero held a glass vial containing the Hero's Blood, studying it with quiet attention before finally speaking.
"○○○ really is a nasty piece of work. Gets hit a few times and starts hoarding something like this. What is he, a vampire?"
She gazed at the vial a moment longer, then tossed it casually into a hidden compartment beneath the altar, sealed it with a ward, and stood up.
Then she turned her head—this way—?
*Is she looking at me right now…?*
"Not exactly looking at you."
"!"
The First Hero began to speak, as if answering the thought I hadn't voiced.
"I simply thought that someday, you would see this."
She tapped the floor above the hidden compartment with her foot.
"The fact that you're watching this means you drank it, doesn't it? Strong stomach. Well—even if you'd tried to avoid it, you would have ended up drinking it eventually. That was always your fate."
The First Hero continued with words I couldn't begin to make sense of.
She was saying I would have drunk the Hero's Blood regardless?
The entire sequence of events that led to me drinking it had been completely impulsive.
I hadn't even been thinking about the Hero's Blood before that moment.
"Well, you won't understand right now. So—oh, blast—"
She stopped mid-sentence and snapped her head to the side.
At the same moment, the past Core Room began to shudder as if struck by an earthquake.
"Found out already. That lizard's too sharp for his own good. I don't have much time, so I'll keep this short."
*Crackle—*
The mana projecting the past began to flicker wildly.
Like a broken television losing signal. I spoke quickly, urgency sharpening my voice.
"Wait! Were you the one who brought me here?! Why? What do you want from me?!"
This much, at least, she owed me an answer to.
There had to be a reason for turning someone into a woman overnight—and a blind one at that!
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I'm afraid I only have one thing to say right now. Are you annoyed?"
*Crackle—crackle—*
The mana trembled on the verge of collapse, and the projected past was nearly gone.
I couldn't see her face, but I knew she was smiling.
*That—!*
"If you're annoyed, find my traces. I've left the answers there."
With those words, the mana in the stele vanished completely.
"No—just tell me now!"
What is she, a cliffhanger? She could have skipped all the cryptic nonsense and just told me why I was brought here—that was entirely within her power!
The number one thing guaranteed to infuriate a person is someone who starts talking and doesn't finish!
I swung my sword at the empty air for a moment, venting, then forced myself to calm down and take stock of the situation.
"Hff…"
*Right. What's done is done.*
I had learned one thing, at least.
Whatever brought me here was connected to the First Hero.
That alone was enough to justify coming back.
*I need to look into the First Hero more carefully.*
The moment I reached that conclusion, the system window—which had only ever displayed the same fixed message—lit up with something new, as if it had been waiting for exactly this.
[You have taken one step closer to the truth of the world.]
[Uncover the hidden secrets and find the reason for your existence.]
[At the end of that path, you will obtain what you desire.]
[Infinite blessings upon you as you begin your new adventure.]
…Huh? You could say other things this whole time?