Setting aside resentment and judging objectively, he was an extraordinary man in his own way.

He was but a mere bandit—the leader of a vicious gang based on the continent’s outskirts, but a petty bandit nonetheless—yet he had the boldness to target a branch family of the Lion Duke’s bloodline as a prey.

A wolf-like sense of smell that keenly detected when the prey had weakened and skills surpassing even decent knights to tear it apart.

The place of birth, the direction chosen to advance, and the somewhat lacking luck.

If just one of these had been different, he might have grown into a big shot in his own right—now, she could honestly admit that.

At least, he wasn’t an opponent that a foolish girl who was born with treasure but was just rotting it away in comfort could overcome.

But that too was a story of the past.

The bandit stabbing the backs of the domain people with a knife, the bandit laughing while binding a female soldier, the bandit swinging his sword to block her way.

After cutting, cutting, and cutting again, the man she faced no longer felt as strong or as frightening as before.

“You bitch─!!”

Sword energy rose from the bandit Colombo’s sword.

Against such skill, which could be compared to that of a decent knight, Adelaide didn’t use any technique.

From top-right to bottom-left, Adelaide pivoted using her entire body as an axis, unleashing a sword strike that whirled like a spinning top.

All that was needed was power and speed, and accuracy to not disrupt the trajectory of the attack.

Slash!

From the shoulder to the side.

The body of a once-ambitious man was diagonally split as if sliding apart.

The remaining bandits fled, the surviving soldiers and domain people cheered.

And eventually, all of it disappeared like bubbles.

Somehow, Adelaide had returned to the original corridor.

At a glance, in a scene where everything seemed to have returned to its original state, only a small nameplate beside the door proved what she had accomplished.

Inhuman Bandit Leader: Colombo — Subjugation Complete

“…”

A sense of emptiness flashed through Adelaide’s eyes.

It wasn’t like doing this would change the past, so what meaning was there in showing off her strength against Colombo now, other than simple self-satisfaction?

But.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if her chest feels a bit lighter now!]

Her teacher said that was enough.

While it wasn’t possible to change what had already passed, at least the knot in her chest might loosen a little, he said.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ suggests moving on to the next stage right away, as the warm-up is lightly finished!]

…Well, he might just be demanding a new fight quickly without thinking that deeply, but Adelaide decided to interpret it in a positive way.

“Okay, I’ll give it a try!”

Whether he intended it or not, it was clear that being with her teacher made all sorts of trivial worries seem futile.

Adelaide opened the door.

***

The place was the training ground of the Tik-Tok Count’s mansion.

Two shadows were cast in Adelaide’s view.

One was a stern old man in rough yet wild training clothes, with traces of formidable training visible all over his body.

The other was a beautiful young man with an androgynous appearance that could be mistaken for a woman, elegantly dressed in red attire like a military band.

Adelaide instinctively looked to the side, but the Tin Knight, who should have been there, was now only present on her shoulder like a small mascot.

In other words, 2 vs 1.

A scarred but solid, rock-like fist aimed straight ahead.

A flexible yet sharp, silver rapier flaunted an eerie light.

The referee shouted, “Match, begin!”

Simultaneously, the two skilled martial artists charged towards Adelaide.

The young man’s, René, thrust was truly like a flash of light.

She thought the distance between them was about 5 meters apart, but suddenly that blade had reached just before her neck.

An attack that in the past she could only dodge and barely endure.

But the current Adelaide was different.

Clatter!

Adelaide placed her two-handed sword in the trajectory of René’s thrust, and at the moment the swords made contact, she pushed it aside.

With this simple but tremendously powerful movement, René’s posture was greatly thrown off balance outwards.

René tried to quickly retract his extended rapier, but Adelaide swung her sword forward as if following that force.

Swish!

The blade only lightly grazed the skin near his left forearm due to René quickly evasive action.

But the power bestowed by the Belt of Amaryllis was so enormous that even such a slight touch of the blade caused the surrounding skin to burst open as if carved out.

Adelaide tried to quickly follow up with a pursuit attack, but at that moment, sensing an eerie feeling from the side, she quickly turned her body.

Not content with just that, she momentarily concentrated her mana to raise her defense to the limit, however—

Whack!

As if such defenses were no different from glass, the old man’s, Gerhardt, fist strike hammered Adelaide’s side.

“Cough!”

Blood sprayed from Adelaide’s mouth as her body flew sideways for quite a distance.

It was truly a tremendous impact. It seemed like even a direct hit to the stomach from a warhammer swung widely using centrifugal force wouldn’t be this severe.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that old man’s normal attacks penetrate deep into the body, so be careful from now on!]

Without even the leisure to retort that such things should be said in advance, Adelaide swung her sword towards the approaching enemy.

The sharpness contained in Adelaide’s sword energy couldn’t cut through Gerhardt’s tough muscles, strong bones, and solid protective aura, but sharpness alone wasn’t everything when it came to harming a human body.

Crunch!

Unable to withstand her monstrous strength, Gerhardt’s arm was literally “torn” off from the shoulder.

It looked as if the arm of a stuffed doll had been caught on something sharp and ripped off.

Even in a situation where a normal person would scream from pain and loss, the old man was indeed stubborn.

He kicked at Adelaide without sparing his now one-armed body, and Adelaide’s left arm bent grotesquely as she received that attack.

A silver flash pierced Adelaide’s forehead.

Or more precisely, it almost pierced it.

Crack!

Violet lightning burst from Adelaide’s body, and her movements became several times faster as if in fast-forward.

The internal organs that had been screaming since being hit by Gerhardt instantly regained their function, and her broken left arm returned to its original form.

Before René could react to confirming this abnormal recovery ability, Adelaide’s hand grabbed René’s collar.

The next moment, René’s body was shot like a bullet.

Gerhardt somehow managed to avoid the human cannonball flying towards him, but he couldn’t react to Adelaide, who had come right up to his face, closely following René’s shadow.

Adelaide’s slash bisected Gerhardt’s upper body, and simultaneously, René’s body crashed into the wall, crushing his head.

The referee declared, “Winner! Adelaide von Lennart!”

***

The corridor appeared once again.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses regret, saying, ‘Oh, Hero, to die in such a way, how pitiful!’]

“I didn’t die though?”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ points out that while she won, in terms of match content, it was a defeat!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that with Adel’s abilities, she could have won sufficiently using just the power of the ‘belt’ without having to use that lightning!]

“Hmm…”

Adelaide became slightly sulky.

After all, her opponents were the representative instructors of the Lennart dojo.

Even though the Tin Knight hadn’t undergone his repair to restore his tiny mana circuits, they were strong enough to temporarily engage in a equal fight against the Tin Knight.

She thought she had done well enough, winning 2 vs 1 with various additional buffs, when previously she couldn’t even last tens of seconds against René alone.

More accurately, she was just upset because the Tin Knight didn’t praise her, but that was Adelaide’s own thought.

However, that anger didn’t last long.

Boing! Boing boing!

Watching the mini Tin Knight repeatedly jumping up and down, trying somehow to reach the nameplate beside the door, made all feelings of disappointment and everything else seem to melt away.

Adelaide placed the Tin Knight on her palm and moved him in front of the nameplate.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ praises his pupil’s sense, saying, ‘Nice assist!’]

Saying so and giving a thumbs up, the Tin Knight erased the part that said, “Subjugation Complete,” from the text on the nameplate that read Representative Instructors of Old and New: René & Gerhardt — Subjugation Complete.

She soon understood what meaning that had.

Unlike when she entered the door after defeating Colombo and was immediately transported to the next battlefield, this time the figures of the two people she had just defeated appeared again.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ gives his pupil a challenge!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says to win without wearing the Belt of Amaryllis, and to win without using the violet lightning, and that each must be accomplished separately!]

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says it would be good to do both simultaneously if possible, but that’s too high difficulty, so let’s try passing what he just mentioned first!]

Adelaide nodded.

The match start signal rang out, and the three Lennarts became entangled with each other.

***

“There won’t be any problems, right? At least she looks fine on the outside.”

Inside the moving carriage.

Dorothea said, looking at Adelaide lying down with a comfortable expression and the Tin Knight sitting motionless beside her.

Gale shrugged her shoulders, “I’ve put double and triple safety measures in place. At least there won’t be anything like falling into eternal sleep and never waking up, or mental damage affecting the physical body. In other words, I can’t guarantee against other emergencies.”

“Hey.”

“Well, this is an item personally created by my mentor, you know? Can Dorothea freely modify and handle that birdcage as she pleases?”

When put that way, there was nothing more to say.

Originally, souls left in their natural state were often turbid, and such souls were difficult to use for anything other than harming others or as raw material to squeeze out mana.

To use them for acquiring information or rational actions other than combat, it was necessary to purify the soul first, and the birdcage Dorothea possessed was an excellent item that allowed skipping that process.

The flaw was that it was so excellent that one didn’t dare to attempt reproducing or modifying it.

Dorothea closed her mouth, and instead, Sophia took up the baton, “By the way, is there no limit to the illusions that can be created with that book?”

“That’s not the case. Precise illusions require equally precise information.”

She said that even if one forcibly tried to create a strong enemy, without detailed and abundant information to fill it in, only a crude and low-quality amateur would pop out.

“So there are largely two things that can be implemented. One is the characters or enemies appearing in the ‘labyrinth exploration’ that can be called the book’s basic story. The other is characters from the participant’s memories. However, there are limitations to the latter as well. After all, it’s reconstructed based on memories, so there are many flaws compared to the original.”

Even if the original in the memory was a person capable of using both sword and magic, if the participant had never seen the opponent use magic in their memory, the opponent would only be recreated as a swordsman.

Also, if the opponent’s capabilities were far higher than the participant’s and they couldn’t properly grasp that realm, it would only be implemented within the limits that the user could grasp.

“That’s why we attached the Tin Knight as a helper. While Adelaide, who was still in the process of growing, might not have properly grasped the skills of strong enemies, the Tin Knight would have fully grasped and recognized them. The reproduction fidelity would be much higher. Well, even if that’s not the case, the ‘current’ Tin Knight would have the effect of improving mental state just by being together.”

“Is it the same for personality aspects?”

“That part is a bit ambiguous. Unlike physical specs or combat power, which are relatively easy to quantify, completely recreating someone’s personality data is quite a complex task. Unless there’s a separate external device storing the soul or memories of that subject… Huh? Sig? What’s wrong?”

Gale’s explanation was suddenly interrupted.

The White Knight, who had been observing the surroundings from the coachman’s seat, had warned his master of something.

The warning content was as follows:

—Multiple eyes are monitoring this carriage. The number is gradually increasing.

***

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