“W-whoah, whoah!”

  Alfred charged forward, and in a split second, Wilhelm’s wooden training sword flew high up. The young boy in front of Alfred collapsed on the training ground, his eyes wide.

  “That was so cool—” Wilhelm’s amazed eyes turned away as someone interrupted the two.

  “That’s enough!” a woman’s voice called out. It was their eldest sister, and she went straight for Wilhelm, helping him stand up. “Alfred, this is just a training session. You don’t need to go too hard against him. Remember, we’re just training his frail body.”

  “But, I’m fine,” Wilhelm said, shaking his head.

  “I apologize,” Alfred bowed a bit.

  Their eldest sister was a powerful knight in the Royal Guard. She was a prestigious woman whom Alfred looked up to, and someone he wanted to emulate. But all the time, it was like this. His father, his mother, and his sister, always prioritized him.

  Even when he’s weaker than I.

  Alfred’s mind never understood it. Sure, he was born minutes earlier than Alfred, but that didn’t mean he should be the focus of their attention. He was even made heir to the Dukedom, even when he couldn’t even cast the most basic form of magic.

  There was nothing wrong with his brother. He may be frail, weak, and sometimes a bit weird whenever he spaces out, and his blue eyes glowed, but he was kind. Still, that didn’t change what Alfred believed. He was someone better than this boy.

  He should inherit the Dukedom.

  Because at the end of the day, while Wilhelm was someone fine, he was weak, and this world wasn’t going to be kind to people like him.

  Day and night passed, as the same scenario played again and again. Wilhelm remained the precious child that everyone doted on, and he, nothing but a prop they used to train him. Resentment grew in Alfred’s heart, but he kept it buried, all the time.

  One day, if I don’t inherit the Dukedom, at least, I’ll be the finest knight like my sister.

  He set his dream there and chased it. He wasn’t leadership material anyway. He was strong and adept at magic, but he had always been bad with organizing people. Still, he believed he was stronger, so the Dukedom should be his. Even when Wilhelm finally managed to form his first magic circle, it didn’t change reality.

  Alfred was strong, and Wilhelm was weak.

  And it all continued that way until their father left for the Imperial Capital. He never returned. Their family was soon interrogated one by one by the Royal Guard, and they were kept under watch. Their mother tried her best to hold on to the Dukedom, even as the Empire practically abandoned it.

  Alfred tried to use that crisis to vie for his righteous position, asserting that he could ‘right it all’, and that he could restore their family’s name to its former glory, but she refused. Wilhelm remained the precious child. He remained the priority. Why they believed that way, Alfred never understood, until he had had enough.

  With their family’s power collapsing, reputation dragged into the mud, and news of an upcoming defense campaign in the Dukedom against the demon horde, Alfred followed the example of their relatives who fled what was clearly a sinking ship.

  One of the Margraves of the south wanted an Eisen boy with them, and Alfred struck out a deal. He would go to the Grand Academy, and in exchange, he abandoned his family name to join the Margrave’s family. If the Eisen clan didn’t want him to turn it around and restore its greatness, they could have it.

  Even when the news of Eisen’s fall reached him, Alfred focused on training to become the finest knight of the Empire. He didn’t care. They chose to ignore him all his life, so he did the same. To him, he wasn’t a part of the Eisen clan anymore. He’d rather make a name for himself under the Von Gottfried clan.

  They saw him as more precious than his true family after all.

  That was, until he was sixteen. Alfred was sent on a mission to the north. His goal was to spy on what the Defense Forces were up to, if they were still loyal to the new Regency Council, and if they were still steadfastly conducting their duties of dying for mankind.

  They were, Alfred found out.

  And his brother, once the envy of his, was now a part of them. He had fallen so low. He had nothing but a band of barbarian soldiers, crude, uncaring, and almost inhuman. He was almost like them too. Worst of all, Alfred found out the greatest offense he had ever seen.

  This man still bore the Von Eisen name, mindlessly. Without care. It was as if he didn’t understand how cursed that name was. Was he still clinging to their clan name because their family favored him?

  He confronted Wilhelm about it. He answered truthfully.

  “I don’t know,” Wilhelm said, sipping his whiskey. “It’s my given name, and the soldiers seem to like it. Why change it?”

  Alfred thought he had cast aside any attachments to that name, but those words filled him with great jealousy. Even with nothing, even when he was but a husk of a human being, Wilhelm still was the heir to a bygone dukedome. He was still the ‘Duke of Eisen’, as his birthright intended.

  This weakling, this good-for-nothing, this nobody, his audacity was simply outrageous.

  Alfred started an argument. It went too far, and he almost killed Wilhelm. He didn’t understand why, but eventually, the brigade Wilhelm was a part of ended the fight forcefully. Unfortunately, even Alfred knew that fighting veterans who fought demons was suicidal, so he stopped.

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  But that day, he confirmed to himself how jealous he was of this man who had nothing. Wilhelm was so weak, yet he was being awarded everything. Whether it be the once prestigious title of Duke of Eisen, or this unit that somehow had a mythical one hundred percent win-rate when fighting demons.

  That was when Alfred realized something. Maybe Wilhelm wasn’t weak. Maybe, they were truly just that different. Unlike Alfred, this man was fated to be something. He didn’t know what it was, but Wilhelm was obviously favored by fate, not in the sense that he would receive a good life, but that he was fated to do something big.

  That must be why, no matter what happened, he came out on top, ever since he was a child. Indeed, he was ridiculously undefeatable, and that made Alfred hate Wilhelm fully, and thus, Alfred reveled in Wilhelm’s misery. If he deserved all these things that Alfred jealously wanted…

  Then he deserved the consequences that came with it.

  +++

  Still, to this day, Alfred…

  Alfred wanted to prove himself. Just like Wilhelm, he had to be someone. Someone greater than just a knight who followed orders. No, he’d get to that mana condenser, find it, and get the credit for it.

  To be recognized, that was all he wanted.

  So…

  [WIND SLASH]

  Alfred’s sword made a horizontal slice, sending a gust of sharp wind straight to the stone minotaurs. When it struck the trio, chunks of their stone bodies were sliced off, then, Alfred’s sword met one of the minotaur’s massive axes.

  He parried it off, then, his blade swished below one of the minotaurs, slicing its feet off.

  With the support of his knights, Alfred tore past the downed minotaur, dodged a swing from the second one, then his sword made a vertical slash. The arm of the third minotaur fell on the ground, but it followed up by attempting to hit Alfred from the back.

  The axe almost struck him, but Alfred of course dodged it with ease.

  These minotaurs were fast, sturdy, and quite powerful. But to him, they moved quite slowly. He’d trained against worse monsters, and his sword skills’ levels were so high, it was almost impossible to counter him.

  As he made distance from the trio, Wilhelm’s team finally joined the fight, finally. A barrage of their powerful enchanted crossbow bolts rained on the minotaurs, each of them causing tiny, yet destructive explosions that chipped and cracked through the stone minotaur’s bodies.

  [WIND SLASH]

  Alfred rapidly sent a barrage of slices that sent sharp winds that almost simultaneously passed through the minotaurs. There were nearly a hundred of those attacks, all in a split second, and not a single one of them managed to parry all of it off.

  Their bodies practically crumbled from such an attack, only for Alfred to charge forward again, meeting their axes using his longsword head-on.

  “That’s enough,” Wilhelm’s cold voice said. “Let’s finish this.”

  No, these kills are mine!

  Right as Wilhelm’s shieldguards charged forward, Alfred got to work using his [WIND SLASH] skill, sending a hundred gusts of sharp wind into the group of minotaurs. In a second, their bodies, now filled with so many cracks and damage, finally gave in.

  Right as the shieldguards reached them, they crumpled into debris and ash.

  Alfred sheathed his sword back into his scabbard, looking at Wilhelm with a satisfied grin.

  He didn’t seem impressed. Unlike the boy he knew back when they were children, Wilhelm looked up to no one, not even to the saintess. Such was the arrogance he had gained while fighting the demon horde. Or maybe not.

  Wilhelm’s face was fake. He was smiling, as if he wanted to show Alfred that he was ‘amazed’, but he wasn’t. Wilhelm simply felt nothing, and that annoyed Alfred.

  “Tch,” Alfred looked to one of his knights. “Ms. Elaine, you’re a specialist at locked dungeon doors, right?”

  “Yes,” the knight replied, as she breathed in and out deeply, clearly a bit winded after trying to support Alfred and the front-line knights. “Just give me a minute, sir.”

  “Good.”

  +++

  “Seems like we made a good find,” Wilhelm smiled as he inspected the runes around the mana condenser.

  “Really?” Alexa asked, standing on the side, as hope surged in her heart.

  “Yep. Definitely mark this one. This should be of good use to you once we have access to those herbs.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Alexa smiled, now imagining all of the powers she would gain once this was all over.

  Fire magic? Water magic? Earth magic? Wind magic? Light magic? Shadow magic? Alexa’s head spun at her choices. The fact that she was already picking her next magic circle’s affinity when this wasn’t done yet was tantamount to that.

  Hehe…maybe I’ll do water magic.

  One of the sturdiest ‘shield’ spells out there could be done by combining fire and water magic after all. Fire to control the temperature, water to, well, summon water out of thin air. Alexa read a grimoire recently detailing the formulas and instructions to freeze water to subzero temperatures.

  Reinforce that, and such a powerful ice magic spell would be able to block so many things.

  He…he…hehe…I just need the herbs.

  “Right,” Alexa woke up from her dazed daydreams, curling her fist. “Let’s finish this. How many unstable dungeons are left on our list?”

  Adele pulled out her notes, standing near Alexa.

  “Four more, Lady Alexa.”

  “Perfect. We can finish it in a day or two then,” Alexa declared.

  “So tired…” Phoebe mumbled as she was sitting on the side of the ritual room. Purifying the powerful miasma coming out of this dungeon’s core seemed to have taken its toll on Phoebe.

  She practically had to use her [PURIFY] for a good ten minutes, while they all just stood there and watched. The adventurers especially were so amazed earlier, thinking that she was truly the goddess in human form.

  Until Phoebe pathetically slumped face-first when she was done. It was quite anti-climactic.

  Suddenly, a notification appeared in front of Alexa out of nowhere.

  Huh…

  Alexa eyed it curiously, before a smile grew on her face.

  I see, so it really is starting to work!