A massive shadow cast itself over the sunset-drenched hill.
As the rhythmic sound of galloping hooves drew closer, the shadow took the form of a white horse as large as a carriage. It had a white mane that shimmered in the twilight and golden, vertical pupils that radiated a ferocity akin to a predator. The muscles rippling with every heavy, dignified step of the horse looked like a meticulously crafted sculpture.
Seated upon this extraordinary beast was Kai Pendragon.
Kai protected his entire body with chainmail, while the areas around his joints were reinforced with a black gambeson. On the left side of his saddle hung a massive mace, evidently his weapon of choice, and a large rucksack was fastened behind the saddle. Every time the monstrous horse moved, a large pot attached to the rucksack let out a metallic clank-clank.
Kai's appearance looked as though a god had sculpted him with deliberate intent. His physique, too, possessed a divine presence. His robust, imposing frame appeared to weigh well over 100kg. Including the weight of the supplies on the horse, the total load exceeded 300kg. It was a weight that would exhaust even a warhorse, yet this supernatural steed showed no signs of fatigue. It simply walked stoically toward the sunset painted across the horizon over the vast plains beyond the hill.
Kai had left his family at the age of eighteen with a dream. Before fulfilling that dream, he spent half a year wandering wherever his feet took him, savoring the brief freedom afforded to those of his age. When it was cold, he cleared out monster dens to find a place to sleep; when he lacked money, he raided bandits to replenish his funds. On days with fair weather, he would light a campfire, lie down, and gaze at the moon and the starlight filling the night sky.
He lived thinking that his life was neither too lacking nor too excessive—that this was a reasonably good way to wander and travel.
[You have Awakened.][Please check your Status Window.]
Today, six months later. On his nineteenth birthday, he had suddenly awakened.
"…Hmm? Is this an illusion?"
It didn't take long for him to realize that the status window suddenly appearing before his golden eyes was no mirage born of the fading sunset.
"How incredibly sudden," Kai muttered with a hollow laugh.
Kai Pendragon, who had been a successful Hunter in 21st-century South Korea, had perished while fighting monsters summoned by world-class villainous warlocks.
He was reborn into a fantasy world resembling the cold and merciless 12th-century Middle Ages, retaining all the memories of his previous life. At first, he despaired, crying out, "Oh, damn it! God!" but as time passed, he naturally blended into the medieval era.
Since he had already been born, there was nothing he could do. The only saving grace was that he belonged to a knightly family with the surname Pendragon. In the rigid class society of the Middle Ages, a knight belonged to the noble ruling class and possessed freedom. If he had been a serf, there would have been no hope.
Of course, it wasn't without its problems. Given the historical reality where the right of inheritance in minor noble families belonged solely to the firstborn, the second or third sons had to find their own way to survive, regardless of how talented they were.
And wouldn't you know it? Kai Pendragon was the third son.
Being cast out of the family was essentially a foregone conclusion, but Kai actually considered it a relief.
"I wouldn't take this family even if they gave it to me. I'd rather go out and live on my own!"
This was because Newrington, the land ruled by the Pendragon family, was not a true fief but merely a manor. It wasn't a permanent estate; if the eldest son failed to distinguish himself as a knight, it had to be returned to the original lord.
Furthermore, it was so poor it barely had a pot to hiss in. Lacking the funds to maintain a standing army, whenever bandits or monsters appeared, his father, Puffman Pendragon, had to arm five strong manor residents and hunt them down himself.
The state of the buildings was beyond words. Inside houses built in a style that was hard to distinguish from hovels, there were pens for pigs and livestock. Humans and animals lived together around a large hearth in the center of the house, causing an indescribable stench to permeate Newrington.
Kai had thought about making soap, but he had no idea how to create such a thing.
"Damn it. Why didn't the YouTube algorithm ever show me videos related to soap?!"
But what could he do? Such were the mysterious ways of the YouTube algorithm.
Of course, there was a reason they lived with livestock inside the house. It was because monsters would sneak into the village at night to eat the animals. In this world, livestock was the number one priority asset to be protected. Losing livestock was no different from losing one's entire fortune, and it was common for people to lose their minds in an instant. It was an era where a manor resident who ran wild with grief would be beaten to death with clubs under the claim that they were possessed by a demon.
Under such circumstances, they had no choice but to raise them indoors. The wooden fences surrounding the village were full of holes and in desperate need of repair. Goblins would frequently visit at night.
If only the farming methods were good, it might have been different. But agricultural techniques were poor in this era, and Newrington's farmland was small. A bumper crop was out of the question.
A place that was poor, smelly, where you'd be beaten to death for a mental breakdown under the guise of demon possession, and where you had to dig up tree roots to eat during a poor harvest. That was Newrington, and that was the Pendragon family.
"This is practically on the level of being a victim of a real estate scam!"
Thus, there was no need to possess or covet Newrington, and it was a blessing not to be the eldest son.
Consequently, Kai developed a grand dream: a massive ambition to create his own territory that rivaled the modern cities of the 21st century once he was old enough to head out into the world. His modern soul made him dream of city construction filled with convenience, cleanliness, and rational knowledge.
"To do that, I must first build my strength!"
In a world where danger lurked every minute, this was an era where one had to be able to protect oneself just to see tomorrow's sun.
And Kai possessed an ability. At the age of five, he had caught a goblin that was about to attack children in a corner of the village and ripped it apart with his bare hands. The children fainted in shock, and Kai himself was surprised. Wondering if it was a fluke, he went up the back mountain, balled his hand into a fist, and struck a large tree with all his might—only for it to shatter with a loud crack.
Kai was delighted by the fact that he possessed such immense physical strength. It felt like a gift from God, a consolation for a human who had enjoyed the benefits of 21st-century civilization being reincarnated into a medieval fantasy world with nothing to his name. Kai, who had once believed in Nietzsche's words that "God is dead" after being dropped into the medieval wilderness, was ready to become a devout believer from that moment on.
Kai decided to cultivate this "monstrous strength" to survive well in the medieval wilds. Lacking equipment, he performed weight training by lifting boulders and logs, and did cardio by swimming up waterfalls and climbing mountains. Using the systematic exercise knowledge of 21st-century civilization that no one else possessed, he pushed himself ruthlessly every day.
Moreover, this world possessed Aura cultivation methods and swordsmanship, the likes of which he had only seen in web novels. The Pendragons were, after all, a knightly family. Fortunately, that knowledge was also passed down to the second and third sons. It seemed to be the family's way of showing consideration, essentially telling them to survive by the sword.
Thus, he also learned Aura cultivation and swordsmanship.
As a result of training every single day for seven years, by the time Kai turned twelve, he stood two meters tall, and his physique had become as large and solid as a bear's. His monstrous strength had grown so powerful that he could now crush a boulder as big as a house with a single punch.
"…Is this normal?"
Even with systematic 21st-century exercise plans and the acceleration of a growth spurt, he wondered if this made any sense. He had never even had a proper diet. He was lucky if he just didn't go hungry.
"Is it the effect of Aura?" Kai chose to believe so.
"There must have been a web novel author who was reincarnated from a fantasy world."
He realized that web novels were clearly based on facts.
From then on, Kai went out hunting to build the foundation for his grand dream. With his father's permission, he took a worn-out war hammer belonging to the family and collected trophies by taking down monsters. Two years later, when he was fourteen, he traveled to a town a month away with his father to sell the trophies and acquire equipment for future use.
In the cities, soap was being traded. Having caught the "scent of human life," Kai's dream became even firmer. At fifteen, he obtained a loyal steed to travel the wilds with; at sixteen, he learned survival skills for the medieval wilderness from a wandering adventurer staying briefly in the manor. On his seventeenth birthday, he informed his father he would leave the family in a year and received his knighthood.
Having prepared so thoroughly, when he turned eighteen, Kai left the family with a warm send-off from his kin, just like his second brother had two years prior, and began wandering the world. The reason he chose to wander instead of immediately realizing his dream was simple: any young man of that age would be full of a boyish desire to leave home and see the world.
He planned to wander for exactly half a year and then challenge his dream once he turned nineteen. Though there were many inconveniences and deficiencies, he lived quite well for those six months, even feeling the romance of fantasy. However, starting from today—his birthday—it seemed he would live even better. The blue system window that appeared through the sunset to announce his Awakening would be more than enough to ensure he lived well.
"It really is sudden, no matter how much I think about it."
Still, a status window was a good thing, wasn't it?
"What's good is good."
There was no point in nitpicking something that had already happened. He didn't know why Awakening and status windows existed in his previous life, so how could he know now? It was easier to just understand and accept it. With a relaxed mind, Kai examined the status window.
Name: KaiSurname: PendragonLevel: 1Class: Divine Power Knight / White Light MageTraits: [Will of White Light], [Divine Power], [Transcendental Translation]Magic Stage: 1st CircleMagic Skills: White Light Arrow, White Light Enhancement, White Light Purification, White Light Radiance, White Light Droplet…Knight Stage: Low-level Sword User (Transcendent)Knight Skills: Pendragon Low-level Mana Cultivation, Pendragon Low-level Swordsmanship.
"My level has been reset, but I've kept the class from my previous life. Plus, I've gained a class for this life."
He thought it was just monstrous strength, but it turned out to be Divine Power. No wonder it felt stronger than mere physical might.
"Anyway, looking at this, it means I can use the buffs and attack magic of a White Light Mage from my past life, while also utilizing the abilities of the Divine Power Knight I gained through reincarnation."
Is that why the magic skills and knight skills are separated? He understood the knight skills since he learned them from his family. The mage skills were also familiar, as they were identical to his spell list from his previous life.
Scrolling through the status window, which was as detailed as an InBody scan, was quite entertaining. Perhaps it was because it had been a while. While he continued talking to himself, his golden eyes fixed on the 1st Circle magic skills. He noticed a slight, peculiar difference. He quickly realized that his magic stage did not follow his level.
"In my past life, the magic circle increased by one for every ten levels, but now it's 1st Circle right away."
Normally, one would start at the 0 Circle and build up to the 1st Circle stage upon reaching level 10. Magic was automatically registered.
"Now that I think about it, what circle was I at the end of my past life?"
Searching his memories, it was the 7th Circle.
"If I'm starting from the 1st Circle instead of the 0 Circle at level 1, does that mean a portion of my previous life's abilities was inherited? Hmm. I'll find out when I hit level 10. Whether it was inherited or not."
Being a mage was Kai's childhood dream because they earned good money and lived comfortably. But why did he give it up?
"Ah, right."
It wasn't easy, was it? Not having his past life's abilities was one problem, but the cost of mastering the academic field of magic was so astronomical that selling a hundred Newringtons wouldn't cover it. Furthermore, a mage had to communicate with nature and understand mysteries, but Kai only possessed a monstrous strength that brought nature to its knees and crushed mysteries. He had no choice but to give up.
But now, he had obtained the opportunity and the conditions to dream of being a mage once again, without having to give up being a Divine Power Knight who could rip monsters in half.
"I'll be able to realize my dream much more smoothly and quickly."
It was just as he was reinforcing his resolve toward his dream of city construction. The sounds of clashing weapons, the shrieks of monsters ("Kyaaaak!"), and the screams of humans ("Guaaaak!") reached Kai's ears.
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