'What's wrong with this girl?'
She felt strangely lacking in common sense, acting as though she believed completely in the law of the jungle and treated it as the highest possible value.
'Just what kind of upbringing has she had all this time?' Noah thought.
'Or rather... is this kind of thinking normal for this world?'
"At the martial arts tournament, you saw me. And then you followed me all the way here because you marked me as a target—because you wanted to hunt me?" Noah asked.
Esdeath nodded. As though all of that were only natural.
Noah sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "And what benefit would there be in hunting me? Don't tell me you eat human flesh?"
Esdeath shook her head, wearing a look of mild disgust, as though recalling something unpleasant.
"Human meat doesn't taste good."
"You've actually eaten it?" Noah was genuinely startled.
Was the Partas Tribe really that extreme?
"That's what someone told me," Esdeath answered calmly.
That made Noah let out a heavy breath of relief.
Then, for certain reasons, he made up a lie right on the spot.
"Mm, they were right. So whatever you do, don't ever try it."
"Really?" Esdeath asked in surprise. "I thought that was just something adults said to fool children. But if even a strong person like you says so, then it must be true. Sorry, actually, I've never eaten it either."
'...Aight then.'
'What is this? Why do I suddenly feel guilty?'
Even if it was for her own good, taking advantage of a naive, bloodthirsty little girl like this and tricking her still felt kind of awful.
"Listen. From now on, don't go provoking people just because of some pointless urge to win," Noah lectured, intending to use this as a warning to knock some sense into the girl.
"There are countless strong people in the world. It's only because it was me this time that nothing happened to you. If you run into someone with a worse personality, you won't get off so easily."
Who would have thought that after hearing him, instead of feeling afraid, the girl would smile and say, "Even then, it doesn't matter. If I die at someone else's hands, then I can only blame myself for being too weak!"
"You're... not afraid of death?"
Esdeath thought about it for two seconds.
"I probably am. After all, as long as I'm alive, I can keep finding interesting things to fight. If I die, that might not be the case."
On the surface, Esdeath's answer seemed contradictory, but Noah suddenly understood her logic perfectly.
She was human too, so of course she wanted to live.
But because she believed unconditionally in the survival of the fittest, even if she were the weaker one in a fight to the death, she wouldn't resent her killer.
She would simply accept it.
Weakness.
Rather than hatred, she attributed all misfortune to her own weakness.
Unfortunately, that was hard to call true strength.
All it really meant was that she had lived in a brutal, kill-or-be-killed environment for so long that she had already formed an unshakable, twisted worldview.
It was more terrifying than brainwashing, because from the root of it, there was nothing logically wrong with her way of thinking.
In the wild, the weak died and the strong lived. It was just pure, unfiltered nature.
"You should go," Noah said, waving a hand.
"I can go?" Esdeath looked at the boy before her and actually showed a disdainful expression.
"You're far too naive. Even if you let me go this time, I won't let you go next time. I'll definitely find a chance to beat you. When that happens, you'll regret not finishing me off while I was on the ground."
The girl's expression, her piercing gaze, her cold tone—they were all so serious that it was obvious she wasn't joking.
Real, sharp killing intent radiated from the girl, stimulating Noah's nerves.
Her ice-blue pupils were like frozen earth, completely devoid of human emotion.
"Do I have some grudge with you? Or did sparing you hurt your pride or something?" Noah felt utterly helpless toward this strange girl.
There was something wrong with her personality.
And yet at the same time, it almost felt like there wasn't. But no matter how twisted she was, she was still just a child.
Esdeath thought about it, then shook her head.
"I don't hate you, and I'm not grateful to you either. I just simply think you're an opponent worth challenging."
'That simplicity is way too extreme,' Noah thought.
With a helpless sigh, Noah stood up and brushed off his clothes. "I'm going home. You should hurry back too."
"Back?"
Esdeath froze for a moment, and a quick flash of loneliness crossed her face.
She gave a cold snort and turned to leave.
The law of the jungle—yes, that was right.
Her mother, her clansmen, even her father... the reason they had all been slaughtered by the northern tribes was because they were too weak.
And she would never become like them!
Clenching her fists, Esdeath headed toward the dark outskirts of the Imperial Capital.
That was where her solo campsite was.
Ever since the Partas Tribe had been wiped out, she had survived by hunting Danger Beasts alone near the frozen border.
Only after she had hunted them all down and run out of prey did she finally travel to the Imperial Capital.
As it happened, she arrived right in time for the martial arts tournament.
Since she harbored thoughts of becoming an official general in the army, she wanted to make a name for herself in the tournament while also fighting experts from all across the Empire to verify her own strength.
As she poked at her lonely campfire later that night, Esdeath recalled what had happened on the balcony.
"That kid from the noble family... how exactly did he do it? I floated up before my foot even touched him. What was that...?"
She had to figure that out.
Otherwise, even if they fought again, the result still wouldn't change.
All the burly opponents in the martial arts tournament were all show and no substance, she didn't take them seriously at all.
But for there to be someone her own age who could defeat her that easily—it excited her so much that she couldn't sleep!
"In the end, the one who wins will definitely be me. Just wait there obediently with your neck washed and—ugh..."
The girl, who had been planning to monologue a cool threatening line to the fire, suddenly choked on her own words.
Because she realized a huge problem!
Whoosh.
Esdeath sprang up from the ground with a kip-up and began hopping anxiously in place, her face flushed red.
"This is bad! I forgot to ask that guy's name!"
....
Achoo!
Noah sneezed loudly, then immediately grabbed a silk tissue and blew his nose.
Even with the robust status values of a high-end Level 2 adventurer, the inside of a human nose was still delicate and sensitive.
What he could be certain of was that this definitely wasn't caused by a cold.
Seeing Noah suddenly sneeze at the dinner table, Laims asked with concern, "You alright?"
Throwing the tissue into a silver trash bin, Noah replied, "I'm fine. Maybe someone's talking about me behind my back."
"Haha, maybe it's that fellow Roton missing you."
"Ha... ha..."
Noah was certain of one thing.
It definitely wasn't Roton.
"Mm, anyway, back to what we were talking about," Laims said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
"From now on, your official identity outside this estate will be that of my adopted son. Understood?"
"I understand."
"Good. And I'm not doing this just for political convenience, either," Laims added softly. "Your father and Roton—those two were my best friends. So to me, you're like my own blood. There's no need to overthink it or act like a stranger."
"Thank you very much, Uncle Laims."
Noah thanked him with a genuine smile.
....
The day of reporting arrived.
A sleek, black carriage bearing the Leiden household crest took Noah to a remote, quiet area far from the glittering palace.
Logically speaking, highly funded, important military facilities were usually built closer to the palace for protection and prestige, yet the headquarters of the Scientific Corps had been established almost at the dirty edge of the Imperial Capital.
The headquarters looked little different from an ordinary, rundown barracks.
Noah straightened his collar, then calmly entered through the unguarded iron gate.
The moment he stepped inside the dim building, he saw a simple, scarred wooden reception counter.
For a military corps that allegedly received a massive annual budget from the Emperor, an office like this was almost laughably shabby.
"Who are you?"
Just as Noah was about to take a closer look at the interior layout, a bald stern-looking man wearing a thick monocle came out from the back room.
The two looked at each other.
The bald man had no idea that Noah's Truth Seeker had already scanned him completely—right down to the color of his underwear—and sternly barked, "This is no place for a child playing games! Leave."
Looking at the grumpy man, Noah calmly reached into his coat, took out Laims's sealed personal letter along with the official military transfer document, and held them out.
Seeing the kid actually produce official paperwork, the bald man froze for a moment.
He didn't rashly reach out to take it.
Seeing how incredibly wary the guy was, Noah felt that he looked more like a paranoid assassin or some sort of secret agent than a government scientist.
Even standing in his own lobby, he was cautious of a kid.
Noah broke the seal and held the letter open, displaying the text to him.
Because his movements were quick—though not so quick as to seem inhuman—by the time the bald man reacted, much of the contents had already been processed by his trained eyes.
"A posting? What kind of joke is this?!"
After catching sight of the Leiden family crest and the transfer orders, the bald man's eyes widened.
He immediately snatched the documents from Noah's hand.
After carefully reading them through twice, he looked at the boy in front of him with a deeply complicated expression.
'Laims's adopted son? Wasn't the powerful Leiden family supposed to be strictly neutral and uninvolved in Capital politics?'
'Why had Laims suddenly arranged for his adopted son to join a shadowy group like the Scientific Corps?'
On the surface, whether it was the Scientific Corps or the infamous Assassination Division, both belonged to the Empire.
They were neither part of the regular army nor the Minister's personal guard.
But if the Prime Minister wanted to use them to quietly eliminate political enemies, they wouldn't refuse the order.
The Leiden family wasn't a power-hungry noble house.
As early as the previous generation, they had already let go of most of their military authority, and they currently posed no threat to the Minister's regime.
The bald man hesitated, weighing the politics, then sighed. "Fine. I understand the orders. Just follow me..."
He turned and walked down the dim corridor.
But instead of turning into one of the open offices, he headed straight toward a solid brick dead end.
Following behind him, Noah passively used his Weaver to map the air currents in the hallway.
He already realized there was more to this place than met the eye.
Though the brick wall looked like a solid dead end, the air flowed cleanly right through it, letting him sense a massive, open environment beyond.
That meant it wasn't a true dead end at all; it was an illusion.
Sure enough, the bald man placed his palm flat against a specific brick, and suddenly a large section of the wall was pressed inward.
Accompanied by a series of heavy clicking sounds, a hidden steel door hissed open, revealing a dark stairwell leading deep underground.
The bald man turned back, the glass of his monocle reflecting the dim light and giving him a rather sinister, mysterious look.
Then he suddenly introduced himself.
"My name is Bill. You may call me Instructor Bill. Starting today, I'll be your mentor in the Scientific Corps."
Bill was already pushing fifty, and quite a few of his younger colleagues just called him "old man" behind his back.
Noah's background information was all clearly written on the transfer documents, so there was no need for him to introduce himself again.
Noah simply nodded and addressed him as "Instructor."
Bill gave a curt "Mm" and silently led the way down the stairs. But inwardly, the veteran was quite surprised by Noah's calmness.
Under normal circumstances, let alone a twelve-year-old child, even hardened members of the Empire's other military divisions would show shock upon seeing a secret passage or a hidden underground laboratory.
But this child was completely different.
He was far too calm.
Whether when presenting his forged documents or when seeing the hidden passage slide open, his heart rate hadn't spiked once.
And especially in this deep corridor, where the ceiling was lined with glowing electric lights.
This was a highly classified technology never revealed to the public, held exclusively by their Scientific Corps.
A unique world-changing technology.
Even the Emperor's palace, or the Prime Minister's own lavish residence, didn't use electric lights, yet Noah had shown no major reaction to seeing them.
From the fact that the kid had deliberately glanced at the bulbs, Bill could tell that he wasn't just ignorant to "electricity" or incapable of understanding what it was.
He just didn't care.
'A strange little brat,' Bill muttered inwardly as he led Noah through several successive steel security doors, finally arriving at a massive, brightly lit, and relatively spacious subterranean area.
"We are already forty meters underground," Bill warned, turning to face Noah. "Everything you see down here is to be kept strictly classified. You are not to reveal any of it, not even to your adoptive father. Do you understand?"
Noah nodded. "Understood."
That single word left Bill, who had prepared no small number of threats, momentarily speechless.
Originally, he had intended to warn Noah that if he leaked anything, his family and friends would be implicated and so on.
In fact, because he often had to deal with situations like this, Bill already had a fixed script prepared.
It was just that this time, there seemed to be no opportunity for him to say it.
Following behind Bill, Noah was genuinely surprised.
He had originally thought this was merely a backward medieval country.
Yet this single facility overturned the impression he had built up until now.
There had been no Industrial Revolution.
This technology was secretly controlled by the Empire.
Not only did they have firearms, their energy technology had even developed to a level no inferior to the modern era.
It was not merely steam power. They could even make use of electricity.
The weapons waiting to be assembled over there looked somewhat different in appearance, but just by looking at their parts, Noah could tell what they were.
Single-soldier rocket launchers.
Although he had not seen the propellant, judging by the structure, the firearms technology mastered here had long since passed the primitive stage.
From matchlocks to fully automatic rifles, two types of weapons separated by an entire technological generation were actually being produced here at the same time.
That surprised him greatly.
They clearly possessed more advanced technology, yet they were still manufacturing those obsolete weapons.
Viewed through the eyes of a modern person, this seemed illogical. But considering that ordinary civilians did not even know what "science" was, Noah understood.
The Empire was consciously manipulating the "level of awareness" possessed by different classes, such as the common people and the army.
In the eyes of the common people, weapons were blades and spears.
In the eyes of the army, weapons were guns and cannons.
But in truth, the Empire had long since grasped far more terrifying power—rockets, perhaps even missiles, and possibly nuclear weapons.
As long as the people lived honestly and peacefully, that was fine.
But if rebels armed with blades, spears, staves, and clubs rose against the Empire, what awaited them would be streams of bullets and flying artillery shells.
Even if they fought with blood and tears to obtain the same weapons, they would then discover that the Empire still possessed even more terrifying weapons of mass destruction.
At that point, they would be nothing more than targets.