[Training, training again... No matter how many times I do it, I can't pass the selection...]
[Why do you look at me with such expectant eyes? Father...]
[It's that time again, July 824 of the Holy Calendar, the third knight selection...]
[Faced Tirar, defeated in twenty-seven seconds, once again... Are you hating me, Ivina? I can understand your feelings, a useless person took the opportunity that belonged to you...]
[If only it could be reversed, why not?]
[Perhaps I shouldn't exist at all...]
Time ticked by, the bonfire in the cave slowly burned out after consuming the last bit of dry wood.
The sudden darkness interrupted Lynn's thoughts. Waving his hand, the twigs and fallen leaves piled at the side floated up on their own, filling the still-glimmering woodpile.
The next moment, the crimson flames jumped back to life, and Lynn resumed flipping through the journal in his hand.
No, in fact, calling it a journal wasn't quite accurate.
It was the record of a noble boy with no exceptional talents, detailing his fears, inferiority, resentment, and pain that he couldn't express to others.
"Loth Pedro," Lynn read the boy's name out loud.
Undoubtedly, this was a case of being driven mad by too many expectations.
But what he saw was more complex than that.
Loth's father was a baron in the Sekas Empire, but one of those landless and fallen nobles who only had a title. On regular days, he could barely maintain his noble dignity by continuously depleting his savings.
Just like every parent who hopes their child will become successful, Baron Pedro placed all his hopes of reviving the family on his son.
For noble children like them, passing the knight examination before turning twenty and having a firm belief would qualify them to become a priest, the best way to change the family's fortunes.
For this reason, Loth underwent the strictest training from a young age, aiming to pass the knight examination to become a clergyman of the church.
Baron Pedro even spent a hefty sum to hire a formal knight to polish Loth's combat skills.
However, Loth's talent was mediocre. No matter how hard he trained, it was all in vain.
In the Nordland Territory, only three priests and clergymen were selected each year, yet countless others harbored the same ambition. Among them were those more talented, more determined, and even more influential than Loth!
Thus, since taking the examination at sixteen, Loth faced one disappointment after another. Under the weight of family expectations and harsh realities, he gradually became dull, quiet, and extremely introverted.
His sister Ivina, on the other hand, was an exception. With decent talent, she mastered noteworthy swordsmanship simply by repeatedly observing Loth's daily sparring with the formal knight.
However, for Baron Pedro, Ivina's displayed talent was merely a pleasant surprise.
In the Sekas Empire, there were indeed precedents for women to become nobles, but only under duress, like the absence of male heirs. Otherwise, daughters were usually tools for political marriages to expand the family's influence.
Spending a lot of resources on them wasn't worthwhile.
After all, the continuity of bloodlines was the essence of nobility, and choosing a female heir risked the family's amassed wealth being annexed or disappearing.
Loth, unable to bear the pressure and expectations, probably intended to force Baron Pedro into making a choice through his death.
To Lynn, Loth's decision was undoubtedly a foolish move.
He somewhat understood the nature of these nobles. According to the diary's description of Baron Pedro's character, upon learning of Loth's death, the baron would only consider whether he could father another son or adopt an excellent heir from a collateral line.
Ivina would always be the last resort.
An illegitimate child like Carl would fare even worse; they would get nothing unless the family line completely died out...
The more than a hundred-page diary quickly reached the last page. Loth's experiences slightly touched Lynn, but what truly caught his attention was a term mentioned in the diary.
"Useless person?" Lynn murmured to himself. He thought he wouldn't hear that term after arriving in this other world.
After all, here, even a farming peasant had exploitable value.
Lynn slowly exhaled, reorganized his scattered thoughts, and turned to look at Loth's corpse. Since he had accepted the other's belongings, he should bury him properly in a moment.
"071, how much energy reserve do we have now?" Lynn asked in his mind.
[Remaining energy is 12.3%, energy concentration detected to be constantly decreasing, estimated to increase energy reserve by 1% every ten hours.]
As expected... Lynn glanced at the dim sky, not surprised by this fact.
As he had hypothesized, Monday affected the activity of magic power. After a night of rest, the physical strength and magic power consumed in the previous battle had mostly been restored.
From Loth's diary, Lynn also obtained a very important piece of information — the place he was in was the port town of Nordland Territory!
This meant that the hidden underground river in the castle actually flowed directly to the Mist Sea!
Unfortunately, to deal with Bishop Anluoke, he had already sent Johnny and Bai Ge away in advance.
Lynn couldn't determine where the two witches had drifted. If their swimming skills were good, they could land anywhere, unlike him, who could only drift with the current and slowly learn to swim.
Without communication, finding two living people in the entire Nordland Territory wouldn't be easy.
Avoiding the church's pursuit was also no small problem.
Lynn pondered for a long time, and a name suddenly leapt into his mind: Crippled Laud!
Regardless of where Johnny and Bai Ge were, as long as they still planned to go to Wizard Land, they would inevitably come to the port town to try contacting Crippled Laud.
Then he only needed to find this person first!
Lynn stood up, gazing at the distant towering city walls. Now, there was only one problem left: how to safely enter the port town.
"071, bring up information on disguise and transformation techniques, preferably those that can be done with simple materials!"
Lynn glanced at Loth, whose physique and hair color were very similar to his own. Perhaps he could temporarily borrow Loth's identity to fool the port town's guards.
If he remembered correctly, besides the disguise techniques, there was also a spell in "Basic Magic Common" that could handle this situation...
(PS: New book, asking for everything.)