Time that seemed to have stopped, resumed once again.
Michael, Ruwel and Enzo could only watch on as Kai acted like nothing happened.
Michael parted his lips but stopped abruptly.
Kai smiled hiding his true thoughts behind his impeccable gentle façade.
Even if they had questions, so what ?
It was a well-known tradition to only teach family and closest friends the techniques used by swordsmen and mages.
It was impolite and intrusive to question mages and swordsmen without the related party being the one to open up.
It was an unwritten but closely followed rule implemented to avoid fights between different parties from early on.
'Moreover, the ones who carelessly threw around their mana were them.'
Kai suppressed the smirk that crossed his lips.
With the situation that unfolded as it is, the momentum of the conversation at the beginning would become his.
"I apologize for the unsightly behavior."
Michael composed himself astonishingly well.
He cleared his throat to cover up his blunder and his expression became grave.
"I'm sure you know of the Raea magical artifact. Two weeks ago, the artifact picked up on a massive fluctuation of energy near the isles of Blanche. To this day, that is the highest energy fluctuation observed by the mage tower."
Kai listened attentively and the atmosphere in the office room became somber.
"Considering the seriousness of the situation, the imperial family, the mage tower and the holy temple discussed about the severity and gathered a troop of holy knights under the command of duke Ruwel Hart. Since the isles of Blanche is marked as a historical territory of the holy temple, they were sent here first."
Michael's tone was neither light nor heavy. His thoughts about this incident couldn't be discerned.
"Their purpose was to survey the sight keeping a certain distance and keep a low profile to not induce panic among the citizens. A second group consisting of mages and knights from the three factions were to soon follow them. But a few days ago, we lost contact with the first troop. Thinking that the situation was dire, we hurriedly followed after."
With that Michael turned towards Ruwel, as if he wanted to hear an explanation.
It was the same thing Kai wanted.
In the original plot, Ruwel Hart disappeared from it, later claimed murdered by the original Kai Morgan by the holy temple.
How did that person survive ? It wasn't hard for him to guess that Ruwel Hart was killed by the sea imugi or the sea dragon.
But he couldn't understand what changed other than his participation.
Kai was the only variable.
While he could fully understand that, he didn't think he had that much of an influence on the flow of the world.
"I would like to know what happened duke Hart. Did you get attacked by the monster ?"
Michael's tone wasn't accusatory towards Ruwel.
It was as if he had never considered the fact that Ruwel Hart deliberately concealed important information about the monster from them and didn't warn them.
But Kai knew the true face of the person hiding behind the charismatic persona of the first imperial prince.
'He probably already considered all the possibilities and discarded them.'
Kai's thoughts trailed towards the plausible behavior of Michael and he turned his attention towards Ruwel.
He felt a faint surge of anticipation as he got close to gaining one of the answers for a question that plagues his mind recently.
"Your highness, before I answer can I ask you a question ?"
Duke Hart's voice was indifferent and cold, but underneath all that, there was an emotion Kai couldn't discern.
Michael merely blinked at duke Hart as if he expected this. Michael raised a fist propped up on the arm of the couch and placed his chin, like he had the all the time in the world.
No one could discern his thoughts and emotions from his inexplicable smile.
"Yes, please go ahead."
"Your highness, did you feel that someone crossed over the wall ?"
At that, a flash of emotions appeared barely there and vanished without a trace.
There was only silence from him. Kai felt a foreboding feeling the moment he heard the word 'wall'.
'Surely there not talking about that wall, are they ?'
An afterimage of a huge wall that stretched like a mountain came to Kai's mind.
A black wall of darkness that separated the humans who are unworthy from another world.
"What wall are you talking about ?"
Despite the topic of the conversation being changed to a topic that would seem nonsensical to most, Enzo didn't appear angry.
There was only confusion in spite of them changing the topic of the conversation arbitrarily amidst a serious conversation.
There was no anger as he didn't jump to conclusions.
Truly worthy of being a male lead.
Michael and Ruwel exchanged a glance in an unspoken agreement.
Unexpectedly, the answer to the question came from Michael rather than Ruwel.
"Do you know why the swordmasters are called beings beyond humans ?"
There was a pause before he parted his lips.
"As you climb ranks in swordsmanship, it becomes harder to raise your skills and mana. It's rare for swordsmen to reach expert level much less the swordmaster level. When people say there's a wall between expert ranks and swordmasters, it isn't necessarily wrong."
Ever since Kai transmigrated to this body, he hadn't given up on training the sword and in magic. He trained tirelessly, even when he was in the ship.
The theoretical and practical knowledge of magic and swordsmanship were stored in his brain surprisingly.
It didn't take long for him to familiarize himself with that.
His mind drew a solemn picture as he remembered what he encountered.
The wall between the expert ranks and the swordmaster ranks.
The wall that stood between him becoming a swordmaster.
It could be surpassed if one were to harness a massive amount of mana and wield it against the wall.
Whether to reach the swordmaster, it all depended on the fact of crushing that wall or splitting it apart.
But not every expert had the ability to do so.
To Kai, even when he was Kim Su-bin, humans were an interesting existence.
Beings who had endless potential and the least potential. The complexity of the human society wasn't something one can understand no matter how long they have lived.
To Kai, humans were such beings. Either they would thrive or would perish. It all depended on their potential.
He realized this fact anew when he came to this world.
In this world, some had the potential to be great while some had none at all.
The capacity and ability to harness mana.
That was the sole difference between the experts that passed through the wall and the experts that were stuck there for the rest of their lives.
In this world, it was a common practice to train mana techniques that involved absorbing a high amount of mana.
Because people believed to raise their ranks whether it's magic or swordsmanship, they needed a lot of mana.
It wasn't necessarily wrong but it wasn't necessarily right either.
It was the skill to harness and condense mana. In simple terms, to weaponize mana.
Experts ranks can only pass through the wall to the realm of the swordmasters only after they realized this fact.
Mana that can manifest physically is a weapon worthy of wielding because humans are beings with different potential.
While the amount of mana absorbed or the level of skill in handling mana varied, humans' creativity knew no bound.
While immersed in thoughts, Michael's voice filtered through to his mind.
"Once the expert level swordsmen surpassed the wall between the expert rank and the next, they enter a zone. It was a zone where all the swordmasters can be felt. Even if you enter the zone first time, it becomes harder to enter zone again even for swordmasters. It is said that those who can wield the power of the zone even among the swordmasters were rare and are far more powerful."
Kai pursed his lips as Michael's voice reached his ears.
"I felt the rise of a new swordmaster."
"What ?"
Enzo exclaimed in surprise while Kai acted shocked.
"That's right. So I urged the crew on the ship because I had to get back and investigate the circumstance. We reached the valley of the wailing sooner than intended. Unfortunately, our ship was wrecked and the attack wasn't perceived. I apologize for that. The attack was swift and fast. I am the only survivor. It was due to my negligence that this happened."
Ruwel apologized with an expressionless face but there was a trace of sincerity and grimness in his voice.
Everyone here knew, it wasn't simple negligence that led to the annihilation of the troop or the crew of the ship.
But it wasn't a simple fact that can be brushed off saying 'it's alright' because they had lost too many lives in this expedition.
Even so...
"It's not your fault, your grace."
Kai wanted to erase the trace of grimness hidden behind the indifferent face of the duke Hart. Whether Ruwel was his father or not, the moment he saw his eyes he knew he was family.
'This much is enough.'
Kai didn't want to get involved with the characters who became real living breathing people but this should be enough.
The head he lowered due to his heavy thoughts was lifted again only to be met with the surprised eyes of Ruwel.
"That's right. The emergence of the monsters isn't something that we could have fully suppressed even if we knew beforehand."
Michael also added a word of comfort.
"I wasn't sure what attacked us. So I couldn't warn you without sufficient information. When I was searching through the ship wreck for survivors, I was captured by the pirates that passed through there. Due to the injuries I had accumulated, it wasn't easy to fend them off. Then, I met your highness on the same ship."
Throughout the explanation, Ruwel's voice was solemn but there were no other emotions. As if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
With this Kai was able to draw a clear picture about what differed from the plot and the reality.
Kai had indirectly saved Ruwel's life. A smug smirk crossed his lips.
Ruwel had hurried the troop and the crew of the ship due to the emergence of the new swordmaster, who was Kai and reached the designated location.
He survived the unexpected attack from the sea imugi but was injured to the point of death. But due to arriving at the location earlier than in the plot, he encountered the pirates and was rescued.
'Finally, the puzzle pieces fit together.'
Kai's mind flooded with satisfaction.