I'm fighting Kal'tsit? Really?

The wind lifted the lady's hood, revealing her emerald green eyes and lynx-like ears to Gerald.

There was nothing else besides that.

As the dust settled, the flesh on his cheeks began to peel away, leaving only traces of gunpowder and ash with each breath. His skin cracked inch by inch like dried soil, the broken pieces slowly falling away, silently falling to the ground with the force of gravity.

Despite his body gradually collapsing, the longsword that symbolized his family remained firmly in his hand, standing proudly and unwavering.

Empty eye sockets can't reflect anything; they can only fall to the ground and turn into dust.

Just like his body.

General Felin's longsword fell to the ground and bounced off, merging with the young man's sword.

Mon2tr, standing nearby, let out a painful howl as its crystals fell like chaff, eventually unable to support its body any longer, and crashed to the ground, howling.

Behind it, General Felin silently swallowed the blood that welled up in his mouth, wiped the blood from his head, and slowly walked to the two swords.

She picked up the sword that didn't belong to her, her fingertips tracing the smooth, flowing lines of the blade, the emblem engraved on the hilt piercing her memory.

This was a sword she had seen before.

Like the Originium Arts used by that heroic young man who died a martyr, it shouldn't, and couldn't possibly, be here.

The doubts she had previously held grew increasingly perplexing in her mind, but the person who could answer her questions was no longer speaking. So she could only shake her head, sheath her own sword on the ground, and continue her advance.

------

Gerald suddenly opened his eyes.

His vision was shrouded in cold, hard darkness, and his throat felt like it was blocked with a lump of burning sand. The feeling of forcibly suppressing the burning emotions in his chest was not pleasant—at least he felt a long-lost nausea.

He looked down at his hands, which were covered in calluses and scars, but were still intact.

"Hold."

He closed his eyes and murmured to himself.

"Gaul destroyed a century ago, the combined forces of Victoria and Letania, the Steam Knights, Kazdel..."

"...What nonsense! It would be a miracle if it wasn't a dream."

Chapter Three urgently needs a copy of *The Traveller*.

A new day brings a new look.

Despite the lingering pain from his wounds, Anthony felt he had gained a great deal in the past few days.

In this vast Mansfield prison, he rarely had anyone to communicate or chat with. Duma was one of them, but he couldn't always see her, and he couldn't disturb her when she needed medical treatment.

Gerald was the second.

His arrival also stirred up some memories of the past for Anthony. Although the other man was always sharp-tongued, his skills and knowledge were beyond what a normal prisoner should have, and they got along very well.

Someone he could talk to freely, someone so capable that he could vent his anger, yet still say to him in a mocking tone, "You should eat more, big guy, or you'll be exhausted before I can even make a move."

This mockery didn't even evoke any emotion in Anthony; he simply took it as one of his friend's quirks.

After all, in a place like this, care and tolerance from others are an excessive luxury. The same goes for combat instruction—he was quite certain that there was no tuition fee cheaper than a box of candy.

Especially when the other party was once a knight.

However, he did not see Gerald today.

“Come on, Anthony, you have an hour of reading time today.”

After once again assisting the prison guards in feigning to suppress the riots in Blocks A and B, Anthony quietly withdrew his searching gaze.

Gerald would sometimes come to areas A and B to observe the scene of the gang fighting, but he was obviously not there now.

So he silently followed behind the greasy, fat man toward the underground library.

Once they reached the corridor out of the prisoners' sight, the prison guard, wearing sunglasses and chewing a cigar, couldn't help but break into a laugh: "Hey, who beat our Anthony up like this? That's quite a sight."

Ordinary prison guards would not normally choose to provoke Anthony in this way.

Except for prison guard Barton.

As the top warden under Randolph, his penguin-like waddling gait revealed an undisguised laziness, and his protruding belly alone showed how comfortable and pleasant his life must be in this prison where even flies are considered delicacies.

Anthony merely glanced at Barton beside him, without even considering replying—if he had needed politeness to restrain his anger before, he no longer needed to maintain such superficial politeness towards those who provoked him.

Seeing that his taunts had failed, Barton's face immediately darkened.

“Ah, Anthony, my friend. In this respect you should learn from Mr. Gerald, or at least maintain your previous manners—at least you don’t look like a beast in that manner.”

"I think I'll take your opinion into consideration, Patton."

Anthony suddenly felt a strong urge to grin and reveal the狰狞 (zhengning, meaning ferocious or hideous) face that Barton had described, to see the other man terrified and running away in a panic. That would be quite amusing.

This thought lingered in his mind for a moment, then gradually faded away.

Spending a lot of time with certain people can even change their personality. Perhaps this is a positive change.

"Humph."

Barton snorted and placed his bulky legs on the floor below ground.

This library is usually not very popular, but since someone suggested introducing some comic books, the prison guards have become much more interested in coming here.

Although the space isn't spacious, the high ceilings and heavy wooden doors give it a rather grand feel. Pushing open the door, you're greeted by a bookshelf area comprised of several large bookshelves. The surrounding bookshelves are made of dark brown old elm wood, and although the carvings on the edges have become blurred with age, they still reveal their former exquisiteness; they were probably secondhand items bought from some market.

At a table in the reading area, a silver-haired young man flipped through the book in his hands.

A mountain of books had piled up around him, and it was unclear when he had started reading them.

“Ah, Gerald.” In stark contrast to his attitude toward Anthony, Barton immediately put on a fawning smile when he saw Gerald. “My brother, you have no idea how much I’ve made these past few days.”

Barton took a step closer, his tone brimming with undisguised smugness: "It's all thanks to you! That project was a money tree! I only put in 10,000 a month ago, and hey, when I looked back, there was a hundred thousand more in my account! Ten times, ten times! I've never seen such a fast return in my life!"

Gerald looked up from the history book in front of him and calmly looked at Barton: "Ah, the project I mentioned earlier has started?"

“Yes.” Barton found a stool and sat down, completely ignoring Anthony behind him. “The Knights’ Tournament in Casimir is in six months. We’ll make a fortune then, and maybe we can even bring some Blue Cardwood to prison with Brother Randall.”

"There will be further developments over there."

The young man spoke with little enthusiasm, even as the other person excitedly spit out words, his face remained dull. "Trust me, you'll hear even better news next time."

Having his purpose exposed, Barton simply chuckled twice. Now that he had obtained the intelligence, there was no need for him to linger here.

"Alright, if you want to eat later, I'll have the new prison guard bring you some. I won't disturb you from reading any longer."

As the door closed, Anthony, who had been silent to the side, cast a curious glance at Gerald.

"Don't look at me like that, as if you're discovering who I am for the first time."

Gerald didn't even look up, continuing to casually flip through the book in his hands, seemingly with no intention of carefully reading its contents.

Anthony deliberately chose a seat far from where Barton had just sat, holding the book he had only half-read the day before: "I didn't know you were leaving."

The young man scoffed, but slowed down the pace of his book flipping through the pages: "Based on those few words just now? Who knows if I actually recommended anything good to Barton?"

“That’s a signal, isn’t it?” Anthony continued, his eyes fixed on Gerald. “The Knights’ Tournament in Casimir two years ago happened right before I went to prison, so I remember it vividly… I even wrote a paper about the virtual economy surrounding the Knights’ Tournament. It’s not difficult to make money from it.”

"But for an outsider to make money in the end and then withdraw that money... is simply wishful thinking."

Gerald glanced up at his friend in prison and noticed a rare hint of melancholy on his face: "I didn't know you were such a chatterbox."

"Perhaps, maybe I just hadn't considered this possibility beforehand, and all of this seems a bit sudden to me."

Anthony quickly composed himself. "In other words, I only have these last six months left to study, or perhaps—"

Anthony didn't say the second half of his sentence, but his resolute gaze completed it for him.

"If you can go two days without food or water in the wilderness and run at the speed of a mobile city, then I think you can join me. If you can't, then I'm sorry, I don't want to be some big guy's reserve food."

Gerald decisively rejected the duo queue invitation.

The mobile city can grow legs to avoid the Originium storm, which symbolizes natural disasters. The two ordinary people who have never served as messengers of natural disasters can either run faster than the storm, or they can only wait to die in the wilderness, or pray that some wandering wanderers in the wilderness can give them a ride.

“Alright, things aren’t settled yet.” Gerald took a tin box from his breast pocket, shook it, and pulled out a piece of candy. “Don’t you want to ask me why I suddenly started reading history books? It all started with a dream I had yesterday—”

Anthony sighed and chose to play dead at this moment.

After all, his talkativeness was only forcibly imposed on him by the other party, while Gerald's talkativeness was absolutely genuine and could erupt at any time.

Just like it is now.

……

"You mean, you witnessed something that happened a hundred years ago yesterday?"

Surprisingly, after listening to Gerald's story, Anthony frowned and put the book aside, seemingly truly immersed in the battlefield Gerald described.

"The fall of Gaul happened nearly seventy years ago, which, if it did happen in history, would be a century ago. As for whether Kazdel ever really existed... I think I've only heard about it from some Sarkaz."

“Ha, perhaps it’s the Sarkaz’s ideal world? A perpetually wandering race longs for a place that can embrace them, a classic narrative trope.” Gerald glanced at the mountain of books piled up beside him. “Never mind, I didn’t expect to find any answers in these books anyway. But to learn about things beyond my comprehension from a dream either means I subconsciously know about them, or my dreams themselves are abnormal.”

Upon hearing this, Anthony became curious about one particular point in the description: "What kind of person killed you? If their rank in the army was even higher than that of the legendary steam knights, then perhaps they were the royal guard of the Gauls?"

"She's beautiful. She reminds me of Viviana Droste, who became famous not long ago, especially the color of her eyes... By the way, you actually believe what I dreamt about?"

Gerald glared at Anthony, who was listening intently to the story: "Why do I feel like you believe this isn't just a simple dream even more than I do?"

Upon hearing this, Anthony paused for a moment, carefully considering the answer to the question.

After about half a minute, he looked up and spoke earnestly to Gerald.

"If you only describe some general scenes in a general way, I would assume that it is just your memory of the battlefield and your stress response."

"But if you can describe every detail of the dream in such detail, from the patterns on the steam knight's armor to the feeling of the sword piercing the body."

"I would advise you to be more cautious."

Chapter Four: Reading, and then encountering Rhine Fist King.

After the lunch bell rang throughout the library, Anthony's one-hour reading time also came to an end.

He had no intention of breaking the prison rules, to which Gerald could only wish him a safe journey.

Unlike Anthony, Gerald did not need external rules to restrain his mind, nor did he have a target for revenge or a burning rage. Therefore, after "bribing" Barton, he did not need to care about following the rules in prison.

But after watching Anthony leave, Gerald kept replaying the words the other man had just left in his mind.

Is someone going to tell him that his deceased mother was actually a descendant of Nightmare, and that he was a hybrid of Pegasus and Nightmare? Is this dream just his bloodline playing tricks?

Alright, that's enough of my wild thoughts. It's not like I won't live tonight; the truth will come out then.

He sighed, put the history book back into the small mountain of books, got up, picked up the whole stack, and put them back in their respective bookshelves.

For Gerald, who spent 25 years of his life on Earth and 25 years on Terra, most of the knowledge that could be considered useful was just some life hacks.

Knowledge like "wrapping a beverage bottle in a wet wipe and putting it in the refrigerator will quickly cool it down in just 10 minutes" is completely meaningless in Terra, where everyone is a superhuman... Well, actually, it's still somewhat useful from a practical standpoint.

But after all, he was born in a country that revered martial prowess, and his family elders represented the pinnacle of martial strength.

His innate talent alone was not enough. If he hadn't relied on his accumulated knowledge to save time during the theoretical stage and practice like crazy, his head would probably have been cut off when he was in battle.

From this perspective, the knowledge he has stored up in his head about "trick-following in daily life" is probably only useful when he's boasting in front of others.

After putting the book back on the shelf, Gerald picked up the medical theory he hadn't finished reading earlier and pulled out his pen and notebook from a corner.

If a medical student were to experience any major setback in the world of Terra, the first thing he would award would be the racial features that were created for reasons unknown.

This meant that while the knowledge he had learned in his previous life was capable of being used, it could only be used to a very small extent.

Unfamiliar knowledge would occasionally burst forth and attack him during the consultation, and the ear structure of Kuranta and Felin, along with their lively tails, gave him a painful feeling of being a dual practitioner of veterinary medicine and clinical medicine.

Fortunately, he had practiced on the battlefield with his comrades when he needed to, and every patient who received his treatment was moved to tears by his excellent skills. He felt that after all the trials and tribulations, he should be considered a renowned doctor.

dong dong.

There was a knock at the library door, which was then opened, and a tall female prison guard walked in.

She stood tall and straight, her right hand holding a steaming plate of food: meatballs and hamburgers drizzled with broth, a pizza that didn't look very appetizing, and a main course of cream cheese sauce with Syracuse-style wide noodles—the highest standard in the prison, which even Patton praised.

Perhaps because he had made a fortune these past few days and Anthony had been beaten up, Barton was in a high mood, and even the food he gave the prison guards was much more plentiful.

"Your lunch." The other person's words were brief, their orange eyes partially obscured by the brim of their police cap and stray hairs, appearing and disappearing from view.

"Thank you. New here? First time as a prison guard, right?" Gerald deliberately placed the books and notes he was holding a little further away; painful memories made him dread the possibility of anything hot, like soup or books, getting close to him. "Are you settling in alright?"