Regressor Of The Fallen Family [EN]: Chapter 4

Logan walked towards the castle. It had been three months since he promised his father he would change.

As Logan walked from his family’s land to the castle, the servants and other workers who saw him quickly went another way to avoid him, even if they saw him far away.

It wasn’t just because Logan had a bad reputation.

A servant stopped, staring. “Is that… a beggar?” he whispered.

Another servant peeked from behind a pillar. “Why is a beggar inside the castle?”

“Shhh!” hissed a third, pulling them back. “Be quiet! That’s the eldest young master, Logan.”

“That dirty beggar… is *him*?” The first servant’s eyes widened.

“Quiet, I said!” The third servant glared. “Shut your mouth before you get us all in trouble!”

Logan heard every hushed word as if they shouted. His senses were incredibly sharp now, much stronger than before. He didn’t miss a single whisper.

However, he didn’t care about what they said.

Logan’s attention was focused on one thing.

‘The time is almost here.’

His memories weren’t perfect, so he had come down a bit early, but the incident would still happen within a week.

The next goal to achieve after getting stronger was…

‘Money.’

The event that would give him that money was just around the corner.

‘I can do it.’

He felt his new power inside him, the power he had worked to gain. He knew he was stronger now, and this made him sure he could achieve his goal without much difficulty.

“Ugh. Did you spend the last three months rolling around in the sewers?! What on earth did you do at the family estate?!”

“I told you, I was training.”

“Ugh. What kind of training involves rolling around in the mud? Young master, you smell terrible! Please stand back a bit!”

Rick grumbled as he poured water and scrubbed Logan with the scrubbing brush.

He really didn’t want to be near Logan, who looked like a mud monster.

Seeing the dirt coming off him, almost black as sewage, Logan was speechless.

“Ah. Did anything interesting happen while I was gone?” he asked, feeling awkward.

“Nothing much. It was very quiet while you were gone, young master… Aha ha. I mean… it was boring. Yes, boring, that’s what I meant. Yes, indeed.”

“……”

“Wa, wait, now that I think about it, something did happen! But it’s….”

“What is it?”

Rick told him what people were saying.

The eldest young master ran away to avoid a duel with the younger young master.

He gave up and went into hiding because he hated being compared.

People said that such a coward was not fit to be the heir of a knightly family.

The private training of the past three months had become twisted into strange rumors spreading within the family.

“That’s absurd. Well, I think I know who’s behind it.”

“Y-you said you wouldn’t care about the rumors, right? Right? You mustn’t get upset!”

“It’s alright, it’s fine. It’s a problem that will be solved once I meet Father anyway.”

There was no way his father, a high-ranking knight, wouldn’t know that he had awakened his powers.

The moment his father realized that, such rumors would disappear anyway.

However, Logan’s hopes were crushed in just one day.

On the way to meet his father to report the end of his private training, Logan faced a completely unexpected situation in front of the official residence.

“What did you say?”

“According to a very old family law, even direct family members cannot meet the head of the family without telling him first.”

Logan glanced back with an absurd expression, and Rick mumbled in a hesitant voice.

“It’s true that it’s a family law from hundreds of years ago…”

What kind of ridiculous nonsense was this?

“I met him like that just three months ago?”

“Then the guard in charge at that time did not do his job properly, young master.”

Logan stared silently at the knight in his forties who was blocking his path.

‘This never happened in my previous life….’

Since he had made different choices from his past before he went back in time, it was natural that the future would change, but he never thought it would be in a way that made his treatment worse.

But at that moment, Logan’s amplified senses heard the conversation of the soldiers hiding inside the residence.

“Isn’t the knight crazy? He’s still the eldest young master.”

“I don’t know. He’s always been reckless. He’s retiring soon. You bet on the returning side too, didn’t you?”

“Will he really return? Or will he cause trouble?”

“They say he’s a coward who’s afraid of a fourteen-year-old kid. So wouldn’t he just return quietly?”

“Well, whatever happens, the knight will take responsibility…”

“We didn’t know because it’s our break time.”

Now, at this moment, he could fully experience his bad reputation.

“There are no soldiers available to deliver a message inside right now. Please come again next time, young master.”

The knight’s smiling face twisted Logan’s mood.

‘Ha, look at this bastard?’

Logan had never been docile.

However, the decades he spent as a mercenary and in independent armies after leaving his comfortable family had given him a lot of patience.

He didn’t want to play along with such shallow provocations….

But something bothered him.

No one cared.

Around the knight, inside the mansion, many family members were watching. But most of them were pretending not to know or looking elsewhere, and some were even smiling.

No one stopped the knight, not even a disapproving look.

He knew that he was being looked down upon and that his reputation was at rock bottom, but experiencing it like this was different.

‘Was it this bad? This is a bit troublesome….’

The plan he had in mind when he came to see his father, to gradually reverse his reputation by showing his changed self and gaining recognition, was scrapped at this moment.

‘There’s no need to postpone it.’

He had ignored it in his head, but the fire in his heart, which was still in his young body, was carried by calculated anger and moved to his eyes.

“What’s your name, knight?”

“It’s Dominon, young master.”

The knight answered with a smile, as if he was now openly planning to ignore Logan.

“Alright, Dominon. You have insulted me by using a family law that is outdated.”

“……Yes?”

“I, Logan McLain, request a duel with the knight Dominon to repay the unjust insult.”

The knight’s face became angry when Logan spoke as if he didn’t care.

Everyone stared at Logan, eyes wide with confusion, mouths hanging open in silence, until the training glove Logan took out hit Dominon’s chest and fell to the floor.

Rick was the first to react.

“Young Master! No!”

Before the knight could answer, Rick desperately shouted and blocked Logan’s path.

Rick thought Logan was just a weak young boy who had even lost to the younger son before.

He couldn’t possibly allow such a reckless act.

However.

“It’s alright, Rick. He’s useless now, anyway.”

Logan provoked the knight even further, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Young Master?!”

Rick turned around, his face as white as chalk, almost blue around his lips with fear, but Dominon’s face twisted into an ugly mask of rage, veins popping out on his forehead.

Logan held no official title in the family.

However, because they were a knight family, he was considered a knight trainee before becoming an adult.

A knight trainee asking for a sparring match with a knight, who was supposed to be better than him, wasn’t against the rules. It was a tradition that was even encouraged.

However, a duel was different. He didn’t have to accept it.

“Why? Will you refuse, Sir Dominon? Are you going to run away like everyone knows you are a coward? Go ahead then.”

But Dominon couldn’t refuse.

The moment Logan touched his sore spot, the fact that he had mocked Logan first disappeared from his mind.

‘He thinks I’m useless?!’

Even if the other person was Logan.

He couldn’t stand being insulted like this.

As a knight of McLaine, even if he won a duel against a direct descendant, there would be consequences.

But Dominon wasn’t even thinking about that anymore.

Rage had taken over his mind.

“I accept the duel.”

Dominon’s teeth gritted together so hard it sounded like stones grinding, and Logan could almost hear them crack.

The argument from the mansion entrance moved to the knight’s training ground.

The knights who were training suddenly became the audience, watching the sparring match with great interest.

Of course, none of them thought Logan would win.

They were interested to see how long Logan would last against the knight, or how badly he would lose.

Every knight had seen Logan completely embarrassed by Ronian in the public sparring match before.

But…

‘I wonder if they’re wondering if I’m bad, or Ronian is amazing.’

If he won against the knight now, what kind of rumors would spread?

Even before the sparring match started, Logan wondered what would happen next.

Luckily, the knight who would be his sacrifice was making Logan want to fight even more.

“…Please be careful, Great Young Master.”

Even though he was angry, Dominon spoke politely.

Even though he started the argument, he didn’t dare to insult the family’s direct descendant in front of the other knights.

“From this moment on, we will begin the official sparring match between Logan McLaine and Knight Dominon! For safety, we will only use wooden swords! Both of you, do your best!”

The knight who was caught off guard and became the referee during training didn’t look happy.

But all he could do was take away the real swords and limit them to wooden weapons.

But even with a wooden sword, a knight who could use Force could kill someone, so he was still worried.

However, Logan was too stubborn to change his mind.

‘Whatever happens, it’s not my fault. Still, Sir Dominon, please be careful.’

While he was nervously twitching his face, Dominon charged towards Logan, unexpectedly.

“Taat!”

A faint red glow pulsed around Dominon, like heat rising from hot metal, showing the Force barely contained within him.

This red glow showed Force leaving his body. It meant he couldn’t control his Force well, but it looked scary to those who didn’t know much about it.

‘I’ll fix your habits.’

The wooden sword whistled through the air with a harsh, cracking sound and split into three sword shadows, aiming for Logan’s entire body.

‘I’ll end this quickly!’

Dominon couldn’t forget the insult from just now.

His age, the younger knights rising up.

Having accepted the lowest rank in the Knights, 53rd place, when he entered his forties, he had already decided to retire.

He was just doing easy tasks and enjoying his last days as a knight.

However, Logan’s words had sparked the knight’s last bit of pride.

‘I’m not useless!’

Even though Dominon was less talented than other knights, he had his own special move from his experience.

Since he had already decided to retire.

He would beat Logan quickly with this move and teach this young master, who was too young to understand how things worked, a lesson.

Logan didn’t even move when Dominon used his special move, the Triple Strike. Dominon thought he would win easily.

However.

“Gwaek!”

He screamed strangely because of the loud hit and the terrible pain in his wrist.

The wooden sword, thrown from the knight’s hand with a short scream, rolled on the ground.

The training ground was silent for a moment.

“What’s the point of a feint if you can’t even move your wrist? Is that all you’ve got, *Sir* Knight? I expected more from someone so ‘experienced’.”

Logan’s mocking voice broke the silence.

Then, as if it were a signal, gasps and shouts of astonishment burst from the crowd like fireworks exploding in the training ground.

“N-no way!”

“That Great Young Master?”

“I didn’t even see it?”

Even the surprised servants and helpers were talking loudly.

“…A Force user?”

“The Great Young Master?”

“Huh…….”

The knights, who are usually calm, were looking at each other and talking excitedly, even more than the servants.

“Referee, I’d like to give Dominon another chance. What do you think?”

Logan’s voice drew everyone’s attention.

“…W-well, if you wish. Dominon, are you alright?”

The referee, still shocked, looked at Dominon, who nodded heavily with a face even redder than before.