I slowly opened my eyes and saw the moldy ceiling of the infirmary. Infirmary in this merchant family mansion was one of the busiest places. Guards who got injured on the escort missions were brought here on a daily basis. This was also the place I was most familiar with, with me being a regular guest here.

I tried to get up from the bed right before a sharp pain throughout my body disallowed me to.

“Ribs are broken in three places and the bones in your forearm are almost crushed completely. Even for you, this degree of injury is a first, child.” The old lady, in a small white gown, spoke while stirring a mixture in a bowl. Lady Arna looked like the witches in the old stories that my mother used to tell me. Her hair was unclean and covered half of her face, while boil marks were clearly visible on her hands and neck.

If looks were anything to go by, she looked like she would eat kids. Well, looks sure were deceiving in this case though. She was one of the kindest people I had met ever since coming to this world. She was the only one who had never treated me like a slave, I was a child in her eyes.

She looked at me in an exasperated manner while sighing loudly.

“I heard you disrespected the captain of guards. I didn’t think you were that stupid, child.”

She kept looking at me, probably in the hopes of getting some response. But I just ignored her remark and turned my face the other way. I had believed my neck would be hurt the most, but it looks like I was able to evade most of the attack.

“Sigh… I was able to heal most of your injuries, but some of them are so severe that my healing powers did not work. I have applied some paste on the injuries, so I believe you should be up and running by tonight. Don't go provoking people you can't handle, child. Overconfidence always leads to disasters. And you don't even have anything to be confident about.”

She stood up and started walking outside of the room as she said these words. I couldn't agree more. I was so weak that even other children could kill me accidentally. I had to get stronger, faster. I knew that the ability to influence mana around you would manifest around children who were older than ten. Some geniuses were able to comprehend and influence mana around the age of 8. But I knew that I could do it now. Notwithstanding the fact that I was almost 30 years old when I died, I was one of the strongest and smartest people there. It might look like I'm tooting my own horn but what's true, is true. After all, there was a reason I was called Amon, even though I despised that nickname.

I had been infuriated with myself for not being able to learn it sooner. But unlearning things from my world and teaching myself a completely new concept of mana was difficult, even for me.

As soon as Lady Arna left the room, I forced my body to get up. Fighting against the justified screams of my body, I walked towards the cupboard below the shelf where bandages and cotton were kept. My eyes fell on the bottles of spirits kept inside the cupboard. I took two bottles and arranged the remaining ones in a way that my theft wouldn’t be found out. At least not until I had done what needed to be done.

I took off the dirty cloth that I called a shirt, and wrapped it around the two bottles. I put the rolled up shirt under my head as I laid down on the bed again.

‘This many bottles would do.’ I thought in a gleeful mood. I had been collecting these spirit bottles for around a year and half now. I was very sure that I would succeed in my attempt. Well, running away was easy as per the plan I had made. But I wanted to kill a person as well, and that was the difficult part.

However I knew, as soon as I learned how to influence mana around me, I would be stronger than most of the people here. My past life gave me an unfair advantage in the skills section. Even if I deemed myself to not be strong enough to pull it off, I would bide my time and try it again when I’m strong enough.

Sooner or later, I will get out of here.

I closed my eyes and started focusing on my body. From my fingers to my toes, from my muscles to my bones. I, very slowly, inspected every corner of my body to investigate its current state.

The damage was not that severe, it would just be a mild inconvenience to me.

After my body's inspection, I moved on to comprehending the mana around me. I breathed in and out, trying to communicate with the mana and it listened to me slightly timidly.

It felt a little like assimilating and then getting used to it at a single step. I could feel the mana inside me coalescing in the form of an orb. I relaxed my body as I reveled in the feeling of being drowned in mana.

I opened my eyes suddenly and looked out of the window, to see that the sun was beginning to set. I got up from the bed as I inspected the mana orb that had manifested in my body.

‘Success!’ I had done it. I had formed a mana orb and I would be able to use mana arts again. It's been so long. I had felt as if I was stripped of my clothes for this long. It felt good and comfortable as I clad my body in mana.

It was quite depressing to see that the amount of mana around my body was significantly less than what I was used to in my previous life. Nevertheless, it was enough for what I was about to do tonight.

I had noticed ever since coming to this world that the people of this world could not utilise the mana properly. Or maybe, the people i had met so far were absolute imbeciles. Even the captain of guards, Dorian, wasn't anything spectacular. I was very sure that the current me could defeat him in a mano-a-mano. It would be difficult, and the chances of me dying were really high, but the possibility of my victory was also substantial. While he might utilise much more mana than I can utilise right now, my application of mana is far, far, far above that red head.

I picked up the bottles wrapped in my shirt and quickly left the infirmary. I had been waiting for this for a long time. I had been preparing for this for the majority of my time here. I quickened my pace as I ran back to the brook near the slave quarters.

I ran to the brook and started walking by its bank as I counted my steps. Around half an hour later, I reached the place I had buried my stuff in.

The place looked absolutely normal and I had taken extra measures to make sure that no one would see this place accidentally. I ran to a tree and started digging the damp ground with my hands. I had dug for around three foot when I touched cloth in the hole. I hurriedly took it out before removing the soil off of it.

The cloth had been tattered and rotten but it atleast did its job of protecting the belongings inside it. I opened the knot and spread the cloth open to reveal the things inside it. A lot of bottles of spirit and three-four pairs of clothes, a leather pouch to store water and a short blade. I had no idea what the outside world looked like, so I had to be prepared in any way I could. While I didn't care enough for clothes, water and food were a must. I could collect water from the brook and that should last me for around two days. For the food, I'll have to hunt the animals myself. The four pairs of clothes that i had collected were to be used tonight, so animal skin would have to do instead.

I never thought that I, Mehr of the House Augustus, would have to worry about clothes one day. Well, life was unfair to everyone equally. I collected all the things as I had these random thoughts. I started walking towards the slave quarters as I remembered the motto of my old family.

“Let the sun shine in darkness.”