Chapter 06

Deep into the night, darkness descended like a curtain.

The black, silk-like shadows enveloped the quarters of Carserium.

The riders’ rooms were shrouded in silence, with only one exception.

Ethan’s room.

It was a luxurious space, incomparably grander than the narrow beds used by the other riders.

“Maybe becoming the representative of my cohort isn’t such a bad deal after all.”

Ethan stretched his stiff body and sprawled out across the bed.

Having been on edge since the afternoon, he could feel sleep washing over him in gentle waves.

Just then—

Thud!

The window rattled slightly as a sharp gust of wind slipped inside.

At the same time, a shadow glided into the room.

It was a falcon.

Ethan instinctively reached out and caught the bird.

A small note was tied to its leg.

He untied the tightly knotted string and unfolded the paper.

[To the top of the spire.]

A short, decisive message.

Ethan’s eyes gleamed.

‘It must be Lowfang.’

The name flashed through his mind.

He had no idea why Lowfang had sent him such a note, but he had no reason to hesitate.

‘The spire… Is that the one?’

Ethan naturally turned his gaze toward the window.

Some distance away, standing in isolation, a ruined spire seemed to flaunt its very existence.

Its eerie atmosphere made Ethan slightly uneasy, but he stepped outside without much hesitation.

The staircase leading to the spire was an endless spiral.

Dim lanterns lining the walls flickered, casting dark shadows across the stone.

“Hah… Hah…”

Just as his breathing grew ragged and his legs began to feel heavy, he finally reached the last step.

Ethan moistened his lips and looked ahead.

Beneath the shattered ceiling, a man sat atop a half-collapsed wall.

With his back against the broken masonry, he looked as though he were perched on the edge of an endless abyss.

Faint moonlight filtered through the ruins, illuminating his figure.

Lowfang.

He had an angular jaw as sharp as a sword’s hilt, and his slightly disheveled hair fluttered in the wind.

Wearing a black coat, his silhouette resembled a wraith lurking in the darkness.

“You came.”

Lowfang spoke in a low voice.

“Weren’t we supposed to meet during the induction ceremony? I may have been a former guild master of the Thieves’ Guild, but that was mostly luck. I’m not exactly in great shape, you know.”

Ethan asked between ragged breaths.

Lowfang let out a quiet laugh.

“Haha. With that level of stamina, how do you expect to become a collector? Plans have changed. We’re going out to collect again.”

“…Again?”

“That’s right.”

Lowfang casually rested one foot on the edge of the wall.

“And the training here is on an entirely different level from what you’re imagining.”

Ethan’s body stiffened for a moment.

He had assumed the training would be something grueling, like military drills or obstacle courses. But the weight behind Lowfang’s words made it sound as though his very life would be at stake.

Lowfang raised an eyebrow.

“You agreed to work under me. But if you can’t even pass the basics, you’d better prepare yourself, Ethan.”

“Couldn’t you at least give me a few tips?”

“What? Hahahahaha!”

At Ethan’s question, Lowfang burst into laughter.

Yet there was a trace of scorn beneath it.

“If a few tips were enough to keep you alive, the mortality rate among collectors wouldn’t be sitting at seventy percent.”

“…”

Ethan momentarily held his breath.

Seventy percent?

Did that mean the figure included those who died during training at the academy, too?

“…Still, I’ll tell you one thing.”

Lowfang climbed down from the wall and slowly approached Ethan.

“Once you pass the first stage, there’ll be a second-stage test. That’s where you’ll meet Aisha.”

“Aisha? Who’s that?”

When Ethan asked, Lowfang looked at him meaningfully.

“She’s famous by the nickname the White Witch.”

Ethan waited expectantly for more information, but Lowfang pressed his lips together and said nothing.

Naturally, Ethan’s expression fell.

“…Is that seriously all you’re going to tell me?”

“If I told you everything, what would be the point of the training? Besides, if there’s one more thing I’d like to say, it would be this.”

Lowfang shrugged with a deliberately playful expression.

But a moment later, his face grew serious, and he placed a hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

Then he left him with a brief but weighty remark.

“Don’t die.”

With those words, he disappeared into the shadows of the night.

Ethan remained standing there for a long time.

Morning arrived.

The trainees stood in neat rows and columns on the training grounds.

Thirty-three people in total.

Before them, their training instructor, Walter, slowly stepped forward.

Ethan watched him carefully, thinking to himself.

‘How many of us will make it out of here alive?’

The standard for becoming a collector was absolute, not relative.

Anyone who met the requirements could qualify.

But whether reaching that standard was even possible was another matter entirely.

Walter surveyed the trainees with a heavy gaze before speaking.

“You people have already ingrained basic toughness and weapon-handling habits into your bodies. But that alone isn’t enough. What you’ll learn here is more than simple physical conditioning.”

His voice was stern and devoid of emotion.

“The Astaar Empire is a unified empire that has preserved records of even civilizations lost to time. Among those records is a martial art known as Hittite Body Tempering.”

The trainees’ eyes sharpened at the unfamiliar term.

“Hittite is a destructive and domineering martial art. But its purpose isn’t simply to increase your aggression. It pushes your mana sensitivity to its limits, maximizing the body’s ability to perceive and respond to the slightest stimuli.”

Walter paused and swept his gaze across the assembled trainees.

“Training in this art dramatically increases your regenerative abilities. The density of your bones and muscles will also change.”

He took a step back and continued.

“But such transformations do not come without blood and pain.”

At that moment, the instructors approached the trainees and fitted each of them with mana-stone shackles weighing five kilograms each, along with bizarre breathing masks.

“These aren’t ordinary weighted training devices,” Walter explained.

“They forcibly suppress the flow of mana, interfering with your breathing.”

Some trainees fiddled with their shackles, visibly uncomfortable.

But it didn’t take long for them to realize that the discomfort was only the beginning.

“The Hittite breathing method differs from conventional breathing techniques. You must breathe through your skin, not through your nose or mouth.”

A murmur spread through the ranks.

“If you can’t understand what that means, you’ll learn through direct experience.”

Walter gestured, and the instructors forcibly sealed the breathing masks covering the trainees’ noses and mouths.

Hiss!

The masks clamped shut.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

Ethan’s forehead bulged with veins as he desperately tried to tear the mask off, but it wouldn’t budge.

The other trainees, overwhelmed by the suffocating sensation, began punching their masks in an attempt to break them open. But the equipment had been designed precisely to withstand such desperate attempts, and its durability was monstrous.

Thump, thump!

I’m going to die.

Realizing that he was genuinely on the verge of death, Ethan abandoned the idea of removing the mask and threw himself into learning the breathing technique at all costs.

Whoosh.

Just then, oxygen began flowing back into the masks, allowing all the trainees to breathe again.

They looked as though they had just been granted a glimpse of paradise.

But Ethan, greedily drawing in as much air as he could, thought to himself:

‘It’s going to start again.’

His prediction proved correct.

Hiss!

The masks activated once more, cutting off everyone’s air supply.

“Guh…!”

“Ugh…!”

They instinctively struggled, but their mouths and noses were completely sealed.

At first, the trainees could endure it. But as time passed, a searing agony spread through their lungs, as though they were burning from the inside out.

Fear.

Those whose bodies succumbed to panic unconsciously tried to breathe through their mouths and noses, but conventional breathing was no longer an option.

‘I can’t die here.’

Just as despair began to overwhelm them, a few trainees sensed the minute traces of air against their skin and finally began drawing it in through their pores.

It was clumsy, but it was undoubtedly a form of breathing.

Most, however, failed to adapt.

Thud!

One trainee collapsed.

As time passed, more and more of them lost consciousness and fell to the ground.

The instructors dragged the unconscious trainees away without hesitation.

Walter watched those who remained standing and grinned.

Their faces had turned red from the agony of being unable to breathe.

Walter leaned close to Ethan, who stood at the head of the cohort as its representative, and spoke.

“We collectors are people whose profession forces us to confront death. Whether you survive through a sense of duty to your country or sheer stubbornness is a matter of your own talent. Does it hurt? Then overcome it. The only things we guarantee you are power and honor.”

‘This psychopath is a complete two-faced bastard.’

Ethan glared at Walter, who was grinning cheerfully at them as they struggled to breathe.

Walter sensed Ethan’s intense defiance but paid it no mind.

“Good eyes, Ethan. You certainly deserve to be the representative of your cohort.”

BAM!

Despite his words of praise, Walter’s foot shot forward with tremendous force and slammed into Ethan’s stomach.

“Cough!”

Already struggling to breathe, Ethan crumpled to the ground from the impact. Tiny blood vessels burst in the whites of his eyes.

‘Fuck, I can’t breathe!’

Inhale twice, then exhale through the skin.

Inhale twice, then exhale through the skin.

If he couldn’t understand the technique, he would train his breathing until he got it right.

“Hmm. Good. This cohort has some grit.”

Walter looked toward the other trainees with an approving gaze.

By then, only three people remained standing.

Nicholas, Rebecca, and Koren.

All three were struggling desperately to hold on, their faces drenched in sweat and their eyes half-closed.

Walter smiled brightly.

“Though I suppose you haven’t quite figured out the knack yet.”

Thud!

The moment those words left his mouth, all three collapsed unconscious.

Day Two of Training.

To ensure the trainees’ survival, they were required to wear the breathing masks for eight hours a day.

Yet only a single day had passed, and most of the trainees were already suffering from trauma so severe that they fainted as soon as the masks were put on.

On top of that, they had to wear the five-kilogram shackles throughout the day, leaving most of them plagued by muscle pain so severe that they could barely stand.

‘This isn’t enough.’

Ethan had no intention of sharing their misery passively.

He had no choice but to become a collector. To survive in a profession with a seventy-percent mortality rate, he had to overcome this trial.

That realization stirred something fierce within him.

‘I’ve never accomplished anything.’

In his first life, he had believed he had always done his best, yet in the end, he had gained nothing.

What about his second life?

Doing his best would not be nearly enough.

If he wanted to overcome this obstacle, he would have to stake his very life on it and fight with everything he had.

‘I can’t fail twice.’

It was four in the morning.

Training would not begin until six, but Ethan was the first to put on his breathing mask. The moment he did, he began running laps around the training grounds.

Walter, who had arrived early that morning, watched him and let out a sharp whistle.

“Looks like Senior Lowfang really did bring back someone with a hell of a lot of grit.”

How should he torment him today?

Walter’s eyes gleamed ominously as he wore an expression of barely contained anticipation.