His Demon race subordinates would snort with laughter if they heard that.
Who would call a man who single-handedly held the power to turn the tide of war an "ordinary person"?
And yet, he was without question an ordinary man.
It was just that this ordinary man's life was anything but ordinary.
He had no remarkable talent.
Everything he did was merely average.
But conversely, that also meant he could do everything at a competent level.
Put kindly, he could handle anything.
Put less kindly, he was a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
This versatile man who could perform every task at a passable standard had picked up quite a few skills along the way.
The reason he'd become that way was tied to his upbringing.
His family had, for generations, made their living in service to a certain noble house.
It was only natural that he, too, was destined to serve the same noble.
And there, he encountered his fate.
The noble's young lady.
Merazophis and she did not begin as servant and master. They grew up together more like childhood friends.
Along the way, he developed a quiet, tender love for her.
But it was a love that could never be.
She had been betrothed since childhood, and what's more, she and her fiancé were deeply in love with each other.
There was no room for him to step in.
Nor did he want to.
As long as the woman he loved was happy, that was enough.
Merazophis devoted himself to polishing his abilities as her attendant, all to support her.
Whenever he had free time, he honed any skill that might prove useful, and threw himself into his studies.
His dedication was recognized, and her fiancé came to trust him as well.
And so, when she married, Merazophis went along with her.
Her fiancé knew of Merazophis's feelings.
He knew—and precisely because of that, he trusted him.
He was confident that Merazophis would never make her unhappy.
Perhaps, as men who both loved the same woman, something passed between them without words.
That was why he entrusted his most beloved daughter to him.
Because there was nothing else he could do.
Merazophis's beloved and her husband could not escape, no matter what.
Physically and politically, they had nowhere to run.
They entrusted their daughter to Merazophis—the one person they trusted most.
Merazophis accepted that responsibility.
Choking on the bitter truth of his own helplessness—that he could not protect the woman he loved—he nonetheless swore a solemn vow: he would protect her daughter.
Even that vow was trampled without ceremony.
He could do nothing.
He was so powerless that he had to borrow strength from the very person he was supposed to protect.
He abandoned his humanity, and was still crushed helplessly.
After being defeated once by bandits without the slightest ability to fight back, Merazophis began practicing his sword swings every morning without fail.
There was no way that would make him dramatically stronger.
And yet, desperate to change even a little—to become someone who could finally protect her—he poured his soul into every single swing.
And that effort, too, bore no fruit.
No matter how hard he struggled, Merazophis was an ordinary man.
He had never made fighting his profession. A man with no talent could only swing a sword so far before hitting his limit.
And yet, he did not die.
Twice, he was saved by a certain spider.
Or perhaps, in those moments, he truly did die once.
When he lost the precious woman he loved.
The rest of his life was spent protecting that beloved woman's living legacy.
Watching her grow, staying by her side.
But Merazophis's young lady was no ordinary person.
A Reincarnator—and not even human, but the progenitor of all vampires.
Merazophis himself was turned into a vampire by the young lady's hand.
The rate at which a Reincarnator's Status and Skills grew was far greater than that of a normal person in this world.
On top of that, the young lady had been forced through brutal journeys since she was an infant, pushing her Status ever higher.
Status growth peaked during early childhood.
Those numbers gradually declined as one matured.
Having endured what could only be called abuse—an environment so harsh that no normal child could have survived it—her Status had grown to surpass even that of other Reincarnators by a wide margin.
Despite being subjected to the same conditions, Merazophis's Status growth was far lower than the young lady's.
That was because he was originally a native of this world, and had already passed his growth period as an adult.
Though his Status had increased since his rebirth as a vampire, it was nothing compared to the young lady's off-the-charts numbers—a rounding error at best.
Merazophis had become weaker than the girl he was supposed to protect.
And yet, nothing changed about what Merazophis did.
The only one who worried about being separated by the Demon King to keep them from depending on each other too much was the young lady.
Protect the young lady. That was all.
And for that, he needed power.
The young lady already possessed strength far beyond anything he could match.
But that didn't mean he didn't need strength of his own.
At the very least, he had to become strong enough not to be a burden on her.
So Merazophis never missed a day of training.
It was a regimen so brutal that any normal person would have rubbed their eyes in disbelief.
The kind that would immediately shatter an ordinary person's body or break their mind.
What made it possible was the experience gained during his grueling journey to the Demon race's territory.
Training methods administered by a certain spider—methods that defied all common sense.
Leveraging every Skill honed during that journey, Merazophis threw himself into what could only be called hellish self-improvement.
Before he knew it, he had crossed far beyond the boundaries of the normal.
Thanks to his Status Abnormality Nullification Skill, he no longer needed sleep.
His HP/MP Auto-Recovery meant he could push his body to the point of breaking without hesitation.
And when it did break, he was delighted—because it was an opportunity to raise his healing magic Skills.
Even during work, he spent his time strengthening Skills like Magic Power Operation and Aura Combat that were invisible to outside observers.
And so, Merazophis's average Status climbed all the way to five thousand.
That was power more than sufficient to fight on equal footing with lower-tier dragon species in this world.
And still, he was not satisfied.
Because the young lady possessed roughly three times that amount.
"Report to Lord Balt."
"Yes, sir!"
Merazophis left the report of his defeat to his subordinates.
By both his own assessment and the view of the battlefield as a whole, this battle had been a loss.
The matchup had been terrible.
Two combat-capable Reincarnators, with support from the strongest mage of the Human race.
Three opponents, during broad daylight with the sun shining.
Reincarnators could not be killed.
He had to fight opponents he couldn't afford to kill, while weakened by sunlight.
It was an impossibly difficult set of constraints for an ordinary man who lacked any talent for combat.
And so, despite having a superior Status on paper, he was drawn into a prolonged fight—and couldn't provide the support needed to turn the tide on the battlefield.
The two Reincarnators being strong was, of course, a major factor.
Merazophis possessed the Appraisal Skill as well.
It was part of the spider's policy, and he had gradually raised its Level over many long years because of its usefulness.
That Appraisal revealed the Reincarnators' Status to be in the upper dragon class.
Taking their Skills into account, it was the kind of power that could rival lower-tier dragon species.
The boy's average Status was around twenty-five hundred, skewed toward the physical side.
The girl's average Status was also around twenty-five hundred, but magic-oriented.
Status couldn't be measured by simple addition, but combined, their numbers rivaled Merazophis's own.
On top of that, there was magical fire support from the rear.
He hadn't been able to Appraise that one due to the distance, but Merazophis estimated the magical attack power to be no less than two thousand.
The Status of a top-tier Human race mage hovered around the line of breaking one thousand.
Facing three opponents who far exceeded that benchmark, Merazophis's struggle was entirely understandable.
In fact, before Merazophis had even engaged, the two Reincarnators had already scattered the Demon race army, and the mage had dealt massive damage with a great spell.
It was fair to say they lost because they couldn't recover from those initial blows.
"Legion Commander, you're wounded."
"Just a scratch."
There was a hole in Merazophis's chest.
In the final moments, he'd let his guard down and taken a sniper shot.
But as he himself said, while the armor had been penetrated, his flesh had suffered only a superficial wound.
Merazophis's magical defense was roughly five thousand.
Even a direct hit from a spell would not be able to pierce his skin and reach his heart.
Though, even if it had reached his heart, it probably wouldn't have been enough to put Merazophis down.
"I've still got a long way to go."
His subordinates heard his quiet murmur and let it pass with distant eyes.
Merazophis was an ordinary man.
He didn't have a single standout talent.
If he did have something that could be called a talent, it was the talent to endure.
Talent for effort alone wasn't enough.
He had pushed past effort into something beyond effort—to a place past the very end of hell—before arriving at the version of him that existed today.
Who would willingly beat themselves to the brink of death every single day?
A man who could actually do that had a "talent" that the word "effort" couldn't quite cover.
As if to demonstrate exactly that, he had recently acquired a Skill.
A Skill called Endurance.
Merazophis was an ordinary man.
But being ordinary didn't necessarily mean being mundane. That was all there was to it.
*** Reference Material Battle of the
The Teacher had devoted more energy to searching for students than to fighting, so in truth, both Shun and Kathia had already surpassed him.