Mushoku Tensei: Sword, Magic Hats, and Romance!

Allen ran for several kilometers before finally slowing to a halt and glancing back over his shoulder.

At that exact moment, Roxy also turned to look behind her.

Their eyes "met" across the distance, and—without a word—both turned back and continued on their way.

The road wasn't exactly flat.

Allen had just descended a slope, and the rise between them blocked their line of sight.

To be precise, if that hill hadn't been there, Allen would probably still be running.

Phew. That was close. So this is what they call a divine invitation?

Honestly, part of him really had wanted to accept it on the spot.

Roxy had spent years traveling solo throughout the Asura Kingdom, working toward becoming a Water Saint-level magician. After seeing Allen's swordplay, she was probably subconsciously craving a capable adventuring companion.

Whether it was helping her long-lost student search for his family after the Teleport Incident, or the way she tried to stay composed when she finally reunited with her parents—only to break down sobbing when she realized they had never given up on her—it was clear:

Roxy valued emotional bonds deeply.

She just hid it behind a cold facade, a defense born of being discriminated against for her hair color and small stature—from the Millis Continent all the way to Central.

Of all the heroines in Mushoku Tensei, Roxy arguably had the roughest background.

Allen sighed.

The butterfly effect is starting to show… but I still have to stay on mission. I can't throw away my pseudo-future-sight just yet. Sorry, Roxy. Wait for me a little longer. It's not time yet.

As he murmured to himself, Allen slowly drew his sword. The moment the blade cleared the sheath, he let go of the hilt, letting the blade spin once around his wrist like a butterfly.

When he caught it again, the sword was reversed—held backward across his body, its edge gleaming coldly in the morning light.

The tip hovered precisely one centimeter above the inside of his left arm.

Allen looked down, brow raised, and licked his lips.

Then—stabbed.

The blade sank smoothly into his flesh. Blood welled up, slow and steady, tracing the length of the steel.

He didn't pull the blade out. Instead, frowning slightly, he muttered under his breath:

"[Healing]."

The moment the words left his mouth, he felt his mana surge, flowing like a stream toward the [Dragon-Saint Aura Seed] in his abdomen. It crawled across the etched tree-shaped rune, which began to glow with a hazy green light.

A second later, his mana, now tinged with that same glow, spread through his body—racing toward the wound.

The skin closed. Torn flesh knitted itself back together around the blade.

The bleeding stopped.

Allen stared at the wound and silently counted to nine.

Then he yanked the blade free.

The wound sealed almost instantly—so fast that the blood didn't even have time to drip.

"[Stop]."

He lightly touched the former wound with the tip of his blade.

All that remained was a faint white line. He blinked—and a gust of wind carried the scab away as dry skin. Underneath, fresh new skin gleamed.

Allen smiled in satisfaction.

The rune activates as fast as mana can circulate. That's good. Real good. It means I can keep it running mid-battle—like a passive heal without any chant delay. Damn, this system's actually generous.

The healing effect was identical to a standard Intermediate [Healing] spell.

But the cost—

Allen checked his mana reserves… and his face fell instantly.

One-tenth gone?! That's insane.

My battle aura's internal circulation only consumes about a fifth of my mana at full operation. And right now, I'm only running at 4/5 capacity. Dammit—just this one activation of healing for ten seconds will take me over a hundred days to recover from.

Allen's mana consumption was modeled after Orsted. His recovery rate was set at 1/1000 of a normal person.

In other words, what a regular mage could recover in one full night's sleep, Allen would need a thousand nights to get back.

This was why the system called it the Path of the Swordsman—because it practically ruled out any mid-combat casting. No chance of throwing out [Water Cannons] between sword swings.

The Path of the Magician, on the other hand, was basically a replica of Rudeus's route. That one came with the Laplace mana factor but couldn't use battle aura—forcing the user down the "close-combat mage with magitech armor" kind of path.

It was worth noting that all of the system's growth routes were based on existing characters from Mushoku Tensei—the Swordsman path was modeled after Orsted, and the Magician path after Laplace.

If one could fully develop both paths, they would essentially become perfect duplicates of those two beings.

…Though that would take an absurdly long time. Without breaking the natural lifespan limit, it probably wasn't even possible.

Allen had already analyzed this before. He suspected the system's template had something to do with the smartphone embedded in his forehead when he died.

At the time of his death, Mushoku Tensei was the only novel saved on it. If he'd had other stories stored, maybe he could've brought in character templates from those worlds too.

Shame. But oh well. No use crying over it now. Even if that theory's correct, there's no telling whether extra novels would've mattered. And if the system doesn't draw purely from novels, but from all entertainment files…

God help me if it pulls from something like School Days.

Nobody wanted to end up with the Makoto Ito template. That boy got his head chopped off by a yandere and sent sailing across the sea in a duffel bag. No thanks.

Allen exhaled, looked down toward his Aura Seed, and lowered his sword again.

Time to test if the healing rune could stack with the [Dragon-Saint Aura]'s mana-efficiency buff.

"[Activate Both]."

As battle aura surged around him, Allen once again pushed his senses to their limit—fully immersing himself in the shifting flows within his body.

And then, something unexpected happened.

The healing rune began to pulse—slow, steady, rhythmic, like a heartbeat.

He watched as his mana, now fluid-like, was drawn into the rune and then pulsed outward through his limbs.

There was no sign of additional consumption from his [Dragon-Saint Aura]. Maybe because the rune was embedded directly on the [Aura Seed], it was able to channel mana efficiently without draining the aura itself—thus benefitting from the reduced mana cost.

His mana consumption rate had clearly slowed.

After another count of nine, Allen withdrew the blade.

This time, it took some effort—his muscles were so tightly wrapped around the blade, enhanced by aura, that it resisted coming out.

The wound closed quickly.

Allen immediately deactivated the healing rune, but left the [Dragon-Saint Aura] active. With the lowered cost, he wanted to observe the mana flow more clearly.

The healing effect didn't change. The aura didn't amplify it.

But the mana usage? Now that was different.

Ten seconds of activation now only cost 1/50 of his total mana—meaning a day's worth of recovery would give him 0.5 seconds of healing uptime.

If he used it in short bursts, it could more or less sustain itself over time.

In sustained combat, his battle aura drained about 1/5 of his mana continuously. In an extreme case, he could dedicate the remaining 4/5 purely to the healing rune.

Which would give him roughly 400 seconds of uptime—just under 6.67 minutes.

Six. Just six.

Tomorrow I'll finally meet Rudeus and his family, and the "Rudeus Favorability" questline begins. Things are going to get interesting.

Still, the Childhood Arc of Mushoku Tensei was pretty peaceful overall. Testing Allen's strength would require conflict—and the kind of butterfly effect that only someone like Roxy could help spark.

And spark it, she would.