Tales of a Bygone Era (I)
A tale of long ago.
The sun beats down. I open my eyes. And then, I feel a sense of strangeness.
This isn't Sak. If the sunlight is this brilliant, there is only one place it could be. The Reim Kingdom.
He looked down at his own body. It was the body of a young boy. Is this... I see. He realized. This was a memory from five hundred years ago, a time that had long since weathered away into nothingness. A memory of a peaceful era, before the Chaos had ever appeared.
"Libero!"
Hearing his name, he turned his head. There stood a young girl. She had golden hair as bright as the sunshine and clear blue eyes. Her appearance perfectly bore the distinct traits of the Reim royal family.
"What is it, Princess?"
"I've been looking everywhere for you! Where on earth have you been?"
"I was practicing my swordsmanship." At his words, she leaned in close and sniffed.
"Ugh, you definitely smell like sweat."
"Why would you even sniff me in the first place?"
"Never mind that! Hurry up and finish the story you were telling me last time."
By "story," she had to mean that one. The tale of the Masked Hero who appeared in the night of the Reim Kingdom to defeat villains. It was a story currently circulating among the children outside the castle walls, which he had adapted slightly. After all, telling her a story that was too bloody and violent wouldn't have been appropriate.
"Where did we leave off last time?"
"Um... the part where the Masked Hero steals the wicked noble's treasure?"
"Ah, that was it." He began to spin the rest of the tale. In truth, though he was hailed as a genius when it came to swordsmanship, his storytelling skills were mediocre at best. Yet, the Princess listened to his words with rapt attention.
Maybe it didn't have to be me, he sometimes thought. Perhaps it was simply because he was the only peer in the royal palace she could befriend. Even so, it wasn't as if those moments hadn't brought him happiness.
Her beautiful golden hair shimmering in the warm sunlight. Her soft, occasional giggles. Her scent, mingling with the fresh fragrance of the grass. Those blissful days gradually faded as they both grew older. As the Princess came of age, they naturally drifted apart.
Of course, the Princess still visited him from time to time. But after that happened a few times, the royal family reassigned his father. He was transferred from the Royal Guard, which protected the palace, to the Black Knights.
There were several knight orders in the kingdom. Most notably, there were the Red Knights, led by the Lidvall family who possessed powerful Stigmas and Holy Relics. Aside from them, there were the Green, Blue, White, and Black Knights.
Among them, the Black Knights were an order completely unknown to the outside world. An order that executed the kingdom's dirty work. Though officially unacknowledged, most nobles knew of their existence, which in itself exerted a certain pressure.
Once his father was transferred to the Black Knights, he, too, naturally became a part of them.
"But aren't the Black Knights actually heroes? Just like the Masked Hero you told me about when we were kids."
They were not. They claimed to execute the "dirty work," but in truth, they were nothing more than dogs of the powerful. But he didn't want to tell the Princess that. As ugly as it was, he wanted her to remain ignorant of his reality. He wanted her to believe he was executing justice. Yes, just like that Masked Hero. Though he himself suffered from a guilty conscience, it was far better than seeing disappointment on her face.
"Princess, you must not meet with him."
"How dare a filthy dog keep eyeing the Princess!"
Had he loved the Princess? He believed he had. There was no other word to describe it but love. Yet, it was a love that could never bear fruit. He knew this all too well. And surely, so did she. That was why, even when she spoke those words to him, he had not dared to believe them.
"When I become Queen, let's live together in the palace. Just like we used to. If I'm the Queen, no one will be able to oppose me, right?"
And, as expected, those words of hers could not be kept. Though it was not her fault.
The encroachment of the Chaos had begun. A mysterious, dark-red substance.
Starting from the edges of the world, it slowly tightened its encirclement. It was to the point where an entire nation could vanish overnight.
A steady stream of refugees from other nations poured in, and the kingdom accepted them, following the insistence of the Princess, who had just ascended the throne. Consequently, public order became as unstable as could be, forcing him to be busier than ever. The Queen, too, could only fret day and night, desperately trying to find a way to stop the encroaching Chaos.
And before long, a new threat emerged. It was the appearance of the Chaos Beasts. Born from the lands corrupted by the Chaos, the Chaos Beasts began to invade the kingdom even faster than the Chaos itself.
With that, a new argument began to surface: to abandon the kingdom. The Queen's faction, which argued it was still too early to give up on the kingdom, and the migration faction, which insisted they must abandon it and relocate early on. The two sides clashed in a tense deadlock, and in the end, the Queen granted permission for those who wished to leave to depart.
Thus, the Green Knights and the Blue Knights left the kingdom. Those who remained to fight were the Red Knights and the White Knights. The White Knights were dedicated to medical care, while the Red Knights, spearheaded by the powerful Lidvall family, held off the Chaos Beasts. But even that eventually reached its limit. No matter how much support the White Knights provided, gaps began to form in the Red Knights' defenses. In the end, the Black Knights had to step forward to fill their empty spots.
"Who on earth is that guy?"
"I heard he's the guy who was demoted to the Black Knights after laying a hand on the Princess back in the day."
"If he's with the Black Knights, it makes sense we wouldn't have known about him."
His exploits on the battlefield quickly spread. A commoner without a Stigma was sweeping through the Chaos Beasts with nothing but swordsmanship. Even the head of the Lidvall family wanted to see his face. But he had no such luxury.
"I have to slay more Chaos Beasts."
This isn't enough. To make her, the one protecting the kingdom, smile, he had to prove that the kingdom could be defended. But his strength was still lacking for that.
'If only I had a Stigma...' But there was no way to acquire a Stigma, which was determined at birth, later in life. The only path left to him was to hone his swordsmanship even further. Perhaps if he reached the 'end of swordsmanship,' things would work out somehow. ...He had harbored such thoughts. Until the Chaos arrived right before the kingdom's gates.
The onslaught of the Chaos Beasts grew fiercer, and beyond them lay the Chaos. Halting that mysterious substance called Chaos seemed practically impossible. At best, they had six months left. In that desperate situation, even most of those who had supported staying in the kingdom turned their backs and joined the migration faction once they witnessed the Chaos with their own eyes. He was no exception.
"Your Majesty."
At least one of her words had been true. The part where, once she became Queen, no one would be able to say anything about him meeting her. Since both were busy, they couldn't live together, but he could at least go to deliver his words to her.
"Libero? What is it?"
"Abandon the kingdom. If I stay behind and buy time, there will be more than enough time for everyone to escape."
"What do you mean by..." The Queen's eyes widened. But Libero, too, had waited long enough. Now, the truly critical moment was drawing near.
"You must leave the royal castle before it is a moment too late."
"But what about the promise we made?"
She seemed to be talking about the promise to live together in the palace once she became Queen. He adored her for still caring about that promise, but he could not bend his resolve.
"We can build a new palace elsewhere. I will follow you there after buying enough time."
But she, too, looked as if she couldn't believe his words.
"Liar. You expect to hold off that massive horde of Chaos Beasts and return alive? Make some sense."
He knew it made no sense. But still...
"There is no other way!"
He had shouted in spite of himself. He realized he had made a mistake.
"Forgive me! In front of Your Majesty, I..."
"There is another way."
An unexpected revelation came from the Queen's mouth.
"Another way?" He listened intently.
"Actually, I have made contact with the God of Light. He said there is a way to save the kingdom."
The God of Light? The God of Light was the deity who protected the Reim Kingdom, while also lending light to the people through covenants. She had made contact with such a god?
"There are two conditions. The first is to gather the wishes of the people into my own body. It won't be easy, but I plan to go out to the plaza and begin praying."
A sudden sense of foreboding washed over him. For some reason, he had a premonition that a method to stop the Chaos could never be so simple.
"Then... what is the other one?"
"The other is... the complete erasure of my existence, which will have gathered all those wishes."