The New Hero
"Wh-what... This can't be..."
The white sword rested in my hand. I drew it free from the boar's chest, where blood still sprayed in thick jets. The beast did not so much as twitch.
The sword... was impossibly light.
As light as cradling air itself, so light it kindled the reckless certainty that I could do anything.
"I have to... go save Mister..."
My voice trembled like a leaf in the wind. Yet almost at once a heavy truth settled in my chest and crushed me flat.
"...With what strength?"
I stared down at the blade. A sword forged of pure light—unbelievably light, sharp enough, it seemed, to cut through any foe. But my arms were thin, my feet small. I was still only eleven years old. A child who fled in terror from grown men could never stand against an entire nation. And I was a Blood Eyes, hated by everyone.
"Not now... I can't do it yet."
Tears spilled down my cheeks in a steady stream. Mister Raon was surely a prisoner somewhere, yet I could not take a single step. Only the chirping of insects echoed through the forest. In that sound I was left utterly alone.
Days passed.
Starting a fire was not so hard. The rain had soaked every tree, making it difficult, but I scavenged dry grass and wood somehow and managed. I pressed the tip of a stick against the tinder and spun it furiously until friction sparked flame. That was when I first understood how unnaturally strong my body and stamina had become.
That first night I fell asleep beneath a tree, still crying, the fire burning beside me.
"Lumera berries...!"
When hunger struck I ate the fruits Mister had taught me about and tore chunks from the giant Eldmore mushrooms. When thirst clawed at my throat I plunged my face into a stream and drank greedily. At night the cold sank into my bones, yet I could sleep on a bed of leaves with the coat he had given me pulled tight around me. Whenever fear rose I fretted the embroidery he had stitched into that coat. That was enough.
Sometimes a rabbit would explode from the underbrush and my heart would nearly burst as I fled. I was terrified. It felt as though I alone remained in the whole world. And yet... I wanted to live. Until the day I gained the power to save Mister Raon.
So I swallowed my sobs, picked berries with small hands, and slowly learned to tell the strange mushrooms and herbs apart from the Eldmore ones. I clutched stones to drive beasts away and, though thorns stabbed me, I kept struggling to light fires.
I grew up in that forest. I began as a small, fragile child, but each day hardened me. And one vow burned in my heart.
"Mister... please wait for me. Someday... I will come for you. I swear it."
Day 1,829.
Ashen darkness. The scratches I had carved into the wall now hurt merely to touch. At first I counted one day, two, three... but there were so many now the numbers themselves had blurred. Still I could not stop. If I stopped I would rot here without even knowing when I died.
I knew a new day had begun only by the sound of the guards changing shift. The heavy clang of the iron door opening and shutting, the rattle of keys, the scrape of rough boots, and the brief, clipped reports the jailers exchanged. Those sounds alone marked the passage of time in this pitch-black solitary cell.
"That stupid traitor still isn't dead?"
"Tell me about it."
Their mockery no longer stung. I had grown numb.
The moment they took my legs is still vivid. The axe blade shattering bone, shredding nerves. Pain that roared up like fire and swallowed my entire body. The animal scream that tore from my throat when I could not even breathe.
In that instant... I had resented Ria.
If I had not hidden her, if I had not tried to protect her, I would never have lost my legs or been locked in this place. Yet the very thought made me sick. The fact that, even for a single heartbeat amid the cold and the agony, I had blamed that child crushed me. Survival instinct had made me accuse her, but the moment my mind cleared I was so disgusted with myself I wanted to vomit.
In my original world I had lost my legs, become a wreck, and died alone and forgotten. Here it was the same. I had failed again. I had collapsed into despair again. I was beginning to forget who I had even been. Just a legless convict, locked in a rotting room where no light entered, devouring himself from the inside.
These 1,829 scratches on the wall are my only witnesses.
I was resting against a tree. The sky was blue, the forest a vivid green.
"Ria!!"
The voice reached me—so familiar, so warm that my chest ached. I looked up and there stood Mister Raon. He was smiling at me just as brightly as he had five years ago.
"Mister...?"
Mister? Why on earth was he... here? No—how?
The questions barely formed before I was already sprinting and throwing myself into his arms. Warm, comforting scent. Mister's embrace. Yet at the same moment I knew: this was not real.
"Mister Raon... I missed you so much. I missed you so much I could die..."
My voice shook with sobs. He said nothing, only stroked my hair—a touch I felt I would never know again in the waking world.
"You've had it hard, Ria."
"Yes... it's been so hard. But... but without you, I have no reason to keep living."
Even in the dream I wept and poured out my grief. I felt his hand growing fainter. No. He could not disappear like this.
"Don't go... please don't go, Mister...!"
I wailed and clutched at his collar, but my fingers closed only on empty air. His figure dissolved like mist.
"Mister Raon... please..."
Tears spilled as I jolted awake. The cold forest air and reality greeted me together. Evening, the sun sinking. I had dozed off for a moment with a pot simmering over the fire.
"Even in that short nap... I dreamed of him again."
I missed him. I wanted to slip back into the dream. But reality was only me, alone.
A delicious smell rose from the pot where rabbit meat bubbled. Beside it lay the cleaned carcass of a wild rabbit. I faced the truth and sighed.
"Haa... catching a single rabbit is child's play now."
I wiped the blood from the back of my hand without a second thought. These days I could take a rabbit easily by myself. The girl who once only cried could now hunt and skin without flinching.
After I scavenged a pot, a large bag, and a waterskin from an abandoned village, daily life had grown far easier. The coat Mister Raon gave me no longer fit; I had outgrown it. It was a little frayed, yet the embroidery on the left breast—Riah&Raon—remained clear. Every night I pulled that coat over myself and traced the stitches with my fingertips until sleep took me. Even the soft, loosened threads were precious. Without that ritual... I did not think I could bear how much I missed him.
I could not be certain Mister Raon was still alive. But I wanted to see him. I wanted to see him so badly it drove me mad. So badly I could die.
If only I had not gone down those stairs, if only I had not been afraid of the snake... No. If only I had never clung to him in the first place. I had been a tumor, a leech fastened to him. I had drained him... and in the end brought catastrophe. Even if he still lived he would hate me. He would hate me with every fiber of his being. Because of someone like me, Mister... Mister...
"Mister... hic..."
My chest felt as though it were being torn open. The pain was so deep I wanted to die. Even breathing was almost too much. A world without Mister Raon held no meaning. No matter how well I survived in the forest, no matter how many animals I caught or streams I found, none of it meant anything. I was alive only because he had protected me... and yet because of me he...
"Hic... uh... hic..."
Every night I dreamed, and sometimes I heard hallucinations—the voice that used to call my name, the warm hand that used to stroke my hair. When I reached for them, only empty darkness remained. And still there was nothing I could do. Even though I was sixteen now. That fact burned like acid.
I could never face a nation alone.
"Aaaaaah—!"
Rage surged up. I summoned the brilliantly shining white sword, seized the hilt, and swung it wildly in every direction. Bushes were sheared away; trees toppled. Even after venting my fury I remained powerless, because nothing had changed. I dismissed the sword and sank to the ground. When the anger rose again I summoned it once more and slashed about... I repeated the cycle until exhaustion claimed me, then pulled the coat over myself and lay down.
"Mister... please... please just stay alive. Without you... nothing means anything to me. I miss you so much I could die."
Lying there I summoned the sword again and turned it this way and that. What was this white blade, really? Slightly translucent, dazzlingly bright, impossibly light, and able to cut through anything. That was not all. My strength and stamina had become enormous. Wounds healed swiftly, I was agile, and I could shatter stone with my bare hands. Yes—it had begun five years ago, the first day I fled into the forest after sacrificing Mister, when I ate the poisonous mushrooms and, on the brink of death, received that white light.
What was this power? Did red eyes truly mean something?
Just then I noticed the sky looked wrong.
A sky dyed violet—gloomy, grotesque.
"Huh...?"
And in that instant—
"Ugh... wh-what... my body feels like it's on fire..."
A strange energy flooded every limb, and with it a confidence that I could accomplish anything. Instinctively I understood.
"The Witch."
The words left my mouth before I knew I had spoken them.
"The Witch has awakened."
The Witch has awakened.
"And I am the Hero who will defeat her."
"Seria Luciel."
Seria Luciel.