Chapter 207
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 207
Prologue
They say the more precious a memory, the slower it fades. That is a lie.
It’s just that time erodes memories too slowly to be perceived. After centuries, even what seemed eternal begins to wear down and blur.
So, I cannot remember it all with perfect clarity.
Still, if I were to piece together what remains…
It is a story from when I went by the name ‘Patricio Rancel Swelve.’
It was a time of war.
My memories begin with a metallic stench—the scent of blood, which I am all too familiar with now. I was four years old when I first smelled it. I’d grown so accustomed to it that it no longer turned my stomach.
—I do not remember my parents' faces.
To be precise, I forgot them. Regrettably, even now, nearly one hundred seventy years later, I still do not know exactly how they died.
I was told my father died in an accident during conscription, losing his life before he could even set foot on a battlefield. My mother went out to do business as usual and never returned. The residents of our nameless village came to offer condolences, so she likely hadn't just abandoned her child and run away.
—Left all alone, Patricio picked up a sword at the age of six.
Rely on no one. That was the absolute rule for an orphan to survive in this world.
From a young age, Patricio slept leaning not against a person, but against his sword. Orphans in the alleys vanished without a trace overnight, so he always had to sleep lightly to survive.
Sleep was never sweet.
Until he became an adult, he lived believing that sleeping three or four hours a night was the norm.
His body was always covered in scars. Just as one wound was about to fade, a new one would be layered over it. Patricio thought everyone lived with calloused hands just like him.
—Of the slightly over one hundred children in the village, only seventeen remained by the time Patricio turned twelve.
They say heroes are born in times of chaos.
That saying is true—or rather, the cause and effect are reversed. Times of chaos forge heroes. It was a form of early education, so to speak; since everyone learned swordsmanship before they learned to speak just to survive, those with talent naturally began to shine.
—Patricio was hero material.
He had a talent for the sword.
His childhood days of swinging a sword were a cycle of such continuous suffering that he could barely remember them. However, following the faint thread of memory led him to an older version of himself. At that time, Patricio was part of a small mercenary group.
He had killed people to survive before then.
But that was the first time he had killed for money.
Ironically, such an inhumane act broadened Patricio's horizons. For one, money allowed him to purchase maps. The day he first saw a complete map of the continent, Patricio realized for the first time that there were over thirty nations crowded together on this narrow stretch of land.
—Maps usually had to be thrown away within half a year.
Because it was a time of war.
Because it was an era of chaos.
Because it took less than a year for a nation to rise and fall.
It was common for a map bought yesterday to be incorrect today. There were even times when a perfectly fine country had vanished by the time he returned from an expedition.
...Patricio's nation was no exception.
He lost his homeland during his mercenary days.
What was the name of that country again? Since he couldn't remember, it must have been an insignificant name. He couldn't even recall the journey of wandering after losing his homeland. Yes, everything from those days was utterly trivial.
And so it went.
He wandered for several years.
He changed affiliations time and time again.
Then, one day, he came to his senses.
Patricio had risen to a fairly high position. Under his command were thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers who admired him. He had finally gained recognition after all his hardships.
—With recognition came power, and with power came wealth.
And people followed.
First, he found someone he loved. She was a promising mage. The process of them falling for each other was no different from that of ordinary people, so he didn't remember it precisely. Only the vague impression that she was beautiful remained.
Next, he gained comrades-in-arms. They were far better than those he had met when he first joined the mercenary group, comrades who truly cared for one another.
The mercenary group always swung their swords under the same blessing. Yes, at least this part of his memory was vivid. There was a name he could never forget.
Yuranesia I.
No, back then, his name was simply Yuranesia.
A fellow mercenary, and a man overflowing with ambition.
...
Anyway, to continue the recollection a bit further.
As he established a home and the number of people he was connected to grew, Patricio's life changed. The greatest change was the purpose of his sword. The blade that once killed people began to save them as he reached a certain level of mastery. By the time he reached his peak, the epithet attached to Patricio had become the ‘Guarding Sword.’
Eventually, he rose to the position of Captain of the Royal Guard, protecting the king and the kingdom.
The kingdom was far more stable than the country of Patricio's birth.
To be precise, Patricio was the one who had made the once-unstable nation stable.
In an era of chaos, the longer an unrivaled powerhouse exists, the weaker its turbulent currents become. In a world where dozens of kingdoms fought, staining one another with blood—around that time, Patricio saw it. A sprout of peace, precariously breaking through. A result he had achieved without even intending to.
Yes, the tedious war was dying down, and peace was supposed to be arriving, little by little.
Surely, after that, it should have been peaceful to the point of boredom.
Why was he tracing back this faded past?
…
Right.
Beastkin.
It was because of the beastkin.
—They broke the peace.
If one were to define the beastkin in a single phrase, it would be ‘the lowest class.’
They were hybrids of animals and humans. A lineage without a pedigree. Though no human of that era knew their exact origin, they were universally seen as crossbreeds.
Yes, crossbreeds.
How vulgar and mongrel-like. Yet, despite that, their physical abilities were superior to humans.
Possessing all the traits that made humans wary of them, the beastkin—already a minority—had always suffered persecution. Throughout history, beastkin were nothing more than slaves to humans.
‘Beastkin are slaves to humans.’
Because it had always been that way, it was only natural. Since this common sense had been established long before Patricio was born, he had never questioned their station.
This was not unique to Patricio.
—Not a single human questioned that fact.
Because no one questioned it, no one expected them to rebel.
‘The Liberation War.’
That was the name those bastards gave to the event where beastkin all over the kingdom began slaughtering citizens and burning down homes.
It began with rebellions erupting simultaneously in several places. Since the beastkin possessed superior physical conditioning, they didn't even need weapons. On the first day alone, thousands of citizens were slaughtered in the kingdom.
They cried out for freedom.
While impaling the severed heads of village women and youths on spears.
In short, it was war.
Corpses piled up wherever the battlefield shifted. On battlefields the kingdom's regular army could not reach, only human corpses lay in heaps. In the places Patricio's unit swept through, only beastkin corpses piled high. A game of territory where both sides only lost had begun.
—Heroes are born in times of chaos.
This saying applied to the beastkin as well.
One after another, heroes began to emerge from among them.
As time passed, the humans suffered defeat after defeat.
Patricio's blade, which had once been aimed at humans, was now pointed at the beastkin.
The order the kingdom handed down to him was the complete extermination of the beastkin.
Carrying out the order, he slaughtered them.
—And humans died, too.
Killing and being killed.
—And his comrades were slaughtered, too.
Cutting them down endlessly.
—And losing so many of the things he had worked so hard to obtain.
Despite all the killing, the war did not end. In the meantime, several other kingdoms were destroyed by the beastkin. Beastkin scattered across the continent began to gather from all corners, gradually forming an organized force.
The rebellion, which they thought would end in a few weeks, dragged on into a war spanning years.
Patricio's battlefield expanded from the kingdom to the entire continent.
Patricio did not die despite fighting on countless battlefields, but his comrades were not so fortunate.
With every battle, those by his side vanished one by one. The more he lost, the more he killed.
He became an object of terror to the beastkin.
Until, eventually, the blunt epithet of ‘Beastkin Slayer’ was layered over his title of ‘Guarding Sword.’
Just like that, endlessly…
*
"I thought I'd never have to deal with them again, but I guess you really do have to live long to see everything. I never expected things to connect like this."
Patrick stood up from his seat.
Tracing back his trivial past—no, since he had died and returned to life, perhaps he should call it his previous life. Regardless, recalling those memories solidified his resolve.
Now was the time to move.
After standing blankly for a moment, hesitating over which direction to take, Patrick began walking toward Swallow's room.
The sound of water droplets falling from the stalactites sounded exceptionally sharp. As the air grew heavier the deeper he went into the heart of the dungeon, the events of earlier resurfaced in his now-calm mind.
Scobina was dead.
And Rium was involved.
The clue lay in the wooden box containing Scobina's severed head.
The box exuded an unmistakable sacred energy, prompting an investigation. In the end, Alraune—a self-proclaimed ‘tree expert’—identified the species of wood the moment she saw it.
"I am absolutely certain that this box is made of Yggdrasil."
Yggdrasil.
The sacred tree that had enabled the beastkin to establish the nation of Rium.
"Since there is only one Yggdrasil in Rium, I am convinced the culprit is in Rium."
"Are you sure? Is there any chance the culprit has nothing to do with Rium? For instance, could they have secretly logged the wood to make it?"
"Oh, please. Do you have any idea how sacred Yggdrasil is? From what I know, most beastkin can't even get near it. I hear the security is incredibly tight."
Alraune had said as much. She had even told another monster to use <Coward's Excuse> on her, as if to prove her words were the absolute truth.
…Assuming her words were true, it was safe to conclude that the leadership of Rium had made the box.
Only those with sufficient authority and spiritual standing would be able to cut down such a sacred tree to make a box.
For example, the leader of Rium?
Then, was it possible that Rium's leadership gave the box as a gift to a favored outsider?
The Yaksha Sisters, who had been to Rium, denied that possibility. They said that even though they were treated as honored guests, they weren't even allowed to touch Yggdrasil.
I suppose so.
It was a sacred tree; they wouldn't just cut it up and hand it out like a cheap souvenir. Above all, if the purpose was to give it as a gift to an outsider, they would have crafted it into a much more suitable form than a box.
The fact that they went out of their way to make a box meant the leadership had made it for the purpose of ‘containing something.’
…And damningly, that box was just the right size to fit Scobina's head.
Was it possible they recycled a box made in the past?
"If it were old enough to be recycled, its energy would have been faint. I can't say for sure, but it was probably made not too long ago."
Nothing was confirmed yet. It was all speculation. However, if the upper echelon of Rium had made and sent that box ‘for the purpose of containing a severed head,’ most of the pieces fell into place.
Why?
When they should have been living with bated breath for over one hundred fifty years?
…
Alraune had called Rium foolish, but she was the only monster there laughing at their stupidity. Swallow, Rene, Melju, and even Hyeong-ak—everyone else was thinking the same thing.
The fact that the box was made of Yggdrasil was not some lucky discovery.
The other side had blatantly revealed their own identity.
—In the first place, going through the trouble of decapitating Scobina and sending her head to the merchant guild was proof enough.
This was a provocation.
"Well then."
After walking and thinking for about ten minutes, Patrick looked around Swallow's room and muttered to himself.
…Swallow was nowhere to be seen.
He looked around. There were no other monsters in the room. Patrick stood still for a few minutes, scanning the spacious room for any presence.
There was no sound other than the natural noises of the cave. It was tranquil. Not a single ripple of energy could be felt.
Patrick began walking forward again.
His destination was the deeper darkness.
The pitch-black abyss that humans believed to be the ‘end of the dungeon.’
And not just humans. Every single monster in the other rooms likely thought so too. Because other than Swallow, Patrick was the only monster who had ever crossed beyond this pitch-black abyss.
Swallow's room was not the end of the dungeon.
He walked for a long time. The space beyond the pitch-black abyss was a realm of chaos where all senses became distorted. He could not count how far he had walked or how much time had passed. He simply had to walk blindly until he arrived.
As he walked, his senses began to return very gradually within the darkness. Feeling this, he took about ten more steps. It was around then that two or three of his five senses returned.
—He must not walk any further.
"That's far enough."