Chapter 1: Prologue
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 1: Prologue
Fire, steel, blood, and death. If I were to summarize my life in a few words, it would be this.
Originally, I was a shepherd in Haiden, a northern territory of the empire. Like so many others of this era, I was just one of countless orphans who had never known their parents.
I don’t know when I first started herding, but for ten years, I wandered the Haiden Fields, grazing my sheep, almost entirely cut off from the world.
Just as colorful flowers bloomed with the changing seasons, a profusion of stars bloomed across the black sky when night fell. In the summer, a cool breeze blew; in the winter, snow blanketed the world.
I had no greed, nor did I know boredom. I was neither happy nor unhappy.
Just as the stars shone at night, flowers bloomed in the fields, and snow fell when winter came, I simply lived, doing nothing but tending my sheep.
Then one day, in a life where the same routine repeated day after day, something extraordinary happened. The lord of the land rode past the Haiden Fields on horseback.
I fell to my knees. With the sun behind him like a halo, he smiled and spoke from high atop his mount.
“Shepherd, how old are you?”
“I do not know the day I was born, so I cannot say. But I have been shepherding for ten years.”
“Then you must be at least fifteen. Shouldn't you take a wife?”
“I do not know any women.”
“The village chief will arrange it. Live happily, you who are like the stars.”
With those words, the lord galloped across the fields and vanished like scattering clouds.
Not long after, just as he had said, I married a young widow from the village through the chief’s arrangement.
Once I had a wife, I was no longer a shepherd; I became the village miller. And just as the lord had said, for the first time in my life, I came to know what happiness felt like.
A few more years passed, and one day, a cavalryman carrying a red banner arrived in the village.
He announced that they were conscripting young men for the Eastern Campaign Front. They drew lots among the able-bodied men, and I was chosen.
I promised my wife I would return without fail and that I would send my wages to her in the meantime so she wouldn’t have to worry about making ends meet.
I followed the cavalryman, wandering from place to place. With two or three men joining us from every village we passed, we marched endlessly toward the east.
For a day, two days, three days… for over a month, we drifted eastward like autumn leaves swept down a river.
The Eastern Campaign Front was a land of steel and corpses, surrounded by dense forests. When I first arrived, I never would have dreamed that I would end up staying there for ten years.
If anyone were to ask me where I learned to wield a sword, I would answer: war.
Thrusting, slashing, hacking. I would say I was forged by the hostility of savages, by a courage I never knew I had, by the sacrifices of my comrades, and by the sheer luck of arrows grazing my cheeks.
“Where’s Thomas?”
“Dead.”
“Damn it. What about Falke?”
“This morning.”
“…”
Good days were a rarity; most were spent in struggle. Uncomfortable beds, moldy bread, dying of disease, dying of infected wounds, being eaten by monsters, or being dragged away by savages to be flayed alive and hung on display.
When night fell, the soldiers whimpering in anxiety or trembling through nightmares were no different from infants. It seemed they didn't need harsh veterans or strict commanders, but their mothers.
Then, before I knew it, I realized that everyone I had met on the day I first arrived was dead. I was the only one left.
On the front lines, where seventy percent of the men were killed or severely wounded in every battle, I had survived dozens of times. Why won’t I die? Surely, my time should have come by now.
My comrades called me “Lucky Ricky,” sometimes in jest, sometimes in earnest. They said they felt like they would survive if they just stayed by my side. But every comrade I grew attached to died.
My first commander was the second son of a count. He was an incredibly brave and cheerful young man who would always lead his soldiers in a mounted charge whenever a battle broke out. To be honest, charging behind him in this horrific war felt exhilarating, even thrilling at times.
But that brave young man fell from his horse and died in his fourth battle.
My second commander was a coward before the enemy but cruel to his own men. Even when we needed to sally out to defend the outpost, he insisted on hunkering down inside, refusing to budge. Anyone who found the courage to speak up was flogged. After watching a comrade waste away and die from a severe beating, I shut my mouth. I was a coward.
We were besieged. After starving for days, we lost the outpost to a massive onslaught of savages who drove tamed trolls before them.
I fought to the end, prepared to die. But it was only after watching our incompetent commander get picked up by a troll, have his arms ripped off while still alive, and his head bitten off that I finally fled.
When you flee a lost battle, there are few places to go. If you don't want to starve to death, your only option is to head to the rallying point. But getting there was no easy task.
By the time I killed the savage pursuers and reached the rallying point, I was alone. The others hadn't fled back to their hometowns; they were dead. Starved, eaten by monsters, or caught by their pursuers.
At the rallying point, I was assigned to the unit led by Caldebert, the fourth prince of the Adelorn Royal Family.
At first glance, Caldebert looked like a sheltered scholar. He had beautiful blonde hair and a frail body that seemed ill-suited to the weight of chainmail. Yet, he had been ordered by the commander-in-chief to reclaim the outpost. Perhaps because of that, he asked me all sorts of questions about the terrain and the characteristics of the savages.
Strangely enough, perhaps because we were of similar age, Caldebert and I got along incredibly well. We became close so quickly that we transcended the vast gulf between our social statuses, a distance as great as heaven and earth.
He loved hearing stories about my hometown and listened patiently to my talk about the tedious, peaceful life of a shepherd.
“Ricky, you have the makings of a poet. Listening to your stories brings peace to my mind, even in a brutal place like this. I had thought all northerners were rough and coarse.”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t even know how to read.”
“The very first songs weren’t written with letters, were they?”
How noble of him to say. Sometimes, the language of the nobles sounded like a foreign tongue.
Once preparations were complete, Caldebert led his unit to reclaim the forward outpost. I marched with them.
Caldebert was an exceptional commander. He was meticulous when planning operations and nothing short of brave in combat. He made bold decisions, risking encirclement to penetrate deep into enemy lines and strike their rear. He would force them to retreat, then systematically destroy them piece by piece to secure victory.
However, the savages could not afford to lose the outpost they had barely reclaimed after nearly ten years, and they put up a desperate, final stand. Since Caldebert had staked everything on this operation, retreating would only put us in greater danger, leaving him no choice but to press on.
With both sides fighting with all their might, a truly gruesome battle unfolded. Severed limbs dangled by shreds of flesh, corpses piled high like mountains, torrents of blood, agonizing screams, and dying men crying out for their mothers with their last breaths.
Amidst the chaos, Caldebert threw himself into the fray, fighting with all his might. But then, he was pushed to the brink of death, and I fought with everything I had to save him.
Just as I grabbed the scruff of his neck to pull him up, a thunderous roar echoed across the battlefield.
“Steel Reaper Ricky! A duel! You and I will end this war right here!”
The man who suddenly appeared and challenged me was Vesprim, a legendary warrior among the savages. Among the imperial soldiers, he was known by the nickname “Meat Cleaver.”
He was twice the height and bulk of an ordinary man, clad from head to toe in iron armor. Around his neck hung a necklace made of dozens of severed imperial ears. From his belt dangled skulls that still had bits of rotting flesh clinging to them. His great axe was a crude, massive blade bound tightly to a shaft, famous for cleaving a man in two with a single swing.
Vesprim and I had only heard of each other through rumors whispered across the battlefield; this was our first time meeting face-to-face. Perhaps that was why he singled me out as the leader, rather than the new commander, Caldebert.
In the middle of the life-or-death battlefield, the surrounding soldiers drew back to clear a space. Both ally and foe temporarily forgot their struggle, turning to watch the duel.
Though it could not match the sheer size of Vesprim’s axe, my weapon was a greatsword, far larger than any ordinary blade. The ground beneath us was a muddy swamp, thick with the stench of iron and blood.
A duel of destiny? I didn't think of it in such grand terms. I simply threw my entire being into where the tip of my blade guided me.
After a standoff that felt both long and short, the duel ended in an instant.
I parried Vesprim’s monstrous axe swing with precision, sidestepped, and brought my sword down with immense force. At that moment, a sacred, golden flame erupted along the length of my blade.
As Vesprim fell sideways, he raised his arm to block. With a loud metallic clang, his arm was severed. Blood gushed in torrents. And just like that, the duel was over.
The duel itself was shocking, but the onlookers were utterly speechless, staring in awe at the golden flame that had flared from my sword. What is that? He is a warrior blessed by the gods.
But at that moment, I didn't care about any of that. I only saw Vesprim’s blue eyes peering through his helmet. They were trembling with fear.
At the sight of those eyes, the fire in my heart rapidly cooled, and the flame on my blade died out with it.
As allies and enemies alike watched with bated breath, everyone assumed I would execute my fallen foe.
But what actually happened was the exact opposite. In some ways, it was even more shocking than the flame on my blade.
Slowly lowering the sword I had raised high, as if ready to decapitate him at any second, I spoke.
“Go. Forget this war, return to your home, and live in peace.”
Why did I do it? Even I don't know. Perhaps I simply saw a reflection of myself in those fear-filled eyes. Perhaps I just thought that this man, too, had been an innocent soul before he left home. It was nothing more than a passing thought.
The watching imperial soldiers could not comprehend it, but none dared to object. Because at that moment, in that place, I was an absolute existence.
And just like that, the battle was over. Their spirits broken, the savages withdrew on their own, and the imperial army did not pursue them. It was as if a temporary truce had been struck, even though both sides had fought with nothing but utter hatred for each other for the past ten years.
With the reclamation of the outpost, my war had also come to an end. I requested my discharge from Caldebert, expressing my desire to return home.
Caldebert’s expression showed he had many things he wanted to say, but he held them back and simply accepted my request.
I was the first person to be discharged from the Eastern Campaign Front with all my limbs intact. There was no other way to be honorably discharged except by dying.
And so, after ten years, I returned to my hometown. To the Haiden Fields. To the place where I used to herd sheep. Though I wasn't a shepherd anymore, I supposed. I would probably just tend to the mill. That wasn't a bad prospect.
But when I arrived home, my wife had already started a new family. She had a new husband and children.
I will never forget the words she threw at me with a cold, piercing gaze: “What did you ever do for me? Don’t act like you know me.”
What did she mean? What about my wages? Why on earth did I roll around in that living hell for ten years?
The driving force that had kept me going for a decade was incredibly fragile. Once the truth was revealed, that fragility tore as easily as a sheet of paper.
Shaking with betrayal, I drew my sword and slaughtered the entire family in an instant. Before I could even attempt to control myself, the swordsmanship I had honed for ten years on the battlefield acted on its own.
But as it turned out, the village chief had been pocketing my wages all along. So, I killed him and his entire family too.
In the process of killing the chief, I discovered that even the drawing of lots had been rigged. Did I ever even have a choice? I slaughtered everyone in the village.
Just as I had done on the battlefield, I killed the children painfully in front of their parents, then locked the rest in warehouses and barns and burned them alive. Since this was the only thing I had ever learned, the entire process was shockingly efficient.
Thus, I became a wanted man, not just in the kingdom, but across the entire empire. My world had lost all meaning. Just let everyone die.
Many came to kill me. Bounty hunters, adventurers, thugs, bandits, wandering swordsmen, and renowned knights. Sometimes they came as a small elite group, and other times they came in droves.
Surviving several brushes with death, I killed every last one of them. Countless times. And with each encounter, my combat prowess grew without limit.
I was neither a wanted criminal nor a fugitive. In truth, I was the one who hunted them down and slaughtered them.
I stormed castles alone to assassinate lords and shattered famous fencing guilds and adventurers' guilds.
Holding my sword ablaze with golden fire, I looked down upon the world from atop a mountain of corpses.
And so, people began to call me the Demon King. The devil among devils, the murderer among murderers, Ricky. Even the Emperor trembled in fear.
After ten years of this, ironically, a faction of followers emerged. They claimed that for a human to be so powerful, he must surely be chosen by the gods.
But my body was already a ruined wreck. The scars from wounds cauterized with red-hot blades were too numerous to count, and several of my fingers could no longer fully extend or bend. My mind was utterly devastated, and my life was drawing to its close.
Ten years as a shepherd, ten years on the battlefield, and ten years as a notorious mass murderer. I decided to go somewhere no one would know me to meet my death in silence.
Walking without a destination, I eventually found myself back in the Haiden Fields. The sunlight piercing through the gaps in the dark clouds looked like a cluster of spears thrust into the earth.
In the distance, white sheep were scattered like tufts of cotton, grazing on the grass. A young shepherd boy sat in the field, simply gazing at the landscape just as I once had.
Then, once again, someone approached on horseback. Just like before, he had his back to the sun, his face obscured by a pitch-black shadow.
This time, I did not kneel. I simply drove my sword into the ground, sat down heavily, and said with my head bowed, “Liar.”
“About what?”
“There is no such thing as happiness.”
“Nor is there unhappiness. Both are mere mirages. Thus, it is entirely up to your choice. The one who cursed you and burned you at the stake was none other than yourself.”
“…I don’t know. I’m just tired now.”
“Then rest. But after your rest, your task awaits you once more. This is something even I cannot change.”
My eyes slowly closed. Was I dying? Or was I simply falling asleep? As my consciousness began to fade, I asked him, “…Who are you? A god, or a devil?”
At the very edge of my consciousness, I heard the man’s reply.
“Just as you looked upon the stars, I looked upon you.”
With those final words, my first life seemed to come to an end.
Fire, steel, blood, and death. If I were to summarize my life in a few words, it would be this.
Prologue – Memories That Can Never Become Cherished Recollections. End.
