Chapter 0: Prologue
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 0: Prologue
Jin Runcandel often thought to himself:
Am I a lost cause?
He hadn't always been this way. He was, after all, a young man in his prime, not yet thirty. There was a time when he, too, had grand ambitions and shining dreams.
He remembered the moment he first gripped a sword, the youngest son of the legendary Runcandel clan.
In his youth, Jin believed his future held nothing but success and glory. He assumed he would be just like his father and older siblings.
But Jin had no talent.
Members of the Runcandel clan typically became 1-star knights by the age of thirteen. In the clan’s thousand-year history, no one had ever failed to reach this milestone before their thirteenth birthday.
By sixteen, they were 3-star knights. By twenty, they were 5-star knights, roaming the world. That was the Runcandel average.
Jin, however, only became a 1-star knight at the age of twenty-five.
Reaching 1-star at twenty-five was something even a commoner with zero talent could achieve if they put in enough effort.
It was only because his efforts were so pathetic that his siblings settled for merely kicking him out instead of killing him.
‘But I didn't lack talent. I wasn't untalented...’
After leaving the clan, Jin made a startling discovery: his true talent lay not in the sword, but in something else entirely.
Magic.
Jin possessed an extraordinary aptitude for magic.
After wandering aimlessly, he became the disciple of a mage by pure chance. Just three years later, the God of Shadows himself offered Jin a contract.
A clear path to becoming one of the era’s Great Mages had opened before him. Solderet, the God of Shadows, was the one being all mages yearned to serve.
Furthermore, through Solderet, Jin learned a shocking truth: he actually possessed immense talent for the sword as well.
[Contractor, it seems you earned someone’s resentment when you were very young. A petty curse has been preventing you from drawing out your true strength. Perhaps that is why I was drawn to you.]
A petty curse.
That was how Solderet described the affliction that had suppressed Jin’s talent. The one who had cast the curse, known as the "Delusion of the Blade," was a 9-star mage.
Of course, Jin hadn’t even known he was cursed until he met Solderet.
Solderet easily brushed away the curse that had shackled him for a lifetime. The faint, red chains hidden within Jin’s body dissolved into the shadows and vanished.
[Now, all that remains is for you to become an unparalleled magic swordsman, my contractor. It will be a pleasure to watch.]
It was true.
When he gripped a sword again at Solderet’s instruction, he reached a new level of mastery with every passing moment. Jin Runcandel, the greatest failure in the clan's history, was no more.
Magic in one hand.
A sword in the other.
In another ten years, he would have become strong enough to ignore the clan that had abandoned him. All that remained for Jin was to become the strongest magic swordsman in history and command the world. And yet…
‘I guess I really am a lost cause.’
Cough!
Jin spat out a mouthful of clotted blood. More blood streamed from his nose, eyes, and ears.
He was going to die.
He hadn’t even had a chance to use the magic he’d studied for three years, let alone the power Solderet had granted him.
Out of nowhere, three 9-star knights had attacked the capital of the Akin Kingdom. Jin, who had been fast asleep, was caught in the crossfire and suffered a fatal wound.
While he was sleeping, of all things.
A single 9-star knight could lay waste to a country like the Akin Kingdom in half a day. But three of them had struck the capital at once. There was nothing Jin, who had only just stepped onto the path of the strong, could do.
Having just finished a grueling training session, he had fallen into an exhausted sleep and couldn't even react.
It was an absurd death. He felt he would go mad from the sheer injustice of it all, but only a hollow, wet chuckle escaped his blood-filled mouth.
Death was at his doorstep, and there was no one by his side.
Not the master who had cherished him, not the family who had abandoned him.
Even Solderet remained silent.
‘If it was going to end like this, why did the heavens… give me a chance at all?’
And so, Jin Runcandel closed his eyes.
He had no lingering attachments, but his life was one full of regrets.