Chapter 6
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: The Prelude to Summer (5)
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June 25, Year 1692 of the Origin Calendar.
Summer arrived without warning, sweeping mercilessly through the southern regions of the old republic.
“R-Run…!”
“Uruks, it’s the Uruks…!”
“Moooommyyy…!”
The first line of defense had collapsed.
People fled with only their livestock and household goods, weeping as they trampled over the bodies of their kin.
They ran north, toward the Inferno Line, or east, toward the republic’s capital, Tervenople.
The situation was so dire that the White Skull Brigade’s southward march continued unabated. In the midst of it all, Camilla had to teach Kaisen.
Even if their classroom was a battlefield.
“Listen up.”
Camilla spoke as an Uruk combat unit charged toward them from the front, letting out a war cry.
“Our mission is to act as the reserve. We find the holes in the main force and plug them.”
“Jeez, you want us to go on a date with Uruks on a rainy day? This is the kind of weather I wouldn't even ask a pretty girl out in.”
“Jin, you think a pretty girl would ever meet a piece of trash like you on a rainy day? It’s because they’re Uruks that they’re willing to see you.”
“Pwahahahaha!”
“I’ve memorized the voices of everyone who just laughed.”
“Gasp.”
“Are you all done talking?”
“Yep.”
“Then shut your mouths. All units, assemble.”
Camilla’s brigade, in full battle gear, formed up in an orderly fashion.
2,117 musketeers.
883 pikemen.
24 beastmen soldiers, including Eltram.
The musketeers were all grenadiers, the most elite infantry unit, armed with steam grenades. In short, the entire brigade consisted of special forces.
“And Kaisen! You stick right behind me. If you get in the way and get someone else killed, you’ll die by my hand. Got it?”
The boy who stepped forward at the call of his name was pale.
It wasn't out of fear.
It was the aftereffect of having his demonic channels forcibly opened, a backlash that still hadn't fully subsided. Even the pounding of his own heart felt like a vibration of pain, but there was no time to collapse.
Wolf spoke, his eyes filled with concern.
“Camilla, do you really have to drag Kaisen into this battle?”
“He makes his own decisions. Are you going or not? You scared? Pissing your pants? If you are, turn around and run. No one will blame you.”
Faced with Camilla’s tirade, Eltram nudged the boy’s side and offered a piece of advice.
“Courage isn’t about not feeling fear. It’s the grit to face that fear and not run away.”
No verbal answer was needed. The boy responded with his actions, taking his place beside the ranks of mercenaries.
Yes, that was his first battle.
The first battle of the great hero, the Holy Knight Sharrilion, who would mark both the beginning and the end of the Age of Heroes.
Childhood,
The Prelude to Summer (5)
The wild grasses, parched by the early summer heat, creaked weakly in the light rain before being mercilessly trampled by the Uruks.
Gunshots…
The clang of steel…
The roars of Uruks…
The screams of humans…
The cacophony of pandemonium mingled thickly with the sound of the rain, raising the stench of blood.
‘Calm down.’
Kaisen clenched his trembling hands. *Please, just calm down…*
“Black flare from the right flank! It’s the signal for a broken line!”
“Confirmed. We’re moving.”
Camilla started running in the direction of the flare.
Following her, the heavily armed White Skull Brigade also moved swiftly across the formation.
Camilla called out to Eltram, who was hot on her heels.
“Eltram! How many do you think?”
“The smell is strong, so I’d say at least a thousand. It’s not precise because of the rain, though.”
“That’s enough.”
She was fast.
How could anyone be so fast?
The brigade’s soldiers were quick, but Camilla, leading the charge with the holy sword in hand, was by far the fastest.
‘I heard the holy sword is so heavy it takes three or four grown men just to lift it…’
Camilla glanced back at Kaisen, who was panting as he followed, and shouted.
“Is the sword heavy? Can’t handle it? Good! Then drop everything and get back!”
*Never let go of the sword, no matter what.* That was Camilla’s first lesson.
He hadn’t known then.
He hadn’t known what a nuisance a sword could be.
‘And this thing is…’
A longsword with a blade as tall as he was.
Needless to say, the weight of the sword felt like it would shatter every bone in his body, but its immense length also caused all sorts of problems.
Right now, as he had to dash across this chaotic battlefield, those problems were at their peak.
Clammy, cold sweat.
A heart pounding as if it would burst.
Kaisen clenched his teeth so hard they might break.
*It’s not heavy.*
*It’s not a nuisance.*
*Mom ran for miles carrying me and my sister, and she was always smiling, even then. Right up to the very end.*
I will learn. I will definitely learn.
How to use a sword, everything my mother taught this foul-mouthed woman, from beginning to end.
‘So that one day, I can kill all the Uruks—’
It was in that moment, as he went to wipe the mix of rain and sweat from his stinging eyes.
“────El Ba shi!”
In an instant, all hell broke loose.
His perception of the information was fragmented.
“PAaaaaaaaaaaaaat!”
A carriage wheel flying out of nowhere.
The scream of a pikeman whose chest was crushed, the gushing blood, the smell of it, the urgent cry of “Enemy!”…
And then, from all sides, they burst forth with terrible roars.
Uruks.
A musketeer with a massive axe blade embedded in him collapsed, coughing up blood. Camilla drew her holy sword.
“Wolf, you take the left.”
The battle descended into a chaotic melee.
The beastmen soldiers engaged the Uruks in hand-to-hand combat, the pikemen formed a circle around the musketeers, and at that moment, the musketeers’ steam rifles spat out iron pellets with a hiss.
A feast of blood and death. Blood sprayed everywhere he looked. Kaisen gasped for breath.
Why?
It was just an instant, but why… why did it feel like it was lasting for thousands of years?
“H-Help… help me…”
A faint, dying gasp.
Startled, he turned toward the sound, just in time to see the head of a half-dead musketeer crawling on the ground get smashed by a mace.
The Uruk cackled, looking at Kaisen. A bone fragment flew and lodged in his forehead, and bits of brain and flesh stuck to his hair. At that moment.
—*My mother’s most precious treasure in the world…*
A distant memory.
The fated path he had set for himself that day.
It pulled his consciousness closer, and instead of letting him fall into a panic, it sharpened his mind.
*Kill…*
Amidst the clear, single echo of fate, his ragged breathing calmed, and his heart grew quiet.
*Kill, I must kill…*
A surging bloodlust danced within him. He drew the single-edged sword from his back.
Every single one.
Without a single exception.
The next moment, the creature lunged at him, swinging its mace.
Sipmunjado First Form: Circle.
An ultimate defensive stance, achieved by crossing the sword and scabbard to create a circular defense.
*Clang─────!*
A vicious, cracking sound.
A wave of agony threatened to shatter his wrist.
‘What is this absurd strength…?’
His stance broke. He was sent flying backward, slamming into the trunk of a withered tree.
As he coughed up a painful mouthful of blood, he saw the creature approaching through his wavering vision.
As everything—the shouts, the screams—seemed to blend together slowly in the rain, the creature was upon him, raising its mace.
“Ro de a…… Balkrush?”
Two strokes of luck occurred then.
One was that the creature hesitated upon seeing the Balkrush clan crest carved on Kaisen’s left cheek.
“Kaisen!”
*Kiiing───!*
The other was that Wolf, sensing Kaisen’s peril, had launched a frost spell that pierced the creature’s hand.
As the mace flew from its grasp amidst a pained groan, the Uruk’s wrist suddenly dangled in the air, spewing blood.
Whose attack was that?
It was a direct hit from Kaisen’s own blade.
─ Sipmunjado Second Form: Thrust.
And then, was it a reflex, or perhaps instinct? The boy leaped fiercely, aiming for a finishing blow.
But just before the tip of his sword reached the throat, a fist slammed into Kaisen’s abdomen.
He should have passed out from the agony. He should have dropped his sword and collapsed.
‘Don’t lose consciousness.’
If his opponent had been any other human brat.
‘I’ll end it here.’
His vision went black, but he gritted his teeth so hard they could have shattered.
His grip on the sword remained firm.
The blade continued its path forward. The sensation of slaughter—of piercing the neck and breaking the cervical vertebrae—traveled up the steel.
For a moment, a silence fell as if the world had stopped.
He gasped painfully for breath. When he pulled the sword from the neck, something burst out, drenching his entire body in a sticky wetness.
The blood was red.
The Uruk’s blood was red, just like a human’s. Do all of the Creator’s creations have red blood?
For some reason, he couldn’t believe that fact, didn’t like it, and so he stabbed it again.
“Shi…… Shimdi ttera……”
A look of bewilderment formed in its eyes.
Its hands flailed, trying to grab Kaisen.
Kaisen stood perfectly still.
Just before it could seize his head, he gave it a light kick, and the creature collapsed in a heap, its wide eyes unable to even close.
“…”
Kaisen stared for a long time at the dead Uruk, or rather, at his own reflection in its eyes.
It was raining.
I can’t… I can’t breathe… The smell of blood was so strong it made his head spin.
‘Is this it? This is the end?’
The sensation that pierced his entire being at the moment of his first kill was not the pleasure of revenge.
Was it a sense of loss?
It was a helpless feeling of despair.
It was a sense of failure so intense that laughter unknowingly, uncontrollably, erupted from deep within him.
“Ha, ahaha… ahahahaha… Ha, hahahahahahahahaha… haha… hee… ha…”
Was it laughter, or was it a sob? It was likely a self-deprecating sneer at his own situation.
Even if he killed and killed again.
Even if he created a river with the blood of thousands upon thousands of enemies, his mother would never come back. It was likely due to that sad realization of his fate.
“Whoa, that kid’s amazing. Took down an Uruk with just a sword.”
Eltram’s eyebrows shot up.
As veteran mercenaries whistled in appreciation, Camilla, who had just cut down five Uruks in a single motion, strode over and slapped Kaisen across the face.
“Why are you crying now? What did you do that’s worth crying about! What do you think you’re doing, bawling like a baby on the battlefield! Are you trying to get yourself killed? Begging me to kill you?”
“…”
“You said you wanted to kill Uruks! You think you can do it with that kind of attitude? How many people have to die protecting a sniveling brat like you before you get it?”
“…!”
“In the world of the sword, no one comes to help you just because you cry! Not a single person! You have to fight your way through it alone, with this one sword!”
That solitude was the weight of destiny.
The destiny of solitude that the boy, who had now entered the path of the sword, would have to bear.
Camilla wanted to tell him that on this path of pain, sorrow, and grief—a path she had walked first and was still walking—there was no time to even cry.
“Camilla, that’s enough. I’m sure Kaisen understands.”
That day, Kaisen, who had been laughing like a man possessed in the rain.
Only after Wolf pulled him into an embrace and patted his back for a long time did he begin to weep, his cries muffled.
He wept with a devastating, heart-wrenching sorrow.
[Perhaps that was the day the boy’s childhood truly came to an end…]
That is how Johan concludes Kaisen’s childhood in his diary.
He writes that the hero’s childhood ended completely, then and there.
The diary goes on to record that Kaisen became a member of the brigade and distinguished himself as a swordsman on every battlefield.
“Urgent message from the left flank, the line is being overrun by one hundred fifty Blaschwulf cavalry!”
“Hey. Slacker, you go. If you screw up like last time, you’re dead.”
“No.”
Kaisen killed and killed again.
With each kill, he learned the forms of the Sipmunjado, and with each subsequent kill, he became cleaner, more brutal.
“Is that kid really the same brat who used to get beaten like a dog by Lady Camilla?”
“I don’t know whether to call him brave or just terrifying…”
“At this rate, ‘Uruk Slayer’ is going to stop being a joke. Seriously.”
He slashed and slashed again.
Any Uruk that came into his sight was certain to die.
As battle replaced daily life, the stench of blood and leather began to cling to him like perfume.
“Kaisen.”
“Kaisen, you handle it.”
“Kaisen, you go.”
Battle, war, slaughter.
He fought shoulder to shoulder with mercenaries, killed Uruks that ravaged villages, and even took on Camilla’s role as the head of the reserve force.
Four years.
Four years passed like that.
In those four years, the boy became a swordsman, and the season turned from early to mid-summer.
“A retreat?”
Griffins.
Mankind’s fastest method of communication.
As always, the griffin riders brought news of defeat.
“Yes, sir. It seems they’ve determined that the front line can no longer be maintained.”
“Fuck. We’re pulling out when we haven’t even properly reclaimed our territory?”
“All forces are to retreat to the Inferno Line and regroup. Those are Grand Marshal Krauzan’s orders.”
And so, after four years, the final chapter of the first act of the godless war was approaching.
“Hey, slacker.”
Camilla called out to the boy who was sitting on a distant rock, sharpening his sword. The boy looked up without a word.
He had become a veteran of the brigade.
He was the same Kaisen who, four years ago, had recklessly challenged Camilla to a duel without a care for his own life.
“?”
The boy’s appearance had changed in more ways than just his height.
His quilted armor was as faded and yellow as his shaggy hair, which he let hang messily over his eyebrows.
The sword he was sharpening with a whetstone was a longsword, its blade as long as he was tall—a weapon modeled after the Supreme Holy Sword Aradamanthel.
“Time for some homework, for old time’s sake.”
Four years was more than enough time.
Enough to turn a boy who once smiled innocently and was full of mischief into a merciless swordsman.
“Looks like the Uruks are moving on Fortress 7 of the Inferno Line. I need you to go on ahead and protect the artillery.”
“Enemy numbers?”
“How should I know? If the vanguard makes landfall, probably around a thousand.”
“What do I get?”
“I’ll teach you one more form.”
“One form for fighting a thousand? Make it three.”
“Three? That's more than the balls you've got. Did you jerk off your conscience?”
“?”
“One. But what I’ll teach you this time is a secret technique of the Sipmunjado, famous for its killing power.”
Kaisen sheathed his longsword.
He stood up, securing it to the baldric on his back. The mercenaries watching cheered him on, but…
“Kuh, it’s Kaisen again!”
“Lady Camilla’s been giving Kaisen all the important missions lately.”
“That’s only because the rest of you are useless trash, and he’s the only one I can use.”
The expression on the face of the boy at the center of their cheers was beyond blank; it was frigid.
“Don’t get cocky and die before you’ve earned your keep. Just hold the line. I’ll take the main force.”
At that, Kaisen glared at Camilla with a defiant look, as if to ask if she was kidding. Then he replied with a sneer.
“You should worry about the Uruks.”