Prologue: The Happiness of a Full Stomach
Having a full stomach is a happy thing. It meant never having to groan in hunger or run yourself ragged just to survive. That was the satisfaction of an ordinary man. So it was only natural that a steel company which had survived the inferno of war would grow fat and bloated with wealth. Perhaps that was why I was born with every advantage.
Westania. The strongest military and industrial nation on the continent, a victorious power that stood unchallenged in both force and production. In the heart of its capital lay the owner family of a steel and weapons manufacturing conglomerate. The heir of Cloud, Demian.
The river of iron and blood had nourished me from birth.
People often assume that upper-class homes are anything but peaceful—cold, desolate places devoid of warmth. Yet ironically, the very family that forged shells and bullets from metal, slaughtering countless fathers and husbands, lived in perfect harmony. My father was a devoted patriarch who gave as much to his household as he did to the company. My mother was an exceptional woman who supported him flawlessly while presiding over the entire estate. Above all, they were kind to me.
They never struck me, never raised their voices. They never even pressured me with the usual talk of inheriting the family business and becoming a man worthy of high society.
They offered only gentle smiles and freedom. Perhaps even love.
Being the son of one of the most powerful men in the nation brought me countless opportunities. My room overflowed with luxury toys that middle-class children could never dream of. The finest scholars in the country came to tutor me. When studies grew tiresome, I met with artists. I fired rifles at private hunting grounds set up within the city itself. There was never any need to lash out, to curse, to drink, or to drown myself in drugs. Inferiority and rage had no soil in which to take root. Simply savoring everything I had been given was enough to fill my days completely.
Opportunities others could never obtain, the freedom to choose anything I desired—they were all within my grasp. And when things grew difficult, I had a warm shelter where I could lean and rest without shame. A truly wealthy and peaceful home. A perfect childhood.
I believed it would last forever.
Then my youth began.
Rain was falling. A chill drizzle slipped past the umbrella and soaked my shoulders. The discomfort went beyond the weather. For the first time, the world surrounding me felt utterly repulsive.
The jackals’ voices slithered into my ears and toyed with my sanity. I wanted nothing more than to put bullets through every one of their skulls. Instead I ground my teeth and endured. I had no time to waste on them now. My eyes could not leave the scene before me. This was the final moment.
The coffin descended into the deeply excavated earth. It was something that should have felt inevitable—after all, I was meant to inherit the company—but the sight felt entirely foreign. Of course it did. That was not the pipeline that had nourished me. It was an iron coffin holding my only two family members. A container that could not even recover their bodies, only fragments. At the same time, it was our last goodbye.
Thud.
My family sank completely below and began to disappear beneath the soil. They vanished from my side. They vanished from my world. I had known it would happen, yet the reality still struck me as sudden and monstrous.
They told me to enjoy life to the fullest.
There were still so many things I wanted to experience. I was too young, too inexperienced to inherit a massive enterprise tangled in layers of political strife. I had not been loved enough to grow tired of it. Only fourteen years together. It was far too early to say goodbye to them as mangled corpses that could not even be properly prepared.
“……Does this even make sense?”
I tried to reproach them for their cruelty, but they offered no reply. They had already been buried so deeply that my voice could never reach them. They left me in silence. As if it were all a lie.
My beloved family had drawn their last breath. By terrorism.
It was the moment that decided what I would become.