Kyle (1)
The capital's outskirts never see dawn early.
Precisely because the homes crammed into narrow alleyways let in the sunlight so late.
Rain turns the dirt into ankle-deep mud. On clear days it clings like dust to the inside of your throat.
Sixteen-year-old Kyle walked those streets every morning.
One small piece of hard bread tucked in his pocket, he endured the sleep he couldn't afford to lose and pushed open the blacksmith's door.
Strike the anvil. Heat the iron. Lift the hammer.
“You’re here.”
“Yes.”
“Clean the hooves first. Hoof picks next.”
The blacksmith’s workshop never saw long words. Before the fire, hands moved before mouths.
“One noble client came today. Keep that in mind.”
The meaning was simple.
Be careful with your words.
Be careful with your eyes.
Don’t get involved.
Kyle kept working.
“Huff…”
Every time the hammer came down, his breath hitched.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His wrists ached every time he pounded the glowing iron. The flames licked at his skin, and sweat dried on his chin before it could even form.
Hot. Painful. A place where one mistake was unforgivable.
Kyle’s world had always been like this.
“Hey.”
Before he even turned, something flew at him.
Clang!
He instinctively raised his hammer. A sword flew off and scraped the floor.
It had half its edge gone. If he’d missed, the back of his hand would have been severed instead of the neck.
The man who hurled the sword didn’t even glance at Kyle. He calmly took off his glove.
“….”
“What are you staring at? A filthy commoner.”
Spotless leather gloves. A cloak without a single speck of dust.
A grease-smeared apron and blackened gloves were what Kyle wore.
They came from two completely different worlds.
Nobles.
“Fix that by tomorrow morning.”
The tone belonged to someone speaking to an animal, not a smith.
Kyle picked up the sword from the floor and examined it. The damage wasn’t just the edge.
The center was even slightly bent. It wouldn’t stop at simple grinding and pounding.
“The edge is badly damaged. In one day I can’t—”
“What, can’t do it?”
The man strode straight over to him.
Smack!
His cheek stung. The taste of blood spread inside his mouth, as if he were chewing a red-hot nail.
…A tooth had cracked. Or maybe it was gone.
The man looked down at him.
“Tsk.”
His gaze lingered only a moment. He had no interest, so he turned away immediately.
“Looks like you haven’t been properly taught. Soon your master’s fate will interest me.”
His fists clenched, then relaxed.
“…I’ll fix it.”
He didn’t need any more lost sleep.
“You should have done this from the start. You’re only making my wrist hurt. Right?”
“…Yes.”
The master said nothing. The other blacksmiths bowed their heads.
Throwing swords. Nearly killing someone. Blackmailing. Grabbing. Bullying a child.
No one dared speak against him.
Because they knew.
Here, I am not a person. I don’t even have the name Kyle.
Commoner.
Two letters were enough.
Why did you throw it? If the sword is so precious, shouldn’t you have left it for people at least?
Kyle swallowed the words that rose in his throat.
The noble knight lost interest in the silent boy and turned away.
“Do it properly. Touch me again and I’ll break your wrist before the hammer does.”
No one helped him.
It wasn’t a special misfortune. Not an accident. Not a misfortune.
It was simply one of the things that happened to commoners.
Kyle spat out the tooth. Fortunately the root looked intact.
Even this was money. Nobles used false teeth for decent prices.
Kyle quietly pushed the sword into the fire. He struck the iron again.
Thud.
He struck.
Clang!
The vibration rattled his skull. Blood burst between his gums.
Thud!!
He ground his teeth and struck.
Thud!!!
He had to endure.
Endure.
Endure now.
“…Damn it.”
***
His father had been a blacksmith and, once, a mercenary.
Even as a child, thanks to his father, Kyle had food to eat. He never taught forging or smelting directly, but there was so much he had absorbed from watching.
His father never boasted. He never told anyone he had cut a man’s throat on the battlefield.
Those who didn’t believe him always pestered him. Each time, his father only laughed and let it go.
Kyle knew.
The long, ugly scars on his father’s back.
The limp in his right leg that appeared every rainy day.
The habit of shifting his gaze toward something before gripping the hammer instead of the sword hilt.
His father had one habit.
“Kyle, endure.”
Whenever Kyle suffered injustice, that was what he always said.
“Life has days when you want to throw a punch first. You’re not wrong, and you’re not weak.”
“Then why do I have to endure?”
His father’s silence stretched long. It felt like longing for someone. Or perhaps bone-deep regret.
“…There’s something more important than right and wrong in this world.”
“What is it?”
“Power.”
His father lifted Kyle straight into the air with one arm.
“Eh…?”
“And status.”
He sat Kyle on a chair and stroked his hair. His father’s expression was kind, yet somewhere it looked sad.
“I once didn’t know either. The truth is, even I found it too difficult to accept.”
Kyle met his father’s eyes.
“Still, endure. Enduring doesn’t mean losing.”
“…Until when?”
“When the time comes, there will be light that enters like sunlight.”
“A miracle?”
“Haha… not something grand. But it will be enough light to change your life.”
Kyle found himself clenching his fists without realizing. His father gently pried each finger open.
“So let go of power. Endure, and opportunity will come.”
His father always told him to endure, but strangely he never looked cowardly. He wasn’t someone fleeing.
His body was covered with more scars than calluses. When gripping the hammer, walking, even when staring out the doorway.
There was always the weight that came with the hands of someone who once held a sword.
That was why Kyle hated him even more.
A person who knew how to fight telling him to endure. It felt like he really had no choice.
Kyle wanted to believe the words. Even after his father’s death, he kept asking.
Did such a moment really come?
Or did we only learn to endure until death?
***
Sometimes Kyle dreamed.
A boy born commoner but gifted with the sword, noticed by a passing knight, earning glory on the battlefield.
A child born with mana but unaware because of poverty, taken in as a disciple by a mage from the tower.
A boy who had nothing, who was ignored by everyone, was actually special.
Kyle loved those stories. No, he had no choice but to love them.
Because in those stories, even commoners could become protagonists.
Kyle now knew.
That he was not special.
Swordsmanship? The weapon his hands were used to was the hammer, not the sword.
Mana? He couldn’t even afford a magic stone or a spellbook. His life was too poor to buy medicine for his injured hand.
Even when he was accused of stealing bread.
He had only stood in front of the bakery. He had only been choosing the cheapest bread for his mother.
The owner grabbed his collar and shouted. Around them, people looked at his clothes before his hands.
An old shirt. Worn shoes. Sooty hands.
The truth didn’t matter much. They just needed someone to take their anger out on.
Even when a noble’s carriage deliberately splashed mud at him.
Mud splashed across his face. His shirt was ruined. The boy on horseback laughed at Kyle.
To them, Kyle was not a person but something closer to dirt.
“A dirty thing wearing the dirty.”
The words remained buried in a corner of his memory and never left.
When the tax collector demanded another payment, his mother had already paid. The ledger was wrong. The money from last month had already been handed over.
The collector struck his ledger with his fingers.
“It’s not here.”
One word was enough.
Every time he clenched his fists. But he opened them right away.
Because if he kept them clenched to the end, he would no longer be able to endure.
***
Kyle headed to the central market of the capital for the bread he would eat that evening.
The bread didn’t have to be fresh. Yesterday’s was cheaper. A dented shape could even be haggled over.
The market had already settled into the evening chill.
The baker’s were selling stale bread cheaply. Fish vendors were liquidating their leftovers. People who had survived the day were checking their ledgers and making their final deals.
Then, from far away, light flashed. It wasn’t the yellow lantern of the bakery.
Bright. Sparkling. Like a noble gathering had begun.
“Hit him! Hit him like that!”
“No, why are you backing away there?”
“Block him! If you don’t, you lose!”
“Waaaaaaa!!!”
Kyle stopped walking. At first he thought it was a fight.
But something felt wrong.
No screams. No curses. No groans of pain.
All that existed there were laughter, sighs, and cheers.
At the entrance of an old warehouse. Inside it.
Two people on a small screen facing each other, fists extended toward one another.