A Name Like Shadow
Upon the continent there were six lights and five darknesses.
The six powers that rose like brilliant suns and stood astride the land were called the Six Kings. Those who nested in the shadows, spreading wickedness and terror, were known as the Five Demons.
Among those Six Kings, the overlord who reigned over the North was House Zieghart.
"Auuu."
Raon rounded his mouth as his eyes met those of Zieghart's master.
Did this actually work out...?
House Zieghart was a place that did not yield an inch to House Robert—the family that had used him thoroughly in his previous life and then discarded him for dead. If he could grow his strength here, the day of his revenge might arrive far sooner than he had dared to hope.
"Just like Father and me, this child has golden hair and crimson eyes."
While Raon was still turning over how he ought to move from here, Sylvia smiled softly and stroked his hair.
"......"
Glenn lifted the infant's body, the dizzying weight of his presence remaining wholly intact.
Huh?
Raon trembled. The instant Glenn gathered him up, a warm yet gentle energy flowed in through his wrist.
"Uuung..."
A thin moan slipped out of him unbidden at the aura he had not felt in so long.
What kind of aura is this...?
Glenn's aura was not merely warm. It possessed an immense purity, as though he had drawn the mana of nature itself into his hands.
It's melting through my body.
After reincarnating, he had been extraordinarily sensitive to the cold. At first he had assumed it was simply because he occupied an infant's flesh, but there was a serious problem with his constitution. The moment Glenn's aura entered him, however, his entire body grew warm, as if sunlight had poured straight into his veins.
A low hum resonated through him. Glenn used his aura to examine every corner of Raon's body, then handed him back to Sylvia.
What is this?
Raon narrowed his eyes. A martial artist of Glenn's caliber could not possibly have failed to notice that something was wrong with his body—yet the man's expression had not changed at all. He could not understand how anyone could look like that while knowing his own grandson was not normal.
"Sylvia."
"Yes."
"This child's name shall be Raon."
"Raon? Ah, Father. The meaning of the name Raon is..."
Sylvia's brows sank deeply.
Unlike when he had worked his aura so gently, a chill bloomed in Glenn's voice.
Ha...
Was this fate? The same name as his previous life, and the same meaning besides. It was so absurd a hollow laugh nearly escaped him. He had known Glenn was a cold man, but he had not expected him to show no interest even in a sick grandchild.
"That is all."
As if he no longer wished to remain in that room, Glenn flicked his dark crimson coat and turned away.
"Wait! Father! At the very least, a different name..."
Sylvia followed with Raon in her arms, but Glenn did not look back. He left the mansion just like that. It was a sight one could have believed even if told they were strangers, not father and daughter.
"Uueh!"
Raon's lips trembled. He had wanted to stay quiet, but a moan slipped out at the chilly wind coming in from outside.
"I-I'm sorry!"
Sylvia pulled him close and buried her face against his small body. She looked as though she were barely holding back tears.
There's something here. But I'm too sleepy to think it through.
Feeling the cold wind sweep through him and Sylvia's warmth at the same time, Raon slowly closed his eyes.
An infant's body really is inconvenient...
The hour when the moon hung at the center of the sky.
Raon, lying in the infant's crib, quietly opened his eyes.
She's asleep.
He turned his head. Sylvia had sunk into sleep in the bed right beside him. He tapped the crib—tak—and she did not stir. She was well and truly out.
Hah...
He let out a small sigh. The past hundred days had been unbearably stifling. Sleep had poured over him without end, and even when he woke he was always with Sylvia, so he could neither circulate mana nor cultivate. A light touch during cultivation could cause real harm, so he had been able to do nothing at all. At last, the opportunity had come.
The crib.
On Head Maid Helen's advice, he had begun sleeping separately tonight in a warmed infant's crib. It sat right beside Sylvia's bed, but there was no chance she would wake at this hour. It was the perfect time to begin cultivating.
Shall we start?
Raon slowly let out a breath.
The cultivation of the Ring of Fire.
The continent's cultivation arts drew the mana of nature in through the breath and accumulated aura in the dantian. But the cultivation art he had obtained through a fateful encounter in his previous life—the Ring of Fire—was different.
Like a mage forming circles, it forged a round ring around the heart, growing one's stamina and physical body while heightening mental strength and mana sensitivity. In other words, it could not create aura—but it was the cultivation art that granted the most perfect conditions for becoming a martial artist, by developing both body and mind.
And that isn't its only advantage.
The Ring of Fire was a cultivation art that followed the flow of nature itself. No matter how high a martial artist's realm, they would never be able to tell that he had forged it. Even Derus Robert, called the strongest swordsman on the continent, had never known that Raon had mastered the Ring of Fire.
If he used the Ring of Fire to grow his body and mind, then learned House Zieghart's swordsmanship, revenge against Derus Robert would not even be a dream.
There was, however, a very serious problem with Raon's body.
The cold.
The mana circuits through which mana flowed—like blood through veins—were blocked by a vicious chill. He had only discovered this recently. Pretending to sleep, he had tried circulating mana for a brief moment, and the cold choking his circuits had startled him so badly he had nearly cried out.
"Hoo..."
Raon drew breath so slowly his lungs seemed to wither, and reached for the mana dispersed through the air.
It's scattering.
Whether his basic mana sensitivity was simply poor, the mana did not come to him the way it had in his previous life. Only after consuming a considerable stretch of time did he finally take it in and settle it into his mana circuits.
Mm.
He was about to begin forging the Ring of Fire with the mana he had absorbed when he stopped cold.
I wasn't imagining it after all.
Nearly half the mana circuit around his shoulder was blocked by a piercing chill.
No wonder I sleep so much. No wonder I'm always freezing.
The reason he had been sleeping more than twenty hours a day and suffering such terrible cold was this chill.
Nine places, is it?
He sent mana flowing through his entire body. The mana circuits blocked by cold numbered nine in all.
This is serious...
An infant's mana circuits, unlike an adult's, stood wide open. With the cold already filling more than half of them in that state, the circuits might seal over entirely with ice as he grew older. When that happened, a cold and a pain incomparable to what he felt now would come for him—or, in the worst case, he would die.
He had to erase this cold somehow before then.
I'll have to punch through the chill in the mana circuits while I cultivate the Ring of Fire.
Forging the ring would be delayed considerably, but staying alive came first.
He slowly drew in a breath and took in mana. He honed what he had absorbed thin and sharp as an awl, and drove it into the cold choking the circuit.
Tiiik!
A tiny shard of cold broke away, as if he had stabbed a frozen waterfall with a fork.
Wait. Couldn't I use this cold?
He could simply expel it, but the purity of the chill was too precious to waste. Raon guided the broken-off cold together with the mana of nature, leading it along the flow of the Ring of Fire. The natural mana and the chill that had been blocking his circuits gathered into one and began to circulate through the mana pathways of his entire body.
Yes!
Raon clenched a tiny fist. The speed was far slower than in his previous life, but he could circulate mana along the Ring of Fire's flow without any major problem.
A low resonance hummed through him. He could feel the cold he had drawn along with the mana settling into his body.
Thanks to this infant's body.
If these had not been an infant's wide-open mana circuits, the cold would have made circulation itself impossible. That, at least, was a mercy.
Next... wait. Already?
He had used his head and a little strength, and already drowsiness was creeping in. Regardless of his will, his eyelids came down like curtains.
Damn it...
Raon let out a resentful little sound and closed his eyes.
After he had fallen asleep, and the moon hanging in the sky had shifted by the width of three finger-joints, a figure appeared before the door. The one who entered without even opening it was Glenn, Head of House Zieghart.
"......"
Glenn gazed steadily at the sleeping Raon, then reached out. From his palm a light bloomed, pale as a sunset. A soft radiance washed over the infant, and Raon's brow—furrowed from the cold in his mana circuits—smoothed out as if brushed with velvet.
"Abubu."
Raon let out a low sigh.
As expected, it isn't easy.
His waking hours were short, and even those were spent with other people most of the time, so he had no chance to forge the Ring of Fire. And yet, for cultivation sessions of barely an hour or two and the delays caused by the cold, his progress was strangely not bad at all. It was almost as if someone were helping him.
"Raon. Shall we try moving around a little more today?"
Sylvia bent at the waist and shook a rattle. He had been responding to it all this time, so she seemed to think he liked the thing.
Playing along is exhausting.
To be honest, playing with Sylvia and the maids was harder than enduring the cold. An adult's mind trapped in an infant's body—it couldn't be helped.
"Auuung."
Raon tipped his head and was about to crawl toward Sylvia when the door opened softly. An old man with white hair, someone he did not recognize, stepped inside. He wore tattered clothes like a beggar's rags, but his eyes were as clear as a lake.
"Oh? Uncle!"
Sylvia seemed to know him. She broke into a bright smile and ran to the door.
"It's been a while."
"Ah—no. Saint..."
"Aung."
Raon started in surprise and let out a babble before he could stop himself. The title of Saint, paired with clothes a beggar might wear, told him at once who the old man was.
The Saint of Rags!
Pedrick, the Saint of Rags, was one of the most famous healers on the continent. Both his divine power and his medical arts had reached the heavens—but he had a wandering streak, and even those who longed to see him could never find him.
"Saint, my foot. Call me uncle like you used to."
Pedrick chuckled and came over to the crib where Raon lay.
"I heard you'd had a child, so I stopped by on my way through. Is this the one?"
"Ah, yes."
"Oho! Golden hair and red eyes? First time since you, isn't it?"
"That's right. He's beautiful, isn't he?"
Sylvia stroked Raon's hair and beamed.
"He is, at that. Not even a year old and already this pretty. Nothing like that savage Glenn."
Pedrick cackled and waggled a finger in front of Raon's face.
"What's his name?"
"It's Raon..."
"Raon?"
He frowned at the name.
"Don't tell me it means shadow."
"It does..."
"Naming a child Shadow. What in the world is that Glenn thinking."
Pedrick spoke the name of Zieghart's head as easily as he would a friend's.
So the rumor that Glenn Zieghart and the Saint of Rags were friends was true.
Raon looked at Pedrick's broom-like hair and clicked his tongue inwardly. Having lived as an assassin, he had possessed a fair amount of information about the state of the world. The report that Glenn Zieghart and the Saint of Rags shared a considerable friendship appeared to have been fact.
"Raon. Let this old man have a look at you for a moment."
Pedrick gently kneaded his shoulders and forearms, his legs and the area around his chest.
"Mmm..."
He chewed his lip with a grave expression, then at last spread a white light. The moment it touched him, a hot energy filled Raon's whole body, as if he had stepped into a hot spring.
"Hoo."
Pedrick let out a low sigh and turned.
"How is he? He's growing slower than other children, and he takes the cold so badly..."
Sylvia came toward him with both hands clasped tight.
"It's the Curse of Extreme Cold."
Pedrick's brows drew together.
"A-a curse? What are you saying all of a sudden!"
"The Curse of Extreme Cold is not an actual curse. It's a constitution in which a vicious chill blocks the mana circuits."
"Ah..."
"It's a constitution that appears rarely in girls. A boy born with the Curse of Extreme Cold—that's a first even for me."
He looked Raon's body over with a peculiar gleam in his eyes.
"Right now his mana circuits are in their open period, so it isn't a great problem. But once they begin to close after the age of four, he will feel a severe cold and pain."
"Th-that's..."
Sylvia bit her lip in anxiety.
I can fix it myself, so don't worry.
Raon gave a faint little shake of his head. It would take some time, but he could erase the cold while cultivating the Ring of Fire. He didn't particularly need treatment.
"The lumps of cold blocking this child's mana circuits number nine in all. I never saw that many even among the girls I treated. And each one is so strong that if you forced them open, there's a chance he'd be left an imbecile."
"Th-then how do we treat him!"
Sylvia seized Pedrick's sleeve, her face looking ready to collapse on the spot.
"Dilute a fire-attribute elixir and have him drink it once a day like water, and let him take the sun for two hours from noon, when the sun is at its highest."
"If we do that, will he get better?"
"As I said, this is not an illness. It's a constitution. If you do as I've told you, at the very least he won't return to heaven's embrace at a young age. However..."
Pedrick broke off and let the silence hang. Everyone in the room swallowed dryly.
"The cold will devour this child's constitution and stamina, so even after the treatment is finished, becoming a swordsman will be difficult."
"That doesn't matter."
Sylvia shook her head hard, as if it were enough that he simply not die.
"If that's how you think of it, then that's a mercy. In any case, from now on this child..."
A knock sounded just as Pedrick was about to offer further advice, and the door opened.
"Pardon the intrusion."
A middle-aged man in luxurious black ceremonial robes entered and bowed his head.
"The Head of House requests the Saint's presence."
"Tell him I'll come later."
"He said to come at once."
"Tsk. The man never could pick his moment."
Pedrick clicked his tongue shortly and turned his head.
"Sylvia. I'll stop by again."
"Ah, yes."
Pedrick looked at Raon for a moment, then left the room with the middle-aged man.
The Curse of Extreme Cold, is it...
Raon rubbed his fingers together.
So now I know.
The identity of the cold that had been tormenting him all this time had been laid bare. Not that anything in particular would change. If he kept forging the Ring of Fire and erasing the chill as he had been doing, he could treat the Curse of Extreme Cold before he reached adulthood and build a body and a mana sensitivity superior to anyone's.
"Raon."
The moment the door closed, Sylvia scooped him up from the crib and nuzzled her face against his. It was what she did when she was afraid.
"Mom will save you. No matter what it takes."
Tears welled in the eyes of the woman who had always done nothing but smile.
What is this...?
As Sylvia's trembling reached him, his chest grew tight, as if something were stuck there. It felt like a rough wire scraping across his heart. He did not know what this emotion was, but he did not want to keep feeling that sting. And so—
"Abubu."
Raon swept away the tears gathered at the corners of Sylvia's eyes with his small hand.
"Ah..."
"Young Master!"
"G-good heavens..."
Sylvia's eyes flew wide, and the maids let out short cries.
"Raon..."
She lowered her head and stroked her own tear-dampened hand for a long time, then sprang to her feet.
"I have to go see Father."
The hesitation had vanished from Sylvia's face.
For the first time since Raon was born, Sylvia made for the House of the Head of Zieghart. The Saint had passed that way only a little earlier, so the path stood wide open.
"L-Lady Sylvia!"
"The Head of House and the Saint are currently..."
"Out of my way!"
She forced her way past the servants and maids who tried to stop her and pounded on the door of the Audience Chamber.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
After she had hammered the door five times—more fist than knock—the massive doors began to open.
"What is it."
Glenn, seated across from Pedrick with a cup of tea, furrowed his brow.
"I'm begging you."
Sylvia clenched her teeth and dropped to her knees.
"Please save Raon!"
Even with servants standing behind her, she drove her head to the floor as a slave might before a master.
"......"
Glenn watched her bow without so much as a flicker of his eyelids.
"You heard it too, didn't you? That even if that child's constitution improves, living as a martial artist will be difficult."
He already knew Raon's condition; word had clearly reached him.
"Then we don't have to raise him as a martial artist!"
"Someone who has received the name of Zieghart, not becoming a martial artist? Why should I offer help to a child with no value in existing?"
"Because he's your grandson."
"A grandson you brought after you severed ties and left the family."
"That's..."
Sylvia lowered her trembling eyes to the floor.
"The only thing I can give that child is the name of Zieghart. One act of foolishness is enough."
Glenn's face was as cold as if a sheet of ice had been laid over it.
"Zieghart is a land where only the strong survive. Better not to have a feeble grandson at all. Besides, you should be able to obtain elixirs yourself, shouldn't you?"
"The elixirs in the family's treasury are far more effective than anything I could find outside..."
"Those are for the ones who have raised the name of this house. Even a grandson gets nothing if he has done nothing. Leave."
"Father! Please!"
Sylvia clenched her fists until they bled, then drove her head to the floor again.
I can't back down!
If she had been alone, she would have turned around here. She would have thought of her pride and never looked back. But she had a child to protect now. For Raon's sake, she had to cling on until the end.
"Drag her out."
At Glenn's firm order, martial artists in black combat garb sprang from behind the pillars. They seized Sylvia by both arms and hauled her toward the door.
"P-please, Raon—!"
Sylvia cried Raon's name to the last, but Glenn turned his head as if it were of no interest to him.
"Hoo..."
Pedrick, who had watched it all, let out a sigh.
"You summoned me to look at your youngest grandson's condition, and then you put on quite the performance. Is treating him honestly that difficult?"
"Be quiet and tell me the details."
"As I said, nine of his mana circuits are blocked by cold. He's fine for now, but it will grow more dangerous as he ages."
Pedrick sipped his tea and went on.
"Still, thanks to you pushing the cold back with your aura, there shouldn't be any major problems for a while."
Glenn and Pedrick had both examined Raon's body directly, and still they had no idea he was forging the Ring of Fire. It was a cultivation art from a thousand years ago, and it did not use the dantian. Even with their absolute abilities, discerning the Ring of Fire was no easy thing.
"Girls who show symptoms of the Curse of Extreme Cold can become outstanding mages or swordswomen by using that high-purity cold. A boy, with so much heat in him, is different. As I said, your youngest grandson becoming a martial artist is close to impossible."
"It doesn't matter if he doesn't become a martial artist. He just has to live."
"You browbeat Sylvia and then say it doesn't matter? Even the Northern Annihilation King has a soft spot for his youngest grandson, I see."
Pedrick chuckled.
"......"
Glenn ignored him and drew a finger through the empty air. Space split in the shape of a cross, and a golden dimension opened. From a space filled with flame, three small wooden boxes tumbled out.
"You know what to do, I assume."
So saying, he passed the boxes to Pedrick.
"Good grief. This is exactly why I never founded a house of my own."
Pedrick sighed and accepted the wooden boxes.
"I'm counting on you."
Glenn's icy voice resonated, strangely low.
"Everything else aside—why did you name that child Raon? There are plenty of fine names in the world, and you had to go and pick Shadow..."
"The name Raon does not only mean shadow."
He shook his head and gazed at the golden sun hanging high in the sky.