I Will Become the Hero
Five years old. That was when I first encountered the word Hero through the fairy tales my parents read to me. A magnificent being who always risked their life for the sake of good. I dreamed of one day seeing a real one in the flesh.
Eleven years old. When my parents met their end at the hands of the demonkin, I cursed the heavens. Why was there no Hero? Why hadn't a Hero protected our family? And yet, I realized I couldn't just blame the sky forever. It was thanks to my parents' sacrifice that my little sister and I—the only family left—had survived. Of course, I could never hold that child fully in my arms again.
“……”
“Leysila.”
After witnessing our parents' gruesome deaths right before her eyes, my sister could no longer speak. It was aphasia.
Thirteen years old. Wandering aimlessly, we luckily caught the eye of the kind-hearted Village Chief Elderly Couple. They took in my sister and me, orphans with nowhere to go. The only way to repay them was with my body. I rose at dawn to chop firewood, plow the fields, and haul heavy loads. It was labor too grueling for a child. Every night, the ache in my joints leaked out in involuntary groans. But as thick calluses formed like medals on my once-soft palms, a sense of relief settled in my heart. At least Leysila could eat warm soup and sleep under a safe roof. That alone made it bearable.
Fifteen years old. On the anniversary of my parents' death, as always.
“……”
I gently patted my sister's shoulder as she silently placed wildflowers before the grave marker. She still woke from nightmares bathed in cold sweat now and then, but her expression had softened considerably. Her cheeks had even filled out nicely. I believed we could live quietly, unnoticed like this. I believed our days—plain, warm, and unfamiliar with the word "peace" no longer feeling alien—would continue.
Sixteen years old. Expectations and hopes crumbled to ashes. I'd gone deep into the mountains to gather firewood for winter and was descending the ridge when I saw it: thick black smoke rising from the village. A foreboding chill gripped me. I dropped my bundle and ran like a madman, but it was too late. Choking smoke and the stench of blood assaulted me. The bodies of the Village Chief Elderly Couple—who had become my second parents—lay mangled beyond recognition in the village square. The dirt floor was slick with their blood. Demonkin had done this.
“Urk—uuueeek!!!”
Before that horrific scene, I dropped to my knees, dry-heaving. I couldn't even breathe properly. My vision stained red. Tears of blood. There was no Hero this time either.
Where was the apostle of light from the fairy tales, the one who saved those drowning in despair? I screamed myself hoarse at the empty sky, but no answer came. No one would save us. The heavens merely gazed down indifferently. Unthinkingly, I clenched my fists. Nails dug into my palms, drawing blood, but I felt no pain.
“Then… I'll become the Hero.”
My voice was cracked and ragged from endless cries.
“So no more victims like me have to appear!!”
I grasped the hand of Leysila, who trembled in the ashes, clutching my clothes. Biting my lip, I turned my back on our burned hometown without a backward glance.
For the next three years, I learned swordsmanship however I could. The basics of sensing mana and gathering it in my dantian through breathing—I begged them from a mercenary in the corner of a back-alley tavern, trading fairy tale coins and pleading like a beggar. Of course, that was nowhere near enough. But there were no grand masters or fateful encounters waiting for me like in the stories, so I scraped by like this.
To afford even one better intermediate swordsmanship manual or a worn scroll with proper mana circulation breathing techniques, I groveled at the bottom. From dawn, I hauled heavy timber and crates for merchant caravans until blood blistered my hands. By midday, I'd take meager pay as an escort guard. I picked only demon beast subjugation requests in zones others feared for their lives.
Yes, from a young age, I rolled through mud and monster guts. Even when a goblin's rusted dagger left me teetering on death's edge, or when broken bones made every breath feel like shredded lungs, I didn't stop. I'd mash cheap painkillers and nameless weeds into my wounds, then swing my bloodied sword through the night. Thanks to the caravan master's meager kindness, at least I could tuck Leysila into the warmest, safest inn rooms. And every morning, as she saw me off to the jaws of death amid caravan chores, I'd grit my teeth to splinters, vowing to return alive and save this godforsaken world.
The copper coins and silvers I scraped together, selling my flesh and blood, went straight to sword manuals from fallen nobles or dubious tomes from fences. Elegant knightly swordsmanship was a luxury I couldn't afford. All I learned was how to blind enemies with dirt, exploit the slightest gap to slit throats. How to trade my bones to rip out their necks. Only movements etched into my body like scars, solely for survival and killing.
Dozens of times, my palms peeled raw, calluses hardening like stones. In just a year, the hilt of my half-ruined sword fused to my hand, stained crimson with sweat and blood. It drove home that I had no genius talent. But if there was no talent, I'd swing thousands, tens of thousands of times until it was beaten into my body. Lungs burning to my throat, muscles screaming to burst—I never collapsed once.
In the end, those brutal, desperate three years of labor and struggle for survival erased the boy who'd lost his parents twice and wept blood tears.
Twenty years old. The world remained merciless. Mercenaries chugging stale beer in tavern corners, beggars scraping the slums, back-alley thugs. Yes, rubbing shoulders with every sort of human scum taught me how to survive. I ignored advice that it was enough and kept swinging my sword, caked in blood and dirt. There was no beautiful swordsmanship. Only the raw, biting struggle to live.
As more scars etched my back, as I wandered more places, I learned with my whole body how this world turned. And I vowed: I'd bring salvation to this world of despair. If someone had to do it, it'd be me.
Later, families I'd saved with my own hands asked who I was. I answered.
“I am… the Hero.”
From that day, I called myself the Hero.
Twenty-two years old. My name spread across the continent faster than I'd imagined. Wherever I went, I exterminated demonkin and saved people. They cheered at my appearance amid despair. My fame reached the ears of kings; they called me the savior who would bring light to the continent. Exceptional comrades who believed in and followed me gathered one by one.
Twenty-three years old. At last, the top floor of the Demon King's castle. Gasping, I plunged my chipped sword into the floor. As the Demon King's massive body crashed down, tension drained from me in a sigh of relief. It was over. The end of the journey through countless perils and losses. No more families lost to demonkin. Leysila could finally smile in peace. We returned to the Holy Kingdom with comrades, basking in victory. Cheers and scattering petals filled the streets welcoming me. I thought I could finally lay down my burdens.
But… the world was cruel to the end—to us, no, to me.
……
The grand audience chamber of the Holy King's court. A cold voice rang down as I knelt to report our triumph.
“From this moment, Kail—who dared call himself Hero without the Creation God's choosing—is hereby exiled to the continent's harshest land, the Tarnass Ice Plains.”
I doubted my ears. Slowly, I lifted my head to the dais. The Holy King gazed down with an expressionless face.
“……”
Something was wrong. I whipped my head to the side. My comrades, with whom I'd shared life and death countless times, backs to me. But none met my eyes. They averted their gazes slyly or bit their lips, staring at the floor. Not one stepped forward to challenge this absurdity.
“Ha… haha… hahaha.”
A hollow laugh escaped me. I'd severed the Demon King's bones and flesh, but to them, I was just a fake. A disposable tool for when needed. Now that the Demon King threat was gone, an uncontrollable force threatening the Holy Kingdom's authority was merely a thorn to remove.
And my comrades had already struck some deal with them.
“……”
No more words came. So I twisted my lips in a smile and quietly set my sword on the floor.