Chapter 1
The beginning was simple.
The Demon Dragon descended upon the world, and the continent was engulfed in war.
That was all.
Armies were defeated, corpses were used as firewood, and castle walls crumbled into dust.
Those were merely details that followed in the wake of the result.
They said war was the cradle of heroes.
That was true.
A woodcutting axe barely a meter long.
That was where my story began.
One day, I returned home with a huge bundle of firewood on my back.
What awaited me was the sight of a monster that had torn my family apart.
I could still vividly remember the moment something inside me exploded.
By the time I finally came back to my senses, the monster in front of me had been smashed beyond recognition.
Ah.
There was one more thing.
The looks of fear and awe from the kingdom soldiers who arrived too late.
It wasn't hard to guess what would happen next.
I would be conscripted on the spot and dragged straight to the front lines.
I had no reason to refuse.
Even setting aside all the other monsters, my hatred for the Demon Dragon, the greatest cause of all this, had already grown beyond control.
I was swept into the war.
Day after day passed under the stench of blood.
Then, one day, while fighting grotesque monsters and spilling blood as naturally as breathing...
"Not bad."
Someone spoke to me after a battle.
It was right after I had split apart a three-headed monster as if I were chopping firewood.
I wiped the blood from my cheek and turned my head.
A man stood there, soaked in blood just like me.
The difference was that the silver breastplate covering his body still shone brilliantly.
Golden laurels had been engraved across the armor with what looked like the work of a master craftsman.
It was the unmistakable attire of a knight.
He swept back his sweat-soaked blond hair and beckoned to me.
"Come here."
Knights and monsters were enemies who constantly sought each other's lives.
But they did have one thing in common.
Neither of them cared much about the lives of ordinary soldiers.
Disobeying a knight was practically suicide with extra steps.
Reluctantly, I approached him.
The knight felt around my body here and there, then glanced at the monster I had split apart before nodding.
"I am Knight Eldred."
After giving me his name, he continued without waiting for me to respond.
"Which unit are you with?"
"The 12th Infantry."
"Well, that won't matter once you become my squire. Report it to your unit, then come find me."
A squire?
Just like that?
But I didn't have the right to say no.
And so, I became Eldred's squire.
On the battlefield, I guarded his back without fail.
Whenever we rested, I handled all of his miscellaneous chores.
We were together for practically every waking moment.
That was when I first learned how to maintain swords and armor.
Once, after a battle, I carelessly tossed his sweat-and-blood-soaked armor beside a stream.
I was rewarded with a vicious kick.
Eldred flew into a rage.
"Use oil when you maintain it, you idiot!"
"We don't have any."
"Then collect your own piss and use that!"
I shouldn't have talked back.
Eldred kicked me again.
"You bastard! Your equipment is your life on the battlefield! That's why I'm angry that you treated it carelessly. And this is something you need to learn too!"
Thinking about it, Eldred was unlike most knights.
He maintained his sword and armor himself.
Coming from someone like that, his words made sense.
On the battlefield, your equipment really was your life.
And neglecting the thing keeping you alive was obviously foolish.
In any case, that was how I became Eldred's squire and started fighting beside him at the heart of the battlefield.
Of course, it wasn't without danger.
One day, a massive monster appeared.
It had the body of a black bull and the jaws of a lizard, and it must have been more than ten meters tall.
The soldiers scattered in terror before its overwhelming size.
Even I unconsciously stepped backward.
Then someone stepped forward.
Knight Eldred.
With the faintest curve at the corner of his lips, he pointed his sword toward the monster.
Then his eyes began to burn blue.
Blue light streamed from his gaze, creating an indescribable presence around him.
At the same time, shouts erupted across the battlefield.
"Knight! We have a knight!"
"Hold the line! Don't retreat!"
With the commanders screaming themselves hoarse behind him, Eldred charged.
Like a mountain goat scaling a cliff, he raced up the monster's body and reached its shoulder in an instant.
After finding his balance, he gripped his sword with both hands.
Blue energy covered the blade.
Then he swung.
It was almost ridiculous.
Scales that looked as though even a full-force axe strike wouldn't leave a scratch were sliced apart as easily as soft cloth.
Boom!
The headless monster's enormous body collapsed helplessly, throwing up a cloud of dust.
And Eldred stood straight atop its fallen corpse.
It was as though his entire body was showing us exactly what a knight was.
The legion roared at the sight.
Drums and horns joined the cheers, shaking the battlefield.
That day's battle ended in humanity's victory.
But the war was long.
Even after Eldred displayed such overwhelming strength that day, victory and defeat continued to alternate.
Eldred and the other knights were certainly powerful.
But even they weren't enough to end this endless war.
Before I realized it, my original unit, the 12th Infantry, had disappeared entirely.
The surviving soldiers were reorganized again and again until only seven infantry units remained in the legion.
Even our meals changed.
Since I was always responsible for Eldred's meals, I noticed when the meat and wine gradually disappeared.
Eventually, all that remained was bread and watery stew.
And the once-neat face of Eldred grew darker by the day.
Then, one night, while that creeping anxiety hung over us, Eldred called me to the training grounds.
"Watch me and copy it."
Eldred slowly drew his sword.
Then he swung.
From the middle upward.
From above downward.
Then horizontally while turning his body.
Even though he moved lightly, every transition contained tightly controlled strength.
When he finished, Eldred glanced at me as if telling me to try.
I reproduced what he had shown me as closely as possible.
"...Hmm."
Eldred came closer.
He tapped my arms or kicked my shins at each step, correcting my stance.
"You're using too much strength."
Eldred's lessons were brutal.
If I made even the smallest mistake, he wouldn't hesitate to kick me.
Each time I rolled across the ground, my stubbornness only grew.
I swung my sword more carefully.
More precisely.
And yet Eldred was never satisfied.
"You half-wit! A sword is only a sword! What matters is how you use it!"
How many months passed like that?
For the first time, instead of cursing or kicking me, Eldred gave a quiet, disbelieving laugh.
"You little monster."
Another half year passed.
To be honest, considering that we were trapped in a seemingly endless war, those days weren't so bad.
During the day, I killed monsters.
At night, Eldred taught me the sword.
I had more than enough practical experience.
Sometimes, I even found myself looking forward to battle, wondering how I could use what Eldred had taught me.
Then one day, after I had swung my sword until my palms were covered in burst blisters, Eldred asked me something with an unusually serious expression.
"Where did you say you were born?"
"The Reblia Mountains."
"Not that filthy hole you rolled around in. I mean where you were actually born."
"That... I don't know."
"Are you an orphan?"
"I had a mother. She's dead now."
"That's common in times like these. Did she ever tell you anything about yourself?"
"I didn't even get to hear her last words."
"Is that so? Strange."
I had no idea what he found so strange.
Separate from that, the war situation continued to worsen.
And Eldred's expression grew darker with every passing day.
After that, whenever he got heavily drunk, he sometimes questioned me.
"What did you do before coming to the battlefield?"
"I just lived in the mountains. I cut wood and made charcoal."
"Ridiculous. A charcoal burner who can read and write? And what about that accent of yours?"
"My mother taught me."
"At this point, I'm more curious about your mother than I am about you."
After that, whenever Eldred drank, he liked to hear about the life I had lived before the war as if it were entertainment to accompany his alcohol.
And every conversation always ended with him being suspicious of me.
Of course, I had no idea what he found so strange.
Then one day, Eldred left with a detached force to block the monsters' retreat.
He never returned.
I was sitting blankly in front of his tent that day, waiting for him to return so I could continue my sword training.
A man approached me.
His right shoulder ended in empty space.
The breastplate he wore was the same type as Eldred's.
"Are you Eldred's squire?"
There was exhaustion in his voice.
I asked calmly.
"Is he dead?"
"Yes. It was a trap. Eldred opened an escape route for us. Idiot. As if anyone will remember him just because he sacrificed himself..."
The knight clicked his tongue.
Then he looked at where his own right arm had been torn away and sighed.
He beckoned to me.
"Eldred left a final request."
"What was it?"
"He wanted to know your name."
Only then did I realize that I had never told Eldred my name.
There was nothing particularly strange about it.
That was simply the kind of relationship we had.
Eldred had always called me things like "squire," "you," or "you bastard."
But at the very end, he had wanted to know my name.
I wondered what had been going through his mind.
"Riyan."
"Good. Riyan. You will succeed Eldred. This was the request of a knight of the kingdom who gave his life in service, so it will be honored. Kneel, Riyan."
Eldred's request?
I knelt.
What followed was a rough slap across my face.
The knight struck my cheek with his remaining left hand.
Then, wearing a completely indifferent expression, he began reciting something.
Something about protecting chivalry, defending the people, pursuing justice, punishing injustice...
Honestly, hardly any of it reached my ears.
Eldred was dead.
"...And thus, from this moment onward, you are Knight Riyan. It's a rather pathetic knighting ceremony, but we're on a battlefield. You'll have to understand. In any case, you'll simply be repeating what you've already been doing with Eldred, so there's probably nothing else I need to teach you."
He handed me Eldred's sword, saying it was his keepsake.
Then he left.
His only farewell was that, having lost an arm, he would be transferred to headquarters.
