Five years old.
I first encountered the word hero through the fairy-tale books my parents showed me.
A magnificent being who always risked their life and used their strength for good.
I thought that, someday, I wanted to see a real hero with my own eyes.
Eleven years old.
When my parents met their deaths at the hands of demons, I wondered why there was no hero.
Why, just why, had the hero not protected our family? I resented the heavens.
Even so, I realized I could not live my life blaming only the heavens.
Because thanks to my parents’ sacrifice, my younger sister and I—the only family left—had survived.
Of course, I could not take that child back into my arms whole.
“……”
“Reisilla.”
After seeing our parents die horribly right before her eyes, my younger sister could no longer do something as simple as speak.
It was aphasia.
Thirteen years old.
As we wandered without a destination, we were fortunate enough to catch the eye of a kindhearted old village chief and his wife.
The only way we could repay them for taking in two siblings with nowhere to go was with our bodies.
I rose before dawn to chop firewood, weed the fields, and carry heavy loads.
It was labor too much for someone so young to bear.
Every night, groans escaped me on their own as my joints ached.
But as hard calluses set into my tender, small palms like medals, relief settled into one corner of my heart.
Because, at the very least, Reisilla could eat warm soup and fall asleep beneath a safe roof.
That alone made it bearable.
Fifteen years old.
The anniversary of my parents’ deaths, which we had observed every year.
“……”
I quietly patted my sister’s shoulder as she laid wildflowers before their gravestone without a word.
She still sometimes had nightmares and broke out in cold sweat, but her expression had softened greatly compared to before.
Her cheeks had grown quite plump as well.
I believed we would be able to live on quietly, without drawing attention.
I believed that ordinary, warm days would continue—days when the word peace did not feel out of place.
Sixteen years old.
My hopes and wishes scattered into ashes.
It was the day I had gone deep into the mountains to gather firewood for the winter.
As I came down the ridge, I saw black smoke rising from the direction of the village.
Seized by an ominous feeling, I threw down the carrier frame on my back and ran like mad, but it was already too late.
Acrid smoke and the reek of blood choked me.
The bodies of the old village chief and his wife, who had become our second parents, lay in the middle of the village square, mutilated beyond recognition.
The dirt ground was muddy with their blood.
It was the work of demons.
“Uuup, uweeeek!!!”
Before that horrific sight, I retched and fell to my knees.
I could not even breathe properly.
My vision turned red.
It was because of the blood in my tears.
‘This time, too, there was no hero.’
Where on earth was the hero from the fairy tales, the apostle of light said to save those who had fallen into despair?
Even when I screamed into empty air until my throat went hoarse, no answer came back.
No one would save us.
The heavens merely looked down on us with indifference.
Before I knew it, I had clenched my fists tight.
My nails dug into my palms and blood seeped out, but I felt no pain.
“Then… I will become the hero.”
My voice had already cracked from the countless screams I had let out.
“So that no more victims like me will ever appear!!”
I clasped Reisilla’s hand as she trembled amid the ashes, gripping the hem of my clothes.
Biting my lip hard, I turned my back on my burned homeland without looking back.
After that, for three years, I carved strength into my body by any means I could.
I learned how to sense mana and the most basic breathing method for gathering mana in the dantian by handing a few copper coins to a mercenary who spent every day in the corner of a back-alley tavern cursing the damned world, practically begging him to teach me.
Well… naturally, that alone was nowhere near enough.
But there was no way some great master or miraculous encounter, like the heroes in fairy tales received, would be waiting for me, so I had to survive even like this.
A single manual of higher-grade swordsmanship that was just a little better.
One old scroll containing a proper breathing method to aid the circulation of mana.
To obtain them, I crawled and scraped along the very bottom.
From dawn, I went to the merchant company and carried heavy timber and cargo crates.
When the sun reached its height, I took a pittance and went along as a caravan guard, and I accepted only the monster subjugation requests in areas others avoided for fear of losing their lives.
Yes, from a young age, I lived rolling through the mud.
Even on the day a goblin’s rusty dagger cut me and I hovered between life and death, even on the day my ribs broke and every breath made my lungs feel as if they were being torn apart, I did not stop.
I crushed cheap painkillers and nameless weeds, shoved them into my wounds, and swung my bloodstained sword all night long.
At least, thanks to the merchant company owner’s meager consideration, I was able to have Reisilla sleep in an inn room that was as warm and safe as possible.
And every morning, whenever my younger sister, who did odd jobs for the company, saw me off as I went out to places of death, I swore that I would survive and save this damned world.
The copper and silver coins I scraped together with grim determination by selling my flesh and blood all went into buying sword manuals sold off by fallen nobles or secret books of unknown origin stolen by fences.
The beautiful, elegant swordsmanship of knights had been a luxury from the start.
How to throw dirt by any means necessary to blind an enemy, then slip into a single opening and cut off their breath.
How to offer up my own bones and tear out an enemy’s throat.
Only movements meant solely to survive and kill the enemy were engraved into my body like scars.
The skin of my palms peeled off and the calluses hardened like stone dozens of times.
In just one year, the hilt of my half-ruined sword was stained dark red with my sweat and blood, clinging to my hand as if it had become part of me.
It was a time when I painfully realized I had no such thing as genius talent.
But if I had no talent, then all I had to do was swing thousands, tens of thousands of times, and beat it into my body.
My breath rose to the edge of my throat and my muscles screamed as if they would burst, but not once did I collapse.
In the end, those three years of brutal, desperate labor and struggle for survival
completely erased the past me who had lost his parents twice and wept tears of blood.
Twenty years old.
The world was still harsh.
Mercenaries guzzling stale beer in the corner of a tavern, the poor rolling along the bottom, criminals in the back alleys—
Yes, until now, I had learned how to survive while rubbing shoulders with all sorts of people.
Ignoring advice that it was enough, I continued to swing my sword while covered in blood and dust.
There was no such thing as beautiful swordsmanship.
There was only fierce survival, biting and rolling in order to stay alive.
As more scars than before were carved into my back, as I traveled to more and more places, I learned with my whole body how the world worked.
And I made a vow.
That I would, without fail, bring salvation to this world filled only with despair.
That if someone had to do it, I would.
Later, the families I saved with my own hands asked me when we met.
Who are you?
I answered.
“I am… a hero.”
From that day onward, I began calling myself a hero.
Twenty-two years old.
My name spread across the continent faster than I had expected.
Wherever I went, I subjugated demons and saved people.
People cheered when they saw me appear amid despair.
My fame reached even the ears of the king, and people called me the savior who would bring light back to the continent.
One by one, outstanding companions who believed in me blindly and followed me gathered at my side.
Twenty-three years old.
At long last, the top floor of the Demon King’s Castle.
Gasping for breath, I drove my chipped sword into the floor.
The moment the Demon King’s enormous body collapsed to the ground, all the tension in my body loosened, and a sigh of relief escaped me.
It was over.
It was the end of a journey I had run through countless crises and losses to reach.
No one would lose their family to demons anymore.
Reisilla, too, would be able to smile with an easy heart now.
Together with my companions, I returned to the Holy Kingdom carrying the joy of victory.
The cheers welcoming me and the flower petals fluttering through the air filled the streets.
I thought I would finally be able to lay down every burden.
But… the world was cruel to us—no, to me—until the very end.
.
.
.
The vast audience hall of the Holy King’s Court.
As I knelt to announce our victory, a cold voice fell upon me from above.
“From this moment forth, Kale, who claimed to be a hero despite not having been chosen by the God of Creation, you are hereby exiled to the harshest land on the continent, the ice fields of Tarnas.”
For a moment, I doubted my ears.
I slowly raised my head and looked up at the dais.
The Holy King was looking down at me with an expressionless face.
“……”
Thinking that something had gone wrong, I hurriedly turned to the side.
My companions, who had crossed the line between life and death countless times with their backs against mine.
But not one of them met my eyes.
They merely shifted their gazes away or bit their lips and stared at the floor.
Not a single person stepped forward to object to this absurd situation.
“Ha… hahahaha.”
A hollow, empty laugh spilled out.
Though I was the one who had cut through the Demon King’s flesh and bone, to them, I had been nothing but a fake.
A disposable tool to use when needed and throw away afterward.
Now that the threat called the Demon King had vanished, an uncontrollable force that threatened the authority of the Holy Kingdom was nothing more than a thorn in their side that had to be removed.
And my companions had already reached some sort of compromise with them.
“……”
No more words came out.
So I twisted my lips into a smile and quietly set my sword down on the floor.