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Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu (Light Novel) - Volume 4: The Spring Cleaning Banquet, Prologue I: Our Sadness is Engraved—
Volume 4: The Spring Cleaning Banquet, Prologue I: Our Sadness is Engraved—
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
He didn’t have anything.
No parents, no memories. Nothing.
The only thing he could recall was his own name. He didn’t know anything else.
When he opened his eyes and looked around, he realized that he was in a savanna.
“Uugh…”
The sky was dyed bright red. The reason was that the sun was falling below the horizon. But that’s not how he saw it.
The savanna was filled with bodies as far as his eyes could see. Bodies, bodies, bodies. His surroundings were overflowing with death. Bright red blood flowed from them, and that blood seemed to make it all the way up to the sky to dye it too.
That was the first thing he ever saw. The first scene he ever recalled seeing.
It was a battlefield.
It’d soon be night, but he could still hear explosions from far away. The flicker of spells as they started and burst.
He gazed at them as if in a trance.
“Ah… uugh… aahh,” he groaned.
“Whoa, someone managed to survive out here… hey, you’re just a kid!?” Someone said from behind.
When he turned around to face it, he saw several men hurrying over to him. They’d been stripping the armor and swords off the dead, cutting their fingers off and stealing their rings.
“Hey, kid! What’re you doing on a battlefield like this? Are you a thief like us?”
“Uuh… ahh…”
He couldn’t speak well. Had he ever spoken? Could he speak? He didn’t even know that. He’d only just woken up and he didn’t have any memories. He didn’t even know who he was.
He saw that those kind of dirty men were looking down on him and realized that he was still just a small child. Maybe he was four or five now? And he was covered in blood. It wasn’t his own blood. It was bright red like the blood of the bodies all around. When he looked at his hands he saw the same bright red color and realized.
“Well, we’re different,” one of the men said. “Looks like you’re all dirty ‘cause you were laying down right with the bodies. Anyway, you must be one of Roland’s commissioned officers’ sons, right? Some idiot noble probably brought you here to the battlefield and got himself killed.”
A noble’s… son?
“That or some pedophile took you from one of Estabul’s villages. God, the shit nobles do makes me wanna throw up. They don’t care one bit if it’s a kid or not. Judging by your shabby clothes, you’re prooobably not a noble’s kid, so… you’re in luck. The noble who kidnapped you has gotta be dead by now, see?” He said and spat on one of the bodies. “So what’s your name?”
That felt like something he could answer. His own name… was something he could remember. “Ryner,” he said quietly.
“Aah!? Can’t hear ya! Say it loud and clear!”
“…Ryner Lute.”
The man nodded… and raised his hand up. Ryner’s head was slammed to the ground in an instant, and the world flickered. The man’s fist had easily knocked Ryner’s small body entirely over. He fell back onto the bodies…
“This is how it’s gonna be with us,” the man said. “Get it? Ryner Lute, we’re gonna bring you back to our village and make you our slave. It’s not a lofty rich village where you’ll be brought up well, though. You gotta work your ass off if you wanna live. Otherwise you’ll kick the bucket. If you understand then get up and start grabbin’ the armor and accessories off the bodies. I’ll kill you if you’re slow about it!”
Ryner was punched again and time started to move.
That was his first view of the world.
---
The men took him to a poor village.
It was a small village close to the border between the Kingdom of Estabul and the Roland Empire on the Roland side. It was originally supposed to be a farming villiage, but all the fighting devastated the fields, and now it stayed afloat via stolen goods from the battlefield.
Ryner had done the same as the men today - he rounded the battlefields with them and pilfered armor and accessories off bodies, then exchanged them for cash and entered the village. After working nonstop all day, he was given nothing but a plain dinner to be eaten in a dirty abandoned house they had him stay in…
That day turned into everyday. But that kind of life wasn’t as bad as he thought it’d be. Everyone was poor, after all. Not just him. Every single person in this village was.
He opened his heart to the people of the villages and got to know them, making acquaintances and even friends… and Ryner even remembered how to smile.
Ryner lived alone so his house naturally became the place kids could come to hide from adults…
He could call those happy days. So he smiled.
Adults hit him if he messed up rummaging through bodies. Well, they hit him even if he didn’t mess up. Even so, he felt that he was happy. So he smiled. Because the village accepted him even though he’d come all alone…
However.
The afterglow of the evening sun was conspicuously red that day.
When Ryner got back from the battlefield and returned to his home, it was filled with playing children like always.
“Welcome back, Ryner! Was work hard!?”
When everyone asked him that, Ryner was all smiles. “It was oka—”
But they cut him off before he could finish. “Hey hey hey, Ryner, why do you live alone? Why do you work even though you’re a kid? Where’s your mom and dad? Did they die on the battlefield like my dad did?”
This girl, Quill, had been asking that kind of thing a lot lately with a curious expression.
Ryner shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. My parents were already gone before my first memory.”
There were many children in this village who had lost one or both parents on the battlefield…
Ryner had no memory of his parents from the beginning.
All he remembered was what he’d seen when he’d woken up on that battlefield. That blood-stained battlefield…
“Hmm,” she said and nodded. “Are you lonely without them?”
Ryner smiled a little and shook his head. “Uh-uh. ‘Cause I have you guys.”
She smiled. “Then, then I’ll be your mom from now on! Call me mom!”
The boy next to her suddenly piped up. “Then I’ll be the dad! Ryner, call me dad! That means me and Quill gotta get married!”
Quill puffed her cheeks up. “Wha? I don’t wanna marry you, Dell!”
“Uuh… She rejected meeee,” Dell said, smiling through his crocodile tears.
Ryner smiled. Dell was the first boy that’d become his friend at this village.
They had a lot of fun together every day. He loved being together with everyone, and Ryner loved him. Because when he came over, everyone else did too. So he ended up making a lot of friends at once thanks to Dell… so he smiled.
He felt that every day was fun. Because they were all so horribly poor, their stomachs were empty… but even so, being able to laugh together with everyone like this was something happy.
He was glad that he’d been thrown away in this village.
And yet…
And yet, he heard an explosion far away. One, two, three explosions…
He was already familiar with those sounds. That was magic. It gradually came closer and closer…
The village fell into confusion in line with the sounds. The door slammed open.
“Quill!? You’re here again! Get over here! The army… countless soldiers have come here again to drag us back into the war!” Quill’s mom said. She hurried in and grabbed Quill.
With that, the kids all left at once… Ryner left his house too.
By then the explosions were at the village’s edge.
Lightning flashed, then fire cut into it. People likely died from those spells.
A battle had started right by their village…
Destructive magic would soon hit the inside of the village too. They had to run away before then…
Everyone had already started to run in the opposite direction from the battle. Ryner followed them. It looked like they’d be able to get out without injury this time. Even if the village was destroyed, as long as they had their lives…
“Ngh…”
The sky before them warped as it was engulfed in flames… and then several armor-clad men appeared among the dust and flames. “Stop. We’ll kill you if you don’t.”
They obviously all stopped. They were trained soldiers capable of using magic, after all. There was no way the villagers could win against them.
“Kgh,” Ryner and the others groaned. They were in a pretty dangerous situation. They’d said they were okay with killing the villagers, who were all Roland citizens, so they were likely the opposing country’s army. Estabul’s. So they’d probably be taken hostage… that or they’d be killed as an example. Either way, getting caught was bad.
Then the smoke began to clear… and Ryner stared doubtfully. The coat of arms engraved on their armor had a snake surrounding a lance. That coat of arms… was the Roland Empire’s…
The village’s men let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, you’re our Rolander soldiers. Don’t surprise us like that. If you were Estabulian, surely we’d… be… ah…”
His words were caught off… by a soldier’s sword piercing his chest…
He didn’t look like he understood what was happening. “What…”
Blood dripped from his mouth, and he fell over. He never knew what happened.
These men were supposed to be Roland’s soldiers, so they shouldn’t have killed a man from one of Roland’s villages. Nobody said anything for a while. Nobody knew what to say.
And then… when they finally understood the situation they were in, the women screamed. Several were pierced right through the chest with swords to stop their screaming. The remaining women covered their mouths, and the parents covered their children’s mouths, frantically repressing the urge to scream.
They’d be killed if they made a sound. That’s what the Rolander soldiers had shown via their actions. Once the soldiers confirmed that everyone was obeying their unspoken order for silence, they looked around slowly. Very, very slowly, as if they meant to check everyone’s faces.
Then a soldier began to speak, disinterested. “You will not see what we are about to do. You will not tell anyone what we are about to do. You will let us do everything we are about to do. We will not allow any talk or any resistance. If you should resist,” he said and flashed his sword, killing another person. “You’ll die.”
They died.
They really died for no reason at all.
They’d kill his friends and all the other people he knew. Ryner covered his mouth to keep himself from screaming at the thought.
Everything about this was eerie. Wrong. He was shivering like crazy.
The armored Roland troops turned back, and it was only then that he realized the presence of a finely ornamented horse-drawn carriage. He’d never seen anything so fancy before.
“Preparations are in order.”
“Mm.”
The carriage’s door opened to reveal a skinny old man in his fifties. He wore an incredibly smooth and comfortable looking fabric that Ryner had never seen before.
Ryner understood instantly. That man was a noble.
A noble…
He was nodding on and on, looking happy. “Interesting. How interesting,” he whispered. Then he got down from the carriage and went into the crowd of villagers. He looked at Ryner and the others like he was evaluating them… no, he was looking at the young girls around Ryner’s age like he meant to choose one.
And so he did. The girl he chose was someone Ryner had never talked to before… but he’d seen her around. She was led into the carriage by Roland’s soldiers. Nobody knew what’d become of her…
The adults’ faces were scrunched up on the verge of tears, but nobody said anything. If they did… they’d be killed.
He shivered. That shaking was all Ryner felt.
Was he shivering in anger? Fear? Frustration? His body just shivered.
The noble wasn’t ready to go home yet. He picked another girl.
Ryner struggled to hold back his voice.
The noble picked Quill… the girl he’d been talking with only a moment ago. She’d said that she’d be his mom since he must be lonely and smiled innocently. The noble patted her on the head, signalling the soldiers to take her away.
“P, please, if at all possible, spare my daughter—”
That was all Quill’s mother could say before a sword pierced her chest…
“Noooooo!!” Quill screamed.
All Ryner could do was shiver.
Why was this happening? It was crazy… everyone had gone crazy.
His shivering wouldn’t stop. It just wouldn’t stop.
Quill was being taken away… there was nothing he could do. There was nothing that he himself could…
“I-I won’t let you take Quill away!” Dell yelled. When Ryner looked up at him, Dell was already running. He dodged the sword of one soldier and made a beeline for the one that had Quill. “Give Quill ba—”
The soldier that had Quill had drawn a magic circle. Flames were born from it… and fired right at Dell.
Something happened at that moment. Something Ryner could hardly believe.
He disappeared.
Dell completely, absolutely disappeared in the most literal sense of the word. He was wrapped up inside an intense flame and turned to charcoal. All that was left of him was the arm he’d been reaching out…
When he saw it… Ryner couldn’t help but let out a sound. “Ah…”
He was shivering. Shivering horribly. For some reason, his eyes… hurt. Hurt horribly.
His surroundings were dyed redder and redder. The evening sun was frighteningly redder than usual.
He remembered this scene. It was the same as what he’d seen when he first opened his eyes - the ground was covered in bodies and everything was bright red. His body felt empty. Even though he wanted to protect everyone, he stopped caring…
People were dying.
People were dying.
His hand moved on its own. It drew a magic circle made of light. It was the same as the one the Rolander soldier had just drawn. Now he was drawing it. He couldn’t recall ever drawing it before, but he could draw it now.
He’d just seen it. He really only saw the soldier use it. But that was all he needed to draw it. He knew its composition, its framework, how to fire it, and what it was made of just by seeing it.
He understood it. He felt as though he understood the composition of the entire world right now.
“I wish for a burnt prairie - Crimson,” Ryner said quietly but with a level voice. Flames shot from his magic circle and burnt the soldier taking Quill away to a crisp.
“Huh!? There’s someone who can use magic here! K-kill ‘em! Hurry up and kill ‘em!” A soldier yelled, panicked.
One soldier raised his sword while another two began to cast magic simultaneously. His left and right hands began to draw a completely different magic circle. He’d force these Roland troops to cancel their spells.
“Th-this is crazy! That brat’s copying our spe…” The soldier’s words trailed off as his eyes fixed on Ryner. Fear completely overwhelmed his expression. “Wh-what the hell… those, those eyes… Look at his e-eyes, everyone… They’ve got that crimson pentagram… He’s an Alpha Stigma bearer!”
Alpha Stigma bearer…
Ryner had never heard those words before. But he understood from that man’s expression. Whatever it was, it was something horribly scary.
When Ryner took a step forward, the soldiers all took a step back in fear.
“Th-this is bad… Lord Ellaroy, it may be best if we retreated… an Alpha Stigma bearer is far too dangerous…”
The noble nodded, face warped with fear. He climbed back into his carriage.
“Let the girl inside go!” Ryner yelled. “I’ll kill you if you don’t!”
The nobleman shoved the girl out, flustered, and his carriage began to leave. The soldiers followed.
Unbelievable as it was, Ryner had managed to chase the Rolander soldiers away. He hadn’t known that he had that kind of power at all, but he managed to protect Quill… no, both the girls. Though Dell had ended up dying…
But he felt that he might be able to protect the whole village from now on. He felt that he might be able to make himself for the village that’d picked him up…
Ryner watched the carriage until it was far out of sight to ensure it didn’t come back, then let out a huge breath of relief. The smile returned to his face and he looked around at the villagers. The villagers he’d just protected.
But for some reason… their faces all looked the same as the noble he’d just driven off…
Their faces were horribly warped with fear as they stared Ryner down…
They were… malicious expressions, like they were looking down at something dirty…
“Wh-what’s wrong, you guys…? Why’re you making that fa—”
“Th-those eyes,” a man from the village interrupted, his voice shaking with fear. “Talrom, you asshole, what the hell’d you bring here!?”
“Huh?” Ryner said. “Umm…”
But he was just cut off before he could say anything again. “Ryner, you piece of shit! Just thought you’d hide it from us, did you!? Just thought you’d trick us, didn’t ya!?”
He didn’t understand.
What were they saying?
It was something he’d been able to do all of a sudden, and everything changed all of a sudden.
They just… they all just glared at Ryner like they really hated him.
“It’s your fault! We’ve been cursed with misfortune since you came here!”
“W, wait, I…”
But Ryner couldn’t finish.
They all looked at him and they all shouted the same word at once: “Monster!”
“Die, monster!”
“You really have some nerve hiding behind a mask and living in our village, monster!”
“You atrocious, murderous monster!”
Monster…
Everyone was yelling it. They were all yelling that he was a human killing monster.
Mon… ster…
He didn’t understand. He’d only wanted to save everyone. He thought they’d be able to return to the happy way things had been. He thought they’d be able to go back to the lives they had before - they were poor and it was hard, but everyone smiled daily…
And yet…
A girl’s eyes caught his own. Quill’s. Even she was glaring at Ryner…
Her face held nothing but malice, like she was looking down on a nasty bug.
“Why… are you looking at me like that…?”
It was just… the sky was just red. Crimson red. A disorienting and cursed color.
That crimson pentagram rose to his eyes…
So the eyes they called Alpha Stigma were this feared and loathed…
It was deep fear and deep hatred that warped people’s faces entirely.
They called him a monster, but he couldn’t say they were wrong. Because he didn’t have any memories. He didn’t have any since the time he woke up on the battlefield, and he had no parents. He didn’t remember what kind of person he was at all. So… even if they called him a monster, it was impossible for him to say he wasn’t one.
His eyes were disoriented. Everything was red. The world got further and further away. All he felt was a sense of alienation.
He realized that nobody wanted to approach him. Nobody wanted him around at all.
He looked around to see if there was anyone who wasn’t scared of the crimson curse in his eyes, or anyone who didn’t hate it.
…It was because… he was a monster…
That was the day Ryner became a monster.
