Chapter 1 - Chapter 1

Translator: Nox

Chapter 1Chapter 1

Homecoming (1)

“Get married.”

It happened when Elric was fourteen.

It was an unmistakable child marriage.

In Elric’s memory, his father, Hoven Portman, had delivered those words with a cold, expressionless face that betrayed no emotion.

“Your partner is the daughter of the Wibin family. She is sixteen and possesses striking beauty. Furthermore, she is a quiet girl whose hobby is gardening, so she will not be a bad match.”

Elric did not understand his father’s words.

The sudden command to marry was one thing, but above all, he could not fathom why a noble family would unite with the Portmans, who were a mere merchant house.

He asked about it, but his father gave no answer.

Driven by doubt, he questioned other adults as well, but they remained equally silent.

In the end, the boy, who didn’t even know what a woman was, was swept away by a current he could not resist and ended up married.

The wedding day finally arrived during the autumn harvest, the season when the estate was at its most bountiful.

The events of that day remained a fresh shock to Elric even now, ten years later—a strange new world that could only be described as an awakening.

“I am Tiria Wibin.”

First came the gentle blonde hair that resembled the wheat fields of the Wibin Territory, followed by softly sloping eyes and pale green pupils like new sprouts that radiated tenderness. Her fair skin was like fine flour, and her lips were as red and distinct as if cherries had been plucked and pressed there.

Her voice was quiet and composed, yet her pronunciation was clear and her words carried enough weight that listening was effortless.

Her straight posture and demurely folded hands made her look fragile enough to break if gripped too hard, yet there was a certain stubbornness in her bearing that lent her an air of dignity.

In a word, she was mysterious and elegant.

She was a girl who brought to mind a fairy napping peacefully inside a flower bud.

There had to be a better way to describe her.

Young Elric, for the first time, resented his past self for shunned books in favor of street brawls.

“Elric, greet her.”

“Hello….”

Only a crawling whisper escaped him.

Though they were only two years apart, he was overcome by a surge of shame at how much he paled in comparison to her.

It felt as if someone had shoved a ball of fire into his chest and was grabbing him by the hair and shaking him.

Everything was utterly confusing, yet amidst the chaos, one thought rose to the surface.

Now that they were married, he would live his entire life with this person.

At the time, he didn’t know the words to define that strange, tickling sensation, but looking back, it was his first love.

The wedding ceremony was attended only by the two families, with no other guests.

The sixteen-year-old girl entering in her snow-white wedding dress had awakened the very concept of the opposite sex in Elric.

Embarrassed that a smile kept trying to break through, Elric pulled the corners of his mouth down sharply.

When the moment came to exchange rings, he couldn’t suppress the grin, so he scowled deeply instead.

Once those moments passed and he was left alone, Elric, now filled to the brim with curiosity, asked the butler.

“Why is that person marrying me?”

Anxiety. That must have been what it was.

What if she didn’t like him and called off the marriage?

What if he could never see that girl again?

Driven by those thoughts, Elric even grabbed the butler by the collar and shook him, demanding the truth, until the butler was forced to speak.

“It is a political marriage.”

The truth was shocking.

At least, it was to the fourteen-year-old boy, Elric Portman.

“The Wibin Baron family is poor. They lack the funds to even maintain their lives as nobles and are drowning in debt. Consequently, the Head of the family demanded this marriage on the condition of paying off their debts and providing financial support. Through this, we shall be incorporated into the nobility.”

How could a boy understand a transaction woven from such complex interests?

Elric, who had a knack for grasping the context and core of a conversation, realized only one fact.

“Th-then, was she sold? To me?”

The butler did not answer.

He likely did so to avoid saying something disrespectful to his young master, but to the young Elric, that silence could only be seen as a silent affirmation.

Elric was forced to feel like a villain at the center of a wicked trade, buying and selling a girl.

It was the greatest sense of despair and guilt Elric had felt in his fourteen years of life.

To a boy who dreamed of being a knight, the act of mortgaging a girl’s life felt that horrific.

Elric wanted to explain himself.

Even though no one was urging him to do so, he hurried his steps as if being chased, heading toward where the bride would be.

And then, he heard it.

“Sob….”

What leaked through the closed door was a small sob.

He couldn’t even doubt whose it was.

The voice of the girl who had greeted him was still lingering in Elric’s ears, tickling his heart.

Even her crying was quiet, yet distinct.

Now, instead of her greeting, the sound of her weeping was being branded into Elric’s soul.

With his heart drumming wildly against his chest, Elric fled from the spot immediately.

He tried to think of the reason she was crying.

She might be sad because she was sold. It might be painful to leave her family.

There were many reasons if he thought about it, but at the time, Elric was plagued by a hypothesis that pained him more than any of those.

‘She doesn’t like me!’

She was probably crying because he, her marriage partner, wasn’t good enough for her.

She would have to live her whole life in pain looking at his face.

Therefore, he must not become the villain who torments her.

The fear that she might hate him if things continued this way swallowed Elric whole.

Looking back, it was a ridiculous notion, but to the Elric of that time, it was an event so monumental it felt like his life’s ultimate mission.

Thus, Elric decided to nullify the marriage.

He went straight to see his father, and the answer was, naturally, a refusal.

“Do not act like a child.”

His father turned away after leaving that one cold remark.

Elric clung to his father’s pant legs and pleaded, but he wouldn’t budge.

It was behavior befitting a father who had never shown a single smile in his life.

The child who was born after killing his mother.

Elric knew very well that he was such an existence to his father.

He had heard, with agonizing frequency, how much his father had cried on the day of his mother’s funeral.

That story was still used as gossip material among the servants to this day.

When Elric wouldn’t give up, his father said:

“You are a noble now. Act like one.”

“But….”

“Be cold-headed. Value reason over emotion. Do not be shaken by anything.”

Rarely did his father speak at such length that day.

And every word was steeped in a chill cold enough to freeze.

“Earn your keep for being raised.”

Elric could not stop his father as he turned away.

It was only right to pour out resentment toward him, but he held it back.

He felt there was no point in dwelling on a relationship already given up on.

Elric focused on saving the girl rather than being lost in resentment.

Since seeking his father’s help had ended in failure, the next people he sought out were the household servants.

But of course, none of them helped Elric.

Who would listen to a fourteen-year-old boy asking to call off a wedding?

He felt alone in the world, yet he could not give up.

In the end, Elric resorted to an extreme option.

Running away from home.

‘If I disappear, the marriage will be void. That person won’t have to be sad because of me. She’ll return to her family’s arms. And Father will be in great trouble.’

It was a childish sense of heroism, an outburst from a tender heart that feared being hated.

It was also revenge against the father who had stabbed him with words sharp enough to gouge his chest.

‘See how you like this.’

Elric tucked about three gold coins into his pocket, strapped the iron sword he’d received for his thirteenth birthday to his waist, and committed his midnight flight on the first night of his marriage.

Trembling with a soul-shaking sense of guilt and fear, and with a heart desperately wishing she wouldn’t hate him.

With the intention of truly escaping his father’s gaze, he crossed the territory and left the country.

It was a moment where his innate drive proved useful.

He didn’t worry about what he should do.

Fortunately, Elric had the swordsmanship and mana manipulation techniques he had learned from a knight.

He would just live by the blade.

“Hmm? You came to be a mercenary?”

Elric became a war mercenary.

And,

“It’s Kasha. My name.”

He discarded the name Elric Portman.

He lived that way for ten years.

The childish desire to save the girl was no longer the reason.

Such things had been diluted long ago.

The reason Elric had not yet left the battlefield was his resentment toward the father who had never looked for him after his flight.

He knew it was shameless for the one who left first, but isn’t the human heart a fickle thing?

Finding no way to extinguish the anger that had grown like a forest fire, he used it as fuel. He didn’t swing his sword to live; he swung it to vent the stifling frustration built up inside him.

At some point, it became a sword swung in order to die.

Elric participated in wars without caring for himself at every moment, yet he survived to become the terror of his enemies.

A mercenary who sought his own grave while wielding a sword that knew no defense.

This was the origin story of the Sword Demon Kasha, one of the seven strongest on the continent.

It was Elric’s own secret that no one knew.