A dark night.
A child stood in a field.
Blood dripped from the sword clenched tightly in his small hand.
Yet the blood was not red.
It looked like murky, rust-colored water.
It could not have been otherwise. It was not human blood.
It was monster blood. The blood of the monster that had killed his mother.
“......”
The child slowly turned his eyes.
There lay the monster he had fought to the death only moments ago.
Between its teeth, he could see bright-red chunks of flesh and a crushed gold necklace.
It was his mother's keepsake.
“Mm....”
The child bent down and pried open the monster's jaws.
Enduring the stench, he pulled out his mother's keepsake.
It was more badly damaged than he had expected. It was too ruined to wear.
“This....”
After turning it over in his hands, the child finally tucked the necklace into his clothes.
Then he straightened.
“Ah.”
Just then, a cool breeze blew across the field.
The clouds parted, and the moon that had been hidden came into view.
―…….
Soft moonlight shone over the field.
Following that light, the child slowly turned his head.
There was a sword there.
By the faint light flowing from the child's hand, and by the gentle moonlight pouring down from the sky....
It was a sword that gleamed brightly.
“......”
As though bewitched by something, the child stared at that sword for a long while.
Many years later, he would sever the heads of countless monsters and singlehandedly hold back the end of the world from the front lines: a Holy Knight.
This was when the man called the Holy Knight of Salvation was seven years old.
***
An orphanage affiliated with the Arcane Temple stood halfway up a mountain.
As the cold eased a little, the young children came out into the yard and began to play.
“Hey! Stop right there!”
“Catch me! Hehe!”
The children, barely four or five years old, were having fun simply by running around.
In contrast, Arden, a seventeen-year-old boy, watched them with worried eyes, afraid they might get hurt.
“Brother! Come play with us too!”
At that moment, one of the children called to Arden, who was sitting still.
She was Maril, a four-year-old girl with brown hair that brushed her shoulders.
“Not ‘brother.’ Call me ‘big brother.”
Arden snickered and rose from his seat.
“But ‘brother’ is more comfortable....”
Pouting and grumbling, Maril took Arden by the hand and pulled him along.
“What should we play?”
Arden asked the children gathered around him.
“Mm....”
“Um....”
After racking their brains for a while, they finally spoke up.
“War games!”
“Praying?”
“Racing!”
Every one of them wanted something different.
After giving it some serious thought, Arden looked at each child in turn and said,
“There isn't enough time to do everything, so how about we read a book? We got a lot of new ones this time, and I think they'll be fun.”
That was not the only reason, of course.
On a cold day like this, they could get hurt if they ran around too hard for no reason.
Even though it had warmed up somewhat after noon, spring was still a long way off.
Arden did not want the children at the orphanage, who were no different from younger siblings to him, to get hurt.
“Books!”
“Great!”
“Read to us!”
Fortunately, they all nodded.
They were still too young to read properly.
With a small smile, Arden gathered up the children and led them back inside.
“So, what should we read?”
Arden asked when they reached the room full of books.
The children looked over the newly arrived books, then brought him one.
“This one!”
The book the children had brought without fighting over it was [The Emperor Goes Beyond the Continent!].
It was also the thickest book in the room.
“All right. Let's read this one.”
Their intention was obvious, but Arden nodded and accepted the book.
Sitting on the floor, he turned the cover and began to read the first sentence.
“The Emperor had possessed overwhelming strength since childhood. At seven years old, he was already capable of killing monsters....”
***
After dinner, he continued reading, and before he knew it, a great deal of time had passed.
“Good night.”
“You too, big brother....”
Arden tucked the last remaining child into bed and stepped outside.
Ordinarily, it would have been time for Arden to go to bed as well, but he still had something to do.
Arden went down to the first floor and headed for the dining room.
“Hello.”
“Arden, you're here....? Have a seat.”
The orphanage director, who was seated at the table, spoke.
―SCRAPE.
“Yes, Mother.”
Arden nodded and sat down.
The director watched him for a moment, then began to speak.
“Well.... Arden, you're seventeen this year, aren't you?”
“Yes.”
Seventeen. The orphanage director's wavering voice.
Those two things alone were enough for Arden to roughly guess what she was going to say.
“Then....”
“Yes. You can't stay at the orphanage any longer....”
The director spoke with a dark expression.
Tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes.
“It feels like only yesterday that you were seven.”
She had met Arden when she had been an apprentice at this orphanage.
While cutting across a field to get to the market a little faster, she had found him.
Because it had been a bitterly cold winter, she could not leave him there and brought him back. That had been ten years ago.
Considering that she had been twenty-one at the time, they had spent quite a long time together.
“Is that so?”
But Arden, who had already expected it, simply nodded.
The older brothers he had lived with had told him. He could not remain at the orphanage forever.
It was time for him to live on his own now.
“I'm sorry.”
“No, it's all right.”
Arden had already received a great deal of help from her.
If she had not been there, he would have died in that field long ago.
“Arden, you still have a choice.”
The orphanage director wiped away her tears and continued.
“A choice?”
“Yes. You could go to the Arcane Temple and become a Holy Knight. What you do is your choice, Arden.”
Of course, there was more she left unsaid: he could find another path.
“Another path....”
Arden turned the words “another path” over in his mind.
But he did not make a choice right away.
“I'll think about it some more.”
“All right. You still have plenty of time. Go to bed now. You must be tired. I'm sorry.”
“It's all right.”
After giving a deep bow, Arden left the orphanage director's office.
Having just put the children to bed, he carefully climbed the stairs to the second floor.
“Ah.”
Just then, he noticed traces he had left here and there.
Even in the dark, he could see those traces thanks to the moonlight streaming in through the windows.
The scribbles he had made with the older brothers who had now left the orphanage.
The names he had carved because he missed his mother......
All of his childhood memories remained here.
“I'll have to leave soon.”
Now that he had left the orphanage director's office, it felt real.
What should he do now?
And what about the younger children who would remain here...?
His chest ached at the thought of leaving the place he had grown attached to.
―CREEEAK.
Arden returned to his room and lit a candle.
In an instant, the darkness that had blanketed his room was driven back.
“Whew.”
With a sigh, Arden sat on the edge of his bed and turned his gaze outside the window.
Because the orphanage stood fairly high up, he had a clear view of the ground below.
Then an unidentified black silhouette appeared and vanished among the dense trees.
Had he seen it wrong?
Frowning, Arden got to his feet.
“Where did it go?”
He pressed up against the window and scanned the surroundings.
He could not find so much as the shadow of an animal, much less a person.
Yet the uneasy feeling did not go away.
Something kept putting Arden on edge.
“......”
Just in case, Arden pulled out the sword he had tucked beneath his bed long ago.
A thick layer of pale dust had accumulated on the scabbard.
How long had it been since he had taken it out...?
Thinking it might have rusted, Arden drew the sword.
―SHING!
Yet though he had clearly not used it for a long time, its edge had not dulled.
As though it had been waiting, it glinted even more sharply.
When he tilted the blade sideways, it was polished enough to reflect his face. Arden looked at his reflection in the blade, then sheathed it again.
“All right, all right.”
He tucked the sheathed sword against his chest and closed his eyes.
Hoping that nothing would happen.
***
That night.
Unwelcome guests broke into the quiet orphanage.
They were a bandit gang.
They had come all the way to the orphanage deep in the mountains, searching for something to loot.
“There's nothing here. Not even a single piece of silverware.”
“Tch. What a wasted trip.”
“No, it isn't a wasted trip. There are the children's hearts. Black mages have been buying corrupted children's hearts lately. We'll probably be able to sell them for a high price.”
There were three intruders in all.
By their numbers alone, they were closer to common thieves, but the bandit gang they belonged to was rather unusual.
It had nearly a hundred units, each made up of three people.
And every one of them was skilled enough that it would not have been strange for them to lead a bandit gang of their own.
They were formidable warriors who would not have fallen behind even against the knights of the capital.
Even so, the reason they operated in separate teams was so they could move quickly and avoid the Emperor's eyes.
No matter how strong the bandit gang was, it could not survive if the Emperor summoned the Imperial Knights under the pretext of treason.
“Really? Let's find them and get out of here. It doesn't look like staying longer will get us anything.”
The bearded man said, swinging his axe.
“Indeed. You have finally said something right.”
The leader nodded and started walking.
After all, there were only so many places children could be in an orphanage like this.
They would find them soon enough.
“W-who are you?”
They would have found them right away, if not for the woman who suddenly appeared before them.
“Could you...?”
A woman in pure-white nightclothes blocked their way.
“This has become troublesome. Kill her yourselves.”
The leader spoke to his two subordinates.
“Sure. But I get to have a little fun first, right? Maybe it’s because she’s pretty, but I’m getting hard. Heh.”
“You sick bastard.”
The woman with her face concealed beneath a deeply drawn hood frowned, but she did not say anything else.
This was nothing unusual.
“Well, this is what makes swinging an axe worthwhile.”
The man shrugged, grinned broadly, and stepped forward.
Licking his lips as he looked at the orphanage director, he closed the distance in an instant.
“Eek, eeeek!”
“Don't overdo it. That's not our objective. Follow me, Kariel.”
The leader, watching this, spoke quietly and headed up the stairs.
The woman called Kariel followed behind him.
―!
At the same time, the orphanage director's agonized scream reached Arden's ears.
“......”
Arden opened his eyes, clutching the scabbard tightly.
He slowly looked around.
It seemed no one had entered his room.
He could hear creaking from a corridor some distance away.
“...Are they the ones?”
Arden got down from the bed.
He carefully drew his sword.
The worn leather around the hilt fit snugly in his hand.
His pounding heart settled.
―CREEEAK....
Taking a breath, Arden carefully opened the door and stepped outside.
At the end of the corridor stood two figures.
One went into the rooms and brought the children out, while the other tore out those children's hearts.
As though they had practiced together for a long time, their movements were perfectly in sync.
“......”
Arden's face went cold.
His hand tightened around the sword.
At the same time, a memory from long ago flashed through his mind and vanished.
It was the day the monster had devoured his mother.
To survive, he had picked up a sword for the first time and killed a monster that five adult men together could not easily kill.
At the young age of seven.
―CREAK!
He had not held a sword since then, but he had not lost the feeling for it either.
From the moment the memory surfaced, familiar sensations had enveloped his entire body.
The world slowed, and his field of vision expanded.
That was not all.
Despite the deeply settled darkness of night, the sight before Arden was absurdly bright.
He could see every child lying dead in the distance, their faces twisted as they failed to endure the pain.
“Whew....”
Breathing out hotly, Arden began to walk.
The creaking echoed.
Hearing it, the two people turned their heads.
They looked at Arden approaching from the far end of the corridor.
When they saw Arden coming toward them with a sword in hand, they snickered.
“How ridiculous.”
“I'll deal with that one. He doesn't seem young enough to sell anyway.”
“All right.”
Kariel stepped forward, leaving the leader behind.
She drew the dagger she had kept in her clothes.
Pulling back the hood she had drawn low over her face, she spoke.
“Kid, if you'd just stayed put, you wouldn't have died like this.”
“......”
But Arden did not answer.
He only stared wide-eyed at the dagger.
As though Arden's reaction bored her, Kariel spun the dagger once and muttered,
“Whatever. You're going to die anyway.”
Then, when the moonlight dimmed as the clouds covered it.
Without either of them moving first, they kicked off the ground.
CRASH—!
The building shook violently.
Every window shattered, throwing the place into chaos.
The wooden door beside them was destroyed so completely that not a trace remained.
“Hup!”
Kariel gripped the dagger in a reverse grip and drove it toward Arden's chest. Arden twisted his body. Pressing himself tightly against the wall, he knocked the dagger aside.
―SKREEEECH—!
Then Arden slipped inside her guard. Kariel immediately recovered her dagger and readjusted her stance. But Arden was faster. The blade rushed toward her Adam's apple. Kariel threw her upper body back too late. WHOOSH—! Arden's sword cleaved the air. But that was within his expectations. Arden immediately thrust out his leg.
―THUD!
Kariel staggered, losing her balance. Arden, unable to find a proper stance himself, staggered as well, but he quickly regained his balance. Then he took a step forward as his body guided him. Trusting his senses, he swung his sword.
SLICE—
A pure-white light flashed. A line of blood embroidered the air, spattering in every direction. At the same time, a dull sound rang out.
“......”
For a moment, silence descended.
Just then, the clouds parted, and moonlight shone into the orphanage.
At Arden's feet, as he brushed back his hair, Kariel's head lay rolling on the floor.
―!
But Arden did not have time to stand still. He could hear the orphanage director groaning downstairs.
He had to choose.
Whether to save the children who were not yet dead, or to save the orphanage director.