I'm ignorant.
But I have overwhelming strength.
Everything in this world can be solved with strength, yet there are times when using your head is more convenient than using strength.
Of course, my head was never up to the task, but—.
"But Boss, you've got romance on your side!!!"
Despite my ignorant brain, I had companions who shone like stars.
They always said things I couldn't understand, and romance was one of those things.
'Romance, huh—.'
Only now did I find myself wondering what romance actually was.
So I traced back through my life.
I was born in the pit of the slums.
They said I'd split open my mother's belly coming out, and the villagers branded me a symbol of misfortune. Everyone avoided me.
Still, a few soft-hearted women took turns looking after me as a child.
But it wasn't long before I was abandoned again.
A three-year-old shattering boulders?
I'd been the owner of absurd, monstrous strength since I was small.
That monstrous strength drove even the kind-hearted women away, and by sheer chance, some old holy knight took me in when I was on the verge of dying.
They say the world's full of eccentrics, and that holy knight was exactly that.
'Father.'
I was the one who called him Father, but he adamantly refused to let me address him that way.
Father's mind came and went, you see.
"I am the last holy knight of the great War God, Lord Tyra."
Tyra, the god who presides over war.
A petty god I'd never heard of, not back then and not even now that I've come to be called the Mercenary King of the continent.
Father, the holy knight who served that piece-of-shit god, taught me how to fight.
I'd been learning to handle weapons since I was four, and after that, I remembered raising absolute hell trying to draw out something called aura.
Separate from the way his mind came and went from serving that piece-of-shit god, Father's swordsmanship was the real deal.
Even now, as the Mercenary King, I've never seen swordsmanship that even came close to his level.
"Very well, you do not need aura, divine power, or any of that nonsense. With that monstrous body of yours, you will be able to plow through anything."
I'd achieved mastery in swordsmanship and the like in no time, but this damned thing called aura eluded me entirely.
Divine power was the same story.
"Let us at least try learning strategy and tactics. In war, a single commander cannot solve everything alone."
Father taught me the strategy and tactics he claimed the War God had created.
I wasn't bright, so studying was a foreign concept to me, and even by then I couldn't read or write a single letter.
Still, Father didn't give up. He struggled to teach me by reading books aloud.
"Good grief....... I have never seen anyone this thick-skulled."
I didn't understand a single thing.
In the end, Father threw up both hands and both feet and gave up.
"That ignorant brain of yours cannot make heads or tails of strategy or tactics, but....... No, once you step out into the world, strategy and tactics will lose all meaning anyway."
Not long after that came the year I turned sixteen.
Father passed away.
"When the war ends, offer your battlefield to the War God."
That was his dying wish.
The only heirloom he left behind was a pendant of unknown origin.
The last symbol of the War God, or something like that?
In any case, everything I'd learned by the time I came of age was something meant for war.
From the time I became an adult until well past forty, all I'd ever done was roll through battlefields, living as a mercenary.
'Romance, huh.......'
That's right.
Romance, that was something far removed from my life.
Whoosh—.
All of these thoughts had passed in an instant.
A vicious falling sensation blurred my consciousness.
I'd just had my head cut off.
Having rolled through enough battlefields to be called the Mercenary King without a shred of aura, I suppose I could use this fleeting instant like an eternity.
Getting my head cut off was a first, so I never imagined I'd retain this level of awareness.
"Tch, ignorant mercenary bastard."
Beyond my fading consciousness, I heard a voice as slippery as a serpent.
It was that imperial duke bastard, the one who'd annihilated my 'Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company.'
"I should have captured and killed your companions from the start. I took the long way around when it would have been this easy—."
My mind perceived everything, but my body couldn't perform a single function.
Even so, I felt as though tears of blood were streaming from my eyes.
"Who would have thought mere mercenaries could devour the Empire's legions. Tch."
That bastard was the mortal enemy who'd captured my companions, tortured them, and killed them in the cruelest ways imaginable, and the absolute son of a bitch who'd used them as hostages to lure me into a trap and put me to death.
Even as I burned with vengeance, my field of vision sank lower and lower.
Thud—.
My head hit the ground.
But thanks to my transcendent Spirituality (that was what I called the monstrous strength that grew ever stronger with every battlefield I went through.), my consciousness was still sharp.
"The head of that lunatic mercenary commander must be presented to His Majesty the Emperor. Move it!"
At the duke's command, soldiers scrambled into action.
They picked up my severed head from the ground and placed it beside my companions.
'Ah.......'
With a heart full of grief, I swore I would tear every last one of those enemies to pieces.
I tried to move my body, but my head was severed, so nothing would budge.
Is that just how it works when your head gets cut off?
While I was thinking that, the duke bastard looked down at our severed heads and ran his mouth.
"Branded Demon Mel, Noblewoman Predator Veil, Blasphemer Yuria, and finally, Rip-Anything Jack! I have executed every one of the Four Great Criminals of the Empire!!!"
That bastard, a duke of the Great Empire, was muttering like some shitty mercenary who'd gotten lucky and killed an enemy commander.
Collecting our heads must've made him absolutely giddy, huh?
I ground my teeth.
Creak—.
But why?
My severed head moved in response to my will.
Was this the death rally I'd only ever heard about?
According to Mel, our company's strategist, after the death rally ran its course, true death would follow.
I considered how to spend this final moment.
'Should I use my jaw to launch my head into the air and bite through that duke bastard's neck?'
A thought very much like me, but.
For some reason, the word 'romance' kept echoing in my ears.
I wanted to use this final moment for something at least a little meaningful.
No matter how dull my brain was, I knew damn well that killing that duke wouldn't end my revenge.
'If this is truly the end.......'
I wanted to see my companions, the ones I'd rolled through battlefields with for over twenty years.
Swish—.
Remarkably, my eyeballs rolled.
I could see my companions' heads, neatly arranged beside mine.
'Mel, Veil, Yuria.'
None of them looked good.
They were dead with their eyes wide open, and some had faces so mangled they were barely recognizable.
But I recalled how they'd looked in life.
Like a painting, they smiled and looked back at me.
"Boss, you said you'd rip apart even the Emperor's crotch, so why are you lined up here with us?"
"Keh heh heh, so even you were the kind who gets his neck chopped off, Big Brother."
"Ignorant man. Don't push yourself too hard."
I thought I was hearing things.
All I had left was a head, yet my chest ached.
That's when I finally understood what romance was.
My battlefield, spanning over twenty years.
The companions who stayed with me until the very end.
'You were my romance.'
They were my romance all along.
No, my entire mercenary company was.
This is a truth that applies to emperors, kings, the proud elves dwelling in their forests, and the dwarves who set the continent ablaze.>
The ironclad rule of the 'Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company' came to mind naturally.
The immutable truth I'd forged.
'In the end, my strength just wasn't enough.'
A realization came to me, too.
I'd figured it would make for a fine death if my consciousness cut out about now, yet my mind was still intact.
Better to spend the remaining time on something a bit more meaningful.
When the war ends, always pray.
The dying wish of the father who'd taken me in and raised me.
The conclusion of my every battlefield was always prayer.
'A prayer for the War God.'
Of course, I don't believe in that piece-of-shit god.
But it was only right to honor Father's dying wish.
From small territorial wars to continent-spanning wars, I'd ended every single battlefield with a prayer.
My death would be a battlefield's end too.
It was an end of war unlike any I'd been through, but there was no doubt it was the last one.
So, in accordance with Father's will, I prayed.
'I offer this battlefield to the War God.'
I looked upon my companions' faces one last time.
I honored Father's dying wish one last time.
Wasn't this a far finer death than biting through that duke bastard's neck?
—Ep. 01 Father
"Yes, choosing a small baron's territorial war as your first battlefield is a fine decision. You will be able to feel the brutality of the battlefield in vivid detail."
My head had been cut off.
I closed my eyes and opened them.
And there before me was my departed Father.
The sensation of my body below the neck was vivid and clear.
Looking around, I saw it was the shack on the outskirts of a certain barony where we'd lived.
Was this the afterlife?
"Father."
I'd only ever called him Father in my mind; I almost never said it aloud.
"How dare you!!! I am not so grand a man as to be your father—."
Because he'd throw a fit like this.
The way he glared wide-eyed as he spoke was so much like watching him when he'd been alive that my chest swelled with emotion.
"Cough—. My days are numbered, and there is something I wish to say to you, so listen carefully."
Originally, Father had been so frail up until the day before his death that he could barely utter a single word.
But his final moments were different.
Father left me his dying words in a voice as clear as when he'd been at his healthiest.
Having experienced getting my own head cut off, I was certain this was the death rally Father was going through.
That ignorant brain of yours cannot make heads or tails of strategy or tactics, but....... No, once you step out into the world, strategy and tactics will lose all meaning anyway.
I recalled Father's dying words.
And recited them exactly as they'd been.
"And lastly, you'll tell me to pray to the War God at the end of every battlefield."
"H-how did you?"
He looked deeply shaken.
"My lingering regrets must've conjured this place."
"Regrets? Jack, what are you talking about all of a sudden?"
"I lived as a mercenary, roaming battlefields past the age of forty, and then I died."
Father looked at me with eyes that said, Has this boy finally lost his mind?
He'd even forced himself upright, despite his failing body.
As I recalled it, today was the day he was supposed to pass away, so that was nothing short of a miracle.
"As I thought, this must be my afterlife."
Something that hadn't happened before was happening now.
Since this was an afterlife conjured by my imagination, that was only possible here.
It was a shame my companions weren't around, but if this truly was the afterlife, I'd meet them eventually.
"Jack, are you in your right mind?"
The residual consciousness left behind after death, extending a fleeting life like a phantom.
That was the truth behind the 'afterlife' as defined by Yuria, the Mage Corps Commander of our mercenary company.
Just as my Spirituality had kept me moving despite my severed head, aura and mana could also dwell within the soul and manifest powers beyond comprehension.
"Y-you, how do you even know the word Spirituality?!!!"
Father shrieked after hearing my explanation.
Afterlife, Spirituality.
I guess me tossing around such lofty vocabulary made no sense to him in the first place?
"I even know the proverb that seeing once beats hearing a hundred times, which means practice is what matters in everything."
"Even sayings like that!!!"
Father stared wide-eyed, unable to utter a sound.
"Y-you truly have come from the future, Jack!!! Urgh—."
He looked on the verge of fainting, so I placed my hand on Father's chest and pushed the power of my Spirituality into him.
It wasn't enough to save a dying man, but my Spirituality possessed a special power that could restore vitality.
"A power like this......."
Father, who'd been on the brink of collapse, regained his senses and looked at me.
Then he shouted.
"Jack, this is reality. Not some afterlife!"
True to the Father of my imagination, he was stubbornly principled.
Let me make this clear.
"This is the afterlife."
Originally, my Spirituality was an ability that would properly manifest years later, after I'd ripped apart some bastard who was one of the Ten Great Knights of the Continent.
The fact that this power existed at age sixteen was proof this was the afterlife.
And yet, why?
"No, that is wrong!"
It felt remarkably real.
Father screamed at me with an expression like he was about to lose his mind.
At this rate, he'd regain his strength and get back on his feet.
After catching his breath, he asked me in a calm tone.
"Jack. Did I not hang a necklace around your neck before I died?"
Father fumbled at his own neck.
Nothing was there.
"I fully intended to place the necklace on you as I gave you my dying words."
That's right.
I remembered it vividly.
Father had given me his dying words and placed the necklace on me.
It was one of the clearest memories I possessed.
I felt around my own neck.
'Hm?'
Clink—.
Remarkably, a necklace hung around my neck.
Flash!
[Innumerable, fathomless battlefields have been offered.]
[Qualification to use the War God's Seven Authorities granted.]