The desert. The desert again.
My life had been nothing but a frantic run to avoid dying in the desert at the very end.
How desperately I had wanted to escape this place, nothing but a barren stretch of sand.
'And yet, it looks like I'll end up burying my coffin in the sand after all.'
I would die here.
The blood streaming from my pierced abdomen told me as much.
Still, this would not be a meaningless death.
'As long as I can protect my lord, Kairon.'
Sway—
My body, held upright by a single sword, staggered as though it would collapse at any moment.
Perhaps taking it for his chance, one of the desert assassins rushed at me.
"Die—!"
But.
SLASH—
The assassin was cleaved in half before he could take more than a few steps.
The other assassins who had watched him backed away.
"You're still alive?!"
My lungs had been torn apart and my abdomen pierced through. By all reason, I should have been dead.
Yet I was still alive, swinging my sword. To those bastards, I must have looked like a monster.
"You bastards, get past me before you set your sights on Lord Kairon. I'll drag you all to hell with me."
I spat out the words as if engraving them. In the time it took to utter that brief sentence, blood surged up in a rush.
"Aaaah—!"
I rose again and swung my sword.
SLASH, SLICE!
All I saw were the path of my blade and the enemy heads flying away.
Swords thrust in from every direction.
I evaded the blades aimed at vital points and let the rest strike me.
The pain of my body crumbling.
As long as I could feel that pain, as long as I was alive, I would protect Kairon Fel Recrit.
SLASH—
"Aaargh—"
The last assassin fell. Only then did I let go of my sword.
CLANG—
"Gasp... Are you all right, my lord?"
Blood surged from my chest, and I could barely stand, but Kairon's safety was the first thing I checked.
Kairon rarely showed any expression, but perhaps even he could not remain calm with a dying subordinate before him. The muscles in his face moved.
My lord. My honor, Kairon.
He...
"You're not dead yet?"
He was smiling.
"You truly are a tenacious desert bastard."
Step—
Uttering words I could not understand, Kairon approached me.
"M-My lord. What do you mean?"
"You have served me well. Now die."
CRUNCH—
Kairon drove a strike into me. Blood burst forth, choking off my words.
Kairon.
The name that had been everything to me transformed into a terrible curse.
* * *
Kairon Fel Recrit.
I met him when I was around fifteen.
"Kill Kairon."
An assassination request came to me when I was filled with spite and venom.
After my parents died in a desert sandstorm when I was young, I had taken whatever work came my way. There was nothing I could not do.
It was neither the fact that Kairon was the desert's enemy nor any grand cause that moved me then.
'I can buy bread for dinner tonight.'
That single expectation—that I would not go hungry—was all I had.
I accepted the assassination request.
To survive in the barren desert, I had no choice but to become a cactus myself.
On the day Kairon came to scout the desert, I disguised myself as an attendant and entered his bedchamber.
But the moment I was about to pierce Kairon's neck, he opened his eyes.
It was as though I had met a wolf's gaze. I could not move a muscle.
"You do not know how to conceal your presence."
It was the moment I thought I would die.
"Will you come with me?"
Kairon held out his hand to me.
Why me?
Why would a man of Recrit, the foremost swordsman family, need a lowly desert man?
But such things soon ceased to matter. I could have offered even my life for Kairon.
Honor.
Kairon was an honor itself to me.
He took the hand of someone who had rolled in desert sand and, in an instant, raised me into the Northern Order of Knights.
As I learned the sword in his order, I swore, and swore again.
'With the sword Lord Kairon placed in my hand, I will guard him for the rest of my life.'
Kairon's entire order was made up of men united by that same conviction.
The knights charged into kingdoms at the front and cut down countless enemy soldiers.
They bore the world's scorn in his stead and brought nothing but glory to Kairon.
I was always at the very front.
Once scorned as a lowly desert man, I had become a Seven-Star Knight of Recrit.
It was one day in my fifteenth year of living as his sword.
"Become my sword."
Kairon acknowledged me.
He granted me the name of the Crow Knight Order.
The very name of the Crow Knight Order, which normally only the children of the Recrit family could receive.
I became someone who could look up at him from closer than anyone else.
But that was a cursed misunderstanding.
One day, a sudden order came to me.
"Become the lord of the desert."
"Pardon?"
"Go to the desert and rule according to Recrit's will. Can you do that?"
"Yes, my lord."
I, who had rolled in desert sand and done nothing but butcher camels, was to become a lord and return home in triumph.
Moreover, ever since the ancient desert kingdom fell, the desert's royal castle had remained abandoned.
To dispatch a lord to such a place—this was Kairon's declaration that he meant to embrace the desert that had been cast aside.
It should have been cause for joy, yet some corner of my heart felt uneasy.
At last, the day of my investiture arrived.
Kairon headed for the desert with me. It was unusual for the ceremony to be held in the desert.
"Are you not my old friend? This is my final gift."
His final gift. Who could have known he meant that?
CREAK—
The gates of the desert's royal castle opened.
Neither a vigorous welcoming formation nor subjects prostrated at our feet greeted Kairon and me.
There were only an enormous number of assassins.
More pairs of eyes than I could count were glaring in our direction.
There had always been many people after Kairon, but even for me, this many was a first.
"My lord, get away—"
To dare attempt to assassinate Kairon before my very eyes. It was unthinkable.
I fought to protect Kairon.
And the price of offering my life was betrayal.
"Pfft."
A hollow laugh escaped me. Blood spilled out in a rush from the several holes in my body.
I barely collected myself and looked around.
Inside the desert's royal castle, where the bloody battle had swept through, only the assassins' corpses were piled up. Kairon had already disappeared somewhere.
Only now, at death's door, did I realize it. It had all been Kairon's scheme.
What coffin could be better than an abandoned desert royal castle?
A place where it would be no surprise if assassins came storming in at any moment.
A place where he could cut off the subordinate he cherished like his right arm and no one would know.
A place where I, a desert man, would let down my guard.
WHOOO—
All that remained in my hand was a handful of desert sand, thickly sticky with blood.
"Kairon...!"
From beginning to end, I had been nothing but a lowly desert bastard to him.
Did he tell me to become his sword?
Not a chance. I had only been a shield.
A shield that took every harsh and filthy thing thrown at it, only to be discarded once it broke.
As though all the years I had struggled to escape the desert were being mocked at once, I was abandoned in the desert.
"Gasp... Gasp..."
My breathing grew ragged. Regret came rushing in.
Only now could I see clearly why he had chosen someone as lowly as me.
The talent and potential to become a Seven-Star Knight had been no more than an excuse.
Those who would offer him talent were everywhere he stepped, and those who would offer him loyalty were numerous enough to cover the ground.
Kairon had wanted one more thing beyond talent and loyalty.
'An inferiority complex.'
The inferiority complex of someone who considers himself lowly. It makes a man offer up his life.
Cough—
The little blood I had left came pouring out. Regret trickled out with it.
Why did I trust that bastard? Why did I stupidly devote my life to him?
No. Why hadn't I ever reached for his position?
Though I had held countless things in my own hands, why did I think none of them were mine?
Countless territories and honors. Even the sword of the family head.
They were all things I had fetched for him like a dog.
Kairon had needed someone who would think the place beneath his feet was the whole world under heaven.
Someone exactly like me, who could wield the sword of Recrit's strongest knight order and still consider himself a lowly desert man.
Thud—
I could not stay still.
Before I knew it, my hands were trembling as I climbed the Pyramid of the Forbidden Region.
The Pyramid of the Forbidden Region.
It was the pyramid within the royal castle, said to be the tomb of the ancient desert king.
They said that even after becoming bones, the ancient desert king slept in the desert and protected it.
They said that if one climbed to its summit, the desert king would appear and grant one's wish.
Did I truly believe such a laughable legend?
Who knows.
If a legend like that had been real, the desert would not have become such abandoned land.
'Even if the desert king does not appear, perhaps I can at least see where north is.'
If I could not sever Kairon's neck, I would at least throw a sword toward the north, where he was.
If I had no strength left to throw a sword, then a curse.
If I had no strength to utter a curse, then at least spit.
Before I knew it, I was at the pyramid's summit.
I stood directly atop the peak that pierced the middle of the desert night sky.
And there was nothing there. Just as I had expected.
Beneath my feet lay the barren desert. Nothing but an endless desert.
Dying within it, I was as small as a grain of sand.
"Kairon... I will..."
Even speaking properly was difficult.
I sensed that I did not have much time left. That was why, more than ever, I had to say this before I died.
"If I ever meet you again... I will drive a sword into your heart. Then I will be the one to abandon you."
No answer came back.
WHOOO—
Only the familiar sound of the desert sandstorm accompanied me at the end.
Slip—
My foot gave way.
I did not even have the strength to catch my body as it fell from the pyramid's summit.
No, perhaps I did not need to catch it. I was going to die anyway.
Even through my blurred vision, I could see a halo of light rippling before me.
'It is strangely red.'
Was it a desert mirage? Or was dying meant to be like this?
Was this hell? Or heaven?
No. It was neither.
Both my feet were still planted on the pyramid's summit.
I must have completely lost my mind. Just as that thought crossed my mind.
- Are you sincere?
A voice came from somewhere.
Even while dying, I knew.
This was not a human voice.
An eerie sound, as if bones were grinding together, was mixed into it.
- Can you promise? That you will not turn your back on the desert. That you will drive a sword into Kairon, the lord of the North.
"You are..."
I could not believe my eyes.
What appeared before me was a Skeleton Dragon.
Was this the true form of the king said to remain in the desert and protect it even after nothing but bones remained?
Its bones curved like desert dunes.
But its eyes alone blazed fiercely, like a solitary burning sun.
"The Desert King... Pkelon."
The body that had been falling was now tightly wrapped around the dragon's tail.
What clung to the dragon's joints was not flesh, but deep darkness.
I could not tell where the desert ended and the dragon's back began.
Like a living tomb, the Skeleton Dragon's oppressive presence bore down on me.
But there was no time for amazement. I bit down hard on my finger to rouse my dulled senses.
SCRAPE—
A streak of blood ran horizontally across my forehead. It was the desert people's oath ritual.
"I swear it."
I wrung out my last strength and forced out the words.
At the same time, the sandstorm embraced my body.
I closed my eyes.
* * *
"Where is this...?"
I moved my hand by reflex.
Instead of rough sand, I felt soft bedsheets.
'This is not the desert.'
If it had been the desert, I could not have been lying in a room decorated with such antique ornaments.
I slowly looked around.
This place was certainly unfamiliar, yet it felt familiar somehow.
Click.
Then I heard a door open. I quickly lay back down.
At the approaching footsteps, the tension that had briefly eased became taut again.
I was unarmed right now. If someone attacked me, I could not deal with them.
Had I not suffered fatal wounds?
'Wait. Fatal wounds?'
Only then did I realize that my body did not hurt.
My abdomen, which had been pierced through with holes, was now clean without even a scar.
As I was confused by one thought after another.
"Young Master...?"
What? Young Master?
"Young Master Ikael, you're awake?! Young Master!"
The words of the woman dressed as a maid left me even more confused. No one could possibly call me Young Master. Besides.
'Ikael. Ikael.'
It was a name I had heard somewhere.
"This time, I truly thought something was going to happen to you, Young Master. You had been lying down for a whole month! I am so glad you woke up... Eek—!"
SMACK.
I snatched the washbasin from the maid's hands and immediately looked at my reflection.
'Th-This is...'
For a moment, I could not think at all.
Neat features and dazzling silver hair. He looked exactly like a delicate young master, but his sharp eyes, as though carved from a blade, resembled Kairon's—to my irritation.
CLANG—
"Ah..."
Startled, I tipped over the washbasin.
"Eek! Young Master!"
Ikael Pui Recrit.
The sickly young master of Recrit, the northern swordsman family. In other words...
"Kairon's youngest son."
"Young Master! Where are you going?"
Leaving the maid who tried to stop me behind, I went outside.
'This is impossible.'
My steps grew quicker and quicker, as though someone might give me a plausible explanation if I kept walking.
CREAK—
I passed through the corridor and opened countless doors. At last, I saw the front courtyard.
"Ugh."
Silver armor reflected the blazing sunlight. Even as my eyes squeezed shut, I could see the knight order standing in formation.
The familiar sight strangely put my mind at ease.
I had belonged here until just before I died. There had to be someone here I could grab and question. But...
"We greet Young Master Ikael!"
"We greet you!"
The knights in silver armor all dropped to the ground at my feet.
Calling me Ikael.
Dragon. What is this?