Chapter 1: Chapter 1

‘Your parents were vagabonds who deserved the Goddess’s curse. They just threw you into the village right after you were barely weaned and disappeared. You should be grateful. If we hadn’t taken care of you, you would have become wolf food a long time ago. What kind of good-natured person in the world would take in and raise an Altoan brat with no connections…’

The village chief would always complain like that when he was heavily drunk.

He had heard this story so much that Shan could recite it fluently even with his eyes closed.

It was not exactly just the village chief who said that.

From Old Man Kolo, the mill owner, to Mr. Jexen, the woodcutter, and Aunt Martha, the apothecary.

Everyone frowned when they saw him and told him to be grateful just to be allowed to live in the village, a devilish brat like him.

Discipline using hands, feet, and sometimes a club was a bonus.

Why did everyone hate him so much?

The one who solved Shan’s question was Priest Ador, the most respected elder in the village who studied in the capital in his youth.

“That is because you are an Altoan.”

“An Altoan?”

“A race that received a terrible curse after abandoning the Goddess’s love and dealing with evil powers. Those eyes are the exact proof.”

Indeed, as he said, Shan’s eyes were different from others.

They were not very noticeable in bright places, but in dark places, they faintly glowed like a beast’s.

It was not just once or twice that people freaked out thinking a beast had entered the middle of the village when he wandered around in the dark night and met someone, and every time that happened, Shan had to be beaten for the crime of startling people.

Priest Ador spoke with a bitter face at the sight of Shan blankly touching his eyelids.

“Long ago, the Altoan people built stairs to ascend to the world of the gods by wielding the power of evil magic. At this, the Goddess became angry and sent down a punishment, so the Altoan Empire was destroyed, and a curse fell upon those who lived there.”

The Goddess changed their appearance so that everyone could know what kind of beings the Altoans were.

For Shan, his eyes were only slightly peculiar, but he heard there were some who had large horns growing on their heads or had their whole bodies covered with bizarre keratin.

Shan shivered at the ugly appearance just from imagining it, and then carefully voiced his thoughts.

“Then, is my very birth a sin?”

“It cannot be helped. Not everyone can be born as the child of a king or a noble. If someone receives a blessing from birth, someone else has to be cursed from birth.”

Priest Ador said so and stroked Shan’s head.

“Constantly study the Goddess’s words and obey her. Then someday the Goddess will forgive you and bring you into her temple.”

“Could that really happen?”

“Of course.”

Looking at the priest’s sunken eyes filled with faith, Shan swallowed the words that were about to come out of his mouth.

In fact, he preferred that people become kinder rather than going to the Goddess’s temple after death.

Like others, or at least, he wished they would not treat him with hatred when he had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Even knowing there was a reason for the persecution like that, Shan’s heart did not feel any better.

The descendant of a sinful race.

The village people’s persecution toward a being for whom whatever he suffered was a price he naturally had to pay, depressed him.

“Hey, Altoan bastard. Who told you to arrogantly walk on the main road?”

“I am sorry.”

“You smell, so get lost.”

Shan deeply bowed his head to the boy who sharply kicked his shin and stepped aside.

Because he was one who was originally supposed to die but survived amidst compassion, whatever the village people did to him was justifiable.

Being unable to own anything and providing labor for the village without any compensation was also one of them.

“Hey, Altoan. You cleaned out the barn, right?”

“Go to the stream here and do some laundry. Wash them clean so they do not smell.”

“Where did the firewood I told you to bring go!”

Very fortunately, Shan was a quite talented worker.

His scrawny body from not eating well was on the small side even compared to boys his age of thirteen or fourteen, but for that, he had fairly good strength and a knack for things, so he worked as much as an average adult.

Actually, there was one secret to that as well.

“Heave-ho.”

Thwack, Shan, who drove the ax into the tree, quietly watched the fairly large tree falling toward him.

A situation where anyone watching from the side would have immediately freaked out and run over.

However, Shan did not blink once while the tree fell, narrowly brushing past his side.

It was because he already knew that it would happen that way.

‘If I just chop this up into small pieces and make firewood out of it, it will be somewhat manageable…’

Shan had a rather fascinating talent.

The ability to produce superior results by using his body more correctly and efficiently than others.

To him, other people’s movements all looked like the puppets handled by the puppeteer of the wandering troupe that had visited the village at some point.

Puppets moved by strings hung on all the joints of their bodies, thus being unparalleled in sluggishness and clumsiness.

But when he asked why they moved like that and if they couldn’t use their bodies more efficiently, the answer that returned was not very pleasant.

That such a thing was definitely the evil magic of the Altoans, so he should not use it carelessly.

Being different from others was a bad thing, so in the end, if everyone was clumsy, Shan had to match that.

Fortunately, the village people did not criticize him for this as long as Shan did not noticeably perform such tricks.

Perhaps it was because they became more comfortable if he did his work well.

Thanks to that, it was nice that he could move to his heart’s content at times like now when he came to gather wood alone.

Shan, who chopped the fallen tree into pieces in an instant with the ax and loaded them onto the cart, immediately returned to the village and devoted himself to another task.

In Willow Village, where over a hundred people lived, there were many, many tasks Shan had to do.

Fetching water, digging out small stones from the fields, cleaning out the latrine…

It was around the time the sun completely set and night fell that he was finally able to rest.

When he crouched in the corner of the barn used as a resting place, his body, which had been overworked all day, screamed.

‘I am tired…’

Even though he could use his body more efficiently, he was doing about twice as much work as others with a body that had not fully matured yet, so he could not help but be exhausted.

Furthermore, his meals were just eating left-over food from the village chief’s house, so he was more than hungry, his stomach hurt as if it were tightening.

‘When Celina was here, I still didn’t eat as poorly as I do now.’

Celina was the village chief’s daughter who had married a landowner in the neighboring village a while ago, and she enjoyed picking up this and that story from peddlers or strangers and bragging to others while showing off.

Shan was the audience who listened to her knowledge bragging the best.

‘Do you know, Shan?’

‘What?’

‘In the land of the pagans to the south, there lives a beast as huge as a mountain called an elephant.’

‘Isn’t that practically a monster?’

Celina snorted at Shan’s counter-question.

‘How stupid, it’s not a monster but a beast! Anyway, they say if you tie this elephant to an iron stake when it’s young and raise it, it can’t pull it out even when it’s all grown up. It assumes that since it tried in the past and couldn’t, it still can’t do it now.’

‘That is really stupid.’

‘Do you really think so?’

Even when he asked back what that meant, Celina just looked at him with an unknowable expression, seemingly finding him pathetic, or perhaps pitying him.

Soon, she shook her head, saying it was fine if he didn’t understand, and left, and since she got married to the neighboring village, they ended up never meeting again.

‘What did that mean exactly?’

He could not figure it out at all even when he thought about it again, so Shan blankly stayed lost in thought and fell asleep just like that.

How long had he been wandering in a deep sleep without even a dream.

His consciousness surfaced in an instant at the booming roar echoing with a bang.

‘What is it?’

Coming to his senses, Shan realized the outside was noisy for some reason.

Was he so tired that he had fallen asleep frantically until the morning dawned?

No, if that were the case, sunlight would have seeped in through the ceiling.

Besides, the commotion outside was completely different from the usual one.

The roar that sounded like someone kicking a door, shouted and roared, sharp screams, and a shrill noise he had never heard in his life.

Shan opened the barn door and came out as if possessed.

“Hey, catch him over there! He is running away!”

“Why run over like that? Just let him get shot to death.”

“Please spare me!”

“Why on earth are you doing this! I will give you everything, be it money or goods! Please!”

Where had the village, which had been peaceful just a few hours ago, gone off to.

Dozens of corpses made up of familiar faces seen below the burning houses and several flickering torches.

The ones surrounding the outskirts of the village and slaughtering them was a group of murderers who were too well-armed to be considered a band of bandits.

All wearing leather armor over thick cloth, of course, and armed with properly made edged weapons instead of something like carved wooden clubs.

The bandits steadfastly cooperated like well-trained soldiers and unilaterally massacre people who were several times their number.

Sometimes there were people trying to escape by breaking through the siege by climbing over the walls or roofs, but they were pierced by the arrows of the archers waiting outside and fell.

“Kuaaagh-!”

A low and thick scream.

The blacksmith Barak, to whom he had brought firewood just today during the day, was swinging a large hammer when his arm got cut off and he screamed.

The sight of him, who was two heads taller than Shan and had a burly physique, thus seeming like a mythic giant, wailing like a child did not feel real.

Next to him, Mr. Jexen, the woodcutter, was sprawled out with his chest pierced by a spear, and the ax he must have been holding was stuck in the head of his wife, Mrs. Mary.

They were all warriors renowned in the village for their strength, and thus could defeat vagabonds or a few small monsters without difficulty.

At that time, Priest Ador, the sole priest in the village, was seen hurriedly running out from the inside of the village.

Because he was a heavy sleeper and the church was located at the innermost part of the village, it seemed he had not realized the situation quickly.

Or maybe he was just too terrified to come out and then thought this would not do.

As a divine light surged up and brightly illuminated the surroundings, befitting someone who rose to the clergy, the bandits flinched.

“What on earth is this act!”

“It’s a priest?”

“What should we do? Even so, a priest is a bit…”

Whether a shred of faith remained in those who committed such acts, or whether they feared the divine power the priest showed.

Unlike a little while ago, the bandits hesitated and could not attack immediately.

“It is something the Goddess will be furious at. Drop your weapons right now and-“

“Bullshit.”

However, rendering his brave step forward meaningless, a spear that suddenly shot up from among the bandits pierced the priest’s eye and crushed his brain.

The middle-aged man who threw the spear spat and wiped the eyepatch worn over one eye with his hand.

“Stupid bastards. I told you! Not a single one should be let alive! Repeat after me! Loyalty precedes faith!”

“Loyalty precedes faith!”

“Good, kill them all!”

Just looking at how the surrounding bandits immediately obeyed, there was no room for doubt that he was the boss.

The massacre continued once again.

Perhaps they had hunted all the people living on the outskirts of the village now, as they rummaged through every corner of the houses and killed the hiding old and weak.

Fortunately, the village chief’s barn where Shan lived was not far from the church, that is, a place near the center of the village, so it was still okay, but it would not be long before he became a target as well.

But if he ran away, where exactly and by what means would he run?

He was on the confident side in running, but he lacked the confidence to see arrows and dodge them.

Because it was something he had never done before.

While standing blankly and watching the corpses of the old and children being dragged out of the houses one by one, Shan realized someone was crawling toward him.

“Sha, Shan.”

The one speaking while bleeding profusely from the mouth, perhaps having injured his internal organs, with a broken dagger stuck in his stomach, was the boy who had kicked him not long ago, saying Shan blocked his path.

“Save, my, family…”

Shan tried to answer how on earth he could do that, but perhaps because he was trembling so much, words did not come out of his mouth.

The boy, who grabbed his ankle and begged while mumbling, soon dropped his head as if his strength had run out entirely.

While drawing breath in half-panic, a thick voice was heard from the surroundings.

“Hmm? I wondered where he ran away to, and he had gone to look for his friend. What a guy with no loyalty.”

The man speaking as if sneering flinched when he saw Shan’s eyes and stepped back one pace.

However, a moment later, his ugly face crumpled terribly as if displeased at momentarily being frightened.

“What! Why is a devil’s brat here?”

Even to the man-catching bandits, an Altoan seemed terrible.

Would they possibly think someone like him was a bug not even worth killing and spare him.

Thinking of a delusion that was stupid even to his own mind, Shan unconsciously begged.

“…Please spare me.”

The bandit clicked his tongue with a tsk as if not even feeling the worth to answer and swung his sword.

The sword, commonly used when cutting down small trees in the mountain, the length of a forearm and with a blade sharp only on one side, was stained with blood and oil.

‘If I am hit by that, I will die…’

Just like all the people he had seen in his life so far, the bandit’s motion of swinging the sword was incredibly sloppy.

Should he dodge?

If Shan used his innate evil magic of the Altoans, it was not a very difficult thing to do.

No, perhaps even more than that would be possible.

But the priest told him to listen to the Goddess’s words and said that if he fell into evil magic, he would go to hell when he died.

What came to mind along with the thought was the image of the priest who had said those words dying with his head pierced by a spear.

Not only that, but corpses sprawling dead horribly after being slashed, stabbed, and beaten.

If hell existed, wasn’t this world already hell.

In the vivid terror brought by the death looming before his eyes, Shan’s body naturally moved.

“Eh?”

The man revealed his bewilderment when his sword failed to cut the miserable Altoan boy and cleaved the air.

He clearly slashed his neck accurately, so could the thing currently before his eyes somehow be a ghost?

Thinking he might not have seen properly since it was dark, the moment he thrust the torch forward, the opponent’s body disappeared with a whoosh.

And a sharp pain felt from his neck.

The man instinctively abandoned the sword he held in his hand and hurriedly blocked his neck, but even doing so could not stop the hot blood from gushing down his shoulder and chest.

“What, exactly, is…”

The man, unable to finish his last words, collapsed right on the spot with a thud.

Holding the broken dagger pulled out from the stomach of the boy who had died a little while ago, Shan looked down at this and quietly sighed.

“Ah.”

Even up to the last moment, he doubted and doubted again.

Maybe all those sloppy movements were actually meant to deceive him.

Wouldn’t he quickly turn his head the moment he tried to counterattack from this side and sneer, ‘Stupid fellow, did you really think I was that weak?’

However, nothing like that happened.

Until Shan bent down, pulled the dagger from the corpse, and moved to his blind spot to slit his throat, the bandit in front of him could not react in the slightest.

The elephant that had been chained finally realized then that it could pull out the iron stake with a single stomp of its foot.