Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Prologue

Fire and steel, blood, and death. If I were to summarize my life in a few words, this would be it.

I was originally a shepherd in Heiden, in the northern part of the Empire. Like many in this era, I was one of countless orphans who didn't know their parents.

I don't know when I started shepherding, but I lived almost cut off from the world for ten years, moving from place to place in the Heiden fields, feeding sheep.

Just as colorful flowers bloomed in the fields with the seasons, stars bloomed profusely in the black sky at night. In summer, a cool breeze blew, and in winter, snow filled the world.

I had no greed, knew no boredom, was neither happy nor unhappy.

Just as stars shine at night, flowers bloom in the fields, and snow falls when winter comes, I simply lived my life herding sheep.

Then one day, something special happened in a place where the same routine repeated every day. The Lord passed through the Heiden fields on horseback.

I knelt, and he, with the sun behind him like a halo, smiled from that high place and spoke.

"Shepherd, how old are you?"

"I do not know the day I was born, so I cannot say. I have been shepherding for ten years."

"Then you must be at least fifteen? Shouldn't you take a wife?"

"I know no women."

"The village chief will arrange it. Live happily. You who are like a star."

The Lord said so, and rode across the field, disappearing suddenly like scattering clouds.

A while later, I really did marry a young widow in the village through the chief's arrangement.

Since getting a wife, I became a miller in the village instead of a shepherd, and as the Lord said, I learned what happiness was for the first time in my life.

Another few years passed, and one day a cavalryman carrying a red flag came to the village.

He said they were selecting able-bodied men to go to the Eastern Expeditionary Land. Lots were drawn among the sturdy men in the village, and I was chosen.

I told my wife I would definitely return, and that I would send my salary until then, so she shouldn't worry about living expenses.

I wandered here and there following the cavalryman. Along with people joining by twos and threes from every village we stopped at, we walked endlessly eastward again.

One day, two days, three days, for over a month we headed east like autumn leaves floating down a river.

The Eastern Expeditionary Land was like a country of steel and corpses surrounded by forests. When I first arrived, I never dreamed of it, but I ended up staying there for ten years.

If someone asks me where I learned how to use a sword, I would answer: war.

Stabbing, cutting, hacking. I want to say I was forged by the hostility of barbarians, by a courage I didn't know I had, by the sacrifice of comrades, and by the luck of arrows grazing my cheek.

"Where's Thomas?"

"He's dead."

"Damn it, what about Falke?"

"This morning."

"......"

Occasionally we had a good day, but most days were hard. Uncomfortable sleeping places, moldy bread, dying from illness, dying from infected wounds, being eaten by monsters, being dragged away by barbarians to be flayed and displayed.

Soldiers who had nightmares or trembled in anxiety at night were no different from babies. They seemed to need a mother, not a harsh senior soldier or a strict commander.

Then at some point, I realized that everyone I met on the first day had died and I was the only one left.

In the front lines where 70% died or were severely injured when a battle broke out, I survived over dozens of times. Why don't I die? It feels like it's time to die.

Comrades jokingly, sometimes seriously, called me 'Lucky' Ricky. Saying they felt they would live if I was next to them. But none of the comrades I got attached to survived.

My first commander was the second son of a Count. He was a very brave young man, with a cheerful personality, often leading soldiers and charging on horseback when battle broke out.

To be honest, following behind him in this terrible war, I sometimes felt refreshed and thought it was fun.

But that brave young man fell from his horse and died in his fourth battle.

The second commander was terrified of the enemies and cruel to our allies.

When guarding the garrison, there are times when you have to go out and fight, but he only wanted to defend from the inside unconditionally.

If anyone gathered the courage to say this wasn't right, they were flogged. Seeing a comrade get sick and die from severe flogging, I shut my mouth. I was a coward.

We were besieged, and after starving for days, we lost the garrison to a massive offensive by barbarians led by tamed trolls.

I fought to the end prepared to die, but I only ran away after seeing the incompetent commander picked up by a troll, having his arms pulled out and head bitten off while still alive.

If you run away after losing a battle, there was nowhere proper to go. Unless you wanted to starve to death, you had to go to the rally point. But getting there wasn't easy either.

When I reached the rally point after killing barbarian pursuers, I was alone. Everyone else hadn't run away home, they had died. Starved, eaten by monsters, or caught by pursuers.

At the rally point, I was assigned to a unit led by the fourth prince of the Adelorn royal family, Caldebert.

Caldebert looked like a scholar on the outside. Beautiful blond hair, a somewhat frail body that seemed burdened by chainmail.

Such a man was ordered by the commander to retake the garrison. perhaps because of that, he asked me this and that about the geography, terrain, and characteristics of the barbarians there.

However, perhaps because we were of a similar age, strangely I got along well with Caldebert. Enough to bridge the sky-high status difference and become friends quickly.

He liked listening to stories about my hometown, and listened calmly to everything about the boring and peaceful shepherding work.

"Ricky, you have the qualities of a poet. Listening to your stories puts my mind at ease even in this bloody place. I thought people from the north were all just rough."

"Well, I don't even know how to read."

"How could the first songs have been written in letters?"

He spoke so elegantly. The language nobles used sometimes sounded like a foreign language.

When preparations were complete, Caldebert led the troops out to retake the forward garrison. I participated in that too.

Caldebert was the best commander. When planning operations, he was meticulous and thorough, and in actual battle, he was even brave.

Risking the danger of encirclement, with bold decisions he went deep into enemy lines to strike the rear, forcing the enemies to retreat far, then defeated them individually to achieve results.

However, the barbarians also fought a desperate last stand, unable to lose the garrison they had barely reclaimed in nearly ten years.

Since it was an operation Caldebert had staked everything on, retreating would conversely be dangerous, so we couldn't back down.

As both sides fought with all their might, it was truly a gruesome battle. Limbs dangling not fully cut, corpses piled like mountains, large amounts of blood, screams of pain, calling for mother just before dying.

In the midst of that, Caldebert also threw himself into the fight. Then he faced a crisis of death, and I fought with all my might to save him.

But as I grabbed the nape of his neck to lift him up after he fell, a thunderous shout was heard.

"Steel Grim Reaper Ricky! A duel! You and I will end the war here!"

The one who suddenly appeared and challenged me to a duel was a man named Besprim, famous as a legendary warrior among the barbarians. Among the Imperial army, he was called by the nickname 'Meat Chopper'.

He had height and bulk twice that of a normal person, was clad in iron armor over his whole body including head and face, and wore dozens of cut-off ears of Imperial people strung like a necklace. Skulls with flesh still attached dangled from his belt.

His great axe was a wide blade crudely but firmly tied to a handle, famous for chopping people in half at once with its massive weight.

Ricky and Besprim had only heard of each other through battlefield rumors; this was the first time they met in person.

Perhaps that's why he pointed out Ricky as the leader, not the new commander Caldebert.

In the middle of a life-or-death battlefield, the soldiers around stepped back to make space. Both enemies and allies briefly forgot about fighting and watched the duel between the two.

Although it didn't reach Besprim's axe, Ricky's sword was also a greatsword, larger than a normal sword.

The ground was muddy like a swamp, a place smelling strongly of iron and blood.

A match staking destiny? I didn't think of such things. I just threw everything I had into where the sword tip led.

After a standoff that felt both long and short, the duel ended in an instant.

I accurately parried Besprim's brutal axe strike, moved to the side, and struck down hard with my sword. At that moment, a holy golden flame erupted along the blade.

Besprim fell sideways and raised his arm to block. With a loud metallic sound, his arm was severed. Blood gushed out. Thus the match ended.

The duel was one thing, but the onlookers were astonished and speechless seeing the golden flame from Ricky's sword. What is that? A warrior sent by God.

But at that time, I didn't care much about that. I just saw Besprim's blue eyes through his helmet. Eyes trembling in fear.

Seeing those eyes, the fire in my chest cooled rapidly and the flame on the blade also died down.

Amidst the breathless watching of both allies and enemies, everyone thought only Ricky's execution remained.

But the reality was the opposite. In some ways, it was more shocking than the flame on the blade a moment ago.

I slowly lowered the sword I had raised above my head as if to cut off his head at any moment and said.

"Go. Forget the war, return to your hometown, and live peacefully."

Why did I do that? I don't know either. I just wondered if I saw myself in those fearful eyes. Wouldn't this man have been an innocent man before leaving his hometown? I just had that thought.

The watching Imperial soldiers couldn't understand, but they couldn't dare to object. Because at that moment, in that place, Ricky was an absolute existence.

The battle ended just like that. The demoralized barbarians retreated on their own, and the Imperial army didn't pursue them. As if taking a temporary truce.

Over the past ten years, the two sides had fought with extreme hatred for each other.

However, with the recapture of the garrison, my war also ended. I applied for discharge to Caldebert, saying I wished to return home.

Caldebert had an expression as if many words came to mind, but put them all aside and simply accepted my application.

I was the first person to be discharged with limbs intact. Because in the Eastern Expeditionary Land, there was no way to be normally discharged other than dying.

So I returned to my hometown after ten years. To the Heiden fields. Where I herded sheep. Am I not a shepherd now? I guess I'll guard the mill. Not bad.

But when I returned home, my wife had started a new family. There was a new husband and children too.

I can never forget the words my wife said to me with a cold gaze. What did you ever do for me? Don't pretend to know me.

What does this mean? My salary? Why did I roll in that hellish place for ten years?

What had been my driving force to endure ten years was something so shallow. When the truth was revealed, that shallowness tore as easily as a sheet of paper.

Trembling with betrayal, I drew my sword and slaughtered the family in an instant. Without even a moment to exercise self-control, the sword trained on the battlefield for ten years moved ahead of even myself.

But it turned out the village chief had been intercepting my salary in the middle. So I killed him and his whole family too.

In the process of killing the chief, I found out that even the lot drawing had been rigged. Then did I ever have a choice? I killed all the village people.

Just as I did on the battlefield, killing the children painfully in front of their parents, then locking the rest in a warehouse or barn and burning them to death. Since this was all I learned, the whole process was surprisingly skillful.

Thus I became wanted in the Kingdom and beyond in the Empire. Now I don't know what's what anymore. Everyone just die.

Many came to kill me. Bounty hunters, adventurers, thugs, bandits, robbers, wandering swordsmen, renowned knights.

Sometimes a few elites came, sometimes many people came at once.

Surviving several near-death experiences, I killed them all. Countlessly. Meanwhile, my combat ability improved endlessly.

I was neither a wanted man nor a fugitive. Because rather, I went to find them and killed them all.

I broke into castles alone to kill Lords, and destroyed famous swordsmanship guilds and adventurer guilds.

Holding a sword burning with gold light, I looked down on the world from atop a mountain of corpses.

Then people called me the Demon King. The demon among demons, the murderer among murderers, Ricky. Even the Emperor trembled in fear.

Before I knew it, after spending ten years like that, funny enough, a faction following me emerged. Saying that for a human to be that strong, he must surely have been chosen by God.

But my body was already a wreck. Wounds cauterized with red-hot knives were countless, and several fingers wouldn't straighten or bend properly. My mind was devastated as could be, and my lifespan was running out.

Ten years as a shepherd, ten years on the battlefield, ten years as a rare murderer. I decided to go somewhere no one knew and quietly face death.

Walking without purpose, I was suddenly in the Heiden fields. Sunlight falling between dark clouds seemed stuck in the earth like several spears.

Far away, white sheep were scattered grazing like fluff, and a young shepherd was sitting in the field staring at the scenery just like I used to.

Then again, someone approached on horseback. He had the sun behind him like before, so I couldn't see his face because of the shadow.

This time I didn't kneel to him. I just stuck my sword in the ground, sat sprawled out, lowered my head and spoke.

"Liar."

"About what?"

"There is no such thing as happiness."

"There is no unhappiness either. Both are like mirages. So it depends on your choice. It is you yourself who cursed and burned you at the stake."

"......I don't know. I'm tired, now."

"Then rest. But after rest, a task awaits again. Even I can do nothing about this."

My eyes closed gently. Am I dying? Or just sleeping? As my consciousness faded, I asked him.

"......Who are you? Are you God, or a devil?"

From the edge of consciousness, the man's answer was heard.

"Just as you saw the stars, I saw you."

With those words, it seems my first life ended.

Fire and steel, blood, and death. If I were to summarize my life in a few words, this would be it.