Chapter 1

Chapter 1. The Settlement of a Drifter

Everyone needs a home.

For some, home may be a person. It may be a song. It may even be the moment they saw a fleeting glimmer of starlight.

The thing that comes to mind just before you die. That is probably what home is.

In that sense, my disciples were my home.

I wanted to protect the children, raise them properly, and someday close my eyes at their side.

But I never expected to die at forty.

“Gah, cough…….”

The ground was littered with corpses and bloodstains.

There seemed to be at least a hundred bodies sprawled before my eyes. Some belonged to demonic beasts. Others belonged to humans. The blood spilling from the corpses had soaked the dirt black.

The city had fallen into chaos as the invaders rampaged, and the other masters had collapsed while fighting them.

Amid the screams, I stood there with my sword in hand.

My entire body felt as though it might break apart, but I could not run. Buildings had collapsed all around us, yet the one behind me alone remained intact.

My disciples were inside that building behind me.

My disciples.

They were still little children. The youngest was five, and the oldest was eighteen, but in my eyes, they were all children.

Even in this hellscape, my disciples were fighting with everything they had. They screamed and threw their entire bodies against the enemy.

My first disciple, who had only just become an adult, did not stop casting even while coughing up blood.

His whole body was covered in wounds.

Cesare, who was only twelve, was crying as he tried to stop the bleeding from a fallen master’s wounds. He was the most timid and gentle child among my disciples.

He must have wanted to run. He must have wanted to hide.

The others were the same. Not one of them hid. Just as the masters did, the disciples were doing everything they could to protect our home.

With those small bodies, they were trying somehow to endure this storm together.

―GROOOO……!

A gigantic dragon stood before me. Acrid smoke rose each time it breathed.

Then sparks flared inside its maw. Its burning breath became a wave of flame and surged toward me.

Everything brightened. Everything grew hot. It had enough power and range to burn a small village to the ground in an instant.

Avoiding it would have been simple enough. But my disciples were behind me. As their master, I could not show them my back as I fled.

The only back I could show them was the one standing guard in front of them.

―SHAAK!

I burned all my mana and poured it into my sword. My body screamed. Blood burst from my mouth.

The storm of my sword split the flames in two. In that instant, the great blaze scattered into sparks. 

I leaped straight onto the dragon’s head. I brought my sword down again and again. My blood and the dragon’s blood scattered in all directions.

I could not allow it to touch even a single hair on my disciples’ heads.

―THUD……!

The butchered dragon collapsed. But this was not the end. From ahead, I heard a voice mixed with a groan.

“So Valanus really is different after all.”

A man was standing close by. He was the man who had brought countless humans and demonic beasts with him.

He was a formidable enemy. My comrade had lost his life just to cut off that man’s arm. Even as blood poured from his entire body, the invader did not stop fighting.

My situation was not much different. The blood seeping from my side was soaking my body with heat.

I raised my sword and faced him. At the cost of many sacrifices, the tide of victory had turned in our favor. His subordinates had died in droves.

Even so, he showed neither rage nor despair.

“I should have come sooner after all.”

The man muttered. Half regret, half satisfaction. It was an expression I could not understand.

Neither he nor I had any room left to exchange questions about who he was or why he had done this.

The wind blew. The man rushed at me. Behind me were our home, our lives, and our disciples.

I could not allow anyone to dare invade this place.

―SPLURT!

The wind blew. When my sword swept sideways through the man’s neck, a crimson mist of blood spread through the air. His voice came from within it.

“Still, I cut through the tree’s trunk. Someday, even its roots and new shoots…….”

The man collapsed with a heavy sound. I had barely managed to sever his neck, but he, too, had swung his blade to the very end.

―GUSH!

Hot blood poured from the long wound that had been carved from my chest down to my abdomen. If I moved even a little, my entrails would spill out. I collapsed onto the ground.

At least there were no enemies left now.

Relief came before the fear of death. As everything around me fell silent, the children’s voices became clear.

“Master!”

“Master Dane!”

“Hurry, hurry! Get a doctor!”

My disciples rushed to me. All of them had young faces. All of them were crying.

I was glad they were all unharmed. If even one of them had died, I would never have forgiven myself.

I tried to speak, but there was no strength in my body.

Ah, I wanted to call each of them by name.

All I could manage was a faint smile. How was I supposed to leave these little ones behind? To soothe their tearful faces, I forced the words out.

“Someday, I will return home.”

Yes. Someday.

If there was a next life, I wanted to return to this place again then, too. To our home.

The wind stopped.

***

The air smelled of dust, darkness, and long years.

That alien smell made me open my eyes. I thought I had opened them, but there was only darkness. Even when I closed my eyes and opened them again, nothing changed.

……What is going on?

It was strange. Had I not just died while fighting the invaders?

When I felt around the back of my neck, Valanus’s necklace was hanging there. Had I really not died? Had I been treated and survived?

As questions filled my mind, I realized I was trapped in something like a long, narrow box. It was strange. If I had received treatment, there was no way I would be in a place like this.

And I could not feel any vitality in my body. The amount of mana I had was faint as well.

Still, if my injuries had healed, perhaps that was fortunate. The situation was baffling, but I could not keep lying there like this.

When I pushed against the ceiling with force, it opened more easily than I expected. Even so, darkness still surrounded me.

I felt my way forward and came upon a staircase. When I climbed up and opened the door, moonlight poured in.

I turned back and found myself stunned. It was an underground cemetery I had visited several times before. The lid of the coffin I had climbed out of was open.

Had I died and been resurrected? I felt my abdomen, but there was no wound.

For now, I thought I had to find my disciples. I opened the door of the underground cemetery and climbed outside.

The night sky was clear, as if no tragedy had ever happened. I hurried my steps. I missed the faces from which I had briefly parted.

What had happened to the children after I died? Were they safe?

Thinking that, I quickened my pace. I entered the city, walked along the long road, and turned into the alley.

But something was strange. Perhaps it would be best to say the atmosphere had changed. Drunks were wandering through a residential district that should have been quiet, and even though it was night, the place was noisy.

There were unfamiliar shops. Foul smells drifted from here and there. And at the end of the road, I saw our home.

As I approached the building, boisterous voices leaked from inside. They were not the children’s voices. They were the curses and shouts of drunken men.

As I wondered what was going on, I saw a wreath of dried flowers hanging on the entrance. My blood seemed to run cold.

That meant this was a tavern that offered prostitution.

What in the world had happened? With a trembling hand, I opened the door. Our home, where I had never allowed a single invasion.

But the moment I opened the main door and stepped inside, I saw tables and drunkards filling the entire first floor.

The home my second disciple had so beautifully decorated was nowhere to be found. All I could see was a drunken man vomiting on the floor and an employee scolding him for it.

I staggered across the first floor.

Where on earth are the children?

Just as anxiety surged up to my throat, an employee approached me. He looked me up and down, then smirked.

“Coming to a place like this already? Is it your first time?”

I walked past the employee and went up to the second floor. As soon as I arrived, murky smoke poured out. A scene even more squalid than the outside unfolded before me.

People were tangled together here and there. There was smoke I could not tell was tobacco or something else, and the smell of alcohol. While I stood frozen in rage and shock, my gaze suddenly went to a mirror hanging on the wall.

I was there.

But it was not me.

What should have been reflected there was a forty-year-old man. Not a young man who had only just shed the look of a boy.

Why have I become younger?

I could not understand what in the world was happening. Then the employee followed me up. He crossed his arms and spoke with a crooked attitude.

“What, is there a particular girl you are looking for?”

“This is Valanus’s residence.”

He looked utterly lost, as if he did not know the name Valanus. Even though there should have been no one in this city who did not know us.

“Valanus? I do not know whether you came to the wrong place or what, but if you do not plan to drink, then get out…….”

―CRASH!

The moment the employee said that and grabbed my shoulder, I slammed him straight into a table.

The patrons’ gazes snapped toward me. So did the employees’ gazes.

The men who appeared to be guards drew the swords at their sides.

“Who the hell are you?”

When I did not answer, they let out savage cries and charged. I avoided the sword falling over my head and struck the man hard in the Adam’s apple.

“Ghk!”

He toppled backward. I twisted my body and drove a kick into the solar plexus of the remaining man.

They only looked decent on the surface; their attacks had no balance. My bare hands were enough to deal with men like this.

Screams rang out, and the patrons rushed out in a swarm. Then more guards came from the inside.

Three of them, perhaps.

At a glance, they were all rabble.

“Get that bastard!”

Blades flashed beneath the lights here and there, but not one of them truly shone. As I let the dull blades slide past and counterattacked, screams echoed from every direction.

Before I knew it, six men were crawling on the floor.

As I looked around the building, now emptied of patrons, the home I remembered had only its skeleton left.

Shock and emptiness swept over me, but this was not the time for that.

I moved toward the office. The door was tightly shut.

―BANG!

I kicked the door to pieces and entered. Inside was a man who appeared to be in his fifties. He was pressed flat against the wall. His trembling voice reached me.

“Y-you, what the hell are you? Are you doing this for money? Or……?”

“Tell me what happened here. This was originally Valanus’s building, was it not?”

At that, the man looked dumbfounded and stammered.

“Valanus? It was fifteen years ago that Valanus was here. What the hell are you talking about?”