Ode of the Brave ( NOVEL)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Prologue

Fire and steel, blood and death. If I had to sum up my life in a few words, those would be it.

I was originally a shepherd in Heiden, in the northern reaches of the Empire. Like many people of this age, I was one of countless orphans who had never known their parents.

I do not remember when I began tending sheep, but for ten years, I lived almost entirely cut off from the rest of the world, wandering across the fields of Heiden and grazing my flock.

Just as flowers of every color bloomed across the fields with the passing seasons, countless stars blossomed across the black sky at night. Cool breezes blew in summer, and snow covered the whole world in winter.

I wanted for nothing. I did not know boredom. I was neither happy nor unhappy.

Just as the stars shone at night, flowers bloomed in the fields, and snow fell when winter came, I simply lived my life tending sheep.

Then one day, something unusual happened in that place where every day was the same.

The lord rode across the fields of Heiden.

I knelt before him. With the sun behind him like a halo, he smiled down at me from atop his horse.

"Shepherd, how old are you?"

"I do not know, as I don’t know the day I was born. I have been tending sheep for ten years."

"Then you must be at least fifteen. Shouldn’t you be taking a wife?"

"I don’t know any women."

"The village chief will arrange something for you. Live happily, child of the stars."

With those words, the lord rode across the fields and vanished into the distance as suddenly as clouds scattering from the sky.

Not long afterward, the village chief did indeed arrange for me to marry a young widow from the village.

Once I had a wife, I stopped being a shepherd and became the village miller. And just as the lord had said, I learned what happiness was for the first time in my life.

Several more years passed.

Then one day, a cavalryman bearing a red banner arrived in our village.

He said they were conscripting able-bodied men for the Eastern Expedition. Lots were drawn among the village’s healthy men, and I was chosen.

I promised my wife that I would return. Until then, I would send her my wages, so she need not worry about making a living.

I followed the cavalryman from place to place. One or two men joined us at every village we passed, and together we continued our seemingly endless march eastward.

For a day, two days, four days, and then more than a month, we drifted eastward like autumn leaves carried down a river.

The Eastern Expeditionary Front seemed like a land made of steel and corpses, surrounded by forests. I could never have imagined it when I first arrived, but I would remain there for ten years.

If anyone were to ask where I learned to wield a sword, I would answer: war.

Thrusting, slashing, hacking men apart.

I would say that I was tempered by the barbarians’ hatred, by courage I had never known I possessed, by the sacrifices of my comrades, and by the luck that let arrows graze my cheek instead of piercing my skull.

"Where’s Thomas?"

"Dead."

"Damn it. What about Falke?"

"This morning."

Once in a while, we would have a good day. Most were grueling.

Uncomfortable beds. Moldy bread. Men dying from disease, dying when their wounds festered, being devoured by monsters, or being dragged away by barbarians only to have their skins flayed and displayed.

At night, the soldiers who trembled with anxiety or woke from nightmares were no different from infants. What they needed was not a harsh veteran or a stern commander, but a mother.

Then one day, I realized that everyone I had met upon first arriving was dead.

I alone remained.

I had survived dozens of battles on the front lines, where seven out of every ten men were killed or grievously wounded.

Why wouldn’t I die?

It felt as though my time should have come long ago.

My comrades called me "Lucky" Ricky, sometimes in jest and sometimes in earnest. They said they felt as though they would survive if I stayed beside them.

Yet none of the comrades I grew attached to ever did.

My first commander was the second son of a count. He was an exceptionally brave young man with a cheerful disposition, and whenever battle began, he would mount his horse and lead the soldiers in a charge.

To be honest, in the midst of that dreadful war, charging behind him could feel exhilarating—even enjoyable.

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

My second commander was afraid of the enemy and cruel to his own men.

There were times when defending a garrison required us to sortie and fight outside its walls, but he always insisted on remaining inside and defending it passively.

Anyone who found the courage to tell him that this was a mistake was flogged.

After watching one of my comrades languish and die from a brutal flogging, I kept my mouth shut.

I was a coward.

We were besieged. After starving for several days, we lost the garrison to a massive barbarian assault led by domesticated trolls.

I had resolved myself to die and fought until the bitter end. But when I saw our incompetent commander seized by a troll, his arms ripped off while he was still alive and his head devoured, I finally fled.

There was nowhere for a soldier to go after fleeing a defeated army. If I did not want to starve to death, I had no choice but to reach the rallying point.

Even getting there was no easy feat.

By the time I killed the barbarian pursuers and reached the rallying point, I was alone. The others had not fled home.

They had died.

Some had starved, some had been eaten by monsters, and others had been captured by our pursuers.

At the rallying point, I was assigned to a unit commanded by Kaldevert, the fourth prince of the royal family of Adelorn.

At first glance, Kaldevert looked like a delicate scholar. He had beautiful blond hair and a somewhat frail body that seemed barely capable of bearing the weight of chain mail.

He had been ordered by the supreme commander to retake the garrison. Perhaps that was why he questioned me at length about the terrain, the strategic situation, and the barbarians’ characteristics.

Strangely enough, perhaps because we were around the same age, Kaldevert and I understood each other well. We quickly became friends despite the difference in our stations being as vast as the distance between heaven and earth.

He enjoyed listening to stories about my homeland and patiently heard all about my uneventful, peaceful life as a shepherd.

"Ricky, you have the soul of a poet. Listening to your stories brings peace to my heart even in this savage place. I thought all northerners were as coarse as the grass growing there."

"I’m not sure about that. I can’t even read or write."

"Do you think the first song was composed in writing?"

Even the way he spoke was refined. The language used by nobles sometimes sounded like a foreign tongue.

Once the preparations were complete, Kaldevert led his forces out to retake the forward garrison.

I took part in the operation.

Kaldevert was the finest commander I had ever served. He was meticulous and thorough when planning his operations, yet courageous in battle.

Risking encirclement, he made a bold decision to penetrate deep into enemy territory and strike their rear. After forcing the enemy into a distant retreat, he defeated their scattered forces one by one and accumulated victory after victory.

But the barbarians had only just regained the garrison after nearly ten years of fighting. They refused to surrender it and prepared to make one final, desperate stand.

Kaldevert had also staked everything on his plan. Retreating would only place us in even greater danger, so we had no choice but to press forward.

Both sides fought with everything they had, turning the battle into a scene of utter carnage.

Limbs dangled where they had not been severed cleanly. Corpses rose in heaps like mountains. Blood flooded the ground. Agonized screams filled the air, along with the cries of dying men calling out for their mothers.

Kaldevert threw himself into the fray and fought with all his strength.

Then he found himself on the verge of death, and I fought with everything I had to save him.

As I seized the fallen prince by the back of his neck and pulled him to his feet, a thunderous shout rang out.

"Ricky the Steel Reaper! I challenge you! You and I shall end this war here!"

The one who had suddenly appeared to challenge me was Vesprim, a legendary warrior among the barbarians.

The Imperial soldiers called him the "Meat Cleaver."

He stood twice as tall and broad as an ordinary man, and his entire body—including his head and face—was encased in iron armor. Around his neck hung a necklace made from dozens of severed Imperial ears. Skulls with scraps of flesh still clinging to them dangled from the belt around his waist.

His great axe was little more than an absurdly broad blade lashed securely to a haft. It was famous for cleaving men apart in a single blow through its sheer weight.

Ricky and Vesprim knew each other only through rumors from the battlefield.

This was our first time meeting face-to-face.

Perhaps that was why he had identified Ricky, rather than the newly appointed commander Kaldevert, as the leader of the Imperial forces.

In the middle of that life-or-death battlefield, the soldiers around us backed away and cleared a space.

Both friend and foe momentarily forgot the battle and watched our confrontation.

Though it could not compare to Vesprim’s axe, Ricky’s sword was also a greatsword larger than an ordinary blade.

The ground was as sodden as a swamp, and the air was thick with the stench of iron and blood.

A duel upon which our fates depended?

I thought nothing of the sort.

I simply surrendered everything I had to the path traced by the tip of my sword.

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

I deflected Vesprim’s savage axe strike with perfect precision, moved to his flank, and brought my sword down with all my strength.

At that moment, sacred golden flames surged along the blade.

Vesprim fell sideways and raised an arm to defend himself.

With a deafening metallic crash, his arm was severed.

Blood poured from the wound.

And just like that, the duel was over.

The duel itself was shocking, but those watching were even more astonished by the golden flames that had erupted from Ricky’s sword.

They were rendered speechless.

What was that?

He was a warrior chosen by God.

But at that moment, I cared little about any of that.

I merely stared into Vesprim’s blue eyes, visible beyond his helmet.

They were trembling with fear.

When I saw that terror, the flames within my heart rapidly cooled, and the fire engulfing my blade died with them.

Both friend and foe watched in breathless silence. Everyone believed that only Vesprim’s execution remained.

But the opposite happened.

In some ways, what followed was even more shocking than the flames that had appeared upon my sword.

I slowly lowered the blade I had raised above my head as though I were about to sever his neck.

"Go," I said. "Forget this war. Return to your homeland and live in peace."

Why did I do it?

I do not know.

Perhaps I saw myself reflected in his terrified eyes. Perhaps this man, too, had been innocent before leaving his homeland.

That was all I thought.

The Imperial soldiers watching us could not understand, but none dared object.

At that moment, in that place, Ricky’s authority was absolute.

And so the battle ended.

Their morale broken, the barbarians withdrew of their own accord. The Imperial Army did not pursue them.

It was almost as though the two sides had entered into an unspoken truce, despite having fought with bitter hatred for the past ten years.

My war ended the moment we retook the garrison.

I requested my discharge from Kaldevert and told him that I wished to return home.

His expression suggested that countless thoughts had crossed his mind, but he set all of them aside and simply granted my request.

I was the first man ever to leave the Eastern Expeditionary Front with all four limbs intact.

On that front, there had never been any way to leave the army other than death.

And so, after ten years, I returned home.

To the fields of Heiden.

To the place where sheep grazed.

Though I supposed I was no longer a shepherd. I would probably return to tending the mill.

That did not sound so bad.

But when I reached home, I discovered that my wife had started a new family.

She had a new husband and children.

I will never forget the words she spoke as she stared at me coldly.

"What have you ever done for me? Don’t act as though you know me."

What did she mean?

What about my wages?

Why had I spent ten years suffering in that hell?

The thing that had driven me to endure those ten years proved pitifully fragile. The instant the truth was revealed, it tore apart as easily as a sheet of paper.

Trembling with betrayal, I drew my sword and slaughtered the entire family in an instant.

I had no opportunity to exercise self-control. The swordsmanship forged over ten years of war acted before even I could comprehend what I was doing.

Then I learned that the village chief had been stealing the wages I sent home.

So I killed him and his entire family as well.

While killing the chief, I discovered that even the drawing of lots had been rigged.

Then had I ever been given a choice?

I killed everyone in the village.

Just as I had done on the battlefield, I tortured and killed the children before their parents’ eyes. Then I locked the rest inside warehouses and barns and burned them alive.

These were the only things I had learned, so I carried out every step with terrifying proficiency.

And so I became a wanted man not merely in the kingdom, but throughout the Empire.

I no longer knew what anything meant.

Let them all die.

Many came to kill me.

Bounty hunters, adventurers, thugs, thieves, bandits, wandering swordsmen, and renowned knights.

Sometimes small groups of elites came after me. At other times, they descended upon me in droves.

Even after coming close to death several times, I survived to the bitter end and killed every last one of them.

There were too many to count.

And with every battle, my fighting ability continued to grow without limit.

I was neither a wanted man nor a fugitive.

Because I was the one who sought them out and killed them.

I stormed castles alone and slew their lords. I destroyed famous schools of swordsmanship and entire adventurer guilds.

Holding a sword wreathed in golden flames, I looked down upon the world from atop a mountain of corpses.

People began to call me the Demon King.

The demon among demons.

The murderer among murderers.

Ricky.

Even the Emperor trembled in fear of me.

After I spent another ten years that way, followers began to gather around me, absurdly enough.

They believed that no human could become so powerful unless he had been chosen by God.

But my body was already broken beyond repair.

I could no longer count the wounds that had been cauterized with red-hot blades. Several of my fingers could no longer straighten or bend properly.

My mind had been ravaged beyond recovery, and my life was nearing its end.

Ten years as a shepherd.

Ten years on the battlefield.

Ten years as the most infamous murderer of the age.

I decided to travel somewhere no one knew and quietly await death.

I wandered without a destination and eventually found myself back in the fields of Heiden.

Sunlight streamed through gaps in the dark clouds, striking the earth like countless spears.

In the distance, white sheep were scattered like tufts of cotton as they grazed. A young shepherd sat in the field, gazing at the scenery just as I once had.

Then someone approached on horseback once more.

Just as before, he had the sun at his back, and I could not see his face through the pitch-black shadow.

This time, I did not kneel before him.

I simply drove my sword into the ground, slumped down beside it, and lowered my head.

"Liar."

"What do you mean?"

"There’s no such thing as happiness."

"Nor is there such a thing as unhappiness. Both are nothing more than mirages. Therefore, it is yours to choose. You were the one who cursed yourself and consigned yourself to the flames."

"I... don’t know. I’m tired now."

"Then rest. But once your rest is over, another task awaits you. Even I can do nothing about that."

My eyes slowly closed.

Was I dying?

Or was I merely falling asleep?

As my consciousness faded, I asked him one final question.

"Who... are you? A god or a demon?"

At the very edge of consciousness, I heard the man’s answer.

"Just as you gazed upon the stars, so too did I gaze upon you."

With those words, my first life seemed to come to an end.

Fire and steel, blood and death.

If I had to sum up my life in a few words, those would be it.