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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Birth Legend
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My earliest memory dates back to around the age of three.
Nothing special about that.
I learned later that other people start remembering around age three too.
A warm mother's embrace.
A soft, fluffy bed.
None of that for me.
A snowy mountain range lashed by knife-sharp winds that sliced into the flesh.
That was my cradle.
There was no rattle or toy in my grasp.
Of course, even up to this point, I can't call it anything special.
Not the majority, but there were people just like me—few enough that you couldn't count them on all your fingers.
Just one thing.
One thing was special.
A heavy, cold double-bladed axe as tall as me.
A three-year-old with a double-bladed axe beside him instead of a cradle? You could count them on one hand.
I don't know where it came from.
It was just there, embedded in the ground next to me from the moment I opened my eyes.
Like an umbilical cord.
I knew it instinctively.
'If I let go of this, I die.'
"Grrr..."
Right before my eyes, a starving snowfield wolf bared its yellowed fangs, drool dripping from its maw.
I was only three years old.
To it, I was nothing more than a one-bite snack.
Probably a rare treat, too.
Tender meat, guts free of any bacteria.
By all common sense, I should have been frozen in terror, burst into tears, or simply been torn apart and killed.
But my heart didn't race with fear—it began a bizarre, pounding rhythm.
Ecstasy overrode dread; the urge to sink my teeth into its nape drowned out any desire to flee, dominating my entire body.
'Kill it.'
Survival instinct devoured my reason.
I gripped the axe haft tight with my spindly, fern-like hands.
The metal's icy chill bored into my palms, yet even that cold felt scorching hot.
Yap!
The wolf lunged as if it had been waiting for its cue.
Its razor-sharp fangs sank into my shoulder.
The agony of flesh ripping away.
But no scream escaped me.
On the contrary, the pain became fuel.
My heart pumped furiously, as if about to explode.
Muscles swelled unnaturally; my vision stained red.
I snarled like a beast and brought the axe crashing down on the wolf's skull.
Krunch!
With a dull, rupturing thud, the wolf's cranium split in two.
Hot blood gushed out, splattering my face.
The metallic, fishy reek stabbed at my nostrils.
In that instant, the puncture wound in my shoulder—from the wolf's teeth—knitted itself shut.
A seething heat like boiling blood coursed through me, accompanied by the eerie sensation of my depleted life force refilling.
Blood-smeared face unwiped, I leaned on the trembling axe like a staff and hauled myself upright.
Then, gazing down into the dead wolf's eyes, I spat out ragged breaths.
"Huu... huu..."
Instinct whispered to me.
I am a creature that lives by fighting.
That was my first memory.
The only thing remotely unusual about it.
An utterly unremarkable birth legend.
Don't all barbarians come into the world like this?
'...'
Or not?
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