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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: The Black-Haired Girl
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I knew it was contradictory.
The desperation I'd so fiercely ignored was now shaken by something as trivial as the color of one's hair.
If the Knight King were still alive, it would have been a frailty deserving of severe reprimand.
But right now, even if it meant breaking the standards I'd set for myself, there was one fact I wanted to confirm with my own eyes.
'Teach me the sword.'
Why had she covered her head with cloth?
Why had she begged a complete stranger to teach her the sword?
I could only sense questions amid the fleeting fragments of memory.
Black hair, which I'd thought existed only for the Knight King and me in this world.
Another head of black hair had appeared after exactly eight years, not far away.
I knew it. I knew it all too well.
The Knight King and I had no children, and black hair didn't symbolize heroes.
But the conscience that had tormented me all this time became the catalyst for an inexplicable sense of kinship.
I just needed to confirm it. Yes, confirm it and nothing more.
In a situation where I could withdraw at any moment, I tried to hide my impatience.
Clack, clack!
I gripped the frozen reins tightly.
The white-horned deer carrying me precarious crossed the dark, rugged mountain path.
The North's perilous trails, where a single slip would send you plummeting off the cliff.
The beasts had grown fiercely sensitive amid the snow that began falling since early winter.
But I, who had desperately fled the mountains, reached the village outskirts— a place I thought I'd never return to.
Snort, snort!
Its breath came in heavy gasps.
After dismounting, I stroked the highly excited white-horned deer.
Then I tied its reins to a nearby tree and hid the bag of provisions and the king's sword.
I'll just observe and come back.
Calming my excited breath, I quickly slipped into the darkness.
"..."
It should have been the hour when all the villagers were asleep and the village silent.
But lights flickered throughout the village, and a strange clamor mixed with fear hung in the air.
Just as the orc bastards said, the execution ceremony was clearly in full swing.
I scanned my surroundings and, draping a straw mat over my body, headed toward the village square.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Drumbeats echoed from afar.
The heat generated by the orcs could be felt even here, at a distance.
A crowd surged toward the square without roll call or restrictions, unlike usual.
In the center of the square blazed a massive bonfire beside an orc altar built of blood and stone.
Orc warriors bellowed, and the crowd naturally formed an arena around them.
The atmosphere was different from the norm.
Along with the acrid stench of blood assaulting the nose.
Clang!
The clash of sword on sword rang out.
Rough breaths from a desperate fight filled the air.
A battle? No, this wasn't a duel between swordsmen of equal skill.
I snatched a torch from a bystander and headed toward the square where the execution was unfolding.
There, a bloodied girl trembled, clutching a sword.
Clang!
Thud!
The orcs conducting the execution had given the girl a single rusty sword with broken teeth.
But since she'd never learned the sword, her stance was pathetic, and the tip aimed at her foe shook like an aspen leaf.
With a sneer, the orc warrior knocked her blade aside and kicked her in the gut.
The girl, still holding the sword, flew backward powerless, tumbling across the filthy snow.
It was blatant mockery, violence that stopped short of killing.
"Guh...!"
Unlike on the Earth where I lived, people here had superior average builds and strength.
But no matter how tall or strong, they were mere children before orcs.
The girl clutched her abdomen, kicked by steel boots, gasping in agony.
Her face was so mangled it was unrecognizable, her black hair matted with blood.
And the orc warrior gleefully watching the scene opened his grotesque maw to ask,
"Can't even swing it properly? Put up another futile struggle like before, human."
Typically, those chosen for execution days were those who defied orc rule or physically resisted, injuring their foes.
Rather than simply beheading them for noble sacrifice, it was to remind all humans of their powerlessness once more, in full view.
And it worked effectively on the villagers watching the ceremony.
Not a single one stepped forward to plead for the girl as she was beaten like a dog.
Why risk their lives charging the orcs in a hopeless fight?
I, who had lived cowardly in hiding for eight years, felt pity for the girl and a stabbing pain in my chest.
It was the bitter sting of willful ignorance that kept my head bowed.
"Aaaahhh...!!"
The girl staggered to her feet.
Spitting blood and what might have been a scream or a shout, she raised her head.
No matter if blood flowed or flesh tore, she wouldn't release the rusty sword from her hand.
The resolve in her eyes, a noble soul that had transcended death and fear.
In that instant, as the surrounding torches swirled, I—facing the center of the world—understood why the girl had been dragged to the execution.
"..."
Right behind the girl, the child dragged off by orcs yesterday and its mother huddled together.
Their small frames and the enveloping darkness had kept me from noticing them.
She had begged me—just once—to teach her swordsmanship to save that mother and child.
Learning the truth, I felt one of the knots in my heart unravel.
The self-justification that had tormented me so viciously.
Perhaps I'd longed for release from my cowardice all along.
Clang! Scraaape!
Scoffing at her struggles, the orc swung his sword lazily at the charging girl.
But the advancing blade lost its force and wobbled pathetically.
The final desperation, with no strength left to fight or reason to flee—the climax of their execution rite.
The orc gripping the sword opened his mouth to make an example for the humans.
"This is the end of a rebellious slave! Do you wish to be forgotten in some nameless place, limbs strung on poles for the crows?!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Grovel and live! Forever!"
The drums signaling the execution's end boomed, and the orc bellowed like a beast.
He raised high his blood- and flesh-smeared glaive to execute the slave who had bared its teeth at the great orcs.
Humans turned away, unable to watch, while orcs laughed merrily, savoring the last execution of early winter.
As if time itself had frozen, I watched the scene from afar through my extended vision.
And at its end, the girl's lips, struggling to move, whispered thus:
'How long you live doesn't matter.'
Fwoosh!
I dropped the torch.
Hesitant steps surged forward, swiftly cutting through the crowd.
My heart pounded like that of a child on the cusp of a new beginning.
My gaze fixed on the girl who still hadn't released her sword and her quivering lips.
That weakened whisper was a retort to the mocking world and to me.
'It's how you live that matters more.'
Clang!
The girl looked up with trembling eyes at the descending blade.
But my figure arrived first, altering the trajectory of the flying sword.
With a clang, the blade glanced off, and through the gap in the piled snow, the girl looked up at me.
Our eyes met.
A brilliance no blood or dirt could hide pierced my pupils and soul.
Yes, like the thrill of first beholding the king on an autumn day in the North.
I asked the girl,
"Why go that far?"
All preparations were complete.
I had steeled my resolve.
But one final thing, I wanted to hear directly from her lips.
What had led you here?
What force made you grasp the sword with broken hands, and who taught you that drive?
The conviction and value the great Knight King had pursued above all.
"...I want to change it."
It was courage.
"Give me the sword."
I extended my hand.
As if she'd been waiting, the girl offered it, and I gripped the worn hilt.
The North wind scattered the black hair of the child resembling the Knight King, illuminating the blade.
Crunch.
Humans, with their shorter history than other races, lacked so much.
From diverse languages and scripts to dozens of ununified measures and currencies, and laws varying by village.
Thus, the Knight King who founded the early kingdom and his few administrators spent years building the frail realm's foundations.
But one technology the human kingdom systematized faster than any other was the way of wielding weapons.
Orcs and elves were born warriors.
Their basic builds and ferocity differed vastly, a gap as wide as carnivores versus herbivores.
But what bridged that was the martial techniques established by the king.
Martial arts that compensated for absolute physical disparities in combat and taught how to form ranks.
It was once the most threatening offensive means of the human soldiers who dominated the North.
"...A veteran soldier?"
The atmosphere froze like ice.
Shock rippled through the humans, thick wariness through the orcs.
Seasoned veterans who appeared in human villages like annual events.
Knowing they were never to be underestimated, the orc warriors slowly raised their weapons.
They blocked escape routes and pressed me thoroughly.
Fifteen orcs encircled me.
An excessive number for just one soldier.
But the orcs, the most serious race in battle, showed no carelessness even before my small frame and rusty sword.
They simply tightened the encirclement to cut my breath without casualties.
Gulp.
Someone swallowed dryly.
The terrified villagers sweated coldly at the impending slaughter.
But unmoved, I raised the worn, pathetic longsword.
The intensifying snowfall, the fighting spirit and sharp aura flowing along my fingertips and blade.
After a suffocating silence, the orc who fought the girl unleashed a war cry.
"Kraaaarghhh...!!!"
It's coming.
Whoosh!
Boom...!
My skin tingled.
The fierce roar shook my stance.
But brushing it off indifferently, I met the falling massive glaive squarely with my blade's center from an overhead guard.
The force crushing my shoulder, the blade trembling as if about to shatter.
Yet what sprayed into the air was not pitiful sparks, but green blood.
"Krek?"
It was instantaneous.
The heavy glaive blade sliding along my sword to the side, my upper and lower guards rotating half-turn following the sheathed blade.
Thus, the orc in its thick helmet lost sight of my sword.
The blade pierced the gap under its arm, unarmored by the tough plate.
Squish! Crunch.
I twisted the blade driven in reverse grip.
The orc instinctively tried to counter, but its body already slumped to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.
The chilling sensation flowing through my fingertips, the girl rising with trembling eyes.
All these sword techniques and forms resembled an avalanche that felled even great trees.
An enraged orc warrior bellowed at his comrades closing the net.
"A human knight!! Strike together!!"
"Kraaaarghhh...!!!"