Chapter 29

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 0
Chapter Title: Blood on a Young Blade
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When two of the three brothers who carried the family's bloodline failed to qualify as knights worthy of the Halberd name, my father's expectations for me bordered on obsession.

Fortunately, I possessed a stronger build and greater strength than my brothers, and my talent with the sword was second to none. Most importantly, unlike my brothers, I truly loved the sword.

I still remember it—the day I first held an arming sword.

Not long before my seventh birthday, my father entered my room and asked me in a serious tone.

‘Do you like the sword?’

Around that time, I was pestering my nanny daily to take me for walks to the training grounds, where I would spend most of my time watching my older brothers practice their swordsmanship.

The training grounds were a dangerous place for a child my age, but I was utterly captivated by the knights, their swordsmanship, and especially the real blade they wielded—the arming sword.

The slender blade, with its almond-shaped cross-section tapering to a point, completely captured my young heart.

The afterimage of light scattering off its sun-kissed surface was another detail that made my heart race.

‘Do you wish to learn the sword? If you want, I will let you hold one this instant.’

Looking back, I believe my father had given up on my brothers by then.

Rather than clinging to a lost cause, he sought to find a new path by focusing on his last resort: Rustein Halberd.

In the end, my father’s choice was the right one. I was more than capable of satisfying his desires, and in some aspects, I even surpassed him.

My talent for the sword was so immense that I could easily deconstruct another’s technique without much effort, and I reached heights others yearned for with an almost uncanny ease.

Perhaps that was why. Not even a year after I began my training, I was being called a ‘prodigy.’ My father was deeply pleased with my progress.

‘You are the true ‘Halberd.’’

Typically, the sons of noble houses spend seven to eight years learning the sword.

They enter the service of a knight who will be their master or a house they will serve as their lord, taking on the rank of a page and handling all sorts of menial tasks.

But I was granted an exceptional privilege, allowed to take up the sword immediately. In less than four or five years, I had entered the service of House Vischwartz as a knight.

This was so astoundingly unconventional that, for a time, high society buzzed with talk of my appointment.

However, my master was my own father, Ferdian Halberd, a man renowned among the knights of various houses as one of the most skilled swordsmen.

And I was considered to be the one who had inherited a talent that could surpass even his. Therefore, Count Vischwartz did not hesitate to appoint me as a squire; in fact, he saw it as only natural.

It was no wonder people said I might become the youngest Knight banneret in the history of the empire.

But there is something everyone misunderstands. I didn't receive my knighthood simply because I was a swordsmanship prodigy. It was because of my blood-stained hands.

By the time I first set foot in the Vischwartz estate, my sword was already drenched in the blood of my enemies, and my feet were mired in the flesh and blood of others.

I remember my first kill. It was barely a year and a half after I had started learning the sword, a time when the talk of me being a prodigy had filled me with overflowing confidence.

House Vischwartz, the house that the Halberds served as vassals, owned an estate but primarily managed its affairs through commerce.

Count Vischwartz was a man with a natural gift for business, and under his leadership, the house had flourished even further.

He dealt mainly in rare goods used by the nobility, and it was no exaggeration to say that every luxury item that entered high society did so via a Vischwartz merchant ship. As a result, House Vischwartz often became a target for bandits.

As a knight sworn to House Vischwartz, my father spent much of his time quelling bands of thieves.

He knew that the more bandits he killed, the greater his knightly honor would grow, and the more he would earn the Count’s trust.

And so Ferdian Halberd, my father, demanded that I join him in battle, disguised as a squire.

If I close my eyes, I can still see it vividly—the condescending, mocking, and scornful gazes of those men as they looked down on a boy whose cheeks were still flushed with youth.

‘A squire? Unbelievable. What is Sir Halberd thinking? This isn’t a training ground. This is a battlefield, where real fighting happens.’

People’s words are cruel. They judged me by my appearance alone and, furthermore, voiced their distrust of my father.

To them, I was nothing but a worthless brat, scrambling to earn a title by relying on the Halberd family’s prestige.

Thus, not only the many knights present but also the other squires doubted whether I could even hold a sword. Their skepticism lasted until I made my first kill.

Unfortunately, my father wanted me to put on a more impressive display than anyone else in this battle.

He seemed desperate to show off to everyone that House Halberd had a prodigy like me. For that reason, throughout the battle, he treated me not as a father to his young son, but as Sir Ferdian Halberd.

Ah, my father gave no consideration to what I was feeling or thinking in my first life-or-death battle. The weight of it was an immense burden.

My body remembers. My eyes recall. My mind preserves. My hands still hold the vivid sensation of that moment—of the bandit who charged at me, screaming.

He was a gruff-looking man with a scar on his face, and his aura was thick with killing intent.

The man rushed me with a guttural cry, his sword clearly intended for one purpose: to kill.

His eyes, red with anticipation for murder, and the cruel smile on his lips seemed to declare my death a certainty.

Indeed, I was so startled by my first encounter with another’s killing intent that I froze, terrified of him.

The only reason I survived was that my training had been ingrained into my very being.

My instinct to live and my innate sense for combat exploded in that moment, awakening me to thrust my blade into my opponent’s neck.

Thwump.

The sound of piercing flesh tore through my ears. The strange sensation in my hand was so gruesome it made me shudder. This was nothing like a normal sparring match.

The blood running down the blade, the metallic scent stinging my nostrils, the body twitching on my sword—it was a nightmare.

The bandit's body, trembling with foam at his lips and his eyes rolled back, was terror incarnate, a shock so profound it felt as if the world were collapsing.

In that moment, everything seemed to stop, enveloped in a deathly silence.

The bandit staggered, letting out a gurgling, rattling groan. His hand reached out, fumbling through the air as if trying to grasp some unseen phantom.

He convulsed for a while before grabbing the blade of my sword. Blood flowed from between his knuckles, but he seemed not to feel the pain, gasping for breath as he glared at me. A chill ran down my spine. His eyes, twisted with resentment, seemed to say, ‘Murderer.’

I was scared. Terrified. I felt that if I stayed like this, I would be dragged down into the abyss with him. I thrashed, trying to pull the sword from his neck.

But the blade was stuck fast in his hand. Exhausted and afraid of being pulled into the mire with him, I lifted my foot and kicked his body away.

Desperate screams echoed from all around.

‘Help me, help me! Please, stop!’

I covered my ears and doubled over. At the same time, I threw up what I had eaten. I retched again and again, my whole body trembling like a leaf. The feeling of the sword pulling free from another’s flesh and blood was nauseatingly foul.

Unable to hold back the rising bile, I emptied my stomach onto the ground.

But my surroundings wouldn't leave me be. A horde of men, vowing to avenge their comrade, rushed toward me. There was no time to collapse from the shock.

Above all, the desire not to die like that was greater than the fear of having killed someone.

So I moved like a madman, swinging my sword, ruthlessly stabbing and slashing at the enemies charging me. When I came to my senses, a mountain of corpses was piled around me.

The battle ended in victory for the knights of House Vischwartz. Only a few knights suffered minor wounds from stray blades; it was a near-total victory.

Considering they were knights who would never lose to a mere band of thieves, it was an expected outcome.

‘I’m proud of you.’

My father caressed my cheek with a blood-soaked hand, genuinely delighted.

People looked at me with newfound respect, their gazes filled with something close to awe. Some even patted my shoulder with a friendly smile.

‘Father, I…’

‘No one will ever look down on you again. Yes, from this day forward, people will know of the sword prodigy that is Rustein Halberd.’

I wanted to say I was scared. I wanted to say I was afraid of killing people.

But seeing my father’s pride, I couldn't show any weakness. So I forced down the surging emotions, swallowing them whole.

A sharp pain twisted in my stomach and a headache began to throb, but I needed to appear more composed than anyone.

I knew how great my father’s expectations were, and I didn't want to disappoint him. Above all, as Rustein Halberd, it was my duty to please him.

Count Vischwartz was greatly pleased with my achievements in battle and welcomed me warmly. He first praised my father at length, making him proud, and then stunned everyone by appointing me as the youngest knight of House Vischwartz.

Considering that boys my age were just shedding their status as pages to become squires, it was an exceptionally radical appointment.

The men who had fought alongside me welcomed the decision, unanimously agreeing that their lord had made a wise choice.

However, most of the other knights, especially those who had just become knight bachelors, expressed their displeasure and dissatisfaction with the appointment. They often picked fights with me under the pretext of sparring.

In truth, around this time, I was barely sleeping due to nightmares about the killing.

Though I acted composed on the outside, my physical condition worsened by the day, and I became afraid to even close my eyes. I grew to dread the setting of the sun.

Those I had killed returned to me each night as vengeful spirits. I screamed and fought against them, I recited prayers to atone for my sins, but nothing worked.

The situation spiraled from bad to worse. Lack of sleep left my stamina in tatters, and without the strength to even hold my sword steady, I frequently lost in spars against other knights.

I became a pathetic sight, a mockery of the title ‘youngest knight,’ earning everyone's scorn. Had my second-eldest brother not come to find me then, I would have crumbled completely, never to rise again.