Chapter 1
Homecoming (1)
“Get married.”
It happened when Elric was 14 years old.
It was clearly a child marriage.
In Elric’s memory, his father, Hoven Portman, said those words with a cold, emotionless expression.
“Your partner is the daughter of Baron Wibin’s family. She’s sixteen, and quite beautiful. She’s said to be a gentle girl who enjoys gardening—she won’t be a bad match.”
Elric couldn’t understand his father’s words.
Being suddenly told to marry was shocking enough, but more than anything, he couldn’t understand why a noble family would form a union with the Portman family, who were merely ordinary merchants.
He asked about it, but his father gave no answer.
He asked other adults as well, but none of them would tell him anything.
In the end, the boy—who didn’t even understand what a woman truly was—was swept along by a current he couldn’t resist and ended up marrying her.
The wedding day finally arrived during autumn, the season when the territory was at its most abundant with harvest.
Even now, ten years later, Elric could vividly recall that day. It had been a fresh shock to him—an unfamiliar world that could only be described as an awakening.
“My name is Tiria Wibin.”
Her calm golden hair resembled the wheat fields of the Wibin territory. Her softly drooping eyes and light green irises, like budding sprouts, gave off a gentle aura. Her pale skin was like flour, and her lips were as vividly red as freshly picked cherries.
Her voice was soft, yet her pronunciation was clear, and her words carried firmness, making her easy to understand.
Her straight posture and hands neatly folded together made her seem fragile enough to break if held too tightly, yet there was a stubborn elegance about her that exuded dignity.
In a word, she was mysterious and graceful.
She was like a fairy napping softly inside a flower bud.
There must have been better ways to describe her.
For the first time, young Elric regretted his past of avoiding books and getting into fights.
“Elric, greet her.”
“Hello…”
Only a faint, shrinking voice came out.
Though there was only a two-year age difference, he felt ashamed of how stark the contrast was between himself and her.
It felt as if someone had shoved a burning lump into his chest, as if his head were being grabbed and shaken.
Everything was overwhelmingly confusing, and amid that confusion, a single thought surfaced:
Now that they were married, he would spend his entire life with this person.
At the time, he didn’t know how to define that strange, ticklish feeling—but looking back, it was his first love.
The wedding had no notable guests—only the families of the two parties attended.
The sixteen-year-old girl who walked in wearing a pure white wedding dress awakened in Elric the very concept of the opposite sex.
Embarrassed that he kept wanting to smile, Elric forced the corners of his lips downward.
When they exchanged rings, he could barely suppress his smile and ended up frowning hard instead.
After that moment passed and he was left alone, his curiosity reaching its peak, he asked the butler:
“Why is she marrying me?”
It was anxiety.
That must have been it.
What if she didn’t like him and called off the marriage?
What if he could never see that girl again?
Driven by those thoughts, Elric even grabbed the butler by the collar and shook him, demanding the truth.
Reluctantly, the butler spoke:
“It is a political marriage.”
The truth was shocking.
At least, it was for 14-year-old Elric Portman.
“The Wibin baronial family is poor. They are drowning in debt, unable to even maintain their noble status. Your father agreed to pay off their debts and provide financial support in exchange for this marriage. Through this, our family will enter the nobility.”
How could a young boy understand such a complex web of interests and transactions?
Elric, however, had a knack for grasping the core of things. And what he understood was this one fact:
“Th-then… was she sold? To me?”
The butler did not answer.
He likely meant to avoid saying something disrespectful to his young master, but to Elric, that silence felt like confirmation.
Elric felt like a villain at the center of a terrible transaction that bought and sold a girl.
It was the greatest despair and guilt he had ever felt in his 14 years of life.
To a boy who dreamed of becoming a knight, the idea of holding a girl’s life hostage felt unbearably horrific.
Elric wanted to explain himself.
Even though no one had forced him, he hurried as if being chased, heading toward where the bride would be.
And then he heard it.
“…Sniff…”
A faint sob from behind a closed door.
There was no need to wonder whose it was.
The girl’s voice from earlier still lingered in his ears, gently stirring his heart.
Even her crying was soft and clear.
Now, instead of her greeting, the sound of her sobs was being engraved into his heart.
His heart pounded wildly, and Elric immediately fled the scene.
He tried to think of why she was crying.
Maybe she was sad because she had been sold. Maybe leaving her family was painful.
There were many possible reasons, but at that moment, one thought tormented him more than anything else:
‘She doesn’t like me!’
He believed she was crying because she was dissatisfied with him as her husband.
That she would suffer for the rest of her life looking at his face.
That he must not become the villain who caused her pain.
The fear that she might hate him completely consumed him.
Looking back, it was absurd—but to Elric at the time, it felt like the most important matter in the world.
So he decided to annul the marriage.
He went straight to his father, but of course, he was refused.
“Stop acting like a child.”
His father turned away after that cold remark.
Even when Elric clung to his trousers, he didn’t budge.
It was typical of a man who had never once shown a smile in his life.
A child who was born after taking his mother’s life.
Elric knew very well that this was what he was to his father.
He had heard countless times how much his father cried at his mother’s funeral.
Even now, the servants still used that story as gossip.
When Elric refused to give up, his father said:
“You are a noble now. Act like one.”
“But—”
“Be rational. Value reason over emotion. Do not be swayed by anything.”
That day, his father spoke unusually at length.
And every word carried a chilling coldness.
“Repay what it cost to raise you.”
Elric couldn’t stop his father as he walked away.
He wanted to curse him—but held it in.
What was the point, when the relationship had already been given up on?
Instead, Elric focused on saving the girl.
After failing to gain his father’s help, he turned to the servants.
But of course, none of them helped him either.
Who would listen to a 14-year-old boy asking to cancel a marriage?
He felt completely alone in the world.
Yet he couldn’t give up.
In the end, Elric made an extreme decision.
He ran away from home.
‘If I disappear, the marriage will be annulled. She won’t have to suffer because of me. She’ll return to her family. Father will be in serious trouble.’
It was childish heroism, born from a tender heart afraid of being hated.
It was also revenge against a father who had stabbed him with cruel words.
‘Serves him right.’
With about three gold coins in his pocket and the iron sword he received on his 13th birthday at his waist, Elric fled on the very first night of his marriage.
Shaking with guilt and fear, desperately hoping she wouldn’t hate him.
He crossed his territory—and even left the country—determined to avoid his father’s eyes.
His natural decisiveness helped him then.
He didn’t think about what to do next.
Fortunately, he had learned swordsmanship and mana control from a knight.
He could survive by fighting.
“Hm? You want to become a mercenary?”
Elric became a war mercenary.
And—
“My name is Kasha.”
He abandoned the name Elric Portman.
He lived like that for ten years.
It wasn’t because of his childish desire to save the girl.
Those feelings had long since faded.
The reason he still remained on the battlefield was resentment toward his father, who never came looking for him after he left.
He knew it was shameless, since he was the one who ran away—but the human heart is not so simple.
His anger grew like a wildfire, and he used it as fuel.
He no longer swung his sword to live—but to relieve the suffocating pressure inside him.
At some point, it became a sword swung in search of death.
Elric threw himself into war without caring for his own life, yet survived—and became a terror to his enemies.
A mercenary who swung a sword without knowing defense, searching for his own grave.
Thus was born Kasha, the Sword Demon—one of the seven strongest on the continent.
A secret known only to Elric himself.
