Chapter 01
That Night When the Stars Laughed
My mother was a “fake” hero.
I think I first heard that story when I was about four years old.
“Kaisen, you know what? Your mom is a hero whose name went down in world history.”
“Hero?”
“Fox? Well, yeah! Some said I was like a fox. Men were lining up for me, you know. Why wouldn’t they? I was pretty, kind, and insanely strong!”
At the time, I didn’t understand anything.
What kind of blood-soaked battlefield you had to claw through in tears to become such a hero—I didn’t know.
I just listened with shining eyes, not even knowing what it really meant.
“Fake Warriors can’t get pregnant because of the side effects of body modification. But your dad? He was so potent that just one night together, and bam—I was pregnant!”
“Irene… what on earth are you saying to a four-year-old?”
“Shut up! So what if he was good in bed? Anyway, I found out I was pregnant about three months before the final battle. You can’t imagine how shocked I was.”
When they join the Fake Warrior Corps, they swear to abandon family and lovers, living only as blades for the world until they die.
My mother broke that vow—to give birth to me and my sister.
So after leading them to victory in the final battle, she faked her death and came to this far-flung edge of the world to build a life with my father.
“People say I performed countless miracles on the battlefield…”
By the time she reached the end of that story, she would always hug me tightly and rub her face against mine as if I were the most precious thing in existence.
“Kaisen, you and your sister—you’re the greatest miracles I ever created. So, I’ll protect you for the rest of my life.”
And maybe that wasn’t a lie. My mother had the sharpest ears.
Even if I whimpered in my sleep or tripped on a stone, she’d come rushing like an arrow to comfort me—anytime, anywhere.
Always. Anywhere.
It was when I was seven years old.
I happened to see my mother training with her sword.
I stood there, a clueless little kid, staring blankly at her elegant swordplay. Then suddenly, she pointed her blade at me.
“Kaisen, how does it feel to have your life threatened by someone?”
A vague, misty fear filled my eyes with tears.
“Scary, isn’t it?”
Then she turned gracefully and aimed her blade the other way.
“Now, what about someone protecting your life?”
Her back—what I saw then.
That smile as she glanced back at me over her shoulder… Was it because it was so dazzlingly gentle? My tears stopped before I knew it.
“Look here.”
She came over and placed a small wooden sword in my hand.
“A sword can be a tool for killing others, but it can also be a power to protect them.”
“…?”
“Kai, how do you want to use this sword?”
If only, back then…
If only I had said I wanted to protect my mother with that tiny, pitiful strength that could barely hold a blade…
Could I have twisted the wheel of fate, even a little?
I don’t know.
I’ll probably never know.
Because from the moment I was born, the wheel of fate was already dragging me to a place no sword could reach, no blade could cut.
“It seems the Light has guided us to meet again, Raminea Alter Aradamantel.”
The prelude to the summer that would shadow my life appeared when I was thirteen.
The Papal envoy came all the way to this remote village to find my mother, and the last sunlight gleamed nobly across their golden armor.
They knew her true name. They knew she had faked her death and deserted. They had been watching her all along.
“It’s almost laughable. The hero who graced the pages of epic poetry, now living out here hunting in a backwater village.”
“I’m done with that life.”
“Do you think we came all this way for word games?”
“Does this sound like word games to you?”
Her eyes narrowed sharply, and the envoy sighed, gazing toward the southern sea.
“Summer is coming. A harsh summer—maybe already at our doorstep.”
“…”
“The Abyss is stirring. Shadows of the Black Church are appearing everywhere. In the Tershi Archipelago, news of defeat keeps pouring in.”
The Tershi Archipelago? Already…?
Even my mother, who had stayed expressionless since the envoy arrived, raised her brows at that.
Those islands were the buffer between the Akrad Continent and the Demon Realm.
“It’s not even late spring yet. Don’t lie.”
“It’s the truth. And humanity is fractured, fighting amongst itself. We need a hero to serve as the axis of unity.”
“…”
“We mean you—Crimson Lotus Raminea.”
“…”
“You swore an oath as a Warrior, did you not?”
“…”
“Tell me, do you really believe this place is where you belong in such times?”
That night, she cried in the cold wind for hours.
Why did she cry?
Why should you have to cry?
The world was wrong—not you.
The next morning, her face swollen and red from tears, she called my sister and me to her side and gave us her last smile.
“Raminea Alter Aradamantel—that’s my real name.”
Alter Aradamantel.
Not a noble surname, but a title meaning the proxy of the Supreme Holy Sword, Aradamantel.
“Remember how I always told you I was an amazing hero? Well, it seems people need me again.”
“What do you mean, Mom?”
“I have to return to the battlefield, Ratel. This place won’t be safe anymore.”
“Mom.”
“They say the Tershi Archipelago is under attack… Ratel, Kai, go north with the envoy.”
Unlike me, still struggling to piece it together, my usually sassy sister trembled as she spoke.
“What? No! Why do you have to fight? It’s dangerous! Just run away with us like before!”
“I can’t. The Radiant Dragon knows where I am. He’s only turned a blind eye until now. If I run, he’ll still find me.”
The Radiant Dragon, Haraderiman—leader of the Papacy, divine dragon ruling this godless world on behalf of departed gods. His divine authority was absolute.
“Ratel, promise me this: love and protect your brother no matter what—just like I would.”
“No! Why are you talking like you’ll never come back? Why are you sounding like Dad did?!”
“And Kai… take care of your sister, like I—”
I didn’t let her finish. I ran outside.
I just…
I just didn’t want her to leave. I just wanted tomorrow to be like any other day.
I hid in a place I’d never hidden before, and stayed there till nightfall—not because I wanted to run away.
Just because I thought… maybe if she couldn’t find me, she wouldn’t leave.
The only thing I knew then was this:
When my father died of illness at ten, no matter how I cried or searched, he never came back.
And I thought the same thing would happen to Mom.
How could a child know… that it would lead to her death?
“Kubeche ou tokose! Kill everything that walks on two legs!”
When I woke up, volcanic ash was swirling everywhere.
And beyond that ash, the horizon was filled with warships riding the tide toward the shore.
I didn’t know then.
Didn’t know this was the prelude to Uruk’s invasion—one of the Six Demon Clans.
Didn’t know Mom had found me, only to face them alone.
“Mom…”
By the time I staggered back toward the village, the air was thick with chaos.
Smoke rising black from the village. Endless screams, muffled booms. Ash falling so heavy it blurred the world.
And the Papal soldiers who came like shining knights—they lay torn limb from limb across the sand.
What happened?
What in the world happened here?
Before I could make sense of it, a hand like a moving mountain seized me.
That was my first encounter with an Uruk warrior.
He dragged me toward the beach swarming with warships—where she was.
She looked like a crimson flower blooming on a blood-soaked field.
Her sword carved scarlet arcs through the air, severing heads like falling petals.
A hundred Uruk lay dead at her feet, and a hundred more surrounded her.
“Mom…”
And then… the duel began.
The savage Kal-Take—an Uruk custom: a one-on-one battle to the death.
Mother accepted. Not to win honor, but to buy time for us.
I wish I could say she won.
She would have—if not for me.
If not for my scream when an Uruk crushed my spine in its grip.
If not for the split-second her focus broke because of me.
The axe struck her shoulder.
Her blood fell like rain on the sand.
And that day, everything ended.
No answer came, not then, not ever again.
I held her in my arms until her warmth faded, buried her by the sea she loved, and vowed—
I’ll kill them all.
That was the day the endless summer began in my world.
“Kaisen Alter Aradamantel.”
A voice snapped me back from the depths of memory.
The boy who buried his mother was now a white-haired man, lifting his head from the battlefield littered with Uruk corpses, the Holy Sword Aradamantel gleaming in his hand.
“The Commander-in-Chief summons you.”
He wiped the blood from his blade, sheathed it in its pristine scabbard.
The world called him Fake Warrior now—just as they once called her.
The last ember lighting a collapsing world.
“Understood. I’ll go now.”
