Chapter 1 – Prologue
I was born in the middle of war and ruins.
It was an age of chaos.
A man who ruled the land in the morning could be lying dead on the ground by sunset.
My village was also destroyed by battlefield mages.
‘I want to have that kind of power.’
The kind of power that lets you keep what’s yours and never have it taken away.
“You can’t use magic.”
For years, I wandered from battlefield to battlefield like a stray dog, barely surviving.
One day, a knight noticed me and let me work as his page. When I asked him about learning magic, that was his answer.
“Why not?”
“Because you have no mana.”
I wasn’t crushed by that.
I never had mana to begin with.
I had no magic talent, but I was good with a sword.
As the knight’s page, I learned language, manners, and basic sword skills.
“You’re ready to go to the battlefield now.”
Before my first year ended, I awakened aura. With the knight’s recommendation, I was put in charge of ten soldiers.
In my first battle, I cut down dozens of enemies.
In the next, I was promoted to lead a hundred.
“From now on, you lead them.”
That winter, the knight who had taken me in died in battle, and I naturally took his place.
After a few more winters, even the king himself came to me.
“I’ll give you command of the army—fight for me.”
It sounded like mercenary work, but I had nothing else to do, so I accepted.
That’s when I first met nobles.
Most looked down on me for my low birth, but a few were different.
A white-haired woman and a black-haired man.
“Name?”
“Your name.”
“I’ve never really thought about it… Howard. Just call me Howard.”
“So, Sir Howard! I always wanted to know your name!”
“Stop with the ‘sir.’ Just Howard.”
Howard was the family name of the knight who raised me.
A name that no longer existed in the world.
That became my name, and soon it was praised as the name of an Aura Master and war hero.
“Do you want anything? A title? Land? Anything but this crown!”
After I killed the enemy leader and ended the long war, the king made that offer.
What I truly lost, what I wanted most, was something he could never give me.
“Then… just knowledge. I want to learn magic.”
I said it just to leave quickly, but the king laughed and sent me someone.
Arwen Brinis.
She was the captain of the royal elite mage corps and the white-haired woman who first asked for my name.
With her and a few old comrades, I made a small mercenary group.
The king even gave us a lot of money, so we settled in a quiet border area.
Life wasn’t bad.
We took jobs from the guild, hunted monsters, fought small battles, and trained together.
I taught swordsmanship to the recruits, learned magic theory from Arwen, and even picked up noble knowledge from her.
Before I knew it, I had enough power to protect my people, and my life was full of noise and company.
People started calling me the “Mercenary King” or the “Empire’s Greatest Sword,” and…
Well, it wasn’t a bad life.
Then came the Screaming War—a sudden, continent-wide war started by fanatics, cultists, and heretics.
They summoned otherworldly monsters, used dark magic, and even brought forth a so-called “incarnation” by sacrificing hundreds of lives.
It took more than five years to cut down all of them.
When it finally ended, my body was in terrible shape—one arm gone, vision failing, blood soaking me.
But the enemy’s leader was dead, and the rift to the other world was closing.
The Emperor himself had asked me to help—alone, without my mercenary band—and I did it to repay my debt to him.
I found a blood-stained white handkerchief—Arwen’s. She tied it to me before I left.
Now, I could finally return.
But then—
A voice.
“Die now.”
It was Carter Nightgorn, an 8th-circle mage, leader of the imperial mage corps, and commander of the extermination army.
Only now did I realize—he was a cultist.
He opened a rift behind me.
He planned to kill me and my entire mercenary group.
…No. I wouldn’t let him.
Using the last of my life force, I turned it into aura—a skill I had learned after crossing countless walls of death.
My aura burned red as I cut Carter in half.
But the darkness swallowed me whole.
I couldn’t even hold onto my handkerchief.
‘I have to go back…’
And then—nothing.
I woke up to blinding light.
Wait—my left arm was back. My eyes could see clearly.
I was in an old, shabby room.
A young maid with light brown hair stared at me in shock.
“Young master! You’re awake?!”
Her name was Emma. She said we were in the side house of the Duke of Tindalos.
Tindalos… That was the family of Yug Tindalos, one of my few close friends, a man I knew over two hundred years ago.
I asked her about the “Empire’s Greatest Sword” or the “Mercenary King” named Howard.
She didn’t know me at all.
Looking at my hands, I saw they were small, clean, with no calluses.
Not my hands. Not my body.
It seems… after that war, I was reborn.
More than 200 years later.
