Prologue – The Fake
“Once… my grandmother told me a story…”
The sound of a fragile, final breath could be heard.
This child was dying.
I sheathed my Supreme Starblade, Aradamentel, and knelt on one knee before them.
“When the Abyss overflows into the world… the gods will send a Hero…”
It was Uruk’s doing.
The child’s spine had been crushed by a mace. Even if they somehow survived, they would never walk again.
“You’re that Hero… right?”
The Hero, huh…
I gave a bitter shake of my head.
That name had long been forgotten. In this land of tears, abandoned even by the gods, it had no place.
“But… how did you…”
The child’s eyes shifted past my shoulder.
They looked toward the field littered like trash with over a hundred monsters I had slain—bodies of Uruk’s vanguard.
“I did do that. But I’m a fake.”
“A fake…?”
The Hero.
A being who once sealed away the Abyss and ushered in the Age of Light.
Unfortunately, I was not someone chosen by the gods—nothing so grand.
More than anything, this world wasn’t kind or generous enough to birth such a being in every era.
“The Radiant Dragon Church calls people like me Fakewarriors.”
Fakewarrior. Just as it sounds—a fake Hero. Yes, I’m a fake.
An artificially created Hero.
A desperate construct humanity forged to resist its cruel and merciless fate.
“It means I don’t have the power to grant your wish.”
I can’t bring back the dead. I can’t split the seas with a single slash.
Those feats belong to myths—the stories of the true Heroes.
I’m nothing more than a fake.
“Then… then what… those things… they just get to keep living? Without punishment…?”
Killing, stealing, violating.
That’s what the Abyss and its servants always did. They stole away humanity’s precious daily life.
They treated the efforts and hard work of those who lived earnestly with scorn and contempt.
“They killed my mom… my dad… my grandma… my brother… everyone in the village… and still…”
The child quietly began to cry.
Their breaths were growing weaker. Where could such raw, guttural sobbing come from at the very end?
“It’s so frustrating… that at the end… all I can do is cry…”
As those tears fell, I saw myself reflected in them—my younger self, sobbing and shaking.
Just like this child.
The day the stars took everything from me and laughed, the day I could do nothing but cry.
“I wish… I wish I had just a little strength… like you…”
What did they want? To live? A final moment of comfort?
I didn’t know.
Because I didn’t know, there was only one thing I could do.
“Whatever you hope for… I probably can’t make any miracles happen.”
That small, trembling hand.
That hand reaching out from the edge of death—I held it.
“But I can promise you just one thing.”
“…?”
“I’ll make them pay for it. For everything they did to you and your family.”
Gently.
Faintly.
Through our joined hands, the pounding, trembling pulse slowly faded. Dispersed. Disappeared.
“…”
I slowly lowered the child’s hand to the ground and let out a quiet sigh.
It was summer.
The season when volcanic ash painted the world in soot and darkness.
At the threshold of that season, black crows descended upon the corpses and began to tear at their flesh.
That was when—
“Kisayka o tto shiem?”
“Olbera shi ge meruk.”
A voice like metal scraping against bone.
I turned, and sure enough—the main Uruk force had arrived.
They spilled into the village from the outskirts, the clinking of chainmail echoing ominously.
Each of their eyes gleamed with something different.
Some with rage toward the one who killed their comrades. Some with amusement at encountering a strong foe…
But none showed a shred of guilt for the people they had slaughtered and plundered.
Yes.
You were always like this.
Ching—with a ringing cry, the Supreme Starblade Aradamentel exploded from its sheath, releasing crimson blade energy as it roared violently.
“Kishiro mao karedan da?!”
One of them shouted in their twisted tongue.
It meant, Who the hell are you?! A voice full of caution and wariness.
I answered.
“I am Kaicen Alter Aradamentel.”
Aradamentel was the name of my holy blade.
Alter was a middle name given in the old tongue, meaning “representative” of the Fakewarriors.
Put together, it meant “Kaicen, the Representative of Aradamentel.”
“I’m going to kill every last one of you.”
That humble name.
That desperate, pitiful declaration.
On the day the sun and moon cowered in fear, the day only the stars laughed as they watched my tears—
That was the fate I had wished upon myself.
