Since I was a child, my father always told me the same story.
“Arhan, the Caravan family might be confined to this tiny, backwater estate now, but it wasn’t always this way.”
Whenever he told that story, Father looked truly happy. Even in middle age, his eyes shone with the brightness of youth. His voice would grow giddy, like a child’s.
“Two hundred years ago, the Caravan family was a great house that protected this kingdom. We were the King’s favorites, the righteous watchers whom everyone looked up to.”
As he spoke, Father would always point to the large portrait hanging in the manor. It depicted an old man brimming with lion-like dignity, his eyes flashing sharply despite hair as white as snow. Beside that portrait hung a magnificent sword.
“They say that in those days, the Caravan family produced Swordmasters for generations. That is why everyone feared the Caravan name, yet respected it all the same. For the Caravans were invincible guardians who defended the kingdom against any foe, and righteous watchers who struck down the wicked.”
“……”
“Of course, it’s all just old stories now. It’s already been over a hundred years since the last Swordmaster emerged from the Caravan family…”
Father looked at the sword hanging beside the portrait with a distant gaze.
The treasure of the Caravan family. The sword said to have been wielded by Liam Caravan—the progenitor of our house, its greatest patriarch, and the man known as the most powerful Swordmaster in history.
According to Father, that sword was at least five hundred years old, yet it remained absurdly sharp. Its gleaming edge looked as if it could cut through anything at a moment’s notice.
Looking at that sword, rather than marveling at its preservation, I felt doubt. How could it remain so keen without rusting for all that time? Common sense dictated that iron should rust.
Eventually, I reached a conclusion.
The stories Father told me were fabricated. It was a common coping mechanism for fallen noble families like ours—an act to instill pride in the lineage and maintain aristocratic self-esteem. To announce that even though they had fallen, they were still noble beings, they would invent non-existent events and dress up a false past.
It was similar to how figures of ancient history are often deified or exaggerated. But for some reason, Father believed in the nonsensical past of the ‘Caravan family’ with all his heart.
“As the heir, you must remember these glorious days. Always take pride in being a member of the Caravan family, and remember that the blood of Steel flows through your veins. Then, one day, you will be able to reclaim our glory. Yes, one day…”
His words were full of pride.
I couldn’t bring myself to shatter his illusion.
A blade over several hundred years old cannot remain sharp without rusting. The appearance of the old man in that portrait didn’t resemble Father in the slightest.
Our family treasure was a fake, and that portrait was surely painted by some nameless artist who simply imagined what a great swordsman should look like. Furthermore, no matter how much I scoured the history books, the name of the Caravan family was nowhere to be found, nor was there any record of a Swordmaster named ‘Liam’…
My criticisms never made it past my lips.
Instead, I simply smiled and said, “Yes, I will.”
The reason was simple.
Father, deceived by the lies his ancestors must have created, looked so happy. His eyes sparkled with a dazzling light, laughing more like a boy than I did.
I didn’t want to take that joy away from him.
Talking about the glorious era of the Caravan family was Father’s only pleasure. It was obvious that it was all a lie, but what did it matter?
As long as Father was happy, it didn’t matter in the least whether the history of the Caravan family was truth or fiction.
Father described this place as a tiny backwater, but I liked this village. The small daily routines and the happiness I felt here were irreplaceable.
I liked my father, who told me the stories of the Caravan family as if they were folklore; I liked my mother, who was always kind; I liked my nanny, who was clumsy at cooking but warm-hearted; and I liked the butler, who was slow but never made a mistake.
There were times when the repetitive daily life felt boring, but I was happy nonetheless.
I hoped to live a slow and simple life on this estate, meet a suitable woman to start a family with, eventually inherit the position of Lord, and grow old happily. I wanted this daily life to continue forever.
But life never flows exactly as one wishes.
The year I turned fifteen, everything changed.
A Swordmaster visited our estate.
* * *
“This estate must be erased.”
The Swordmaster, who had come to a backwater estate with no sights to see or local specialties, said something strange.
The estate must be erased. The villagers were bewildered by the nonsensical statement, but no matter how many questions they asked, the Swordmaster gave no answers. He simply repeated the same thing.
After answering about three times, the Swordmaster spoke.
“I am only doing as I am told.”
With those words, the Swordmaster ceased to be a human and became a calamity.
He was death incarnate, something ordinary residents could not possibly resist.
Just as the typhoons or floods of my childhood swept away the fields, the Swordmaster swept through the villagers. I saw clearly from the top of the hill what the Swordmaster was doing.
It was no different from harvesting crops in autumn.
Like a scythe cutting through wheat, every time the Swordmaster swung his sword, residents who had been living faithfully with their own individual stories died. Heads fell and rolled in clusters, and red blood stained the village. No one could stop it.
“Arhan, you have to run!”
The Swordmaster advanced from the village entrance to the manor where we lived.
His pace was leisurely, as if he were taking a stroll. In the wake of those steps, there were no longer any living humans.
Mother grabbed my hand and pulled me back.
But no matter how hard we ran, there was no way to escape the Swordmaster’s pursuit. The Swordmaster, who did nothing but walk with noble composure, eventually found us.
He said, “I will return in one month. Until then, take everyone here and leave. If you want to live.”
More than half the villagers died that day.
Fortunately, my family survived.
But our daily life could never be the same as before. Never.
After that day, Father went mad.
* * *
Mother, Father, and the surviving villagers each offered their own theories on how such a terrible thing had happened. Some said it was the aftermath of the ongoing war between the kingdom and the empire; others said the newly crowned King was committing madness; and some said the Swordmasters were exercising their power to solidify their authority.
To my ears, none of those justified the ruin of my daily life.
Could such a terrible thing be justified by such trivial reasons?
But Father’s rage was far more intense than mine.
Father, who had been somewhat stout, became so gaunt after that day that his bones showed. Because of Father, who had completely lost his soul and become a wreck, a terribly uncomfortable silence flowed through the once-happy manor.
After discovering a single book in the study, Father read only that book endlessly.
When he finished it, he would close it and then open the first page to read it again.
He skipped meals, didn’t leave the house, and spent his entire day reading only that book.
How many times was that cycle repeated?
Father lost his mind.
His mind seemed to have gone blank, he let go of his sanity, and he began to say the most bizarre things.
“I shall step forward myself to set right this world that is full of sin and turning the wrong way! I am a great knight who has inherited the blood of Caravan; I shall judge you all!”
Father stopped reading the book.
I saw the title lying on the table.
The Knight of La Mancha.
A chivalric novel written by some nameless novelist. After reading that novel filled with nonsensical stories, Father began to identify himself with the protagonist. A madman who could not distinguish between fiction and reality.
“I am the great knight who hunted the evil dragon, the Iron-Blooded Guardian who protects the kingdom! I cannot stand by and watch injustice. Soon, I will judge the sin-filled Swordmaster who is coming. I am a righteous watcher who carries the blood of Caravan!”
Father wore a decrepit helmet used by apprentice knights and called it a golden helmet bestowed by the King. He claimed his rusted armor was mythril armor given by the God of War, and he proudly shouted that the old wooden sword with a completely ruined edge was the blade that had cut through dragon scales.
“I will not back down! I will personally judge my unrighteous enemy!”
As he shouted, Father’s eyes burned as if they would swallow the sun. For a very brief moment, Father looked like the invincible knight from the stories. Even though the villagers tried hard to stop him, Father did not leave the estate.
Then, one late night, Mother spoke.
“Arhan, you must run. Leave this place, go far away, and save your life. Go anywhere.”
“Come with me, Mother.”
“I cannot.”
It was the first time in my life I had seen Mother with such sad eyes.
“I must stay by your father’s side. I cannot let him die alone. But I cannot bear to see you die as well. So, please, leave.”
Mother gripped my hand so hard it felt like it would crush, and said, “Promise me only this before you go.”
“……”
“No matter what happens, do not dream of revenge. Promise me you will never do that.”
“……”
“Swear that you will never hold a sword until the day you die, and that you will never return here.”
Mother’s voice sounded chilling.
“You must keep this. Everything your father told you was a lie. The blood of Steel, the blood of a great hero flowing through you—it was all made up. You are an ordinary person. Both your father and you are just ordinary people…”
I answered Mother’s sobbing voice.
“Yes, I swear.”
Mother was relieved by my answer.
I left the village in a carriage late at night.
One day before the date the Swordmaster had declared he would return.
* * *
Arriving at a nearby small city by carriage, I immediately used my savings to purchase a crossbow and bolts. I also bought plenty of other weapons sufficient to kill a human. Black pepper powder needed for cooking, and poisons favored by hunters. I never had any intention of abandoning my family and running away.
I intended to get the things we couldn’t find in our village and return to stand against him together.
Even if he was grandly called a Swordmaster, he was still just a human.
I didn’t want to run away alone.
After gathering enough supplies, I immediately hitched a ride on a carriage heading toward the village, got off in a nearby forest, and ran with all my might. The sun, announcing the end of dawn, was rising.
When I arrived at the estate, all that remained were red bloodstains and the horribly murdered residents.
And at the very top of our manor, the highest point of the estate, was the flag with the wolf emblem symbolizing the Caravan family. Father’s head was impaled upon that flagpole.
Father had died with his eyes wide open. In the yard of the manor lay Mother, who had died looking as peaceful as if she were sleeping. Father’s helmet, armor, and sword were scattered, crushed like scraps of paper.
I saw the Swordmaster standing vacantly amidst the corpses.
The moment I saw him, I fired the crossbow.
The Swordmaster didn’t even think to dodge or deflect it.
The flying bolt bounced off helplessly without even leaving a scratch on the Swordmaster’s body.
At the same time, the Swordmaster’s eyes turned toward me.
The moment our gazes met, my body froze like ice.
With a face as emotionless as a doll, he spoke.
“You haven’t turned eighteen yet. Fortunately for you.”
“……”
“I will let you live. So forget today’s events and live your life. In a place similar to this village.”
The Swordmaster spoke calmly as he wiped the blood from his sword.
I did not know whose blood was on his blade.
“Resent your family. I didn’t know a ‘Caravan’ was still living on the continent.”
“……”
“Hide your surname. And do not have children.”
The Swordmaster looked at me coldly and said, “If you carry on the Caravan bloodline, I will find you once again, no matter where you are.”
It was a warning.
Ridiculously, I couldn’t even manage a decent revenge against the Swordmaster who had destroyed my everything. I had frozen just from meeting his eyes, and I couldn’t move until he had leisurely walked away.
Pathetic. So incredibly pathetic.
That was how I lost everything.
* * *
After the funerals, I spent my time doing nothing.
Truly nothing.
Then, I heard about the Swordmaster who had taken everything from me.
The Swordmaster’s name was Carlos, and they said he had become a great hero by performing tremendous feats in the war against the empire. Unlike the nonsensical Swordmaster of the Caravan family my father talked about every day, he was the real deal.
A genius who appeared once in a hundred years, the most powerful Swordmaster in history, the guardian who would protect the kingdom, the righteous watcher…
The figure from the stories my father had told with eyes shining like a boy’s actually existed in reality.
Ironically, that great Swordmaster had taken away my father and everything else precious to me. I crawled into the bedroom of the cold, empty manor in the village where everyone was dead.
Every time I thought of him, something boiled up inside my chest.
Why was that man, who had destroyed my everything, being revered as a hero? If the gods worshipped by the kingdom’s many religions truly existed, why hadn’t he received divine punishment? Why, instead of being punished, were those who praised him multiplying as time went on?
I couldn’t understand this situation at all.
Carlos became greater as time passed. Now, there was no one among the people of the world who didn’t know Swordmaster Carlos. He was the Swordmaster among Swordmasters, and through those great achievements, he became the Foremost Sword of the Continent.
“Young Master, you must forget. Only then can you live. Only then…”
The butler, who had fled and then returned, told me to think of it as having been swept away by a natural disaster.
But I couldn’t do that. How could I?
I saw clearly with these two eyes what had happened. The memories still flickered before me.
My hatred and desire for revenge deepened as time went on.
I thought about killing him countless times. I couldn’t stand it.
However, that was realistically impossible.
There was only one reason.
“A Swordmaster can only be killed by another Swordmaster, Young Master.”
Forget being a Swordmaster, I had never even properly held a sword since I was born.
Furthermore, I had no talent. I saved up what little money I had to buy a swordsmanship manual and tried to train myself, but forget swinging a sword—I wasn’t born with the sense to move my body properly.
It was ironic.
Swordmaster Carlos had cited my family name, ‘Caravan,’ as the reason for killing my family. What truth was hidden in that massacre? Why did I have to go through this?
Was the story of our family, ‘Caravan,’ that Father had talked about until I was sick of it, actually the truth rather than a fabrication? If so, why couldn’t a single line of record be found in the history books?
If it were true, why did the Swordmaster only come to kill us now?
And if we were truly so brilliant in the past, they could have just erased Caravan from history; why did they seek out even the last of us to kill us all?
Why us, who had become so insignificant?
“Ah.”
There are too many things I don’t know.
What I could least accept was my own terrible talent.
If I were the descendant of such a great family, why was I so pathetic? Why did I tremble before the Swordmaster who took everything from me? Why was I…
As I spent those difficult days, I thought:
Is it right to continue an insignificant life and die of old age, just as he said?
That might be the wisest choice.
But it was an option I couldn’t choose.
The very fact that I was breathing in the same world as him was too horrific. How could that demonic man still live while being praised? Why was this world turning so wrongly? No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t accept it.
There were far too many things I couldn’t accept.
Thus, the conclusion I reached was clear.
I decided to break the last promise and oath I had made to my mother.
I decided to become a Swordmaster.
From the moment I thought that, I began to hear a strange voice.
Every time I looked at the large portrait hanging in the center of the ruined manor’s living room, a voice echoed in my head.
No, to be precise, it came from the long, sharp sword hanging beside that portrait.
From the treasure of our Caravan family, which had not lost its keenness despite being hundreds of years old.
「Eat me.」
