Chapter 01
“Get married.”
It happened when Elic was fourteen years old.
It was, by any measure, a child marriage.
In Elic’s memory, his father, Hoven Portman, had delivered those words with a cold expression devoid of any emotion.
“The bride is the daughter of Baron Wibin’s family. She is sixteen, quite beautiful, and a quiet girl who enjoys gardening as a hobby. You could do far worse.”
Elic could not understand what his father was saying.
The sudden order to marry was shocking enough, but more than that, he could not comprehend why a noble family would join itself to the Portmans, an ordinary merchant household.
When he asked about it, his father gave no answer.
He asked the other adults as well, but none of them explained anything.
In the end, the boy who barely even understood what a woman was found himself swept along by a current he could not resist and married her.
The wedding day finally arrived during the autumn harvest season, the most prosperous time of year in the territory.
Even ten years later, Elic could recall that day vividly.
It had been a shocking revelation to him—a glimpse into an unfamiliar world that felt as though his eyes had finally been opened.
“My name is Tiria Wibin.”
The first thing he noticed was her gentle golden hair, like the wheat fields of the Wibin estate.
Then came her softly drooping eyes and pale green irises, the color of new sprouts.
Her skin was as white as flour, and her lips were vivid and red, as though cherries had been carefully placed upon her face.
Her voice was soft and delicate, yet her pronunciation was clear and her words carried confidence, making her easy to understand.
Her straight posture and neatly folded hands looked fragile enough to break if held too tightly, yet there was a stubborn dignity about her that exuded elegance.
In a single word, she was mysterious.
And graceful.
She looked like a fairy peacefully napping inside a flower bud.
Surely there was a better way to describe her.
For the first time in his life, young Elic regretted spending his childhood avoiding books and getting into brawls.
“Elic, greet her.”
“H-Hello…”
His voice came out as little more than a mumble.
There was only a two-year age gap between them, yet compared to her, he felt unbearably crude and immature.
Embarrassment surged through him.
It felt as though someone had stuffed a burning coal into his chest and shaken him by the head.
Everything was confusing.
And amid that confusion, one thought emerged.
They were married now.
That meant they would spend the rest of their lives together.
At the time, he lacked the words to describe the strange, ticklish feeling in his heart.
Looking back, it had been his first love.
The wedding was small, attended only by the two families.
The sight of the sixteen-year-old girl entering in a pure white wedding dress awakened Elic to the very concept of romance.
Embarrassed by the smile threatening to spread across his face, he forced the corners of his mouth downward.
When they exchanged rings, he had to frown deeply just to stop himself from grinning.
After the ceremony, when he finally found himself alone, curiosity completely overwhelmed him.
He turned to the butler and asked,
“Why is she marrying me?”
It was anxiety.
That was probably what it was.
What if she disliked him and called off the marriage?
What if he never got to see her again?
Driven by those fears, Elic grabbed the butler by the collar and demanded the truth.
Unable to avoid the question any longer, the butler finally answered.
“It is a political marriage.”
The truth was shocking.
At least to fourteen-year-old Elic Portman.
“The Wibin barony is poor. They are drowning in debt and can barely afford to maintain their status as nobles. The master offered to pay their debts and provide financial support in exchange for this marriage. In return, our family will be elevated into the nobility.”
How could a boy possibly understand the complex web of interests behind such an arrangement?
Yet Elic had always possessed a talent for grasping the core of a matter.
And from all that explanation, he understood only one thing.
“T-Then… was she sold to me?”
The butler did not answer.
He had remained silent out of respect for his young master.
But to Elic, that silence felt like confirmation.
He suddenly felt like the villain at the center of a terrible transaction.
The greatest despair.
The greatest guilt.
Those were the strongest emotions fourteen-year-old Elic had ever experienced.
To a boy who dreamed of becoming a knight, the thought of holding another person’s life hostage was horrifying.
He wanted to explain himself.
No one had asked him to, yet he hurried through the manor as though something were chasing him, making his way toward where the bride should be.
And then he heard it.
Sniff…
A small sob drifted through the closed door.
There was no doubt whose voice it was.
The girl’s greeting still lingered in his ears.
Even her crying was soft and delicate.
Clear.
Now it was not her greeting but her tears that branded themselves into his heart.
His heart pounded violently.
Unable to bear it, Elic fled.
He tried to think of why she was crying.
Perhaps she was sad because she had been sold.
Perhaps leaving her family hurt too much.
There were countless possible reasons.
But at the time, one possibility tormented him more than all the others.
She doesn’t like me!
Surely she was crying because she found her husband unsatisfactory.
Surely she would spend her entire life miserable every time she looked at him.
And if that were true—
He could not become the villain who made her suffer.
The fear that she might hate him consumed him completely.
Looking back, it was a ridiculous conclusion.
But to Elic at the time, it felt like the most important issue in the world.
And so he decided to annul the marriage.
He went straight to his father.
The answer was, of course, a refusal.
“Stop acting like a child.”
His father turned away after delivering that cold sentence.
Elic clung to his trouser leg and begged.
It made no difference.
It was exactly the sort of response one would expect from a man who had never smiled once in his life.
A child who had killed his mother in childbirth.
Elic knew very well that this was how his father viewed him.
He had heard countless stories about how much his father had cried at his mother’s funeral.
Even now, the servants still used it as gossip over drinks.
When Elic refused to give up, his father finally said,
“You are a noble now. Act like one.”
“But—”
“Be rational. Value reason over emotion. Do not be swayed by anything.”
For once, his father spoke at length.
And every word carried a chilling coldness.
“Repay the debt of being raised.”
Elic could not stop him from leaving.
He wanted to curse him.
To vent all his resentment.
But he held it in.
Their relationship had long since become hopeless.
Rather than dwelling on his father, Elic focused on saving the girl.
After failing to gain his father’s help, he turned to the household servants.
Naturally, none of them helped him either.
Who would listen to a fourteen-year-old demanding that his marriage be canceled?
He felt utterly alone.
Even so, he could not give up.
In the end, Elic chose an extreme solution.
He ran away from home.
If I disappear, the marriage will be invalid.
She won’t have to be unhappy because of me.
She can return to her family.
Father will be in serious trouble.
It was childish heroism.
A fragile heart terrified of being hated.
And it was also revenge against the father whose words had stabbed him deeply.
Serves him right.
Stuffing roughly three gold coins into his pocket and strapping the iron sword he had received for his thirteenth birthday to his waist, Elic fled into the night on the very first night of his marriage.
His heart trembled with guilt and fear.
And above all, he desperately hoped she would not hate him.
To avoid his father’s reach completely, he left not only the territory but the entire kingdom.
For once, his natural impulsiveness proved useful.
He did not spend much time wondering what to do next.
Fortunately, he possessed swordsmanship and mana training taught by a knight.
He figured he could simply make a living with a sword.
“Hm? You want to become a mercenary?”
And so Elic became a mercenary.
A war mercenary.
And then—
“My name is Kasha.”
He abandoned the name Elic Portman.
Ten years passed that way.
The childish desire to save the girl was no longer the reason.
That feeling had faded long ago.
The reason Elic still remained on the battlefield was the resentment he harbored toward the father who had never once searched for him after he ran away.
It was shameless.
After all, he had been the one who left first.
But the human heart was rarely reasonable.
His resentment grew like a wildfire.
Unable to suppress it, he used it as fuel.
He no longer swung his sword to survive.
He swung it to vent the frustration festering inside him.
Eventually, it became a sword swung in pursuit of death.
Elic threw himself into battle without any regard for his own life.
Yet he survived.
Again and again.
Until he became the terror of his enemies.
A mercenary who sought out his own grave, wielding a sword that knew nothing of defense.
That was the hidden origin of Kasha the Sword Demon, one of the Seven Great Powerhouses of the Continent.
A secret known only to Elic himself.
