Chapter 1 – 1. Disappear (1)

1. Disappear (1)

Incompetence.

The word I heard most in my life, and the one that caused me the most pain. People say that everyone is born with a talent, but I wasn’t.

My father was a hero. My mother was a saint. Born between them, I was not blessed by God, but rather, I was born cursed.

[Now that the Demon King is dead, isn’t God’s blessing unnecessary?]

It wasn’t a joke, it was a real curse. And so, I became an utterly incompetent human.

I started walking later than other children, and I started speaking later than them too. I was not the one wielding the sword, but the one being wielded by it, and even when I prayed, God did not respond.

Even when I studied, the letters did not register in my eyes, and I couldn’t solve the problems I looked at. Why is it only me? Why am I the only one who is incompetent? Why am I the only one who can’t do it?

It was painful. Just endlessly painful. I tried. I really tried to the point of death.

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t achieve anything.

“Tsk…”

My father didn’t say it out loud, but he looked displeased.

“If you keep trying, someday the reward for your effort will come back to you.”

My mother consoled me and supported me. Yes, let’s try harder thinking about my mother.

With that thought, I tried even harder. More. More diligently. More focused.

I reduced sleep to try more.
I reduced meals to try more.
I killed my emotions to try more.
I tried more to forget the pain.

But as the efforts piled up over one year, two years, all that accumulated was a sense of doubt.

Despite trying to the point where my hands were bruised and calluses formed on each joint of my fingers, I was still being wielded by the sword.

Despite trying to the point where my eyesight worsened to the extent that everything looked blurry without glasses, I was still slow at solving problems.

Despite practicing magic to the point where my hair turned white, I still couldn’t engrave a circle in my heart.

Then, on one of those painful days, something finally happened.

“That’s not my child.”

“What… what are you saying…? How can you say such a thing…!! You know when you see his black hair and red eyes! He is your child!”

“I’m the hero!! How can such a worthless trash be born from me!?”

“He is your child…! You know it best! After marrying you, I, I haven’t stepped out of this damned mansion…!”

“You must have brought a man here!! Otherwise, there’s no way such a worthless brat could be born!!”

“Watch your mouth!!”

“How dare you raise your voice!!”

My father and mother were fighting.
Because of me.

Sounds of something breaking, shattering echoed.
A scream as if being torn apart and a roar loud enough to shake the floor resonated throughout the mansion.

In my room, I trembled at these sounds, and only after the mansion quieted down with time did I leave my room.
The corridor filled with a chilling cold was terrifying, but the suffocating silence was even more frightening.

The place I arrived at after walking down the long and lengthy corridor was the dining room, the source of the loud noises.
As I cautiously opened the door to the dining room, a familiar smell brushed past my nose.

The smell of blood that I experienced every time I swung the sword and my hand got torn.
That smell was coming from the dining room.

Startled, I opened the door and entered, and I saw my mother crying, covering a long wound on her face with one hand.

“Mo, mother…”

At my call, my mother turned to look at me.
But the moment I made eye contact with my mother, I felt as if my breath was choked off.

What was reflected in my mother’s eyes was neither kindness nor warmth.
It was just a cold anger, like a bottomless abyss.

“If only… if only you hadn’t been born…”

After saying that, my mother bit her lip and left the dining room.
As she brushed past me, the lukewarm liquid that grazed my cheek, was it my mother’s blood, or was it my tears?

I collapsed right there.
I heard something creaking.

My parents are fighting because of me.
A person who was once happy now suffers because of me.
My mother, who I love the most in the world, is sad just because I exist.
My existence itself is a nuisance, causing hardship for the person I wish to see happy.
An endless sense of guilt overwhelmed me.

‘I do not belong in this mansion.’

I should disappear.

With that thought naturally occurring to me, I ran out of the mansion as if fleeing.
If I disappear, my parents will be happy again. Yes, with that thought, I ran out of the mansion.

After that, I hid in the cargo compartment of a carriage to escape the mansion and arrived at a distant neighboring village.

‘Here, my father and mother won’t be able to find me.’

I tried hard to sleep with a smile, wandering from inn to inn.

[Hey, where are your parents? Do you have money?]
[Tsk, what. I accepted you because your clothes looked expensive, but you’re just a penniless kid. Get lost quickly!]
[We don’t accept children.]

But there was nowhere that would let a child without money sleep.
In the end, after being repeatedly turned away, I had no choice but to hide in an alley as the night deepened.

It was cold.

It was so cold that I thought I might freeze to death.
I missed the mansion.

I ran away from the mansion because I didn’t want to be a nuisance, because I wanted my mother to be happy, but in just one day, my resolution crumbled.
Just the cold alone made me feel small.

But as with all things, there is an end, and after a very cold night, morning came.

The morning sun shines even in this cold and dark alley.
I found myself surprisingly happy about such a trivial thing and laughed heartily.

By now, have my mother and father reconciled?

As I was thinking about this and trying to leave the alley,
men with scars all over their bodies surrounded me.

“Hey, those clothes look pretty expensive, huh?”

“Hehehe, how did you find this one?”

“He was wandering around the inns since last night. He obviously looked like a rich kid, so I just watched him… and here he is, sleeping.”

Fear silenced me.
It wasn’t disappointment, anger, annoyance, or regret.
Unknowingly, my body trembled in the face of pure malice.

“Hahaha! Hey, kid! You’re scared, aren’t you!!”

“Maybe he’s disgusted by your face that got messed up when you fell off the horse!”

“What!? This bastard is bringing up old stuff!!”

The two who were talking started to banter, raising their voices.
Instinctively realizing that this was my only chance to escape, I turned to run away.

But I had made a mistake. There weren’t just two of them there, but three.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“Ah!”

“Hey, don’t struggle. If you break something, we won’t get our full price.”

They dragged me away.
I was scared. I was just endlessly scared.

The place we arrived at was a cage full of kids about my size.
The kids, rather than feeling curious about me, felt fear looking at the man behind me, and I felt the same.

“Stay quiet, kids. You know what happens if you make a noise…. right?”

With a loud bang, the man left as the iron door closed roughly, and the cold darkness descended as the torch he was holding disappeared.
It was cold and scary.

I squeezed in between the kids, sharing body heat.
It was a little warmer.

But that didn’t last long.

Or maybe it lasted quite a long time.
In the darkness where not a speck of light entered, time had no meaning.

Whooosh—

The flame of the torch flickered roughly, pushing back the darkness.
Even though I knew whose light it was, the light that appeared from the darkness gave me a sense of relief and warmth.

Soon, a man as hideous as the one with the scar on his face appeared.
The man, who was looking around the inside of the iron bars, locked eyes with me.

“Let’s go with that one.”

“Hey, you there. Come out.”

I’m not the one they’re calling. I tried to think that way and hide among the other kids, but…

Thud!

“Ugh!”

The kids harshly pushed me out as I tried to squeeze in between them.
As if removing a foreign substance, they emotionlessly cast me out.

As I was blankly staring at the group of kids, the man who entered the cage roughly dragged me out.
I heard something drop.

For a while, I was dragged around in a daze, then forcefully pulled up onto a stage in front of countless people.
Their eyes were burning with greed, and the heat from the stage below, filled with madness, was so intense it seemed as though it could set the stage ablaze.

“200,000 gold!!”

“Huh! What are you going to do with just 200,000 gold!! 400,000 gold!!”

“1 million gold!!”

“A bid of 1 million has been placed! That’s the price of an entire mansion!! Any more!!”

“Hey!! 2 million!!”

“2 million!! A whopping 2 million!! ――!! ……!!”

And so, I was sold to a man whose name I didn’t know for 2 million gold.
Ridiculously, there was a part of me that was happy about the fact that I was worth that much.

I felt something distorting.