There was a story my father had told me since I was little.

“Arhan, our Caravan family may live in this tiny backwater domain now, but it wasn't always so.”

Father always looked happy when he told that story. Though he was middle-aged, his eyes shone as brightly as a young man's, and his voice brimmed with a child's excitement.

“Two hundred years ago, the Caravan family was a great house that protected this kingdom. Righteous watchers, favored above all others by the king and looked up to by everyone.”

Whenever he said this, Father would show me the large portrait hanging in our manor. It depicted an old man whose hair had turned snow-white, yet whose eyes still flashed keenly—a man with the imposing dignity of a lion. Beside the portrait hung a magnificent sword.

“In those days, they say the Caravan family produced swordmasters generation after generation. That was why everyone feared our family and respected us at the same time. The Caravans were invincible guardians who defended the kingdom against any enemy that came, and righteous watchers who struck down the wicked.”

“...”

“Of course, it's all ancient history now. It's already been more than a hundred years since the Caravan family last produced a swordmaster...”

Father gazed wistfully at the sword hanging beside the portrait.

The treasure of the Caravan family. A sword said to have belonged to Liam Caravan, our family's founder and greatest head, known as the strongest swordmaster in history.

Judging by what Father had told me, the sword had been forged at least five hundred years ago, yet it remained far too sharp. Its gleaming edge looked as though it could cut through anything even now.

Looking at it, I felt suspicion rather than admiration that it could remain so sharp after centuries. How could it have stayed keen all that time without rusting? Common sense said that something made of iron couldn't possibly do that.

My doubts led me to a conclusion.

Every story Father had told me was a fabrication. It was common among fallen noble families like ours: a way to foster pride in their house and preserve their aristocratic dignity. They invented events that had never happened, constructing a false past to declare that, fallen though they were, they remained nobles—people of noble birth.

It was much like the way figures from ancient history were portrayed as absurdly great beings, or even deified. Yet for some reason, Father firmly believed that preposterous past of the “Caravan family.”

“You will inherit this house, so you must remember those glorious days. Always take pride in being a Caravan, and remember that the blood of steel runs through your veins. Then, someday, you may reclaim our glory. Yes, someday...”

His words were filled with pride.

I couldn't tell him the truth when he spoke that way.

A blade hundreds of years old couldn't remain sharp and free of rust.

The old man in that portrait didn't look the slightest bit like Father.

Our family's treasure was a fake, and the portrait was surely the work of some unknown painter who had vaguely imagined a great swordsman and painted whatever he pleased. Besides, no matter how thoroughly I searched the history books, the Caravan name never appeared, nor could I find any record of a swordmaster named “Liam”...

None of those objections made it past my lips.

Instead, I gave him a gentle smile and said,

“Yes, I will.”

The reason was simple.

Father looked so happy, taken in by lies our ancestors must have invented. His eyes sparkled almost dazzlingly as he smiled, looking more boyish than I did.

I didn't want to take that happiness away.

Occasionally talking about the Caravan family's glorious age was Father's only pleasure. It was obvious that every word was made up, but what did that matter?

If it made Father happy, it didn't matter in the slightest whether our family's history was true or an outright lie.

Father called it a tiny backwater, but I loved this village. I wouldn't trade the simple days I spent here and the happiness they brought me for anything.

I loved Father, who told the Caravan family's stories with an innocent delight in tales of the past. I loved Mother, who was always kind, our affectionate nurse, who wasn't much of a cook, and our butler, who moved slowly but never made mistakes.

Sometimes the same daily routine grew tedious, but I was happy nonetheless.

I hoped to live a leisurely, simple life: meet a suitable woman in this domain, start a family, someday inherit the position of family head, and grow old happily. I wanted these days to last forever.

But life never quite goes the way we wish.

The year I turned fifteen, everything changed.

A swordmaster visited our domain.

* * *

“This domain must be erased.”

The swordmaster who had come to our backwater domain, a place without a single attraction or local specialty, said something strange.

This domain had to be erased. The villagers were bewildered by those incomprehensible words, but no matter how many questions they asked, the swordmaster gave no answers. He merely repeated the same thing.

After responding that way about three times, he said,

“I merely do as I'm told.”

With those words, the swordmaster ceased to be a human being and became a calamity.

Death made flesh, against which ordinary villagers could offer no resistance.

Just as the typhoons and floods of my childhood had swept through the fields, the swordmaster swept through the villagers. From the hilltop, I saw clearly what he was doing.

It was no different from harvesting crops in autumn.

As though reaping grain with a sickle, every swing of his sword killed villagers who had each lived their own lives as best they could. Heads fell one after another and rolled across the ground, and red blood stained the village. No one could stop it.

“Arhan, we have to run!”

The swordmaster advanced from the village entrance toward our manor.

His steps were unhurried, as though he were taking a stroll. Wherever he passed, no human being remained alive.

Mother seized my hand and pulled me back.

But however desperately we fled, there was no way to escape the swordmaster's pursuit. Without running, merely walking with lofty composure, he eventually found us as we fled.

He said,

“I will return in a month. Take everyone here away before then. If you want to live.”

More than half the villagers died that day.

Fortunately, my family survived.

But our daily lives could never be the same. Never.

After that day, Father went mad.

* * *

Mother, Father, and the surviving villagers each offered their own explanation for how that horror had come about. Some called it a consequence of the ongoing war between the kingdom and the empire. Others said the new king, who had recently inherited the throne and been crowned, was doing something mad. Still others said the swordmasters were using force to cement their authority.

To my ears, none of those things could explain why my daily life had been destroyed.

Could such paltry reasons justify something so horrific?

But Father's anger was far fiercer than mine.

Father had been fairly stout, but after that day he grew so thin that his bones showed. With him utterly broken, reduced to a shell of himself, a dreadfully uncomfortable silence settled over our once-happy manor.

After finding a book in the study, Father read it endlessly.

Whenever he finished, he would close it, then open it to the first page and begin again.

He skipped meals, never left the house, and spent every part of his day reading that book.

How long did that go on?

Father went mad.

As though his mind had emptied out, he abandoned all sanity and began saying the most bizarre things.

“I shall act myself and set right this wayward world, so full of sin! I am a great knight who has inherited the blood of Caravan. I shall pass judgment upon you!”

Father no longer read the book.

I could see its title where it lay on the table.

「The Knight of La Mancha」

A chivalric novel said to have been written by some unknown novelist. After reading its absurd tale, Father had come to identify himself with its protagonist. A madman unable to distinguish fiction from reality.

“I am the great knight who slew an evil dragon, the iron-blooded guardian who protects the kingdom! I cannot stand by in the face of injustice. I shall pass judgment upon the sinful swordmaster who will soon return. I am a righteous watcher who carries the blood of Caravan!”

Father put on an old helmet of the sort apprentice knights wore and called it a golden helm bestowed by the king. He declared his rusty armor to be mithril armor granted by the god of battle, and proudly held up an old wooden sword, its edges battered beyond recognition, proclaiming it the sword that had cut through a dragon's scales.

“I will not retreat! I shall judge my unrighteous enemy myself!”

As Father shouted, his eyes blazed as though they could swallow the sun. For a fleeting moment, he looked like an invincible knight from a story. Even when the villagers urged him vehemently to reconsider, he refused to leave the domain.

Then, late one night, Mother said,

“Arhan, at least you must escape. Go far away from here and stay alive. Go anywhere.”

“Come with me, Mother.”

“I can't.”

Never in my life had I seen Mother's eyes look so sad.

“I, at least, must stay by your father's side. I can't let him die alone. But I can't bear to see you die too. So... so leave.”

Mother squeezed my hand so tightly it felt as though she might crush it, and said,

“Before you go, promise me just this.”

“...”

“Whatever happens, don't even dream of revenge. Promise me you will never do that.”

“...”

“Swear you will never take up a sword for as long as you live, and that you will never return here.”

Mother's voice sounded chilling.

“You must keep that promise. Everything your father told you was a lie. The blood of steel, the blood of a great hero running through your veins—it was all made up. You're an ordinary person. Your father and you are both ordinary people...”

I answered Mother's sobbing voice.

“Yes. I swear.”

My answer reassured her.

Late that night, I left the village in a carriage.

One day before the date the swordmaster had declared he would return.

* * *

After reaching a nearby small city by carriage, I immediately used my savings to buy a crossbow and bolts. I also bought a great many other weapons capable of killing a person, along with ground pepper used in cooking and poisons favored by hunters. I had never intended to abandon my family and flee.

I meant to obtain what I couldn't find in our village, return, and face him together with them.

Whatever grand title of swordmaster he bore, he was still only human.

I didn't want to run away alone.

Once I had enough supplies, I immediately caught a ride on a carriage heading toward the village. I got off in a nearby forest and ran with all my strength. The sun was brightening the sky, heralding the end of dawn.

When I reached the domain, all that remained were pools of red blood and villagers who had died horrible deaths.

And atop our manor, which stood at the highest point in the domain, flew the flag bearing the wolf emblem of the Caravan family. Father's head was impaled on that flag.

Father had died with his eyes wide open. In the manor courtyard lay Mother, dead but peaceful, as though asleep. Father's helmet, armor, and sword lay scattered, shattered like sheets of paper.

I saw the swordmaster standing blankly among the corpses.

The instant I saw the bastard, I fired my crossbow at him.

The swordmaster made no attempt to dodge or knock the bolt aside.

It bounced off him harmlessly, failing to leave even a scratch on his body.

At that, the swordmaster turned his eyes toward me.

The moment our gazes met, my body froze like ice.

With a face as devoid of emotion as a doll's, he said,

“You aren't over eighteen yet. Fortunately for you.”

“...”

“I will spare you. So forget what happened today and live your life. Somewhere like this village.”

The swordmaster murmured dispassionately as he wiped the blood from his sword.

I didn't know whose blood stained that blade.

“Blame your family. I never imagined that 「Caravan」 still lived on this continent.”

“...”

“Hide your surname. And do not have children.”

The swordmaster regarded me coldly and said,

“If you carry on the Caravan bloodline, I will come for you again, wherever you are.”

It was a warning.

Ridiculously, I couldn't take even a semblance of revenge on the swordmaster who had destroyed everything I had. A mere meeting of our eyes had frozen me, and I couldn't move even as the bastard calmly walked away.

Pathetic. So utterly pathetic.

That was how I lost everything.

* * *

After holding the funerals, I passed the time doing nothing.

Truly nothing.

Then I heard news of the swordmaster who had taken everything from me.

His name was Carlos, and they said he had become a great hero through his extraordinary achievements in the war against the empire. Unlike the absurd swordmasters of the Caravan family Father had talked about every day, that bastard was the genuine article.

A once-in-a-century genius, the strongest swordmaster ever known in history, the guardian who would protect the kingdom, a righteous watcher...

The figure from the stories Father had told with his eyes shining like a boy's existed in reality.

Ironically, that great swordmaster had taken Father and everything else I held dear. I crawled into a bedroom in the cold, empty manor, in the village where everyone had died.

Whenever I thought of him, something boiled up inside my chest.

Why was the bastard who had destroyed everything I had revered as a hero? If the gods worshipped by the kingdom's countless religions truly existed, why hadn't divine punishment struck him down? Why, instead of being punished, did the number of people praising him keep multiplying?

I couldn't make any sense of it.

Carlos grew greater as time passed. By now, there was no one in the world who didn't know Swordmaster Carlos. He was the swordmaster among swordmasters, and his remarkable achievements had made him the greatest swordsman on the continent.

“Young master, you must forget. Only then can you live. Only then...”

The butler, who had fled and later returned, told me to think of it as being caught in a natural disaster.

But I couldn't. How could I?

I had seen exactly what happened with my own eyes. The memories still flickered before me.

My hatred and desire for revenge deepened with time.

Again and again, I thought of killing him. I couldn't bear it any longer.

But in reality, it was impossible.

There was one reason.

“Only a swordmaster can kill a swordmaster, young master.”

Never mind being a swordmaster—I had never even properly held a sword in my life.

Besides, I had no talent. I scraped together what little money I had, bought a swordsmanship manual, and tried training on my own. But I had no natural aptitude for swinging a sword, or even for moving my body.

It was ironic.

Swordmaster Carlos had named my family, 「Caravan」, as his reason for killing my loved ones. What truth lay hidden behind that tragedy? Why had I been forced to suffer it?

Were the stories about our family, 「Caravan」, that Father had repeated until I was sick of them not inventions, but things that had actually happened? If so, why couldn't I find a single line about us in the history books?

If it was true, why had the swordmaster only now come to kill us?

And if our past had truly been glorious, erasing Caravan from history should have been enough. Why had he hunted down even the last of us and tried to kill us all?

Why us, when we had become so insignificant?

“Ah.”

There was so much I didn't understand.

Most incomprehensible of all was my abysmal talent.

If I was descended from such a great family, why was I so worthless? Why had I trembled before the swordmaster who had taken everything from me? Why was I...

As those painful days passed, I wondered.

Was it really right to live out an insignificant life and die of old age, just as he had told me to?

Perhaps that was the wisest course.

But it wasn't a choice I could make.

The very fact that I was breathing in the same world as him was unbearable. How could that devil of a man still be living amid praise? Why was this world so wrong? However much I thought about it, I couldn't understand.

There was far too much I couldn't accept.

And so the conclusion I reached was clear.

I decided to break the last promise and oath I had made to Mother.

I decided to become a swordmaster.

From the moment I made that decision, I began hearing a strange voice.

Whenever I looked at the large portrait hanging in the middle of the ruined manor's sitting room, a voice echoed inside my head.

No—to be precise, it came from the long, sharp sword hanging beside the portrait.

From the treasure of our Caravan family, which had not lost its edge despite being hundreds of years old.

「Eat me.」