Chapter 1: A Home Adrift
1. A Home Adrift
Everyone needs a home.
For some, home is another person. For others, it is a song, or the fleeting moment they watched starlight pass overhead.
Whatever comes to mind just before you die—
That is your home.
For me, that home was my disciples.
I wanted to protect them, raise them well, and one day close my eyes beside them.
I just never imagined I’d die at forty.
“Cough…! Hack…“
The ground was littered with corpses and drenched in blood.
There had to be over a hundred bodies before my eyes—humans and magical beasts alike. Blood flowed from the dead, staining the earth black.
As the invaders rampaged through the city, everything had descended into chaos. The other masters had already fallen while fighting them.
Amid the endless screams, I stood with my sword in hand.
My entire body felt as though it were falling apart, but I couldn’t retreat.
Buildings had collapsed all around me.
Only the one behind me still stood.
My disciples were inside.
My children.
They were still so young.
The youngest was only five.
The oldest was eighteen, old enough to be considered an adult, but to me they were all still children.
Even in this living hell, they fought with everything they had.
They screamed as they threw themselves at the enemy.
My first disciple, who had only recently come of age, continued casting spells even as blood poured from his mouth.
His body was covered in wounds.
Twelve-year-old Cesare knelt beside a fallen master, desperately trying to stop the bleeding while crying.
He had always been the gentlest and most timid of my disciples.
He must have wanted to run.
He must have wanted to hide.
But he didn’t.
None of them did.
Just as their masters stood their ground, my disciples fought desperately to protect our home.
With their tiny bodies, they endured this storm together.
GROOOOAR!
A gigantic dragon stood before me.
Every breath it exhaled released thick, acrid smoke.
Then flames erupted from its jaws.
Its fiery breath surged toward me like a tidal wave of fire.
The world turned brilliant.
The heat became unbearable.
Its flames possessed enough power to incinerate an entire village in an instant.
Dodging would have been easy.
But my disciples were behind me.
As their master, I could never show them my back as I fled.
The only back I could ever show them…
…was the one standing in front of them, shielding them.
SHHHHK!
I poured every last drop of my mana into my sword.
My body screamed in agony.
Blood burst from my mouth.
The storm released by my blade split the sea of flames in two.
The instant the inferno scattered into countless sparks—
I leapt straight onto the dragon’s head.
Again.
And again.
I brought my sword down.
My blood and the dragon’s blood sprayed across the battlefield.
Not a single hair on my disciples’ heads would be harmed.
BOOM!
The mutilated dragon collapsed.
But it wasn’t over.
A groan echoed from ahead.
“So… Valanus truly is different.”
A man stood only a short distance away.
The one who had led countless humans and magical beasts here.
He was a formidable enemy.
One of my comrades had sacrificed his life just to sever one of his arms.
Though blood poured from every inch of his body, the invader refused to stop fighting.
My condition wasn’t much better.
Warm blood flowed endlessly from the wound in my side.
I raised my sword and faced him.
At the cost of many lives, victory had finally begun to tilt in our favor.
His followers had died by the dozens.
Yet he showed neither rage nor despair.
“I should have come sooner…”
he murmured.
Half regret.
Half satisfaction.
It was an expression I couldn’t understand.
There was no time for questions.
No time to ask who he was or why he had done this.
Not for him.
Not for me.
The wind blew.
The man charged.
Behind me stood our home.
Our lives.
Our disciples.
I would never allow anyone to invade this place.
SLASH!
The wind howled.
My sword swept across his neck.
A crimson mist exploded into the air.
Through it, I heard his final words.
“Still… I’ve managed to break the tree’s trunk. Someday… even its roots… and new sprouts…”
His body crashed heavily to the ground.
I had barely managed to cut off his head.
But until his very last breath…
…he had swung his blade as well.
GUSH!
Scalding blood poured from the long gash running across my chest and abdomen.
If I moved even a little, my intestines would spill out.
My legs finally gave way, and I collapsed.
At least…
There were no enemies left.
Instead of fear of death, relief came first.
As silence gradually settled over the battlefield…
I could hear the children’s voices clearly.
“Master!”
“Master Dain!”
“Quick! Get a healer!”
My disciples rushed toward me.
They all had such young faces.
They were all crying.
Thank goodness…
They were alive.
If even one of them had died…
I never would have forgiven myself.
I wanted to speak.
To call each of them by name.
But my body no longer obeyed me.
Ah…
I wanted to say every one of your names.
Instead, I could only smile faintly.
How could I possibly leave these children behind?
Forcing the words from my failing body, I spoke.
“One day… I’ll return home.”
Yes.
Someday.
If there was another life waiting for me…
I wanted to return here again.
To our home.
The wind fell silent.
The air smelled of dust.
Of darkness.
Of countless years gone by.
That strange scent woke me.
At least, I thought I had opened my eyes.
But there was only darkness.
I closed them and opened them again.
Nothing changed.
…What is going on?
This made no sense.
Hadn’t I just died fighting the invaders?
I reached for the back of my neck.
The Necklace of Valanus still hung there.
Could it be…
Had I somehow survived?
Had someone healed me?
As questions flooded my mind, I realized I was trapped inside something long and narrow.
Like a box.
Strange.
If I had been treated, why would I be here?
Even stranger…
I couldn’t feel the vitality in my body.
My mana was only a tiny fraction of what it once had been.
Still…
At least my injuries seemed to be gone.
No matter how confusing this situation was, I couldn’t simply lie here forever.
I pushed upward.
The lid opened surprisingly easily.
Yet darkness still surrounded me.
Feeling my way forward, I eventually found a staircase.
I climbed it.
When I pushed open the door—
Moonlight poured over me.
I turned around.
And froze.
It was an underground cemetery.
I’d been here several times before.
The lid of the coffin I’d climbed out of lay open behind me.
…Had I actually died…
…and come back to life?
I touched my abdomen.
The fatal wound was gone.
First, I needed to find my disciples.
I hurried out of the crypt.
The night sky was perfectly clear, as though no tragedy had ever occurred.
My steps quickened.
I’d only been separated from them briefly…
Yet I already missed their faces.
What happened after I died?
Were they safe?
Lost in those thoughts, I hurried toward the city.
I walked along the main road and entered the familiar alleyways.
Something felt… different.
The atmosphere had changed.
A residential district that should have been quiet was instead filled with drunkards.
Even though it was night, the streets buzzed with noise.
There were shops I had never seen before.
Filthy smells drifted through the air.
Then…
At the end of the street…
I saw our home.
As I approached, loud voices spilled from inside.
They weren’t my disciples.
They were drunken curses.
Shouting.
Confusion filled me.
Then I noticed a dried flower wreath hanging from the entrance.
My blood ran cold.
That symbol…
It meant the building had become a brothel and tavern.
What…
What happened here?
With trembling hands, I opened the door.
Our home.
The place I had never once allowed anyone to violate.
But the moment I stepped inside—
I saw the first floor packed with tables and drunken customers.
The beautiful home my second disciple had decorated with such care…
Was gone.
In its place was a drunk vomiting onto the floor while an employee cursed at him.
I staggered across the room.
Where are the children?
Just as panic reached my throat, an employee walked over.
He looked me up and down before smirking.
“Coming to a place like this already? First time?”
Ignoring him, I climbed to the second floor.
The moment I reached it, thick smoke filled my lungs.
The sight was even more depraved than downstairs.
People tangled together everywhere.
The smell of alcohol mixed with smoke from cigarettes—or whatever they were smoking.
As I stood frozen in anger and disbelief…
My eyes suddenly fell upon a mirror hanging on the wall.
I saw myself.
But it wasn’t me.
The reflection should have been that of a forty-year-old man.
Instead…
It was a young man who had only just left adolescence behind.
Why…
Why am I young again?
I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
The employee followed me upstairs, folded his arms, and sneered.
“So? Looking for a particular girl?”
“This is Valanus’s residence.”
He stared blankly at me.
As though he’d never even heard the name Valanus.
Impossible.
Everyone in this city knew us.
“Valanus? I don’t know what kind of mistake you’ve made, but if you’re not here to drink, then—”
BANG!
The moment he grabbed my shoulder—
I slammed him headfirst into a table.
Every customer instantly turned to look at me.
So did the employees.
Men who appeared to be guards drew the swords hanging at their waists.
“Who the hell are you?!”
I didn’t answer.
They charged with angry shouts.
I dodged the sword falling toward my head and struck one man square in the throat.
“Ghk!”
He collapsed instantly.
Twisting my body, I drove a kick into another man’s solar plexus.
They looked tough.
But none of them had any balance behind their attacks.
Against opponents like these…
Bare hands were more than enough.
Screams echoed through the building.
Customers fled in panic.
More guards rushed out from deeper inside.
Three of them.
Just by looking, they were complete amateurs.
“Get that bastard!”
Blades flashed beneath the lights.
Yet not a single one truly shone.
As I brushed aside their dull swords and counterattacked, screams rang out from every direction.
Before long…
Six men were crawling across the floor.
With all the customers gone, the building had fallen silent.
Looking around, I realized that the home I remembered had been reduced to nothing more than its skeleton.
Shock.
Emptiness.
Both washed over me.
But this wasn’t the time for that.
I headed toward the office.
The door was tightly shut.
CRASH!
I kicked it open.
Inside stood a man who looked to be in his fifties.
Pressed tightly against the wall, he trembled in fear.
“W-Who are you? Is this about money? Or…”
“Tell me what happened here.”
“This building belonged to Valanus.”
The man’s face twisted in confusion.
“Valanus?” he stammered.
“Valanus was here fifteen years ago.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
