Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I slowly forced my eyelids open. Through my hazy vision, an unfamiliar ceiling came into view. At the same time, fragments of memories flashed before my eyes.

–I’m sorry, Van. I’m really sorry...

–There’s no need to apologize, Bestia. This, too, is the will of the Goddess. We’re only doing what is right.

My chest tightened.

This was no dream.

Even now, their voices still echoed clearly in my ears—so vivid it felt like it had happened just yesterday.

“Why… why did you do something like that, Bestia...?”

My voice trembled as I failed to control my emotions. A thick surge of murderous intent boiled deep within my chest, impossible to conceal.

I couldn’t understand it. Why the Hero and Bestia had done such a thing. No matter how many times I thought about it—again and again—I simply couldn’t comprehend it.

…Why would they commit such an act, even if it meant betraying the comrades who had shared life and death with them?

Why did those of us who had risked our lives for the world have to suffer like this?

Was that truly the Goddess’s will?

To discard those who had devoted themselves like dogs for humanity—as if we were useless toys—was that truly the will of the Goddess? Was that what the Goddess desired?

Bestia.

You, whom I had thought of as family—how could you do this to me?

…Was I never family to you?

Was it all just my own foolish delusion that we were like family?

I struggled desperately to maintain my composure, yet the feelings of betrayal and hatred that swelled within me slowly began to eat away at my sanity.

While my mind was being torn apart by countless doubts, a stranger’s voice reached my ears.

“You have finally awakened, Young Master.”

A cold-looking beauty stood before me, her lustrous silver hair glinting and her blue eyes so deep they seemed to draw me in.

Her tone was formal to the point of being icy, yet it didn’t feel unpleasant. If anything, there was something strangely familiar, almost nostalgic about it.

But setting that aside, I couldn’t make sense of the situation itself. I was certain I had never seen her before, yet she acted as if she knew me.

And she had just called me “Young Master.”

Nothing about this made any sense.

Frustrated, I tried to sit up—

“……”

Something was wrong.

My brain issued the command, but my body refused to obey. My legs wouldn’t move at all.

To be more precise, it felt as if my body below the navel simply didn’t exist. As though the lower half of me had been severed—

As if it had never existed in the first place.

‘What’s going on? I can’t feel anything below my waist.’

I slowly lowered my hands, tracing down toward my lower body.

Fortunately, it hadn’t been physically cut off—but it might as well have been. There was no difference.

No matter how much I rubbed my legs with my hands, I couldn’t feel a single sensation.

‘No matter how hard I try, my legs won’t move. Why?’

Humans are born moving their arms and legs. No one teaches them how to do it.

Breathing, moving the body, looking at something—

Those are all things we’ve known how to do from the very beginning.

But now, I no longer knew how to perform that simple, natural act—like breathing.

The sensation of putting strength into my legs?

What was that again?

My toes? My ankles? My thighs?

…I didn’t know.

The moment I acknowledged that, the lower half of my body felt chillingly foreign to me.

The woman who had been watching me quietly stepped closer, as though she was used to this sight.

“Do you wish to go for a walk?”

“……”

Whether she took my silence as consent or not, she lifted me and seated me in the wheelchair placed beside the bed.

What astonished me was that she did it with only one hand. How could such explosive strength come from that slender body?

But she wasn’t showing off. She simply had only one arm to use.

Her left eye was covered by an eyepatch.

I had seen many people like her in my previous life, so it wasn’t particularly surprising. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a faint curiosity about how such a beautiful woman had ended up that way.

She positioned the wheelchair before a large full-length mirror, then tidied my hair.

“Are you all right?”

Instead of replying, I nodded and looked into the mirror.

Reflected there was a beautiful young man I had never seen before.

Hair white as eternal snow, eyes red like jewels forged from blood, skin pale and colorless, and a body so thin it resembled a withered branch with no trace of muscle.

A face so androgynous that one could not easily tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.

That wasn’t me.

“Where… is this? Am I dreaming right now?”

Perhaps I was. Or maybe this was the afterlife.

After all, I had died—

At the hands of the Hero, Malero Saladin, and my closest friend, Bestia.

If so, what I was seeing now must have been an illusion my mind had conjured on its own.

“This is not a dream, Young Master.”

“Who are you to keep saying that…?”

At that moment, memories I had long forgotten began to resurface one by one.

–I’m truly sorry. I did everything I could, but… I couldn’t heal the Young Master’s legs. It will likely be impossible for him to ever walk again.

–Cecil… I won’t be able to walk anymore? No, right? You’re lying, aren’t you? Huh? Say something, Cecil! Am I really… going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair…?

–It’s all right. It’s all right, Young Master. I will be by your side for life.

–What a pity, my youngest. Why couldn’t you have been more careful?

–Useless brat. If you can’t even walk, when you weren’t good at anything else to begin with, then why are you even alive?

–Kill me… Cecil…

–Please don’t say such things, Young Master.

–Please, Cecil… I beg you… just kill me…

The Winterbell Ducal Family—

the strongest martial household in the northern part of the Empire.

Its youngest son, Ran Winterbell.

A pitiful young noble who had become half-crippled due to an accident.

An exile of the separate palace, cursed by his own bloodline.

──That was who I was.

And at the same time, I was also ‘Van Descartes.’

As proof, a small cross-shaped mark still remained engraved in my left eye.

It was the brand of a contract once made with the God of Play, a mark carved directly into my very soul.

‘So that unpleasant god’s words back then… were they referring to this?’

As I recalled one memory, everything else began to flow naturally, like water finding its path.

At last, the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Reincarnation.

Until now, I had lived as Ran Winterbell, the frail youngest son of House Winterbell, completely unaware of my past life’s memories.

I had fallen victim to the schemes of my worthless brothers, become half-crippled, spent my days wallowing in despair, and ultimately attempted to end my own life.

Though I survived, the shock must have triggered the return of my memories from my previous life.

However, perhaps due to the aftereffects, certain parts of my memory remained blank.

“Is something wrong, Young Master?”

“Cecil. What year is it right now?”

“That’s a strange question. It is the Imperial Year 322, but… Young Master, could it be that you…?”

Exactly one hundred years had passed since the moment of my death.

“Hm?”

“…It’s nothing.”

‘She looked like she was about to say something just now…’

More than that, I could hardly believe it—

A hundred years had passed.

‘Ha… Reincarnation, huh…’

Just remembering that moment made my blood boil in reverse.

“Cecil, do you know about the Hero?”

I tried my best to hide my trembling voice, but I couldn’t stop it entirely.

“Of course. From children to the elderly, there’s not a soul in this Empire who doesn’t know of the Hero, Sir Malero Saladin, who saved the world.”

“…Then what about his companions?”

Cecil looked at me with a puzzled expression.

“When one speaks of the Hero’s companions, the most famous would naturally be Lady Bestia, the legendary magician who was granted the title of ‘Azure.’”

‘Bestia…’

I bit my lip slightly and asked carefully,

“Are there… no others? Like Van Descartes, for instance…”

“I’m not sure why you’re asking such a question all of a sudden, Young Master, but let me warn you—please never mention that name to anyone else besides me.”

“Why?”

“Because even speaking his name is forbidden.”

“Forbidden to even mention his name…? What in the world did he do?”

Her tone was cold, but her explanation remained calm and composed.

“Van Descartes. A traitor who colluded with the Demon Race, humanity’s sworn enemy, and slaughtered his own comrades without mercy. The worst, most heinous murderer in all of recorded history. No one knows his exact motive, but before the situation could worsen, Sir Hero and Lady Bestia joined forces to stop him. It’s said that we were truly fortunate they did.”

“…Ha.”

“Young Master?”

“Hahahaha!”

…Colluding with demons? Murdering my comrades?

Me?

‘Those bastards should be grateful I don’t rip them apart myself.’

It was so absurd that laughter escaped me—but the ridiculousness of it all froze my lips before they could curl any further.

“Young Master, your lips… they’re bleeding.”

Unconsciously, I had bitten down hard enough for blood to spill. Cecil took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the corner of my mouth.

“…You seem rather different today. Did you perhaps have a nightmare last night?”

A nightmare.

Right.

I had.

A very, very cruel nightmare—

one I would never be able to forget.

“Yeah. I did… a truly terrible nightmare.”

Splash—

My body sank.

Slowly, deeper and deeper, into the abyss called hatred.

Reality is often far more merciless than ideals. Unlike the characters in fairy tales who live happily ever after, such perfect endings exist only in fiction.

That’s why they’re called fairy tales.

Warm, comforting stories made to protect a child’s innocent heart.

“Let’s get some fresh air, shall we? I’ll take you.”

But reality was far more hypocritical—and tragic.

As we left the stifling separate palace, a wide garden unfolded before us. Judging by how neatly it was kept, someone must have tended to it regularly. The heavy, almost suffocating floral scent felt like a warning directed at me.

A cold gust of wind swept past, cutting through my chest.

Goosebumps rose along my arms, and a chill ran down my spine.

But my mind cleared.

I lifted my head and looked toward the sky.

Even counting my previous life, I could hardly recall seeing a sky so vividly clear. Quietly, barely audible to Cecil, I whispered to myself.

“…You’ve suffered a lot too, haven’t you?”

Those words were not Ran Winterbell’s to Van Descartes, but Van Descartes’ to Ran Winterbell.

‘Yeah. If you’ve been wronged, you pay it back.’

There was a saying I had always cherished:

Repay kindness twice over, and vengeance tenfold.

“The wind’s colder than I expected. Shall I fetch something to cover you?”

“No, it’s perfect. Thanks to it, my head feels clear.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Cecil.”

“Yes?”

“I need power.”

“Power, Young Master?”

Yes.

The power for revenge.

The power to rewrite this distorted history.

The power to uncover the truth of that day.

And as fate would have it, I had been reborn as the youngest son of the northern conquerors, the Winterbell family—one of the continent’s mightiest martial lineages.

Though now I was but a frail, half-crippled noble confined to a separate palace, that was merely an outward shell.

Things were different now.

“Yes. I need the kind of overwhelming power that will let me walk my own path proudly, no matter what stands in my way.”

“Then you must become the head of the family.”

“The head? If I were to become the lord of House Winterbell, could I gain the kind of strength I desire?”

“Of course. Should you become the true ruler of the North, even the Emperor of the Empire would have reason to fear you. That is the weight of the crown.”

She, better than anyone, must have understood what it meant to become the head of the most powerful martial house on the continent.

And if such words came from the mouth of a half-crippled young noble, exiled to a remote palace—most people would have reacted the same way.

Most would have sneered, mocked, or burst into derisive laughter at such words.

But she didn’t. Without the slightest hesitation, she answered at once.

“If that is truly the path you wish to walk, Young Master, then I shall serve you. I will always remain by your side.”

“Thank you, Cecil.”

Personal strength was certainly important. But to accomplish what I desired, I needed something far greater.

A power so immense that even the Emperor—the ruler of the Empire—would not dare touch me.

‘Authority.’

In my previous life, I never sought it, nor did I have the chance to attain it.

But this life would be different.

If the fastest way to seize it was to become the Northern Overlord, then I would not hesitate to take that path.

‘It’s been a hundred years now… I don’t know if any of you are still alive. But if you are, I’ll make sure you regret it.’

If they had long since succumbed to time and death…

Then I would decide what to do once I uncovered the full truth.

And if I were to learn that a god had been involved in it all—

Even a god would not be spared.

‘The one bit of fortune is that I still possess the same power I had in my past life.’

Perhaps because my soul remained the same despite the change in body,

I, now in the body of Ran Winterbell, still retained the machina that Van Descartes once commanded.

A colorless aura appeared in my palm, slowly taking shape under my will.

‘The primordial power—Machina.’

In the age of myth, an unnamed god had sacrificed his own soul to create the world.

The power that emerged when his soul was torn into five fragments and diffused across the continent was called Machina.

Unlike magic, which relied on mana as a medium, Machina drew upon the power of the soul itself.

It was, quite literally, a ‘miracle.’

Those who could freely command Machina were called Deus—

an ancient term meaning ‘demi-god.’

A being that was, in essence, half a god.

From the perspective of ordinary humans, those who wielded Machina—the primal power—might as well have been divine.

Those who could manipulate the purest flames, the most pristine ice—

how could they ever be seen as mere mortals?

Each one was a force of nature in their own right.

However, the Machina I possessed was unlike the four known Machina that were widely recognized throughout the world.

There was no record, no trace, no knowledge of it at all.

‘Even I hadn’t known such a Machina existed—until the day I became its master.’

──At that moment,

A voice called out from behind.

“Hey, are you here?”

Stretching lazily, a man scanned the area with a relaxed smile.

It was Legion Materion, second son of Marquis Materion.

He was one of the hangers-on who constantly trailed behind my third brother, Ron Winterbell.

A man so sly, cowardly, and greedy that it was hard to believe he carried the blood of the great knightly line of the Materion Marquisate.

One of the lackeys who used to torment me relentlessly just to curry favor with Ron Winterbell.

“What brings you here, Lord Legion Materion?”

“So here you are, the great youngest son of House Winterbell. How are your legs these days?”

A mockery so obvious it was almost insulting to my intelligence.

“Even if you are a close friend of my third brother, this place is still my residence, Lord Legion. Entering without seeking any form of permission first—don’t you think that’s rather discourteous?”

“Hahaha! Did you just say ‘courteous,’ Lord Ran? Since when do we bother with such niceties between us? You seem unusually touchy today… don’t tell me it’s because of that one-armed maid of yours? Hahaha!”

“Lord Legion.”

“I’m joking, just joking! Don’t look at me like that, you’re scaring me—I might just wet myself.”

I smiled faintly at him.

‘He’s setting the stage for me himself.’

“I challenge you to a duel.”

“Hahaha! Our dear Young Master must be quite angry. I apologize, truly—I may have gone too far with my joke. Please don’t be offended. Besides, how do you intend to duel me in that condition?”

“Do I look like I’m joking, Lord Legion?”

My cold gaze fixed on him, unflinching.

Only then did he realize I wasn’t speaking in jest. The smile faded from his lips as he asked,

“…You’re serious?”

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