Episode 1
Prologue

Jin Runkandel often found himself thinking the same thing.

Am I just hopeless?

He wasn’t always this way. Not when he was a bright young man, not even close to thirty yet. There was a time when he had grand ambitions and shining dreams.

Like the moment he was born the youngest son of the Runkandel family and first gripped a sword in his hand.

Back then, Jin believed his future held nothing but success and honor—just like his father and brothers before him.

But Jin had no talent.

In the Runkandel lineage, every member became a first-rank knight by the age of thirteen. In over a thousand years of family history, no one had ever failed to reach that milestone before their thirteenth birthday.

By sixteen, they were third-rank knights; by twenty, fifth-rank knights roaming the world. That was the Runkandel standard.

Jin, however, didn’t become a first-rank knight until he was twenty-five.

Becoming a first-rank knight at twenty-five was something even a complete dunce with zero talent could achieve—if they put in enough effort.

And Jin’s effort was commendable enough that his brothers only ‘exiled’ him instead of killing him outright.

“But it wasn’t that I lacked talent. It wasn’t that I lacked talent…” he would tell himself.

After leaving the family, Jin made a surprising discovery: his talent wasn’t in swordsmanship at all.

It was magic.

After wandering aimlessly, he happened to become an apprentice to a mage. In just three years, the god of shadows offered him a contract.

A clear path to becoming a great mage of the era had opened. The god of shadows, Solderet, was the most coveted being among mages.

And through Solderet, Jin learned something else.

He had great talent in swordsmanship too.

[“Contractor, it seems you were hated by someone very early on. A trivial curse has been suppressing your power all this time. Perhaps that’s why I was drawn to you.”]

A trivial curse.

Solderet described the curse that had been holding back Jin’s talent in those words. The curse, called the “Blade’s Delusion,” was cast by a ninth-rank mage.

Of course, Jin had no idea he was cursed until he met Solderet.

Solderet easily lifted the light binding curse. The red shackles hidden inside Jin’s body dissolved into the shadows.

[“Now, nothing remains but for you to become an unparalleled magic swordsman, Contractor. Watching you will be a pleasure.”]

And it was true.

The moment Jin gripped his sword again, as Solderet had said, new horizons opened before him. The greatest failure in Runkandel history was no more.

One hand wielded magic.

The other, a sword.

In about ten years, he would be strong enough to no longer care about the family that had abandoned him. All that remained in Jin’s life was to become the strongest magic swordsman ever and rule the world.

“Maybe I really am just hopeless after all.”

Cough!

Jin spat out a mouthful of thick blood. Blood streamed from his nose, eyes, and ears.

He was about to die.

He never got the chance to use the magic he’d trained for three years or the power of Solderet.

Suddenly, three ninth-rank knights attacked the capital of the Akin Kingdom. Jin was caught in the chaos while asleep and suffered fatal wounds.

While asleep… of all things.

One ninth-rank knight could lay waste to a country like Akin in half a day. Three of them attacking the capital meant Jin, just stepping into his destiny as a strong man, had no chance.

He had just finished training and was utterly exhausted, unable to react.

It was a ridiculous death. He was so frustrated he could have gone mad, but all that came out of his blood-filled mouth was a bitter laugh.

Death was imminent, yet no one was by his side.

No mentor who cared for him, no brothers who had abandoned him, no family.

Even Solderet was silent.

“If that’s the case, then why did the heavens… give me a chance?”

With that thought, Jin Runkandel closed his eyes.

He thought his life was one full of regrets, though without lingering attachments.

—

Episode 1: The Runkandel Superstition

Wah, wah.

“Why am I hearing a baby crying when I’m about to die…?”

Jin wondered.

Was it a hallucination brought on by death? Or had the shockwave from the ninth-rank knights’ attack somehow caused a baby from a nearby house to fall here?

If it was the latter, it was tragic. The Akin Kingdom was doomed today, and no baby could survive in such chaos.

“I want to save it, but my body’s been split in two. I hope in my next life I’m born somewhere happy, not in this cruel world.”

Waaah!

The baby’s cries grew louder, as if it was about to choke on its own sobs.

“What a pathetic way to die. A newborn crying right before my eyes.”

Darkness closed in.

The baby’s cries showed no sign of stopping. Feeling helpless and full of self-loathing, Jin wondered why he wasn’t dead yet.

His upper and lower body were severed in half, with multiple fatal cuts and wounds. There was no way he should have survived more than ten seconds, yet the crying continued…

“Wait—that crying… it’s coming from me!?”

What kind of cruel twist was this?

The crying was his own.

Today was September 9, 1780.

The day Jin Runkandel, youngest son of the famed swordsmanship family, was born.

* * *

One hundred days after being reborn.

Jin could crawl quite well now and had finally decided to accept his reality.

There was no other choice. He was dead, and now he was a newborn baby. He could barely babble, so who could he possibly talk to?

“Even if I could explain myself properly at five years old, who would believe I have memories from my past life spanning 28 years?”

They’d just dismiss it as a child’s fantasy or lies.

Maybe if he could mention detailed family history and secrets, it might be different. But then he’d probably be treated as a cursed child anyway.

So.

Jin was destined to live once again as the youngest son of the cursed Runkandel family.

The youngest Runkandel!

A birth so extraordinary it should have been a blessing.

Most people would see being born the youngest Runkandel as an incredible fortune.

But Jin felt trapped.

“If there’s a next life, I just want to be born into an ordinary family.”

If that had been the case, it wouldn’t have taken him a hundred days to accept this reality.

Born into the same family, as the same youngest son, on the same day. That meant he had the same talents.

In swordsmanship and magic.

And the Runkandel family hated magic. Their greatest rivals were the Zipple family, a renowned magic clan.

“Born the youngest Runkandel again… I wonder if the curse Solderet lifted will still be in place? How will I escape the family this time to learn magic?”

If he couldn’t leave the Runkandel family, he couldn’t learn magic.

If the curse Solderet lifted returned to its original state, he wouldn’t be able to learn swordsmanship either.

Snore, snore.

Lost in thought, Jin quickly fell asleep. His young body slipped into sleep against his will.

* * *

He turned one year old.

Time dragged.

He was tired of worrying about how to survive in the Runkandel family. Days spent unable to speak, falling asleep at the drop of a hat, were just boring.

“I want to grow up fast! It’s so frustrating! I have to grow up to do anything!”

He drank milk from a bottle, slept when it was time, and when he soiled his diaper, the nanny Gilly came to change it. For a young man trapped in a baby’s body, it was humiliating.

That had been Jin’s life for the past year.

Click, click.

A woman entered Jin’s room. His mother and the lady of the house, Rosa Runkandel.

With jet-black hair, sharp eyes, and a prominent nose, Rosa was beautiful but gave off a fierce impression. People called her the “Black Panther.”

“Gilly, are you ready?”

“Of course, ma’am. Today is the day the youngest master makes his ‘Choice.’ We’ve taken special care.”

“Good. Then let’s begin immediately.”

Hearing this, Jin realized today was his birthday.

In the Runkandel family, when a child turned exactly one year old, they held a ritual called the ‘Choice.’

Various objects were laid out on the floor, and the child crawled to pick one.

It was a superstition: the object the child chose would determine their future. The Runkandels were strangely obsessed with this ritual.

Rosa carried Jin out to the central hall of the castle.

In the middle stood Jin’s father.

The strongest knight of the current era, Siron Runkandel, arms crossed.

“Father.”

It was the first time Jin had seen his father since birth. Siron, who had reached near demigod status, rarely stayed at the family estate.

He was always away on the battlefield or personal training.

“And my brothers…”

Twelve brothers in total.

In his past life, they had always treated Jin like a bug. But not yet. They all waited with smiling faces.

Seeing them, memories of his miserable past life tightened Jin’s chest.

“Rosa, put Jin down.”

Rosa set Jin on the floor. The cold marble chilled his skin.

About two meters away lay the objects for the Choice ritual.

A book, a couple of coins, a single grain of rice.

And over twenty swords of various kinds, all stuck upright in the hall’s floor.

Jin just had to pick one.

“I didn’t remember it from my past life, but seeing it now, this is downright madness. Lining up dozens of razor-sharp swords, and expecting a newborn to pick one with their bare hands?”

In his previous life, Jin had chosen a sword. Among the swords, books, coins, and grains of rice stuck upright, it was nearly impossible to find anything else. Naturally, every child of the Runkandel family ended up choosing a sword.

“Choose, my son.”

The members of the Runkandel clan fixed their gazes on the crawling Jin, their eyes tense.

They were curious whether the youngest would pick the twin swords, the greatsword, or the longsword—any sword, really.

Amid the charged silence, Jin crawled steadily toward the very sword he had chosen in his past life.

No one in the world would ever know that the great Runkandel family performed this foolish ritual every time a child was born.

Wheezing and straining, crawling just a few meters felt agonizingly slow and exhausting.

‘Last life, I picked a sword without even realizing it and suffered for it. This time, I’ll choose it with my own will.’

His tiny heart pounded wildly.

Dozens of swords stood planted in a circle. At the center, the sword Jin aimed for awaited.

As Jin wriggled past the swords closest to him, the clan’s eyes flickered with surprise.

No matter how prestigious the family’s swordsmanship was, newborns usually picked the sword nearest to them.

But Jin was dangerously skirting past the first row of blades. Each time he moved forward, the family members swallowed hard.

They thought:

Could the youngest really be going for… that sword?

As Jin brushed past the blades, the stoic expressions of Siron and Rosa twitched ever so slightly.

“Ugh!”

At last, Jin chose a sword. A drop of blood fell from his fingertip as it grazed the blade.

His siblings gaped, eyes locked on the sword he had selected.

They assumed Jin had picked it by chance, but he had crawled with fierce determination, despite being only a year old. Even with memories, controlling such a tiny body was no easy feat.

‘It’s so hard just to crawl toward it on purpose. And last life, I picked this sword by accident…’

Barisada.

The name of the sword Jin had chosen. The symbol of Runkandel.

This sword had been passed down through generations, wielded only by the heads of the Runkandel family—and only those recognized by every member of the clan.

Choosing Barisada during the ‘Selection’ was a rare event in the family’s long history.

And every one who chose Barisada went on to become the family head. Everyone, that is, except Jin Runkandel in his past life.

“Jin has chosen the sword of the first family head,” Siron said solemnly.

Some cheered, while others struggled to hide their complicated feelings.

Such was the superstition of the Runkandel family.

“The ritual is complete. Move Jin to the Storm Castle.”