Ochiden V1 - Prologue: Sion Astal

[idola]

Volume 1

PROLOGUE: Sion Astal

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The blushing girl was in a bind. She seemed embarrassed. Tense.

“Er, I know I’m b-babbling about this pretty suddenly, but…”

After saying that, she stopped speaking. Her face became even redder.

She hesitated, her face looking like that - about to cry, like she’d suddenly start sprinting away - even so, she’s resolved to do something. “U, um… I mean… It’s that I really like you, Sion,” she said.

He could tell that just by looking at her.

He looked at her flaxen hair, at her white, almost translucent skin, now red to her ears. Right now, he should still be able to make it in time. He could still grasp the happiness of an ordinary person. If he accepted her modest love, then with that, his world could be complete. He thought about it for a moment.

She was very pretty. They’d quickly become close after entering the Roland Empire’s Royal Special Academy. She was always bright, encouraged everyone, and never failed to make people laugh. If he accepted, it’d be easy to get used to happiness. Even in this rotten country.

“……”

Even in this country, the Roland Empire, run by the mad king and the nobility controlled by their own swollen greed.

To love one single woman, protect her, and make her laugh wasn’t the right choice. For a moment, he thought of it.

Of course there were difficult things in this world. Even so.

“……”

Kindly, with a smile, Sion politely rejected her. It’d be such a shame for a pretty girl like you to go out with a guy like me. I’m an illegitimate prince, so you’d be better off aiming for my siblings. It’s that if we were to date, you’d be in danger too, so I can’t go out with you. But I do really like you. You’re really very attractive. But right now…

It’s that I better not date anyone right now.

He’d already prepared tons of rejections like that. Each time someone confessed their love to him, he picked one.

The girl who’d just confessed still looked like she was about to cry. Every girl always looked like she’d cry. She’d soon say that she knew it, there was no way she’d be a good match for Sion, and smile with that face that wanted to cry.

“……”

Sion hated looking at those girls’ smiling faces from the bottom of his heart.

Because, in truth, he did want to accept their love.

A guy of 17 shouldn’t hate being confessed to by girls.

There’s no way he wouldn’t think she was alright, that she was cute, that being together would probably be fun. Even so.

“……”

He turned down the girls’ feelings.

He crushed the feelings of girls who mustered up the courage to confess to him.

Until he did everything he could for this mad country. Until he did everything he could for this country that dealt with people’s feelings like trash. Until he got revenge on those who threw his mother away like garbage, calling her a low-born mutt all the while, there was no way he could stop.

In exchange, he made a promise. You’ll surely be able to smile in the future I create. You’ll surely find a man much, much better than me there, get married, have kids, and live your lives in happiness until the end. You’ll be able to smile until the very end.

Sion supposed there was no way of knowing that he wouldn’t be that man. But he promised that he’d make that world.

So until that day, can you stay away from me? It’d definitely be a disadvantage if you came to me. Don’t worry, I’ll definitely protect you, Sion promised.

He promised that to himself and to the men and women who wanted to become close to him.

So everyone gave Sion a dream. One that he’d be able to accomplish.

His promise.

If he drifted from it even a little, he would find a mountain of bodies. In that pile of bodies, he’d find the smile of the girl he said “I like you” to against his better judgement.

Her face warped to that fear. Big eyes that wanted to be saved opposed his, but he was the one who was stared with lightless eyes.

“……”

He should at least close his eyes, he thought, but he shook his head.

Because everyone in that pile of bodies was his friend. He couldn’t close his eyes to avoid seeing all of them. He already understood how many deaths there were.

117 people.

They were all students of Roland Empire’s Royal Military Special Academy, and friends who entrusted their lives to Sion. They were all people he promised to protect. And yet, what was the result? What kind of a result would they get?

There was a voice like that in his head. He could hear it asking those questions. He could hear its accusatory tone.

“……”

But Sion didn’t say anything. Nevertheless, nevertheless, he could only stare straight into that mountain of bodies.

His silver hair was of palpable nobility and his eyes carried a strong will. Within him, a dazzling radiance has been hidden. It was a strong light that could fascinate anyone.  

Thanks to the light of his attractiveness, no one would think he was born of a low-class woman called a horribly low-born mutt. No one would think that the blood of the mad king flowed through his veins because of that bright light.

People were fascinated by that light, and like weak bugs leaping towards fire, they ended up dreaming of him.

But what if.

What if he could perhaps change this ruined world?

But right now…

“…….”

The strong light that should be hidden within him was slightly concealed by sadness, regret, and despair. It isn’t that he was hiding the power that he could change the world with; the emptiness was due simply to the fact that he was staring at a mound of dead bodies.

The dead bodies of his friends.

Fahle’s corpse.

Tyle’s corpse.

Tony’s corpse.

The corpse of the girl who said “I like you,” with a red face. The wreckage of his friends who gave him his dream. There, the friends who he went to the same school with, took exams in the same classroom with, and laughed like idiots with lay in pieces. His friends were all scared of war. They trembled in fear when they learned that a second war between the Roland Empire and Estabul Kingdom had broken out.

Even so, Sion said it.

To his friends who cried and trembled because they might die, Sion told them, “It’s okay. We won’t die in this war.” He said it to his friends, trembling in fear. “It’ll be okay if you just follow me. I’ll arrange things so we’re all in one troop, and I’ll even make it so the route we’re on is a remote region with very few battles. So don’t worry. You guys won’t die in this war.”

Anyone who heard that got a look on their faces like they were dreaming. They were staring right at the dream within Sion.

“Aren’t you grateful that I did this, despite everything? Aren’t you?” Sion said.

“Aren’t you grateful that I did this, despite everything? Aren’t you?” Sion said with a self-important expression.

The result. “……”

Among the one, two, 〇 people, there were just three people standing. Ryner. Kiefer. Sion. That made three.

Sion had turned his face and verified the current state of affairs. That way was a battlefield. Over there, the battles were even more violent - the front lines. No, in actuality, as this was in the frontier, there was no value in attacking. There were no castles, no forts, no arsenals, no towns or villages, and it was too far from Roland’s heartland to bother attacking. It was truly only a place where plains and forests stretched on and on.

It appeared there was inherently no value in it, militaristically speaking, and even if everywhere else became a battlefield, it should have been an extremely safe place.

Even though other important battlefields should’ve cropped up, Estabul’s strongest corps appeared.

Estabul’s Magical Knights.

They were monsters carrying huge sickles like of a grim reaper’s, with bodies wrapped in real crimson armor. With a speed Sion’s eyes couldn’t catch, they went to slaughter his friends.

To that, Sion screamed, “Why!? Why did Estabul’s Magical Knights come to this remote region!?”

The reason was simple: he was set up. By his siblings.

Because even the thought that the king’s blood could flow through such a low-born, poorly bred dog was filthy.

Because they couldn’t forgive him for having the same royal blood as them.

So die.

Die like garbage.

Without realizing that, Sion had stupidly told his friends, “Aren’t you grateful that I did this, despite everything? Aren’t you?”

He spent a lot of time using the military network he thought he’d made himself, and left for the frontier with his friends. It was somewhere they shouldn’t be exposed to battle. But it was all for naught. A trap, Because the information network that he’d thought to be perfect had contained a traitor. Because he hadn’t realized that…

“…This mess,” Sion mumbled, appearing small.

Sion examined the form of a friend who was alive despite the certain-death situation. His face was even more hollow than Sion’s; his black hair was ruffled from sleep, and his tall and lean figure slouched. Ryner Lute. With black eyes that looked as if they were about to cry, he was staring at his own feet.

At his feet was a strange spectacle. A person was broken, crush, crumbled into sand.

It was such overwhelming power to Sion who thought he’d massacred his friends by bringing them here, to now see the corpses - no, the existence of the Magical Knights of Estabul cease existing. The one responsable was Ryner.

No, it was something that lived inside Ryner’s eyes.

Sion watched Ryner. In the center of his hollow, teary eyes, a faint scarlet pentagram had risen to the surface.

It was called the “Alpha Stigma” - eyes that’d been cursed.

Those cursed eyes had just gone on a rampage. In that instant, the Magical Knights had been completely devastated. He rampaged like he’d lost his sanity, and killed almost until his friends like Sion and Kiefer.

“…Again,” he said as he watched the fragments of lives he stole pass him by.

That’s all he said, barely a mumble with a voice full of regret and eyes that were ready to cry.

Sion tore his eyes from Ryner and looked at someone else - the figure of a girl who’d fallen on her back on the earth’s surface, sunken into silence.

Kiefer Knolles.

She wore her red hair styled short, and her very red eyes always carried determination. But right now, tears were flowing from those eyes. After being tormented by the Magical Knights and then watching Ryner rampage, she was bruised head to toe. But those bruises weren’t what was hurting her.

The reason she was crying is that all of her comrades were dead. That her betrayal was what caused them to die.

Kiefer was the Estabul Kingdom spy. With her guidance, the Magical Knights were able to find and attack Sion and the others. Kiefer had betrayed Sion, Ryner, and all the rest of their friends by selling that information.

But why did she do that?

For the Magical Knights of Estabul, the life of the son’s illegitimate prince, Sion, wasn’t important. There wasn’t any value in this frontier region, either.

So why did the Magical Knights come here and attack on Kiefer’s information? That reason, too, is something that was simple once you thought about it.

Kiefer also betrayed her prime minister and Estabul itself.

Her weakness was probably taken advantage of by Sion’s brothers and the nobility - so she’d kill Sion and in turn assure the destruction of the Magical Knights of Estabul. She accepted that mission from both sides.

Then she’d wait to go to hell.

Because of her betrayal, her friends died. Ryner went berserk and killed the Magical Knights. They were surrounded by nothing but dead bodies. To the right, there were bodies. To the left, bodies.

Bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies.

And the one who couldn’t prevent this is… “me,” Sion said.

He had been in the position where he could’ve prevented it all. No, he had an obligation to prevent it. Because he’d promised. He’d promised everyone. Because he said they’d be okay if they came with him. Because he said he’d definitely protect them. Because he said he’d change the world.

“…….”

What a terrible laughingstock. How exactly was someone as weak as he was supposed to change the world? How was he supposed to stop someone’s sadness?

Sion spoke.

To Kiefer, who was crying.

To Ryner, who was always blaming himself.

“You don’t need to do that. The one who’s in the wrong for all of this, who deserves to be blamed for it all, is me. It’s due to my neglect that we became friends… That Tony, Tyle, Fahle, and everyone died… that’s because of my negligence, too. That this war is happening… and that I’m not king now,” Sion said in hell’s midst.

But his words didn’t reach them. They all continued to blame themselves.

The three who lived could all feel the weight of their sins. It was the worst.

Sion led his friends to the worst place possible. He was to blame.

And then, in that place, the ground began to tremble from a loud sound far away. Sion turned his head in the direction of the sound. It was from far across the plains. Somewhere along the horizon, he could see a cloud of dust - a great army advancing.

It was a great army flying the national flag of the Roland Empire.

The army of the people who’d tricked Kiefer came brazenly marching in to smash the Magical Knights of Estabul to pieces.

The army. A group of soldiers. A swarm of people who’d organized themselves for the sole purpose of killing others.

“Worthless,” Ryner murmured as he watched them.

Sion didn’t say anything. There was nothing he could say, but was thinking the same thing as Ryner.

Worthless. They were, in just about all cases, worthless

They were fed up with this tedious, worthless scenery. It was all that was happening.

War, greed, betrayal, despair, death.

Everyone understood that nothing good could be born from those. That they’d only lose more if they continued to walk this dark path. They’d just lose more precious people. They’d just cry and scream. Everyone understood that, and yet.

That’s just the way the world was. There was no stopping it.

If nobody stopped it, these gears of greed, betrayal, despair, the would would continue to turn.

But to whisper that it was worthless and run away. To say they’re scared of losing people and run away…

“……”

Then from here on out, as long as they lived, all they’d do is lose more and more.

Sion straightened his back. He’d carry the burden of the mountain of his friends’ bodies behind him. He tensed his straightened back.

“…Even so, I…”

The army was approaching. The great army that was sent from Roland. He didn’t know if they were friend or foe. Were they the hand of the siblings who wanted to kill Sion, or did they have nothing to gain from being here now? He didn’t know.

Even so, he mustn’t lose heart. Because he’d promised - “If you come with me, I’ll definitely protect you. If you come with me, I’ll definitely show you a new world.”

One of those promises was already broken. So there was no way he could break the second one.

So Sion fixed his posture and observed the army with keen gold eyes. He set his eyes on the future beyond this path. The light that had been inside of him returned. The strong light that drew people like moths to a flame. A light strong enough to completely change the world.

As he carried the burden of his lost friends, Sion spoke. “Even so, I’m going to move forward.”

With that, Sion Astal’s true fight began.

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