Dukedom’s Legendary Prodigy - Chapter 1
----------------------------------------------------------------- Translator: Vine Chapter: 1 Chapter Title: Childhood ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Childhood
Hero from Another World.
A hero from Earth who subjugated the Demon King Balor and saved the continent from the threat of demons.
However, the people of this world had another name for Hanseong.
The Empire's Hound. A butcher with neither blood nor tears.
It was no coincidence that Hanseong was suddenly summoned to another world one day.
The ancient summoning ritual, meticulously prepared by the imperial mages, was activated. Hanseong, Earth's SSS-rank monster hunter and the commander-in-chief of Humanity's Final Stand, opened his eyes in another world.
As nothing more than a tool to fulfill the Empire's ambitions, Hanseong was reborn as a human weapon in the name of a hero.
Having subjugated the Demon King, the Empire immediately declared a war of continental unification, with the 'Hero from Another World' at its forefront.
He readjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword and quietly raised his head.
The Empire's war for continental unification was nearing its end. Malbork, the capital of the Teutonia Knightdom, which had vowed to resist to the very last.
Flecks of sleet scattered with the curtain of night.
A dark, white winter night. It was just after he had struck down Lord Badel, the 'Divine Sword'—a loyal subject of the Teutonia Knightdom and a man renowned as the 'Greatest Sword on the Continent'.
Schlick!
From behind, a searing pain assaulted him. It was the cold touch of steel. The blade, having torn through his chest, protruded, its sharp edge glinting menacingly.
“Well, shit.”
After a life-or-death battle, what awaited Hanseong was the blade of a fellow imperial soldier.
“Good work, Hero from Another World.”
The holy sword Durandal, wielded by Count Brandenburg, the Holy Sword Master.
“I knew this would happen.”
Hanseong's body was far too exhausted to dodge a surprise attack from an ally right behind him.
“You pathetic cowards, all you know is how to stab people in the back.”
He had once succeeded in subjugating the Demon King in the name of the hero.
But that was only the beginning. Afterward, he had to become a mere machine of conquest to satisfy the Empire's ambitions.
He'd subjugated the Demon King and fulfilled the Empire's long-cherished dream of continental unification. So what came next?
I'd outlived my usefulness.
“Here, you chose an honorable mutual destruction with the Divine Sword, Lord Badel.”
Count Brandenburg said.
An honorable mutual destruction? He couldn't even manage a hollow laugh.
“Your patriotism and dedication to the Empire will be praised by posterity for all eternity.”
“Hah, even the Ministry of Defense back home would be moved to tears by that speech.”
Hanseong scoffed, blood filling his mouth. The blade in his hand radiated a sharp aura, as if ready to slaughter the count at any moment.
But the moment he tried to swing the hilt, Hanseong's body froze.
It was a restriction curse.
The binding pledge that the White Magic Tower prided itself on… a Geas.
“You sons of bitches.”
A leash to tame the Empire's hero, the hound from another world.
“Who is calling whom a dog?”
The count spat out a cold taunt as he watched.
“Right, you bastards who are worse than dogs.”
Hanseong cursed again.
He would die here, along with the continent's greatest swordsman whom he had just struck down with his own hands.
The long hunt was finally over.
Count Brandenburg, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Army's 1st Corps, was the executioner of this betrayal.
Hanseong quietly sank to his knees. He buried his head in the snow-covered ground and weakly closed his eyes. But strangely, his expression was calm and serene.
Without even leaving behind a common curse for the empire that had abandoned him.
The 'Hero from Another World' closed his eyes for the last time.
Vowing that in his next life, he would not be a hero to be thrown away like a worn-out shoe, but a demon king with neither blood nor tears.
And as one flame of life flickered out, a small stone swallowed within Hanseong's body began to emit a faint light.
And then—
“Congratulations, Your Grace! It's a boy!”
A dark, white winter night, with pure white snowflakes fluttering down.
One life closed its eyes, and a new life opened its own.
“Congratulations, Your Grace! It's a boy!”
An old woman's sharp voice rang in his ears. The pain from the holy sword Durandal, which had tormented Hanseong until just a moment ago, vanished as if it were a lie.
‘Where…?’
Hanseong quickly tried to look around to grasp the situation. But controlling his own body was incredibly difficult.
Everything was filled with a brilliant white light, so he couldn't even open his eyes properly. His consciousness felt heavy, as if weighed down by lead.
The sensation of having become an absurdly small and light being.
Just then, the soft touch of swaddling clothes wrapped around Hanseong.
From within the bundle, Hanseong managed to twist his body and gaze at the woman holding him. She was a beautiful young woman with vibrant blonde hair.
Her face was vaguely familiar. As the Hero from Another World, Hanseong knew a good number of the Empire's influential figures.
‘I'm sure I remember her as the daughter of some count...’
“You've been through so much, Elena.”
‘Elena, the daughter of a count who became the wife of Duke Sachsen!’
Elena. The moment he heard that name, Hanseong was struck with a shock as if he'd been hit in the head with a hammer.
Then the man looking down at them with such a gentle gaze couldn't be...
The great lord who ruled over the northern regions and the former Demon King's territory, now a province of the Empire, right after Hanseong had subjugated Demon King Balor.
A member of one of the three great ducal families standing at the pinnacle of the Empire, Duke Sachsen.
Only then did the satisfying feeling of puzzle pieces falling into place wash over him.
‘The reincarnation was a success!’
His trump card for cutting the hound's leash. The artifact he had struggled to obtain, the 'Stone of Reincarnation,' had successfully done its job.
And as the eldest son of one of the most powerful noble families in the Empire, no less.
But that wasn't the full extent of Duke Sachsen's worth.
The one who reigned at the pinnacle of the Black Magic Tower in Necropolis, known as the headquarters of black magic.
Master of the Black Magic Tower.
In other words, Duke Sachsen was a necromancer and black mage whose skills were unparalleled across the entire continent.
That was why he had earned the epithet 'Lord Black'.
The fact that Duke Sachsen was granted the former Demon King's territory as his fief was not unrelated to his career.
The 'Stone of Reincarnation' allowed a soul to cycle through rebirth with its memories and consciousness intact. However, it couldn't specify the target of reincarnation. In other words, whether one was born as the eldest son of a great noble or abandoned in a gutter as the child of a prostitute was entirely in the realm of fate.
And yet, he had been born with the best possible silver spoon in his mouth.
‘To think I'd be born with a golden spoon.’
As Hanseong calmly assessed the situation, Duke Sachsen spoke with a worried tone.
“Old woman, the child isn't crying.”
It seemed even the great Lord Black was just another worried father when it came to his child.
“How strange. He is breathing so clearly.”
“Isn't it a bad omen for a baby not to cry?”
“His breathing is stable, so you need not worry about that.”
The old woman approached Hanseong. He deliberately continued to take deep breaths for her to see.
“However, since His Grace is concerned…”
Smack!
The old woman, having taken Hanseong from Elena, began to smack his bottom with all her might.
“You must strike his bottom until he cries.”
Hanseong cursed inwardly and struggled. But there weren't many options for an infant's incomplete body.
“What a stubborn child!”
Duke Sachsen muttered in amazement.
“He must have inherited your stubbornness.”
Elena said with a mother's smile.
“Give him to me. I'll try.”
Though she was now a mother, the soft hand of a noble lady who still had a maidenly air about her reached for Hanseong's bottom.
Hanseong, who hadn't shed a single tear since he'd come of age, finally had no choice but to burst into tears.
Dale of Sachsen.
Like the saying 'new wine in new bottles,' that was the new name for Hanseong, who had obtained a second life.
Dale, the eldest son of House Sachsen.
Under the devoted care of the duke and duchess, 'Dale' bided his time, occasionally eavesdropping on conversations about the Empire's affairs between the couple, their servants, and their vassals.
No matter how complete the consciousness inherited through the artifact was, an infant's body was another matter.
It was a time of immense, painful endurance. And at the end of that endurance, the first thing granted to Dale was language.
“Oh my, look at our Dale!”
Like any mother, Elena was grinning from ear to ear, a firm believer in the 'my child is a genius' theory. And Elena's 'my child is a genius' theory was by no means the common delusion typical of mothers.
Because Dale's passion for learning, mastering both the Imperial common tongue and the noble language at the age of four, was nothing short of astonishing.
Dale holed himself up in the ducal castle's library and began to devour books day and night.
『Fundamentals and Application of Mana Sensitivity』
『Imperial Army Tactical Magic Manual』
『The Correlation Between Mana Circle Rotation Speed and Mana Generation』
『Understanding Magical Enhancement Through Formulas』
『Introduction to Runic Magic』
He had the books he wanted delivered from all over the continent, including the imperial capital, almost daily.
‘This golden spoon sure is nice.’
After finishing a book, Dale leaned against an old bookshelf and recalled his past home.
When he awakened his talent as a monster hunter on Earth and took up a weapon, in his past life, he fought monsters with a sense of duty. Solely for humanity. But it wasn't like that in this world.
The number of demons and monsters he'd slain under the name of the hero was but a drop in the ocean compared to the number of 'humans' he had butchered as the Empire's hound.
Therefore, Dale's goal had never wavered.
‘I will bring down the Empire with my own hands.’
He quietly bit his lip, steeling his resolve.
It was at that very moment.
Whoosh!
As his coldly forged hatred swirled, a whirlwind erupted at his feet. A vortex of mana.
‘Oops!’
His still-immature four-year-old body, swept away by the torrent of emotions, had caused his internal mana to run rampant. Though he hadn't yet told the duke and duchess, Dale had been steadily forming the beginnings of a 'mana circle' in his heart.
Fwoosh!
As the rampant mana swirled like a vortex, the bookshelves Dale had been leaning against began to topple like dominoes.
“I've really made a mess.”
As he sat down helplessly in the library, which had turned into a complete disaster zone.
“—Dale.”
He felt a familiar presence behind him.
“What is all this commotion?”
It was the voice of Dale's father, Lord Black, Duke Sachsen.
A scene of chaos, with books and bookshelves strewn everywhere by the vortex of rampant mana. For a moment, Dale pondered how a four-year-old should act in this situation, but he quickly gave up on the thought. A four-year-old wouldn't think about how to conduct himself.
“Did you just release the mana from your body?”
“Well... I don't know. A strange wind suddenly blew from under my feet…”
Dale played dumb with a straight face, like an innocent child unaware of his own talent.
Seeing this, Duke Sachsen let out a cry of surprise.
“To have already formed the beginnings of a mana circle in your body...!”
At this exclamation, which was close to astonishment, Dale inwardly thought, ‘Oops.’
It's not unheard of for children to naturally attune with mana at a young age. But even for one who inherited the blood of mages, it was far too early for a four-year-old. That was why he had kept it a secret from the duke and duchess, waiting for the right time.
Dale understood the danger of his talent. He also knew that the line between 'prodigy' and 'monster' was a thin one.
“As expected of my son.”
But what answered the worried Dale was the smile of Lord Black, who didn't hide his fatherly emotions.
“It is my greatest regret that I cannot teach you necromancy.”
Lord Black continued, his tone regretful. These were words that even Dale hadn't expected.
The Master of the Black Magic Tower, the greatest necromancer on the continent, wouldn't pass down his specialty to his own son?
“Why not?”
Dale asked, playing dumb once more.
“I promised your mother that our child would not inherit my line of work.”
As he said this, a great, lingering regret was etched on Lord Black's face.
‘Then again, what mother would want her child to become a necromancer?’
It was a promise he had made while courting Elena, who was quite a bit younger and feared his dark reputation.
There was even a funny story that for the wedding, Lord Black and all the elders of the Black Tower had attended dressed in pure white.
Regardless, Duke Sachsen was one of the greatest nobles in the Empire. Yet, the promises he made for a mere count's daughter showed just how much of a romantic Lord Black was, contrary to his appearance.
Four years is not a short time. Especially four years spent trapped in an infant's body, counting the days under the care of his family.
And so, his life in House Sachsen had made Dale realize an emotion he had long forgotten.