164 – Keas
Before the empire was established.
There was a time when war clouds hung over the continent.
The warriors of the previous generation defeated the Demon King and brought peace to the world, but it was only a fleeting moment.
When the warrior’s lifespan came to an end, the peace-stricken kings pointed their swords at each other as if they had been waiting.
As a result, wars between kingdoms broke out frequently, and exploitation was also a daily occurrence for them.
Taxes are increasing day by day.
A world lacking social responsibility.
It was always the commoners who suffered.
Something similar to the contradiction of throwing one’s body into death in order to survive happened quite often.
It was the same in Otran, a small kingdom on the border.
The king of Otran, who was usually promiscuous, often touched his servants. The resulting child was usually killed along with the mother.
Then one day. One servant who had particularly strong maternal love used his wits to run away from the king.
The king had a pursuer chase after the servant who carried his seed, and the servant made a difficult decision to escape the siege that was tightening by the minute.
The place she headed to was a brothel.
As she said, if you want to hide a tree, hide her in the forest, she thought that she would not be suspected even if her stomach was full, so she went straight to the pimp and begged him to take her in.
The attendant, who had eluded her pursuer, dealt with the man every day with her mother’s body, and her stomach grew stronger every day.
A few months later. A boy was born in an old, crumbling room.
The mother gave the name Keias to the child who cried in a loud voice as if he could command the world.
Fortunately, unlike her father, the child grew up to be intelligent, and the mother was able to watch her child grow up without regretting her choice.
But the life of the two mother and son did not last long.
Because of the dirty environment when she gave birth, her physical condition worsened to the point where she could no longer have children, and she grew weaker day by day.
In the end, when Keas was 8 years old, she passed away, leaving him alone.
Keas climbed her mountain carrying her mother’s cooled body on her back.
To show the scenery of the highest place to the mother who died at the bottom of the world.
While climbing the mountain, he ran into mountain animals that were targeting his body.
There was a possibility of running away, but Keias did not back down.
To protect her mother’s body, she fought to the death.
Sharp claws grazed her delicate skin, and her shoulder was pierced by sharp teeth. He gritted his teeth and, relying on a rough rock, smashed the beast’s head.
Blood is splattering.
Flesh popped out.
The mountain animals felt fear from the child, who was only 8 years old, and ran away with their tails crossed.
He climbed the mountain again, carrying his mother, covered in blood.
After reaching the top, Keas found a place with a nice view and started digging a hole with his hands and stones.
There was dirt under his fingernails and blood was seeping out, but he kept digging silently and just kept his arms.
Just before laying down his mother in the completed pit, Keas held her body and sobbed.
I’m sorry for blaming you for selling your body without receiving a proper salary. I’m sorry for not being able to show you proper filial piety.
Even though others criticized her as a dirty whore, to him, she was a devoted mother who was willing to dirty herself for her child.
-Sabak.
Covered with soil.
The mother’s appearance gradually disappears.
Now that he had said goodbye to her face that he would never see, he piled a stone on her grave to let her know that she existed in the world.
In front of the stone tomb, he made a promise.
I am so proud to be your son.
I will try to live happily up to my share.
Keias, who came down from the mountain, did whatever it took to make money.
He stubbornly survived by shining other people’s shoes or going into the mountains to cut wood.
For my mother who is watching me from heaven.
One day, a year later.
A servant who happened to encounter Keias while passing by and discovered that his appearance resembled the king ran to the king to tell him, and soon a pursuer caught up with Keas.
Keas was feeling puzzled when he noticed that someone was following him. Suddenly, I remembered how anxious my mother looked outside every night.
There is something.
Something has been bothering her mother for the past eight years.
Sigh.
As he entered the dark path, the man he was following ran towards him.
It was nearly impossible for a young child to defeat a fully grown adult, but to Keias, the opponent felt so insignificant compared to the hungry wild beast that was trying to eat its mother’s body.
As he bent down, the pursuer’s sword, which had lost its target due to his already very small stature, became stuck deep in the ground.
-Bwak!
As a dull sound rang out, the man fell to the floor, unable to control his body.
Suddenly, a stone was in his hand.
Keias tied the hands and feet of the unconscious man with the cloth he used to clean his shoes and waited for him to wake up.
After a while, the man opened his eyes and asked why he did this.
The man did not open his mouth, but he did not seem to have any intention of committing suicide.
Seeing the uncooperative man, he picked up the rock again.
After a while. He got to hear the whole truth.
He received an order from the king to kill his own child who ran away.
Only then did Keias realize.
Why was his mother never able to leave the brothel? Why did he have to die lonely there?
An anger that I have never felt in my life welled up.
Why does my mother have to go through this humiliation?
Do they have the right to do that?
The anger soon turned into murderous intent, and the murderous intent, which had nowhere to go, was directed at the man in front of me.
– Pyeok! Wow! Wow!
“Quaaagh! Stop! Stop!”
As a small, unripe fist struck the man’s face, a scream was heard.
He grabbed the man by the hair and opened his mouth while looking him in the eye.
“You don’t even have the right to scream. My mother lived in pain, experiencing unwanted experiences every day, and she couldn’t even scream. That’s so unfair.”
-Click.
He picked up small rocks lying around and started putting them into the man’s mouth.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Ububbung! Ububbung!”
Ignoring the man’s struggles, he continued to insert it.
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When his cheeks became so full that he could no longer fit, he tightened his fists.
– Pyeok!
-Patter.
With each strike, a stone mixed with blood and saliva fell to the ground along with the finely broken pieces.
Keas’s hand that was hitting couldn’t be fine either. Pure white cartilage was revealed beyond the torn wound.
– Pyeok!
Despite this, he didn’t stop hitting.
This body was given birth to by my mother.
So, this is my mother’s revenge.
His punching didn’t stop for a while.
Even if the man being beaten no longer reacts.
***
Keias went to the king that way and threw the pursuer’s head, which was so mangled that his body was hard to recognize, at his feet and said,
The servant’s son, whom you missed 10 years ago, has returned. He was tired of living in poverty, so he asked for his life.
Was his appearance like that impressive?
The king appreciated Keias’s skills and decided that he would be useful someday, so he accepted him as a bastard.
He bowed his head to the king who had taken his mother’s life.
I felt nauseous, but I endured it.
He vowed not to forget this moment.
Keias, who became the king’s bastard, mastered swordsmanship like crazy from that day on.
He sharpened himself, learning ten swings at a time.
The king who saw it was satisfied, saying it was his bloodline, but the king’s children were displeased with Keias.
They, who were born in the same boat, were full of thoughts of stabbing each other in the back, but there was no way a bastard could intervene.
One day, one of his brothers approached Keas and warned him.
-A lowly thing is trying to climb up with half a blood vessel. If you ever see me carrying a sword, I will make sure you never use your hands again.
The world was crueler than he could see.
I couldn’t help but sigh at the fact that even if I killed the king, another king would only take his place.
Why do these people sit on high places and control the world as they please?
Only the power brought by status remained and there was no one in charge.
He turned his eyes away from the miserable reality.
It was not giving up or resignation, but rebellion.
If cutting one’s head doesn’t change the world, they will tear it all down and build a new one in its place.
There was no need for a shabby kingdom that did not function properly in the world he was drawing.
After that, he studied during the day. At night, he slept less and trained his sword without anyone knowing.
I intentionally fell and bled in front of others and hid the calluses on my hands.
I applied medicine to the open wound and moved towards my goal little by little.
He did everything for his mother, who was unfairly killed, and further to punish the world that created it.
Around the time he swore revenge against the world, strange rumors were spreading around his street.
There is a rumor that a boy with red hair goes around fighting and takes not only his life but also his opponent’s skills.