Chapter 1

Chapter 1

1. Prologue

Benrik was reincarnated.

Around the time he was babbling, he suddenly realized.

‘I lived and died in a country called the Republic of Korea.’

There were no other sentiments. The life before him was too harsh to dwell on such things.

Around the time he was toddling, he had to earn his keep by following his mother in tasks like weaving leather straps, and by the time he could run, he had to assist his father in hunting.

─Kreeee!

“Aaaaaah!”

“Duck, Benrik!”

In truth, calling it assistance was generous; he was little more than bait. Bait to lure out the prey.

It was on a day like that, scraping by somehow, that it happened.

His father, Gerik, called Benrik over and sat him down.

“Benrik, come here.”

“Why?”

With a grim face, he let out heavy sighs before abruptly announcing.

“You’re grown enough now, so start becoming independent soon.”

Benrik was dumbfounded.

“···? I’m only twelve this year?”

“I started eating sword rice in a mercenary group from the age of ten.”

“That was during wartime. It’s different now, there are no jobs.”

“That’s your problem. None of my business.”

True to his barbarian heritage, Gerik was indifferent to his son’s pleas.

‘No way, this is way too sudden no matter how you look at it.’

At Benrik’s gaze demanding an explanation, Gerik clicked his tongue and said.

“Erina is pregnant.”

“What?”

Benrik sighed. He could guess the before and after.

“Ha.”

Benrik’s father, Gerik, is a hunter.

Born with the blood of barbarians, he was quite skilled.

Magical beast byproducts bring money, but Benrik’s household was far from affluent.

His parents were diligent enough to fulfill their tax obligations even if they went hungry, and beneath Benrik there were five more mouths that hadn’t even grown hair down there yet, lined up.

Even now they were surviving on one meal a day, and a seventh was planned.

The biggest mouth had to be reduced so the younger siblings could live.

‘No wonder he was going out more often at night.’

This isn’t even a beast.

He felt a fresh wave of disgust for this medieval fantasy world. If he entered politics after leaving home, he would definitely develop a contraceptive method.

Having thought that far, Benrik sighed once more as if to be heard.

“Ha!”

“Still, you’ve been eating well and living until now.”

As if pricked by his own words, he added.

“Compared to your siblings.”

Benrik, about to retort, closed his mouth.

Because it wasn’t entirely wrong.

Around the time he saw the light of the world, there was still money Gerik had saved from his mercenary life, and since Benrik was the only child, there was some leeway.

“You’re smart. You’ll do well anywhere. I believe in you.”

“Give me a little time.”

“I’ll give you time until the youngest is born. I didn’t plan to kick you out immediately either.”

Thinking of the cat and the mouse, huh.

He said it only with his eyes, knowing that if it came out of his mouth, a merciless hand would come flying.

Ironically, from that day on, Benrik’s life gained leisure for the first time.

Gerik started taking the second son, Yerik, hunting instead of Benrik. The other young siblings helped their mother with chores at home, but no work fell to Benrik.

Neither his mother Erina nor Gerik touched Benrik.

Benrik enjoyed the leisure without restraint.

Only for five days, that is.

After five days, even if he didn’t want to feel it, he felt it on his skin.

His mother’s worried gaze.

His father’s slaps that didn’t fly even if he crossed the line.

The whole world was speaking to him.

This moment is the last rest permitted to you, so enjoy it to your heart’s content.

‘Hmm, should I do something?’

The worry was only brief.

‘Hmm, no. Let’s enjoy it while we can.’

Because Benrik had his own something he believed in.

The decisive reason he defined this ashen world as a fantasy world full of dreams and romance.

***

Time flowed like an arrow.

─Waaah!

It meant that the ashen heads proving Gerik’s bloodline had finally become seven.

“It’s a girl.”

The village midwife said as she handed the baby to the anxious-looking Gerik.

Gerik, who had been brushing back Erina’s hair with trembling hands, received the baby with a subtle expression and held her.

“Big brother, are you being kicked out?”

The third, who had been looking at the newborn youngest with curiosity, asked in a clumsy tone. Since there was no malice in the round eyes, he instead hit the back of the head of the second, Yerik, hard.

“Did you say it?”

“Ah, damn. Shouldn’t this one know too? Do you know when your turn will come?”

Wise, huh. Since the slanted eyes were slanting even more, he hit once more.

A few days later, the whole family gathered at the village entrance.

To see off Benrik, who had decided to leave the village with a group of peddlers.

Benrik’s luggage was modest.

Some magical beast byproducts, one dagger, one sheet of stiff leather, enough money to survive for about five days, and enough dried rations to survive another five days from there.

“Benrik.”

Erina hugged Benrik tightly and her eyes reddened.

“Benrik, baby. If you really can’t endure it, you can come back anytime. Really.”

“Yes, it’ll be fine. Mom, don’t overdo it too much either.”

Benrik stroked each of his siblings’ heads once, then lastly looked at the youngest held in Gerik’s arms.

“Don’t let your older brothers snatch your food, and grow up healthy. Searik.”

Then the newborn baby, who still couldn’t properly open her eyes, smiled bashfully.

“······.”

Whether because he had named her himself, or because she was a girl. Unlike when the other kids were born, one side of his chest felt itchy.

Still, he didn’t know why they left the naming to him.

While Benrik was blankly looking at the baby and casually reached out his hand, a small finger grasped Benrik’s index finger.

Flinch, the skin that touched was softer than he imagined. It was on a completely different level from Benrik’s hands, which were covered in calluses.

‘How can it be so small?’

It was when he was fiddling with the tiny hand with a curious feeling.

“You say a word too to your son who’s going on a long journey.”

Erina poked the side of the standing Gerik.

“Hmm, well, stay healthy.”

Benrik let go of the youngest’s hand and said.

“Enough with the well-wishes, just give me money.”

As soon as the words ended, a chilly sensation swept the nape of his neck. His hair stood on end as Gerik’s left hand suddenly entered his vision.

“···!”

Benrik quickly leaned his body back.

─Whooosh!

A dull wind brushed past his nose once.

Gerik, who had futilely cut the air and smacked his lips as if regretting it. Benrik wiped his startled chest.

‘Has he finally gone crazy!’

It’s full power! People die from that!

If the crisis sense hadn’t activated, he would have been hit and flown a good five meters for sure.

─Grit

At the dizzying thought, Benrik clenched his teeth. Then, eyes shining like a wild animal, he glared at Gerik.

“Really, you’re going to do this until the very end?”

“You dodged? I was serious.”

Then, as if newly realizing, he muttered.

“You have quite the talent?”

When he said I was worse than a parasite or rice worm, when was that.

“What are you saying out of the blue?”

“Being a mercenary wouldn’t be bad either. Congratulations. One more option has been added.”

···Huh.

Benrik snorted.

When he was brainwashing me by pouring out the hardships of mercenary life, when was that.

“Well, the choice is yours to make.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he took something out from his bosom and handed it over.

“···What is this?”

“A sword.”

That’s obvious just by looking.

It was a sword forged short to match Benrik’s height.

“Why are you giving this?”

“It’s a tribe tradition, to gift a weapon to a child leaving home.”

There was such a great tradition?

The blade was smooth like new and heavy, seeming to use good quality iron. The taste of the stiff new leather wrapping snugly in the hand was also excellent.

It was when Benrik was rejoicing at the unexpected windfall. Gerik, glancing at Erina’s reaction, lowered his head and muttered softly.

“If you take this, you can’t come back.”

“I never thought of it. Live long and prosper. Father.”

And so Benrik left his beloved hometown.

***

Only after the small child’s back disappeared from view did Erina burst out the tears she had held back.

“Hic, uhhic···.”

She was a woman with a gentle nature. It was remarkable that she held back until the child was far away.

Gerik silently embraced his wife’s shoulders like that.

“Hic, will he be okay···? It’s too harsh! Benrik is only twelve now.”

“He’ll be fine. That’s why I dragged him to the hunting grounds so persistently.”

From the year Benrik turned seven, they hunted together.

Setting up camps, laying traps, luring prey, tracking traces, finding habitats, showing and teaching how to hunt stronger ones.

“But···!”

With that, it would have been enough to live while taking care of one body.

“You know too. That guy is cunning. He must have something he believes in, otherwise he wouldn’t have acted so leisurely.”

“······.”

The sniffling Erina glared at Gerik. Gerik shrugged and called the second son, Yerik.

“I won’t do anything, so tell me.”

Putting his arm on the shoulder and facing the wavering eyes straight, he asks.

“Benrik would have told you.”

“······What?”

“That guy’s hideout. Like the place where he hid the magical beast byproducts he skimmed off behind my back.”

“······There isn’t anything like that?”

“No, there is. You know. You should know.”

He tried to avoid the burning eyes, but Gerik was persistent.

“Not telling?”

Only then did Yerik, who had been rolling his eyes here and there, shout like a seizure.

“I only know the place! Only the place! The inside is empty! Really!”

“See?”

Gerik smiled while looking at Erina as if to say look.

“He always hides one move. That guy.”

***

As Gerik expected, Benrik had something he believed in.

Was it around the year before last, a man who had been in the same mercenary group as Gerik in the past visited the village.

He had no right arm, and one eye was cloudy, a one-armed one-eyed man. From the moment he first arrived at the village, his condition was bad like someone who had received his death day.

“Why is it that what you thought of last was your kid of all things.”

After Gerik met Erina and retired, it became infrequent. But the man without family and Gerik had lived like brothers for a long time, it is said.

“Is this little one your child?”

Benrik, who had been guarding beside the drinking table in case some crumbs fell, answered crisply.

“Yes. I am Father’s son. I’ve heard a lot about you, Demian.”

“Oh ho? Too clever, huh? Tsk, is he really your child?”

Benrik was different from the neighborhood kids who were busy being scared by the fierce appearance. He had a past life.

He is an intellectual who knows that opportunities often hide right behind crises.

Though the time was short, Benrik shared a lot of affection with him.

He was a skilled adventurer who had made mercenary work his trade until recently, and the stories he told had excitement and romance that couldn’t be found in the village.

Unfortunately, Demian stayed in the village for only one week.

Because on the morning of the day it became a week, he became a cold corpse.

Gerik and Benrik, for that day at least, didn’t go out hunting and kept watch in front of the grave prepared at the village entrance.

“He told me to give it to you.”

What Gerik held out with an unknowable expression was a dagger whose blade was all gone. Seeing it, Benrik was startled.

Metal scraps become money. But not selling that money-making thing and handing it to me?

─? Why burn the keepsake? It’s all money. The living have to live.

No matter how close he was to the deceased, thinking of Gerik’s usual words and actions, it was hard to believe.

The handle woven with beast leather was covered in dark red stains, and the blade had teeth missing sparsely.

It would become an excellent emergency fund when needed.

Because the value of a blade isn’t only in cutting and stabbing something.

‘Surely he won’t give it and then take it back?’

It was the moment he received the sword with such concerns.

[Acquired the remains of the mercenary Demian.]

<​Demian's Crisis Sense (D)>

─The senses honed in real combat by a skilled mercenary are no different from those of a wild animal.

[You can absorb Demian's Crisis Sense (D). Absorb? <​Remaining slots: 3>]

Ten years after reincarnation, the privilege activated.

© Burrito#1y0o9