I Became the First Prince

It Was Empty, But It Was Full (6)

Her mother was an unclean woman, and she was the result of her mother’s sins.

Her father also knew this, but he couldn’t leave her mother.
He was a knight that had risen from the common people.
While her mother was not great, she still had the blood of the nobles in her.
Her mother’s history was filthy, so her father was desperate to hide it so that he could avoid the contempt of his comrades and the subtler contempt of his lord.

And so, her father decided to cover up the injustices committed by his wife.

That decision made everyone unhappy.

When her father was drunk, he became angry with her mother, as angry as fire.
Instead of bowing down and apologizing, her mother demeaned her father’s peasant origins, insulting him.

Every day, mother and father poured venom into each other’s ears and acted only out of hate.
The girl had felt that it was all her fault at that time, so she just cried without knowing what to do.

No one comforted her.

Her father was in a difficult situation and tried to control his feelings, while her mother was a vain woman who had no interests other than dressing herself up.
Her father relieved his anger and hatred through training.

As time went on, her father, who had been exceptional enough to receive a knighthood, which was rare for commoners, quickly became the most important knight of his lord.

Naturally, the time he spent away from the mansion grew even longer.

The number of quarrels between her father and her mother gradually decreased.
The girl cried less but still did not know what to do.
That didn’t mean her childhood had changed for the better, however.

Her mother regarded the girl as evidence of her infidelity because she looked subtly different from humans.
In fear that her adultery would become widely known, her mother confined her to the mansion.

Hard, denigrating curses and beatings became just another element of this existence.
The girl was trapped in a small room in the mansion and withered away under her mother’s abuse.

Then, when she was thirteen years old, her mother came to her.
She looked terrified, and the girl later learned that it was because the noble family that her mother belonged to had bought a great lord’s resentment and was being destroyed.

“Let’s run away.
If we stay here, that man will surely not leave you and me alone.”

The mother fetched the girl from the room, escaping the mansion with her.
She didn’t do it out of motherly love.

“Even if he doesn’t recognize me, he will recognize the child who carries his blood.
You look just like him.”

Her mother said that someone wouldn’t recognize her because she had grown old and dull.

Without knowing anything about what was going on, the girl was led away by her mother’s hand.
For the first time in her life, she left the mansion.
But before she could fully realize the vastness of the world outside, pursuers sent by her father caught up to them.

It happened less than half a day after mother and daughter left the mansion.

“Well! He’s coming to save us.
He’ll save me, you’ll see…”

Her mother chattered like a lunatic while being dragged along by her father’s soldiers.

When they were dragged back to their estate, all that awaited them were flaming ruins and terrible corpses.
A group of people greeted them, standing before the corpses piled up in the center of the courtyard.

“At last! They must be the people he sent to save me!” her mother cried out with an ecstatic face as if she was drunk on the fresh smell that came from the strangers.

It was then that one of these people flipped back her hood and revealed her face.
She was so beautiful, and even her long ears could not be considered flaws.

The woman looked at the girl and raised her hand.
The other green-cloaked monsters disappeared in front of the girl’s eyes in a flash, and in the next second, her father’s soldiers spouted blood as they fell to the ground.

“I am sure! Did he tell you to save me? Where is he now?” her mother asked in joy.
“I want to see him as soon as possible.
Guide me to hi-”

And while her mother became so excited, her neck was cut clean through.
She died.

‘Tuk~ Degururu~’

The girl watched her mother’s head roll over the ground.
She shed no tears.

A man came into the courtyard while looking blankly at her mother’s head.
It was her father.

‘Sheek~’

After seeing the burning mansion and the severed head of his wife, her father drew his sword.

A brilliant glow rose all along its edge.

“There is a knight who uses a sword aura in such a rural estate? It’s really amazing,” the beautiful woman said as she saw the light, her eyes widening.

Rather than being surprised, the woman’s exaggerated expression seemed only to mock.

“Get away from her!” her father sternly shouted at the woman.

“How can you not know your child is a cuckoo even after looking at those ears? Are you saying that this offspring is your own?”

“Shut up! I don’t care what you want! Stand back!”

“Oh… Such a broken sword you are.
You seem ignorant of how to treat a woman with respect.
Ah, is it any wonder that your wife enjoyed another man?”

Her father couldn’t stand that insult and rushed at the woman.
The woman suddenly grabbed the girl and threw her aside.

“Huh!” Her father gave a mournful breath as he hugged her.
It was the first time the girl had felt her father’s embrace.

“Ooh!”

Hot liquid splattered onto the girl’s face, and she didn’t know what it was.

“Aaargh…”

A pained groan broke into the girl’s ears in the next instant.
She raised her head.
There was her father… and the woman who had stabbed a sword through his chest.
She twisted the blade and laughed with glee.

“I regret this.
If it weren’t for my mission, I would have been able to taste your pain a little longer.”

“What will you do with my daughter… Is it…?”

“Are you worried about your child, even after we have reached this point?”

“Shut up and… answer me!”

“Do not worry.
This child’s father is the noblest of our clan.
In your human terms, he is like a king,” the monster said as she looked down at her victim with a cold-blooded stare.

The girl’s father looked at her and smiled at her for the first time.

“Don’t… You’re safe… That’s all I…”

A sense of relief passed over her father’s face.
It lasted only for a while.

“It is only a hybrid with dirty human blood.”

Her father’s eyes widened.

“You…”

The woman laughed as she looked at the man’s distorted face.
She laughed with a face full of satiety, like a fat cat.
Her father opened his mouth again, but the woman twisted her sword.

‘Schloo~’

Her father’s body was torn apart as the sword slashed out of his side.
The blood-drenched girl looked at the body with a blank face.
For a long while, the woman laughed, finding satisfaction in her murder.
Then she suddenly stopped laughing, looked at her bloody sword, and said, “Oh.
Unfortunately, you have lost both your mother and father in front of you.
Although he was not your father.”

She said it as if she was really regretful.

“Aren’t you sad? Or are you so sad that you can’t even cry?” asked the woman.
The girl couldn’t answer.

“Well, it’s not that important now,” the woman said and ordered the monster next to her, “Command my swordguard to erase all traces of our presence.”

The green-cloaked ghost disappeared silently.

“Tsu.
All of this hardship just because the king likes to be a high roller,” the woman grumbled, as if displeased, then looked back at the girl and said, “Now, you’re going to come with me.
There are a lot of kids like you.”

The girl did not dare to object in front of the woman, whose eyes still held a greasy murder in them which hadn’t cooled down.

The girl nodded.

And so she, Gunn, was collected by the faeries.
It was the first time Gunn had met Sigrun.

* * *

After that, Sigrun traveled to several places to capture half-elves and send them to the forest.

Gunn was one of them.
When she arrived in the woods, there were already many half-elves there.
There were adults, and there were children of the same age as Gunn.
All of them said they arrived in the forest in a similar manner to her.

As one among their number, Gunn was given an elven sword and taught a few rhythms.

During the terrible period of training, instinctive obedience toward the pure-blooded elves was forced into their minds.
The fear of the High Elves became deeply imprinted into their souls.

And thus were all emotions except obedience and fear castrated from their beings, and they became swords-elves.
On behalf of the pure-bloods, The pure-bloods secretly put them into positions all across the continent, and they died fighting.

The newly arrived children filled the empty spots left by the dead children.

Then, at some point, all the half-elves who had arrived in the forest before Gunn were dead, and she became the first of the nineteen swords-elves.

After that, she was stuck in the forest for a while before receiving a new mission.
The objective was to rescue a little boy from a battlefield on which orcs were raging.
And in the middle of that battle where the orcs were running mad, Gunn and the half-elves met a dying boy.

The bloody young prince, who had not let go of Gunn’s hand until he fainted.

That bleeding prince became the master of Gunn and the swords-elves.

The truth was that it was not important to Gunn and the others who their owner was.
If they had to do it, they did it.
If they had to die, they died.
The Elder High Elf told them to follow the human’s orders, so they followed them.

Even if Gunn’s tongue had not been cut out, she would never have dared to protest because they were merely livestock.
Gunn and her fellow sword-elves were nothing more than puppets moved by the power of obedience and fear.

From the first, it was so.
They did what they were told.
At some point, the situation changed.

It was the moment when their young master had sang in front of the king of the orcs and slashed out with his sword.
It was then that the bonds of subordination that had been imprinted on their souls were broken.
The half-elves had nothing in them but fear and obedience towards High Elves, and when even that disappeared, their souls became completely empty.

And in the next moment, deep grief and remorse crept unfiltered into their hearts.

It was the feelings felt by the prince who burned like an inferno before the greenskin king’s body.
The empty souls of the swords-elves began to be filled again.

And so, they regained the feelings they had always lacked.
Although the emotions were not their own, they, who had been only domestic animals, could finally become human again.

True emotion replaced their bonds of subordination.

That was probably why when the young prince was placed in crisis by the Elder High Elf, the sword-elves charged in without hesitating.
They even rejected the prince’s order that they withdraw.
If they could save the young prince from the wicked Elder High Elf, they were prepared to give it their all – even if their deaths awaited them at the end of that charge.

One by one, Gunn’s comrades, friends, and sisters – the swords-elves – died in front of her eyes.
To Gunn’s surprise, she felt sad.
She wasn’t even sure if it had been her own feelings or the prince’s.
Gunn was only glad that she could mourn the death of others.

She knew then that she would also offer her life for the prince by following the other half-elves.

Gunn was happy.
It was so good for her that her comrades were choosing an end that they wanted and that someone mourned for them.
But she didn’t express that emotion in that moment, then.

“Revenge.”

She told the prince that the half-elves were doing it for themselves, that it was their revenge.
Gunn didn’t want the young prince to carry the half-elves’ deaths as a burden.
Not the prince who already carried everything on his shoulders, the prince who could never ignore the deaths that took place around him.

When the cunning Elder High Elf had used her broken sword to bombard the prince’s body, Gunn had thrown herself before him without hesitation.

As her body was torn into shreds, she saw the pain on the prince’s face.
And her master, more furious than ever before, had slashed his sword at the Elder High Elf.
That was when he fainted.

Gunn had endured the pain of her torn flesh and picked the prince up.
She ran away, then, ran until she could no longer feel the energy of the Elder High Elf.
Gunn ran until a hiding spot appeared.

After Gunn reached a mound of rocks and hid the prince’s body, she too fell unconscious.

* * *

Since then, the prince has treated Gunn with unconditional feelings of trust and love.

The same was true when he had chosen her as the messenger to go to the High Elf.

It was because the prince wished that Gunn, who had been regarded as livestock by the elves, could be confident in front of them by using the borrowed power of her master’s name.
All so that she could shake off the fear that remained in her heart.

That was why Gunn had wanted to fulfill her master’s orders in the best way possible.

But she couldn’t.

The moment she encountered the High Elf’s unique presence, her limbs stiffened like a frog in front of a snake.
Even though Gunn knew her master’s dignity would be hurt if she was weak, she behaved out of fear.

Gunn was disgusted with herself for not being able to repay the trust of the prince.

Nevertheless, her master did not blame her.
Rather, he said she had worked hard and even patted her shoulder.
The more he told Gunn she did good, the greater grew her guilt.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Gunn was told that her master would be fighting against the High Elf.
Startled, she headed straight to the dojo, where she saw the prince.
Before the duel, he looked at her and gave her a little smile.

“I will take your revenge for you,” he said while laughing.
Gunn hoped he could.

The prince’s power came from poetry, and reciting verses in front of High Elves was never a beneficial tactic.
They were monsters who could perform sword dances by weaving other people’s songs into their rhythms on the spot.
But it was too late – the male High Elf started dancing his rhythm lightly over the floor.

The unique energy that marked the start of his dance spread all over the place.

He couldn’t be interrupted anymore.

“Ah,” Gunn sighed regretfully when suddenly her master stamped his feet down hard on the floor.

‘Quazzak~’

The noise of the cracking floor spread throughout the training hall.

It was at that moment that the High Elf’s expression changed – even though the prince’s feet had smashed onto the empty floor without touching the elf’s body.

“You must have hoped to get a few verses from me by acting provocative,” Gunn’s master then said.
“But, unfortunately, you won’t hear a single verse from my mouth.”

The prince said this as if he had known everything from the beginning.
The High Elf again began building up his rhythm, and the prince stomped on the floor several times to fragment the beat.
The High Elf’s expression hardened, but only for a while.

“That’s an interesting trick.”

The High Elf quickly started chatting with a carefree face.
“I hope you don’t think that you can destroy a sword dance with your humorous clomping, right?”

The High Elf smirked as he laughed, outright ridiculing the prince.
Gunn clenched her fists in regret.
She had hoped that her master’s improvisation might have been a way to destroy the rhythm.

“The orcs roar out fiercely.
The bellowing of giants is great and powerful.
The dwarves’ iron cannons are as loud as any giant or orc.
But that doesn’t mean that any of them could destroy the sword-dances of our clan,” the High Elf said and gracefully shook his sword.

‘Woow~’

The elf’s sword began to keen clearly.

“If our skill could be destroyed just because the battlefield was noisy, our race would have become extinct along with the giants.”

“I see.”

The prince responded casually to the High Elf’s arrogant words.
It was then that Gunn looked at her master’s face.

“Well, I wasn’t really expecting it to work either.
I just tried it.”

Her master was laughing.

“Here is the real thing, anyway.”

It was laughter unique to the prince when he was looking arrogantly down upon someone.

Gunn’s master raised his sword.
On its blade shone the brilliant light which had killed countless enemies.
It was the supreme energy channeled from his single heart.
The master’s sword, filled with light, began to cry.

“See, I woke up after sleeping for a while, and there was an interesting trick floating around the world.”

However, Gunn realized that the sound and energy wave was not like what her maser usually used.

‘Woow~ Woow~’

Two noises seemed to be resonating with each other.
It was like-

“It’s a mana chain.”

It was something that could only be used by a knight of the ring.

“I don’t know anything different, but it’s amazing that I can resonate with someone else’s mana.”