Chapter 1 – Bloodline That Brings Calamity: The Half-Man’s Origins
When my mother died, I who was left behind had just turned 15.
The cause was when she went on a long ride with her lover at the ti, she and her lover got drunk with booze and fell off a cliff along with the coach.
She seed so drunk I honestly suspect she might not have even noticed she died.
The life of a person who spent her youth as a rcenary, fighting demons and was even hailed as a hero for a ti, ended abruptly, but it was still a very mom-like way to die.
I don’t know the details of her youth, but she was a person who loved booze and sex, a person who won’t hesitate to enjoy life.
She was probably satisfied that way, rather than growing old and weak with illness.
When mother had no ti because of being born, she took to this village in the mountains and started an inn with a tavern in the outskirts of the village.
It’s a village deep in the mountains with nothing to it besides the knowledge that there were tal veins there.
Mother had the strength to fight dangerous animals and monsters who sotis ca out, and on top of that she was a tavern girl who would keep the village n company.
Because of that, when mother was still alive there were very few who said anything about my strange appearance.
Since I was a mother-con when I was little I grumbled, but because she had a large influence I didn’t really complain much.
…… That was because I had small horns that prove I wasn’t human, so I was teased by the village children.
Mother was in her youth, a hero of a certain country, as one who bore the na of hero, she was a mber of the army going to attack the demon realm.
I don’t know how big the army or what position she held in it, mother never told about any of it.
I only knew the outco.
The army was destroyed, mother was captured by the demons, raped, and beca pregnant with a demon’s child. That was .
Being a half-demon, if I lived in sowhere the Church has a strong influence, there is a good chance I might get burned at a stake.
I don’t know where the “Demon World” they say lies on the other side of the Human World is, and I’m not interested.
But mom escaped from there and into this village out in the sticks in order to raise .
Because I was such a child, I either play alone or with books, or the many wandering rcenaries who were mother’s custors.
The wandering rcenaries carried their own faults, and almost none of them minded being a half-demon.
Now that I think about it, they seed to have loved , and I also took lessons in spells and fundantals of magic from rcenaries who dabble in magic. … I only learnt the basics, it’s not like I made anything of it.
The one and only person my age who I was able to make friends with was a girl who would only co to the village every year during sumr.
A girl with black hair that had a greenish hue when bathed in sunlight.
It was only her who didn’t fear or make fun of my horns.
Because she only ca to the village once a year in the sumr, so of course she would be isolated from the village kids.
So naturally, she and I beca friends.
She normally lives in the city, she would tell about big buildings, beautiful churches, and marketplaces packed with mountains of goods. In return, I would teach her how to walk in the forest, how to distinguish animal tracks, byroads used by rcenaries and wanderers, and how to catch bugs. We would also read books together in the inn’s attic.
Those fun sumrs lasted for five years, and ended abruptly.
At the end of sumr when I was twelve years old she told “I won’t be coming from next year on”, and she never ca again since.
That was the mory of my one and only friend.
…… Her mother was a maid working for the Margrave that rules these lands, becoming her master’s mistress and giving birth to her.
It was when I had grown up a little bit that I found out that her mother, who had lived a sheltered life as the Margrave’s mistress, had died to an epidemic, and she was adopted in town as [a niece of a so nobleman whose father does not know of].
Since my mother died, I could only struggle to live on alone, living in the inn with business only coming from travelers, rchants and mother’s old rcenary friends who seldom ca.
Anyhow, since mother died her friends stopped coming, and the business from just the rcenaries and rchants beca unprofitable.
Additionally, unlike when mother was still alive, I wasn’t recognized as a person of the village.
This wasn’t anything special. It was normal for old villages to dislike strangers.
It might have been good for mother that she died before she grew weak, because she didn’t marry anyone from the village, if her body had beco weak, she would probably be expelled from the village.
I was hated just because of these horns.
Mother left behind a little bit of fortune, so I might have been able to live a humble life for 3~5 years, but I would have nothing after that. A hated person probably wouldn’t be hired as a farmhand, too.
…… Ironically, what saved my livelihood was the blood of the father I whose face I never saw, whose na I never knew.
Albeit few, it is known that magic exists in this world, just by being able to use magic one could escape being burnt at the stake by the church.
This village out in the sticks have nothing to do with it, but if you go to town, there seems to be places called [Magicians’ Academies] where you could gather and learn the art and knowledge of magic.
That said, magic is an art that depends on a person’s individual talent more than others, only one in a hundred humans can use it. The power to even only set fire to dried grass is not one that a human could wield. Even among humans who could wield magic only a fraction of them could do that.
However, a lot of demons could use magic to so extent.
(Which is why there’s a deeply rooted prejudice that magic is “a power used by demons”, though)
Being soone of mixed demon blood, I have magic ability, even though just a little.
I wonder if I could do sothing with this power, I thought as I made my way back from mother’s funeral.
In the songs of minstrels, the thods to do things like hurling balls of fire or freezing things are unclear. Even after trying lots of things, I was of course unable to do anything.
I could only use the “Ignite” magic which was a basic spell I learned long ago, but it uses lots of easily-burnt dry grass, needs tens of minutes of chanting, and only catches fire when I finally beca dead tired. If it’s like this then using flints would be hundreds of tis faster.
What I could do was granting mana… magic power to objects.
If I imbue a stone with magic, the stone becos lighter and a little harder.
I can’t explain it well, but it took over a year to be able to control to so extent how the object would change
Since I was self-taught, I’m sorry if I was so unskillful, but I couldn’t judge whether this one year was a long or a short ti since I had nothing to compare against.
Until then, I made lots of “clothes that are easier to break than they look” and “tree branches that would snap as soon as it they hit sothing”, I don’t really want to rember it.
The resulting amount of stones and tree branches I used for practice probably amounted to a small hill’s worth of failed products.
Even so, after the second year I beca able to make “armor that are lighter than they look” or “swords that look short but the blade reaches just a little further”.
The reason I made so many dangerous items is because demand only ca from rcenaries and adventurers with money and can invest in equipnt (and rchants who deal with them). Anyway, making them takes so ti and I failed lots of tis. I was also able to make non-stick cooking pots and such but they weren’t really welcod by the villagers.
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