Prologue
A horned rabbit about the height of a child, its eyes a bright, blazing red, leaped at me.
It was a Killer Rabbit. They were relatively weak as far as monsters went, but the follow-up attack they made with their horns after they jumped would fatally injure anyone, even an adult, who took it head-on.
I sidestepped the rabbit’s attack, then slashed at its flank with my longsword. I felt a dull thud. That wasn’t enough to kill it.
The Killer Rabbit leaped backward, putting some space between us, then instantly charged me again.
This time, I dodged it by a hair’s breadth, then swung my sword from below at its neck. I felt little resistance as my attack landed, and a spout of blood gushed out from the Killer Rabbit’s throat. With that, its movements grew sluggish. Not bothering to hurry, I circled around to its blind spot and landed the finishing blow.
Then, I skinned it, drained its blood, used magic to kindle a fire, and cooked the rabbit’s meat. At first, I had hated the sight of blood, but I was used to it by now, and I performed everything with practiced, fluid movements. This was, of course, so I could eat the Killer Rabbit. I also had some spices on hand, for taste and to mask the smell. Even after all that, the monster’s meat still tasted awful, but if I didn’t eat it, I wouldn’t survive.
I wasn’t a hunter or anything. I actually happened to be a prince of this kingdom—a prince who was, unbelievable as it sounds, slipping out of his castle and into the forest to hunt monsters and eat them. However, there’s one thing I want to get straight: I wasn’t living like this because the kingdom was poor. I imagine I was probably the only person in the kingdom who was going out of his way to eat nasty monster meat. The problem was, I just couldn’t get a proper meal at the castle. So, out of desperation and starvation, I had resorted to eating monsters.
I did have plenty of food back at the castle and in my quarters, but all of it had a pretty high likelihood of being poisoned.
Why, you ask? Because our government was thoroughly corrupt, and the prime minister, Gamarath, had completely usurped power. It hadn’t always been like that. He had gradually accumulated power over time, then foisted his daughter onto the king, my father, probably out of a desire to become a maternal relative of the next king and solidify his authority.
Apparently, my father had been reluctant at first. Sure, he had loved the late queen—my mother—but I think the real reason he resisted was that Gamarath’s daughter was the spitting image of her father. In other words, she was ugly. She had been ugly even to me, and I was young when I met her. I guess that showed how powerful Gamarath was, to be able to make my father marry her anyway. Regardless, after doing what married couples do (which was, as far as I’m aware, all done in the conventional manner), they quickly had a child. It was a boy.
To the prime minister, I was now officially an obstacle. My food taster almost died three times in a row, and I could feel that it was getting dicey for me, so I stopped eating any of the castle’s food. My mother had died from an illness when I was young, and now, even that became suspicious in retrospect. Unable to trust anyone in the castle, I started procuring my food from the forest. I’d been doing that for about a year.
I was going to the forest in particular because it was connected to a secret passageway leading out of the castle. The back of the castle was enclosed by a high wall, past which lay the Forest of Beasts, a place no one ever approached. Since the founding of the kingdom, the wall protecting the capital from monsters had gradually grown larger, eventually turning into a fortress, and by the time a certain hero had come to govern the region, it had become the fortified castle it was today. That hero was one of my ancestors. Basically, the castle was close to the forest to protect the citizens from monsters, but no one ever got near the forest, which was why there was a secret passageway there, in case of an emergency. That made it the perfect place to get food without being seen.
I was twelve years old now, but I had trained in swordsmanship and magic from early childhood, which meant I could hunt monsters, as long as they were weak. I brought them down with my sword, then used magic to make a fire and cook them. To be blunt, they tasted terrible. But still, it was way better than eating poison. Thanks to my new routine, I was able to get one meal each day, at night. I was always tormented by hunger, so I could even put up with the awful meat.
But how much longer can I continue living like this?
If his attempts to poison me keep failing, won’t Gamarath eventually just try to kill me using a more direct method?
I was plagued by some pretty nasty thoughts. I was doing everything I could just to survive every day, but I knew I would hit a wall soon.
As I gnawed on a piece of Killer Rabbit meat and thought about my depressing future, I felt someone’s presence behind me. Then, they abruptly spoke.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Hey, you,” said the interloper. “Become my apprentice.”
In that instant, I prepared for death. Up until the moment they spoke, I hadn’t sensed the owner of the voice at all. I thought the prime minister had finally sent an assassin because his attempts at poisoning me had so reliably failed. I reflexively grabbed my sword and turned toward the voice, getting ready to fight.
“Hm… Your swordsmanship still has a long way to go,” she said.
With that, the meaning of the person’s words finally entered my brain. Become her apprentice? What the heck is she talking about?
The person who had spoken to me was a tall, red-haired woman. She was wearing a suit of light armor and shouldering a greatsword. She had quite a beautiful face, but it was lean and sharp—the distinctive features of a career fighter.
“Umm, who are you, and why are you here so late at night?” I asked hesitantly. “You aren’t…an assassin, are you?”
“That young, and you’re already fighting assassins? You must’ve been through your fair share of fights. I knew you looked promising,” the red-haired woman replied. She looked satisfied.
I get the feeling we’re talking past each other.
“Oh, no, I haven’t fought anyone yet. But I’m ready, if I ever have to,” I said.
“I see. Well don’t worry. I’m not an assassin.”
That calmed me down a bit. To tell the truth, the woman looked quite strong. I had seen many skilled warriors in the castle, including my sword instructor, but this woman was on a completely different level from all of them. I’d lived my life not knowing whether I’d make it to the next day, so naturally, it had been important for me to learn how to judge people’s strength. After all, if my opponent was stronger than me, there was a chance I could die. I could really do without this level of foreknowledge.
“Uh, you said something about me becoming your apprentice, didn’t you?” I asked carefully. “What sort of apprentice?”
“An apprentice is an apprentice. You have promise. Enough promise to take up my sword after me. So, become my apprentice.”
“Then, I’ll be your apprentice in swordsmanship? What do you mean I look promising?”
Honestly, I was aware that I had some amount of talent with a sword. My instructor often told me so. But, I didn’t think this was a question of talent; if I hadn’t gotten stronger quickly, I could’ve died. I was only at my current level because I’d trained like crazy. I didn’t know whether I was actually talented, or if my skill was just the fruit of all that hard work.
“I said that because you were eating monster meat,” the woman replied.
“Huh?”