Chapter 1: Eclipse Rurandel
“Ha, haha.”
The knight let out a hollow laugh.
The look in his eyes was unmistakable.
Despair.
The emotion that plunges a person into the abyss.
With despair in his eyes, he witnessed the catastrophe before him.
“Heeheeheeheehee!”
“Gyaaah!”
“Kill them! Kill them all!”
“No! Please save me! Please…”
They had gone mad, not even knowing who they were.
The very people who, just yesterday, had cared for each other and burned with the will to survive were now slaughtering one another.
The slaughter did not last long.
Because the maddened people, after killing each other, ended up stabbing their own throats.
As if fleeing.
As if they had seen something they should never have seen.
The knight couldn’t even think of stopping them.
Because it was only natural.
Once the inevitable had happened, there was no way to stop it.
There was no one who could look upon those beings and not go mad.
Except for one person.
Him.
And now, at this very moment, he was the only living, breathing person left in the world.
The knight gazed at the monster before him.
People did not call that monster a monster.
It was Fear.
It was Fear itself, which had ravaged and torn apart the human world, driving all within it to madness.
Those who looked upon the form of Fear.
No matter how strong their minds, they could not maintain their sanity.
For some reason, he alone had been able to keep his sanity.
But what good was that?
Humanity was already extinct, and only he remained.
It had been a peaceful world.
No, at least on the surface, it seemed like a peaceful world.
There were many kingdoms and an empire, and though disputes arose among them.
Even when the clouds of war gathered, they quickly dissipated.
The powerful kingdoms and the empire schemed to undermine one another, but they stopped short of all-out war.
The knight was one who, within that world, pursued nobility according to his own will.
No, to be precise, he was just a vagrant.
He had nothing, was poor, and weak.
Yet he struggled with loneliness, yearning for the warmth of others.
For such a vagrant to become a knight was as impossible as telling a beggar who happens to resemble oneself to be a prince.
One day, while begging in front of a dilapidated building in the slums, he chanced upon a certain sight.
An old knight was handing out food to children from the same slum as him.
The vagrant, too, naturally approached him, hoping for that small bit of warmth.
The warm bread the old knight offered was deeply moving.
After that, he watched the knight’s every move.
Hoping that the knight would give him something again.
In doing so, he learned something.
Wherever the old knight went, laughter bloomed.
Happiness sprung forth.
He always moved for the sake of others, and he always fought against injustice.
Even while dragging his old body.
Once, magical beasts had invaded the city.
At that time, the old knight fought the beasts on the front lines.
He risked his life many times to save people.
Since then, the vagrant thought the old knight shined brightly.
That thought soon gave the vagrant a wish.
To become a knight like him.
Even if he was just a street vagrant now.
Even if he had to witness all sorts of filth, do all sorts of dirty work, and eat filthy food.
He wanted to become a knight like that.
The vagrant mustered the greatest courage of his life and spoke to the knight.
In truth, for a mere vagrant to initiate conversation with a knight was a grave discourtesy.
Some ill-tempered knights would even speak of vagrants with disgust and kill them, which was a common occurrence.
In such a situation, the vagrant spoke to the knight.
Risking his own life.
But the knight remembered the vagrant and asked him.
“Yes. What do you need? Did you come for bread like last time?”
“No.”
“Then what do you need, young friend?”
“I want to become a knight, too.”
“A knight, you say. A knight. That’s good. But it will be just as hard and difficult. A knight is noble only in fantasy; it is not a noble profession. It won’t be uncommon for your life to be on the line, and if you get caught by some wicked lord, you’ll suffer all kinds of hardships. Do you still want to be a knight?”
“Yes.”
The old knight was a peculiar man.
He didn’t say, ‘How dare a vagrant dream of becoming a knight?’ He simply asked for the vagrant’s intention.
“Alright. From today, you are my disciple.”
The knight gladly looked at the vagrant, no.
He looked at the boy.
That day, the boy became the old knight’s disciple.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t heard your name. What is it?”
“I don’t have one.”
“I see. Then it wouldn’t be bad for me to give you one.”
“Yes.”
Usually, a name would be given on the day one was taken in as a disciple, but the boy wasn’t particularly bothered by the fact that he didn’t have a name.
Just a simple “hey, you” was enough for him.
But he couldn’t be nameless forever.
Therefore, the old knight decided to give the boy a name.
The old knight looked around, searching for something suitable to name him after.
But there was nothing particularly fitting for a name.
The old knight wanted to give his first disciple a meaningful name and didn’t want to name him after common things lying on the street, so in the end, he couldn’t decide on a name for the boy that day.
However, faster than expected, the knight was able to come up with a name for the boy.
Because the sky suddenly darkened.
Thinking rain clouds might be rolling in, the old knight looked up at the sky and let out a gasp of admiration.
“My word. What a marvelous thing.”
The sun was dyed black.
The moon had covered the sun.
A solar eclipse.
Looking at the sight, the old knight was immediately able to decide on the boy’s name.
For such a thing to happen on the very day he intended to name the boy.
Thinking this might also be a kind of miracle, the old knight spoke to the boy without hesitation.
“From today, your name is Eclipse. Ah. You don’t have a family name, do you? Then let’s use mine. Since you are a child I have taken in, it is only right that I pass on my family name as well.”
“A family… name?”
“Yes. You are Eclipse Rurandel.”
And so, the boy became Eclipse Rurandel.
The knight, no.
Eclipse stared straight ahead.
Fear had a terrifying form.
It felt like a being not of this world.
Just looking at it made his mind feel worn down and contaminated.
But he raised his sword.
The sword was already broken, but the knight still swung it towards Fear without hesitation.
A fierce sword strike.
A blow powerful enough to shake the heavens and the earth unfolded from the knight’s sword, and Fear countered by thrusting its fist.
The world trembled for a moment.
Eclipse, whose insides were shattered from the recent clash, coughed up blood and raised his sword again.
He was determined to at least kill the Fear before him, even if he died doing it.
But his sword did not reach Fear.
Fear knocked away his broken greatsword, then grabbed Eclipse in its hand and slammed him to the ground.
“Keuk!”
Eclipse couldn’t help but vomit blood.
Fragments of his ruptured organs flew from his mouth.
His vision was slowly, slowly turning black.
‘Is this how I die?’
Fear pressed its horrifying form into Eclipse’s face, staring at him with an unreadable expression.
At that moment, with death at his doorstep, Eclipse reflected on his past.
When did it start?
When did it all go wrong?
From the time Fear opened the gate to the world?
No.
Even before that, humans had begun to distrust one another.
It was the same even after Fear invaded.
Unity was never achieved.
Faced with a formidable enemy, humanity fractured rather than united, busy trying to escape from Fear.
Amidst such ugliness, Eclipse was the only one who stood against Fear.
Countless battles were fought.
Battles with those who became Fear’s minions.
Battles with Fear itself, which sometimes came forward to eliminate Eclipse.
In the midst of it all, people found hope in Eclipse.
Those who felt hope entrusted themselves to Eclipse.
Such forces grew countless.
Renowned rulers and powerful nobles alike.
Everyone requested protection from Eclipse, and Eclipse helped them all.
There were those who had once committed heinous acts.
There were those who had committed unspeakable sins.
But even so, Eclipse protected and led them.
Because the nobility his master spoke of was, in the end, about people.
‘What is nobility?’
‘It is the right thing you pursue. It is the answer you must one day find.’
‘I don’t really understand.’
‘That’s alright.’
‘Master, what was the nobility you pursued?’
Eclipse asked his master.
‘I wanted to save people. I wanted to reach out to the lonely. I didn’t want to stand by and watch injustice. I believed that was the duty of a knight. No matter how vile a person might be, I extended a hand to save them. Because lonely people are everywhere in the world. I wanted to be the one who lit the path they walked.’
‘Is that… possible?’
‘It might be impossible. But I tried to live that way. And that soon became the value I believed to be noble. I don’t know what your value will be. You will likely walk a different path from me. So… be strong.’
Eclipse still didn’t know what nobility he should pursue.
So he acted based on the nobility his master had spoken of as his own value.
But the result was the extinction of humanity.
It was the result of extending a hand to everyone all by himself.
Looking back on his life, Eclipse finally realized.
‘I was wrong. The reason Master could pursue nobility was because the world had not yet lost its nobility.’
Eclipse recalled the vile scenes he had witnessed.
Those who offered others to Fear to save their own lives.
When a man who gambled his kingdom’s fate bowed to Fear, trying to preserve at least his own life by offering his nation.
Naturally, the moment he witnessed Fear, he went mad and became its minion.
‘There were too many rotten humans. In trying to save even them, I failed to save those who truly needed to be saved.’
What is nobility?
Nobility, in the end, was a value that could only flourish when the world was at peace.
To expect nobility from those who had lost it was a luxury.
Eclipse began to regret that he should have forced the powerful to submit.
He should have forced them into submission and united humanity.
But it was already too late.
It was too late to turn back.
‘If. If there is such a thing as a next life.’
He glared at the approaching Fear, his eyes wide.
‘I will never live like that again.’
Just as he made that vow and accepted his death.
There was a voice.
[Answer my call.]
The moment the voice was heard, Eclipse was engulfed in a brilliant light in front of Fear.
And he felt his vision go dark.