Lant Island

This was probably the most pleasant time of year on Lant Island.

The early summer sun turned the distant sea golden, like waves of wheat. The damp sea breeze tousled the boy's black hair, carrying a faint fishy smell mingled with the scent of earth from the grass beside him. He took a deep breath, and all the little joys of the past ten years seemed to surge back from his memories. The boy, whose name was Donald, sat up.

Ten years had passed. His mother, buried in the inconspicuous mound beside him, had been dead for ten years.

Ten years was enough to blur the past, but that day remained so vivid in the boy's heart, as if it had happened yesterday.

Donald had been six then, standing among the mourners and watching as though the most absurd play imaginable were unfolding. Like a clumsy extra, he remained apart from the crowd's grief, shocked to his core, his hands and feet ice-cold.

Only afterward did he learn that it had been his mother's funeral. The child sobbing beside him was his younger brother, Richard, two years his junior. The trembling back before him belonged to his father, Tom, a blacksmith.

Yes, on that day ten years ago, he had crossed into another world. There had been no sudden time tunnel, no car crash, electrocution, fall from a building, or any other accident. He had gone from being a modern-day Earthling to inhabiting a child in this mysterious land. Everything had seemed calm on the surface, but nobody knew that young Donald's heart had been swept by a raging storm.

From that day onward, he had lived cautiously, concealing himself and adapting to the identity of a six-year-old child. He couldn't understand the language, so he simply stopped speaking. People assumed that losing his mother at such a young age had traumatized him and left him withdrawn.

He helped pull the bellows in his father's sweltering smithy. When his father was drenched in sweat and couldn't spare a hand, he wrung out a towel for him. He dressed and fed his younger brother, and took him to the market to buy bread and vegetables. The kindhearted women at the market would secretly slip the poor boy an extra piece of black bread. A blacksmith's income was meager, and Donald always gave his brother a little more of their limited food. Whenever their father saw this, he would turn away and sigh quietly.

Donald felt for the father and son. They had lost two members of their family in a single day, so he did his best to ease his father's burden and give his younger brother a little more warmth.

At first, he thought he had been transported to some southern island in medieval Italy. A few months later, once he had gradually learned to understand the language, he discovered that reality was even more astonishing than he had imagined: this was no place on Earth, but a world he had never heard of.

He was on a small island called Lant, close to the Hells Continent. On clear days, if he stood atop the cliffs at the island's northern tip and looked north, he could sometimes see the far continent's long coastline.

Lant Island was tiny, and most of its residents lived in Lant Town. Both the island and the town took their names from the only noble family in the area, the Lant Family. Legend had it that the family's ancestor had been an officer in the Feymont Empire six hundred years ago and had rendered great service during the war of its founding. The Empire had rewarded him with the island. Considering how small it was, Donald couldn't help wondering whether the Lants were bragging or the king was simply too stingy. It really wasn't the sort of question a six-year-old should have been pondering.

His unfamiliarity and fear gradually faded, and a smile slowly returned to Donald's face. He came to accept his father and younger brother, and his sympathy gradually became familial affection. His father's hard work brought more gray hair to his temples with each passing day, as well as black bread to the table.

The household was certainly incomplete without a woman of the house, and the old blacksmith was a man of few words, but Donald had never felt such warmth at home before. He treasured it, yet whenever he remembered that the real Donald's soul had vanished with his mother ten years ago, and that he was only an impostor from another world, he couldn't feel at ease. Over time, he even began to think of himself as a thief, stealing a life that had never belonged to him.

Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, ten years went by. Richard had grown into a sturdy young man. Donald was still taller than his younger brother, but with his slender build and fair skin, he didn't look like a blacksmith's son at all. And in all those ten years, he had never spoken a word. People had taken to calling him the blacksmith's mute son behind his back.

Fourteen-year-old Richard was increasingly like his blacksmith father. Strongly built, he could already swing his father's fearsome hammer with ease. The ample island sunshine had given his face a handsome bronze tan, and he always wore the honest smile that seemed to mark Lant Island's residents.

By the islanders' standards of beauty, Donald, on the other hand, was rather frail, with skin that was too fair. He was always lost in thought by himself, and when someone occasionally greeted him, he would respond with a faint smile.

"That poor child—he looks so much like his late mother," the neighbors would sigh. Some even said, "Tom, your Donald looks just like a nobleman."

Whenever he heard that, Tom the Blacksmith only smiled sheepishly. Donald wasn't a noble and never would be. He was his own somewhat frail, mute son. In truth, the kindhearted islanders rarely had the chance to see nobles. Baron Lant didn't live on Lant Island; the only person there was an official who helped him manage the island and collect taxes.

Donald didn't think he was unfortunate. Compared with the orphanage where he had spent his childhood in his previous life, Lant Island was practically paradise. The weather was warm year-round, and the people were kind and welcoming. Whenever the women at the market hugged him, their ample bosoms pressed tightly against him, always leaving Donald embarrassed and blushing.

The beautiful, peaceful beach was a playground for the children. Lovely white-sailed ships passed across the distant sea from time to time, and the occasional vessel that docked at Lant's little harbor brought sailors full of stories.

At dusk, outside the tavern in the marketplace, down-on-their-luck sailors would tell tales of serving some noble lord as attendants and seeing brave knights. The knights wore gleaming armor and could face a hundred bandits alone, while mysterious mages could casually conjure a fireball and burn such a knight to ashes in an instant. The sailors' stories were crude and straightforward, and often didn't quite add up. Traveling minstrels rarely came to the island, but the stories they told were far more wondrous and mysterious. When they got carried away, they would pluck at their battered lutes and sing softly. Their voices, roughened by too much drink, were hoarse and muffled, like a ship moored at shore creaking in the night breeze. They were sounds from a distant world. At such times, even the rowdiest sailors would fall quiet, a rare longing showing in their eyes.

Compared with mysterious mages, knights—who always appeared alongside beautiful princesses and epic wars—were more to the boys of Lant Island's taste. Nearly every boy owned a wooden sword and swung it about as if he truly had a princess to rescue.

According to imperial law, boys could carry swords at fourteen. In noble or wealthy families in the big cities, children that age could already attend Knight School for training. Elsewhere in the Empire, poor boys had the chance to take part in the special selection held once each season when they turned sixteen. Those who passed could study at the Knight Academy for free. Of course, this selection was more like entertainment, since the chances of passing were vanishingly small.

Two groups of boys on the island, all Donald's age, had already gone to Dorn City, the capital of Tris Province, to take part in the spring and summer Knight Selections. As expected, none of them had passed. Nobody felt disappointed, either, because for the children of Lant Island, going to Dorn City together at sixteen was more like a trip to mark their coming of age. On the isolated little island, nobody could remember the last time a child had passed the selection.

Toward the end of spring, Tom the Blacksmith tried asking Donald whether he wanted to go to Dorn City with the other boys his age. Donald only smiled and gave no answer. From that day on, after his father finished work, he no longer rushed to put out the forge. Instead, he took the hammer and set to work on a piece of wrought iron. He was naturally frail and had to catch his breath after three or four blows, but he never stopped. Once he had recovered, he continued, keeping at it for two hours each day.

He didn't speak, but Old Tom understood: Donald wanted to reassure him that the smithy's work would be in good hands.

"You silly boy. I only asked you to go out and see the world once, not to fly off and never come back. Your old dad's still strong. It's not time for you to take over yet." As usual, the old blacksmith reached out and ruffled Donald's black hair. His words sounded like a complaint, but a pleased smile was on his face. "Dorn City, huh? It wouldn't be bad to go and have a look."

And so Donald hammered away at his piece of wrought iron every day. When it grew thin, he rolled or simply bent it back into a lump and kept hammering. Customers watched in puzzlement and asked Old Tom what his son was making. He couldn't answer. He only said the boy was playing around with the iron, using it to build up his strength.

The blacksmith's mute son was learning to forge. Within a few days, the neighbors had gotten used to it.

"Once you've learned the trade, you'll have to make me a pair of horseshoes first. Lant Town's going to have two blacksmiths! Tom, you'll have someone competing with you for business now, haha!" This was Uncle Jim, who hauled goods around town by horse.

Richard helped his brother pump the bellows. He wiped his sweat with a hand that accidentally smeared charcoal all over his forehead, then answered for his brother. "Uncle Jim, your skinny horse won't wear through a pair of horseshoes in half a year. My brother's got to make me a sword first—a real sword."

For the past few months, Richard had been pestering his father to make him a sword. At fourteen, he was already nearly as big as a grown man, and the wooden sword at his waist was starting to look rather ridiculous.

No matter what anyone said, Donald only smiled, then lowered his head and carried on hammering his lump of iron with care. After a few months, he had developed some skill. The shapeless piece of wrought iron he'd started with now became a broad, evenly thick sheet every few days. In Aunt Mary's words, a few more blows and it would make a fine iron basin. Unfortunately, before long, Donald would hammer the nearly finished basin back into a lump.

One day, as summer was drawing to a close, Donald signaled for his younger brother to stoke the forge as hot as it would go. Then he hammered the much-abused lump of iron more intently than ever before. Richard pumped the bellows with all his might. The blows of Donald's hammer nearly ran together, then suddenly stopped. He watched his brother drop onto the ground, grinning triumphantly as beads of sweat rolled down his face. Stuck in the forge was what looked like... a sword?

Donald waited for a while, then put out the fire. He made no move to take the sword out. Old Tom pointed to the bucket, indicating that Donald should quench it, but Donald shook his head.

"Just let your younger brother play with it," Old Tom said with a laugh, taking a sip of the island's locally made rough rum. "You little rascal—who'd dare make a sword without years of practice under their belt?"

"Dad, I've never seen you make a sword in all my life." Richard had pestered his father for months without getting anywhere, and had already visited the sword shop in town countless times. They only sold one kind of sword: the Empire's most common Standard Longsword. Turner, the tavern keeper's son, had become the idol of the island's children his age thanks to one of those swords. Every time he carefully drew it, his expression was as solemn as a knight being dubbed by the king.

Now Richard, too, would get a sword—a longsword his brother had forged with his own hands.