The late Count Hous—whether father or son, either way the word "late" applied, so it made no difference—did not know that a tiny fraction of their bloodline came from a famous hero.
A hero steeped in tragedy.
This hero had been born in a declining small kingdom, situated beside a powerful great nation, with mighty nonhuman races on the other side.
It was the early days of humanity's Great Expansion. As the human gods led the opening of new lands, wars among humans themselves were also fierce. Countless states, large and small—in that era, the noble system had not yet been established, and many territories that later generations would consider no more than viscounties or even baronies likewise proclaimed themselves independent kingdoms—sprang up and perished one after another. Not a single day passed without the flames of war burning, while steel and blood ran rampant across the land.
In that age, weakness was a crime. The strong were greedy and vicious as starving wolves, only to be devoured in turn by even stronger men like ravenous tigers. Even commoners had to learn a few fighting skills. Whenever a knight became separated from his companions, those farmers who appeared honest and dutiful could transform in the blink of an eye into savage brigands, killing him and plundering every scrap of his wealth.
And that hero's kingdom had committed precisely this "crime."
From the day he was born, his kingdom had been swaying in wind and rain. Before he even reached adulthood, his father, the king at the time, had been forced into a war that brought them no benefit whatsoever. Though the war was won, the king died in it. It was said that his death was highly suspicious: there was over an eighty-percent chance that the poisoned arrow which killed