Chapter 1

As soon as I crossed the gates of Roctana, I felt I had entered some kind of hell.

“Die!!”

“You spawn of the devil!! You deserve to die!!”

“Give me back my son...! Sob!! Return my child!!”

“Die, you Allen bastard!”

The beautiful nature outside the castle vanished, replaced by a swarm of people crowding like ants, all lifting their heads as if they were one living creature.

And the name of this creature was Hatred.

-Thud!

Out of nowhere, a stone flew and struck my forehead.

“Ugh!”

I clutched my forehead due to the sharp pain as dark red blood trickled down.

But that wasn’t all; As if it were a signal, a barrage of stones rained down on me.

So many stones fell that the sky darkened for a moment.

Had I personally earned such resentment from them? No, I had not. But to be precise, my family indeed had. And I was the eldest son of that family.

Our family and the Rondor family, who ruled Roctana, were mortal enemies.

A knight of Rondor who had brought me to Roctana sidled up to me and whispered.

“Look, Kylo Allen.”

With a slow movement, he raised his arm, and another heavy stone bounced off his gauntlet.

“See with your own eyes the hatred your family has accumulated... And never forget it. The wrath of Roctana is no different from the wrath of the Rondor family.”

Elders shedding tears of blood.

Children hurling stones with resentful eyes.

Peers my age rushing at me as if to kill, then only being pushed and trampled by adults.

Parents who lost their children and children who lost their parents venting their anger at me.

Witnessing such a scene even once, you wouldn’t be able to forget it, even if told to.

It was horrifying.

There was no other way to describe it.

Just trying to comprehend the swirling emotions inside me was overwhelming.

“…”

But I bundled up and ignored these emotions.

They were feelings I didn’t need to understand.

What I needed to remember was simple.

This was Rondor’s territory—Roctana.

The land of our enemy.

And one thing was clear.

Just as my father fought, and his soldiers followed, so must I.

This was my battlefield.

If you lower your sword and shield because the enemy is frightening, death is all that awaits.

If you show weakness, you’ll be defeated.

Father always said: ‘If you get hit, you have to hit back.’

So I roughly wiped away the blood, swallowed my fear, and shouted.

“…Were we the only ones who killed?”

I raised my voice even louder.

“Are we the only devils? Do you even know how many of our people you killed!! We were just stronger—that’s all. You’re the same as us!!”

For the past five years, there had been a war between the Kingdom of East and the Kingdom of Delrum.

Our Allen family belonged to the northern part of the Kingdom of East.

Under the banner of the East, my father elevated the status of the Allen family, fighting countless noble families of the Delrum Kingdom.

Among those families, there was one we could call our greatest rival.

A family whose territory and military power matched ours.

The Rondor family.

They were the first to stand against my father, who had earned the nickname “the Unbeaten Knight.” Throughout the ongoing war, the ones we killed the most—and the ones who killed us the most—were the Rondors.

Perhaps the reason our families were constantly entangled was that if you traveled straight down from the cold northern land where the Allen family resided to the warm south, you’d arrive at the territory of the Rondor family.

We fought fiercely. And as we did, the emotional rift deepened accordingly.

Then, around last year, our family pushed the Rondor family to the brink of annihilation, effectively ending the inter-family rivalry with our victory, but...

A war cannot be won by a single family.

In the war between the Kingdom of East and the Kingdom of Delrum, our side—the East Kingdom—was defeated.

Although a peace treaty was signed, as the defeated nation, we had to provide collateral for the peace.

Many noble children of the Kingdom of East were sent as hostages to the Kingdom of Delrum.

Not every family’s children were taken, but... I was. To be precise, it was mandatory.

Given my father’s exploits during the war, the Allen family could not escape the wrath of the Delrum Kingdom.

And my destination was, of course, obvious.

The family that had fought the war with utmost loyalty to Delrum, only to be ruined and declined by us.

The family that was our greatest enemy and rival.

I had to come to the territory of the Rondor family—Roctana.

‘I must have gone crazy.’

I thought as I pressed my torn forehead with my palm.

I did have a choice.

Before being dragged here as a hostage, Father had asked us siblings with a sorrowful expression.

“Who among you will go to Roctana? Who will sacrifice themselves for the Allen family?”

...Honestly, I didn’t want to.

Considering the animosity between us and the Rondor family, there was no way I wanted to.

We had killed many of the Rondor soldiers—in other words, the people of Roctana.

And it wasn’t just that.

The Duke of Rondor had died from festering wounds sustained in battle with my father.

Their eldest son also... though it’s a complicated story, you could say he died by our hands.

So what remained in Roctana?

Countless people of the territory mourning the loss of their husbands and sons.

The Duchess of Rondor and her daughter, who were in the same situation.

And a seething, immense rage.

This rage would be unleashed on the hostage who would be dragged there, they would have to bear all this rage as the target of their venting.

That’s why I didn’t want to come. I might die enduring their rage.

I didn’t want to die. There were too many things I wanted to do, too many things I wanted to eat, too many things I wanted to see.

...And yet, here I am.

I was foolish.

We are five siblings.

I’m the eldest at fourteen.

The second and third are girls aged thirteen and eleven.

Since we didn’t know what terrible things might happen to a girl taken as a hostage, they were out of the question.

The fourth is a six-year-old who still sucks his thumb. The fifth is a two-year-old who can’t even speak yet.

...Both are boys, but they’re too young to understand what a grudge is.

As the eldest son, as a boy, as my father’s child, as a brother and a protector, as a member of the Allen family—it was clear who had to be taken as a hostage.

That’s why I’m here.

I couldn’t bear to send my younger siblings.

But now I regret it.

Even if it pricked my conscience, I should have refused to come.

At my words, the resentful screams grew only louder.

“That scoundrel!!”

“Kill him!! Kill him!!”

“Knights, please step aside!! I’ll kill that brat and go to hell myself!!”

I shouted back without backing down. I was facing thousands.

“Throw more! You think you can scare me with just this? Is this all you’ve got!! That’s why our Allen family defeated you!!”

At my shout, the plaza descended into chaos.

The crowd pushed the knights back and forth. The hail of stones grew more violent.

Those who ran out of stones threw dirt, weeds—anything they could grab.

I, too, even more enraged, hurled insults. The more I gave myself to anger, the more the fear subsided, if only for a moment.

“If I make it back home alive!! I’ll bring an army and kill you all!!”

“You think you’ll make it back alive?!”

“The Duchess herself will kill you!! The Rondor family will see to it that you die!!”

-Clang!

At that moment, the knight commander shouted like thunder and drew his sword.

“Enough!!”

As the knight commander drew his sword, the other knights followed suit, drawing theirs in unison.

The commotion froze in an instant, and the square fell silent.

The knight commander spoke.

“That’s enough!”

He then delivered a lengthy speech to calm the people, saying things like there’s still plenty of time ahead, that he must at least bring me before the Duchess...

While he did so, I tried to staunch the bleeding from the gash near my eye and catch my breath.

At first, the crowd was too agitated to listen, but the sight of gleaming swords slowly opened a path.

Finally, seeing the path widen, the knight commander sheathed his sword, and the other knights followed suit.

And then, I noticed her.

While everyone else stepped aside, one figure stood in the middle of the path.

It was an old woman.

“...”

White hair. A face full of wrinkles. And tears streaming down both cheeks.

Amidst her blurry appearance, her eyes shone with a cold, unmistakable light.

She, too, made no attempt to hide her hatred toward me.

“Kylo Allen, eldest son of the Unbeaten Knight, Jade Allen.”

Her voice echoed through the now-silent crowd.

In the quiet, a whisper flowed: “Witch...”

Even the knight commander, overwhelmed by her presence, didn’t dare tell her to step aside.

The old woman called a witch slowly opened her mouth.

“...You probably don’t care, but... your father killed my son in the war.”

“...”

“And now, my son… visits me in my dreams every night, begging me to avenge him against the Allen family… He was always a whiny child, even when he was young, but truly… What can an old woman like me do? What could I, all alone, ever hope to do against a great Northern family…”

The old woman then let out a smile through her tears. It was a bizarre laugh that made everyone who heard it tremble in fear.

“But... I have to at least try...”

Her wide-open locked onto mine.

“People call me a witch. I was never really a witch... But if I had such power... Really, if I were the witch they said I was...”

The old woman whispered to me through her tears.

“I curse you.”

She continued in a calm yet indignant tone.

“You will not be able to have children, and you will die young—before you even turn thirty. Even if you do manage to have a child, it will not be healthy…”

The more she spoke, the less unsettled I felt. Her words, now rambling and unconvincing, made her seem less like a witch and more like a grieving old woman.

So just as I was about to cut her off.

“Northerners do not believe in such curses—”

“—And you will fall in love with someone you must not.”

“...”

At the old woman’s final words, I froze without realizing it.

And not long after, as I saw ‘her’, the old woman’s curse began to echo repeatedly in my mind.

“Ugh... sob...”

From the moment I met her, I began to wonder if the curse was real.

Fiery red hair. A small frame. Large, crimson eyes. A beautiful appearance.

She, who should been my enemy…

My heart pounded violently as I looked at her.

I didn’t know whether it was because of tension or truly because of the curse.

It was the first time my heart raced like this looking at a girl, leaving me confused.

Perhaps it was simply because she was so beautiful, or because she looked so pitiful, or perhaps because the situation unfolding was so different from what I had expected...

One thing was certain: I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

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