From the clouds to the abyss, from light to darkness, from hope to despair… How unlucky must a person be to experience all of this in less than five days? My sword has already been chipped all over. Cracks have spread across it, just like my heart.0

Five days ago, my master and I, disguised as ordinary people, left Silent Lake and Mount Hakutou and arrived in the bustling city of Sapora.0

I was born in Hokkaido, but I had never left that small village before the age of ten. I remembered it was the day after my eleventh birthday. It had been cold, and the dark clouds had hung low in the sky. I had been dragging a net along the beach and was digging for crabs.0

An old woman had been walking by the sea, her legs trapped in the black mud. The tide was rising in the distance… I had rushed over without hesitation and pulled her from the edge of the beach onto the rocks by the shore.0

Having lived by the sea for years, I knew all too well how dangerous it was for an eighty-year-old woman to get stuck in the muddy shore just as the tide came in. The old woman had looked at me and gently stroked my hair.0

"Why didn’t...0