Prologue[แก้ไข]
Part 1[แก้ไข]
The wind that blew down from the high planes swept across the rye fields, causing them to ripple in golden waves.
Following the change of the seasons, the young plants that had covered the ground like a carpet had also changed into an impressive blanket of golden yellow. While the other lands were experiencing a threatening situation of crop failure, it was only this land that had seemed to be blessed with a great estimated yield in wheat and grapes.
“Ara, it's all thanks to you, [ ]-sama[1], that we are able to reap such a great yield this year!”
An elderly farmer serf said, smiling at HER[2] while gazing at the fields.
SHE had only responded with a leisurely smile. Born as one of the far off relations of the royalty, the only thing SHE could pride herself in was this land.
Even though she was of a highborn status, the society then had believed in the saying of 'A woman without talent is a virtue', her existence being only that of another possession in the family. And the future for her would either be to attract a wealthy groom or be married off.
Just another pawn to tie the knot with another family to secure the wealth of the family line---that was the worth of a daughter in her family's eyes.
The lands of HER clan was located at the borders of the country and there were no schools or nunneries around. The people around HER only saw HER as “the girl born to carry on the bloodline to the next generation”.
SHE who had been reared along the borders had naturally no friends of noble birth and at most, she would look for the children of the serfs who tilled the lands to play with.
With the mixture of dignity and tomboyishness, SHE had learned to play in the fields and dirt, while getting acquainted to the ways of farming rye.
Since her grandfather was a bibliophile[3], SHE had taught her self to read and write, and read through the large collection of books he left. There was an unopened book that her grandfather had left to her on a new method of farming which she tested without her father's knowing. If her father ignored the trend of those times and had allowed HER to study, the fate of her family line might have changed.
The result of her studies was this wide expanse of golden yellow rye swaying in the wind before her. An abundant harvest that has been rare of late made the farmers rejoice, and regardless of age and gender, they crowded around HER, saying words of praise.
“[ ]-sama really is incredible! Even though it has always been a bad harvest recently.”
“There hasn't been much sunlight in recent years. Seeing how the soils were getting so poor to the point of being unable to support crops, we had almost given up then .”
“According to rumors, there're farmers who will not make it pass the winter due to a scary and contagious plague...... Really, if [ ]-sama wasn’t here, God knows what would have happened…..”
Kids close to her age, bent back grannies, everyone repeatedly gave thanks for the blessings SHE shared with them. From that, one could already tell how bad the previous harvests were in the recent years.
In recent years the winters had grown more severe and farmers without sufficient food supplies were dying off one after another in a plague. The drop in immunity is most likely due to the intense labor in addition to the fall in food supplies for consecutive years.
But there was no need to worry about such problems this year.
Watching the crowd bursting with smiles, SHE felt her pride and joy swell. ———Keho. She coughed weakly.
“…………….?”
She put her hand to her forehead. It seemed she had caught a cold, she said to herself.
Was it due to the new farming method being successful that she had overworked herself to the point of which the accumulated fatigue was now released all at once?
Now that she thought about it, she hadn't been resting properly recently. Basically, she had spent the whole of this year lapping up the knowledge of farming methods and had even taken up the hoe to work alongside her farming serfs to help them reform the fields.
It's best to take a rest to get my health back to normal first.
And when I’m well again, I’ll work alongside them to make this land more fertile and arable again.
One year later, five years later, and ten years later. She promised in her heart that she would always want to live in this piece of land.
———But at the time, SHE did not know.
That promise of hers would turn into a curse in just a few days.
She who has loved this land more then anyone, would vehemently curse it more than anyone.
———Let my family line be cursed deep to its roots.
———Let disasters strike and rake up our lands.
Die, die, all of you should die.
Caught within pain and sadness deeper then anyone else.
Sinking into a dark, bottomless pit of loneliness.
With the dying screams of a thousand hatreds, the people who had loved her drew the curtains of her life to a close.
This would then be the origin of the Demon Lord—— the girl representing eighty million cursed spirits.
The life of the one later known as “Black Percher”.