Dungeon Breaker

Chapter 1 – Prologue

—–CROW—– 

Since I was young, I learned swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat.

It wasn’t because I liked it.

It was closer to being semi-forced.

Actually, it wasn’t just martial arts.  Shooting, survival skills, cooking, sewing, and all sorts of housework too.

When I was in kindergarten, I didn’t know I was strange.

Around the time I entered elementary school, I realized that I, or rather my parents’ educational policy, was peculiar.

And in my second year of middle school, I asked my father,

“Why are you teaching me these things?”

It wasn’t really a complaint.  I’d been learning them since I was so young, so I was quite used to it. And to be honest, I didn’t have many complaints.  Perhaps because they were teaching me these strange things, my parents were indifferent to things like school grades.

Anyway, at my question, my father thought longer than expected and then spoke with a very serious face.

“The blood of a hero runs in our family.”

“Not a Demon King?”

Seriously, this guy.

At my apathetic reply, my father shook his head and answered, still with a serious face,

“Not a Demon King, a hero.  Actually, this father of yours is a hero. I saved Phien… I mean, a fantasy world once already.”

“Oh, is that so?”

It seemed he had no intention of giving me a proper answer.

So I tried to just laugh it off as a joke, but somehow I couldn’t. My father’s eyes and expression were too serious.

Eventually, assuming my father really was a hero, I asked one more question.

“But why did you come back? If you saved the world, you could have lived there like a king.”

Like in the novels and comics these days, was he going to say he was betrayed after saving the world?

I was strangely anticipating what kind of answer my father would give.

And as always, my father gave an answer beyond my expectations.

“Fantasy worlds don’t have internet or bidets.”

How should I put it? It’s definitely nonsense, but somehow incredibly persuasive.

After being stunned for a moment, I shook my head a few times and took a step back.

“Uh, um.  Let’s stop this here.  Well… you can tell me the reason you taught me these things later.”

“Son, I’m not joking.  Didn’t you think it was strange? That I live so comfortably without really doing anything?”

“Weren’t we just rich?”

“No way! This is money I earned by selling the assets I brought back! It’s money earned through blood, sweat, and tears! And…”

“And?”

“Isn’t your mother… honestly, abnormally beautiful?”

“Well, uh… that’s true.”

Certainly, my mother was abnormally beautiful. She didn’t seem to age, and if we stood side by side, people often thought we were siblings, not mother and son.

“Well, I guess showing you is the fastest way.”

The moment he said that, my father’s aura changed.

I couldn’t quite express it.

I just realized at some point.

Everyone in this area was under my father’s control.

My father was definitely not an ordinary human.

Cold sweat ran down my back. It felt like I was facing a god, with only a slight exaggeration.

“I originally planned to talk with your mother together, but… it happened a little earlier.”

My father’s aura returned to normal.

He reached out to me as I sat down without realizing it, and continued,

“In a month… I have to go back to your mother’s hometown with her.  It seems there’s trouble there again.  It looks like the Demon King has been resurrected.”

“I, I see.”

Now, unlike before, I didn’t even feel like joking back—no, refuting him.

My father chuckled at my appearance.

“We’ll be back as soon as possible. But it might take a while… so don’t skip your training and work hard while we’re gone.  It’ll all be useful later. You never know, you might get kidnapped to another world as a hero someday, just like me.”

“Hmm.”

It was a story that was strangely appealing yet repulsive.

By the way, the blood of a hero.

Does that mean my deceased grandfather was also a hero? Or was it just my father?

Just as I was about to fall into a typical middle schooler’s delusion, my father’s large hand rested on my head.  I reflexively looked up and saw my father’s smiling face.

“I’ll be back.”

“See you.”

Four years later.

My father’s words became reality.

—–CROW—–