Chapter 1

Dante opened his eyes.

What first entered his sight was not the decrepit hut where he had spent his final years.
Instead, it was a room—neither lavish nor grand, but neat, clean, and orderly.

Slowly, he raised himself.

‘I… surely…’

He had died.
He had felt the end of life drawing near, had poured his final realization into one last swing, and then his breath had stopped.
That much was beyond doubt.

Yet here he was, awake once more.

“…This looks familiar.”

Buried deep in his memory, the place stirred recognition.
It was the room he had used as a child, before the world had stained him.
A space made for a boy: a small desk, a small chair, a small bed.

Something was wrong.

That room had only suited him when he was about ten years old.
By all rights, it should have been far too small for him now.
And yet—his body rested comfortably upon the tiny bed.

With a hesitant breath, Dante lifted his gaze to check himself.
What he saw was a small, young body.
So small it felt alien.

He turned his hands over.
No scars from countless battlefields.
Not even a callus, only soft palms unmarked by hardship.

“…Tch.”

His brow furrowed.
All those decades of effort—vanished without a trace.

“Time to confirm things.”

He pushed himself up.
To understand this incomprehensible situation, he needed to move.

Tiny toes wriggled as he slipped off the bed.
Balance was awkward in such a diminished frame.
Wobbling, he crossed to the mirror in the corner.

“…This face.”

Short black hair.
The features of a young boy.
Eyes far too deep for such a childish countenance.

It was him.
Dante.
Or more precisely—the Dante of his forgotten childhood.

“What in the world…?”

A dream, perhaps? One conjured in his dying moments, urging him to relive his happiest years?

“Nonsense.”

He dismissed the thought at once.
God was not so merciful.
If so, would He not have granted even a flicker of hope during those decades of despair?
And now, after a lifetime of silence, why bestow such kindness?

Then what was this?

The only evidence was his shrunken body, and this childhood room steeped in memory.

“Unless… I’ve gone back in time…”

The words slipped from him, unbidden.
He shivered.
Surely not. And yet—wasn’t there a sliver of hope in the thought?

“Regression…? Impossible.”

That was the stuff of children’s tales, not reality.
Far easier to believe this was a dream before death.

“Still… there is one way to be certain.”

His eyes fell upon the corner of the room.
There lay a crude, clumsy wooden sword—one he had swung in play until receiving his first real blade at age ten.

He stepped forward without hesitation.

The moment his small hand gripped the hilt, a shock ran through him.

Decades—no, a lifetime—of wielding the sword surged through his body.
It was not mere memory.
It was the very essence of his soul, the reason for his existence.

‘I’ve never once dreamed of what I truly desired.’

Even in sleep, he had prayed—just once, let me feel mana.
Yet not even in dreams had that wish been granted.

But now, things were different.

He raised the wooden blade slowly.

Every cell screamed with life.
As though he was being born anew.

“Ahh…”

He recalled the final stroke he had delivered before death.

‘It was… like this.’

The wooden sword descended.

The air split.
The space split.
The very world split.

From the worthless tip of wood erupted a cascade of brilliant starlight, cleaving heaven and earth in twain.

A single downward cut—yet within it dwelled an intent so vast it threatened to shake the laws of the universe itself.

But then—

The blade trembled violently.
Such power could not be borne by a child’s toy.

Crack!

The wood crumbled from the tip down.
Blade, hilt, guard—all collapsed like a sandcastle swept away by the tide.

Still, Dante did not falter.
His arm carried the stroke to completion.
A strike once begun could never be stopped.

Only when his hand pointed firmly to the ground did he exhale the breath that had filled his chest.

And then—

Fwoooosh!

Light erupted.
The very phenomenon Dante had yearned for over seventy fruitless years.
The miracle he had touched only at the instant of death.

Warmth engulfed him.

‘So this… is mana.’

The primal energy suffusing all things.
It had always been within him, though shackled by a malignant force that sealed it away.
But now, it surged freely.

The insight he had forged through decades of despair came rushing in.
His awareness expanded without limit.
The light condensed, drawn to a single point—his heart.

With every beat, mana gathered.

‘Not enough…’

The vessel of a child’s body was too small.
And so the energy chose another path—
reshaping his body itself into its container.

Bones cracked and reformed.
Muscles tore and mended.
Skin split and healed, tougher, more supple.

It was not agony.

“At last…”

His murmur trembled with joy.
What he had craved all his life was finally his.

Time passed—how long, he did not know.
When his eyes opened again, the light was gone.
Only the steady thrum of power remained within him.

On his chest, where nothing had been before, lay a faint crescent-shaped mark.

“I’ve finally obtained it… The proof of mana. The mark of the stars.”

The Awakening of the Stigmata.

Dante laughed softly.
Dream or reality—what did it matter?
For the first time in seventy years, he possessed what he had chased in vain.

He touched the mark, feeling mana pulse beneath his palm.

“A real sword… I need a real sword.”

Not a shattered wooden toy.
His body ached to swing a true blade.

“…The training grounds. Yes.”

Flinging the door open, he ran down the hall.
His home—it had been so long, but his feet remembered the way.

No servants stirred in the early dawn.
Unhindered, he reached the training yard bathed in moonlight.

There, propped against a rack, rested a training sword of steel.
He slowed, footsteps echoing.

“A real sword.”

It lacked an edge, forged for practice only.
But to Dante, it was more than enough.

His small hand grasped the hilt.
The cold bite of metal was bliss.
Though his child’s body should not have borne the weight, he raised it effortlessly.

Mana coursed into the blade, his Stigmata thrumming.

But then—

“…Lord Dante?”

The voice froze him.

So achingly familiar.
So dearly missed.

He turned slowly.

A silver-haired boy, fifteen or sixteen at most, stood bathed in moonlight.
The one destined to become the family’s First Knight.
The mentor who had never abandoned him.
The man who had given his life to protect him when their house fell.

“Sir Milleon…”

Dante’s chest tightened.

“What are you doing alone at this hour?”