Sentenced to Be a Hero: Penal Hero Unit 9004 Records — Requiem of the Transmigrated Poet
Kuon Kanade had one dream: to be a poet. For that, his classmates laughed at him. For that, he learned to make himself invisible—eating lunch alone in the library corner, humming where no one could hear, surviving on poetry collections and silence.
Then a strange book called *Resonance* swallowed him whole.
He wakes in a world of towering bookshelves and pointed ears, where a burning mark has appeared on his neck—a holy mark. By the laws of this continent, all who bear one are conscripted as h
Sentenced to Be a Hero: Penal Hero Unit 9004 Records — Requiem of the Transmigrated Poet - A useless first day, yet still a song spills from my mouth
Morning light washed the stone walls of Fort Mürid white.
It was the third morning since the summoning. Kuon Kanade stood on the cold flagstones.
Before him stretched a vast training ground. Dust swirled in the air, and the harsh breathing of men mingled with the dull clack of wooden swords striking one another.
In Kanade's hand was a single wooden sword.
Heavy. How could something so small weigh so much?
His fingertips trembled. His heartbeat pounded so loudly it roared in his ears.
"...Um, excuse me."
His voice was swallowed by the clamor of the training ground.
No one heard. No one cared to.
Across from Kanade stood a man built like a wall of muscle. One of the penal heroes. Kanade didn't know his name. No—he didn't want to.
The man looked Kanade up and down, then snorted.
"Oi, oi. What's this scrawny thing? You ever held a sword before?"
"I—I'm..."
"Whatever. Either way, this'll be over quick."
The man raised his wooden sword.
Kanade shut his eyes on reflex.
A thud.
The ground slammed into his back.
His breath stopped. His vision spun.
For a moment, he couldn't understand what had happened.
Then the dull ache bloomed in his stomach.
"...Huh?"
Kanade was on the ground.
The wooden sword had flown from his hand and lay in the dirt.
The man hoisted his sword onto his shoulder with a look of boredom.
"Done. Not even worth the time."
Laughter erupted from the surrounding soldiers.
"What the hell was that? Over in a second!"
"That's an otherworlder? Way too weak."
"That's a penal hero? Don't make me laugh."
Laughter.
Scornful stares.
Kanade couldn't get up.
No—he didn't have the will to get up.
(What... am I even doing?)
The smell of dirt clung to the back of his nose.
The taste of iron spread across his lip. It must have split.
Somewhere far off, he sensed someone watching him with concern.
A small man. Dotta.
The thief who'd ridden in the same transport wagon.
Dotta glanced nervously around, but still kept his eyes on Kanade.
But he didn't come to help.
He couldn't. In this place, everyone was barely surviving for themselves.
"...Get up."
The man nudged Kanade's leg with his foot.
"How long you gonna lie there? This isn't training."
Kanade slowly pushed himself up.
His arms shook. His knees wobbled.
(I'm scared.)
That was all.
—And then it happened.
"Oi, you lot. What the hell are you doing?"
The air in the training ground shifted in an instant.
The laughter cut off dead.
Every soldier turned toward the voice and straightened their backs.
Kanade looked too.
A man stood there.
Short, near-black brown hair. From beneath the unkempt, jutting strands, sharp amber eyes swept across the training ground.
An old scar on his left cheek. Stubble.
He had to be over six feet tall.
Strange patterns were etched into his hands and feet. The holy sigil of lightning.
Zairo Forbarts.
Captain of Penal Hero Unit 9004.
It was the first time Kanade had ever seen him.
"You lot—lazing about first thing in the morning. If you're training, train properly. Or do you want to die?"
Zairo's voice carried to every corner of the training ground.
He was shouting, yet somehow it was easy on the ears—a voice that resonated.
Not a single soldier talked back.
They just stared at Zairo in silence.
Then a small man came running up to Zairo.
"Boss! Boss, listen! These guys are completely useless!"
A cheerful voice.
The man who'd been teasing Dotta the whole ride. Tsarv.
Tsarv pointed at Kanade.
"Especially that one! The guy from the other world! Can't hold a sword, can't run, can't do anything! And just now he got knocked flat in one hit! Boss, this guy's totally useless!"
Tsarv reported it brightly, as if boasting.
That innocence cut Kanade deep.
Zairo listened to Tsarv's report while glancing toward Kanade.
Then his eyes narrowed.
Kanade's neck.
The murky holy sigil rose dark against the morning light.
A moment of silence.
Zairo said nothing.
He just looked at Kanade's face once more.
Kanade couldn't tell what was reflected in those eyes.
"...Where's Benetim?"
"Huh? Oh—uh, Mr. Benetim was, uh... over there making excuses, I think."
Where Tsarv pointed.
In a corner of the training ground, a man was surrounded by soldiers.
Benetim.
The con artist who'd spent the whole ride proclaiming his innocence.
"No, I'm telling you, that's not it! I didn't steal it! I was just holding onto it! That little guy brought it in on his own!"
Benetim was desperately making his case.
In his hand was a training sigil-wooden sword.
State-managed training equipment.
"Shut up! You're the one who stole it!"
"That's not true! I just recovered stolen property! You should be thanking me, honestly!"
"Thanking you?! You said the same thing last time!"
"That was then, this is now! Look, I'll give the sword back, see? There! We're square now, right?"
Benetim tried to shove the wooden sword at the soldier.
But the soldier slapped it away.
"Square, my ass! Get the one in charge!"
The commotion kept growing.
Zairo watched the whole thing with a look of profound annoyance.
"...Tch."
With a small click of his tongue, Zairo started walking.
As he approached, the soldiers parted.
"Benetim."
"Hiii! Z-Zairo, sir! This is, you see, there are deep circumstances—"
"Shut up."
A single word stopped Benetim's mouth cold.
"You stole again, didn't you. How many times do I have to say it. Training swords are state property. You know what happens when you steal them."
"I-I'm sorry! It was just a sudden impulse..."
"An impulse, is it. Thanks to that sticky-fingered habit of yours, the whole unit takes the punishment."
"Th-that's... I mean, I'm sorry, or rather..."
Benetim's eyes darted around.
Then Dotta timidly raised his hand.
"Um... actually, I stole it. Mr. Benetim was just covering for me..."
"Oi, Dotta! What are you saying?!"
"But... it's the truth..."
"Telling the truth isn't always the right thing to do! You idiot!"
Zairo looked back and forth between them.
"...Doesn't matter. The theft is a fact. Both of you, report to the armory for cleaning duty. One week."
"A—a week?!"
"No way... I can't do cleaning..."
"If you've got complaints, I can cut off your heads right here. Which do you prefer?"
Zairo's voice didn't sound like he was joking.
Dotta and Benetim went pale and fell silent.
Then Zairo turned back toward Kanade.
"...Oi, otherworlder."
"Y-yes..."
"You too. Get back to training. This isn't a playground."
Kanade gave a small nod.
He wanted to run.
Right now, from this place.
But his legs wouldn't move.
(If I run now... it's over.)
Kanade returned to the center of the training ground on shaking legs.
Zairo watched his back in silence.
—The training was hell.
Zairo threw Kanade into combat-style drills without mercy.
Swing the sword. Knocked down.
Dodge. Knocked down.
Block. Knocked down.
Again, and again, and again.
"Get up."
That was all Zairo ever said to Kanade when he fell.
Not once did he offer a hand.
Kanade gritted his teeth and stood.
His knees were wobbling.
His arms wouldn't lift.
And still, he stood.
(Get up. Get up. Get up.)
He chanted it to himself inside his head.
Knocked down again.
"Get up."
He stood again.
Over and over.
The soldiers around them no longer laughed.
They just watched in silence as Kanade fell.
By some round of sparring, Kanade lay on the ground and couldn't move.
He couldn't breathe.
His whole body screamed.
His vision blurred.
(It's... no use.)
That was what Kanade thought.
"...Get up."
The voice came again.
But his body wouldn't move.
"I said get up. Can't you hear me?"
Kanade slowly shook his head.
"...I can't. Not anymore."
His voice came out hoarse.
Zairo looked down at him for a while.
"...I see."
That was all he said before turning his back.
"That's it for today. Everyone, dismissed."
The soldiers filed out of the training ground.
Kanade lay on the ground, staring up at the sky.
(...Was I abandoned?)
No. That wasn't it.
Zairo hadn't blamed him at the end.
He hadn't forced him to stand.
He'd just kept telling him to get up.
Beneath that coldness, Kanade felt a strange sense of reassurance.
(That man... didn't give up on me.)
For some reason, that was what he thought.
—After training.
Kanade lay on a bed in the infirmary.
The infirmary was a small building in one corner of the fortress.
The smell of medicinal herbs mixed with the scent of disinfectant.
Kanade's body was covered in countless bruises and scrapes.
A man from the infirmary silently applied ointment to Kanade's wounds.
Kanade stared at the ceiling and thought.
(I'm... completely useless as a fighting force in this penal hero system.)
Penal hero.
The worst punishment imposed on heroes who commit crimes.
Their holy sigils maintained, they're reassigned to a penal unit and sent to the most dangerous battlefields.
Annual attrition rate: roughly forty percent.
(Out of ten, four die in a year.)
Kanade recalled the words he'd heard in the transport wagon.
Then, from the next bed over, he heard voices.
"Hey, did you hear? They say Penal Hero Unit 9004 has a forty percent attrition rate."
"Yeah. That unit's especially bad, apparently. Some of them died just the other day."
"So, that otherworlder. You think he'll last till next month?"
"Ha, no way. Did you see today's training? He can't even beat the small fry."
The soldiers spoke deliberately loud enough for Kanade to hear.
Kanade bit his lip.
(Not till next month...?)
He was scared.
But more than that, he was frustrated.
(Am I... going to die here?)
Kanade clutched the old poetry collection that sat by his pillow.
Black leather cover.
The very book that had brought him to this other world.
(This is the one thing... I can't let go of.)
Kanade held the book to his chest and closed his eyes.
—Night.
A corner of the fortress.
In the shadow of an empty stretch of wall, Kanade sat alone.
Countless unfamiliar stars twinkled in the sky.
Moonlight cast the flagstones in pale blue.
Kanade opened the poetry collection.
He turned the pages.
Familiar letters, written in the language of his original world.
Kanade let out a small breath.
And then, naturally, his mouth began to move.
—Blow, O wind.
—Carry it all away, even this pain in my chest.
—Carry it far, far away.
—To the farthest reaches of the sky.
A small song, never meant for anyone's ears.
His voice dissolved into the night air and faded.
That was when it happened.
The holy sigil at Kanade's neck flickered faintly.
"...Huh?"
Kanade touched his neck.
The sigil was faintly warm.
And the ache of the bruises covering his whole body eased, just like that.
"Why...?"
Kanade didn't understand why.
He'd only hummed a song.
And yet the sigil had reacted.
(When I sing... the sigil glows?)
Kanade tried humming the poem again.
—Blow, O wind.
The sigil flickered faintly once more.
A gentle warmth spread from deep within his body.
(It's true... the pain is fading.)
Kanade couldn't understand what was happening to his body.
But the song definitely had power.
—And someone was watching from the shadows.
Zairo Forbarts.
Zairo stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall, listening silently to Kanade's song until the very end.
Kanade finished singing and closed the poetry collection.
Zairo left without a word.
But in those amber eyes burned a light unlike anything before.
—The next morning.
Morning sun streamed into the training ground.
Kanade stood there, his body still heavy with yesterday's fatigue.
Then Zairo arrived.
He stopped in front of Kanade.
"Oi."
"Y-yes..."
"Last night. What were you singing?"
Kanade's words caught for a moment.
(He heard me...?)
"...Just a poem. From my poetry collection."
"A poetry collection?"
"Yes. An old one... from my original world."
Zairo stared at the black book clutched in Kanade's hand.
Then he gave a short command.
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