Hurk's official backstory

SirRFI · March 10, 2017

The following is Hurk's official backstory translated by AFKalmighty from Korean. I do not take any credit for it.

The very first memory Hurk has as a child was the sound of a horse and the sight of a starry night.

He must have been wrapped up in a blanket and placed in a sack on the saddle. The night sky that was visible from the small opening of the sack was sparkling with many stars. The inside of the sack was warm but the night air was chilly and he must have instinctively whimpered. The faint sound of conversation stopped and a pair of hands entered the sack. There the big hands carefully picked up the baby in to a gentle embrace. It was dark and the only source of light was from a faint campfire so he couldn’t make out the face of the man who held him. He only remembers seeing the full moon above the horizon of the endless plains. He must have fallen asleep at that moment.

When he woke up, Hurk was alone.

There were many orphans from the battlefield like Hurk. But he was different. Hurk looked different among those with black hair and yellow skin. Many people considered him to be a monster of some sort and avoided him believing that he brought bad luck.

And being an orphan was already bad enough. As they were shunned from those around them, they had to live day by day scrounging whatever they can like rats. Hurk wandered with other orphans with their crude gruel bowls to any place that had food, doing random errands for leftovers. Hurk has no choice but to travel the most dangerous places of the battlefield. At other times he would dart between harsh mercenaries picking up scraps of food lying around. But this wasn’t even an option when rations were low and at times like this he would attempt to quell his hunger with water and go to sleep in his dirty bedding early.

Hurk would sometimes dream of the man who coaxed him that winter night would come to him saying “Son, I have returned”. A man who looks foreign to this land just as he is. But it was just a dream and once he woke, hunger would wrack his whole body again.

It was not long until Hurk would start to set traps to catch snakes and mice. He must have been good with his hands because his crude traps would always bring results. And soon he was making traps for birds and started catching sparrows and, when lucky, bigger birds such as crows. But this was all for naught for most of his catches would be taken away by bigger kids and Hurk would go hungry just as before.

It was after two days of starving he finally able to catch a small robin. With the dead bird in his arms, he was gathering twigs for a fire when someone grabbed him from behind. Then Hurk was was thrown to the ground. When he looked back, he saw a group of boys smirking at him. It was the big kid who was the head of a group of orphans named Pock, for his face was pockmarked with acne. Hurk already had several of his catches stolen from this boy. The boys searched Hurk as he backed up. The only thing they found was the mangled remains of the robin which was mashed up due to Hurk’s fall on the ground. One of them threw the carcass down with disgust and stomped on it. That’s when Hurk lost it. He found the strength to push back the boys pinning him down and charged towards Pock and delivered a blow to his greasy face. Pock, who was not expecting anything like this to happen, took the full hit to his jaw and fell down.

Now this is not a heroic of one boy beating down a whole group by himself. The other boys soon regained their composure and beat Hurk sensless. But after that incident, the other kids started to avoid stealing from Hurk. It was better to find an easier target than facing Hurk and his stubbornness.

It was not long before Hurk started to grow rapidly. When he began to acknowledge that he was looking down on others he was already the tallest among the orphans. And he also realized how strong he was when he knocked down Pock, who had been bullying him, with a single punch.

When he was about fourteen or fifteen he could have passed for an adult. He started to get bored of playing with the orphans and started to hang out with mercenaries. He would run errands for them, listen to their stories, and spend countless hours at the smith looking at the blacksmith pounding metal. The middle aged took a liking for Hurk despite his strange appearance. He must have been impressed by Hurk's craftsmanship shown by being able to imitate his works just by learning over his shoulder. When the blacksmith offered to take him in as a apprentice, Hurk was barely able to contain his joy.

At that time, Hurk firmly believed that being a blacksmith was his life’s calling. He would spend his days as a apprentice and one day become a blacksmith with his own shop. It wasn’t that far-fetched of a dream for the blacksmith would constantly tell Hurk that he intended to pass over the smith one day.

And the days have been peaceful. Until the smith got in trouble with a mercenary.

The sword that the mercenary wanted to fix was beyond repair. The blade was cracked and any attempt to mend it would almost certainly break it and the metal used for it was of low quality so forging a new blade out of it was out of question as well. The blacksmith returned the blade telling the mercenary that it would be better for him to buy a new one. But the mercenary started to cause a ruckus claiming that the blacksmith was lying in an attempt to sell more of his merchandise. While the blacksmith was looking at the scene, giving up any chance of selling anything for that day, Hurk offered to kick the troublemaker out. By this time Hurk was a strapping young man who people took as a mercenary or warrior more than a apprentice. A rag-tag mercenary would be no problem for him. But the blacksmith told Hurk to stand down and went to close the door to the smith. At that moment, shouting that he had no intentions to let him off easy, the mercenary grabbed the blacksmith and pushed him to the ground. Hurk lost his temper and started to beat the mercenary. Although he was caught off-gaurd, the mercenary was no match against Hurk in the first place. As Hurk helped the blacksmith back up to his feet and back in to the smith he shook his head at Hurk's brazenness yet, with a smile.

The next morning the blacksmith told Hurk to fetch some coal for the furnace was almost out. The coal shop was a good distance away from the smith and when Hurk returned with his stocked wheelbarrow it was already noon. But there was a crowd gathered around the smith. Grumbling about how the commotion would interfere with sales, he pushed through the ground and then stopped mid-track.

The smith was in shambles. The light in the furnace was long out and there were broken pieces of furniture everywhere. One of the support was almost broken and the smith was in danger of collapsing. But most importantly, the blacksmith was nowhere in sight. Hurk started to question people in the crowd in his panic and one of the onlookers told him that a group of mercenaries came and thrashed the place. The blacksmith was badly beaten but still breathing and was taken to the town healer. At this, Hurk started to run to the healer’s hut.

SirRFI · March 10, 2017

sigh, the character limit

The blacksmith was badly hurt and unable to move. Hurk was seething with rage and was going to exact revenge but the blacksmith stopped Hurk with a smile and saying that he needs someone to look after him. At this Hurk calmed down, after all, this was partially his fault.

Soon winter came with a unprecedented cold. The blacksmith, who was getting well, fell ill with pneumonia. One day the blacksmith told Hurk of a land beyond the sea where people like Hurk live and told him to go there if he passes away. Hurk, who was busy preparing tea, waved off what the Blacksmith said telling him not to say anything of dying.

By the end of winter Hurk was attending a quiet funeral with no visitors.

Hurk was left alone feeling lost and was sitting in what was left of the wrecked smith. The place was a mess with dust and cobwebs everywhere after a long period of neglect. He didn’t know what he should do and was thoughtlessly gazing around when he noticed the one thing in the smith that wasn’t broken. It was a sword that the Blacksmith was working on as a hobby, one that stood even taller than a man. As if in a trance, he walked towards the greatsword and picked it up. It was lifted as if it was weightless in Hurk’s hand, as if it was made just for him. There was no one left to stop him.

Hurk went straight to the inn where the mercenaries were staying. He cut through the guards that tried to stop him. He appeared in front of the mercenaries with a trail of gut, grit, and gore behind him and all over himself as well. While the mercenaries stared in confusion he swung his sword. As they watched three of their own fall, the warriors started shouting and charged towards Hurks. He put them all down until not a single one was left.

By the time Hurk stopped to gather his surroundings, his eyes felt stiff due to a crust of blood that have stiffened all over his body. He tried to remember where he was and what he was doing. As he looked around he saw a large pool of blood under his feet. Around him were several disfigured corpses and broken chunks of wood. Outside the sky was clear without a spot.

There was a crowd gathered around the inn but no one dared stop Hurk as he walked out. They whispers of calling him a monster or demon but Hurk wasn’t hearing anything. While the crowd backed away from him to clear a path he noticed a man that looked familiar. Having trouble remembering who the man was Hurk raised his hand to scratch his head but the man started to scream and fell back. Looking at the man wet himself, Hurk remembered who he was. It was the mercenary who caused trouble back at the smith. For a moment, Hurk gripped on to his sword but the man started to babbling. His head ringing from all the racket, Hurk grabbed the man and threw him towards a small stand. The man flew towards the stand as if a rag doll. Finally having things quiet Hurk felt a lot better and started laughing. The murmuring crowd fell silent as Hurk started to look around matching gaze with each and one of them. At this the crowd scurried away in fear. This is how it should have been all along. He was never meant to live a peaceful life. He picked up his sword and started to walk away. Everything seemed to finally be in place.

Hurk thought that he might as well live as mercenary from that point on. The rumors of the incident were already snowballing to the point that people were saying that a westerner* started swinging a greatsword, and that a whole company of mercenaries were taken out as a result. The rumors, however, made finding a job as a mercenary easy. At times he would stay within a certain group of mercenaries, but would eventually get at odds with them and act alone as a wanderer. After five years, everyone in the realm came to hear the rumors of Hurk the Greatswordsman.

Though, from time to time, Hurk would go back to his old days and would even stop in the middle of drinking to go to a nearby smith and then work day and night. The memories of what he learned in the past was faint, but his his hands still remembered what the blacksmith taught him. Sometimes he would see the blacksmith through the steam of cooling metal, and like an illusion, the blacksmith would tell Hurk something, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t understand what the blacksmith was trying to tell him.

It was in a pub of a small village on the outskirts of a vast plain. Hurk was back from a long conquest and was thinking of taking a break from his Mercenary life and settling down for awhile. The vast plains around the village of nomadic people brought back memories of his childhood. Being able to relax with these memories, Hurk was in a good enough mood to oblige to a beggar’s request for a drink. The beggar held on to the cup of drink distilled from a horse’s milk preciously and drank slowly. Somehow a conversation started between the two and Hurk felt strangely at ease with talking with this stranger. When Hurk mentioned his name, the beggar smiled showing his yellow teeth. The beggar said that he once traveled with a man who looked strange like Hurk and had a small boy who had a similar name. He added that ‘if that boy is still alive, he should be a little younger than you are.’

At this, Hurk became tense. People always assumed that he was older than he looked. He looked at the beggar more closely to see if he could be able to remember him.

When he asked the beggar as to what happened to his partner, the beggar answered that the man left after losing his son and said that he was going back to his own country.

The conversation ended there. Hurk left the pub and found a smith’s shop to start working. He needed time to think.

From the vapor and fumes, he was once again saw the illusion of the blacksmith.

‘Hurk, beyond the sea there is a land..’

He started to go over the words of the beggar and blacksmith, and then he remembered.

Soon he was on a horse riding non-stop except for when he needed sleep. It still took him a little over a month to reach the sea. It was the first time he saw the sea, and it was an overwhelming experience for him.

After gathering his senses, he went to find a passage. He went up to a ticket booth and upright asked for a ticket to a place with people who looked like him. The booth worker took a glimpse of Hurk and impassively handed him a ticket. It was Hurk who was surprised. When asked if the worker saw people like Hurk around, the worker simply answered 'all the time’.

At this Hurk was baffled.

It would take him months to arrive to his destination. Hurk leaned on one end of the ship and looked out on the vast endless sea. Before he knew it, his fate expanded far beyond his imagination. With an anxious heart he awaited to see what it had in store for him.