"Heroes are not born; they are made," as the old adage goes.
There was a time when I was skeptical of this saying. I think, back then, I believed that heroes did not exist—because they were either dead or had become demented recluses, unable to stand the sight of what they once protected slowly turning into a cesspit of all they had fought against. Along with this former cynical opinion of mine was another: a portrait of disgust painted over a picture of bleak optimism and hopelessness. I thought that men were already born wearing the clothes they'd forever don. If you were cut from the cloth of a bastard, then you'd remain a bastard. A hero was a hero because he was destined to be so. That is what I once thought.
It was in a little town called Church's Bell that I witnessed something which changed my life. A bunch of misfits, disgraced in their own ways, quarrelling with one another, only to later become the best of mates. There was something strange in me that fateful day, as if my shoulders were shoved forward by an unknown force, pushing me towards these misfits—the Four Misfits.
During my time with them, I wrote many journals and notes chronicling our adventures. I didn't do it for profit or fame but because I wanted their memories to live on. If this story never reaches a publishing house, let it live on in my descendants. May they know these men: the Lone Hunter, the Drunk Demon of the Orient, the Thieving Crow, and the Lost Corsair. May they know these men not just by their titles but because they were my friends.
"Heroes are not born; they are made," as the old adage goes. And in saying this, through my experience as a first-hand witness to the truth of this saying, I hope that my descendants, too, may carve their own future, their own path—to riches, redemption, revenge, and legends.