Chains of Duty — Chapter 2
The air hung thick with the scent of dust and dried wood, mixed with the sharp tang of earthy ammonia that seemed to seep from every crack in the floorboards. The rustic farmhouse felt worlds away from the life Kato once knew—something he had come to realize over the past few months. He was no longer King Kato, ruler of the Katoran Empire. He was now just the widowed son of a humble farmwife.
His mother, Jillain—or rather, this body's mother—was kind and strong, a capable woman. A mother he could only have wished for in his old world. Her hands were rough from hours of labor, yet she moved with a quiet grace that filled the house with steady warmth. Still, Kato was a stranger in this skin, this life, this place. The memory of the warm blade slicing into his flesh lingered like a shadow he could not shake.
"Conrad," Jillain called—a name he still had not gotten used to.
She approached him with a bowl of mashed greens and porridge in hand. The usual. He grumbled in defeat as she fed him the same bland meal he had suffered through each day. The cooking of this world was inferior to the palace meals, the servants tending to his every orde—
A deep wave of anguish crashed over Conrad, the sting of betrayal still raw. When had the coup begun? Who had ordered it—and why? Why was Kane involved? Conrad choked on the thought, involuntarily spitting out a battered chunk of vegetables and striking his stunned mother.
"Well, I guess you're full," she chuckled, cleaning his gunked-up mouth.
The helplessness of his youth was a curse in itself. However, while incapacitated, a sharp ear kept him aware of the world he now found himself in.
Moonvale was his home, a small farming village nestled in a gentle valley within the Kingdom of Ironcrest. The village was tightly knit—a community built on mutual aid, where the rhythm of farming life moved slowly beneath wide, open skies. Conrad had learned—through clenched teeth—that his father had died weeks before his birth, sent to fight for the Ironcrest Empire in a territorial dispute with a neighboring nation.
But what stunned Conrad most was magic—boundless, terrifying power. Though woven into daily life for common folk, it was a force that had once leveled cities and scorched the skies. A tool of mass destruction in the hands of a single person. And yet, it was so casual. So effortless. Even in Moonvale, where magic hummed beneath simple castings, it stirred his skin like a sleeping beast. It made him grin every time. Dangerous or not, it was wondrous.
That thought held strong as the days passed, quickly turning into months. Winters gave way to summers, and Conrad's thirst for knowledge of magic grew alongside his body. Then, on the morning of his eighth birthday, a strange and unfamiliar man wandered onto his lawn.
He was a tall man cloaked in a hood and draped in lavish silver fabric, embroidered with the crest of a steel falcon perched atop a jagged peak—a blazing crimson and silver shield beneath the fierce bird. He moved with proud purpose, a longsword resting at his hip, the weapon lightly clinking as he approached Conrad, who held a rusty rake in his hand.
"Hey, kid," the stranger called out.
"What do you want?" Conrad uttered raspily, his voice rough and wary, his eyes narrowing with sharp indifference.
It was obvious he was an Ironcrest soldier. One of the kind who left mothers widowed and burdened with grief.
"I'm here for you, Conrad Cross," the soldier stated.
Conrad's fingers curled tightly around the rake. Violent thoughts bled into instinct. They stared each other down, breath shallow and unmoving. With a restless sigh, the soldier fumbled into his pouch and carefully pulled out a folded paper, handing it to him. Conrad pressed the wax seal between his fingers—marked with the bold emblem of Ironcrest.
Conrad tore open the letter, the paper crinkling sharply in his grip. His eyes moved steadily across the lines of text. Each line felt heavier than the last until the meaning struck him clear—a royal decree from His Majesty King Alaric of Ironcrest. Training for the royal army, with only a month to report. Eight years of service, not by his own will, but to finish the duty his father had left unfulfilled. His grip tightened until the paper crumpled in his fist, heat rising in his chest as the weight of his dead father's burden settled onto his shoulders.
A king ordering another king—in his past life, it would have been an insult beyond forgiveness, a challenge to his very crown. But here he wore no crown, and he had no authority to resist the unfair command. He was nothing more than a weak farmer's son, fodder for the front lines, just as his father had been. It was a legacy not of honor, but of chains, passed down from blood to blood.
With his mission complete, the soldier turned to leave the yard, but stopped short as a strained, almost broken laugh escaped from behind him. He turned slowly, eyes narrowing with puzzlement as he watched the boy stand frozen, his head bowed into his hands.
"Fuck your king. I refuse," Conrad spat, hurling the crumpled letter at the soldier's chest. It ricocheted off his glimmering armor.
The soldier's gaze flickered down to the paper, then snapped back to Conrad, his eyes hard and cold, edged with quiet fury.
"Pick it up, boy, and grovel, and I'll only break a few bones for your ignorance."
"Such commands come only from the crowned, not from a lowly pawn," Conrad barked, clutching the rusty rake.
Conrad stood confident before his towering opponent, though his body was undoubtedly fragile. A single blow could incapacitate him. But that thought did not faze the former warlord who had once crushed countless platoons by himself.
Additionally, Conrad longed to fight—to put his research to the test. Over the years, he had immersed himself in ancient tomes, absorbing complex diagrams and cryptic texts. These books spoke of a Core—the root of all magic nestled deep within every living being, a pulsating heart of raw energy waiting to be shaped into physical force.
From this Core flowed threads—channels of power stretching like veins through body and soul, connecting mind and matter. These threads carried the user's aura, allowing a wielder to bend elements, heal wounds, or shatter beings with a mere thought.
But the threads were fickle, and the Core delicate. Drawing too much power too quickly could shatter the body like glass, the mind fracturing under the strain. Learning to trace and control the threads was a difficult skill—one Conrad still knew little about.
"Whatever… I've died once already," Conrad muttered, exhaling a steady breath as the ground trembled beneath his feet.
Pain coiled in his chest, surging through his veins like fire, twisting and tearing at him from the inside. Still, he stood firm. The rake in his grip splintered under the strain, wooden shards scattering across the dirt as he stepped toward the soldier.
The Ironcrest lackey faltered for a heartbeat before ripping his greatsword from its sheath, each step toward Conrad heavy with malice. But before steel could meet flesh, a piercing shriek erupted from the house, cutting through the yard like shattered glass.
"STOOOP!!"
Conrad's mother cried out, her voice raw and breaking as she stumbled into the yard and fell to her knees before the sneering soldier. Her hands trembled as she pressed them together in desperate supplication.
"He's just a boy," she screamed, tears streaking her dirt-stained cheeks. "He misses his father… please, kind soldier, forgive him. He doesn't know what he's saying—he's only a child."
Her words hung in the tense air, the soldier's grip tightening on his blade as Conrad stood motionless behind her, his jaw set and his eyes burning.
An eternity seemed to pass in those few suffocating seconds before the soldier finally sheathed his sword, exhaling sharply as he rubbed his brow in irritation.
"One month," he muttered, turning away. Then, over his shoulder, he added with a cold smirk, "One month until you're mine, brat."
With that, he disappeared down the dirt road, his footsteps fading into silence.
Conrad let his aura fade and collapsed to his knees, pain wracking his body. Before he could steady himself, a sharp slap struck his face. Stunned, he looked up to see his mother—tears streaming down her cheeks—as she fell to her knees and pulled him into a trembling embrace, her body shaking with rage, relief, and grief all at once.
"I'm sorry," Conrad whispered, a strange, bittersweet ache washing over him. A feeling he had never known. A mother willing to cast aside her pride—her very life—to protect her son. It was something his stubborn nature had never truly understood until now.
"Let's go, Mom," he murmured, pushing himself to his feet and extending a hand to her.
She took it silently, and together they walked back toward the house in silence. The looming shadow of what awaited them in a month weighed heavily on both their minds.
…
High above the yard, nestled deep within a cluster of towering trees, a pair of eyes gleamed like cold steel. They lingered on the boy's defiance, unblinking and silent.
"Interesting child of yours, Caleb," the figure whispered, his voice low and cold.
Then, with a mere thought, he vanished, leaving nothing behind but the rustling leaves.