In the last chapter after the duke and the captain left, So that's the Duke of this kingdom,arell thought, chest heaving.
Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
He glanced toward the door.
And that walking giant ass mountain they call a captain... equally terrifying.
He let out a long, shaky breath.
Yep. This house is going to be way more exhausting than the orphanage ever was.
Mira stood frozen long after the Duke and Captain Rodric disappeared through the doorway.
Only when the tension drained from her body did her knees wobble, forcing her to cling to the nearest table for balance.
Young Master Arell... what have you done?
She dared a glance back at him.
Arell sat hunched on his bed, attempting—and utterly failing—to maintain a noble's composure.
He noticed her stare and lifted a tired hand in her direction. "Don't look at me like that..."
Mira swallowed, voice trembling. "Thank you, young lord. If not for you, I would have been banished from the house."
Arell blinked, then furrowed his brows.
Banished? Wait—what? Banished as in... stripped of her post? All that damn drama over this? Haa...
His shoulders sagged as he dragged both hands through his hair.
"Hah... it's nothing."
He exhaled, long and heavy. "Alright—go. You heard the old man."
Mira bowed low—deeper than she ever had before.
Her heart was pounding; fear pulsed through her veins—but so did something new. Something fierce.
Respect.
She stepped into the hallway. Instantly, the world seemed too vivid:
The cold stone biting through her slippers.
The torches whispering against the walls.
The distant clink of armored guards on patrol.
He protected me, she realized. A noble heir stood against a Duke... for me.
Her throat tightened.
This was no favor she could repay with a curtsey or polite thank-yous.
Then I will stand by him, she swore, until the very end. Even if the entire world turns against him.
Mira lifted her chin and quickened her pace.
Already, she could feel the stir of eyes in the shadows—curious, hungry, waiting for rumors to bloom.
And she knew: this was only the beginning.
The Duke walked in silence down the long corridor, Rodric following at his side.
The hallway torches reflected on the Duke's expression—something sharp, thoughtful, almost... amused.
Rodric finally broke the quiet.
"My Lord, the boy has become reckless. Allowing a servant to lecture him? Speaking against you in public? His insolence—"
"—is interesting," the Duke finished.
Rodric blinked.
The Duke clasped his hands behind his back.
"A child who once trembled like a leaf suddenly speaks like a man claiming the storm is his own?" I thought after his mother died he would always stay broken like in the past 5 years but...
His eyes gleamed—mirth mixed with calculation.
"There is steel being forged in that boy," he murmured. "Someone—or something—struck the hammer."
Rodric exhaled slowly.
"You intend to test him."
The Duke's smirk returned.
"With every waking moment."
He continued walking, cloak swaying behind him like a shadow spreading across the castle floors. Dinner ended with a clatter of silverware and low murmurs fading into silence.
Arell excused himself, retreating to the small chamber he had been assigned.
The door shut, and he let out a long breath.
Everything still felt wrong — this body, this place, this family he barely knew.
His wandering eyes landed on a tall mirror framed with carved ivy. He approached, almost wary of the reflection waiting inside.
A boy stared back.
A small one — thin shoulders, narrow jaw, and a mop of unruly crimson hair that practically glowed under candlelight.
Green eyes blinked, bright and unfamiliar.
"Damn... I really am a kid now."
He touched his cheek as if hoping it would peel away and reveal his old face underneath.
"Red hair and green eyes? I look like someone slapped paint on me. No wonder everyone stares."
But sulking never suited him. So, after a few minutes of pacing and punching the air in denial, he cracked open his bedroom door and slipped out.
The manor at night was a maze of shadows and soft candlelight.
Servants had retired.
Guards walked predictable patterns — which Arell analyzed in seconds.
Left foot heavy, pause at the corner, turn right. Easy path.
He ducked behind pillars, slid along cold stone walls, and held his breath each time armor clinked near him.
Freedom was just one courtyard away—
WHAM!
He slammed into someone rounding the corner. Both bodies hit the floor.
"Ow—watch where you're going, little girl!" Arell snapped, rubbing his skull.
His irritation faded the moment he got a good look at her.
She wasn't dressed like a servant.
Her sapphire dress shimmered with delicate stitching, and her hair—bright gold—was tied with a ribbon only nobles bothered with.
Oh great... noble kid. I guess she is One of the Duke's daughters, probably.
Youngest? Second wife's line?
What was her name again... ?
The girl shot up like someone lit her on fire.
"You idiot! Why did you shove me?" she yelled, hands clenched.
"I was on my way to my lab!"
Lab? At eleven?
Amanda squinted hard at him, gears turning visibly in her head.
Red hair, green eyes. That's Arell valenhart.
The third wife's son.
The boy who never leaves his room.
And now he's roaming the halls like a stray cat?
"What are you doing out here at this hour?" she demanded, voice echoing through the stone corridor.
Arell tensed. He wasn't scared — just annoyed at being caught.
"Well, I could ask you the same thing," he shot back, sharp as a blade, "but I won't. So move. I've places to be. You go—do your kid stuff."
And before her brain finished processing the insult, he sprinted away.
"HEY!" she shrieked.
"We are NOT done talking! ARELL VALENHART! COME BACK!"
He didn't bother turning around.
Holy crap, she's loud. Does she want to wake the entire manor?
His feet hit stone, then grass, then dirt.
He cleared the courtyard, dodged a guard by inches, and slid behind a barn door just before a lantern beam swept past.
A heartbeat later, he was in the open night — barns on one side, trees stretching like dark fingers on the other.
And despite himself, he grinned. Finally. outside the manor. The manor walls fell behind him like the bars of a cage left unlocked.
Arell slipped past the final lantern glow and stepped into the cool expanse of night.
The land stretched open—broad, quiet, and impossibly alive under the moon.
A lone barn squatted in the middle of the fields, its roof silvered by starlight.
Beyond it, the forest stood tall and ancient, a black-green sea of trunks and secrets.
Crickets sang. The wind rustled the grass in gentle waves.
Arell breathed deep.
Freedom.
The night air tasted like something he hadn't had in years—
not since the grimy alleys and choking smoke of Mumbai's underbelly.
Not since the cold backseat of the mafia car he had once called home.
He looked up.
The stars spilled across the sky in glittering rivers, bright enough to drown in.
"How long has it been," he muttered, "since I stopped looking up?"
Memories rose—unwelcome and vivid.
His past life.
The gang he bled for.
The brothers-in-arms who sold him out with a smile.
His own hands, stained with choices he could never take back.
The guilt pressed against him like weight on his ribs.
I wanted out. I wanted... more.
Not power. Not blood. Just a world that wasn't collapsing on top of me.
He swallowed.
Maybe fate had twisted his soul and shoved it into a child for a reason.
He wandered toward the edge of the forest, boots sinking into soft soil.
And then he heard it.
A frantic bark—ragged, desperate.
Arell spun just in time to see a mother dog stumbling into the clearing, a tiny pup clamped carefully in her jaws.
Behind her sprinted two malformed creatures—low to the ground, fur mangled, eyes gleaming with hunger.
Arell stiffened.
Holy—what in the heavens is that?
At first glance, it looked like a dog... or something close enough to one.
But it staggered toward him with a limp, fur matted with dirt and dried blood—and clamped gently in its jaws was a tiny puppy.
"Oh shit..." he whispered. That's definitely a dog... right?
Then the ground trembled.
Arell's heart lurched as he spotted the shapes thundering behind it—massive creatures with hulking silhouettes, snarling maws, and claws that gouged the earth as they ran.
And what the hell are those? No, nope—nope.
He ducked behind a boulder, instinct screaming to hide before the beasts shifted their attention to him.
"AH shit, why does this keep happening to me?
But then he heard it—
A low, broken whimper.
Not vicious.
Not feral.
Just pain.
Arell turned despite every nerve urging him to stay hidden.
The injured dog had stopped running. The puppy dangled from her mouth, trembling.
And the monstrous beasts had already surrounded her.
Arell froze, confusion and terror twisting in his chest.
This isn't my problem, he told himself. Stay out, stay alive—
But the sight burned into him: a wounded mother shielding her helpless young, back arched, ready to die on her feet.
His breath caught.
He remembered the state she was in—the torn flank, the ragged breaths, the desperation.
Something inside him snapped taut.
Without thinking, Arell grabbed a broken fence post and charged.
"HEY! BACK OFF!"
He swung with all the strength his small body could muster.
The stick snapped in half against the first beast's skull—and barely slowed it.
"Oh, come on!" Arell shouted, stumbling backwards.
The beasts crouched low.
Muscles tensed.
Jaws parted.
This is it, he thought grimly.
I can't even protect a dog. Some hero I am.
And then—
a sharp hum.
Light burst from his hand.
No—not his hand.
From the ring on his finger.
It flared like a lighthouse, a beam of raw luminance slicing through the night.
The creatures screeched, blinded, and scattered into the bushes as if chased by thunder.
Arell stared at the ring—wide-eyed, breathless.
"What... was that?" was that sylvara's doing
His answer came in a wet whine.
The mother dog collapsed at his feet, blood matting her fur.
The pup tumbled from her mouth and let out a thin cry.
"No, no, no—stay with me."
Arell scooped her up gently, hands slick with dirt and worry.
He dashed to the barn and pushed inside, laying her in a bed of hay.
Moonlight cut through cracked boards, illuminating the quiet scene.
The mother's breaths grew shallow.
Her eyes fluttered—tired, grateful, resigned.
Arell knelt by her side.
"I don't know why I'm here," he whispered.
"Or what I'm supposed to do in this world. But I swear—"
He pressed the pup into her fading warmth.
"I'll take care of your kid. I won't run again."
The dog nudged her pup one last time...
and then her body stilled.
Silence settled—soft, devastating.
Arell pulled the trembling puppy into his arms.
His vision blurred.
"Looks like it's just us now," he murmured, voice cracking.
"And believe me... I know what it means to lose everything."
He looked up through a crack in the roof at the endless sky.
"In my last life, I didn't save anyone—not even myself."
He curled around the pup, sheltering it with his small body.
"But in this one? I'll be better. I have to be."
The puppy whimpered, pressing into his chest as if understanding.
And for the first time in two lives, Arell felt something new blossom in the hollow of his heart—
Purpose.
TO BE CONTINUED...