Chapter 4: The Curse of Birth
> "I wonder… should I become the so-called villain who abandoned the people who once abandoned him… or the hero who turned away from the ones who truly loved him?"
I sat by the dying fire, the embers crackling like whispers of the past, my thoughts a storm I could no longer quiet. The silence was unbearable—too loud with memory.
Should I save those who had cherished me—those precious few—or save those who had cast me into the abyss the moment I slipped from my mother's womb?
Even now, the memory haunted me. Not a memory I lived, but one whispered to me in the corridors of this cursed estate. A story told in hushed voices, like a shame too monstrous to speak aloud.
They said that the moment I was born, the world shuddered.
That my mother—gentle, kind, and beloved—gave her final breath bringing me into the world. She held me only once, they said, before the light vanished from her eyes.
And they blamed me.
Not the cruel hands of fate. Not a twist of chance or tragic misfortune.
Me.
A newborn child. Mana-less. Fragile. Barely able to cry.
From that first breath, they called me cursed. The reincarnation of a devil. A black omen. An empty vessel that brought only ruin.
> "He was born without mana," they whispered.
"A disgrace to the Raelthorn bloodline."
"Kill him before he brings doom."
That was their answer to my existence. Not sorrow. Not compassion. Exile. Execution. Erasure.
---
I remember the story Uncle Velric told, the bitterness in his voice edged with shame:
> "You know… when he was born, the people gathered outside the gates, demanding his death. Nobles. Servants. Even knights. They said the Raelthorn heir was a fraud—no mana, no strength, no worth. They claimed his mother had betrayed her vows, that he was a commoner's son. But Caldras—his father—he confirmed the boy's blood. His essence. Still, it wasn't enough."
> "They didn't want the truth. They wanted a scapegoat."
I clenched my fists, the veins in my hands taut and trembling.
> So this was my beginning? Not a cradle of warmth, but a pit of blades?
Even as they prepared my mother's funeral, the people shouted to have me banished. Not mourned. Not protected. Eliminated.
---
My fate was sealed before I learned to walk.
They gave me three years to prove myself—not out of mercy, but mockery.
A cruel bargain struck between House Raelthorn and the city's nobles:
"Send the cursed child into the Labyrinth. If he survives, we accept him. If not, the world is cleansed of his shame."
A magical dungeon. A place that had claimed even S-rank adventurers. They thought they were clever, those cowards. Sending an infant to the jaws of death under the guise of "trial."
And my father… he agreed.
Duke Caldras Raelthorn—the Iron Sword of the Kingdom—did not speak a word against them.
He merely said: "Whatever the boy needs, give it to him."
A quiet farewell. His version of a gravestone.
---
So I trained.
From the age of one, I began to move. Crawl, then walk, then run.
My bones ached. My breath caught. My heart stopped—again and again.
Ten times a day, I slipped into unconsciousness. My body could not hold the strain, and yet I pushed. I bled. I cried. But I never stopped.
They said I had a healer by my side always, because my life hung by a thread.
But even so—I trained. For two years, I trained.
Sword forms. Breathing techniques. Focus drills.
> "He's insane," some whispered. "He won't last the week," others laughed.
But I did.
And when the time came, on my third birthday, they bound my fate to a spell circle and cast me into the Labyrinth.
---
One month passed.
And I returned.
No one knew how. No one understood it.
Even I… didn't.
The memories were gone—sealed, blocked by magic deeper than even the High Mages could pierce. They searched my mind, probed my soul, and found only silence.
But I returned not as a cursed child… but a weapon.
A sword forged in darkness.
Mana surged within me—raw, vast, and terrifying. I had awakened the same talent seen in the legendary Heroes of the realm. My body had transformed, hardened beyond recognition. My eyes no longer held the emptiness of a rejected infant, but the storm of something far greater.
Yet, in return, I had lost everything.
The memories of that dark month were gone.
And now… perhaps even my humanity.
---
Uncle Velric once whispered to my aunt:
> "Yes, he came back with the strength of a hero. But soon after… he began to lose it. It wasn't gone—it was trapped. Blocked by a black mana core. A void. A bottomless pit that devoured everything he tried to build."
> "I don't know what happened in that dungeon… but whatever power he gained, whatever secrets he unlocked, they are sealed now. And so is his fate."
---
I looked at my reflection in the frost-glass window, the firelight dancing across my scarred face.
> "So that's who I am," I murmured. "A child cursed at birth. Forged in darkness. Loved by few. Hated by all."
They called me a failure.
They demanded my death before I had a name.
Even now, after all my strength, they still whisper:
> "He's just a cripple."
"A shadow of what he was."
"He's as worthless now as he was then."
I gritted my teeth. My breath turned sharp. My fingers curled until blood dotted my palms.
---
> "You think I am like them?" I whispered into the dark. "That I see the people of Raelthorn as unworthy of saving because of what they did to me?"
"No. That would be too easy."
"I am not them. I am not so blind."
They abandoned me, yes. But worse—they betrayed the very love and responsibility they were entrusted with. They cast out a child, a son, a brother… and pretended it was justice.
They taught me that power demands responsibility. But none of them—none—held to it.
Not the nobles.
Not the knights.
Not even my father.
They gained power through the love and loyalty of their people… and then abandoned those people the moment they became burdens.
> "So tell me…" I asked the silence, voice cold as ice. "If that is what the world calls nobility—should I really protect it?"
---
There was a sound behind me. A whisper of cloth.
Alice stood there, silent. Her golden hair catching the light like moonlit silk, her eyes wide.
"Brother… what are you thinking?" she asked quietly.
I met her gaze.
And for the first time, I spoke the truth—not just to her, but to myself.
> "I don't know if I want to be a hero anymore, Alice."
"Not in their eyes."
"Not if it means sacrificing the ones who love me… just to protect the ones who never did."
---
I stepped away from the fire and toward the open window.
The city below sparkled under the night sky, beautiful and distant. But behind that beauty was rot.
I would never forget what they did.
And one day… neither would they.
> "If I rise again," I whispered, "it will not be as their hero."
> "It will be as the storm they never saw coming."