The smell was the first thing he noticed.
Not the decaying stench of hospital disinfectants, not the reek of poverty that had clung to his thin blankets in the old world — but something far richer. Clove incense. Lacquered wood. Warm bread carried in silver trays beneath cloth napkins.
Kaito opened his eyes slowly.
The ceiling was high, arched with curved beams carved in floral inlays. A distant chandelier burned with cold blue fire — not electric, not gas — something else. Something mystical.
He was no longer dying. His body didn't ache. He wasn't coughing blood. He wasn't alone.
"...He lives," a voice whispered.
A woman sat beside the bed. Her beauty was fragile, her posture disciplined, her clothes far too fine to be peasant-made. But her eyes — almond-shaped, weary, and brown like his had once been — widened with trembling relief.
"My son… Kaito…"
His lips parted, but no sound came. The name struck like thunder. Kaito? She knows me?
"I am Yuriko," she said softly. "Your mother."
She bowed her head low — not with arrogance, but reverence, fear, and guilt all wound into one.
Kaito's mind spun. This is real. I died. I really died. The infection, the untreated organs, the night in the alley behind the clinic… It was over.
And yet… not.
This body was smaller — perhaps twelve years old. Pale, healthy. The skin unblemished. The clothes he wore were silk-lined, stitched with threads of green and silver. Every surface in the room was polished or perfumed.
He remembered a final thought in the dying seconds of his last life: If only I'd been born rich…
Now, the cruel wish had been granted.
Yuriko reached out hesitantly, brushing his hand with her own. "They said you might not wake again. They gave up on you. But I—I never did."
Kaito finally spoke, his voice soft and unfamiliar.
"…Where am I?"
Her eyes filled with tears. "In the capital. The North Wing of Gyeonjiro estate."
Gyeonjiro.
He knew the name. The richest family in the entire Noreyan continent. Nobles whose gold controlled the food supply of half a kingdom.
"You're… the fifth son," she continued with a bitter smile. "Though they rarely say your name aloud."
Hours passed before Yuriko left to "inform the Lord." Servants dressed him wordlessly. Their eyes were trained not to meet his. Their faces stayed neutral, like perfect tools.
Kaito absorbed it all. The politeness. The quiet scorn.
He could feel it — he did not belong here.
His memories burned bright. The job rejections. The hospital visit where they told him he'd last two months. The friend who borrowed money and disappeared. The apartment landlord who found him in convulsions and just stepped over him.
And yet now, he had a house the size of a city block.
He had to be careful. Strategic. Patient.
The past had taught him that power, once tasted, could vanish with a single careless move.
He was brought before Lord Arase Gyeonjiro that evening.
The man sat beneath a towering mural of conquest — blades and ledgers painted in equal measure. He did not rise to greet his "son." His hands rested atop a cane of white iron, but his posture was anything but weak.
So this was his new father.
"You're awake," Arase said, voice measured.
"Yes," Kaito answered evenly.
"Your condition has stabilized, which means the healers were not entirely wasted coin. And your mother still clings to the fantasy of your potential." He gestured lazily. "I see nothing. You are weak in magic. Your blood is common. You are not fit for trade nor politics. But… you are still of my name."
Kaito said nothing.
Arase studied him.
"There will be no special education. No noble tutors. You will remain here, in the North Wing. Speak to none of your brothers unless spoken to. I grant you coin for food, and nothing else."
"Understood," Kaito said.
Arase blinked, surprised.
"You do not beg?"
"I do not need to."
"Explain."
"I will earn the rest."
A slow, dangerous smile spread on the Lord's lips. "Is that so?"
Kaito bowed his head slightly. Yes, he thought. I will earn it. And when I do, it will be beyond coin. Beyond what any of you imagine.
Three days passed.
Kaito wandered the North Wing alone. He read, quietly, from the estate's unused archives. There were ancient ledgers, territorial records, banned pamphlets on peasant taxation reforms.
The world began to unfold before him in bits and fragments.
There were five major Houses like Gyeonjiro. Each ruled part of Noreya through guild-backed monopolies — salt, grain, transport, steel, and debt. The Gyeonjiros controlled the grain.
What stunned him most was the cruelty baked into the system: The Blessing Tax.
A policy enforced by the Church of the Golden Veil: every peasant who benefited from noble resources — grain, medicine, land — must pay "spiritual compensation." In coin, of course.
It was institutionalized debt slavery.
These people have no chance, Kaito realized. Just like I had no chance.
One morning, he found a girl beneath the library steps.
Thin, blindfolded, and humming.
"Are you lost?" Kaito asked.
"No," she said, smiling.
She turned her face slightly. Her eyes were wrapped in linen, but her other senses were sharp. "You're the one they call Ghost Son, aren't you?"
Kaito blinked.
She tilted her head. "Your aura is different. It's… empty but sharp. Like a broken blade."
"…Who are you?"
"I'm Seina," she said. "I used to live in the Outer Quarter. Now I'm a servant. But I come here when no one's watching. The books talk louder than people."
"You're blind."
"Mm-hm. But I hear fine." She stood and held out her hand. "You're going to try and fix the world, aren't you?"
He stared at her.
"…How could you know that?"
She grinned. "Because broken blades cut deeper when no one expects it."
That night, he broke into the estate's supply ledger vault.
Not for rebellion.
But for study.
Kaito was no thief. He copied, not stole. Read, not burned.
He learned that food shipments marked for "district donation" were being diverted — repackaged and sold to private brokers.
He traced names. Patterns. Routes.
Roh Minato. Daughters of the Golden Veil. 48 crates of winter grain.
He had names now. Scandals. Proof.
He knew better than to expose them. That would earn a swift death.
No — he'd do what he did best: find an angle.
One week later, he left the estate.
It was his first sanctioned "outing" under escort — two guards who assumed him harmless.
He asked for one stop: Bogu Market. A slum district.
"Why?" the guard sneered.
"I want to buy a peach."
They let him go. Watched with amused disgust.
Kaito stepped into the street, eyes scanning. Children dug through mud for husks. Vendors slept beside rotting carts. No healers. No priests. No food.
"Excuse me," he said to an old woman seated on a crate. "Do you have work?"
She looked up, startled.
"Work?"
"I need a ledger cleaned and rewritten."
"…For coin?"
"Yes."
Her hands trembled. "You're… serious?"
He handed her a copied page. "Keep the original safe. Rewrite only what you see. Deliver it here." He gave a false drop-point address.
That night, he paid seven other elderly vendors to do the same.
By the end of the week, he had clean, anonymous ledgers traced in seven different styles — all matching.
He sent one to the Inner Court anonymously.
The scandal broke three days later.
The Golden Veil punished the rogue merchants.
The stolen grain crates were "reclaimed" and returned to Bogu Market in a public show of piety.
Kaito watched from a rooftop, his hood pulled low.
Seina sat beside him, legs swinging.
"They think it was divine intervention," she said. "A miracle."
He smiled faintly. "Let them believe it."
"You didn't keep a single coin from it."
"I don't need to. Not yet."
She tilted her head toward him. "You're dangerous."
"I know."
Back at the estate, the Lord summoned him.
Kaito entered the chamber calmly.
Arase's eyes were unreadable.
"I've received word," the man said, "that a peasant boy in Bogu Market is being called a 'saint in green' by the locals. They say he exposed a merchant ring. All quietly. All without violence."
Kaito said nothing.
"I find it… curious."
"I wouldn't know," Kaito said.
"Wouldn't you?"
"No."
Arase studied him. "There's one thing I have learned in this life, boy: Coin has many forms. But the rarest is one I now suspect you possess."
"What form?"
Arase leaned forward, tapping his cane.
"Leverage."