The baron's chamber reeked of sour wine and cheap perfume. The candles that lit the room sputtered against the silence of the night, spilling a yellowish glow that blended with the wet, constant rhythm of the creaking bed.
The Baron of Everon, a man with puffed cheeks and skin reddened by alcohol, moved with the clumsy rhythm of an aroused pig. His shirt was rolled up halfway, sweat streaming down his flabby chest like gleaming rivulets. Each gasp sounded like a grunt, as if every thrust was a struggle not to drown in his own fat.
Beneath him, a dark-haired maid kept her face pressed against the pillow. Her body arched under the noble's weight, skin smeared with another's sweat and the stench of cheap perfume. With every movement of her master, the wooden frame of the bed quivered.
Plah, plah.
"More… harder, my lord!" she cried out, her voice broken between moans.
The baron's eyes lit up with delight at those words. His chubby hand, heavy with rings, grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, forcing her to scream.
"Yes… like that… a whore who knows her place." His wet, slobbering mouth pressed against her neck.
Plah.
Plah.
"Ahhh~"
The maid moaned loudly, as if every insult pierced her with ecstasy. Her nails tore at the sheets, leaving marks of feigned desperation.
"I'm yours! Do whatever you want with me… use me like your trash, my lord… however you please!"
The baron laughed, a sound that blurred into a snore. His trembling buttocks struck against her with a grotesque echo. Sweat dripped down onto her back, sliding until it vanished into the curves of her waist.
The woman twisted beneath him, screaming louder each time, as though pleasure was tearing her apart from within. But in her eyes —hidden under a curtain of hair— something glimmered that did not match her moans: exhaustion.
At that moment, the door slammed open.
The butler, a tall, thin man with perfectly combed white hair, appeared at the threshold. His expression was impassive, as though there were nothing unusual about the scene.
"My lord baron."
The fat man's head jerked up, his drooling lips still pressed to the maid's neck. Sweat poured down his forehead, mixing with the alcoholic flush of his cheeks.
"What the hell do you think you're doing barging in without knocking, you idiot?!" he roared, fumbling away from the maid and scrambling for his clothes on the floor.
The butler inclined his head calmly.
"My deepest apologies, my lord, but a messenger from the Church has arrived. They've come to verify this generation's affinities. They insist on seeing you immediately."
The mention of the Church drained the baron's face of color. The sweat running down his neck was no longer of pleasure, but of fear.
"The… Church? Damn it!" he muttered, stumbling over his trousers as he tried to dress.
With a harsh shove he pushed the maid aside, sending her sprawling on the bed, hair tangled, skin flushed with red marks. The baron cursed as he fumbled with his wine-stained shirt and rushed to the door, still reeking of rancid sweat.
"Make them wait with wine… tell them I'll be right down!" he barked before vanishing into the hall.
The butler closed the door behind him. Silence returned, broken only by the maid's ragged breathing.
For a few seconds, she lay still, her face buried in the pillow. Then she let out a bitter laugh, almost a snort.
"Hmph… idiot."
She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling with lips twisted into an ironic smirk. Wiping away the drool he had left on her mouth, she muttered:
"'Treat me like garbage,' I said… If he only knew how much it costs me to pretend I enjoy his stinking sweat."
She sat up slowly, gathering her clothes from the floor. Each piece was stained with his touch, steeped in that greasy smell.
"The great baron of Everon…" she whispered while dressing. "A pig with golden rings who thinks he's a stallion. If it weren't for the gold filling my stomach, I wouldn't let him touch me even for double."
With a quick gesture she fixed her hair and left the chamber, abandoning the disheveled bed soaked in withered lust.
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Meanwhile, in a village not too far from the city —but not close enough to walk either— Kael's life unfolded in silence.
For the first three years, his mind was a still sea. No memories, no true awareness. Only the routine of an infant: sleeping, crying, eating, babbling.
It was as if his soul were trapped in a veil. As if his existence were a puppet pulled only by the strings of instinct. To his parents, Kael was no different from any other child his age.
Martha cradled him with obsessive tenderness. She would spend long hours watching him sleep, as if she feared he might vanish into thin air.
Jhon, on the other hand, looked at him with indifference. He rarely held him, and when he did, it was as though he carried an inconvenient burden.
In those years, Kael was an empty reflection. His days passed between his mother's whispered lullabies and instinctive monotony.
...
On a bed, fitting for his current station, lay a child staring blankly at the ceiling of his home —as if he had no essence, merely existing.
Then, suddenly, that same child took a deep breath and began to writhe in the cradle, a sharp pain tearing through his head. The only thing he could do was what any small child would when displeased.
"AHH."
"Uwaaaa, uwaaa."
His crying was so intense it caught his mother's attention as she washed clothes.
Martha's eyes widened, adrenaline surging, pupils dilating. Dropping the laundry from her hands, she ran toward the baby's room. She burst in and scooped him into her arms.
"Sweetheart?! What's wrong?!" she screamed, frantically checking his tiny body for injuries.
The child only shook his head and kept wailing, with no sign of stopping.
After a minute of relentless crying, with Martha nearly in tears, the baby suddenly went quiet. His skin had turned pale.
"No… no, no! You can't leave me too, please!" she begged, unable to think rationally. She didn't even check if he was breathing or if his heart still beat, much less run to a healer.
Yet, perhaps in a rare moment of clarity, she forced herself to check him properly. Bringing her ear to his chest, she found his heart still beating softly. Realizing this, she calmed down slightly and laid him back in the bed, watching over him for an hour until his natural color returned.
Relief washed over her. Her arms slackened, her breath steadied, and her trembling eased. Her obsession with him was so strong her body itself bore the weight of it.
Finally, more composed, she exhaled and thought of stepping out for fresh air. For a moment, she nearly believed she would end up alone again, forgetting entirely that she had a husband.
What she didn't notice was that, as she left the room and shut the door, the baby's lashes fluttered. Once she was gone, the child opened his eyes.
But something was different. He was no longer that empty child acting on instinct —his eyes now gleamed with a wisdom that had no place in someone his age.
As if searching for something, he darted his gaze frantically from side to side, trying to find an anchor for his disbelieving mind.
Sunlight filtered through the curtains as Kael blinked, confusion etched across his small face. Then, as though lightning split his mind, memories of another life surged into the infancy that had barely begun.
"Urghh."
He clutched his head in discomfort, stunned for a moment. Names, faces, moments… the routine of an adult man, the loneliness of another world, the weight of past decisions.
Beyond the empty little boy, he was now someone else… someone who had died and reincarnated into this body. And for some reason, on the eve of his fourth birthday, his memories had returned.
Slowly he sat up in his tiny bed, his heart racing.
"No way…" he whispered, his trembling voice still childlike.
He spent hours in silence, struggling to piece together fragments of his past. Each memory struck hard: the echo of a different world, missed opportunities, the gray routine of his former life.
And yet, there was also that smug smile threatening to spread.
"I knew it… HAHAHAHAHA! I KNEW IT!"
Kael shouted, leaping with excitement. And how could he not? This was everything he had always wished for. Now all he needed was his system, and he'd be ready to conquer all the girls in the world.
But he hadn't realized the noise would attract his parents' attention.
"Sweetheart?" Martha called, opening the door to find her son bouncing joyfully.
Like a bucket of cold water, Kael froze, realizing he wasn't alone. He stopped jumping, trying not to act too strange.
"Hehe, hi mom." he laughed nervously, unsure of what to do.
Martha narrowed her eyes, suspicious.
Cold sweat prickled Kael's skin. But as if nothing was wrong, she smiled tenderly, drew closer, and smothered him in her soft bosom.
"Are you alright, darling? You know I love you, don't you?"
"Yes, I know, mommy…" he replied awkwardly, uneasy at the words of someone he had, in theory, just "met."
"Mommy, can I sleep a little? My head still hurts."
He tried to pull away from those suffocating pillows. "Good thing I'm not developed yet…" he thought to himself.
Seeing his discomfort, Martha set him down to look at him properly.
Gazing into his beautiful violet eyes and flawless skin with rosy cheeks brimming with health, she relaxed somewhat.
"My beautiful boy." She pinched his cheek.
"Ow, mom, stop."
"Hehe, alright. Sleep and rest, Kael. I'll make you a meal you like when you wake."
Watching his mother leave through the door, Kael lay back down, overwhelmed by the emotions crashing over him. Joy, unease, fear… all mixed together, pounding in his head again.
And of course —someone who had always dreamed of reincarnating in another world to grind aura and build a harem should have been ecstatic. But he also knew this world might be far more dangerous than the one he left behind.
Still, the emotion that ate at him most was loneliness.
The loneliness of knowing he would never again see his family, speak with his parents, argue with his siblings. All of it together.
Lying down, he ran a hand through his hair, slowly stroking it as he remembered them.
"Haah…" he sighed.
"I hope I never forget their faces," he murmured with deep sorrow.
And yet, a smile spread across his lips.
"Well… I'm sure they'd want me to be happy. And since I can't change anything, I'd better live my life the way I always wanted."
"What did you expect me to say? That I'd find a way back to my old world? That I'd wallow in anxiety and depression like a normal human? NO! Why the hell would I want to go back to a world where I was fragile and powerless to change anything? A world run by the words of the rich and religious fanatics who claim to hold the absolute truth. No… I've simply accepted I'm somewhere else, like an adult with emotional intelligence. All I need is to gather information, see if there's more than just normal humans in this world.
I only hope it isn't a mundane world —because if it is, I'd slap myself."
And then, as if a lightbulb switched on:
"System?… Status?… Damn it?"
No response came. He tried other names, but nothing. Nothing changed.
Until he noticed the ring around his neck, one he had ignored until now.
"Grandpa in the ring?" he whispered weakly, turning pale at the thought of having no system.
"Shit, shit… this wasn't in the manual of generic reincarnations. What the hell is going on?" he thought in disbelief.
He reached behind his neck, took the ring off, and examined it closely. It was beautiful, engraved with intricate patterns. But when he looked carefully, he distinguished shapes like galaxies swirling inside it.
It left him speechless.
"What the fuck…?"
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(Author's note)
Kael's physical and mental growth will happen around chapter 10, not too late, since I don't really enjoy writing about children.
It's ironic that nobody even comments on these chapters and here I am writing this for future readers, Jeje.