Reborn as the Failed Lord with my Resource Gathering System.-Chapter 223: The cursed child. (Final stage.) V
The forest did not mourn him.
The leaves rustled with the same indifferent whisper, and the moon cast the same cold, silver light. But for me, the world had been drained of its color.
I sat there for hours, clutching the silver necklace until the metal bit into my palm.
He is gone.
The thought was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
I wanted to scream, to tear the trees from their roots, to unleash the boundless ocean of mana he had gifted me and burn the forest to ash.
But I didn’t.
I remembered his words.
"Wear it. It won’t just keep you safe; it will help you remember what you truly are."
I stood up. My legs were steady. My eyes were clear.
I was no longer the crippled child who hid in the river. I was Ravina. And I would find him.
Time, I soon learned, was a cruel joke.
I left the forest and walked into a world that was moving too fast. I traveled from village to town, from kingdom to empire, searching for a man named Jacob.
But no one knew him.
To survive, I fought.
I didn’t have a sword, but I had mana. Endless, overflowing mana. I learned to coat my fists in it, to harden my skin until steel shattered against it. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮
I became a mercenary. Not for gold, but for information.
Crack!
My fist connected with the jaw of an Orc chieftain, sending him flying through the wall of the tavern. Dust and splinters rained down on his unconscious body.
The tavern went silent.
"Does anyone else want to complain about the bill?" I asked, wiping a speck of blood from my cheek.
No one moved.
I walked out into the night, the coin pouch heavy at my belt, but my heart empty.
Years turned into decades.
I watched the world change. I watched kingdoms rise and fall. I watched the people I worked with—the gruff mercenaries, the kind barmaids, and the ambitious knights—grow and retire.
But I... I remained the same.
I looked in the mirror of a cheap inn room, touching my face. Not a single wrinkle. Not a single grey hair.
The mana inside me was preserving me, freezing me in the peak of my youth while the world rotted around me.
"What are you?" a dying comrade had asked me once, fear in his eyes.
"I am waiting," I had replied.
Then, the rumors started.
They traveled on the wind, whispered by terrified refugees and shouted by town criers.
"The Dragon Monarch! He fights the Gods!"
"He leads an army of dragons! He is a god-killer!"
My heart stopped.
Dragon Monarch. A man who challenged the heavens. A man who possessed power that defied logic.
Jacob.
It had to be him. Who else could fight the Gods? Who else had that kind of strength?
I didn’t hesitate. I packed my meager belongings—my cloak, my boots, and the necklace that never left my neck—and I ran.
I ran toward the war.
The sky in the north was burning. Violet lightning danced across the clouds, and the earth shook with the tremors of divine battle.
I pushed through the fleeing crowds, running against the tide of humanity.
I’m coming. Wait for me.
I reached a valley, the air thick with the smell of ozone and blood. I could feel him. I could feel a presence so massive it made my knees weak.
But he wasn’t alone.
Standing in the middle of the path, blocking the way to the battlefield, was a figure.
It wasn’t a soldier. It wasn’t a monster.
It was a child.
He stood there, kicking a pebble with his bare foot, wearing a simple white tunic that remained spotless amidst the chaos.
I skid to a halt, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Move," I snarled, mana flaring around my fists.
The child looked up.
His eyes were white. Pure, empty white.
Thump.
My heart missed a beat. My instincts, honed by decades of slaughter, screamed at me to run. To hide.
"You are not supposed to meet with him," the child said.
His voice didn’t travel through the air. It vibrated in my teeth. It echoed in the marrow of my bones.
"Who are you?" I stepped back, my hands trembling.
The child smiled. It was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. A smile that promised nothing but emptiness.
"Your destiny is not meant to end here."
He raised a small, pale hand.
I tried to attack. I tried to unleash the mana, to blast him out of existence.
But I couldn’t move.
The air around me solidified. The light faded.
Slam!
Darkness.
There was no sound. There was no light. There was no time.
I was floating in a void, a cold, suffocating embrace that pressed against my mind.
Let me out!
I screamed, but I had no mouth. I fought, but I had no body.
I was trapped. Sealed away like a forgotten toy.
How long was I there? Years? Centuries?
I drifted in the nothingness, clinging to the only thing that felt real—the memory of his face. The warmth of his hand healing me.
Jacob... Jabo...
I recited his name like a prayer. I held onto it as my sanity frayed at the edges.
And then, a crack.
Criiiick.
A splinter of light pierced the dark. Then another.
CRASH!
The world shattered.
I fell forward, vomiting bile onto stone. The air was stale. Dust coated my tongue.
I gasped, clawing at the ground, feeling the rough texture of rock under my fingers. I was back.
I stumbled out of the cave—or was it a tomb?—and looked up at the sky.
It was grey.
The fires of war were gone. The violet lightning was gone.
I stumbled to the nearest town, grabbing a terrified passerby by the collar.
"The war?" I rasped, my voice unused and broken. "The Dragon Monarch? Where is he?"
The man looked at me like I was a ghost.
"The war ended over fifty years ago, woman! The Dragon Monarch is dead! The Gods killed him!"
Dead.
The word hit me harder than any blow.
I fell to my knees in the dirt.
No.
I reached for my neck. I needed the necklace. I needed the piece of him to tell me it was a lie.
My hand grasped empty air.
Gone.
The necklace was gone.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
I screamed until my throat bled. I screamed at the sky, at the gods, at the cruel, twisting joke of my life.
He was gone. My time was stolen. My hope was stolen.
And I knew who to blame.
The Witches.
The veiled woman who took him away. The magic that twisted fate. The powers that played with lives like pawns.
I hated them. I hated them with a fire that consumed the grief.
I stood up.
If I couldn’t love him, I would avenge him.
I became a ghost again.
I joined the Witch Hunting Guild. They gave me weapons, but I didn’t use them.
I didn’t need steel to kill a witch. I wanted to feel it.
Snap!
I crushed the throat of a witch in a dark alley, watching the light fade from her eyes. She had begged. She had pleaded.
I didn’t care.
"One less," I whispered.
I hunted them across the continent. I became a legend—a monster that even the monsters feared. The Mana Eater. The Ageless Hunter.
I was covered in blood, standing over a coven I had just slaughtered, when the door creaked open.
I spun around, ready to kill again.
But it wasn’t a witch.
It was a man in royal armor. He looked at the carnage, at the blood dripping from my hands, and he didn’t flinch.
"You have a gift," he said.
It was King Abaddon.
He approached me, stepping over the corpses. He looked into my eyes and saw the bottomless well of mana, the infinite capacity for destruction.
"The world is broken," Abaddon said, extending a hand. "But there is a way to fix it. There is a weapon that needs a wielder like you. A blade that feeds on life."
"I have no life left to give," I replied deadpan.
"Good," he smiled. "Because this blade is hungry."
He took me to the castle. He gave me a name—a title. He gave me the sword Faja.
And he gave me a promise.
"Serve the legacy," Abaddon told me, placing the white blade in my hands. "The Dragon Monarch is not gone forever. He will return. And when he does, he will need a sword."
My heart, which had been stone for so long, cracked.
Return?
"You lie," I whispered.
"I do not," Abaddon said. "Prophecy is a fickle thing, Ravina. He will come back. And you must be ready."
So I waited.
I became the King after Abaddon passed. I wore the crown. I wielded the blade. I played the role.
But every night, I looked at the moon and touched my empty neck.
I am waiting, Ja-cob?
