Reborn as the Failed Lord with my Resource Gathering System.-Chapter 253: The story of Yaho- [How the name Jacob was born.]

By the time the sun had gone down and nightfall set in, Yaho, who had been waiting for the man to wake up, soon found herself asleep in a small corner of the room.

Slowly, she began to open her eyes.

The moment she noticed it was nighttime, her eyes widened in shock. She had slept that long? Her family would obviously be looking for her.

Just when she was ready to stand to her feet and immediately head home, she noticed something.

At the left side of the room, the man she had saved had also woken up.

He was naked and standing there, an oblivious look on his face. However, that didn't subtract from the fact that he was wary as well.

"#$^@&?"

Those were the first words that left his mouth.

Yaho was once again taken aback.

His voice sounded exactly like the man from her dreams.

There were too many things being linked for it to be some kind of coincidence.

Slowly, she turned around to look at him, her eyes scanning him from foot to head.

And then, the moment she met his gaze, the man launched forward.

He grabbed her by the neck and pinned her to the ground with no effort whatsoever.

With his eyes glowing, he uttered once again—

"@#%!!*"

Yaho struggled under his grasp. She could feel her head would fall off any second if he kept squeezing her that tightly.

"Y-you're killing me…" she managed to let out, tears appearing at the corners of her eyes.

The man frowned.

"I have learnt language. Do you understand me?"

It was just as he said; Yaho could now understand him. Though his words were incomplete and felt forced, she could still pick up one or two.

She nodded.

"I am not your enemy."

Just her saying that was enough to calm the man down.

He released his hold around her neck and slightly moved back, crouching on all fours like a primal beast where he then proceeded to observe her from a distance, watching as she coughed and tried to find her breath.

"Sorry. You looked like enemy."

Yaho managed to sit upright. She could still feel the pain around her neck and the swelling, but in that moment, for some reason, it didn't matter to her in the slightest.

She quickly came to the conclusion that he panicked and thought she was some kind of threat.

After all, from her dreams, she remembered his story well.

He suddenly appeared from nowhere and landed on earth, where he was then raised by a single human, only to end up alone after some robbers attacked their home.

That deaf and dumb human was all he had ever known since arriving on earth. And now, he got washed up ashore during an attack, only to be in front of this woman.

She looked at him with mesmerizing eyes, almost like she wanted to keep him locked up and close to her forever.

"You never told me your name…" she began, ignoring the pain around her neck and crawling forward just a bit.

The man tilted his head to the side, a bit confused.

"Name?"

Seeing how he responded to her, Yaho giggled a bit.

He was cute. Too cute for his age.

"You're not going away from here, are you?" she asked another question.

This caused the man to have a sad look on his face.

"I don't have place to go. Home, destroyed. Friend got killed too."

His touching story barely grazed her ear. Or rather, she could not see the far end of the picture; all she knew was he responded to her, and he had nowhere else to go.

"Stay with me. I'll protect you."

So she said, with a huge smile on her face, taking another knee forward.

"You'll stay right? I'll give you food, and water, and clothing. The outside world is dangerous, and the gods are growing crazier every day. You'll be safe in here, with me."

She did think about asking him if he had ever had a dream about her like she did about him, but even she feared disappointment if anything.

The man, seeing how adamant she was, nodded his head in acceptance.

This caused Yaho to smile even more, her face lighting up with joy—something far rarer to see on her face these days.

"I should give you a name then, since you'll be staying here with me. Hmm…" Her finger pressed against her jaw. "How about… oh, Jacob! My father says that name belongs to a strong warrior."

"Jacob?" The man pointed at himself.

"Yes. You are Jacob."

Before the man could fully understand what was happening, Yaho suddenly stood up from the ground, carrying her empty container meant to be filled with water.

"I know you're probably hungry, so I'll come back and feed you. Please wait here and don't leave this room. It's dangerous out there."

With that, she stormed out of the room, her face practically glowing with happiness.

The man, now called Jacob, lay back on the ground the moment she was gone. He stared at the ceiling for a good while.

He had no idea where he came from or who he used to be. Hell, he could barely remember the first human he lived with when he arrived on earth.

And now, there was a woman willing to take care of him.

"Jacob…"

He pronounced his name out loud.

A name he found to be weird. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

….

When Yaho arrived home, as expected, her family was worried, wondering where she must have been all day.

She lied and told them she had been attacked by a wild beast.

Since there had been no ranking of sorts in this time, people rarely had names for strong monsters and were only able to tell them apart by the color of their magic gems.

Eventually, they believed her, taking her word for it.

But it didn't stop there.

Days passed and the event kept on happening, over and over again.

Yaho was spending every day with Jacob. She would sneak food and water to the small, secluded room where she kept him, spinning increasingly elaborate lies to explain her frequent absences and the dwindling stores of provisions.

Her family, worried sick about the initial "beast attack," began to grow suspicious of her erratic behavior, the faint bruises that sometimes lingered on her neck, and the way her eyes seemed to glow with a secret excitement.

Jacob, on the other hand, was changing rapidly.

Every day, he absorbed new information like a sponge. Yaho taught him words, simple concepts, and the strange, intricate customs of the small fishing village she lived in.

His forced, incomplete speech smoothed out, becoming more articulate, though still carrying an odd, formal cadence. He spent hours just watching her, his strange, intense gaze never leaving her face.

He learned to hide his unusual strength, to wear the simple, hand-me-down clothes she brought him, and to mimic the casual movements of a regular man.

But Yaho knew better.

Every time he accidentally crushed a ceramic bowl or lifted a heavy barrel with a single hand, she was reminded of the immense, alien power coiled beneath his human facade.

…

One evening, weeks after she first found him, Yaho slipped into the room to find Jacob sitting upright, staring intently at a small clay lamp.

"Yaho," he said, his voice calm and steady. "The outside… it is dangerous, you say. Why?"

She sat down across from him, placing a woven basket of dried fish and bread between them.

"It is, Jacob. It always has been. But lately, the gods are restless. Their magic is spilling out. The beasts are getting stronger, the crops are failing, and the storms… the storms are getting worse."

He picked up a piece of dried fish, turning it over in his fingers.

"The gods. If they are so dangerous, why don't your people discuss with them for peace?"

"You can't have peace with people who don't view us as living beings to begin with." She touched the side of her cheek and looked at him.

"I am cute, am I not? The gods have taken women from my village, women far prettier than I am. Do you wish for the gods to take me too?"

Jacob finally looked at her, his eyes serious.

"If the gods are enemies of mankind, then can they not be killed? Like you did this fish?"

She gave a short, sharp laugh that held no humor.

"Killed? Jacob, you speak of things you don't understand. The gods are… they are power. They are the reason the sun rises, the reason the fish swim, the reason we have life. You can't just 'kill' them. They are immortal and immense. Any man who even spoke of it would be struck down by lightning or consumed by the very air he breathes."

She leaned closer, her expression turning grave.

"That is why you must stay here. Safe. The gods don't care about a strange man hidden away in a small room. But if you were out there, using your strength, they would notice. And they would take you, or worse, use you for their own cruel games."

Jacob slowly ate the piece of dried fish, his gaze unfocused as if processing a monumental equation.

"Immortality is only a concept, Yaho. Everything that has a beginning has an end. It is simply a matter of finding the weakness."

Yaho sighed, rubbing her temples. She knew arguing was pointless; he was still learning the difference between simple logic and the terrifying, unpredictable reality of their world.

"We can talk about this another time, Jacob. I need to go now," she said, gathering her empty container and the remnants of the basket. "I'm needed at home for something important tonight, a special ritual for the new moon. My father will be furious if I'm late."

She stood up, smoothing the simple fabric of her tunic. Jacob rose as well, a deep, unsettling stillness radiating from him.

"Be careful, Yaho," he said, his voice a low, resonant murmur.

She smiled weakly. "I'll be back soon."

She turned toward the narrow, hinged entrance of the secluded room.

As she reached for the handle, pulling the door inward just enough to slip out, Yaho froze.

Standing silhouetted against the meager moonlight filtering in from the main house's courtyard, blocking her exit, were two figures.

Her brother, Raki, stood a step behind, his face a mask of cold suspicion. Directly in front, with his arms crossed and an expression of thunderous, betrayed anger, was her father.