Gray morning light filtered through the cracked windows—thin and cold.
Dust drifted.
The mansion was quiet in a way that felt unnatural. Not peaceful.
Just… emptied.
Vincent walked the corridor at an unhurried pace, listening to the floorboards complain under his weight. This body still felt wrong: shallow breath, stiff joints, muscles that had forgotten how to obey.
He stopped before a half-hanging door, hinges rusted like old bones.
Beyond it waited a wide room.
A gallery.
Once, it would have been a corridor of pride—portraits of House Aldebaran lining the walls, glass cases displaying trophies taken from things that shouldn't have existed.
Now—
Hollow.
Not neatly empty.
Ransacked-empty.
A clean rectangle on the floor where a heavy rug once lay.
Faded outlines where frames had hung.
Too many nail holes—like someone had yanked and pried until even the wall was tired of being stolen from.
Vincent swallowed.
What was missing wasn't just valuables.
It was sound.
Once, this house had been full of it—silver clinking, footsteps on polished wood, curtains whispering, the steady rhythm of training echoing down the halls.
Now the loudest thing was his own breathing.
"Lord?"
Julia appeared behind him with a cloth and small bucket, moving like someone trying to clean a shipwreck with a spoon. Her uniform was neat, even if everything around her wasn't.
"You're following?" Vincent asked.
Julia nodded. "I was afraid you'd… get lost, my Lord."
"This is my home," Vincent replied flatly.
Julia looked past him at the broken frames and dust-thick air—then back at his face.
"...That's exactly why I'm afraid, my Lord."
Vincent almost smiled.
Almost.
"I want to see everything," he said. "How far it fell."
Julia didn't tell him to stop. She didn't try to shield him.
She simply walked beside him—half a step behind, a loyal shadow that didn't ask for space.
They passed the dining hall.
The long table remained, but chairs were missing. The tabletop bore gouges—wood scraped and chipped, as if someone had tried to turn pride into firewood.
They passed the music room.
A piano sat in the corner like a corpse. Its lid was cracked. The strings were gone—pulled out until the instrument had nothing left to sing with.
Vincent stared at it longer than he meant to.
"Back then…" he began, then stopped. The words tasted like dust.
Julia's voice softened. "I've heard… it used to be lively."
"It was," Vincent said quietly.
He wasn't sure if he was talking about the room… or the era.
They left through a side door whose wood had thinned with weather.
The backyard had been taken by weeds. A stone statue in the garden was cracked, its face eroded into no one.
But the forest beyond the property line—
The forest was still alive.
Trees stood close together like a crowd that never learned to disperse. Leaves cut the gray light into thin shards. The air at the forest edge was damp and cool, as if the soil held secrets it didn't share with daylight.
Vincent stepped into the shadowed line of trees.
Julia immediately said, "My Lord. Not too far."
"Why?" Vincent asked—though his instincts already supplied the answer.
Julia pointed down.
Tracks.
Not bootprints.
Claw marks. Heavy. Fresh.
"Animals?" Vincent guessed.
"Low-level monsters," Julia corrected.
Vincent nodded.
In the past, "low-level" would have meant easy.
In this body, "low-level" could still mean death if he was careless.
"Then we look briefly," Vincent said, forcing his tone into something casual.
Julia stared at him.
"My Lord, you only woke up today."
"I can walk."
"You can," Julia agreed quickly. "And you can also… fall."
Vincent exhaled through his nose.
"Julia."
"Yes, my Lord."
"You talk too much."
Julia's lips curved into the smallest smile—polite, fleeting. "That is part of my duty, my Lord."
They went in.
The deeper they walked, the more the mansion's silence faded behind them. Only leaves, insects, and their steps remained.
Vincent slowed, listening.
A low growl cut through the understory.
From the brush, a pair of yellow eyes lit up.
Then another.
And another.
Three.
Wolf-shaped—but larger. Shoulder-high, broad-chested. Fur dull and clumped. Black drool dripped from their mouths, splattering the ground and making nearby grass curl as if burned.
Vincent's body responded in the most humiliating way possible.
His knees went slightly weak.
Calm. It's just wolves.
Wolves that can eat you.
Julia shifted half a step forward.
Vincent's hand rose instinctively.
"Behind me," he said—too crisp, too automatic.
Julia stopped.
Then looked at his empty hands.
"My Lord," she said evenly, "you didn't bring a weapon."
Vincent blinked.
Right.
He'd brought… confidence.
Which was apparently not sharp.
The first wolf prowled closer, teeth flashing.
Vincent stepped forward and lifted an empty hand like he could negotiate with hunger.
"...Fine," he muttered. "I'll do this with style."
Julia sighed—the sigh of someone watching her Lord attempt to die elegantly.
The wolf lunged.
Vincent's mind shouted: sidestep, turn, strike the throat.
His body replied: too slow.
He tried to dodge.
His foot caught on a root.
Incredibly unheroic.
"—WOAH!"
He slipped, half-fell, and the wolf meant for his throat passed a hair's breadth above his face.
Black drool splattered across his cheek.
Vincent froze.
"...I just almost died," he whispered, still on the ground.
Julia, behind him, said evenly, "Yes, my Lord. I saw that."
The second wolf moved in.
Vincent panicked, grabbed a branch, and raised it like a sword.
The branch snapped.
In his hand.
"...Wonderful," he said softly. "I'm enjoying this new life."
Julia didn't wait.
She moved.
No flourish. No drama. Only efficiency.
She slid to Vincent's side, twisted her hips, and drove something small and sharp forward.
Not a dagger.
A metal hairpin that had been holding her bun together.
It sank cleanly into the first wolf's eye.
The beast yelped and staggered.
Julia snatched a thicker branch and smashed it into its jaw—crack—and the wolf crumpled like a wet sack.
The third wolf hesitated, then tried to flee.
Julia picked up a stone and tossed it.
Not hard.
Just… perfect.
The stone struck the wolf's temple, and it tumbled sideways, dazed, collapsing into the brush.
Silence returned.
Leaves trembled faintly.
Vincent was still sitting on the ground, clutching a broken stick, staring at Julia as if she'd just revealed herself as a myth.
Julia stared back.
"My Lord," she asked, breathing a little faster, "are you hurt?"
Vincent wiped his cheek, inspecting the black drool like a personal insult.
"...Only in my pride."
Julia blinked.
Then, despite herself, her mouth twitched.
"Good," she said politely. "Pride heals faster than bone."
Vincent looked at the fallen wolves, then at Julia's hairpin now stained dark.
"You just killed a monster with a hair accessory."
Julia nodded as if it was a normal household skill. "A servant should always have something sharp, my Lord."
Vincent stood—this time paying full respect to roots that clearly had murderous intent.
As he rose, dizziness rolled through him. The world tilted for a heartbeat.
This body really was weak.
Vincent exhaled slowly.
"Julia," he said, serious now.
"Yes, my Lord."
"I can't be like this."
Julia waited.
"My body doesn't listen," Vincent admitted. He stared into the calm forest that had just tried to kill him with the simplest threat.
"If something that small can make me fall like a sack…"
Julia lowered her gaze, then said what needed to be said.
"My Lord… you are weak."
Vincent stared at her.
Julia quickly added, "That isn't an insult. It is a fact we must fix."
Vincent let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Fine," he said. "Starting today, I train."
Julia nodded as if she'd been waiting to hear those words.
They returned to the mansion while the morning still felt cold.
At the entrance corridor, Vincent stopped again, staring at the ruined crest.
Something clicked in his mind.
Not memory from this body—something older. Habit. House madness.
This house had a basement.
A place where certain things were stored behind rules.
Artifacts.
Items kept out of reach.
Vincent pressed his palm against the wall, searching.
There—wood paneling slightly newer than the rest, like it had been replaced.
Julia frowned. "My Lord?"
"A secret room," Vincent said simply.
Julia's brows lifted. "A secret room…? Forgive me, my Lord, but I was never told there was one."
Vincent stared at the defaced crest, then pressed a specific point—right where the deepest gouge had been carved.
Nothing.
He pressed again.
Still nothing.
Vincent frowned. "It should…"
Julia waited.
Vincent pressed harder. The wood complained.
Still no door.
Vincent drew a slow breath through his nose.
"Don't tell me the mechanism is broken," he muttered.
Julia's voice was painfully innocent. "Perhaps, my Lord… you forgot how to open it?"
Vincent turned his head very slowly.
Julia added quickly, "I'm only asking, my Lord."
Vincent faced the crest again.
House Aldebaran had always loved its ridiculous traditions.
Even its secrets came with nonsense.
A question.
A test useless in war, yet sacred to people who had time to be proud.
Vincent sighed.
"Julia."
"Yes, my Lord?"
"If I ask you something extremely stupid…"
Julia straightened like it was formal duty. "I will answer as best as I can, my Lord."
Vincent pointed at the crest.
Then, with deadpan seriousness that made even him hate himself, he asked:
"Who is the most handsome Aldebaran?"
Julia froze.
One second.
Two.
A faint blush crept up her cheeks, fighting the absurdity.
"My Lord…?" her voice was small. "Is that truly—"
Vincent looked at her with an expression that said I don't believe this either.
Julia swallowed.
Then, like someone surrendering to the house's madness, she answered:
"Gabriel van Aldebaran."
Vincent's entire body went still.
The wrongness of the name hit him like a slap.
And then—
Click.
Something moved behind the wall.
The panel shuddered. Dust fell like thin rain. A mechanism that had slept for years groaned awake, grinding like old bones.
Julia's eyes widened. "My Lord—!"
The wall slid.
Not outward.
Sideways, revealing a narrow corridor of darkness that swallowed the gray light.
Cold air breathed out from within—metal, wet stone, and something old.
Deep inside the passage, a dim glint caught the light.
Like an eye that had just opened.
Vincent stepped forward—
and the dark welcomed him.