Chapter 7: The Duke and the Bastard.

With a ding, the lift door slid open.

I walked out without a word. Stella followed me.

A long hallway stretched out before me, lined with antiques and old portraits.

A painting caught my eye—a small boy with torn clothes standing next to a man wearing luxurious clothes, who looked way too pleased with himself.

Rich people and their weird kinks with useless stuff.

I sighed.

Honestly, I didn’t really understand that.

Back in my previous life, I once got dragged into an art exhibition.

As a chief guest, no less.

The organiser asked me to draw something.

And how can I deny it as a proper chief guest, right?

So I showed them my impeccable talent by drawing a donkey. Well, at least something similar to chasing a carrot.

People looked at it like I had painted some masterpiece.

Apparently, that was ’modern art’ because it captured ’the essence of the human struggle’.

I was never a fan of art. Nor would I ever be.

People buy that junk at ridiculous prices, and for what? It’s almost nonsensical.

I mean, hell, with that kind of money, you could feed thousands or maybe millions of poor people.

Funny how people couldn’t see the ugliness in the world yet pretend to appreciate a piece of canvas hanging on a wall.

Okay, okay, maybe I’m a bit biased.

There was this one time when some guy nearly beat me to death for stepping on a painting he’d just bought.

For better or worse…the event happened right after the funeral of my father.

So, yeah, it did leave me with a permanent scar.

But, you know who I am, right?

I found that guy who beat me when I became rich and…

… Well, just say I got my revenge.

I didn’t like holding grudges for long, so I always made sure to pay them back whenever a perfect chance arrived.

“Young Master,” Stella called, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Are you okay?”

I blinked and realised I was still staring at the painting.

“I’m perfectly fine, Stella,” I said, snapping out of my daze. “Why do you ask?”

Stella hesitated, glancing at me. “You’ve been grinning, looking at the picture, for a while.”

Huh?

Grinning?

I touched my face. My lips were curled up into a wide grin without my permission.

That weird, unsettling smile again.

Great. [A/N: Can you guess why?]

I shook my head, brushing it off. “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

_

Stella and I walked the rest of the hallway in silence.

We passed many portraits—some regal, some haunting, most just pretentious.

But I ignored them now.

Better than getting distracted again.

Finally, I stopped in front of a familiar pair of double doors.

There wasn’t any bodyguard or anything of that sort.

I mean, who would dare to wander into the centre of the Ashborn Estate, right?

Still, that didn’t mean no one was watching.

Nope.

There were probably at least ten people hidden just within this corridor alone—silently observing, cloaked in stealth artifacts or merged into the shadows like they were born from them.

Each one probably had a kill order ready, just in case someone tried to bring a surprise cake to the Duke.

I looked at the door ahead.

The door to my father’s office.

The big scary zone.

Well… for most people.

For me?

It was just where the bastard liked to hide and pretend to work.

I raised a hand to knock—

“Don’t bother knocking, you little bastard. Just get in here already.”

Yep.

There it is.

That smooth voice echoed in my mind.

Affectionate as always, aren’t we?

I thought, pushing the doors open.

The door closed immediately after I stepped inside, leaving Stella out for obvious reasons.

Inside, the room looked exactly like I remembered.

A war command centre fused with a personal museum.

One half of the room was all reinforced glass, floating monitors and mana detectors.

The other half?

Childish chaos.

Crayon-drawn dragons. Stick figures with messy smiles.

There was even a stick-figure family portrait with “RaeL is Stupid >:3” written at the bottom. Apparently a masterpiece by my older sister when she was seven.

A window stretched from the ground to the ceiling just behind the massive desk in the centre.

And standing near the wide window?

The man himself.

Reynold Von Ashborn.

Duke of Ashvara.

An S+ Rank Resonant.

Also referred to as the weakest duke.

But he was the weakest among some of the strongest people in this world.

So yeah… it didn’t really matter much.

My father was a battlefield demon in his prime.

Led assaults against the ASS coalition when most nobles were still hiding in their bunkers polishing family heirlooms.

He earned his seat by defeating other competitors to the family succession.

Of course, he ruined that intimidating image by standing in front of me in slippers.

“About damn time,” he said without turning around, his voice relaxed. “I was starting to think you’d sleep through your own funeral.”

He finally turned. His black hair was messier than usual, tied back clumsily.

The cigarette dangled from his lip like it was part of his body.

Then came the grin.

That infuriating and familiar grin.

“You look like shit,” he said casually.

“Thanks, Dad. Great to see you too.”

“Still alive, huh?” he said, walking over. “Didn’t think your sorry ass would wake up so soon. I was ready to forge your will.”

“Touch my inheritance and I swear I’ll haunt you.”

“Pfft. You? What kind of inheritance do you even have, little bastard?”

I stared.

He grinned wider.

And just like that, I smiled too.

Because this was normal.

As stupid, chaotic and off-script as it was… this was home.

You see, my father?

He calls me “little bastard.”

Not because I’m some forgotten illegitimate side dish in his noble lineage. Nope.

I’m the legitimate heir.

His only son.

He just likes saying it.

Too casual for a duke, right?

But that’s just how he’s always been.

Ruthless in war. Sharp in politics.

But when it comes to me. To the family.

He’s just… Dad.

Flawed. Sarcastic.

Weirdly supportive in his own grumpy way.

And right now, that version of him was walking up to me, one brow raised like he was studying a test subject.

“So, go on. What Nexus did you awaken? Something decent, I hope. Or are we going to have to fake your death and move you to a potato farm on the eastern border?”

I sighed and just answered the damn question. “B+ Rank Martial Artist. It’s called ’Demon Fist’”

Obviously not the truth, though.

What kind of idiot would tell his overprotective father that he awakened some weird-ass nexus called Jester?

In the novel… Reynold was a villain. For obvious reasons. His one and only son was assassinated.

That broke him.

He went off the rails, kidnapped the female lead and got himself killed. Full-on antagonist arc.

Then came my grandfather—who just happened to return from some long-ass expedition.

He hears about his son and grandson dying… and boom. Next major villain.

Not that it’s going to happen now.

He narrowed his eyes.

“Demon Fist, huh?”

He said it slowly, like he was chewing on the words.

Then… silence.

Long.

Uncomfortable.

Dangerous silence.

I kept my face still.

Poker Face passive, don’t fail me now.

Finally, the old man leaned back in his chair, puffed his cigar once and exhaled like he was done playing.

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

He pointed the cigar at me like a divine spear of truth. “You think I wouldn’t recognise you lying.”

“I didn’t flinch.”

“Yeah… You got better at lying. But kid, if you are bad… I’m your dad. I know all your tricks.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is when you’ve raised someone since he was shitting in golden diapers.”

Damn it. He is sharp.

I didn’t answer.

Just shrugged.

That earned me a sigh. Not an angry one. A tired one.

The kind of sigh a father gives when he realises his son is about to do something incredibly dumb but has also accepted it.

“Fine. Keep your secrets,” he muttered. “But at least tell me this… are you in danger because of your class?”

I paused.

And here was the test.

I could lie again. Say I was fine. Say everything was cool and sunny and totally not about to be torn apart by monsters in a death forest just to evolve a half-baked class I barely understood.

But I didn’t.

“…I don’t know,” I said honestly.

That was enough.

He nodded. Quiet. Thoughtful.

Then grinned.

“Well, if you die, I’ll kill you.”

“…Right.”

“Good chat.”

We sat in silence for a moment.

I wondered how much worse things could possibly get.

Then he spoke again, softer this time.

“You’re not the same.”

I blinked. “What?”

He wasn’t joking this time. His eyes were sharp, watching me with an intensity I hadn’t expected.

“You walk differently. Speak differently. You’re hiding something big. I don’t know what it is yet but it’s not bad.”

His sharp gaze met mine but it was not accusatory.

Just… fatherly.

And for the first time since waking up in this nightmare, I realised something.

He noticed.

He knew.

Not the truth. Not the transmigration.

But he sensed it. The shift. The weight.

“…You’re still my kid,” he said after a beat. “I don’t know what happened in your trial, little bastard. But don’t you dare carry all the burden by yourself… trust your dad.”

My chest tightened, a heavy feeling settling there.

It was… so simple.

Just three words.

But somehow, they carried more weight than a thousand heavy-handed speeches.

For a moment, I didn’t know how to respond.

Was I really still his kid? The Rael he remembered was gone. The guy who would joke around with him without a care, who’d get into trouble just to see that cocky smirk of his dad’s.

That guy was gone.

But before I could say anything, he cut through the silence like he always did.

“Don’t die stupidly, alright?”

I let out a breath, shaking my head to clear it.

Yeah, of course.

That was Dad. He could turn anything into a joke.

I looked at him, my mouth twitching. “…Working on it.”

And maybe… for now, that was enough.

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