Chapter 3 : The Young Lord’s Wrath

The attendants stared at the Grand Duke’s son with wide eyes.

To send a grown man flying all the way to the wall with just a slap—!

That was something only expert knights with complete mastery over mana could do.

It was unthinkable for someone like the Grand Duke’s son, who had suffered mana overload and remained in a coma for ten years, to display such a divine level of power.

While those around them stood in stunned silence,

Ethan began walking toward Hans one step at a time.

“U-Urgh! D-Don’t come any closer!”

Hans looked around desperately, silently pleading for help from the other attendants.

But no one met his gaze.

They all quietly averted their eyes.

Even the servants who used to joke and chat with him like close friends were no different.

‘Y-You bastards!’

After everything I’ve done for you!

How can not a single one of you help me now?!

Hans trembled all over.

At some point, Ethan’s shadow had completely enveloped his body.

With his arm outstretched, Ethan grabbed Hans by the collar and lifted him effortlessly into the air.

“I-I’m a lesser noble! Even if you’re the Grand Duke’s son—!”

“Grand Duke’s son?”

Smack!

A loud slap stung Hans’s cheek.

He tasted blood, sharp and metallic in his mouth.

He quickly tried to correct himself.

“E-Even if you’re the Young Lord! You still can’t—can’t go around hitting people so recklessly…!”

But before he could finish, Hans met Ethan’s gaze.

His black pupils were pitch dark—so dark they looked like the abyss itself.

Hans felt a chill run down his spine.

‘What the hell are those eyes…?’

Even highway bandits who casually kill for coin don’t have eyes like that.

Hans’s eyelids fluttered as he quickly averted his gaze and shouted toward the ground.

“Y-Young Lord! P-Please stop! If you keep doing this to me, d-do you think the Kargath Baron Family will just sit quietly?!”

“The Baron Family?”

Ethan asked back in a flat voice, then gave a faint smirk.

And then began slapping Hans back and forth across both cheeks.

Smack! Smack!

After about five slaps, a few yellow teeth rolled across the floor.

The pain was sharp and merciless.

Tears welled up in Hans’s eyes.

He looked at Ethan desperately.

The Young Lord’s hand was raised again.

Fear—ingrained and instinctual—filled Hans’s mind.

“P-Please! Young Lord! Why… why are you doing this to me?! At least say something!”

At that, Ethan glanced to the side.

Hans quickly turned his head to follow his gaze.

He was looking toward the dining hall.

“……!”

At last, Hans began to understand why he was being beaten.

His sister had been up and working hard since morning, but the so-called attendants were off fooling around.

Of course Ethan would be furious.

Right now, what mattered most was removing the cause of his wrath.

Hans looked toward the dining hall and shouted in a panic.

“W-What are you doing?! You bastards, hurry up and help the Young Lady!”

Bleeding from the mouth, the chief servant screamed in a voice that was more like a howl.

His appearance alone was enough to instill fear into the other servants.

Several maids began moving toward the kitchen. But—

“You still look like you’ve got time to spare.”

Smack!

Clatter.

Another crisp slap sent another tooth rolling across the floor.

Hans, eyes brimming with tears, looked at the maids.

“D-Don’t walk! Run, damn it!”

The maids, startled by the shriek, began to run in a panic.

Only then did Ethan finally release his grip.

Hans collapsed to the floor with a thud.

Ethan patted his shoulder and whispered quietly.

“Hey.”

“Y-Yes!”

“Do your job properly.”

Hans shivered under Ethan’s intense stare.

The voice was completely devoid of emotion.

Unbelievable, coming from someone who’d just knocked out three of his teeth.

‘He’s insane.’

Truly insane.

And the worst part was—Hans had no way of restraining this madman who had suddenly returned as a completely different person.

Even mentioning his own connection to one of the ten cadet noble families—the Kargath Barony—had done nothing.

His once-sweet job had turned into hell overnight.

“Y-Yes, of course…”

At last, Ethan turned and headed back toward the dining hall.

Hans let out a silent sigh of relief and began frantically collecting his fallen teeth.

His now-empty gums ached far worse than before.

‘That bastard…!’

Looking at the teeth in his hands, anger finally began to boil inside him.

Ethan Ardan.

Ten years ago, he had suffered a mana overload so severe that his mana hole burst and left him half-crippled—or so the rumors said.

He had looked so weak and skinny he didn’t even seem capable of snapping a twig.

And yet he’d just beaten Hans to a pulp.

Naturally, the cadet family came to Hans’s mind—the Kargath Barony, one of the ten.

His first priority should be to report what had happened today.

Hans recalled the moment from earlier.

The second Ethan grabbed his collar, he’d been thrown high into the air.

That kind of power couldn’t come from such a frail body.

‘It’s mana.’

He had definitely used mana.

If the barony learned that the Grand Duke’s son had not only woken up but was also able to use mana again, they would surely react.

But before that…

‘I just need to make sure I don’t give that lunatic any more reason to snap.’

Hans’s eyes sharpened as he called over one of the servants.

“Clean the entire estate today. Not a speck of dust left. From now on, all meal prep is to be handled by the maids. Same goes for laundry, cleaning—everything.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Huh? Has this bastard lost his mind?!”

Whack!

Hans kicked the servant hard in the shin.

The poor man rolled across the floor, clutching his leg.

All the other attendants turned to look at Hans.

“What are you staring at?! Get to work! If I see so much as a single drop of water on the Young Lady’s hands, I’ll kill every last one of you!”

At his chilling threat, the attendants scattered like cockroaches throughout the annex.

Hans watched them for a moment before stepping into the room assigned to him.

He took out a piece of stationery.

Gritting through the throbbing pain in his gums, he began to write.

To the Honorable Baron Helmut,

Drip. Drip.

“Sniff…”

Tears fell one by one onto the paper.

***

After disciplining the head servant, Ethan returned to his room after breakfast.

He looked down at his own hand.

His thin wrist was trembling slightly.

After all, this body had been bedridden for ten years.

Even just slapping someone a few times had been enough to bring on muscle soreness.

‘My body really has weakened.’

Strength, endurance, reflexes—every aspect was far inferior to what he had possessed in his past life.

Back when he’d struck that head servant, if he hadn’t gathered mana into his hand, he wouldn’t have been able to send the man flying.

He would’ve ended up humiliated instead.

Silently studying his hand, Ethan recalled something Elena had said.

‘Arrogant bastards.’

The Ardan Ducal House.

One of the most prestigious noble families, passed down from countless ancestors.

It was the house Ethan had lived in his entire life.

He had always been proud to carry the blood of the House of Ardan.

From the moment he became head of the family, he had strived to fulfill his duties.

In his past life, he had even sacrificed himself to stop the Dragon Lord—all for the sake of protecting his house.

And yet now, some mere cadet branch…

‘Dares to touch what’s mine?’

Filthy parasites without even the proper qualifications?

Just looking at the servant from the baron’s house today made it obvious—how arrogant and insolent those cadet branches had become.

So shameless that even their servants had the audacity to speak to him informally.

Ethan recalled the ten cadet families.

‘The Elder Council, was it?’

A pack of wolves trying to steal what was his.

He would make sure they understood who the real master was now.

Even if it meant severing all their heads.

‘First, I need to properly assess the condition of this body.’

Sitting in meditation, Ethan began to observe himself.

The first place he examined was his abdomen—where the mana hole was located.

‘As I thought. It exploded in every direction. A mana overload.’

He finally understood why he couldn’t sense any mana within his body.

With the organ responsible for gathering mana completely destroyed, it would be stranger if he could feel anything.

That was why mana overload was often called a curse.

For most people, once the mana hole shattered, they could never sense mana again.

But Ethan wasn’t just “most people.”

He was the greatest prodigy the continent had ever seen.

One of the many titles used to describe him.

‘The fragments dispersed better than expected. In fact, this might be a blessing in disguise.’

Arms, legs, wrists, ankles, waist, fingers, neck…

The shattered pieces of his mana hole had embedded themselves all over his body.

Rather than a single large mana hole, he now had hundreds of small ones scattered throughout.

And his body, despite ten years of sleep…

‘Isn’t as bad as I feared.’

His blood vessels were surprisingly large, disproportionate to his thin frame.

Larger vessels meant he could circulate more mana at once—a big advantage.

Blood vessels typically stopped growing after childhood, so this was a rare trait.

However, after ten years of inactivity, those vessels were weak.

‘There’s also a lot of impurities.’

He would need to train steadily to purify and strengthen them again.

As he accumulated mana, the vessels would become cleaner and sturdier.

‘First step: resonance.’

Resonance.

The process of vibrating the mana holes to match the frequency of mana in the atmosphere, allowing that mana to be drawn inward.

Only once the mana hole was fully filled could one gain complete control over it.

He focused his mind.

The first area he would try to resonate with was his wrists—the part most critical for wielding a sword.

The mana holes in both wrists began to tremble. Soon, mana from the air rushed in like a tidal wave.

***

After stimulating the mana holes in his wrists all morning, Ethan finished lunch and stepped out into the yard.

It was time to rebuild his body.

Physical training.

The foundation of all things.

Given his current condition, the priority was to gather mana slowly, eat well, and build muscle.

With small sandbags strapped to his limbs, he began with mana-walking and continued with various strength-building exercises.

Servants passing through the courtyard occasionally glanced at him and clicked their tongues in disbelief.

From lunchtime till dinner, the Young Lord trained without a single break.

‘To think he’s training that hard with a body that looks like a stiff breeze could blow him away…’

It was no exaggeration—he looked like he might fly off with the wind.

Yet here he was, training with sandbags strapped on?

A terrifying monster.

And remembering the way he had slapped the head servant that morning, many of the servants couldn’t help but shudder.

With someone like that now awake, there would be no more easy days in the estate.

***

Later that night, while the servants were still hard at work with grim faces, someone came running up the hill where the villa stood.

It was a familiar figure to them—one of the local vigilantes from the village below.

The same man who constantly came running to report the youngest master’s drunken rampages at the tavern—always looking for the Young Lady.

“Huff… Huff…”

Gasping for breath, he drew Ethan’s gaze from the courtyard.

The boy, who looked to be in his late teens, was panting hard.

He wore leather armor with a simple crest and carried a long spear—clearly not a farmer.

Ethan called out.

“Who are you?”

“Uh, Young Master Myers… he’s causing another scene at the tavern…! But, uh… who are you? I’ve never seen you before…”

A disturbance?

Ethan tilted his head in confusion.