COTBC 01

Chapter 01

What kind of noble bows to their servant?

What kind of noble steps up to help with their maid’s chores?

Isaac von Goethe did.

The Goethe family were border lords in the northeast of the kingdom.

A place where barren lands and harsh weather stripped away even the last shred of humanity.

Yet, even in the winter manor, Isaac never lost his sunshine-like smile.

“Nanny, I’ll do the laundry myself. Your hands are all chapped.”

“Oh my, no, young master. This is my paid work, you know.”

“And here—this is some kind of plant oil. They say it keeps hands from cracking.”

The nanny looked at the eight-year-old noble boy with a touched expression.

Could there really be such an angelic child in this world?

Ash-grey hair like the Lady Goethe, and eyes as piercingly blue as Count Goethe’s.

Pale skin, clear-cut eyes, a sharp nose, and lively lips.

He was as beautiful in spirit as he was in appearance.

“Huff, huff… I’m sorry I’m late, young master. A-Ah, the child was very ill from a cold last night, and I overslept…”

Beside him, the servant paled and trembled at the punishment sure to follow.

At the last house he worked in, being late by even a minute meant a lash for each offense.

Was it going to happen again this time?

He desperately wanted to avoid being dismissed.

Without money, his family would either starve or freeze to death in the merciless cold of winter.

“You’re Hans, right?”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“Your son’s name is Peter.”

“H-How did you know?”

“I asked the nanny. Is Peter okay? The colds here are different. If it’s serious, it could be dangerous. Schiller! Schiller!”

Hans flinched.

It was too soon to feel relieved.

The young master might be calling the head attendant to demand a harsh punishment.

And if that happened, the head attendant—who was no different from a devil to the staff—would deliver it without mercy.

“Hans. The young master has told me everything.”

Soon, the head attendant came looking for Hans.

Hans, who had been carrying luggage, trembled as if struck by the midwinter wind.

“P-Please, Head Attendant. Just let me work until the winter passes! If I’m kicked out, my family will die…”

“Eeek! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Hans bowed deeply again and again.

“I said pull yourself together! There’s no one here who plans to fire you.”

“W-What?”

When he finally looked up, the aged head attendant had a stern face.

But what he held out was a leather pouch.

“Boil this and drink it. You’ve got a pot at home, right?”

“Ah, yes, but what is this?”

“Medicine. The young master said to give it to you.”

“Oh… Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Truly, thank you.”

Head Attendant Schiller wore a slightly displeased look.

To him, Isaac’s kindness was far too soft and lenient.

Still, regardless of what Schiller thought, Isaac was loved and respected by everyone in the household.

And he was only eight years old.

“Congratulations, young master!”

“Don’t forget us!”

Then, when he turned ten, Isaac, already hailed as a prodigy, received a letter of recommendation for admission to the Royal Academy.

He could read and understand magical texts that even academy students struggled with, and solved the hardest exam questions all by himself.

Count and Lady Goethe, his younger brother Jonas,

And every member of the household rejoiced from the heart.

Everyone wished that Isaac—blessed with both character and intellect—would grow into a truly great man.

Everyone held expectations and hopes.

But Isaac could not live up to those expectations.

In the end, he was unable to enter the Academy.

Just a month before enrollment, he was struck with a sudden flu.

He suffered from high fevers at all hours, gagged constantly, and at times even coughed up blood.

His enrollment date was postponed again and again, and the flu showed no signs of getting better.

Count Goethe dismissed all the doctors who kept insisting it was just the flu and called in an old scholar from the Magic Tower.

“Young master has a peculiar constitution,” said the old scholar.

“A peculiar constitution?”

“As the Count is surely aware, every living being is born with a vessel for mana. And mana circulates at a pace that suits the size of that vessel. Like how water flows, evaporates, turns into rain, and flows again. It’s the natural rhythm of the great nature. But the young master’s mana circulation is, shall we say, abnormal. It’s so fast and violent that it defies measurement.”

“Explain it in simpler terms,”

Count Goethe pressed him.

“In the southern continent, during the rainy season, so much rain falls that floods often occur. The rivers overflow

and the currents become excessively strong and rapid. Villages nearby get submerged and destroyed. The young

master’s mana circulation is like that. The difference is, the southern continent only suffers this during the rainy

season. But the young master is like that all the time. At this rate, the vessel will shatter soon.”

“You must prepare yourself. Once the vessel breaks, he won’t last long. He may become an invalid or slowly waste away…”

The scholar swallowed his words.

He didn’t want to provoke the Count’s anger for no reason.

***

Twenty years had passed.

The lovely child who was once loved and admired was gone.

The family’s secret underground vault.

A room filled with cold and dampness.

Every wall was lined with a rare mineral called dimeritium.

Isaac quietly opened his eyes.

He had no idea how much time had passed while he was deep in meditation.

He saw the mold- and moss-covered walls.

As he silently stared at the walls, the stains on them began to resemble faces—his father’s, his mother’s, and Jonas’s.

Faces he could no longer easily see, nor should he see again.

They were faces that remained only in his memory.

Many people had died or been hurt because of Isaac.

All of them were people he cared about.

“I should’ve pushed them away.”

What the old scholar had said in his diagnosis was only half right.

The vessel had broken.

The mana Isaac held inside him burst out like a dam breaking.

The mana inside him spread rapidly and clashed with the mana outside.

Then came a mana explosion.

Every item in the room was destroyed, and the nanny who had been folding his clothes got injured.

But Isaac neither became an invalid nor died wasting away.

His vessel, as if nothing had happened, was restored again.

At first, everyone thought it was a miracle.

But it was a disaster.

The vessel would break again, and again the explosions would come.

Many who loved Isaac lost their lives.

‘No, young master. I still care for you.’

‘This is just a hard time you’re going through. Once it’s over, it will all feel like nothing. That’s what life is, right?’

That was Hans’s last message.

Even as the explosions grew more frequent and the injuries on his body increased, Hans insisted he was the only one who could care for Isaac.

The result was that he left behind his wife and children and died first.

With the explosion, Hans’s body was hurled into a wall.

One by one, the people around Isaac vanished.

For a while, Isaac stopped eating and drinking and acted like a madman.

In the morning he threw water cups, in the afternoon he hurled plates, and in the evening he overturned the wooden bathtub.

At times, he even struck servants or attendants.

Aside from a few loyal to him, most said Isaac had finally gone mad.

They believed he wouldn’t get back up after the next explosion.

That he would either become a complete madman or a wreck.

It was expected.

His rare condition was as good as an incurable disease.

Back then, Isaac was only thirteen.

Even grown adults would struggle to endure such things, and yet the young boy had to face them.

There was no way he could remain sane.

And yet, after a long period of despair, Isaac eventually pulled himself together.

— Nanny, I’m sorry. I’ve been a disgrace.

— A disgrace? No, it’s okay. You couldn’t help it.

Truly, there was nothing you could do.

The nanny wept with emotion.

She had loved Isaac with all the affection she couldn’t give to the child she lost to pneumonia.

A period of peace followed for a while.

Isaac went to each of the servants and attendants to apologize and thank them for staying by his side.

He bowed his head regardless of their status.

Not everyone received his sincerity, but a few hearts that had turned away began to thaw.

Though winter approached, warmth began to flow in the hearts of many.

Up to that point, everything was still okay.

Isaac had clawed his way out of the swamp of despair and came to his senses.

There were still people who had thrown him a lifeline.

“I should have let go.”

Once again.

The young man murmured like a ghost.

Back then, opinions about Isaac were divided into two camps.

One side saw him as an uncontrollable monster.

The other saw him as a kind and lovable young master who was bravely enduring a difficult battle.

Those who tried to save Isaac belonged to the latter.

To rescue Isaac from the swamp of suffering, they tied the rope to their own bodies.

To save his life, they were willing to risk their own without hesitation.

In the year that marked Hans’s death,

The nanny died in another explosion.

The following year, two more maids died.

Isaac cried until he had no more tears to shed.

He screamed until his voice could no longer come out.

And yet, he did not stop.

Even when surges of resentment layered deep in his chest rose up from time to time, he worked tirelessly day and night.

Meditation, running, swordsmanship, the study of magic and alchemy, searching for magical tools or stabilizing

potions, mana control training, spells to slow mana circulation, exchanging knowledge with magic scholars, methods

of predicting explosions, and more.

So Isaac never rested.

He would devote himself for three or four days without a wink of sleep, then collapse into a coma-like slumber for a day or two, and repeat this weekly cycle.

At the time, Isaac was fifteen.

He knew he was fighting a battle he could not win.

Even so, he never lost focus or gave up.

Those who had died because of him.

His mother, who had spent years traveling the continent to find a cure for her son.

His father, who bore all losses caused by Isaac’s condition without complaint.

To give up or fall into despair felt like a luxury he could not afford.

He was constantly shaken but never broken.

He fell, but he stood up again.

He thought he could go on like that forever.

“Ah…”

The young man rubbed his face with dry hands.

He couldn’t erase the moment when his once-pure younger brother’s face twisted in pain.

Even after decades had passed.

His brother.

He had simply tried to play the lute for his sleepless older brother.

He only wanted to play a song their mother used to play, like a lullaby.

But misfortune never cared for timing.

Everyone who heard Jonas play praised him.

Even court musicians applauded him as a prodigy.

That same younger brother’s right hand was torn off by the explosion Isaac caused.

His eyes.

That memory was still painfully vivid to Isaac.

The crumbled debris falling like fog and the collapsed servants.

The taste of blood in his mouth. The taste of iron.

The disbelieving eyes of his younger brother looking at him.

The blood that kept pouring from his brother’s wrist.

His brother’s delayed scream.

A dizzying sensation, as if he were endlessly plunging downward.

There was never a moment in his life when being alive felt more cursed.

That day, Isaac spoke to his father.

“Please lock me away in a place where no one can come, and no one will get hurt.”

The face of the fifteen-year-old boy already looked like that of an old man.