Winter did not come with snow on the outskirts of Delcroft. He arrived hungry. With long nights in which stray dogs disappeared one by one and orphans learned to sleep with one eye open. Aren knew it well. Sleeping was a luxury when the cold bit into the bones.
Their shelter was an abandoned stable, half collapsed. Old hay, rotten wood and the rancid smell of animals that were no longer there. Still, it was better than the cobblestone ground or the alleys where the disease took those who stopped fighting.
Aren was fourteen years old… or so he thought. Nobody had ever told it.
His body was bone and skin. Marked ribs, trembling hands, messy and dirty hair. His eyes, however, watched like blades. He learned early that listening was more useful than being seen.
That afternoon, he hid near the market, sitting next to some stacked barrels, pretending to be invisible. Two merchants drank cheap wine while complaining about increased taxes.
"Baron Halden is desperate," one spat. "Not a single male child... damn luck. Or curse, they say."
"Of course it's a curse. Five daughters, and all delicate as glass. Who will command his lands when the other nobles start biting at his ankles?"
They laughed. Aren't.
He stood still, absorbing every word. A baron without a male heir. A title without a future owner. The laws of the kingdom were clear: blood ruled... but blood could be extinguished.
And in those voids opportunities were born.
Aren was not seeking power. I was looking to stop dying of hunger.
But as he walked through the streets, with an empty stomach and bare feet, an idea began to grow in his mind like a poisonous seed.
Nobody inherits... if nobody can live long enough.
A shiver ran through him.
Not out of fear.
For recognition.
Because Aren had already died once. Or maybe several. The memories were confusing, like broken fragments. The pain, however, was clear. He had felt it when he slipped under the icy water of the river. When he fell from the cliff playing with other children who then pretended not to know him. By receiving a too strong kick from a guard.
The pain always came back.
But Aren too.
His body was healing. Slow. Clumsy. Sometimes in days. Sometimes in weeks.
The scars never disappeared.
Nobody knew.
Nobody was supposed to know.
That night, the wind sneaked into the stable like a thief. Aren hugged himself so as not to shiver. He looked at his hands full of small wounds that were no longer bleeding. He remembered the rumors. The heirless baron recalled. He remembered the streets full of children like him... except one.
He wasn't going to die.
Or not permanently.
And in a world where time chose who inherited and who fell into oblivion...
he had a quiet advantage.
A strange murmur crossed his mind. A metallic, distant echo.
[System initializing…]
Aren blinked. He looked around.
Nothing.
Just the night.
Then the voice returned, cold and emotionless. Almost boring.
[Vital record: stable]
[Identified anomaly: Progressive Regenerative Adaptation]
[Current repair level: Low]
Aren didn't understand anything. He put his hands to his head. It hurt. Not like a hit. Like…pressure.
"Who…?" he whispered.
Silence.
Then, a final line.
[Observation: The subject speaks to himself again. Fascinating.]
And it disappeared.
Aren swallowed.
He didn't know if he was going crazy.
But I knew one thing:
The world was changing.
And so does he.
The next day, he decided to go closer to the baron's fiefdom. I had no plan. I had no strength. His body was barely resisting. He fell, he got up. The mud stuck to his skin. He passed caravans, bored soldiers, peasants carrying sacks.
One of the guards pushed him contemptuously.
"Get out, trash."
Aren fell. He opened his eyebrow against a stone. Hot blood clouded his vision.
The guard was no longer looking at him.
Nobody did it.
He stayed on the ground for a long time, breathing slowly, feeling how the wound was closing... very slowly. Slower than the cold.
When he finally stood up, his face stained with dried blood, he made a decision. I didn't want to live like that anymore, I wanted to climb higher, be stronger, live comfortably...I wanted to stop being a commoner.
To achieve what he wanted, he first had to get out of the alleys and he already had the perfect excuse.
[Observation: It doesn't seem to have an excuse, but it does]
"...."
Aren decided to ignore the ironic voice in his head and left for the recruitment campaign.
The recruiting campaign was not a building.
It was a table.
A long table, of old wood, set up in front of the plaza, where a banner of Baron Halden hung as if the wind had orders to keep it upright. Armed soldiers guarded the men who formed an irregular line: peasants, landless youth, some desperate... others too proud to admit it.
Aren stayed last.
Nobody noticed it.
His worn clothes smelled of old stables and rotting rain. The gazes of the villagers passed through him, but they did not stay on him. It was transparent. As usual.
That, he thought, could be useful.
A huge soldier—black beard, scar on his chin—walked alongside the line, evaluating bodies as if they were market animals.
"You," he growled, pointing at a strong man. "Maybe you'll be useful."
He walked past Aren without even frowning.
Aren's stomach growled. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten more than crusts. The idea of receiving bread… soup… a cot… was almost a fantasy.
But fantasy wasn't what kept him going.
It was the title.
The inheritance.
The void in the baron's line.
The opportunity.
When it was his turn at the table, a thin-faced scribe looked up reluctantly.
"Name."
Aren opened his mouth.
He stopped.
He had never said it out loud officially. I had never belonged to anything.
"Aren," he finally answered.
"Last name," the scribe asked, emotionlessly.
Silence.
The scribe sighed.
"Orphan...so homeless," He jotted down something quickly. "Age."
"Fourteen."
The man looked at him for the first time with something akin to disbelief.
"You seem less."
Aren gritted his teeth.
"Fourteen," he repeated.
The black-bearded soldier appeared behind him, sized him up and down, and let out a laugh.
"This one breaks with the wind."
Aren felt his newly closed eyebrow burn. It still hurt. It still wasn't good.
[Confirmation: The current physical integrity is… poor.]
He ignored the voice.
The scribe made a vague gesture.
"All bodies are accepted. If he dies, at least he died serving."
The soldier leaned down to look him in the eyes.
"If you lie about your age, child, the marches will kill you. And if you fall, no one will pick you up."
Aren held his gaze.
"I'm not going to die."
He didn't sound arrogant.
It sounded… inevitable.
The soldier clicked his tongue.
"Come in. Physical search area."
Aren staggered towards a tent where other young people were waiting. Some trained with wooden spears. Others were fainting in the sun.
A freckled boy saw him arrive and frowned.
"I thought this was for soldiers, not for collecting corpses."
Laughter.
Aren did not respond.
I didn't used to do it.
A sudden knock took him by surprise. The handle of a spear hit him in the stomach and he fell to his knees, gasping.
"Rule one," an instructor said with a gruff voice. "If you fall, you get up. If you can't get up, you leave."
Aren placed a hand on the ground. Then the other one.
It hurt.
The system spoke again, with distant calm.
[Slight internal damage]
[Repair process: started]
[Estimated time: long. Try not to take any more hits.]
The tone sounded almost...funny.
Aren gritted his teeth.
And he got up.
Very slow.
Very clumsy.
But he got up.
The instructor looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You'll break," he said. "But at least you'll try."
He threw a wooden spear at him. Aren almost missed it.
The weight unbalanced him.
The other candidates practiced clean shots. He could barely stand. Every attempt was a failure. Every movement, a mockery.
But he didn't give up.
Not because he was strong.
But because I had nowhere to go back to.
Hours later, the sun sank and the recruits were sent to a makeshift sleeping area. A bowl of thin soup was passed from hand to hand.
Aren held her like she was liquid gold.
His hands were shaking.
[Minimum caloric intake detected]
[Survival chance: marginally improved]
"You're very optimistic," Aren murmured quietly, without realizing it.
A recruit next to him looked at him strangely.
"That?"
"Nothing."
He drank the soup.
The night came with a silent step. Aren lay down on a pile of damp straw, exhausted. Pain swarmed through every muscle. His eyebrow continued to close. His ribs hurt.
But it was inside.
He had taken the first step out of the mud.
To approach the baron.
To…exist.
He closed his eyes.
The voice returned, calm. Almost boring.
[Day registration completed]
[Observation: The subject seems unable to correctly evaluate his physical fragility. Curious.]
Aren smiled weakly, not knowing why.
"I'm not going to die," he whispered.
Silence.
Then:
[We'll see.]
And sleep—hard, cold, full of hunger—finally overcame him.