The silk sheets of the massive bed felt like a mockery. Isaac sat heavily, his breath hitching in his chest. In his previous life, he had been a skeleton; now, he felt like a mountain of soft, immovable clay. Every inhale was a struggle against the weight of his own torso.
"Young Master? You are... exertive," a voice dryly noted.
Isaac looked up. Standing by the bed was a tall, stone-faced man in a charcoal-colored waistcoat. This was Hans, the head butler of the Helmsgard border estate. In the game, Hans was the one who eventually handed the "Hero" the keys to Isaac's private chambers, tired of the boy's endless cruelty.
"What... happened to me?" Isaac managed to rasp.
Hans didn't hide his disdain. "You fell, Young Master. Quite spectacularly. You were attempting to peer over the banister at the new housemaid's undergarments. You lost your balance, tumbled down twelve stone steps, and have been unconscious for three days and nights. The Count—and the rest of the family—had begun to assume you would never wake. Some, I dare say, were already planning the quietest possible funeral."
Isaac closed his eyes in shame. *A naughty person doesn't even begin to describe it,* he thought. The original Isaac wasn't just a villain; he was a pathetic, lecherous brat.
"I see," Isaac whispered. He looked Hans in the eye, something the original would never have done unless it was to scream. "I apologize for worrying everyone. And for the trouble my... accident caused the staff."
The silver tray in Hans's hand gave a tiny, metallic clink. The butler's mask of indifference cracked for a split second, his eyes widening.
"You... apologize?" Hans repeated, as if testing a foreign word.
"I do," Isaac said firmly.
He knew the "Old Isaac" was a nightmare. He remembered a fragment: The original Isaac pouring boiling tea on a footman's hands because the temperature was 'merely' warm. He remembered the way he treated Risha, his adopted sister. Whenever the Count praised her talent or Elias mocked Isaac's weight, Isaac would find Risha and hide her shoes, or tear the pages out of her spellbooks, screaming that a "stray" shouldn't have things better than a "true" Helmsgard.
"I am hungry, Hans," Isaac said, cutting through the butler's shock. "Could you bring some food? But... nothing fried. No pastries. Something healthy. Plain broth, lean meat, and vegetables."
Hans stared at him as if Isaac had grown a second head. "You... you refuse the honey-glazed pork? The cream tarts you usually demand by the dozen?"
"Just the vegetables and broth, Hans. Please."
The butler bowed—lower than usual, perhaps out of sheer confusion—and retreated from the room.
Left alone, Isaac tried to move his legs, but the effort made him lightheaded. Suddenly, the heavy oak door was kicked open.
Elias stepped in. The eldest brother didn't look like he had been worried; he looked annoyed. He wore his training leathers, smelling of woodsmoke and sweat.
"A shame," Elias said, his voice dripping with venom. "I had already picked out which of your silk shirts I was going to use as cleaning rags for my horse's stable. To think you survived a fall that should have cracked a skull as thick as yours... you truly are a stain that won't wash out, aren't you?"
Isaac didn't snap back. He didn't cry. He simply sat there, watching Elias with the calm, weary eyes of someone who had faced death in a hospital bed for years.
Elias narrowed his eyes. "What? No clever insults? No threats to tell Father I'm being mean to you? Have you finally lost the ability to speak in your defense, or did the stairs finally knock some silence into that fat head?"
Isaac said nothing. He just nodded slowly.
Elias scoffed, looking disgusted by the lack of a fight. "Pathetic. Don't bother coming to dinner. The sight of you makes the meat turn sour." He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him.
Isaac let out a long, shaky breath. He felt a presence at the door—a small shadow blocking the light from the hallway.
The door creaked open just an inch. A pair of wide, silver eyes peered through the gap. It was Risha.
She was a delicate child, looking far younger than her eight years. In her heart, a tiny part of her was relieved he was alive—she was too kind to wish death on anyone—but the rest of her was paralyzed with fear. Now that he was awake, when would the shouting start? When would he trip her in the hall?
Isaac saw her. He wanted to reassure her. He wanted to show her he wasn't the monster she remembered. He tried to pull his face into a warm, gentle smile.
But this body wasn't built for gentleness. The "smile" on his round, pale face looked more like a hungry grimace. His eyes, swollen from the fall, looked predatory.
Risha let out a tiny, muffled gasp of terror. She scrambled backward, her footsteps echoing as she fled down the corridor in a panic.
Isaac's hand dropped to the bedspread. He remembered the game lore clearly now. Risha, the Silver Sage. In the original plot, she was the one who provided the Hero with the "Sword of Retribution" specifically to kill the Helmsgard brothers. She joined the Hero's party because she hated Isaac so much she was willing to watch her own home burn to see him fall.
"I have a lot of work to do," Isaac muttered to the empty room.