Losing someone who was like a supporting pillar of your life is very painful. And when it happens in an instant, snatching the most important people in your life, who have been there for you every moment, you become unsteady.
It's like when a table's legs are broken, it falls; you also fall, and in that moment, you understand how much weight you were resting on them.
Psychologists call this a functional loss. In which your sense of self, emotional regulation, or whatever part of life they supported starts to come crashing down.
It does not happen with every person. It only happens to those who find safety in specific others.
Karl and Elias were the same in this aspect, like the two sides of the same coin.
Karl, who had been isolated by the people around him, found comfort in his parents, and after losing them... He processed his loss by locking himself inside the room and cutting himself off from the outside world.
Elias, who didn't have good potential from birth, also found comfort in his parents. Where the world called him "trash," his parents became a haven for him.
So, after losing them, his world turned upside down. The gentle kid inside him left the world with his parents, and money, power, sex, drugs, and alcohol became ways of escape for this new Elias.
He started to force people, increased taxes, and became a typical bad noble.
Maybe if Karl had had these luxuries, he would have been the same, but who knows, as he didn't have them.
"My mind wanders quite a lot."
Elias mumbled, fidgeting with his fingers, while staring at the portrait of the once-happy family of the previous Elias.
After hours of thinking about what he should do, and coming to no good result. His mind had wandered as he started to think about what was really happening in the household.
From the memories he inherited from the previous Elias, he knew the reason behind the changes this young 20-year-old baron had.
And he sympathized with it. Maybe even more than his life.
Because...
Where his life was only filled with isolation from other people, the previous Elias not only felt isolation, but he also got judged and mocked a lot for being a person with F-class potential.
In a world where almost all nobles had huge potential due to being of a higher class than commoners, a trash noble taking birth was not only joked about by nobles but also by commoners.
However, even then, Elias didn't back down; he didn't lower his face because he had his parents, his father Adrian Varen and his mother Arabella Varen, behind him.
Thinking about how the next events went, Elias released a sigh, slumping on the desk.
Thud!
"Owch... I am a fucking idiot."
Cursing, he rubbed his head while still slumped on the desk inside the dark, confined room, lit only by the light of the chandelier.
"Maybe I should get some fresh air," Elias muttered as he stood up and moved towards his balcony.
He needed some fresh air
***
Chirp chirp
Sounds of birds chirping echoed as different types of colorful birds flew in the sky. The sky had changed its color, shining in the shades of crimson and orange as the sun sank below the horizon.
People in the fields were starting to get ready to go back to their houses, while evening stalls were getting set up in the market square.
Workers were starting to look forward to closing the workshops, as alehouses and taverns started to get filled with tired men looking for a satisfying drink.
The smell of delicious handmade food wafted from the houses, as wives and mothers waited for their husbands and kids.
Pious people also found their way to the church, where priests had started to pray.
People, kids, men, and women of different ages shuffled, walking through the market and alleys, conversing about different things.
Mainly, they cursed the baron for increasing the taxes. The hate towards Elias was starting to stir more and more people as he started to become the talk of the town.
However, there were some who supported him too, in their own way.
In one certain alley, two men smoked from a pipe, conversing about something that seemed too important.
"People are moving out of town, aren't they?"
"Yes," Rowan replied as smoke curled from his mouth, handing back the pipe to Peter. "Why wouldn't they, when the taxes are this high?"
"Hm, it's affecting our earnings, so I get why people want to leave. But leaving our birthplace..."
"Well, let's just be grateful that only some are leaving. If Lord Castellan doesn't do something, I am pretty sure more people will follow them... or something bad will happen."
"Sigh, I supported Baron for opening a brothel in the town. But after his recent behavior of increasing taxes," Peter shook his head, taking one more drag of the tobacco. "Even I am thinking of leaving, birthplace or not."
"I didn't know you were this sort of man, Peter. A brothel, really. What about your innocent wife, then?"
At Rowan's word, Peter released a long, dragging sigh. "Stop rubbing salt in the wound, brother."
"Haha, I can't control myself. Sorry."
"No problem," Peter said, shaking his head. "But don't do it again. I don't want to remember that cheating bitch."
"Ok, ok."
"... So, how is your wife?"
"Come on, brother, I thought you didn't like talking about things like this," Rowan said in an exaggerated tone.
"I was just asking if your innocent wife was okay."
"Screw her," Rowan said, inhaling the tobacco a bit too hard.
"Yes, screw mine too, haha."
While the two of them laughed, something entirely different from this moment—a gloomy one—had overtaken the balcony of the baron, who was talk of the town.
Elias stood on the balcony, staring at the lush garden. But instead of his mood brightening, it had worsened.
And the reason was the idea that came to mind.
'Should I really do it?'
He wondered with his fingers in his hair.
Moments later...
He started pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his back. His facial expression calmed, opposite to his internal struggles.
'Should I?'
He asked himself the same question the nth time.
After a few moments, he stopped and turned to look at the lush garden. The barony was still ok, but if left in this state for some time, people who can leave will do so, while the others will band together to do what Elias feared the most.
Revolt.
And in this, he would be beaten black and blue. Whether he would remain alive was also in question, as he was not the real Elias; anything could happen.
Considering all the possibilities, Elias took in a breath.
"Ok, let's do it."
'Let's go and meet the Castellan of the Varen household—Victor Varen.'