Prologue
Noah woke up in the middle of a strange room.
He lay down, trying to understand what he was seeing and what exactly was happening, but the wave of dizziness he felt prevented him from focusing. Noah felt heaviness in his body in addition to the unbearable pain in his head..
He raised his hand in front of his face before opening his eyes, surprised. "Why is my hand so small?"
He clenched his fingers and then spread them in a successive movement until he was sure he could control them efficiently. It was not only his hand that was small, but even his arms and feet were thin, and his whole body looked like the body of a child who was barely ten years old.
Noah tried to speak but a low sound escaped him " Aah..B..C.."
The sound that came out was weak and hoarse.
His throat was dry, and there were traces of dried tears on his cheeks. Noah tried to stand, but he needed to lean on the bed so he would not lose his balance. Noah remained seated at the edge for some time before raising his head to examine the surrounding place.
The room looked spacious and orderly. It was dominated by an old aristocratic air, and pieces of furniture made from dark woods were spread throughout it, their surfaces polished until they became as smooth as glass.
A glowing chandelier hung from the ceiling, and strange works of art covered the walls.
Everything was luxurious.
Even so, Noah felt no warmth in the place.
Despite the luxurious furniture, nothing suggested that anyone had cared for it. Dust was everywhere, and the mess looked as though weeks had passed while it accumulated in the corners..
When Noah realized that, the headache began to increase, and memories began to follow one another in his mind.
They were not his memories, but at the same time, he felt familiarity. Strange details about everything flooded into his mind and the corridors surrounding him, parts of the palace, and the faces of people he had never met before. He knew the locations of the doors and the names of the servants,the times when meals were served, even though he had not lived any of those moments himself.
All of these were memories belonging to the body’s original owner.
Noah closed his eyes and let his memories flow freely.
Noah was the son of a noble family.
He was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and servants who were supposed to be there to meet his needs. His clothes were sewn from the finest kinds of fabrics. He had simply been born to be better than a commoner.
But his father had not even given him a name he could be proud of. Even the servants did not care about him and called him only the Young Lord.
The name had not existed in the first place.
Noah slowly opened his eyes.
He felt pity for the body’s owner.
The child was not poor or deprived of material wealth. From birth, he possessed a life countless commoners dreamed of. But everything he had been given was without purpose for him, for he had not received the treatment a noble deserved.
Even the servants who had been assigned to care for him stopped performing their simplest duties.
They knew that Robert did not care about what happened to his son, so they, in turn, lost any reason to fear neglecting him. They cleaned the room when they were forced to do so and brought food whenever they remembered, and then left the child alone for the rest of the time.
Noah continued absorbing his memories. The memories no longer appeared chaotically but became more like his own thoughts and things that already belonged to his consciousness.
Noah already felt the headache before he looked for something to drink to calm himself down. His eyes fell on the cup of tea placed to one side on top of the table.
Noah reached out. Noah lifted the tea elegantly, as he was accustomed to doing . The surface of the tea shook because of the trembling of his fingers, distorting the reflection of his face over it until he could no longer see his features clearly before taking a sip.
The taste was terrible.
An excessive amount of tea leaves had been placed in it, and they had been left in the water longer than they should have been. The child tried to hide the bitterness by adding sugar, but he used a large amount, turning the drink into a mixture that was intensely sweet and bitter at the same time.
With the appearance of the memory connected to it, Noah knew the reason for its poor preparation.
The child was the one who made the tea himself.
He waited a long time for one of the servants to arrive, but no one came. When his thirst intensified, he was forced to go and prepare it without knowing the correct method. The servants were present in the palace, and preparing tea was one of their simplest tasks, but they saw no need to serve a child whom the head of the family himself did not care about.
Noah’s fingers trembled more strongly.
The cup struck the table.
Ding.
A thin crack appeared in the porcelain, and the tea splashed over the surface and onto his hand. What remained of it slowly leaked through the crack until the cup was ruined.
The child’s memories and emotions became tangled inside him. He felt his loneliness and realized the amount of neglect he had lived through despite everything he possessed. It was easy to pity him, for he had received everything except what he truly needed.
But amid those feelings, there was one thought that became clearer.
From birth, he possessed what many people could not possess throughout their entire lives. Wealth, power, and status. It was true that the child had failed to benefit from this, but that did not mean Noah would leave things as they were.
He raised his head toward the mirror.
A cold smile appeared on his face.
This was the life he had always yearned for.
The life of a noble who stands above others, instead of remaining merely a commoner who always lives in anxiety about tomorrow..
"...Heh."
A faint laugh came out of his dry throat.
That was not important.
His cold smile widened, and his faint laugh gradually turned into laughter that filled the empty room.
"Hehahaha!"
"This opportunity that was granted to me, I will make sure to take advantage of it and live your life as it should be lived in your stead."
Dear reader, before reading this novel, please understand that English is not my native language. If you enjoy it, I would greatly appreciate your support in correcting any linguistic or grammatical errors.