Just then, the tent flap was gently lifted.
"Lord Paul Brown, you have a letter."
The young messenger's hands trembled, perhaps from the cold or nerves.
Paul Brown looked up, and his heart stirred as he took the letter.
The thick envelope bore a familiar crest—an eagle emblem, the family sigil.
The handwriting on the envelope was elegant and delicate, his mother Dorothy's script.
His heartbeat suddenly grew heavy.
He slowly opened the envelope and unfolded the paper.
The first line made him freeze.
"Paul Brown, your father and brother were attacked by a beast during a patrol in the northern territory and have both passed away."
"Mother urges you to return home immediately to inherit the title and family estate."
"Do not delay."
Time seemed to stop.
Paul Brown stared at the letter, his eyes fixed on that one line, his mind blank.
Even the sound of the wind seemed to fade, leaving only the pounding of his heart.
His lips parted, wanting to say something, but no words came.
His father, dead?
His brother, too?
A sharp pain surged from his chest.
He suddenly felt like a drowning man, surrounded by an icy deep sea, with vast darkness slowly swallowing him.
He had once thought his "family" in this world was just a nominal connection.
After all, he was a transmigrator, with no emotional foundation behind the blood ties.
But now, he realized the pain of loss cut far deeper than he'd imagined.
He remembered his father, stern and unsmiling, yet always making him lamb stew on festival days.
He remembered his brother, bringing him odd trinkets from patrols and laughing, "You're too serious, little brother."
Those memories now stabbed like needles, piercing his heart one by one.
Paul Brown stood abruptly, grabbing the letter and rushing out of the tent.
He crossed the camp to the wooded area outside.
This was behind the training ground, a quiet, secluded clearing in the forest.
He often came here to be alone, to meditate or stare into space at night.
The moonlight fell coldly, illuminating the snow in the woods.
Paul Brown stood on a rock, looking up at the sky.
"Why me?" he growled, his voice echoing through the trees.
"Why did I have to learn of their deaths… through a letter?"
"Why am I alive, yet powerless to do anything?"
His shouts grew quieter, turning into murmurs.
He knelt in the snow, pounding his fists into it, his knuckles red from the cold.
After a moment, he slowly looked up, his eyes glinting with a chaotic, broken brightness.
He was the second son of House Brown, now its sole heir.
He was a failed soldier, yet he had to shoulder the future of an entire estate.
He stood, taking a deep breath, and looked eastward.
"…I have to go back."