You already know the tragedy of Noth.

At 7 his father killed his mother in a fit of rage.

He was trapped inside the villa she died in for years.

However this story’s Noth was never saved by his angel.

This Noth had to save himself.

As he almost turned 10 in captivity, his father suddenly fell upon him. The emaciated boy should have easily been slaughtered by his [Superior Warrior] father. The only saving grace he had was ironically the very same [Gift] that had caused this accursed life in the first place: The power to choose his own path. And so, Noth unknowingly made his choice. It only made sense that someone with [Monster Strength], the second highest rank that a [Gift] could achieve, could beat a [Superior Warrior]. As much as what [Gift] you were given was important, the tier of your [Gift] of course had a huge impact on how much you could do with it. In a rock-paper-scissors sort of way, skill would beat out pure ability most of the time, but that was only if both opponents were of the same level.

The young Noth hadn’t really known how tiers and [Gifts] worked at this point of his life, especially since he had been locked away directly after being introduced to this aspect of the world. All that the boy knew was that to defeat a monster you had to become as strong as one, so his heart made the selection for him, in his desperation to survive. He had no understanding that this happened because of his [Gift], and there was nothing to tell him that anything had even changed about him, except for the sudden confidence that he could win this fight that had washed over him out of nowhere.

But a newfound ability doesn’t also come with a newfound mastery of said ability.

Noth had only just gotten this outrageous strength.

It only made sense that he didn’t know how to stop himself.

After all, how would a young, untrained boy know how to hold himself back?

It was only a matter of course that he would accidentally kill his attacker.

Yes, if even an accident would cause that, then doing it on purpose would certainly cause it.

And so, Earl Kieran died that night, with a look of fear and satisfaction mingling on his frozen, pale face.

This whole fight had started in Noth’s villa and had ended in his greenhouse. How appropriate, if not ironic, it felt to the boy that his father should face his end in the same place that he’d so abruptly ended the boy’s mother. Noth tried to laugh at the feeling, but it only came out as strangled gasps instead. The air felt stuffy in here. He hated it.

The already tainted greenhouse had gotten even more filthy.

No amount of sweet memories from the past could overwrite this.

Noth had no intention of letting such a disgusting place remain here to taunt him.

The boy decided he had no choice but to use his newly acquired strength to demolish it all.

No more greenhouse.

No more villa.

The only thing that Noth kept from his home-turned-rubble was his mother's precious bracelet that he’d had tucked inside of his pocket this whole time. She must have been watching over him even in death. The only thing he could think to explain all of this was that this holy bracelet had saved him and given him this amazing ability, at his mother’s behest. He would make sure to keep this saviour of his safe and close forever if he could, lest he somehow lose it and subsequently lose his new life saving power along with it.

With his previous home destroyed, Noth quickly turned his eyes to the manor. The Kieran manor. His father had been taken out of the picture, and with that, Noth was now the only Kieran remaining. Who belonged there if not for him? He skulked into the building he’d once known so well, not even bothering a glance towards anyone he passed by. None of these hateful people had shown him an ounce of pity when he was still imprisoned, so why should he show them any amount of care back? It’s not as if he needed these people’s approval now that he was strong. Who could possibly stop him if even his father couldn’t?

The boy made his way to what used to be his room, but he couldn’t get comfortable in it. The room just felt like a lie, like some echo of a life that no longer felt possible or even at all real anymore. Instead, he marched himself to his father’s bedroom, the room that belonged to the master of the house. To the victor came the spoils. Sitting on the slightly too high poster bed felt like sitting on a throne to Noth. It made the feeling that he’d won and been given what should have been his set all the more into his mind.

But the more that the idea solidified, the more that another feeling sunk into him.

He killed the monster.

He won.

And now he sat in the monster’s spot.

He had replaced the monster.

He had become the monster.

And now he had the strength of a monster to prove it.

Was all of this the price of his freedom?

Noth couldn’t sleep. The scene of his father dying haunted him every time he closed his eyes. There wasn’t a possible chance for peace.

~~~

A day of seclusion passed, with Noth not even bothering to leave his new throne room. The only thing that made him finally leave was when his hunger grew too great for him to ignore any longer. When the boy unabashedly stomped through the halls and raided the kitchen for the first fresh food he’d eaten in years, an understandable event occurred. The guards of his villa that had been sent away by the Earl yesterday were now back, and had decided to capture the little roaming beast. A small group of men rushed into the almost fully vacated room, surrounding the boy who was still eagerly scarfing down morsel after morsel of food. They slowly closed in with their swords drawn, but even as they grew closer and closer, Noth never once looked up at them.

Even as the boldest of the men roughly grabbed the boy by the collar and raised him, Noth still didn’t even bother to react to them.

A few shakes and some yelling at the unresponsive boy later, the guards decided to take Noth down to the dungeon, seeing as how the villa that had previously been his prison had been destroyed all of a sudden. They demanded to know the whereabouts of the missing Earl multiple times, and eventually in their anger one of the men reeled back to hit the small boy, but instead of his fist connecting with the child’s face, a hit instead intercepted into his wrist. A yowling sound filled the cell as the guard crouched over and cradled his broken wrist, his hand bending at almost an impossible angle away from his arm.

The rest of the men stared down at their hurt comrade with looks of both disbelief and disgust. It wasn’t long before those exact same looks turned towards Noth, the perpetrator of this disfigurement. None of them wanted to be the one to take the next swing at the boy and possibly end up like the first. A man gently helped up the injured one, while another took out his sword and nervously covered the others’ retreat. They loudly closed the jail door behind them and firmly locked it, double checking that the awful thing inside was completely stuck within. With one last worried glance behind, the guards quickly retreated up the stairs.

But just like a nightmare, when the group made it halfway up the stairs, a loud metallic groan rang through the dungeons behind them, stopping them in their tracks. The men didn’t even dare to look back as they heard the plodding sound of small feet come towards them and start climbing up the stairs. Their teeth clenched as they caught a small black head of hair passing by them out of the corner of their eyes.

Noth slowly made his way back to his room, not sparing a single thought to his prior captors.

~~~

A week passed, and with everyone, including the repeatedly defeated guards, thoroughly afraid of Noth, it was no surprise that rumours about the boy began to circulate throughout the manor. Some of the people who had never seen Noth before believed that the boy from the villa really had turned into a monster or beast, and that’s why the Earl had locked the boy up. Some of the more prejudiced amongst the servants believed that the God-dess forsaken boy may have been possessed by a demon, which had led him to evil and sin. There was no one who didn’t firmly believe that the child had done something to his father, if not that he had done the absolute worst to their beloved master.

It only stood to reason that everyone began to leave the manor in droves.

Oddly enough, amongst the constantly leaving staff, a new one returned. The old [Butler] of the family, Gent, who had left in anguish when the wife of his lord was brutally killed, had come back out of concern once he heard the news of the Earl’s untimely disappearance. When he found the poor young boy all alone the elderly man was brought to tears, certain that there was now only one Kieran left in the world. The butler’s family had served the Kierans for generations, and anyone holding the Kieran name was deeply important to him. Gent didn’t care what [Gift] any of them may have been given, all he cared about was keeping this proud and noble lineage safe. He’d already lived through too many of his master’s deaths to not try his best and save this last young and vulnerable one. It took a while of constantly sticking around, doing his best to take care of the boy, and constantly regaling him of stories about the boy’s mother, but eventually the jaded Noth came to truly accept the butler back into his life.

However, there was one more person who deigned to stay inside the mansion. The kitchen maid, Elillith, was found still working away at her maidly duties, as if nothing at all had changed. She didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by anything; If you’d asked her about the rumours going around in the mansion, she could tell you every single one of them, but in the end she really didn’t seem to care. When asked if she, too, would be eventually leaving, she recited that this was her home, and that there was nowhere else for her to go. She hadn’t stayed out of a great sense of responsibility or even pity. Elillith had stayed in the manor for exactly one reason only: Sheer apathy. And in a return of that same apathy, Noth could find no real reason for the unknown maid to have to leave.

And just like that, a new family had formed around Noth, in his newly conquered home.

~~~

Taking over the Kieran manor would of course never have gone smoothly.

The escaped servants had gone down into the nearby town, and begun to spread their rumours and fear amongst the inhabitants. You couldn’t take a step through the streets without hearing whispers of the monster or demon that now lived in the defunct Kieran manor. The butler had tried to go down and bribe the now unemployed servants with the vast money still left in the Kieran family’s stores, but it would have been impossible to close up all the leaks in information forever. Because of this fact, both Noth and the butler agreed that it would be safest to change locations. But equally, at the same time, they hated the idea of giving up the manor, although for different reasons.

For Noth, it was a trophy.

For Gent, it was a legacy.

There was no way that either of them were willing to so easily give it up if they didn’t have to.

…and of course, Elillith couldn’t care either way.

Instead, they came up with the idea of changing Noth’s identity. He wasn’t willing to give up his first name, but he could easily fudge the second one. They decided that he would live in hiding as ‘Noth Kellen’ for now, with the excuse that he was from a branch family of the Kierans, and was given the manor in the dearly departed Earl’s will.

But the church was not stupid.

The church had many ears and eyes working for them, and even if they hadn’t heard the rumours of Noth, they would have still dispatched someone to deal with any kind of creature that was terrorizing one of their cities, let alone anything that had threatened one of their chosen nobles. Paying off the ex-servants could only work for so long. It took a while for the hastily concealed information to finally reach them and be verified, but after a few years they had no choice but to send assassins after Noth.

However, Noth was not something to so easily be killed.

The now teenage Noth had a much better grip on his [Gift], and had easily repelled his attackers. Most hadn’t made it out alive, either dying right away in the fight against their target, or later succumbing to their wounds on the way back. Only one of the assassins had ever managed to make it back to the church alive. Hearing the report that the boy who should have just been a forsaken child was suddenly taking down hoards of experienced exterminators deeply surprised and scared most of the church. They were sure that some form of evil must be afoot, and they feared that some new demon may have come into play. But the higher ups in the church knew the truth, that what they feared had come to pass. The boy had chosen a [Gift].

And they hated that fact.

~~~

Noth lived his life in relative seclusion and boredom. He was depressed for a number of reasons. The only real excitement or joy he found amongst the monotony of living was the rush he felt when he got to use his powers. When he fought against his attackers was when he truly felt most alive. And as the years passed, he even found excuses to sneak down to the town in the night and terrorize the people who had once been the manor’s servants. He saw them as traitors who couldn’t even be satisfied with the money they’d been leeching from the Kieran family’s reserves. He couldn’t help but see them as annoying flies, ripe for the extermination that they so richly deserved. And in this way, he rationalized using his strength against these weak creatures.

Noth had fallen into the trap very few had ever realized existed.

The God-dess gave everyone a [Gift], but did that mean that everyone would want to use it? And yet, very rarely did anyone ever resist the inherent allure of using the divine blessing that was given to them. After all, would the God-dess really let just any random person go against its whims? No. In the first place, [Gifts] were designed to feel good and right to use; They were almost a drug-like existence in that way. And with such a gentle and unnoticeable incentive, the God-dess’s creations would dance in its palm.

There were only two truly free beings alive:

Demons,

And the children who could choose their own paths.

-However that was only true until they chose.

And Noth had chosen.

Now his already controlled fate was even more so.

The play was all set up.

The pieces were in place.

The villain was ready.

…And then the star of the show, Kess, came.