“Hahaha! Uahaha!”
One day before the grand finale of the Betrothal Contest.
Blund, who had been expelled from the Rosfell Marquisate in an instant, was now a penniless vagabond after his entire fortune was swindled away by an assassination guild he had contracted to kill Lumia. He threw his head back toward the night sky and laughed exuberantly.
It was absurd.
Incomprehensible.
Unbelievable.
It made no sense.
To be thrown out of the Rosfell Marquisate, the ruler of the golden waves of grain in the Elms during harvest season, was an utterly outrageous and unfathomable occurrence.
The power he had enjoyed, the arrogance he had exhibited, the wealth he had flaunted—all had vanished overnight like a dream.
Even while his bruised face throbbed painfully from being beaten by his father, he laughed for quite some time, feeling as if pain and despair were merely figments of a surreal reality, before finally getting to his feet.
“Ha, hahaha.”
As he brushed off the dust from his clothes, Blund set off in a direction unknown.
When a person experiences an unbearable shock, their cognitive abilities begin to wane, and their discernment weakens. They act based on impulsive instincts rather than rational thought, and if they fail to overcome the shock, their intellect gradually deteriorates. Those who are so broken ultimately lose their grip on reality, becoming not a rational being but a mere beast.
“Hey, you there.”
The first place Blund sought was a bank.
Just a few hours had passed since his expulsion.
It was still too soon for word of the Rosfell Marquisate’s second son’s disgrace to spread among the moneylenders, and there was just enough time to borrow money using the name of the Rosfell Marquisate.
“I need some quick cash, so let me borrow as much as possible with the name of the great House of Rosfell as collateral.”
But he was unaware.
The estate’s butler had already been here, preparing against the possibility that the son might disgrace the family name.
“I’m sorry, but we cannot grant you a loan.”
Thus, the banker politely refused, bowing his head, and a sequence of shouting and chaos echoed in the bank.
“What?! Are you kidding me? Do you want to ruin the House of Rosfell under your name?!”
“The bank manager has given me strict instructions, so there’s nothing I can do…”
“Shut up and bring out the manager—!!”
Banks are only found in regions of count status and above; most banks of marquessate rank are managed by counts who are court nobles.
Blund, despite already being on the edge of reality and delusion, had nothing more to lose in his loud demands.
The problem was—
“Bring this man out.”
The reality ahead was cruelly harsh.
The sins committed in the past had snowballed to an unmanageable extent, rolling down like an avalanche.
“What? I’m Blund, the second son of the Rosfell Marquisate! Blund! Does this bastard really want to die?! Huh?!”
“What are you doing? Hurry up and throw out this pretender! If he doesn’t listen, whip him to drive him away.”
“What? What did you just call me? A pretender?! You really want to die?!!”
Puhak!
“Urk! Shit! You filthy lowlife bastards, don’t touch me! Let go of this!”
Puhak!
“Urk!”
In the end, with rough punches and clubbing blows, Blund was tossed out onto the streets, beaten into a shapeless mass.
Banks were the exclusive domain of the nobility.
To Blund, no longer considered a second son of the Rosfell Marquisate or even a noble, the bank had become a forbidden territory.
In a world where one has no money, there’s no place to rest one’s head.
For Blund, who had slept in the finest beds of a luxurious bedroom and feasted on sumptuous delicacies until now, the thought of life as a street dweller was as horrifying as dying—desperation drove him to venture into the lanes of commoners.
The aristocratic scion, who used to command underlings to do his bidding, was left with skills limited to extortion and intimidation.
“I’m Blund, second son of the Rosfell Marquisate. Hand over everything you’ve got, and maybe I’ll let you live.”
Blund barged into a store in the commoner’s district, robbing them outright. In this case, it was not surprising; most commoners within the Grand Duchy had heard his name due to the Betrothal Contest, making it easy for him to extort them, and he patted his now heavy pockets.
In addition, thanks to his handsome looks and the followers he had garnered in the Betrothal Contest, some young women voluntarily offered their tributes, and even their bodies at times.
Still, he was not just Blund; he was Blund Rosfell.
Of course, if Logan ever caught wind of Blund’s actions of extorting and oppressing the citizens of Winterfell, he wouldn’t last a minute. But to someone who had lost his basic needs, these considerations didn’t matter.
Thud.
Having rented a room, Blund collapsed onto the bed and broke into a grin.
His own pathetic state was amusing—so ridiculous that laughter bubbled up from within him.
“This shabby bed feels strangely comfortable; I must be losing my mind. Ha, hahaha! Hahahaha!”
Yes indeed.
Living like this was perfectly fine.
Wretched commoners were born to serve the nobles, right?
“Heh heh. Do you think I’m going to die easily? Me! Blund Rosfell, the ruler of the Elms!”
Even stripped of his past glories, he yelled out, unable to accept his new reality, still clinging to his former identity in a deserted space where no one could hear him.
Thus, he spent his first night, and for several days, he extorted from the commoners, managing to maintain a somewhat affluent life until reality hit him hard.
“Spit! Damn it, this is disgusting. Make it again! Unless you want to die!”
As he was causing a ruckus in a restaurant one usual day, a stone suddenly struck him from behind.
Wham!
“Ugh! Who the hell threw that?!”
Blund, sitting all alone while devouring his meal, shouted in the direction of the stone’s origin, only to realize soon enough.
“There you are, you pretender! What a disgrace to the nobility, pretending to be one while you have no right to it!”
He became aware that he was trapped in a crowd, transitioning from predator to prey, realizing it was his time to be hunted.
[Hat Thief]
This term was a slang used by commoners to refer to disgraced or expelled nobles who had lost their family name.
Nobles were an object of absolute hatred for many commoners.
To avoid this hatred, the expression emerged to describe fallen nobles wearing hats as a disguise.
If the target of hatred lost their status and ended up at the bottom, it was only natural that the tables would turn, a situation eagerly anticipated and longed for by many commoners.
Thud! Smash!
Crash!
Bang!
“That bastard! He’s been expelled, so he’s nothing now! Step on him! How dare a no-noble like him get my daughter pregnant?!”
“They say he’s been kicked out of the bank! Just look at him trying to extort us with nothing to his name! Teach him a lesson!”
Rumors that started in the bank spread throughout the Grand Duchy, and as Blund was thoroughly trampled, he needed to escape to the outside world, a place he had dreaded venturing into.
Now he had to walk—bloodied and alone—down the same path he once walked confidently alongside his loyal guards.
Terrified by the roars of monsters and howls of wild beasts, he could not even sleep at night, sometimes plagued by hallucinations and delusions, forced to run for his life.
At the end of the road, Blund arrived in a village and cried out once more,
“I am the second son of the great Rosfell Marquisate! If you don’t want to be in trouble, hurry and bring me something to eat!”
Despite having become a mess after weeks of homelessness, and resembling a beggar far more than an aristocrat, Blund found himself lurking around the eateries, demanding food—but all he received in return was scorn and mockery.
Upon reaching the village of Rugen, he had descended into such a state that even beggars would steer clear of him.
“Get lost! What insane lunatic is making a fuss this early in the morning?”
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Now in a complete reversal of his former situation, Blund, who once kicked commoners without hesitation, was getting mercilessly kicked himself. A mouth that had never groaned in pain was now emitting shrieks mixed with whimpers.
The hallucinations and auditory illusions intensified day by day, eventually causing him to completely lose his grip on sanity. This was how a lavish and radiant life had come to a futile end.
Now living as a local spectacle in Rugen, Blund was reduced to a pitiful existence.
“Hey! It’s the red-haired beggar! Beggar! Want some bread?”
“Hehe. Bread sounds good. I want to eat bread. Hehe.”
“Haha! You really are a fool! Here, have a piece of this!”
Blund, now a red-haired beggar who would eat bread found on the ground without a care, would even show his backside for a bite. He had settled into a dismal life.
“Om nom nom! Bread is the best! Heehee!”
Blund’s back, fleeing once more, was a sight to behold.
Kyle, who had supposedly committed suicide as an escape artist, and Deron, who had become an attempted murder suspect, were now both missing. And there was Blund, seemingly thrown away by his family, losing his mind—truly a pitiful trio with their own dreadful endings.
It was shocking to witness their lives crumble or be in the process of crumbling.
Of course, it was an expected outcome, something that should have happened; still, seeing someone you had reunited with after six months turn mad was somewhat bewildering.
Furthermore, as a former companion and rival candidate, it seemed like a moral duty to lend help to Elden from the original story.
Causing trouble for innocent citizens wasn’t something one could overlook.
After all, he was a complete nuisance right from the start.
“Give me all the leftover bread.”
“All of it? You mean, like all of it?”
“The bread price will be paid with this silver coin.”
“What? That’s too big a sum to give change!”
“I don’t need any change.”
Blund handed a silver coin to the bakery owner as payment for the stolen bread. He bought all three remaining loaves and provided the owner with a moral aid.
Word was that he only stole from this bakery. Even if one felt pity for Blund, there was no reason or responsibility to help him.
In fact, helping him would feel akin to committing an injustice against Lumia. So he paid generously for the bread and stepped outside, fostering no ill feelings.
“Thank you! Please take care!”
Even though he wasn’t particularly hungry, he took a bite.
Wide-eyed, he glanced in the direction Blund had run off to.
Chewing the bread, which seemed ordinary in appearance yet packed an extraordinary taste, he reflected…
Ah, so that’s why Blund insisted on coming here?
“What’s this? Why is it so delicious?”
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