After I died, my personal maid rebelled.

Upon hearing that His Excellency the Duke had awakened, Marquis Barton and Earl Rondo rushed from the construction site to the town of Kuogu.

The two middle-aged men climbed to the top of the city wall and saw the Duke and Elena embracing tightly. They stood there without saying a word, and then smiled like aunts.

During the days the Duke was in a coma, Elena told them the story of her previous life.

Rondo felt his blood boiling, but unfortunately, he was not among those fierce battles between humans and demons.

Despite his rugged appearance, the Marquis of Barton was actually more sensitive. Because, no matter what, his previous life was a complete tragedy.

……

The Northern Territory was incredibly powerful in its previous era. Even on the open battlefield, the Northern cavalry were in no way inferior to the Demon Clan's elite troops, displaying unstoppable bravery.

The bloody battles continued, and people longed for the final victory, but no one could understand Oswald's silence.

Their heroes met their most tragic end.

Taking out the treasures left behind by the master and clutching the farewell letter he had written at some unknown time, a barely perceptible tremor flashed in Elena's eyes by the window of the ancient duke's mansion.

Previously, she never believed in the existence of God. If everyone could change their fate through prayer, then fate must be a ridiculous thing.

But the moment she learned of Oswald's death, she was afraid; she was afraid that the goddess truly did not exist.

To be fair, even after his personality changed drastically, Oswald was still not a very good lord. He was very contradictory, often spending days and nights planning the future of the Northern Territory, and then suddenly having a fit of madness and overturning everything.

He trusted no one, not even Eleanor, who was closest to him. She didn't know his true feelings and had never heard a word he said from his heart.

His only genuine emotion was probably that one sentence he tirelessly repeated when communicating with the lower-ranking soldiers.

This war will kill many. The demons need to survive, and so do we. We're all risking our lives for a single outcome. The king, who occupies the richest territory and has the largest population, only hopes that we and the demons will both be severely weakened.

He liked to tell his soldiers bluntly: only one side, us or the demons, can continue to survive, and the king would love for us all to die.

So Oswald died on a sunny afternoon. Even before his death, news arrived that the hero had slain the demon marshal.

As Oswald's confidante, Elene wisely left the Duke's mansion ahead of time, but the moment she stepped out of the Ice City, she was plunged into a state of utter confusion that filled her with unease.

She suddenly didn't know where to go. It turned out that she had long regarded the Duke's mansion as her refuge.

What she hoped for was to stand beside the tyrannical duke as usual after defeating the demons, watching him continue to torment the nobles while worrying about food and population every day, and devising one strange development plan after another.

This is how it should be.

That day, the sun shone brightly. Elena stared at the sky in a daze for a long time. The white clouds drifted by. When she came to her senses, she found herself surrounded by a dense crowd of her people carrying luggage.

Their eyes were filled with anxiety about the future.

Old George finally finished preparing the pipe for the Duke, but the white-haired old man, holding the pipe, asked blankly, "What should we do now?"

Yes, what should we do...? Elena had no answer to this question either.

Later, the hero became the lord of the north.

These people first celebrated with the nobles, but instead of appeasing the common people, they immediately began searching for the Duke's money after the banquet.

The city was suddenly filled with tension, and the expressions of the brave team members were all terrifyingly somber.

They simply couldn't believe that Oswald had such a small private estate, much less that a duke could be so extravagantly poor.

They frantically dug into every corner of the ice city, leading their troops into suspicious homes one by one.

Finally, as if they had understood something, the hero personally led his army on a day-and-night raid, surrounding Elene, who had just settled outside the city of Kuogu with a group of people.

At first, Elene was puzzled, then she was angry, but for the sake of the people, she chose to endure it and let the Warriors search her to prove her innocence and the Duke's integrity.

The hero turned his horse around without a word to leave, but his soldiers, in an attempt to seize old George's pipe, kicked the frail old man to the ground.

However, the hero who witnessed this scene said nothing. Normally, he might have upheld the so-called justice, but now, having failed to obtain the duke's treasure as he had imagined, the hero was in an extremely bad mood.

He didn't even bother to look at it again before riding away.

Three days later, old George shed a few cloudy tears, collapsed on his bed, cried out in pain, and died in grief, going to find the duke who would share a cigarette with him.

The nobles' orders began to be issued one by one in the northern territories: return land; conscript laborers; increase taxes; prohibit speech and conduct...

The entire northern territory began to stir. Several days later, Luna's letter, after overcoming numerous hardships, arrived in Kuogu City.

Federico, who had lost a leg in that great battle, came on crutches. He looked at her silently, saying nothing, yet it seemed he had said everything.

On this day, Elena stood alone under the moonlight and spent her thirtieth birthday.

She wasn't admiring the moon, but staring at a dim star, her heart suddenly pounding wildly as if something had grabbed it.

Then, the soldiers and the people suddenly became active, secretly contacting each other. Jenny, who had been missing for a long time, returned, bringing with her many military officers and the remaining cavalry.

As Count Camaro headed south, the banquet in Ice City was interrupted, and a raging fire swept across the entire Northern Territory.

Elene's goal was clear: she wanted to resurrect Oswald. But when she grasped the blood-soaked Wishing Star and made her wish, the goddess did not respond.

In the midst of the chaos, Elena was on the verge of collapse when she suddenly heard that cold, mechanical voice in her mind.

[Oswald is not his real name. Come on, repeat after me, tianhao]

Alini opened her mouth instinctively: "tianhao?"

Ding ding ding! Time stands still. Whether it is the chimes of heaven or the echoes of hell rushing into the sea of ​​my heart, it is hard to tell.

In some hidden corner of this world, deep within a soul that has fallen into a state of slumber, messages keep flashing by.

[Warning: The host's true name has been discovered, and personal privacy information is about to be leaked.]

[Please respond within three seconds, 3, 2, 1]

[Information has been leaked]

[Please choose whether to save this notification within three seconds. 3, 2, 1]

[Notification has been removed]

[Friendly reminder: This information can be viewed in the history after the host awakens.]

As her vision went blank, through the light curtain, Elena saw a small world.

It is described as cramped because the perspective is focused on a fourteen-year-old boy, and the scenery around him is blurred.

It seemed to be raining. The boy stood in front of a new grave deep in the mountains, silently holding an umbrella. He knelt down, kowtowed deeply, and then turned and walked down the mountain.

After her initial surprise, Elena looked around in confusion, only to suddenly meet the boy's gaze.

She recognized those eyes.

Oswald's gloom stemmed more from his fierce appearance; the look in his eyes, like that of the young man, was numb and calm.

He was Oswald, Elena was quite certain of it, and then she couldn't help but be shocked, as if Oswald came from another world.

The boy seemed not to have seen Elena. He slowly walked down the mountain alone, rode some strange thing, and returned to the city where humans lived in the rain.

After entering his home, the boy took a shower and, upon returning to his room, wrote in his diary: "Keep going, keep going..."

That evening, Elena couldn't help but smile as she quietly admired the boy's sleeping face. Oswald was the same; he would only relax his expression when he was truly asleep.

But this tranquility was soon broken by another woman.

When she burst into the room, Elena discovered that the boy's door wasn't even locked.

The woman was drunk, her lips twitching downwards. She pounded on the door roughly, shouting repeatedly, "Tian Hao! Tian Hao! You son of a bitch, I haven't even slept yet, and you've already slept, you son of a bitch!"

The boy woke up with a start, but quickly calmed himself down and peered out to ask, "What is it? It's late, and I have school tomorrow."

"Hehe, son, I got drunk today." The woman chuckled after receiving the response, but her lifeless eyes exuded a dangerous aura as she stared intently at the boy's every move.

The boy was silent for a few seconds. "Yeah, drink less alcohol... You should go to sleep. I have to get up early for school tomorrow."

"Okay! Go to sleep! Rest! I won't bother you." The woman yelled a few more times, mumbled something under her breath, and staggered away.

The boy gently got out of bed and closed the door. Instead of going back to sleep, he stood in front of Elinie's viewpoint, staring at the wall, as quiet as a still pond.

Sure enough, not long after, the woman's screams came from the other side of the wall again.

"Tian Hao! Where the hell have you been! My mouth is dry! I need some water!"

The boy didn't say a word, went out of the room to get water, and handed it to the woman in the next room who was lying on the bed like a limp rag.

When the boy came, she stretched her neck so he could feed her water, which she gulped down in one go. Then she sniffed and said gruffly, "You won't even serve your own mother? You want me to die of thirst?!"

"No," the boy replied briefly, bowing his head.

The woman grabbed his wrist, her gaze turning dangerous again. "So, son, do you despise your mother?"

"no."

"Do you love your mother?"

"……Um"

Seeing the boy nod, the woman let him go, still muttering, "You don't love me at all, you're just trying to lie to me, you just want to trick me into supporting you..."

It took Eleanor a long time to figure out Oswald's interpersonal relationships in his previous life.

The boy lost his father at a young age and was initially raised by his grandfather. A year or two later, his mother returned to his side and took over the responsibility of supporting the family.

Compared to his grandfather's pure love, his mother's love was much more distorted.

With his grandfather's passing, the boy became increasingly vigilant and sensitive. He was almost afraid of any disturbance in the house, and his once bright eyes gradually became numb.

But Oswald remained as intelligent and resilient as she remembered him.

He was practically synonymous with intelligence at school; he was quick-witted and had a strong learning ability.

But it's harder at home than at school.

At first, Elena was quite interested, after all, not just anyone gets to see Oswald acting so timidly.

This is the tyrant of the North, a man who doesn't even respect the king; he has commanded troops on the front lines for many years, achieving great military exploits, and even forced the Demon King to write to him.

The letter reads: "If we're talking about heroes in the kingdom, I, the Demon King, only recognize you, Oswald. You know the newly enthroned king is incompetent; he's always thinking about that so-called hero and doesn't even value a hero like you."

Instead of wasting our resources on endless, bloody battles every year and every month, why don't we join forces to divide the kingdom equally and then settle the score?

If the Demon King knew that Oswald, whom he considers a hero of the world, used to look like this, his expression would probably be more interesting than a dye shop.