The young lord Stan · ❀ [ON HIATUS]

Chapter 13

Ah, the motion of life being like a long dream. 

It's an intriguing perspective that has been pondered by many throughout history.

Dreams often carry a sense of fluidity, uncertainty, and surrealness, which can parallel our experiences in life.

Life can indeed feel like a dream in certain ways.

!!

Edel jolted awake from the soft mattress in a cold sweat. Eyes full of terror. Breathing in greedily the oxygen while he can. A proof that he was still alive. 

He still dreamed of a certain person desperately trying to suffocate him today.

Breath in...breath out...repeat...again...and...again.

Since the day he crossed his path with his brother, he would live uneasily just like before. The puzzled words that Venion had thrown to him...they come and go.

The dragon. The dragon. The dragon.

Edel was bright enough to understand that his Hyung-nim had tortured a dragon. And it must be a little one at that. A grown-up dragon would have wiped his entire generation! Heck! The entire kingdom! 

Truly unforgivable...especially considering that Edel, somehow admired dragons for their ways to use mana and to dominate nature.

Then the young man would sink into a sea of guilt again.

If it had not been a dragon...but a person, a human, an elf, a dark elf, a beast person...would he still have these weights on his consciousness?

Dirty conscience. Dirty conscience. Dirty conscience-

No...guilty...No...He is not...No

Yes. He is.

But

Guilt is just another weapon to be controlled, a lie one tells themselves to believe they will one day obtain a correct answer.

Pathetic and useless.

Inferior and insignificant to a creature from the top of the cruel Mother Nature.

Not use to feel like this, yet he still does.

---

Edel resorted to asking other things to Taylor, but admiring the hardworking Taylor, he decided to not burden him with unnecessary matters.

"A foolish woman who tried to harm him, and Venion saved him from her."

Fraud, theft, torture, and murder, were the methods that ensured Stan's success. That was their long tradition and all the children had to be educated accordingly to become the only worthy successor. Edel couldn't escape that destiny either.

Yet this generation of the Stan gave birth to two children with a benevolent heart.

Taylor and Edel. The only two who never resorted to those methods to retain a place in that hellhole.

Remind you, Venion never stopped sending assassins to cut Taylor's last string of life. Of course, he used Edel as well. Forcing him to learn how to create drugs, poisons, and potions to torture secretly a dragon.

He was a pawn. Like when you play chess: the first piece to be thrown away is always the pawn.

When he realized it was already late. He overestimated his worth in everyone's eyes. 

Edel is noted to possess a sense of self-loathing since he was born into a selfish and immoral family who would mercilessly kill even newborn children for their own gain. 

He considers himself so tainted that every time he'd successfully developed a new creation, he felt as if his family and the possible victims were digging their nails into his skin to ensure he couldn't go anywhere.

Because the Marquis played a role in enslaving the dragon.

He had no good memories of home. Even if Taylor is trying so hard to overthrow that shitty tradition.

But if you can go back to the past, the existence of memories will be meaningless.