Cursed Heir System: Revenge Against the Gods

Five Years Ago—A Small Town, Eastern Fitzgerald Dukedom.

In a small house, the morning sunlight spilled through the cracked windowpane and fell on the figure sleeping on the bed.

Alan stirred with a soft groan while scratching his grey hair with black streaks. He yawned and arched his back as he stretched.

Blinking sleep from his blue eyes, he looked at the house he was currently staying in. This house is small and contains only a sagging bed, a table, and a kitchen with a chipped counter. To someone who had once grown up in the grand manor, it was absurdly small and cramped.

But compared to the prison cell he'd rotted in for a year... this rundown house almost felt like luxury.

Alan got down from the bed and shuffled to the kitchen counter, splashing water on his face from a tin basin, and grabbed a thin towel hanging off the edge of the counter.

Then he heard the creak of the door opening.

"I'm back," called a cheerful, familiar voice.

Alan didn't turn as he kept drying his face. "Where'd you go so early?"

As he lowered the towel, he looked back over his shoulder to see a tall man standing in the doorway with grocery bags in his hand. The man had a tired-looking face, had a beard along his jaw, and wore plain clothes.

It was Toby; he's one of the guards from the Fitzgerald prison. He was the one who had risked everything to help Alan escape execution.

"Just went out to grab some supplies," Toby said as he stepped inside. "I can't have you starving while I'm around."

Alan frowned as he tossed the towel onto the counter. "Don't go without telling me next time," he said with anger, but hiding his concern.

Toby chuckled as he put the groceries on the table. He walked over and ruffled Alan's hair, drawing a faint scowl from the boy.

"What are you, my mother now?" he teased with a grin. "Relax. No one's going to come looking for us out here. I planned this for over a year."

"That's not the point," Alan muttered, brushing his hair back into place.

"Alright, Alan," the man said with a grin as he turned back to the groceries. "Next time I'll leave a note. Now sit down; I'll make some breakfast. You'll feel better with food in you."

Moments later, Alan sat at the small table with a breakfast plate in front of him containing scrambled eggs and toasted bread, which was slightly burnt at the edges.

Toby sat across from him and bowed his head briefly. "Thanks for the food," he muttered before he started eating.

Alan picked up his fork with his left hand and began eating silently.

He still didn't get it.

Toby wasn't family. He wasn't a noble, or a priest, or one of those parasites who used to kiss his feet in the manor. They saw him as a future champion, a ticket to power and prestige. Every smile, every gift, had strings attached.

Toby, though, asked for nothing. He helped him, he fed him, he cared for him, and he treated Alan like family, and it baffled him. Was this another game? Another lie waiting to unravel, just like Linda did to him?

"Why are you helping me?" Alan asked while lowering his fork and leaning back in the creaky chair. "Why did you risk your entire life for me?"

Toby's fork stopped halfway to his mouth.

For a moment, the room was quiet; just the faint crackle of the stove behind him was audible. He looked up at the boy across the table whose blue eyes narrowed with quiet suspicion.

Then Toby chuckled and dropped the fork back onto his plate. "Obviously," he said with a huge grin, "I'm planning to sell you to the underground slave market. I heard they pay a fortune for pretty little nobles like you."

He laughed at his own silly joke, but Alan didn't even smile. He crossed his arms and stared at him with a blank, slightly annoyed expression.

Toby's grin slowly faded. He let out a deep sigh and leaned back in his chair while looking up at the wooden ceiling.

"I had a family once," he said quietly. His voice was soft, but there was a deep pain behind it. "A good one. A loving wife… and a son."

He paused, but Alan didn't interrupt.

"His name was Alan. He looked a bit like you with the same stubborn fire in his eyes." His lips curled faintly at the painful memory. "He used to say he'd get a rare blessing when he turned twelve. That he'd become a knight and take care of us."

"So?" Alan asked with a flat tone.

Toby looked at him and forced a hollow smile. "Just like you, he was unblessed. The Church said he carried a devil's curse. They didn't give him a chance; they executed him in front of us the day after his Rite.

His voice cracked near the end. Alan blinked as he noticed something he hadn't seen before: Toby's hands trembling slightly, his jaw clenched, and tears slipping silently down his weathered cheeks.

"My wife couldn't bear it. She seems to love our son more than me. So she followed him two weeks later," he said, barely above a whisper. "After that, I… stopped being a person. Just living as a shell. Day after day. Until I saw you in that cell."

He turned to Alan with bloodshot eyes.

"You're facing the same fate as my boy; I couldn't stand it. It was like seeing him all over again. I spent a year planning, risking everything to get you out of that hellhole. I gave you his name because I wanted to give you the chance he never had. To raise you like my own son. Maybe it's selfish, but I couldn't let the Church take another kid like that."

He bowed his head. "So, Alan… Will you forgive an old man for his selfishness?"

Alan said nothing; he can't say anything.

His throat felt tight, and his chest hurt in a way he didn't fully understand. For a long time, kindness had always been fake—just a trick people used to control or hurt him.

But this… this didn't feel like that.

And somehow, that hurt even more. He wanted to say something to bridge the gap between them. To tell Toby he'd stay, that he'd be the son he'd lost, that he'd make him proud.

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In the present.

Concordia Church headquarters, Terranese.

Alan stood at the window of his small room given by the church, his silhouette etched in shadow against the golden blaze of Terranese's festival week.

Below, the city is filled with festival enjoyment. Children darted between vendors, couples strolled arm in arm, and firecrackers bloomed like stars overhead.

Alan's blue eyes spotted a kid tugging his father toward a glowing stall, asking to buy him a toy.

Alan's hand clenched the curtain, remembering something worse, fabric twisting in his grip.

He remembered his father, not Thomas Fitzgerald—but Toby.

The man who'd risked everything for him. The man who'd smiled like a real father and whispered, "I'll be with you forever."

"Liar." Alan whispered with his jaw clenched. "You promised," he muttered.

But Toby had vanished like the rest. His absence had cut deeper than anything in his life.

Alan's gaze hardened, and the festival's golden lights mirrored in his eyes like the glow of distant fire.

"I haven't forgotten," he said softly.

His fingers loosened, and the curtain slipped from his hand.

"I've made my list."

Outside, a firework exploded, painting his face in blood-red light.