The Regressed Heir of Ravencrest

Chapter 47: What He Left Behind

The entry sat at the edge of the panel, easy to miss among the hundreds of others he’d scrolled past.

Purified Elixir of the Life Fruit.

Grade: Legendary.

Cost: 480,000 War Merit.

Description: An extract sourced from the fruit of the World Tree, capable of treating diseases and purging deep-seated toxins and curing illness.

Ethan’s breathing caught in his throat.

The amount required to buy this is exorbitant...

He thought quickly through how he could acquire that much War Merit. Apart from missions and monster extermination, there wasn’t much else to consider.

I hope there are more missons from the system...

The Awakening Ceremony for both of them would be in two to three months. Sepharina probably wouldn’t awaken this year, but it was still worth building both their foundations now, regardless.

He’d wanted to buy body-strengthening pills for both of them outright, but he needed to hold onto the War Merit he had left.

"I don’t have enough mana to do this. But I think I can." Ethan thought. He brought a few herbs from the store, which cost him a thousand War Merit, and drew the Snowclaw Bears’ cores from his inventory.

He began releasing his aura into thin threads to drill the cores. The outer shell resisted like reinforced metal — handled wrong, the inner layer would be destroyed entirely, the work wasted for nothing. The process took the better part of an hour before the shell finally turned to liquid. Once it did, everything moved faster. He worked the herbs in with careful precision, sweat running down his forehead, his hands trembling from holding mana under that kind of constant, exact control. It took another thirty minutes to finish refining it.

The aroma drifted through the air and filled the whole room. Ethan understood the experiment had already succeeded before he even tested it. He took a drop to check the elixir’s effectiveness — sweet on the tongue — and understood immediately what grade it had come out to. Rare, but sitting at the lowest tier of that grade, its effectiveness perhaps a fifth of whatever the System’s own version would have offered according to his estimate but useful nonetheless.

The method itself wasn’t his own. It was developed in the final years of his previous life. He’d learned it — or rather, he would have learned it, in whatever version of the future no longer waited for him the same way — from Isabella, years from now, in a life where the technique had become simple enough that half the frontier’s field medics knew some version of it by heart. No rare components, no exotic reagents. Just herbs and monster cores, patience, and precise control of mana.

He thought of her, suddenly and without meaning to, and something in his chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with the hours of careful work behind him.

I wish I could see her soon.

His eyes softened for a moment before he caught himself and set the thought aside, the way he’d learned to set aside most things that didn’t help him move forward.

He brought out three more cores and began processing them again. This time the process moved considerably faster than the first. By the time he finished, he was completely exhausted, more from the sustained precision than the effort itself. He placed both vials in the special containers the System had provided and stored them in his inventory.

It was past midnight by the time he finished. He closed his eyes and slept.

Ethan left before dawn, before anyone in the house had stirred, slipping out through the window rather than risk a doorway that might wake someone.

It was Elene who found the two vials and a pill, while clearing his room after he’d gone — and the note beside them, folded once, unremarkable except for what it said.

She called for William before she’d started reading it. He came at a near-run, certain something had gone wrong, and found her simply standing there instead, a vial cradled in each palm like something that might shatter from carelessness alone.

Thanks for the stay, the note read. I really enjoyed the food. These elixirs will help improve both Anna and Sepharina’s foundation — I hope you’ll take them. The pill is for Mrs. Ashwood, to help alleviate her symptoms. Beneath that, careful instructions on dosage, and things to watch for. I’ll see everyone at the Awakening Ceremony. I’ll also try to find something for the Silveravyn. See ya.

A small, gentle smile crossed Elene’s face. "It should be us thanking him. And instead he left us with this. He’s a considerate child."

She carefully folded the note again instead of setting it aside.

It had been years since someone outside their own family had shown them kindness without expecting something in return.

Somehow...

A boy they’d only known for a single evening had managed exactly that.

William turned one of the vials over in his hand, thinking of everything he’d wanted to buy for his daughters and never managed to afford. "Something like this should cost at least a hundred gold. An amount we’ll never see in our lives, and he left it here like it was nothing."

"I didn’t want to ask which family he came from. Most nobles look down on people like us for even wondering." Elene set the vial down gently. "But he’s clearly a good boy. Maybe we should have asked anyway."

"We don’t know who he is." William’s voice had gone quieter. "But whoever he is, we should be grateful for someone like him."

"I wanted to be a Knight once, when I was young." He said it almost to himself. "But I never awakened a core, of course. But I’ve seen a few real ones — the kind who actually follow their lord and fight beside him. If I’d ever awakened anything at all, I think I’d have followed someone exactly like him."

"Yeah, yeah." Elene laughed, teasing him gently despite the softness underneath it.

Then the cough came, sudden and sharp enough to double her over slightly.

Blood touched the corner of her mouth when she straightened.

"Elene—" William’s hands found her shoulders, the concern in his voice impossible to hide.

"It’s getting worse every day." William said it plainly, without flinching from the fact of it. "You should take the pill, and the—" He hesitated over the word. "The vial. Maybe it’ll help you."

"No. Those are for the children. We can’t." She rolled her shoulders and offered him a bright, deliberate smile, the kind meant to ease a worry rather than reflect one. "I’m still healthy enough. See?"

He didn’t look entirely convinced, but he let it go.

"We shouldn’t waste what the young master gave us, then. Let’s give the vials to the girls today, exactly as he said. Maybe they’ll awaken something worth all this. Maybe that’s how we repay him." Elene said while thinking of the child who left it for them.

Ethan ran hard, Rune matching his pace beside him without effort. The stat increases from the breakthrough had cut what should have been a three-day journey down to something considerably shorter, and watching Rune keep up without strain, he found himself wondering again — the way he had more than once now — exactly what the System was refusing to tell him about the cub. No matter how the question was phrased, the System always went quiet, or claimed his realm was insufficient to know. He was certain he’d find the answer eventually sooner or later.

Northwatch’s outer gates came into view by evening, wagons of weapons and food supply moving through in both directions, armed soldiers checking papers at the checkpoint. The gate guard confirmed his identity and waved him through.

He made his way toward the Adventurer Guild in the outer district, and halfway there his instincts flared with sudden danger. Rune’s ears flattened at the same instant, a low growl escaping his throat.

Ethan turned fast, scanning the street, the rooftops, every shadow deep enough to hide something — and found nothing. Rune looked briefly unsettled too, before his usual confidence reasserted itself.

" Ethan filed the feeling away rather than dismiss it outright. I should look into it later...for now let’s go to the guild." Ethan thought for a moment.

By the time he reached the hall, Robert and the clerk girl were mid-shift-change.

"Oh, kid, you’re back," she said.

Robert glanced at her once. She understood immediately. "I’ll come back in an hour."

Robert settled back behind the desk as she left.

The old man’s on duty again. Ethan crossed toward him. Maybe Evelyn told him to keep an eye on me.

He laid out proof of the completed mission — Ironhound ears, Snowclaw Bear hides — enough to confirm the kill count without argument.

Robert studied him a moment, faint surprise crossing his face at finding not a single injury on the boy standing in front of him, despite the size of what he’d apparently just cleared.

There was dried blood on the leather armor.

Dust on the boots.

A few fresh scratches that had already begun fading.

Nothing else.

Robert had watched veteran C-rank hunters stagger home in worse condition after half that workload.

The boy standing before him looked as though he’d simply returned from a long walk.

He reined the reaction in quickly and processed the report.

"I’ll sell the materials too," Ethan said, drawing out everything he’d harvested from both the Ironhounds and the Snowclaw Bear and the variants from the inventory.

Robert’s eyes lingered on the sheer volume of it. Even a noble’s storage ring struggled to hold this much at once, and yet the boy in front of him kept producing more every time he showed up. Ethan read the thought clearly enough but let nothing show on his own face.

"Twelve percent commission on materials. Same as the mission rate."

"Yeah. I know," Ethan said simply.

He worked through the materials at standard market rates. The total, after commission and the mission reward combined, came to forty gold.

Not a loss. Would have been more with the Snowclaw cores too, but they’ll be helpful for both of them compared to the gold I would’ve got. Ethan let the thought settle and moved on. He checked the misson board next, hoping for something worth the trip, but found nothing suited to him — the real extermination work sat beyond his current range, and the scouting jobs left paid too little and offered no War Merit at all, which was the only currency that actually mattered right now.

"I’ll check again later." He said as he left the guild.

He made his way back to his room. Night had fully settled by the time he reached it. Rune claimed his usual spot at the foot of the bed and was asleep within minutes. Ethan lay back, turning the evening’s flicker of danger over once more before finally letting it go.

Neither of them noticed the quiet presence watching from somewhere just out of sight.

The room eventually fell silent.

Rune’s breathing evened out first.

Ethan followed soon after.

Outside, somewhere beyond the narrow window and hidden among the rooftops, a lone figure watched the darkened room without making the slightest sound.

Their gaze lingered on the sleeping boy for several seconds before finally turning away.

"So..."

The whisper disappeared into the night.

"He’s the one, huh..."