What was that feeling of thinking you are rich only to find out you might be poorer than the person who earns less than you.
Rin was on the floor with books all round trying to figure out what went wrong. She could have sworn she sold a lot of things so the money in the bank should have also been a lot.
"Young master I really thought it was a lot."
Kaelen sighed, it was his fault for assuming the original owner would deposit money in a bank for good use.
When he realized that caleus might have been in a cult he remembered that nobles like him have only one use in the cult, to act as sponsers so while praying he asked Rin to check his balance and realised he was so poor that even the thought of escaping was expensive.
"Should we report this young master?"
"No."
"It was more than a million gold coins."
His heart clenched more and he felt like crying, they much would have been enough for him to leave with Rin and Markus and be set for several life times.
He even considered finding the cult and getting the money.
"No, I'd have to explain how I got the money, I don't want to deal with that."
"Then what do we do. You are about to get married you can't be with out money."
Its seems he needed to take some fortune from the protagonists.
"Mmh, I know, tell Markus to prepare two horses we are going out."
"Yes young master. Should we change where your monthly allowance goes?"
"No remember we donot want to arouse suspision."
Kaelen had done horseback riding, the slow and beautiful rides in the country side. No one had informed him that horseback travel and horse back riding were two whole different things. He had imagined it being , wind in the hair, the steady rhythm of hooves, the landscape unfolding like a scroll.
Reality, he discovered, was torture.
The journey to the eastern foothills took one full day. One day of hard riding through sleet and frozen mud, his thighs screaming, his spine compressed into a permanent ache, and every jolt of the horse sending fresh agony up his tailbone.
To make it worse his body was still weak so it felt worse than it would have in a healthy less alcohol beaten body.
Markus rode beside him in silence, occasionally glancing over to make sure his lord hadn't fallen off.
Kaelen had not fallen off. But only because his hands had fused to the reins due to the pain.
The worst part was the humiliation. Every time the horse sped up, his legs scrambled for something to hold. Every turn, he leaned dangerously to one side.
By midday, he had stopped trying to look graceful. By late afternoon, he had stopped caring whether Markus judged him. By nightfall, when they finally stopped to rest in a hollow beneath an overhang of rock, Kaelen slid from the saddle and collapsed directly into the snow.
Markus caught him by the elbow. "My lord."
"Don't," Kaelen wheezed, his thighs were shaking. And to make it worse he could also feel amusement coming from the hum. "Just… don't."
Markus said nothing. He simply tethered the horses, built a small fire that threw more smoke than warmth, and handed Kaelen a piece of hard bread the only thing he could mange to sneek out.. Kaelen chewed it in silence, staring at the flames, his thighs throbbing in time with his heartbeat. Now not only his legs hurt but his mouth felt like he was chewing razors.
Sprite, who had ridden in Kaelen's coat pocket, emerged to sniff the bread, then retreated in disgust.
At dawn, they rode again.
The rock looked like nothing.
Kaelen almost missed it a tilted slab of grey stone half-buried in the hillside, no different from a hundred others they had passed. But something in the geometry nagged at him. The way the snow melted in a perfect circle around its base. The faint humming he felt in his teeth when he drew close.
In the original novel, the protagonist had found a hidden mana stone mine here. She had used its wealth to fund her early operations, buying allies, equipment, information. The scene was a single paragraph She discovered the entrance on the third day lost, marked by a stone that rejected frost.
"Markus," Kaelen said, sliding off his horse with a groan. "That rock. Draw your sword and touch the flat of the blade to its surface and release your mana."
Markus hesitated. "My lord, it's just a rock."
"Indulge me."
Markus drew his longsword a plain, well-kept blade, unremarkable except for the wear on the grip. He stepped forward, raised the sword, and pressed the flat against the grey stone,soon his blade began to glow then...
The rock sang.
A low, resonant hum vibrated up through the ground, shaking loose a curtain of snow from the hillside. The slab split with a smooth, silent parting, as if the stone were water and someone had drawn a finger through it. A dark opening was revealed, descending into the earth.
The system flickered:
[System Notification: Location Discovered]
[Name: The Eastern Fallows Mine (Hidden)]
[Classification: Mana Stone Deposit – Abandoned, Untapped]
[Note: This is the mine of the fallen king.]
The Fallen Kings – A System Entry
[Lore Unlocked: The Fallen Kings]
[Classification: Historical Figures – Erroneous Title]
[Region: Eastern Kingdom – Pre-Unification Era]
Kaelen paused.
Contrary to their name, the Fallen Kings were never royalty. They held no thrones, wore no crowns, and ruled no lands.
They were saviours.
In the distant past nearly ten centuries before the current timeline the kingdom faced an annihilation that has since been scrubbed from most official records. A tear in the world's fabric opened in the eastern mountains, releasing a tide of corrupted mana and nameless beasts. The nobility fled. The army broke. The capital burned.
Seven humans held their ground. Calling them humans was astretchcause the wielded power unlike anyone.
They were not mages of noble blood. They were not knights sworn to any house. They were: a blacksmith's daughter who could feel the pulse of stone; a former slave whose mana channels had been carved open by torture; a deserting soldier who had learned to fight blind; a healer who had poisoned more enemies than she had saved; a hermit who spoke to things that did not have mouths; a child who had accidentally bonded with a minor spirit; and a farmer who refused to abandon his land.
They came together in the chaos. They fought. They gained a power unseen before. The first awakeners of the land.
One by one, they fell not in defeat, but in sacrifice. Each death sealed another breach, strengthened another ward, bought another day for the scattered survivors. The last of them, the farmer, drove his plowshare into the heart of the tear and closed it forever. His body was never found.
The kingdom was saved. They called them Kings not because they ruled, but because they had given more than any ruler ever had.
The "Fallen" part came later. Not fallen from grace. Fallen in battle. Fallen so others could stand.
Their names were forgotten within two generations. Their deeds became a children's rhyme. Their graves were never marked.
But the mines they had once used to hide wounded soldiers and stockpile mana stones these remained. Sealed by their dying wills. Waiting for someone with the right key, or the right need, to open them again.
[System Note: The mana stones within are not merely wealth. They carry residual imprints of the Fallen Kings' final moments. Users sensitive to mana echoes may experience visions or warnings.]
Kaelen had read this in a footnote of the original novel. The protagonist had dismissed it as superstition, a children's tale. But he knew better.