[Draft] [BPOF] Prologue 1 - Father's Letter (Patreon)

Just to note, I am posting the prologues and first chapter to see what you Patrons think of them. As I have to work on the main novel these take a while to write.

This and the next prologue shouldn’t be skipped. They are important to the development of the MC. This one takes the form of a note from father to son. The next one is from the grandmother to grandson. If you skip them then you would miss out on some base motivations that guide our MC forward. I call them prologues simply because they are not written in the form that the rest of the story will take (IE from the MC’s perspective). Also while the prologues are short I plan to have the actual chapters be in the range of 2.5k to 3k words.

I met my wife when I visited another clan. At the time I was just a junior clerk and simply there to back up a senior clerk and take notes. After the talks we were guided around the small outer gardens. It was there that I would meet my wife though neither of us knew it at the time. She was just a simple maid who took care of a single bed of flowers. As the bigwigs were off to the side talking a bunch of hot air, she showed me her tiny domain. It wasn’t better than the others but we got along okay.

Apparently this was noticed by the gardener in charge of the area. Over the next year I was the junior clerk who was in charge of general upkeep for the deal that meeting spawned. This caused me to travel there often and as I knew her that was where my time off tended to be spent. Over the months we developed a nice friendship. Unknown to either of us this was orchestrated from behind the scenes by our superiors.

Soon that year passed and suddenly the two clans agreed to cement the agreement with our marriage. So I got married to my best friend. She came and joined our clan while I was promoted to being a regular clerk. For many years after my life was ideal except for one thing.

No matter how we tried our marriage was barren. We were getting on in years and it was to a point that my career was at the end because of it. The clan wasn’t willing to advance someone that didn’t have deeper family connections to them. Without a child me and my wife would eventually be demoted and sent away in shame.

Finally though we saw signs that things had worked out. My wife started having morning sickness. Soon after obvious signs of pregnancy could be seen and an apprentice diagnoser confirmed it. While this seemed to be good news for us things didn’t look up.

The pregnancy hit her hard. The morning sickness extended well past midday to the point I wondered if she was just constantly sick. Beyond that she started to thin out. No matter how much she ate this didn’t reverse. Soon she looked like a twig except her belly. Luckily I had always done my job well enough that the clan wanted this to work out.

Food was provided as much as she could eat. Even some minor supplements where provided. They even let her stop taking care of her flowerbed at this point and put someone else in charge. Though really this should have tipped me off. However at the time I was just worried about her health.

Then it was time. My child would be born and we could get past the pain or so I thought. If her pregnancy was hard on her, then the birth was hell. From what I heard of it by way of the midwife it was the worst thing she had seen in over five decades. Finally though my child, my boy was born. As the midwife took the child away to be cared for I saw my wife. Saw her for the last time. The birth took too much out of her already frail frame. She died in my arms, her only request is that I don’t blame the child. I swore to her in her last moments that I wouldn’t.

However such things would not be easy for the very next day I received another shock. Now I wasn’t expecting him to have god given talent. In fact with both me and his mother being the lowest of rank 2 talents I was just hoping for maybe a 3. However I was informed after being hand my child that he had no talent. Not low talent or the worst talent but literally none. From there things developed quickly. Luckily it would be even worse karma to kill a clan member or else exile wouldn’t have been the result. His complete lack of talent was seen not only as a bad omen for the clan but the empire as a whole.

So instead of a quick death I was sent with him to ‘visit’ his grandmother. Nevermind the fact that she was in a kingdom on the very edge of the empire. Disregard that we need to use some of the few teleport formations to get there and who knows where they got the money. We got shipped off to the farthest corner that was available.

The town itself was called ‘Beast Edge’ simply because it was on the edge of a tiny forest. This wasn’t even a proper danger zone as there wasn’t enough World Energy for Magical Beasts to form. The only reason it even had any threat was that there was the lowest grade of World Viens located there. A few local sects had even checked it out to see if it had any potential to develop but nothing.

Anyway once at this backward village we didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome. Only my mother was happy to see me. She was sad that after having escaped to the main clan household I got sent back. Though as she said, “life goes on”. However she wasn’t the one in charge of the clan outpost in the village. Me and the child were forced to live in her shed. The clan wanted to separate me and my child from them as much as possible without actually abandoning us.

From my position of a clerk I was demoted to a simple hauler. This was expected of course. However slowly the jobs I received got worses. Today however is probably my last job. They want me to go and pick up some herbs that the slaves collected from the forest and dumped nearby. Let’s just forget that until today they always brought them back when they came home. I am now expected to go retrieve minor herbs left on the edge of a forest full of dangerous animals.

If not today then tomorrow or next week. I will die to a beast. So my son, let me tell you something important. Don’t ever forget that whatever else the world might try to tell you, me and your mother loved you. I have requested your grandmother to secretly teach you to read and write so if you're reading this I have probably been gone for a long time now. We wanted the best for you so always try to reach for a better life. Don’t give up and never surrender to the world. You were loved my son.