Too Lazy to be a Villainess novel Chapter 328

Chapter 328: From Orphan to Oath

[Haldor’s POV—The Beginning]

I was four when the world ended.

The carriage wheels skidded on wet stone—a shriek of iron, a violent lurch—and then we were falling. Rolling. Crashing. The world turning into splintered wood and screams and darkness.

When the world stopped moving, I didn’t.

I crawled out from the broken carriage door, glass digging into my palms. I didn’t understand the pain. I didn’t understand the blood.

All I understood was one thing, My mother wasn’t moving.

Her hand—the gentle hand that braided my hair every morning—hung motionless against the shattered frame. My father lay beside her, his sword broken, cracks of red spreading beneath his armor like roots of a dying tree.

That day, before I ever learned to write my name, I learned a different word.

Death.

People say grief is heavy. But in that moment, grief wasn’t heavy. It was empty. So empty it swallowed every sound from the world.

I remember pressing my forehead to my mother’s cold hand, waiting for warmth to return, for her eyes to open, for her voice to tell me everything was alright.

But that moment never came. She never moved.

Neither did my father.

Two days later, when the search party finally found us, my tears were gone. They tried asking me questions—but I had no answers left.

Only silence.

They sent me to the orphanage, a place where names meant nothing and survival meant everything.

I learned to bow.

I learned to stay small.

I learned to exist quietly.

Until one morning a teacher whispered, "Tomorrow is a grand celebration in the Empire... The princess turns four."

That was the first time I saw her.

A newspaper photo—the Emperor smiling proudly, the little princess clutching his cloak. Golden hair. Crimson eyes. A smile bright enough to burn through grayscale newsprint.

A world I could never reach.

It was also the last time I let myself believe in fairy tales.

Years passed. No noble adopted me. No one even looked twice. When I turned thirteen, I enlisted—not for glory, not for honor, but because a sword was easier to hold than grief.

And the day I earned mine, the Elorian Commander asked, "You have no family name to wear on your armor. What should we engrave?"

I stared at the blade, remembering the broken one lying in the dirt beside my father.

"Vaelthorn," I said.

The Commander blinked."That is not your birth name."

"It is the name I chose."

He studied me for a long moment—then nodded.

And so my armor read: Haldor Vaelthorn—Knight of Eloria

The first thing I ever earned myself.

At seventeen, I was selected as an Imperial Captain by Sir Ravick. And on that day, I met her again—no longer the child in the newspaper, but the Crown Princess of the Empire.

General Arwin bowed. "Your Highness, I present our new Captain Haldor Vaelthorn."

I bowed too, lowering my head—and when I looked up, she was looking directly at me. Golden hair like sunlight. Crimson eyes sharp as steel. Confidence was carved into every line of her stance.

And then—she smiled.

The first gentle smile anyone had ever given me. "It’s an honor to meet you, Captain."

I swallowed. "The honor is mine, Your Highness."

Her tone shifted—cold steel beneath silk.

"Good. Then I’ll give you your first task."

I nodded, and she continued, "Last night, I hunted down two traitors—the Hidden Emperor Caelum and Marquess Everett. I want you to break the Marquess and make him confess his crimes. If he refuses..." Her eyes burned. "We will use other methods."

I bowed again.

"As you command, Your Highness."

That was my role—listening, obeying, bowing. No questions. No voice.

Until the day her voice thundered across the Imperial Hall:

"FROM THIS MOMENT—I PLACE THE CAPTAIN OF THE IMPERIAL KNIGHTS DIRECTLY BELOW THE CROWN PRINCESS—AND ABOVE ALL OTHER NOBLES!"

The court gasped.

She rewrote the hierarchy—just for me.

Because I bowed. Because someone insulted her captain, and she felt like she was being insulted.

And in that moment, something terrifying and unfamiliar stirred inside my once-empty chest.

For the first time since that cliff...I felt alive again.

That was the day I made my first vow.

To stay beside her. To protect her for as long as she continued to breathe.

It wasn’t a sworn oath spoken in front of the empire. It was not a vow carved on stone or written in blood. It was carved in the bones that survived death and in the heartbeat I thought had stopped long ago—

But she heard it anyway.

She looked at me that day, really looked—and I saw something flicker in her eyes. Surprise. Warmth. Like no one had ever stood with her before... only for her. Like every vow she’d ever received, it promised glorious death, not stubborn survival.

And maybe I was a fool, but I thought, "She looked relieved."

Grand Duke Osric stood at her side already—a man with titles, land, and power. A childhood companion. A legend. Someone who belonged in her world.

A passing tree in her path—easily forgotten.

I had been injured during the attack—a deep cut across my arms. I expected a medic. A servant. Anyone but her.

"It’s done. Now go to Rey as soon as possible."

Why did my skin crawl when someone else touched what she had wrapped? Why did I hate the sound of another person breathing too close to it?

"I see," he murmured. "So I shouldn’t touch your heart, huh? "

Before I could ask, he stepped back and tossed the medical cloth aside. "I’ll leave it, then. Take care of your precious heart, Captain."

Is this why everyone calls him the ’Smug Bastard’?

Everything was going well after that—too well. We seized the Black Wall stronghold, marching straight toward the legendary Red Wall Castle, preparing to tear down the Empire’s most fortified rebellion nest.

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