Rebellion Rising from the Depths: Mocked by the Hero Who Impregnated My Childhood Friend Before My Very Eyes.

That Which Could Not Be Protected.

After being cast out of the guild, Noah didn’t look back—not even once.

He knew that if he turned around, his feet would surely stop.

The morning in the royal capital was as dazzling as yesterday’s, the cobblestones wearing that distinct whiteness peculiar to a clear day. The streets were already teeming with people; stalls were lining up freshly baked bread, and washerwomen were laughing by the well. It was a peaceful morning scene, not a single thing changed from the days before.

Amidst it all, Noah alone ran as if he were something broken.

His chest flared with pain at every breath. His side creaked, and the swelling on his cheekbone throbbed in time with his pulse. But none of that mattered. The bent adventurer’s tag in his palm grew slick with sweat. Only the sensation of the cancellation mark digging into his skin was vividly clear.

The eligibility for medical vouchers for dependents is also revoked at the same time.

Those words repeated in his head like a cursed mantra.

The medicine would stop.

His father’s medicine.

What if they had already cut it off last night? What if this morning’s dose hadn’t been delivered?

Every time the thought surfaced, his pace quickened of its own accord. He collided with the shoulders of passersby and was showered with shouts of anger, but he lacked even the luxury of an apology.

By the time the southern residential district came into view, the taste of blood filled the back of his throat. Sweat stung his eyes, blurring his vision. The familiar alleys felt strangely distant.

When he finally reached the front of his house, someone was standing at the door.

It was the old woman from next door. She was a small, bent-backed woman who always looked out for his father. The moment she saw Noah’s face, her eyes widened in shock.

“Noah-sama…! What happened to your face?”

“Where’s Dad?”

He was so out of breath that the words caught in his throat.

“Is Dad okay?”

The color drained instantly from the old woman’s face.

In that single second, the unwelcome answer was all but given.

“He’s been suffering since early this morning. The coughing won’t stop, and the fever is dreadful… I tried to run to the apothecary, but they said they couldn’t issue the medicine anymore.”

“…Why?”

His own voice sounded terribly distant.

The old woman hesitated, her eyes darting about.

“I don’t know. Something about the guild mark being invalidated, or that it was stopped from above… Besides, around noon, some men in fine clothes came by and were looking over your house. Did something happen, Noah-坊?”

Men in fine clothes.

He didn’t even have to think about it. Messengers from the Hero’s house.

Noah couldn’t even bring himself to answer; he simply shoved the door open.

***

The inside of the room was dim despite it being morning. The windows were shut tight, and the air was stagnant with the smell of decocting herbs and the heavy, feverish heat unique to the sick. On the bed, his father was taking short, shallow breaths.

He was clearly worse than yesterday.

His cheeks were more hollowed, his lips dry and cracked, and his chest heaved painfully with every breath. With every cough, his shoulders shook violently, followed by a sickening rattle from deep within his throat.

“Dad!”

Noah rushed to his side.

His father’s eyes slowly fluttered open. An unfocused gaze caught Noah and then softened just a fraction.

“…Oh, you’re back?”

The voice was faint, little more than a raspy breath.

“The medicine? Did you take this morning’s medicine?”

He grabbed the small vial by the pillow. It was empty.

Only a few grains of sediment shifted with the trembling of his fingers; not a single drop remained.

“Ran out with the morning dose,” his father laughed painfully.

“But, well… I figured it would show up eventually.”

Noah froze, staring at the empty vial.

It wasn’t coming.

It would never come again.

The moment his guild qualification was revoked, the dependency medical vouchers had also expired. Furthermore, pressure was being applied from above. They had already made their move yesterday.

All to crush him.

And in that process, the fact that his father was being dragged into it was a matter of less than a speck of dust to them.

“Wait here.”

Noah stood up, still clutching the vial.

“I’ll buy some right now. If it’s money—”

He thrust his hand into his pocket and stopped. The reserves at the guild had been frozen. All he had on him was the spare change he’d left as living expenses for the house. Hardly any silver. He didn’t know if it would be enough.

Still, he had no choice but to go.

“Noah,” his father called.

“Later is fine. Just… sit for a moment.”

“I can’t. You need it right now, don’t you?”

“It’s fine.”

If it had been his father’s usual voice, Noah wouldn’t have been able to resist. But the current voice was so weak it only fanned the flames of his panic.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Noah.”

This time, the word was mixed with a cough. Something dark red seeped from the corner of his father’s mouth, and a chill ran down Noah’s spine.

“…Did the talk… go well?”

At that question, the world stopped for a moment.

Ah, this man was still in last night. He thought Noah had taken the ring and gone to see Lydie. He had sent him off with a slightly bashful look, hoping things would go well.

Noah bit his lip.

He couldn’t say it. That everything was broken. That his keepsake, his feelings, his job—everything had been stolen. There was no way he could say such a thing to his father’s face right now.

“…I’ll tell you later.”

With only that, Noah bolted from the house.

***

When he reached the street, the midday sun poured down mercilessly. His vision flickered. His lungs burned. But he couldn’t care.

The nearest apothecary was around the corner two streets away. That was where he always collected his father’s medicine. It was a system where showing a guild voucher allowed for a prescription—a razor-thin social safety net that barely kept the poor alive.

The moment he pushed open the shop door, the scent of dry herbs hit his nose. Vials of all sizes lined the shelves, and dried leaves hung from the ceiling. Normally, it was a scent that brought some measure of calm, but today it offered only suffocation.

The shopkeeper behind the counter looked up and scowled explicitly the moment he saw Noah.

“…What do you want?”

“Medicine for my father. The usual blend. Three days’ worth is fine. No, even one day.”

Noah held out the empty vial.

The shopkeeper didn’t even look at it.

“Can’t issue it.”

The answer was immediate.

“Please.”

“I said I can’t.”

“I’ll pay. Even if it’s not enough now, I’ll definitely work and—”

“Work?” The shopkeeper’s mouth twisted. “Where? You’re the incompetent whose qualification was revoked this morning.”

His heart went cold.

It had already spread this far.

The shopkeeper crossed his arms and let out a blatantly disgusted sigh.

“We don’t want any trouble here. A notice came first thing this morning that your medical vouchers were voided. If it were just that, it would be one thing, but even the Hero’s house steward took the trouble to come by personally. He said, ‘Providing medicine to Noah Feld or his associates without authorization shall be deemed an act of disturbing the order of the capital.’”

Noah was lost for words.

Providing medicine.

Disturbing the order.

Was selling medicine to his father considered such a thing?

“That’s…”

“We’re a small shop. If the Hero’s house eyes us, it’s the end.”

The shopkeeper spoke with an irritated voice, but there was no sympathy in it. There was only the natural calculation to protect his own position.

“I’m begging you.” Noah placed both hands on the counter. “My father is dying. If he doesn’t have it today, it’s over. Just the prescription ingredients, even in powder form. I’ll mix it myself.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” The shopkeeper’s voice went cold. “Who would sell medicine to a man who tried to assault the Hero’s fiancée? If something happened because of that medicine, what then? We’d be treated as accomplices.”

“I didn’t assault anyone!”

When he shouted involuntarily, the customers in the shop flinched. Immediately, cold stares were directed his way.

“There he goes.” “So it’s true that he flies into a rage.” “How scary…”

The whispers pierced him.

The shopkeeper took a step back from the counter. “Don’t raise your voice. I’ll call the guards.”

“Please…”

He no longer had the energy to shout. Noah simply bowed his head so low his forehead nearly touched the wood.

“My father hasn’t committed any crime. I don’t care what happens to me, but please, just for him—”

He felt tears fall onto the floorboards. It might have been sweat. It didn’t matter.

But all that returned was a heavy silence.

Eventually, the shopkeeper spoke lowly.

“Go home.”

That was all.

Noah raised his head. Beyond his blurred vision, the shopkeeper’s face was locked tight. He was afraid. This man too. Of the Hero’s house. Of power. Of rumors. Of trouble. And so, he would watch a sick man die.

No—it wasn’t just fear. It was because he believed it was okay to abandon this person. He didn’t even hesitate when weighing the life of a single sick man from the slums against the safety of his own shop.

Noah slammed all the spare change he had onto the counter.

The copper coins scattered with a dry clatter.

“Just for whatever this can buy.”

The shopkeeper glanced at them and pushed them back with his fingertip.

“I told you to go home.”

The coins fell to the floor.

The dry sound was unnervingly loud.

Noah listened to that sound for a while. Eventually, he crouched down and gathered the scattered coppers. His hands shook so much he couldn’t pick them up properly. One of the customers moved pointedly away, as if his condition were contagious.

Somehow clutching the coins, Noah left the shop.

***

The light outside was painful.

The clamor of the street sounded distant. Someone was discussing lunch. A child was laughing. The world moved on without change, yet the air around him was as heavy as a swamp.

Even after that, Noah ran.

He went to a medicine seller in a back alley—a man who had once sold him cheap pain relievers for old wounds. But the moment the door opened, the man looked at Noah’s face and shook his head.

“Sorry. We’re out of stock right now.”

Even though Noah could see vials lined up on the shelves.

He visited a healer’s hut in the slums. An old woman who looked at the wounds of the poor for charity. But she too lowered her eyes in distress.

“The guards came by earlier. Told me not to get involved with you. I don’t want to be kicked out myself.”

He even ran to the temple’s infirmary. He raced up the white stone steps and told the priest at the reception about his father’s symptoms. But all that came back were words about a lack of donations, a waiting list, and regulations. Finally, someone whispered, “Isn’t that the man from that incident?” and signaled to a guard.

Everywhere he went, he was met with the same eyes.

Eyes that looked at someone not worth caring for, even before pity.

The fool who defied the Hero, and his family.

As nothing more than that.

***

By the time the sun began to dip, Noah’s legs were no longer following his commands. He tripped many times, slamming his shoulder into walls, and every time, pain shot through his entire body. But all he had in his hand was the first medicine vial. It remained empty.

The walk back home was terrifying.

What if he didn’t make it in time?

What if it was already too late?

Every time he thought about it, the pit of his stomach contracted coldly. Still, he had no choice but to return. There were no miracles. If he couldn’t do anything himself, the least he could do was hold his father’s hand at the end.

When he shoved open the door, the air in the room was even heavier than it had been this morning.

The old woman from next door was sitting with a water bucket. When she saw Noah, she stepped aside without a word. Her eyes all but told him the answer.

He rushed to the bed.

His father was still alive.

But Noah knew at a glance that he didn’t have much time left. His breaths were shallow and fast, his chest rising and falling irregularly. A wet cloth was placed on his forehead, but the fever was high enough to be felt even beneath it. His eyes were half-closed, and his brows occasionally furrowed in pain.

“Dad.”

Noah knelt by the side of the bed.

His father’s eyelids slowly lifted.

“…You’re back?”

“The medicine…”

His words trailed off there. How could he say it? That he couldn’t buy it. That no one would sell it to him. That their own self-preservation was more important than his life. Because of me.

He couldn’t say it.

His father looked at Noah’s face and gave a small smile, as if sensing everything.

“I see.”

That was all.

No blame. No surprise. Just a quiet, accepting tone that, conversely, tore Noah’s heart apart.

“I’m sorry.”

The words spilled out of their own accord from deep within his throat.

“I’m sorry, Dad. Because… because of me…”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No!” Noah shouted involuntarily. “I was a fool. Because I went there yesterday, I lost my job, the medicine was stopped… If I had done things properly, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Noah.”

His father’s voice was weak, but strangely, Noah fell silent at that.

His father slowly raised his hand and touched Noah’s arm. It was a bony, hot hand.

“Your face looks terrible.”

At those words, the back of Noah’s eyes grew hot.

His father didn’t ask anything else. Not about Lydie, not about work, not about what had happened. Noah’s swollen cheek and the bent adventurer’s tag were likely more than enough for him to understand.

“…I’ll take the pain, even just a little.”

Noah gripped his father’s hand.

There was so little he could do. Still, he couldn’t stand to watch without doing anything.

He steadied his breathing and concentrated. Like always, he searched for the sensation of pulling someone else’s pain and heat into himself.

Gradually, the heat began to flow in.

The heavy, oppressive pain nesting deep in his father’s chest. The searing fever. The dull agony that scratched at his lungs with every breath. They flooded into Noah. It was a sensation he should have been used to, but today, his body was near its limit. The original wounds, the lack of sleep, the hunger, the nerves frayed by the interrogation. All of it resisted, and his vision wavered.

“Stop.” His father gave a faint shake of his head.

“But…”

“You’re already on the verge of collapsing.”

“Just a little more.”

He forced himself to take it on. His throat burned, and he vomited what had welled up onto the floor. It was mixed with red. The old woman next door gasped.

Still, Noah didn’t let go. The wrinkles between his father’s brows relaxed just a fraction. His breathing became easier for a moment. That tiny change made it impossible for Noah to stop.

More. A little more. If I can just reduce the suffering a bit.

But the next moment, his father’s hand gripped Noah’s wrist with unexpected strength.

“I told you to stop.”

It was the strongest voice yet. A cough immediately followed, and blood spilled from the corner of his lips, but his father still looked at Noah with a glare.

“Don’t take on even my end.”

At those words, the strength left Noah’s body.

The end.

He didn’t want to hear such a word. But reality was already right there.

Noah looked down and pressed his father’s hand to his forehead. It was hot. It was the temperature of the living, yet it was a temperature that was already being lost.

For a while, there was only the sound of ragged breathing in the room.

Outside, the sound of someone taking in laundry could be heard. A dog barked in the distance. The inconsequential sounds of evening life in the city. Their ordinariness was cruel.

Eventually, his father spoke in a raspy voice.

“…Noah. I still remember the day I picked you up.”

Noah raised his head.

His father was staring at the ceiling, his eyes narrowed slightly.

“It was a rainy day. You were soaking wet in the shadow of a wooden box in an alley. You were still small, yet you were a child who wouldn’t cry. You didn’t make a sound, just stared steadily at me.”

Noah couldn’t say anything.

His father had told that story several times on drunken nights. But today, it sounded as if it held a completely different meaning.

“Your mother couldn’t leave you, so she picked you up. I thought it was a bother. We were poor, and we had our hands full just with ourselves. But even after you came home, you weren’t any trouble at all… You were a strange child. Always watching people’s expressions, trying to feed us first even when you were hungry yourself.”

A faint smile touched the corners of his lips.

“Even the first time you had a fever. You saw the kid next door fall and cry, and even though you were the one who was staggering, you tried to go over there. I thought you were a fool.”

“…Dad.”

“You were always like that.”

His father’s gaze slowly turned toward Noah.

Even if clouded by fever, his eyes alone were strangely clear.

“You hated people’s pain as if it were your own. You couldn’t leave them be when you saw them suffering. Even if no one was watching, even if no one praised you, you’d take it on yourself. You’ve always been that way.”

Noah’s throat trembled.

He wanted to talk back. I’m not such a noble person. I just didn’t want to be hated, didn’t want to be abandoned—maybe I just wanted to be needed. That might be why I’ve made a pained face for the sake of others.

Yet, seeing through even that baseness, his father remained calm.

“That’s why,” his father breathed, touching the swelling on Noah’s cheek with a thin finger. There was pain, but strangely, it wasn’t unwelcome.

“No matter what anyone says to you, don’t you ever call yourself that.”

Noah blinked.

“You are not incompetent.”

In that moment, something deep in his chest creaked loudly.

The word he had been showered with many times today. The name that had been thrown at him over and over since long ago, like a joke. Incompetent. Good-for-nothing. Luggage carrier. A man whose presence or absence is the same.

But now, the one person who had truly looked at him denied it.

“I know how much pain you were in when you came home. I could tell even if you hid it. You’re a terrible liar.”

His father smiled faintly and then fell into a coughing fit. His chest rose and fell painfully.

“I don’t understand anything about fighting. I don’t know about heroes or glory. But I do know that you were covered in wounds for someone else’s sake. So… don’t discard even yourself.”

Tears finally fell from Noah’s eyes.

Once the first one fell, they wouldn’t stop. They stained his father’s blanket in drips. A pathetic sob escaped him, and he couldn’t even suppress it.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Dad… I couldn’t protect anything…”

“Fool.”

His father’s hand rested weakly on Noah’s head.

It was the same gesture he had used on the nights Noah had a fever as a child.

“Don’t just count the things you couldn’t protect. You’ve protected things properly up until now.”

“But…!”

“Just listen.”

It must have been hard to breathe; his father’s voice was gradually becoming raspier. Still, he continued word by word, as if savoring them.

“If anyone tries to trample you from now on… don’t you make yourself cheap. Do you understand?”

Noah nodded over and over. He could do nothing but nod.

His father’s finger gave Noah’s hair a single stroke.

“…I’ll tell your mother that, too.”

At those words, Noah raised his head.

His father already had eyes that were looking somewhere far away.

“Wait.”

He reflexively gripped his hand. The thin fingertips were hot, yet at the same time, terribly frail.

“Wait for me. I still… there are still things we haven’t talked about. I’ll… I’ll work properly, buy even better medicine, a house even—”

His words crumbled.

Even though he knew such a future no longer existed anywhere, his mouth desperately clung to it.

His father narrowed his eyes just a fraction.

“Noah.”

The voice was surprisingly calm.

“Live.”

It was a short sentence.

But he understood that it was a deathbed wish.

Noah shook his head. No, his lips moved without sound. He felt the old woman crying behind him. An evening breeze slipped in through some gap, flickering the candle flame.

His father’s chest rose and fell deeply once.

The next breath was a little weaker.

The one after that, even more so.

“Dad.”

He squeezed the hand he was holding.

No response came back.

“Dad.”

He called again.

His father’s lips moved slightly at the end. It looked as if he said something, but it didn’t form a sound. Still, Noah felt he understood.

It’s okay. Don’t cry.

It must have been words like that, caring for someone until the very end.

And in the next moment, his father’s chest no longer moved.

It was quiet.

It was far too quiet.

When the sounds of breathing that had been rattling painfully just moments ago vanished, it felt as if the room itself had become empty. The sounds of everyday life continued in the distance. The world remained as it was, but it felt as if this place alone had been cut out and stopped.

Noah couldn’t move for a while, still holding his father’s hand.

The heat still remained. But he could tell it was slowly, surely being lost. To Noah, who had taken on the wounds and heat of others so many times, the boundary was painfully obvious.

He hadn’t made it in time.

He hadn’t protected him.

No matter how much he struggled, in the end, he hadn’t made it in time for a single thing.

Supporting the Hero, vomiting blood, working, enduring—he couldn’t even save a single precious person.

That fact finally fell onto his body with its true weight.

Noah wrapped his father’s hand in both of his and pressed his forehead to it.

A cry escaped from the depths of his throat. The sobbing gradually grew louder until it could no longer be suppressed. Like a child, pathetically, he could only cry before an irreparable loss.

The old woman from next door gently touched his shoulder, but Noah couldn’t pull away, nor did he have the energy to.

***

He didn’t know how long he had been like that.

By the time the sun had set, the room had grown dark, and another candle had been lit, the sound of a bell rang out from outside.

A clear, high bell echoing from the center of the capital.

It was the same sound that had announced the beginning of the triumphal entry yesterday.

The bell praising the Hero.

The sound of glory for the one who saved the kingdom.

That sound reached even this small room where his father’s remains lay.

Noah raised his face, wet with tears.

A voice like a breath escaped from the corners of his parched lips.

“…Don’t mess with me.”