Reborn as a Hated Noble Family, We Start an Industrial Revolution

​The morning sky stretched out in a sea of cloudless blue. The meadow breeze blew cool and gentle, carrying the sweet scent of sun-baked earth mixed with the fragrance of wildflowers.

​Atop a small grassy hill, Lobrecht lay comfortably on his back, his hands resting behind his head. His eyelids were half-closed, soaking in the warmth of the morning sun.

​Rustle... rustle... tap! The sound of light footsteps tore through the tall grass.

​”LOBRECHT! Breakfast is reaaaady!”

​Anneliese crested the hill. She was barely ten years old, yet her energy overflowed like a wild colt. Her cheeks were flushed pink from running, and her bright blue eyes sparkled with relentless enthusiasm. She panted softly, trying to catch her breath.

​Lobrecht cracked one eye open lazily. ”You sneaked away from the chapel again.”

​”Of course I did! I have something to show you!” Anneliese thrust her tiny hands right in front of Lobrecht’s face. Vwuum. Above her palms, a small orb of light glowed softly and warmly—it was her very first successfully stabilized Light spell.

​Lobrecht opened both eyes wide now, the edge of his eyebrow twitching upward. ”Whoa. Not bad.”

​”Just not bad?!” Anneliese immediately puffed her cheeks in profound annoyance. ”Hey, just so you know, I practiced for a whole week until my fingers cramped! One day, I’m definitely going to be chosen as the Holy Maiden. You just wait and see!”

​Lobrecht carved a faint, genuine smile and ruffled the girl’s silver hair. ”Yeah, yeah. I believe you.”

​Hearing that, Anneliese’s face broke into a wide, toothy grin. She instantly grabbed Lobrecht’s sleeve and pulled with all her might. ”Come on, get up! Or else Kanzon is going to eat all of our boiled potatoes again!”

​Inside the chapel’s dining hall, a long, simple wooden table was already surrounded by its residents.

​In the center of the table, a large bowl of boiled potatoes released thick, mouth-watering steam. Pastor Aldus stood at the head of the table, wiping his frayed apron. His light brown hair was a messy mop, a testament to him cooking since the crack of dawn.

​Kanzon—an energetic seven-year-old boy—sat rigidly with his arms crossed on the table, his eyes glaring hungrily at the potatoes. Nearby, Biscotta and Torta, two five-year-old toddlers, were busy elbowing each other, fighting over a chair.

​”Lobrecht!” Pastor Aldus pointed at the boy using his wooden soup ladle. ”Come on, lead the grace today.”

​Lobrecht nodded obediently. Every head at the table instantly bowed, hands folding together.

​Lobrecht closed his eyes, uttering a prayer that was incredibly brief, simple, and completely devoid of any flowery celestial jargon. ”Thank you for today’s blessings. Thank you for this warm food. And... thank you for this family.”

​”AMEEEN!” Biscotta shrieked, louder than the rest. Torta echoed with a lisping shout. Meanwhile, Kanzon had already snatched the largest potato in the bowl.

​Pastor Aldus chuckled softly, taking a seat beside Anneliese. ”So... I heard a certain young lady finally managed to stabilize her Light magic?”

​Anneliese, who had just taken a bite of her potato, nearly choked. Cough! ”Eh? You saw it, Pastor?!”

​”Of course I did. You’ve been bragging about it to everyone in the village since sunrise, haven’t you?” the Pastor teased.

​The wooden dining table erupted in a chorus of bright laughter.

​Lobrecht peeled his potato slowly, letting his eyes record every single detail around him. Kanzon stubbornly stuffing piping-hot potatoes into his mouth. Biscotta diligently blowing on her food to feed little Torta. Anneliese, her eyes burning with passion as she babbled endlessly about her dream of becoming the Holy Maiden. And Pastor Aldus, listening to it all with a warm, fatherly smile, occasionally ruffling the orphans’ hair.

​This is enough, Lobrecht thought, breathing in the warmth of the steaming food before him. Living like this... is more than enough for me.

​Five years passed like a breath of wind.

​The exact same peaceful routine continued its cycle. Morning prayers filled with light banter. Breakfasts of freshly harvested potatoes. Magic practice in the grassy meadows. And crisp laughter ringing over the dining table.

​Biscotta could now read thick books fluently. Torta no longer lisped when calling people’s names. Kanzon had grown into a strong teenager who diligently helped Pastor Aldus chop firewood.

​Anneliese... the girl had now mastered intermediate-tier Light magic. Her orbs of light were no longer just for illumination; they could now blind an enemy’s eyes. Meanwhile, Lobrecht—the quiet, observant young man—had secretly and entirely self-taught himself an affinity that absolutely no one in the village possessed: the Shadow Attribute.

​They weren’t a family bound by blood. But they were a true family nonetheless.

​That afternoon, Lobrecht and Anneliese were on their way back from the meadows.

​In their teenage years, the two of them increasingly spent time alone together—whether using magic practice as an excuse, or simply sitting in silence to enjoy the twilight. A seed of emotion, one that did not yet have a name, was beginning to bloom beautifully between them.

​”Do you think... we’ll just keep living peacefully like this forever, Lobrecht?” Anneliese suddenly asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

​Lobrecht turned his head slightly, studying her side profile. ”What do you mean?”

​”Just staying together. In this village. Growing old alongside Pastor Aldus and the other kids.”

​Lobrecht didn’t answer immediately. He looked up at the evening sky, which was beginning to paint itself in hues of crimson. For some reason, the twilight air felt slightly heavier to breathe today. A dark, inexplicable premonition weighed heavily in his chest, defying all logic.

​They heard the shrill, bloodcurdling screams long before they saw the fire.

​CRACKLE! KABOOM!

​The sky above their village abruptly warped into a sickening, dark purple. A pitch-black spatial rift tore through the air directly above the chapel. From within the dimensional tear, three winged monstrosities plummeted down. Their eyes glowed the color of coagulated blood. Their black talons glinted, reflecting the light of the fires that had already begun devouring the wooden houses.

​A Demonic Gate.

​Lobrecht and Anneliese’s eyes widened in sheer horror. They sprinted as fast as their legs could carry them. Vaulting over shattered wooden fences. Tearing through doorways that had already been kicked open by death itself.

​Their village was being burned alive.

​Corpses littered the dirt paths. Lobrecht’s heart felt as if it stopped beating as he recognized the lifeless faces—the neighbor uncle who always gave them leftover wheat bread, the old shepherd who constantly cracked dry jokes, the elderly aunt who sang beautifully while drawing water from the well. All of them lay dead, their bodies violently torn apart.

​Faster. Faster. Move faster! Lobrecht cursed his own legs in his mind.

​In the front courtyard of the small chapel, which was now licking with flames, Pastor Aldus stood frozen with both arms spread wide. A ferocious magical fire blazed in both his palms. Right behind the Pastor’s legs, Kanzon, Biscotta, and Torta huddled together, hugging each other, trembling in terror as they wept hysterically.

​One demon already lay dead at the Pastor’s feet—its body half-charred to a crisp.

​However, the remaining two demons hovered viciously above.

​”RUN, KIDS! GET OUT OF HERE!!” Pastor Aldus roared, glancing back over his shoulder.

​One demon lunged straight from the front. Aldus frantically parried the assault by summoning a wall of fire. BAM! However, it was merely a distraction. The second demon dove sharply from a vertical blind spot. SLASH! The monster’s black talons fatally tore through Pastor Aldus’s back. Fresh blood sprayed into the air. The Pastor collapsed face-first into the dirt. His protective flames died instantly.

​”PASTOR!!” Kanzon let out an agonizing scream. Biscotta buried Torta’s face deeper into her embrace, shielding the toddler’s eyes.

​And then... everything became incredibly quiet. And fast.

​Anneliese screamed.

​FWOOSH!

​A pillar of holy light erupted violently from the girl’s body—its radiance so blinding it forced the two demons to shriek and shield their burning eyes.

​On the other hand, Lobrecht didn’t scream at all. The young man’s face was as flat as a corpse.

​Yet, the pitch-black shadows beneath his feet vibrated madly, before exploding outward! SWISH! The shadow elongated, manifesting into a dense, solid black spear that shot straight through the chest of the first demon. The monster’s heart was obliterated. It collapsed instantly, dead before it could even make a sound.

​Anneliese, weeping in pure fury, unleashed a colossal sphere of light. BAM! The second demon was launched backward, smashing into the chapel wall. Before the beast could even crawl back up, shadow tendrils erupted from Lobrecht’s feet, slithering rapidly to tightly choke its neck from below. Pinning it in a death grip.

​A split second later, Anneliese’s sphere of light plummeted from above, striking flawlessly. The second demon’s body was pulverized, vaporizing into black ash.

​However, the third demon—the first monster that Pastor Aldus had managed to burn earlier—was apparently still alive, desperately flapping its torn wings to escape the two possessed teenagers.

​Anneliese showed no mercy. The girl shot swiftly into the air. The rays of light in her hands condensed, elongating into a blinding holy sword. With a single, hatred-fueled horizontal slash... the demon’s head rolled onto the dusty ground.

​Dead silence.

​Only the crackling of the burning chapel wood remained. Thick gray smoke billowed from the ruins. The air around them was poisoned by the nauseating blend of burning human flesh and demonic sulfur.

​Anneliese stood rigidly amidst the sea of her neighbors’ corpses. The girl’s breathing was utterly erratic. Her arms shook violently. Tears streamed endlessly down her cheeks, yet her expression was locked in a state of profound hatred.

​”They’re... they’re all dead...” Anneliese’s voice broke in her throat.

​Lobrecht stepped forward slowly, dragging his feet. Moving past the bodies of the villagers. His eyes searched desperately near the ruins of the altar.

​Kanzon... lay breathless with a massive laceration across his chest. Biscotta... was still hugging Torta’s blood-soaked body tightly beneath the rubble. They hadn’t made it. Not a single one of those mischievous smiles had survived.

​Lobrecht’s footsteps stopped in front of Pastor Aldus’s body. The back of the pastor who used to cook potatoes for them was now a torn, mangled mess of thick blood. But as Lobrecht crouched down, he saw the pastor’s chest still rising and falling. Barely. Incredibly, incredibly weak.

​”Lobrecht...” Anneliese sobbed, stumbling over to him. ”We have to... we have to call a healer... we...”

​The girl couldn’t finish the foolish illusion of her sentence. Her cries broke into heart-wrenching sobs. She dropped to her knees in the ash of the ruined chapel, hugging herself as she shivered in overwhelming grief.

​Lobrecht slowly rose to his feet. He stood frozen in silence.

​His eyes stared blankly at the village that had been turned into a mass grave. Staring at the bodies of his younger siblings who would never laugh or fight over food again. Staring at the ruins of the only warm home he had ever known in this cold world.

​Lobrecht didn’t cry. Not a single tear fell from his eyes.

​But deep within the hollow of his chest, something fractured and shattered into a million pieces. Something fundamentally vital, something that could never be stitched back together or healed by any god.

​Night fell with ruthless cruelty.

​On the outskirts of the dead village, a small campfire flickered, illuminating three humans. The absolute last remnants of breathing life from that place.

​Lobrecht sat silently, hugging his knees. Anneliese sat curled up beside him, her eyes severely swollen even though she had completely run out of tears to shed. Meanwhile, Pastor Aldus lay unconscious near the warmth of the fire—his wounds poorly bandaged using torn scraps of robes, his breathing teetering precariously on the razor’s edge between life and death.

​”You’ve just been quiet this whole time,” Anneliese murmured, breaking the silence, her voice completely hoarse and raspy. She stared intently at the side profile of Lobrecht’s face. ”Why aren’t you crying at all, Lobrecht? Why aren’t you screaming in anger?”

​Lobrecht didn’t blink, his gaze locked onto the embers of the campfire crackling as they devoured dry twigs. Crackle...

​”I am incredibly angry, Anne,” Lobrecht said softly, his voice utterly hollow and dead. ”I just... don’t know who I am supposed to vent this anger upon.”

​Anneliese didn’t fully comprehend the terrifying depth of that sentence. But it was fine. Tonight, they just needed to close their eyes and survive.

​Because tomorrow morning, when the sun rose... both of their lives would be changed forever.