SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant-Chapter 457: Real Birthday Gift [I]

The following morning, Trafalgar had not slept at all. He had remained awake through the entire night, lying there with his eyes open in the dark until the black outside the windows slowly gave way to the pale light of dawn. Even now, already dressed and prepared to leave, the same restless feeling still clung to him like something thin and cold under the skin.

It irritated him more than anything else. A week had already passed since the war. The fighting was over. The dead were being buried. Everything should have settled by now, and yet sleep refused to come to him properly.

’This is getting annoying honestly. I don’t have any trauma. I’m not shaken. So why can’t I have some good sleep?’

He tried to measure himself honestly and found nothing that made sense. His mind was clear. His hands were steady. He felt no guilt, regret, or fear. If anything, the war had only made one thing clearer. Somewhere along the way he had become more like a true Morgain than before. Killing no longer stirred anything inside him if it was necessary. He would not kill without purpose, nor waste effort on meaningless cruelty, but his enemies would never receive mercy simply because they begged for it. That much had already become natural.

So what was it?

He could not name the thing keeping him awake. It was not pain. It was not panic. Just a quiet unease sitting in the back of his mind and refusing to leave, as if something had shifted during the war and he had not fully understood it yet.

Trafalgar exhaled slowly and moved toward the door. Lysandra had told him the previous night that Valttair wanted to see him. Wanted to give him something, specifically. That made his eyes narrow slightly. ’It better be worth my time. After everything I’ve had to do, the least he can do is make it worthwhile.’

He reached the door, placed a hand on it, and pulled it open.

Then he stopped.

Standing directly on the other side, already in front of his room as if he had arrived at the exact same moment, was a tall man with long loose platinum-blond hair and sharp grey eyes that landed on Trafalgar the instant the door opened.

Valttair.

For a second Trafalgar only looked at him in silence. ’He came to me himself?’

That surprised him more than the meeting itself. Wanting to see him was one thing. Coming personally to his room was another entirely.

Valttair remained silent for a second longer, then stepped forward without asking.

Trafalgar moved aside on instinct, letting him pass. As soon as Valttair crossed the threshold, his voice came out in the same calm, cold tone that always seemed to belong to him naturally. "Close the door and come in."

Trafalgar did as told. By then Valttair had already walked further inside and taken a seat on the edge of the bed as if he had every right to be there. No servants. No guards. No witnesses. Just the two of them.

"Lysandra told me last night that you wanted to see me," Trafalgar said. "I was actually about to head to your office right now, but it seems you got here first."

"Yes. Your stepmothers were in the office, so I did not feel like letting them hear what I wanted to say."

Trafalgar’s expression shifted slightly. "You couldn’t just tell them to leave?"

"No one knows I was planning to give you something except Lysandra. If you had walked into my office and I told them all to leave, they would have started asking questions. I did not feel like listening to them afterward."

Trafalgar understood the logic immediately. This was not meant to be a public gesture. That alone made it more unusual. "I see," he said, then added half dry and half serious, "So this is an actual gift, then. I think I’ve done more than enough to meet your expectations."

Valttair looked at him in silence for a moment before answering. "You did more than meet them. You surpassed them."

The words were plain, sharp, and completely serious.

"I did not expect you to hold out against the intelligent Void Creature for that long," Valttair continued. "Yes, it had already been weakened after fighting me and Lysandra before that, but even so, I did not expect what I saw. I doubt anyone who watched you did." His gaze remained fixed on Trafalgar. "And beyond that, you completed the mission of protecting the Thal’zar heirs. In the final exchange, you played a larger role than anyone expected."

Trafalgar stayed quiet. Praise from Valttair was rare enough to feel almost unnatural, especially when it came this directly. There was no warmth in it, no softness.

Valttair fell silent for a beat, still looking at him.

Trafalgar narrowed his eyes slightly. "Then why did you stay there watching?"

Valttair held his gaze without looking away. "Because I wanted to see how far you would go."

Trafalgar said nothing.

"At first, I only intended to watch for a little longer," Valttair continued. "But the more you fought, the more obvious it became. With every Void Creature you killed, you were changing." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Your movements improved. You became faster. More efficient. More lethal. More used to death."

The room fell quiet again.

"I could see you growing in the middle of the battle," Valttair said. "So I let it continue. If I had stepped in too early, you would have survived, but you would not have gained what you did from that fight. Instead, you were forced into an impossible situation, and in the middle of it, you broke through." His voice remained even. "In the end, it was the correct decision. And it was good for the family."

That answer settled heavily in Trafalgar’s mind. ’So he really noticed it.’

That was the part that stood out the most. Not the logic itself, because in Valttair’s case it made complete sense. It was the fact that he had seen the difference so clearly. No one else should have been able to tell what was happening with such precision. But Valttair had. He had watched him kill Void Creatures and understood that Trafalgar was not simply surviving.

He was gaining something from each death.

[Riftborn Devourer (Passive)].

Valttair did not know the name of the skill, but he had seen the result anyway. He had let Trafalgar remain in danger because he realized he was growing in real time. It was not kindness. It was not cruelty either. It was simply Valttair’s way.

Trafalgar stayed silent for a few seconds, letting the thought settle. Even with the resentment he still carried toward the man in front of him, he could not deny the truth. That decision had benefited him enormously. In a short span of time, he had gained far more than he should have.

’Then I just have to keep doing the same,’ he thought. ’Take everything useful I can from this family until I become strong enough.’

Valttair studied him for a moment longer, then reached for something at his side. "Well," he said. "Take it."