In the novel, the Khalejis were portrayed as the type of lowlifes who weren't lacking in wealth but didn't have a single trace of sincerity and goodwill in their hearts.
At the time of reading the novel, Valerius thought the author had exaggerated their negative traits a bit too much, making it hard to believe. After all, how could any human be completely devoid of good qualities?
But after transmigrating and inheriting the memories of his new body's original owner, and learning how badly they had treated him in the past for apparently no good reason other than the fact they seemed to have an inherent dislike for the weak, he understood they were just as the author had described them: heartless monsters that cared for nothing but the glory of the family.
If you could be used for that purpose, they would treat you humanely. If you had no value, they would simply discard you even if you were related to them by blood!
Valerius's parents were both talented wizards. Considering how things worked in this world, it stood to reason that he might be a talented wizard himself.
For the same reason, the head of the Khaleji family adopted Valerius after his parents died in the war.
He believed it was worth adopting him into the family. If Valerius could become a wizard relying on his talent alone, the Khaleji would've become a talented wizard without investing a single cent.
However, after it turned out that Valerius was an unawakened wizard, who couldn't awaken without external help, the family head stopped caring about him. Unawakened wizards could only go so far with support. They could never compare to the talented natural ones!
The rest of the family never liked him since the day he was adopted.
He was brought into the family by their own father, but they blamed him, feeling that he was ruining their perfect family picture by agreeing to enter into it, and thus, they treated him with a lukewarm and sometimes outright cold and harsh attitude.
Just like their father, they became more distant from him when they realized he would never amount to anything.
They didn't know that a child also needs love and care to survive.
The poor orphan was so depressed because of the way they were treating him as if he was some kind of sinful creature who was better off dead that he stopped eating a while ago and grew skinnier by the day.
No one among the Khaleji or their servants noticed his abnormal change, or rather they did but chose to ignore it as they simply didn't care about his well-being.
Valerius J. Khaleji had a weak constitution as he was born prematurely. Not eating for a few days caused him to collapse, and only then did the mistress of the house send a healer to check on him.
The healer, after checking his condition, prescribed him a recovery potion and said he would be fine after taking it for a few days.
'So that's how it is.'
Going through the memories of the original owner of what was now his body, Valerius realized one thing.
The Khaleji didn't want to see a person they had taken under their wings die from domestic abuse and neglect as they cared what the public thought about them.
'Their weakness is that they are pretentious hypocrites. I can exploit it.'
He had a strong dislike for these kinds of people. As it concerned his life, he had no choice but to work with, under, and around them. However, he promised that after securing his life, he would leave them behind.
After recalling the past, Valerius realized another critical detail. Their attitude towards him was bad to the point of being illogical. At the end of the day, he was still their blood relative. Why the need to treat him so terribly?
Then it struck him: 'They might be magicists!'
In the novel 'The Great Conqueror,' there were wizards who scorned non-wizards, treating them contemptuously. In Valerius's previous world, the novel's readers labeled these individuals as 'otherwordly racists.'
In Serphendale, as he now recalled, there were two types of these magicists/otherworldly racists.
The first type, already mentioned, disdained non-wizards. Only non-wizards were the target of their verbal and physical abuse.
The second type looked down upon both non-wizards and unawakened wizards. Unawakened wizards were objects of their scorn simply because they were seen as the least talented among wizards.
Given how the Khalejis and their servants had behaved in his memories, it was evident that they were such magicists.
This vital piece of information was not mentioned in the novel.
Valerius uncovered it from the memories of the original owner of the body he now inhabited, and with this knowledge, the nature of the people surrounding him became much clearer to him.
'They are magicists who consider human life worthless.'
Valerius classified the Khalejis and their servants as monsters in human skin.
Naturally, he couldn't talk to these monsters about his difficulties as not only would they not take him seriously since he had no way of proving that assassins were coming to kill him and no way in hell would they believe he knew what was going to happen in the future, but they would also find fault with him, thinking he was causing a commotion to attract attention.
They might just punish him for causing a commotion and ground him in his room for a month. Then, he wouldn't be able to do a thing but wait for the assassins to come and end his life.
'And yeah, I definitely can't turn to them for help.'
Valerius came to the conclusion that he could only depend on himself in this world to survive the upcoming disaster. His mind raced as he tried to come up with a way to thwart the assassination that was set to take place a month later, but no matter how hard and deeply he thought, he couldn't formulate a plan that would be effective.
"Is there really no way?!"
He pinched his nose bridge, his eyes closing in frustration.
"Huh?"
When his eyes closed, he began to perceive a peculiar light within the depths of his mind, one that twinkled like distant stars against the backdrop of a night sky.
'What is this?' he thought in his mind.