Leszar De Lamar had always known he didn't belong. He didn't belong in the towering halls of the De Lamar estate, with its marble floors, grand staircases, and rooms filled with priceless artifacts that reflected centuries of power and wealth. He didn't belong in the prestigious VR company his father, Anton De Lamar, had built from the ground up, a company that had changed the face of virtual reality gaming. And most of all, he didn't belong in his father's eyes.
He was a secret—a mistake.
Anton had been clear about that from the beginning, even before Les was old enough to understand the weight of his father's words. "Your existence doesn't change the course of this family," Anton had once said, his voice a steely monotone that sent chills down Les' spine. "You're not here because you earned it. You're here because I allowed it."
Les had heard these words when he was barely old enough to understand what they meant. Growing up under the constant shadow of his father's disdain, he quickly learned that everything in his life was conditional. His father's wealth, the lavish surroundings, the endless opportunities—they were all reminders that he had never truly earned his place in this world. They were given, not deserved, and Anton never let him forget it.
He was the bastard son, the product of an affair, and while the world outside the family didn't know about him, the weight of that secret hung heavy over his every interaction with his father. Anton's cold gaze, the disappointment that always lingered behind his eyes, was a constant reminder that Les would never be enough. He would never be one of them.
Not truly.
It wasn't that Les didn't try. He tried—harder than most—but his efforts were always met with indifference, or worse, with barely concealed contempt. He could still remember the early days, when he first showed an interest in VR development, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he could earn his father's respect through sheer determination.
As a child, he had been fascinated by the virtual worlds his father's company created. The first time he put on a VR headset, he had felt a sense of wonder and awe that no other experience could replicate. The immersive environments, the limitless possibilities—it was like stepping into another reality, a place where anything was possible. And more than anything, Les wanted to be a part of that. He wanted to create worlds that people could escape into, to be involved in the magic that had captivated him as a boy.
But reality, as he would soon discover, was much less forgiving.
His father hadn't been impressed by Les' enthusiasm or his early attempts at development. To Anton, passion without results was meaningless, and Les had always been a jack-of-all-trades, someone who could dabble in many things but never excel at one. In the elite circles of VR development, where Anton surrounded himself with the brightest minds in the industry, Les was nothing more than a minor player. An apprentice developer at best.
"You spread yourself too thin," Anton had said one evening after reviewing a feature Les had spent weeks developing. "You're too scattered. You'll never master anything at this rate."
Les had worked tirelessly on that feature, a small improvement to The Hub's matchmaking system, hoping to prove his worth. He had poured over lines of code, analyzed player behavior patterns, and built what he thought was a decent upgrade. But to Anton, it wasn't enough. It was never enough.
Anton had barely glanced at the proposal before pushing it aside. "This is amateur work," he'd said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You should focus on something else. Maybe management. You're not cut out for this."
That had been one of the many blows that solidified Les' place in the family. Not a leader, not a prodigy—just someone who could only hope to tread water in the ocean of brilliance that surrounded him.
Les had always been decent at a variety of tasks. He could code, though not as efficiently as the top developers in the company. He could manage a project, though never to the level his father demanded. He could contribute design ideas, but they never had the spark that would take them to the next level. He was the very definition of mediocrity—a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
And that was exactly what his father despised.
Anton De Lamar hated mediocrity with a passion. His rise to power had been built on a foundation of excellence, of cutting-edge innovation, and an almost ruthless pursuit of success. He surrounded himself with the best—developers, designers, managers, all of them top of their fields. To Anton, the only thing worse than failure was mediocrity, and Les had the unfortunate burden of embodying that very trait.
In the world of The Hub, Anton's flagship VR game, there was no room for second-best. The Hub was a revolutionary project—an ever-expanding virtual universe that combined both the thrill of esports competition and the allure of open-world exploration. Players from around the globe flocked to its servers, each one seeking glory in its arenas or fortune in its vast, untamed wilds. For Anton, it was a crowning achievement. For Les, it was another reminder of his shortcomings.
Les had been allowed to join the development team as an apprentice developer, but it was clear from the beginning that his father had no real expectations of him. He wasn't expected to contribute anything groundbreaking or to push the boundaries of innovation. He was there as a formality—a place to keep him occupied, out of sight, and out of mind.
To Anton, Leszar De Lamar was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. A shadow that could be easily ignored as long as he stayed in his place.
And for the most part, Les did. He played his role quietly, working on the tasks assigned to him and staying out of the way of the real visionaries. But deep down, there was a part of him that refused to accept this fate. He wasn't brilliant, he wasn't exceptional, but there was something else—a quiet determination that gnawed at him. A need to prove, if not to his father, then to himself, that he could be more than just a disappointment.
He had always been able to adapt quickly, to learn just enough of a new skill to get by. In the grand world of VR development, this made him versatile, but never indispensable. He could jump from coding to management, from game design to marketing, but his broad range of skills never translated into mastery. And in a family that valued perfection above all else, his versatility was seen as a weakness, not a strength.
"Why can't you focus?" his father had demanded once, pacing back and forth in his office. "Why can't you just excel at something, anything?"
The truth was, Les didn't know. He had always been interested in everything, but passionate about nothing. While others around him dedicated their lives to mastering a single discipline, Les was constantly pulled in different directions, learning enough to be competent but never enough to be the best. It was frustrating, maddening even, but it was who he was.
And his father hated him for it.
That disdain had followed Les throughout his life, a constant weight pressing down on him. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he was always a disappointment to Anton. He could still remember the conversations, the icy tones, the way his father's eyes would narrow with disgust every time Les presented his work. It didn't matter how much effort he put in. Effort didn't equate to success in Anton's world. Only results mattered.
In time, Les learned to stop trying to win his father's approval. He knew it would never come, not as long as he remained the jack-of-all-trades his father loathed. But there was something in him, some quiet part of his soul that refused to be crushed under the weight of Anton's expectations.
Perhaps it was that strange adaptability of his. The ability to learn, to observe, to pick up skills quickly, even if he never mastered them. It was a trait no one in the De Lamar family had ever appreciated, but one Les had begun to recognize as his own.