The Slayer took Vega's plan seriously. Very seriously.

So seriously that for the next seven years, he found himself living the same mundane life of William Joseph Blazkowicz III, and that it would take a week more of it for him to self-combust.

Though a couple things did change within that time. One of the most apparent being that the Slayer had grown considerably, and with age, he felt himself getting stronger, faster, and smarter. Each year he found himself able to move a little more like he originally could, practicing whenever he was at his wits end with his situation (which was very often, mind you).

Another more noticeable aspect that changed was the relationship between the Blazkowicz and Lucius houses. Concerned for her son's academic future, it was decided by the parents that he and Vega would progress in tandem. Meaning they attended the same classes, by the same teachers, at the same times.

It was the perfect opportunity to squander, for the Slayer would rather be thrown into a pit of Barons than see himself sitting at a desk doing homework. Instead, Vega did everything for him. A task the latter hardly batted an eyelash at, and even seemed to enjoy, seeing how he was a walking internet search engine.

But for the unsuspecting Count and Countess, this was an extraordinary achievement.

'Dear!'

Sylvia burst into the Count's office one evening, brandishing a scroll of parchment that dragged behind her.

'You have to see this!'

Startled, the Count tore away from the letter in his hands to inspect his wife's findings from over his desk. That is, their son's stellar academic progress. Who would have known the boy could be so bright, despite everything?

'I knew it. I knew it was a splendid idea to have he and the young master of Lucius school together,' she sighed wistfully, longingly as she cradled her cheek in pleasant thought. 'They'll make great allies in the future, won't they, dear?'

'I would hope so,' hummed the Count as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'That Lucius boy is quite the prodigy.'

'Don't forget that our son is too,' she boasted, glowing almost with pride. 'I must write to our fathers at once of this. I can feel it in my bones. That he'll make a formidable knight, as well as an impeccable suitor! Soon, the entire kingdom will know of and revere the Blazkowicz name!'

The Count watched amusedly as his wife left the room just as promptly as she entered, barking orders to the maids and servants to ready parchments and pens for her. But the mirth of the moment quickly faded when he returned to the letter in his hands. A letter from the last person he thought would contact them again.

A letter from the vicar, but this time, signed and sealed by the holy church itself.

'I found a lead, Slayer.'

Were Vega's words one afternoon at the Blazkowicz training grounds. Scribbling down twice as much homework, Vega spoke as he wrote, 'According to the highly confidential UAC records I decrypted, the Praetor suit was excavated from the very same tomb you inhabited in the Kadingir Sanctum. If my thesis is correct; going by the pattern in which we came into this world; I believe you will find it situated close to the area in which you arrived here.'

The Slayer brought the sword he practiced with to his side and met Vega's eyes as the latter looked up and continued, 'Yes. I believe it is situated under the Blazkowicz Manor.'

The Blazkowicz young master cocked an eyebrow despite the stone-faced look he always assumed, as if asking, that took seven years to think of?

As usual, though, Vega had an answer ready for him. 'Yes. It may surprise you to know that the UAC files I accessed were encrypted by the very same programmers that created my AI. Using the personnel history of the Mars security and programming division, I was able to; over some time; compile a viable method of decryption.'

The Slayer shrugged at Vega's jargon-riddled explanation, thinking hard of a way to quite literally get to the bottom of the whereabouts of his suit. Of course, there were plenty of ways to. But the Doomslayer only knew one. The one most effective and fool-proof way of doing it.

The Blazkowiczs must have gone mad, thought the entire board of staff at the mansion. That they were so thrilled by their son's intellect and physical achievements that they would allow the madness that ensued the following week.

Madness that involved a shovel, that is. A couple of shovels.

It started with the young master digging a hole in the backyard. At first, the staff found it curious and almost endearing when word came around of him possibly finding other means of training, for his tutors could scarcely teach him more with the older and more skilled he grew. Some even rumoured that the young master sought to create a flower garden in loving memory of the Countess... but how wrong they were.

The small, sandy pit in the lawn turned into a gravesite within a matter of days. And just when the official gardener suffered a heart attack at this swift progress, the Count was summoned to make sense of his son's relentless, almost maddening digging. The more they looked upon him, the more the servants... felt his madness. His burning, unnatural, inhuman determination.

'At this rate, my lord, the young master is going to reach the foundation of the manor,' explained the head butler in a panic. 'If he digs under it, there's no telling what will happen to the house!'

The Count seemed equally as fazed as the Blazkowicz staff. But a different kind of fazed, on closer inspection. As if looking upon his son didn't instill a fearful concern in him, but some sort of chilling realisation.

'... Gather the house knights.'

'M-my lord?'

'Tell them I'm ordering them all to dig with my son like their lives depend on it!'

While the butler's mind went blank with shock at the Count's words; who thereafter began gesturing and ordering the manor staff to participate in their free time; somewhere in Hell, a new testament was written:

'In his ravenous hatred, he found no peace. And with boiling blood, he scoured the Blazkowicz backyard seeking vengeance against the Dark Lords who had wronged him. He wore the crown of a noble family. And the sand that tasted the bite of his shovel named him...

'The Doom Digger.'