Chapter 2: Hostage
Right beside me was a small lake.
As expected of the North, it was frozen solid, and I saw my reflection on its surface.
Unkempt, shaggy hair, hollow eyes, and a scruffy, uneven beard… Yes, this was how I looked back then. No different from a wreck.
‘…This is insane.’
I had truly returned.
Back to twenty years ago.
And that made me even angrier.
‘Is this actually insane?’
The Grand Duke had been a woman masquerading as a man.
It was shocking, but to me, now twenty years old, it was a trivial matter.
More absurd was the fact that the stone the Grand Duke cherished was real—and that she’d forced me to swallow it.
Why me?
The one who should’ve swallowed that stone was the Grand Duke.
“Hey, hostage, lost your mind again?”
The man with the worm-like scar sneered.
That helped. For me, who couldn’t feel the Northern chill, it was like a splash of cold water.
“Hostage.”
It had been a long time since I’d heard that word.
“Yes, I was a hostage, wasn’t I?”
I didn’t need to strain to recall the past.
The memories of this time were as vivid as yesterday.
It was always like that.
I didn’t want to remember, but I had to.
“My family. Are they gone?”
I asked as I took off my coat.
It was a necessity in the North, but to me, it was useless.
“W-What?”
The worm-like scar on the man’s face twisted. He was a knight sent from the North to fetch me.
A familiar face.
Gullen. At first, I’d ignored him, but we later became close.
In truth, all my relationships were like that.
In this era, I was a hostage snatched by the North.
And I was the coward the North despised most.
“I asked if my parents passed away. Were their hearts devoured?”
Gullen’s eyebrows drew together.
“Yes. Iagar was exterminated. Every Iagar, except you, had their hearts devoured.”
He answered.
From the North’s perspective, I, Harad Iagar, was a pathetic figure, but my situation was also pitiable.
I gave a bitter smile.
The Grand Duke’s artifact. That stone was an artifact that sent its owner back to the past.
‘To think it was real.’
It had the power to change the past, but that depended on the one who returned.
The past before the point of return couldn’t be changed.
‘Couldn’t it have been a bit earlier?’
I thought of the Grand Duke, who forced me to swallow the stone, and gave another bitter smile.
Just one month.
If I’d gone back just one month earlier, Iagar might not have been exterminated.
‘Guess I can’t choose the exact day to return to.’
I swallowed my regret.
I should be grateful just to have returned to this era. But I couldn’t help recalling the day of the extermination.
“The Cursed Beast. You didn’t catch it?”
“If you mean the mage targeting you, it fled before I arrived.”
“So no funeral either, huh?”
“There was nothing to bury. Everything turned to ash in the fire you started. Are you actually insane?”
Gullen’s face, which had been looking at me like I was mad, grew serious.
“If you’re insane, it’ll cause trouble for Serzila.”
It wasn’t incomprehensible for someone’s mind to waver.
I was the sole survivor of Iagar.
It had only been a month ago.
But that wasn’t Gullen’s concern.
What mattered to him was that Serzila wanted me.
Not a mad Harad, but a sane one.
“I’ll fix you right now.”
Gullen raised his fist.
That fist was as big as my face.
“I’m not insane. I’m finally coming to my senses.”
I placed my hand on the fist.
The fist slid down below Gullen’s waist.
It wasn’t Gullen’s intention. He hadn’t relaxed his strength. I forced it down.
How? Gullen didn’t have time to think. He was too shocked that I was speaking so naturally.
“Isn’t this better? Better than a mute idiot.”
Gullen was confused, but it was clear I’d regained my senses.
Idiot.
For the past month, the Harad Gullen dealt with was indeed an idiot.
I did as Gullen ordered.
I ate when told to eat, took blows when told to take them. No matter how much I was hit, I was too scared to even scream properly.
It was the trauma of my family’s extermination.
The fact that I myself was the reason for that extermination had turned me into a wreck.
“If it’s trauma, I’m over it now.”
“Really?”
“All I can think about now is revenge.”
“That’s more like it.”
Gullen grinned, his scar twisting grotesquely.
Instead of wallowing, go catch the bastard who made you wallow. That’s what a Northerner would do.
“But I can’t eat this.”
I threw the raw meat dumpling Gullen had given me onto the ground.
It sank into the snow piled up to knee height.
“I made that for you.”
“Not something you made. Give me something someone else made.”
Gullen frowned but pulled some jerky from his pocket.
“Getting all high and mighty now that you’re not an idiot anymore.”
“Why should I be?”
Gullen snorted.
A hostage wasn’t a slave. It was a position that deserved respect.
But in the North, such behavior wasn’t questioned.
The problem was me, who’d been reduced to a mute by trauma, not Gullen, who adjusted his attitude accordingly.
But even in the North, there were exceptions.
“Would you talk like that in front of Serzila?”
The ruler of the North.
When the Grand Ducal House of Serzila seized someone, that person became a criminal. Even if they were innocent.
Might makes right was the North’s rule, and Serzila’s word was the North’s truth.
And Serzila had taken me.
Not as a slave, but as a hostage.
“I’ll behave from now on. I’ve got my own faults to answer for.”
“Let’s do that.”
Gullen answered quickly.
Not just because my sins would be overlooked.
But because I acknowledged my own faults.
In the North, being a victim was a sin.
Gullen was slightly pleased that I understood the North’s principles so well.
“We’ll reach the village by nightfall.”
I gauged the distance by the size of the distant snow-covered mountains. Three more days, and I’d arrive at Serzila.
“…How do you know that?”
“I’ve memorized the geography of the continent.”
Gullen tilted his head.
The village we were about to reach was so small it wasn’t even marked on maps.
To know its location?
“Have you been to the North before?”
“I lived here. For about fifteen years.”
Gullen shook his head.
‘He’s still not fully recovered.’
* * *
The carriage stopped as the sun set.
Getting out, I saw Gullen roughly scratching his head. It was because of the village we’d arrived at.
“It’s ruined.”
The village was dead.
Not long dead, as the bodies of the Northerners hadn’t yet been buried by the snow.
“Was it a mage?”
“It was wolves.”
“Then what’s that?”
I pointed to a cross erected by the village entrance.
A mutilated corpse hung on it, looking older than the villagers’ bodies.
“Who cares? Probably a mage caught by the villagers.”
Gullen didn’t even glance at it.
He was angrier about the village’s death than some mage’s.
“To the demons of the Otherworld hiding on the continent, the Judgment of Sun and Moon.”
Words were carved into the corpse with a knife.
A familiar phrase. The demons of the Otherworld were mages, and Sun and Moon referred to the Sun God Laan and the Moon God Luan.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.”
Mages were executed on the spot.
And it had to be reported to the Church.
That was the duty of the continent’s people.
That’s why mages were so rare on the continent.
The Sun and Moon. The two Churches hunted down every mage they could find.
“Feeling some kinship?”
Gullen asked me, as I couldn’t take my eyes off the corpse on the cross.
“I do. If they were a good mage, I’d even feel pity.”
Gullen didn’t understand.
Good or bad? To the North, mages were enemies who prowled around Serzila’s Wall when bored.
“Let’s not get careless. As you can see, most Northerners follow the Church’s doctrine. Only the Grand Ducal House of Serzila and its knights don’t.”
Those who served Serzila believed in Serzila, not gods.
“Honestly, I don’t understand why Serzila wants you. And I don’t want to.”
“That’s blasphemous.”
“The blasphemy is your existence.”
I shouldn’t be revealed to the world.
Not for my sake, but for Serzila, who took me as a hostage.
“Let’s keep it quiet. We’ll sleep here tonight and reach Serzila in two days.”
Gullen gestured at the dead village.
He meant to stop talking about the mage’s death and mourn the villagers instead.
A blizzard was raging.
Gullen wanted to bury the villagers before they were buried by the snow, the North’s law.
That way, they could be reborn as humans in the afterlife, not as snow.
“We might not be able to go quietly.”
I muttered, staring somewhere.
To Gullen’s eyes, there was only the blizzard.
But I saw beyond it.
“A pack of wolves is coming.”
“…”
“I’m serious.”
I repeated to the skeptical Gullen.
Just then, a howl pierced through the blizzard.
Gullen looked at me with shocked eyes.
Because I, not he, a knight, had noticed the attack first.
“Must be the culprits who did this to the village.”
“Here to eat the corpses.”
Gullen muttered, enraged.
There was no end more shameful for a Northerner than being eaten by beasts. They should fight and die with the beasts, not become their food.
“No. They sensed me.”
What nonsense…
Gullen frowned.
“The sound’s too mystical. It’s a Magical Beast.”
Correct. Only then did Gullen sense the magic.
The leader was a Magical Beast.
“Gonna fight?”
Gullen stared at me as I asked with a smile.
Was I planning to escape during the fight?
That’s how it looked to Gullen.
Because I had come to my senses.
The sane me was sharper than Gullen expected.
I’d noticed the wolf pack first, even that the leader was a Magical Beast.
The beasts’ howls grew closer.
Measuring the distance by sound was pointless.
The wolf pack was already in front of Gullen.
‘They sensed me.’
Gullen recalled my words.
Not nonsense.
Dozens of wolves drooled at the village’s corpses and Gullen, but the leader didn’t. It was fixated on me.
The Magical Beast’s eyes were as big as Gullen’s face. Its size matched, three times Gullen’s bulk.
Not a lowlife beast that targeted the weak. It had intelligence. A beast that sought to grow stronger by eating the strong.
“Ha.”
Gullen let out a hollow laugh.
That such a beast saw me as prey.
‘This idiot.’
Gullen only followed Serzila’s orders, feeling no value in me.
Far from value, I was just unpleasant. I had been that kind of existence since birth.
“Grr.”
The drooling Magical Beast sensed the Aura rising from Gullen’s body.
Its drooling stopped.
Magical Beasts didn’t hunger for Aura. They fed only on magic.
It saw Gullen as an obstacle.
An obstacle preventing it from feeding on magic. The beast howled to the sky. The wolf pack charged at Gullen.
Gullen didn’t move.
If he did, I might seize the chance to escape.
‘The axe… Damn.’
Transporting me, Harad Iagar, to the North.
A dangerous mission, but Gullen couldn’t even bring his beloved axe. He couldn’t risk being noticed by the Empire or the Church.
Gullen stood still and swung his fist.
The jaw of the lead wolf caved in. He tore the mouth of one aiming for his shoulder and smashed another’s flank with his elbow.
Crunch. A wolf bit his thigh, but its teeth broke instead. Thanks to his Aura. Gullen’s knee shattered the ribcage of the toothless wolf.
Wolves weren’t a problem.
Their claws and teeth couldn’t pierce an Aura-infused body. Gullen’s fist sent wolves thicker than him to their graves in one blow.
The fight with the pack was less a battle and more a massacre. Gullen’s angry face stuck out amidst the wolf pack.
The coolness falling on his heated face vanished. Had the blizzard stopped? But his already dim vision grew darker.
…The Magical Beast.
Instead of the sky, he saw its throat.
A slimy tongue and teeth as thick as his arm.
The blizzard hadn’t stopped. The beast had blocked it.
Leaping at Gullen, whose head and shoulders protruded, it opened its maw.
“Ah.”
Saliva dripped onto his face. In that moment, Gullen sensed death. He didn’t close his eyes. In them, visions of the future he’d dreamed of mixed with the present.
A candidate to become the next Great Warrior. The youngest knight. Now just a grunt in the 1st Knights, but one day, the next Great Warrior…
…And a Magical Beast consumed by fire.
“…?”
Only then did his eyes see reality.
The beast, leaping to devour Gullen’s upper body, was burning and crashing down.
A massive fire, large enough to swallow the beast in one gulp.
The beast hit the ground, rolling.
The snow, piled knee-high, couldn’t extinguish the flames. Instead, the fire grew fiercer, consuming the remaining wolves.
Not ordinary fire.
Gullen realized the flames were feeding on the beast’s magic, growing stronger.
“Can’t even handle one of these? Oh, right, you were just a grunt back then.”
I spoke, my voice laced with amusement.
Above me floated a sun.
Not a real sun. My sun.
‘…Magic.’
A sun the size of a hut illuminated Gullen.
Its heat was almost nauseating.
A demon with the blood of the Otherworld. To the continent, a mage was an enemy to be killed.
…But Gullen couldn’t kill me.
Because Serzila wanted me.
For reasons unknown… a mage named Harad.