Margrave’s Bastard Son was The Emperor [EN]: Chapter 645

Hielo was vastly different from Ian’s memories. The fields where he first rode in a carriage to meet Lord Molin, the lake where they enjoyed boating, the dried hay spread on the roofs, the long stone walls stretching below the mansion… None of it was intact. All that was visible was a horrific ruin.

‘Shit.’

Beric’s pupils also shook violently. Even when the Central Army and Bratz clashed, the damage wasn’t this severe. Debris was scattered all over the streets, making it impossible to see any roads. Could there be any survivors? They focused and looked around, but the only movement was the blazing fire.

‘Ian, this, how could this…’

Instead of answering, Ian turned towards the mansion. It was also half-destroyed and almost collapsed. Ian, Beric, and the merchant employee landed in the mansion’s yard, their nerves on edge. They wondered if there might be any sign of life.

‘Hanna-! Nersarn-!’

Beric shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. But there was no reply. Ian quietly looked down at someone’s arm and leg, crushed under the debris. ‘Is no one there?! Please, someone answer! It’s me, Beric! Ian’s here too!’

The employee just rolled his eyes in shock, following closely behind Ian. Since they didn’t know what dangers might be lurking, sticking close to the mage was the wisest thing to do if he wanted to survive.

‘Hanna! Anyone, if you’re alive, answer! We’ll save you!’

Thump.

At that moment, a very faint sound was heard. Ian and Beric reacted simultaneously and turned around, while the employee just jerked his head back and forth, flinching. Ian walked straight towards the source of the sound. A tree, cut at the base, lay across the lawn. Realizing something, Ian gestured to Beric.

‘…Beric. Move this tree.’

‘Tree? Ah, it’s there!’

‘Hurry.’

It was the location of the secret space where Derga’s wife and son, Mery and Chel, had hidden before. The fallen tree was blocking the entrance, so it seemed they couldn’t open it from the inside. When Beric lightly lifted the tree, the entrance, camouflaged with grass, slightly opened.

‘Ah.’

Peeking out, Hanna’s eyes first met Ian’s feet. Her gaze slowly moved up. Soon, Hanna met the golden hair and green eyes, made even more vivid by the embers. ‘L-Lord.’

Ian Hielo. He was the lord of Hielo before he was the Minister of Magic, and furthermore, he was her master. When Ian nodded and reached out his hand, Hanna blankly took it, as if in a dream. ‘It’s been a while, Hanna. I’m glad you’re alive.’

‘Y-Your Lordship, Ian…’

Although he said he was glad she was alive, Hanna was a mess, scratched and scorched all over. Hanna couldn’t find the right greeting and mumbled. ‘…You look surprisingly the same as before, Lord Ian.’

More than ten years had passed. In that time, Hanna had become a lady, but Ian looked exactly the same as she remembered him. Philia, Nersarn, and Roel hadn’t mentioned anything about Ian’s condition, so Hanna hadn’t expected her master’s appearance to be unchanged.

‘I, I thought you’d be taller. If I had known, I wouldn’t have stolen so much of your food back then…’

‘Hanna, can’t you see me?’

‘Gasp. Beric. How did you get so big? You’ve become a wild beast.’

The difference was even more striking when she stood next to Beric. Behind the bewildered Hanna, unfamiliar faces began to peek out one by one.

‘H-Housekeeper. Are you alright?’

‘Everyone, come up! The Lord and Beric have returned!’

‘Huh? Lord, you mean… Lord Ian?’

‘Let’s all go outside! It’s safe now!’

‘Let’s get the children up first. Catch them from above!’

‘Alright! Beric, help me here!’

Hanna put aside her joyful greetings and helped the people who had been hiding with her to come up. Except for the mansion staff and a few residents from the nearby territory, they were all children.

‘W-Where are my mom and dad?’

‘Shhh. Don’t cry. Let’s look for them now. They’ll be nearby.’

The children, their faces covered in tears and snot, looked around the devastated Hielo with fearful eyes. They instinctively knew. Their parents couldn’t possibly be alive in such a place. ‘What happened, Hanna?’

Ian asked, showing her the letter from Lady Rien. ‘It says my father left the territory. Did he head to the Central?’

‘Ah…’

The short letter contained questions about Clark and Nersarn’s situation. It seemed she had sent the letter as soon as she returned to Mereloff, unable to wait. How it reached Ian in just a few hours was a mystery. ‘It’s true that Lord Nersarn was going to the Central because he couldn’t reach Lady Philia. But no. A while ago, Lady Rien came and told us that many merchants had taken refuge here. The situation was unstable.’

Then, Hanna calmly explained that Nersarn had followed the hawk, that the hawk had returned alone, and that her husband, Mui, had gone on patrol towards the desert with the soldiers. ‘Mui came back quickly. And then he told everyone to flee, that a mage was coming…’

‘A mage?’

‘We also heard that Kakan… had fallen in battle.’

‘……!’

Kakan’s death itself was shocking, but what it meant was also surprising. Had Cheonryeo been ambushed? Hanna ran a hand through her hair and sat down. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know what’s going on. Haa… Anyway, following Mui’s warning, all the soldiers of Hielo gathered and armed themselves with Idgal [a type of weapon]. To defend the mansion.’

Hanna protected the children who were flocking to the mansion, and the residents also took up arms one by one. Protecting the territory was the soldiers’ job, but protecting their homes was their own. ‘But, it was a mistake.’

Hanna sighed, hugging a child standing close to her. It was a sigh full of self-reproach, lament, and sorrow. ‘We shouldn’t have fought back. We should have evacuated as many people as possible to the underground space and fled towards the Central.’

One mage. Even though they were beings close to gods, there was only one of them, and they had Idgal weapons. They had been arrogant to think they could fight back, and this was the result. ‘I’ve never seen the sea in my life, but I think I know what it’s like. Flames were rising everywhere, swirling around. The world was shaking…’

She had watched everything from the hill where the mansion was located. How human skin melted, how solid buildings collapsed, how chilling the screams of those who were terrified were. It was the moment Hanna paused to catch her breath.

Tap!

One of the survivors suddenly grabbed Ian’s arm. It was a middle-aged man. His tear-stained face was black. ‘…L-Lord. What on earth is going on…?’

‘Hey! How dare you!’

‘I really don’t know why, why the mage attacked us. You’re a mage, Lord Ian, so you must know. Why, why did my children have to die?!’

‘You crazy bastard, why are you doing this to Ian?’

Hanna and Beric tried to stop the man, but the eyes of a parent who had lost their child saw nothing. ‘You haven’t shown your face in the territory for the past ten years, and now you come back? If you had been taking care of things in the Central, this wouldn’t have happened! Isn’t it because the master is absent that the underlings are dying?!’

He cried out that if Ian had stayed in Hielo, he could have prevented it. Beric was about to say something, but Ian stopped him with a gesture. He wasn’t wrong. To keep Naum’s last words and to return to his own timeline, Hielo had to endure the sacrifice of the lord’s absence. With the help of Hanna and Cheonryeo, it had been managed somehow, but that was a kind of deception that prioritized peace, wasn’t it?

‘Kuh-heuk…’

The man wept on the ground, and Ian read the gazes of the survivors. They didn’t say it out loud, but most of them had the same thought. At that moment, Hanna approached with a stern face and stood in front of Ian. ‘No, Lord Ian. Everyone is out of their minds right now, so don’t take it to heart.’

When things were peaceful, there were advantages to Ian’s absence. Taxes were low, the lord’s tyranny was a distant story, and everyone lived feeling that they were reaping the rewards of their efforts. Ian couldn’t answer. All he could do now was ask questions. ‘…Where is the mage? Did anyone see him?’

‘As soon as the heat rushed into the mansion, I went down and closed the entrance tightly. Whether he died or flew away somewhere… I have no way of knowing. Maybe he went to Mereloff…’

‘But Ian, Mereloff was fine compared to us. Of course, there weren’t any people, but. Maybe he didn’t go there at all?’

Perhaps Mereloff had heard about the Hielo incident and evacuated safely. For example, Balijuad, who moved through paintings, hadn’t disappeared without a trace, had he? The merchant employee, who had been listening, carefully added. ‘That could be the case. Usually, we avoid discarding the established route by taking the painting into the painting, but if the situation is urgent, there’s no other choice.’

If the mage hadn’t gone to Mereloff, had he gone deep into the Central? Ian shook his head. That was unlikely. The mage was clearly from Ruswenna. If so, it was essential to neutralize Mereloff for the sake of his ally, Hawan. ‘But he didn’t. Did he lack magic power after fighting Cheonryeo? If so, he would have annihilated Hielo and waited here to recover. He couldn’t have predicted that I would come.’

Neither Mereloff, nor the Central, nor rest, none of it. Whatever the reason, the Ruswenna mage had clearly returned. Perhaps he had been hit by the Idgal attacks of the Hielo soldiers and had returned to recover, but if not… ‘He’s a person with a considerable depth of magic power.’

Ian clicked his pocket watch and checked the time. It hadn’t even taken an hour to receive the letter and arrive here. To destroy the entire Hielo in such a short time, he was no ordinary mage. ‘Or he used an amplifier…’

…He could be someone who uses forbidden magic. Ian put the watch in his pocket and looked at the people. ‘You all should leave Hielo and take refuge in a nearby territory. Anywhere is fine. I will give you a certificate with my seal, so tell the lord of that territory your situation. If you encounter Mereloff in the process, then searching for survivors is the best course of action. Don’t look for my father or Hanna’s husband for now, just get to safety.’

‘…What, what are you saying?’

‘…It means that Hielo cannot be rebuilt right now.’

Even if they put in the effort slowly in the future, he didn’t know how long it would take. That’s how hopeless Hielo was right now. And more than anything, it was dangerous. ‘This is a path paved by Ruswenna. They will come again at any time.’

‘Then, then what should we do?’

‘Just stay alive.’

Ian took off his Minister of Magic badge and handed it to Hanna. ‘If you stay alive, we will meet again someday. I know that. So, you all must survive to the end.’

‘Lord Ian.’

‘…The share of the dead is mine.’

He would make those who took lives in Hielo pay the price. Ian muttered as if making a vow to everyone. Like the middle-aged man who had cried out, he was the owner of everything here. The mansion of Hielo, the fields, the trees, the people, and the future. ‘Beric. We’re going after him.’

‘Where to?’

Ian tightened his robe and walked out of the mansion. ‘Ruswenna.’