As soon as Ernolf activated his Mana Heart, he neutralized all the poison from the Red-Spotted Spiders and the Retchaka.
Even so, his body was as hot as a fireball, and he could not regain consciousness. Every joint in his body ached as though he had been trampled by an elephant. His weak body could not bear his awakened Mana Heart.
Whenever he occasionally opened his eyes while slipping in and out of consciousness, the scenery changed in a blur. Steep rocky mountains passed by for a long time, followed by dark forests and marshland.
‘Someone is carrying me……. Ah, the boy?’
Through the boy’s dry back pressed against his chest, Ernolf could feel his breathing and body heat.
Ernolf had thought him a twisted child because he treated human life so lightly, but that did not seem to be entirely true.
Whether they were surrounded by Red-Spotted Spiders or he was nearly made into the Retchaka’s prey, the boy had risked his life to protect his brother.
Watching him wander restlessly through the fields with his brother on his back, Ernolf did not know what story lay behind it, but the boy did not seem evil beyond redemption.
When he faintly regained consciousness after being carried on the boy’s back for about a day, they were somewhere in a shabby village.
He heard the boy arguing with someone. He wanted to open his eyes, but he had no strength.
“Looks like you don’t have enough earholes. Want me to make you a few more? Get the medicine!”
“You beggar bastard, what the fuck are you doing, trying to ruin my business? Get the hell out!”
When the boy became angry, the man threatened him.
“Hah. This bastard’s really got no regard for his life.”
The boy grinned as he glared at the man.
Ernolf felt killing intent rise from the boy’s body.
‘He’s going to die.’
Not the boy. The man seemed likely to die.
Though he was young and scrawny, the boy was an Aura user. It frustrated Ernolf that the man had no idea the boy could kill him with a single finger.
“Do not fight.”
The killing intent was too strong for it to seem likely that the boy would listen to him, but Ernolf tried anyway.
“Let us just go.”
His mouth was parched, and his tongue would not move properly. After barely forcing out one more word, Ernolf let out a long sigh.
Amazingly, the boy withdrew his killing intent. Ernolf was surprised by the response, which he had not expected.
‘Did he just listen to me?’
It felt like the emotion one felt when an untamed beast obeyed only oneself. Ernolf was immensely pleased that the boy had listened to him, and he found him endearing.
“Let us lie down for a while. Is there nowhere we can rest comfortably?”
“Okay.”
Although he was still fuming with anger, the boy turned his back on the man and silently walked away.
Afterward, when the boy tried to stay at an inn, he was turned away at the door because of the dying Ernolf, with the innkeeper asking whether they wanted the trouble of clearing away a corpse. In front of a restaurant, he was doused with filthy water and told that it was no place for beggars to come and go. Then, when he tried to fill his starving stomach with water from a well, the village watch interrogated him.
Each time, the boy radiated killing intent as though he would kill someone, but whenever Ernolf restrained him, he suppressed it and held back his anger. Ernolf’s heart swelled at the sight.
‘Tsk, tsk. What sort of adults are they……. They are being far too heartless toward a young boy.’
Ernolf did not feel good as he was carried on the bony back of the gaunt boy.
Perhaps because he lacked the strength that came from eating, the boy set Ernolf down on a sloped patch below a hill.
“Hey, Tiri. Don’t die. If you die as you please, I’ll kill you myself.”
The boy spoke while looking at Ernolf, who was barely clinging to life. Then he sat down on the slope and gazed westward at the setting sun.
Ernolf watched the boy with hazy eyes. He found the boy, trying so hard to save his brother, pitiful and heartbreaking.
“Hey, boy.”
Lacking the strength to rise, Ernolf lay in the grass and looked up at the grimy boy. Looking at him again in the light, Ernolf saw that though the boy was unsightly thin, his bone structure was good and his features were as beautiful as a sculpture’s.
“What is your name?”
“What?”
The boy’s face, which had brightened at seeing that his brother had regained consciousness, darkened again.
“What nonsense are you talking about? You do not know my name?”
“I do not.”
The boy waved his hand back and forth over Ernolf’s face, then placed a hand on his forehead.
“Did the fever do something to your mind……?”
Ever since Ernolf realized how much the boy loved his brother, he had felt uncomfortable.
He could not tell the boy that another person’s soul had entered his beloved brother’s body.
‘Whether restoration is possible, and when it could be done if it is—nothing can be guaranteed. Telling the truth would only disappoint this child.’
From what he could see, the original owner of this body seemed to be the boy’s sole blood relative. And the boy was the only companion Ernolf could currently trust.
Until he found a solution, it seemed better to give him a vague answer.
“I know that my name is Tiri. What is your name?”
“This is not funny. Stop it.”
The boy seemed to mistake Ernolf’s words for a joke.
“Just tell me your name. That is all I need.”
“Kazar. I’m Kazar!”
The boy shouted in an irritated voice. This time, it was Ernolf’s turn to be surprised.
“Kazar?”
“Yeah, Kazar. Is there a problem?”
There were plenty of problems.
Anyone from the Hayton Empire who heard the name Kazar would think of Tyrant King Kazar, the medieval tyrant who indiscriminately massacred his people and loyal retainers, even cruelly murdering his wife and children.
‘Of all the names, why did they have to give him that one……?’
Ernolf found it ridiculous that some mad parent had given a child a name like that.
“Have you considered changing your name?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?!”
The boy shouted so frighteningly that Ernolf explained in a cowed voice that it was just something he had said.
“Do you really remember nothing at all?”
Still unable to believe that his brother had lost his memories, Kazar asked again.
“Yes.”
“Me too?”
Lying down, Ernolf nodded.
‘Is that why he forgot there was a pool at the mine face? Did he really lose his memories?’
Overcome with anger, Kazar shouted.
“Fuck, how did you become an idiot?”
“An idiot? Why am I an idiot?”
“Anyone who does not know his own name is an idiot. Then what are you?”
“I do know my name. It is Tiri.”
“That is your name?”
“Is it not?”
Ernolf secretly worried that this body’s name might be as unfortunate as Kazar’s.
“That is a nickname. Tirad is your name!”
“Tirad. Hm, it is not bad.”
“Ah, fuck…….”
The more they spoke, the darker Kazar’s expression became. Ernolf knew it, but he could not tell him the truth.
“Have you forgotten our family too?”
“Yes. I remember none of it.”
“Our house and the village we lived in too?”
“I do not know.”
“Of course you don’t, idiot! What house do we have? Our father was the son of an exile, and our mother was a quarry slave. Fuck, you really did forget everything.”
“Father was the son of an exile? What crime did he commit to be exiled?”
It was shocking enough that he, the heir to a distinguished noble family, had possessed a slave’s body. The thought that he was the child of an exiled criminal was difficult to bear.
“Why are you suddenly so surprised?”
“I told you I do not remember. I am hearing this for the first time, so of course I am surprised.”
Ernolf added that he thought it might be because a rock had struck his head when the mine shaft collapsed. In fact, a large wound on his head was covered by a scab of dried blood.
Kazar tensed his gaunt cheeks and chewed his lower lip as he glared at Ernolf.
His father had told him that story so often, yet he could not remember a single part of it. Kazar thought he had no choice but to believe that his brother had lost his memories.
“Father’s father. That is, our grandfather, supposedly sided with the enemy when war broke out or something…….”
“Are you saying he betrayed the country?”
“Yeah, that’s right. So the entire family was executed, and only Dad was young enough that he was exiled instead of sentenced to death.”
“He must have become a slave after wandering like that.”
“Yeah.”
After hearing Kazar’s words, Ernolf’s chest tightened so much that he could barely breathe.
‘This is like Tyrant King Kazar’s biography, is it not?’
Tyrant King Kazar was also called Kazar of the Tainted Blood because he was the child of an exile.
‘Surely this boy is not Tyrant King Kazar?’
If the boy were not merely unfortunate enough to share Kazar’s name, but truly King Kazar himself, this was about sixteen hundred years in the past.
‘This is absurd.’
The name was merely the same, and his birth was merely lowly. Ernolf gave a laugh at the thought that he had imagined something so impossible.
‘Possessing someone else’s body was not enough, and now I have traveled back through sixteen hundred years? Ha ha, what nonsense…….’
Once he recovered his strength, Ernolf intended to return to the Institute and retrieve his original body, which had become an empty shell.
If he retrieved and preserved his original body first, he could use the power of his family, a renowned family of mages, to buy time until he found a way to undo the possession.
But if he had not only possessed an unfamiliar body but also gone back through the enormous span of sixteen hundred years, it would be a disaster.
Not only would there be no family to help with his research, but even the body he had to return to would not exist in the same era.
‘Surely the situation is not that serious.’
The language the boy used was from the Warring States Period during the transition from ancient to medieval times. Yet Ernolf decided to withhold judgment until he found more certain evidence. For now, merely accepting that he had possessed another person’s body was difficult enough.
“Hey, boy.”
“…….”
The boy did not answer. Ernolf changed how he addressed him.
“Kazar.”
“Why?”
Only when Ernolf called him by name did the boy answer.
“Do you know who the king of this country is?”
“What would knowing that do?”
“Do you know or not?”
“Why do you need to know something like that?”
He did not seem to know. Since he had lived as a slave from birth, it would have been stranger if he had known the king’s name. He probably did not know the country’s name either.
‘If I look at what he is wearing, I may be able to roughly guess the era…….’
However, it was doubtful whether what he wore could even be called clothing.
‘Even a rag would be better than this.’
When Ernolf absentmindedly tugged at the old rag that barely covered his shameful parts, it tore apart helplessly. Even a spiderweb seemed sturdier than this.
GRRRRRRUMBLE.
As if to further heighten the miserable mood, the sound of hunger echoed through the barren rocky hill. It had come from Kazar’s stomach.
GRRRR—GURGLE—GLURK.
So many different sounds came out that Ernolf laughed in disbelief.
“First, we must fill our empty stomachs.”
“Should I catch us something to eat?”
Kazar spoke boldly.
“If you know how to hunt, why have you been starving?”
At Ernolf’s offhand question, Kazar looked away and answered hesitantly.
“Well……. I thought you might die while I was off doing something else.”
“You stayed beside me and kept starving because you thought I would die if you took your eyes off me?”
Born with a body weaker than most, Tirad had suffered terribly all his life and become so frail that it would not have been strange for him to draw his last breath at any moment.
The reason he had safely survived several brushes with death after fighting the Retchaka and losing consciousness was that Kazar had channeled his own aura into Tirad’s body and forcibly kept his heart beating.
“I will not die.”
“……?”
“I have no intention of being trapped in this wretched body and living a lowly life until I die. Do not worry about that.”
After saying that, Ernolf vowed that he would return to his original body, regain his status as a high-ranking mage of the Hayton Empire and heir of the Torlier Family, and marry his betrothed.
In any case, before that happened, he had no intention whatsoever of allowing himself to be despised at anyone’s whim, even while he occupied a slave’s body.
“I have awakened as a mage, so our suffering is over. I will make sure you live comfortably from now on.”
Those were not empty words. Mages were treated as precious in many countries.
Not only could they obtain power and wealth, but if they aligned themselves well, they could even rise to the ranks of the great nobility.
“Losing your memories is not so bad.”
Kazar cut Ernolf off, the corners of his lips curling crookedly upward.
“I haven’t got long to live, so you eat. If you get a chance to leave this place, go alone if you have to. You were always saying things I didn’t want to hear. Even when we got caught trying to escape and were separated, you went to the mine face in my stead, saying that it would be hard to return alive if I went there. You are far better off now that you have become an idiot.”
As he listened, Ernolf recalled Kazar running through the dirt and dust to save him when he had stood blankly in the mine.
That must have been why the brothers had been separated rather than together.
“Listen carefully, Brother. I have no intention of letting you die in my place, and I have no intention of dying after living like this. If we are going to live, we will live magnificently.”
As though pouring out deeply embedded resentment, Kazar spoke each word with force.
“You are quite determined for a kid. Tell me, how do you want to live magnificently?”
“I will sit in a high place and bow to no one.”
“Do you want to become king?”
“Well, something like that.”
After thinking about it for a moment, Ernolf shook his head. Tyrant King Kazar of the Pengril Kingdom came to mind.
“Becoming king would be difficult.”
“Why?”
Ernolf narrowed his eyes and gazed steadily at Kazar, who had asked the reason. He could not bring himself to say that the name was simply too unfortunate.
“You do not need to become king to live well. Ruling a country would only give you headaches.”
“True.”
Recalling his previous life, which had been full of twists and turns, Kazar made a bitter expression.
“In any case, I am going to live a fucking magnificent life, so remember that.”
After saying that, Kazar grinned. Behind his eyes, gleaming as though they had been oiled, the faces of the enemies he had to kill passed endlessly.
Seeing Kazar speak so boldly and smile so brightly, Ernolf was a little moved.
Though he was gaunt with hunger, grimy, and dressed in rags, he looked impressive.
‘If I raise him well, he may become a hero for the ages.’
The name Kazar made him uneasy, but a name was something that could simply be changed.
Until he returned to his original body, Ernolf decided to care for Kazar like his own younger brother and raise him properly.