Ch. 1
Chapter 1. Hostage
There was a small lake right next to him.
True to the North, it was completely frozen, and Harad saw his reflection on its surface.
Unkempt shaggy hair, sunken eyes, a scraggly beard... Yeah, this was how he looked back then. He was no different from a shut-in.
'...I'm insane.'
He had really returned.
He had come back twenty whole years. And that made him even angrier.
'Was she seriously insane?'
The Grand Duke had been a woman pretending to be a man.
It was surprising, but for the twenty-year-old Harad, it was a trivial matter.
What mattered more was that the stone the Grand Duke had kept had been genuine—and that he’d been forced to swallow it.
Why me? The one who should’ve taken the stone was the Grand Duke.
“Hey, hostage. Spacing out again?”
The man with the worm-like scar sneered. Oddly enough, it helped. Harad, who didn’t feel the cold of the North, felt like he’d had cold water splashed on him.
“Hostage.”
It had been a long time since he’d heard that word.
“Yeah, I was a hostage.”
There was no need to force himself to recall the past.
His memories of this period were as vivid as yesterday.
It was always like that.
He didn’t want to remember, but he had to.
“Did my family... fall?”
Harad asked as he removed his coat.
A Northern essential, but unnecessary for him.
“W-What?”
The worm-like scar on the man’s face twisted. He was a knight the North had dispatched to retrieve Harad.
A familiar face.
Gullen. At first, Harad had ignored him, but later they had grown close.
In truth, all of Harad’s relationships had been like that. At this time, he was a hostage snatched by the North. And the most hated kind at that—a coward.
“I asked if my parents died. Did something eat their hearts?”
Gullen’s brows drew together.
“Yeah. The House of Iagar was annihilated. Every last one of them had their hearts eaten—except you.”
He answered him.
From the Northern perspective, Harad Iagar was pathetic—but his situation was pitiful too.
Harad let out a bitter laugh.
The Grand Duke’s relic. That stone sent its wielder back to the past.
‘So it really was real.’
It held the power to change the past—but only for the one who returned.
Nothing before the moment of return could be changed.
‘Couldn’t I have gone back a bit earlier?’
Harad recalled the Grand Duke, who had forced him to swallow the stone, and laughed bitterly.
If he’d returned just one month earlier, perhaps the Iagar family would not have been annihilated.
‘So you can’t choose the return date, huh.’
Harad swallowed his regret.
He should be thankful just to have returned at all. Still, the memory of that day of annihilation kept surfacing.
“Did they not catch the beast?”
“The mage who targeted you ran off before I arrived.”
“So there wasn’t even a funeral.”
“There was nothing left to bury. Everything turned to ash in the fire you started. Don’t tell me you’ve lost it?”
Gullen, who had been treating him like a lunatic, grew serious.
“If you’ve gone mad, Serzila will be in trouble.”
It wasn’t hard to understand why his mind might be unsteady.
Harad was the sole survivor of the Iagar family.
It happened just a month ago.
But Gullen didn’t care about that. What mattered to him was that Serzila wanted Harad—not a madman, but a sane man.
“I’ll fix you right now.”
Gullen raised his fist. That fist was the size of Harad’s face.
“I’m not crazy. I’ve just come to my senses.”
Harad placed his hand on the fist. And the fist slid down to Gullen’s waist.
It wasn’t Gullen’s intention. He hadn’t relaxed. Harad had forced it down.
How? Gullen didn’t know. More than that, he was surprised at how naturally Harad was speaking.
“Isn’t this better? Rather than a mute idiot who can’t even talk properly.”
Gullen looked confused, but Harad’s clarity was undeniable.
Idiot.
The Harad Gullen had dealt with over the past month had been exactly that.
Harad had done whatever he was told. He ate when told, took beatings when told. Even when beaten, he couldn’t scream properly out of fear.
It was the trauma of his family’s annihilation.
The fact that it had been Harad’s fault had turned him into a wreck.
“If it was trauma, I’m over it now.”
“Really?”
“All I can think of now is revenge.”
“That, I like.”
Gullen grinned grotesquely, his scar twisting.
Stop whining and go beat the bastard who made you cry. That’s what a Northerner should do.
“But I still can’t eat this.”
Harad threw the raw meat dumpling Gullen had handed him onto the ground.
The dumpling sunk into the knee-deep snow.
“I made that for you.”
“Not your cooking. Get me something someone else made.”
Gullen furrowed his brows but still took jerky out of his pocket and handed it over.
“And speak politely. I’m not an idiot anymore.”
“Why should I?”
Gullen snorted.
A hostage is not a slave. It’s a position that deserves respect. But such treatment was not an issue in the North.
A mute idiot stuck in trauma like Harad was the problem—not Gullen, who changed his behavior toward such a person.
Even in the North, however, there were exceptions.
“Could you speak that way in front of Serzila?”
The ruler of the North.
If the ducal house of Serzila captures someone, that person is a criminal—whether guilty or not.
If the North’s rule is survival of the strongest, then Serzila’s word is truth itself.
Serzila had captured Harad. Not as a slave—but as a hostage.
“Do well from now on and I won’t say anything. It’s partly my fault for not calling it out earlier.”
“Let’s go with that.”
Gullen responded quickly. It wasn’t just because of the offer to overlook things—It was because Harad admitted fault.
In the North, simply taking abuse was a sin.
Gullen liked that Harad understood the ways of the North.
“We’ll reach the village by nightfall.”
Harad gauged the distance by the size of the snowy mountain far away. They would arrive at Serzila in three days.
“...How do you know that?”
“I memorized the continent’s geography.”
Gullen tilted his head.
The village they were headed to was so small it wasn’t even marked on maps.
How could he know its location?
“Have you been to the North before?”
“I even lived here. About fifteen years.”
Gullen shook his head.
‘Still not fully recovered.’
***
The carriage stopped around sunset. When he got out, Gullen was scratching his head roughly. It was because of the village they’d arrived at.
“We’re screwed.”
The village was dead. And it hadn’t been long. The bodies of the Northerners hadn’t even been buried by snow yet.
“Was it a mage?”
“Wolves did this.”
“Then what about that?”
Harad pointed to a cross standing beside the entrance.
A mutilated corpse was hanging on it, and it looked much older than the villagers’ bodies.
“How would I know? Probably a mage the villagers caught.”
Gullen didn’t even glance at it. He was more furious about the villagers’ deaths than that of some mage.
“To the demon of the Otherworld who infiltrated the continent, the judgment of Sun and Moon.”
A phrase had been carved into the corpse’s body with a blade. It was a familiar phrase. The demon of the Otherworld meant a mage, and Sun and Moon referred to the sun god Laan and the moon god Luan.
“It’s been a while since I saw that phrase.”
Mages are executed on the spot. And it must be reported to the Church. This is the duty of all continent-dwellers. That’s why mages are so rare on the continent. Because the Churches of Sun and Moon kill them all.
“Feeling some kind of kinship?”
Gullen asked Harad, who couldn’t take his eyes off the crucified corpse.
“I do. If they were a good mage, I would even feel sympathy.”
Gullen didn’t understand.
Good or bad? To the North, mages are enemies who linger around Serzila’s wall for fun.
“Let’s not grow complacent. As you can see, most Northerners follow the Church’s doctrine. Only the Serzila ducal house and its knights do not.”
Those who serve Serzila believe in Serzila—not gods.
“To be honest, I don’t understand why Serzila wants you. Not that I care to.”
“That’s blasphemous.”
“Your existence is blasphemous.”
Harad must not be exposed to the world.
Not for his sake—but for the sake of Serzila, who took him as a hostage.
“Let’s please just go quietly. One night here and two more days, and we’ll reach Serzila.”
Gullen pointed to the dead village.
His intent was clear—stop talking about dead mages and mourn the villagers instead.
A snowstorm was blowing. Before the dead villagers were buried by snow—the embodiment of the North’s laws—Gullen wanted to bury them in the ground.
Only then could they be reborn in the afterlife as humans, not snow.
“Doesn’t look like we’ll go quietly.”
Harad muttered, staring at something. To Gullen, there was only snow. But Harad saw beyond it.
“A pack of wolves is coming.”
“...”
“I’m serious.”
Harad repeated himself to Gullen, who looked doubtful.
Just then, a howl pierced the snowstorm.
Gullen looked at Harad in shock.
Harad had noticed the attack before he, a knight, had.
“So this was the work of the wolves?”
“Here to feast on corpses, maybe.”
Gullen muttered in anger. There was no death more disgraceful than being eaten by beasts.
A Northerner would rather die fighting than be eaten.
“No. They’re here for me.”
What nonsense...Gullen furrowed his brows.
“That cry... it’s a magical beast.”
He was right. Only then did Gullen feel the mana.
Their leader was a magical beast.
“Are you going to fight?”
Gullen stared at Harad as he asked.
The guy was smiling. Was he planning to use the battle as a chance to escape?
At least, that’s how Gullen saw it. Because Harad had come to his senses.
And a sane Harad was more impressive than Gullen had expected.
He’d been the first to notice the wolves—and that their leader was a magical beast.
The beast’s howls grew closer. It was meaningless to judge distance by sound anymore.
The wolves were already right in front of Gullen.
‘They came for me.’
Gullen recalled Harad’s words.
It wasn’t nonsense. Dozens of wolves drooled at the corpses and at Gullen—but not their leader. That one only watched Harad.
The magical beast’s eyes were as big as Gullen’s face. Its body was even bigger—at least three times Gullen’s size.
It wasn’t a low-level beast that only preyed on the weak.
It had intelligence. It sought to grow stronger by eating stronger prey.
“Hah.”
Gullen laughed hollowly. That kind of beast had identified Harad as its prey.
‘This damn fool.’
He was only following Serzila’s orders. Gullen saw no value in Harad.
No value—just irritation. He had been that way since birth.
“Grrr.”
The magical beast sensed the aura blooming from Gullen’s body.
And its drooling stopped. Magical beasts feel no hunger toward aura.
They feed only on mana.
So it now saw Gullen as an obstacle.
An obstacle preventing it from feeding.
The beast howled once to the sky. And the wolf pack lunged at Gullen.
Gullen didn’t move. If he did, Harad might run.
‘The axe... damn.’
He was to escort Harad Iagar to the North. A dangerous mission—but Gullen hadn’t even brought his favorite axe. He had to avoid detection by the Empire and the Church. So Gullen stood still and swung his fists. He crushed the jaw of the wolf in front. He tore open another’s mouth, smashed a third’s side with his elbow.
Crunch. A wolf bit his thigh, but its teeth shattered.
Thanks to his aura. His knee crushed the ribs of the wolf with broken fangs.
Wolves weren’t the problem. Their claws and fangs couldn’t pierce a body imbued with aura.
Gullen’s fists dropped wolves twice his size with a single blow.
This wasn’t a battle—it was a massacre.
Gullen’s angry face stuck out from the middle of the wolf pack.
The cooling sensation on his hot face disappeared.
Had the snowstorm stopped? No—the darkness in his vision deepened.
...The magical beast. Instead of the sky, he now saw its gullet. A slimy tongue. Fangs as thick as arms.
The snow hadn’t stopped. The beast had blocked it.
It leapt at Gullen, jaw open wide.
“Ah.”
Saliva splattered his face. In that instant, Gullen sensed death.
He didn’t close his eyes. In them, the visions of past and future dreams merged.
A prodigy destined to be the next Great Warrior. The youngest knight.
Now just a rookie in the 1st Knights, but destined to rise...
...And the magical beast, engulfed in fire.
“...?”
Only then did his eyes see reality. The beast that had leapt at him to bite his upper body was now burning as it crashed to the ground.
The fire was large enough to engulf the massive beast instantly.
The beast writhed on the snow-covered ground.
The snow, piled up to the knees, couldn’t douse the flames.
Far from it—the flames grew fiercer, consuming even the remaining wolves.
It wasn't an ordinary fire.
Gullen realized—the fire was devouring the beast’s mana to grow.
“You can’t even handle one of these? Oh, right, you’re just a rookie now.”
A laughing voice came. Above Harad burned a sun.
Not the real sun—Harad’s own sun.
‘...Magic.’
A sun the size of a hut lit up Gullen.
The heat was nauseating.
A demon with the blood of the Otherworld. To the continent, mages were enemies to kill.
...But Gullen couldn’t kill Harad. Because Serzila wanted him.
Why, he didn’t know...But Serzila wanted this mage—Harad.