Embracing Magic - E.M Chapter 59 (Part 2)
“Well… Bronx, huh… It’s been about a year now, I think? Suddenly, some strange bandits came into the village. They beat everyone up, barged into any house they pleased, and helped themselves to whatever they wanted. We all stayed quiet, pretending to be dead, but Ben caused trouble.”
Ben was his oldest brother’s name. He wasn’t sold when their other siblings were because he was too old.
When Rodin was sold, Ben was already 17. He was old enough that it was more profitable to use him as labor than to sell him for a few coins.
“What kind of trouble?”
“He was always getting into trouble when he drank, and that day was no different. He got drunk and picked a fight with those men. He ended up killing one of them.”
“Oh!”
“Enraged, they killed Ben, Bronx, and Mary. They also destroyed the house.”
Mary was his mother’s name. In the end, all the family members who had stayed in this village were no longer alive.
“Those men… were they Imperial soldiers?”
“No. It was two months before the Imperial Army arrived. Among them, some wore Imperial uniforms, and some wore our kingdom’s uniforms.”
“Ah! They were deserters.”
“We thought so too.”
“Do you know who they were?”
“I don’t know the others, but the leader was called Gawen.”
Rodin softly repeated the name “Gawen” to himself, trying to remember it.
However, he had no intention of scouring the land to find Gawen. He might seek him out if they happened to cross paths, but otherwise, he felt it couldn’t be helped.
Above all, Rodin didn’t have much affection for his parents. The moment they sold him for money, they became as good as strangers.
‘So why did I come here? To get rid of any lingering attachments?’
Oddly enough, even though he had just learned that his parents and older brother were dead, he didn’t feel sad. Instead, he felt relieved, as if he had shaken off something uncomfortable.
“But, Chief, why are there no men left in the village?”
“That was the work of the Imperial Army.”
“Did they kill them all?”
“No. They took them away. The Imperial soldiers didn’t treat us as harshly as we expected. They searched each house but only took valuables and left the food.”
The Ingram Imperial Army already considered this village part of their empire. Naturally, they regarded the people in this village as their own citizens.
‘They were confident in their victory.’
Given the current state of the war, the Ingram Empire wasn’t wrong to think so. The Riyaz Kingdom would fall soon.
Unless the 13-nation alliance suddenly united and fought back, their defeat was a foregone conclusion if they continued prioritizing their own interests, as they had been doing.
“Thank you. You’ve answered my questions.”
“No problem. Ah! Do you have any news of your other family members?”
“My other family? You mean my second brother and sister?”
“What was that daughter’s name again? Anyway, I don’t know about her, but there was a second son, right? Wasn’t his name Anton?”
Anton was indeed his second brother’s name. Rodin knew that he had been sold off about a month before him.
“Yes. That’s my second brother’s name. Do you know what happened to him?”
“I heard he was conscripted into the Riyaz Kingdom’s army. Ben would always talk about it before he died. He would say he’d join the military and quickly become a knight, rising to a higher position than his brother. He was full of nonsense. Tsk tsk. So immature.”
Ben, his oldest brother, was still childish even at that age. It was pathetic.
Having seen his siblings sold off, he should have learned something from it. Instead, he lived under the illusion that he was someone special simply because he hadn’t been sold off.
“I see. Thank you for telling me.”
“Are you planning to settle in the village? If you tell the villagers, they’ll help you fix up the house.”
The Chief seemed to want Rodin to stay.
With all the young and healthy men taken by the Imperial Army, the village was short on labor. As a result, they couldn’t farm, and the village was in a state of disarray.
“No, I’m leaving.”
“I’m sorry. I only have bad news for you.”
“It’s not your fault, Chief. I’m okay. Well then, I’ll be off.”
Leaving the Chief behind, Rodin departed the village. He didn’t use magic until he was far enough away that he could no longer feel the Chief’s gaze.
* * *
Rodin traveled to nearby villages, asking if anyone knew his sister. Her name was unique, so anyone who had met her would remember.
But no one knew her. He searched seven villages with no success.
Then, just when he was about to give up, in the last village, he finally heard her name.
“Sierra? Of course, I remember. She was so bright-eyed, even as a child.”
“Is she in this village?”
“No. Sierra lived here for about half a year. Someone came and bought her. Hollen, who lived over there, asked for 100 gold, and the buyer paid without hesitation.”
It seemed that Hollen was the person who originally bought his sister. She lived under him for half a year before someone else took her away.
That was all the news he could gather about his sister from this village.
“You don’t know where she went?”
“How would I know? I doubt anyone else knows either. The buyer was a stranger. Ah! She was a noblewoman wearing incredibly fine clothes.”
“A noblewoman. I see.”
He hadn’t felt much when he heard that the rest of his family was dead. When he heard that his second brother had joined the army, he thought little of it.
But the news of his sister being taken away left him feeling suffocated. If he had more clues, he would have searched further, but the trail ended here.
‘I wanted to see her.’
The only family member Rodin had genuinely cared about was his sister. She was the only one who had treated him kindly when they lived together.
‘She’s eight years older than me, so she would have been 13 when that noblewoman took her.’
But with just the clue of a “noblewoman,” investigating further was impossible.
There were too many noblewomen in the world. Especially to the eyes of people living in rural areas, anyone in slightly fancy clothes could be seen as a noblewoman.