Count Turun Andreas.
He couldn’t hide his surprise and emotion while looking at the man standing before him… now turned into a prominent figure after years.
Just this morning, he had received a report that a paladin named Santana had been captured and he had thought to himself, “No way, no way.”
It was a full 11 years ago.
Although he had left home on his own volition, he felt he had essentially lost his kin…
To find that boy, Count Turun had sent people not only to the Sacred Empire but also to the neighboring Polanda Kingdom and Franz Kingdom, yet he had failed to find any trace of his son.
As the long years passed, Count Turun, as well as other family members, had half-given up on finding their child, and thus he decided to bury his yearning and regrets deep within his heart.
But today. Before Count Turun, who had given up on everything, there stood…
The son he had thought he would never see again.
After 11 years, the appearance of his son was completely different from before.
He had grown taller, his demeanor had changed significantly, and the color of the boy he last saw had vanished entirely, now standing before him was a man named Santana.
However, despite the differences, Turun recognized him at a glance.
This was indeed that boy.
The one he had been searching for.
His only son and the one true heir to follow in his footsteps.
Santana Andreas.
Filled with immense joy at that thought, Count Turun embraced his child and offered thanks to the Lord, as he began to hear the voice of his son ringing in his ears.
“It’s been… quite a while… Ah… Father.”
There was a slight awkwardness in his son’s voice, one he hadn’t heard in 11 years.
In that moment, Count Turun was overwhelmed with deeper emotions and tightly held his son close.
*
“Indeed… during the time you were in Milano as a paladin…”
“Yes. That’s how I spent my time. Though in the end, I was expelled and chased away.”
“Still, that’s commendable. Although you were part of the Church’s forces, you became a full paladin on your own merit… truly my son.”
“…You flatter me… Ah… Father…”
Immediately after giving the command to free Cazerose and Polena from their cell, Count Turun sat down and began to ask about the events of the past years.
I casually responded to his questions while matching the mood.
It goes without saying, but I couldn’t explain how I managed to escape from this place 11 years ago or how I became a paladin.
However, as someone who knew the original work, I had a general understanding of who Turun was and what kind of people were around him.
In simple terms, although he was a great mage, he had many shortcomings on a personal level.
Count Turun, right in front of me, had impulsive and aggressive tendencies, which laid the groundwork for leading the revolt in Bohemia.
Moreover, his daughters, fitting his personality, were all rather feisty characters as well, and presumably, Santana would have been the same.
‘Well, I’m currently 24 years old and if I ran away at 13, that means I left home at that age…’
I didn’t know the reason for the runaway, but from my current perspective, it was likely something trivial.
If a teenage boy inherited the temperament of House Andreas, it wouldn’t be unusual for him to impulsively leave home over a trivial grievance.
However, aside from this background, I was aware that Count Turun… the man I now had to call ‘Father’ was feeling quite proud while watching me.
‘After all, it’s been 11 years since he last saw his son. To see me returned in one piece during such troubling times…’
To be fair, while the body may indeed belong to this man’s son, the contents within were clearly that of a different existence.
Yet, I felt no need to be guilty about it.
According to the original work, Count Turun would never meet his son again until his dying day, and the Milano, where Santana lived as a paladin, would eventually be reduced to ashes by the flames of war.
In other words, the two of them were fated to never meet again until they died.
Moreover, even if my personality had changed, I was still very much Santana himself, so there was no need to think too deeply about this issue.
What’s more, considering the ins and outs of it all, being the Count’s son didn’t benefit me in any way, but instead only piled up homework I needed to resolve like a mountain.
‘But seriously… why Bohemia of all places? I never thought I’d be stuck in the most wrecked region by the Heretic Forces like this…’
In the original dark fantasy novel, Bohemia had a massive significance, and the scale of the tragedies occurring there was beyond terrible.
Having been the first to openly challenge the emperor, it became a major battlefield between the Sacred Empire and the Heretic Forces.
As a result, by the end of the war, a staggering 80% of the towns and cities in Bohemia would be reduced to ruins.
This lord’s castle where we currently stood would have been completely reduced to ashes in the process.
And naturally, for me, who had become the son and successor of the Bohemian leader, choosing to abandon this place under such circumstances would be utterly impossible.
This father would never let me go at this point, and the moment I tried to leave, I would be marked as a traitor to my country or a wayward child who abandoned his family, making it impossible for me to find my footing anywhere.
‘In conclusion, it means I’m in a situation where I have to bury my bones here, whether it’s good or bad… Really, is this how my life is going to keep spiraling down into worse and worse situations?’
I felt the realization settle in that I had fallen into the worst possible scenario.
Originally, when I first came to this world, I envisioned giving the Church a great wealth to end the war against the Heretics with a single stroke.
Ending the war swiftly and minimizing foreign intervention to prevent the Empire’s territories and nearby nations from falling into the hell of thirty years of warfare.
Admittedly, I failed due to an unexpected excommunication attack, but it was still something I could manage.
After all, this war would have ended without incident if the Church’s and the Emperor’s strength had been just a bit stronger.
If only they could have effectively extinguished the last embers of conflict, tragedies could have been avoided.
Thus, the task I had to perform in relation to that was merely to give them a little more support.
However… now finding myself dragged into the depths of Bohemia and the Heretic Forces, I was stuck.
It was like the difference between giving a little nudge to a falling rock and risking my life trying to push it back up while being smashed on the road.
In terms of difficulty, I had skipped from normal to hard, straight into hell.
And not by choice, but rather because of a hidden truth I had no prior knowledge of!
Moreover, this time, there was no option to quit halfway, making it the worst situation ever.
‘Seriously, I didn’t sell out my country in my previous life or anything… I mean, what exactly did I do? Just played around with coins and stocks? It’s not like I hit the jackpot either; I was just a lowly ant living paycheck to paycheck! So why the hell is my fate this troublesome?’
As I lamented deeply about this cursed fate of mine, there came a knock.
“Someone’s here.”
With the sound coming from the door, two figures slowly entered.
There stood Cazerose, wearing an expression of concern and doubt, and Polena, always sporting a look of intrigue.
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