Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Bastard of House Bratz
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"House Bratz is vulgar for a noble family."
That was the assessment of the Bratz family floating around high society. It was probably because, among all the Border Counts, they bordered the barbarians.
In the distant past, the war horns had never ceased blowing, but recently, after a formal peace had been made on the surface, various exchanges had become frequent.
"Young Master Ian, your table manners are truly excellent."
Ian, who had been hurriedly chewing his meat, snapped to attention at the old man's praise. Was it sarcasm? Had he been gluttonous without realizing because he was starving? Ian cleared his throat, feeling a pang of guilt, but the old man's praise was sincere.
"Your son possesses such fine dignity. It must be thanks to Count Deruga's excellent guidance."
"Not at all, Lord Molin."
The head of House Bratz, Count Deruga, was bewildered by his son's sudden change in demeanor over just a few seconds but did not lose his ceremonial expression. Deruga glanced at Ian as he replied.
"After all, Bratz blood flows through him, so it's only natural. Please put in a good word with His Majesty the Emperor."
"Of course, Count."
Ian stopped chewing the food in his mouth at their cryptic exchange.
Emperor? Me?
No. Wait. Did he just say Bratz?
"Come to think of it..."
His own hands gripping the fork and knife were too small and thin. His line of sight from the chair was also low.
Ian swallowed the food in this inexplicable situation and reached for the wine glass.
"Ah."
The glass didn't contain alcohol but a beverage. Moreover, reflected in the round glass was not his face but that of some stranger. Ian nearly spat it out, forgetting decorum for a moment.
"Cough!"
As he coughed and grabbed a napkin, the boy across from him sneered.
"Tsk tsk. Look at that. I thought he was doing so well."
"Chel. You should look after your younger brother if he makes a mistake."
The boy called Chel pouted discontentedly. Countess Mary gripped Chel's hand tightly under the tablecloth to rein in her son.
This was not just a simple dinner.
Lord Molin was an official dispatched from the central palace, here to verify if Ian had the qualities to be registered into House Bratz.
Molin gave Chel a kindly smile before focusing back on Ian.
"Young Master Ian, I hear you're studying philosophy these days."
Deruga the Count and his wife looked flustered at Molin's sudden question.
Ian couldn't even write his own name properly. As the child born from the Count raping a commoner outside the estate, he hadn't received a proper education. Just at the start of the meal, hadn't he been gulping down finger-bowl water?
"It's not at a level where he can speak of it yet."
The Count quickly interjected, pretending to defend Ian. Yet his gaze toward Ian was subtly sharp.
'Foolish brat. I told him to memorize it.'
They had crammed him with emergency lessons in preparation for Molin's questions, but the lowly thing seemed to have forgotten it all already. The old man pressed on with a smile, refusing to back down.
"That's how learning goes. It becomes solid through clashing opinions. Young Master Ian, what have you been studying lately? You're sixteen, and I hear you haven't attended school..."
The octogenarian was affable yet firm. Having survived a lifetime in the central bureaucracy where talents were weeded out daily, it was no wonder.
With things having come to this, even the Count couldn't defend him further. All eyes turned to Ian.
"Hm."
Ian cleared his throat and dabbed his mouth with the napkin. As the Bratz household expected, Ian appeared flustered.
But not because of Molin's question. It was because he had realized this was the backyard of a Border Count's estate.
The Bratz estate?
In the body of a boy he'd never seen?
He suspected it involved Naum's space-time magic, but he couldn't be sure. Space-time magic opened passages connecting points in time, so it always came with location restrictions.
In other words, one had to go there.
But Ian's last memory had been an underground prison. Moreover, traveling by borrowing someone else's body was something he'd never heard of.
"Young Master Ian?"
"Ah, my apologies."
At Molin's prompting, Ian reflexively responded with refined poise. It was a habit from the palace. A smile conveying that he had been attentively listening. It was the first time the Border Count and his family had seen him smile like that.
"Philosophy. Philosophy..."
Ian muttered it several times as if pondering.
"May I answer in his place, Administrative Officer Molin?"
Unable to hold back during that time, his half-brother Chel stepped forward.
It was maddening enough that this outsider was the star of such a precious dinner, but for a child of lowly blood to be registered into the Count's family? It was natural for anger to rise.
It was a foolish, pathetic impulse to draw the adults' eyes from Ian to himself. Countess Mary's sharp glare made his words falter at the end.
"Chel. Lord Molin asked Ian."
She was pleading silently.
Son, please just keep quiet. This is all for your sake. We have to register that lowly bastard's child into the family for you to survive.
"I like Teacher Purn."
"Purn?"
Amid the commotion, Ian spoke softly. His appetite seemed gone, as he had neatly set aside his utensils.
Count Deruga's face paled. It was a name he'd never heard. He should have just said he didn't know! Where did he come up with such drivel like a dog's bone...!
"Yes. Of course, the Papal Court doesn't approve, but isn't the humanism that Teacher Purn pursues a very important question? By reflecting on truths created by humans, centered on humans, one can envision the form of a true sovereign."
It was purely a personal preference.
To Ian, the daily lives of starving commoners mattered more than philosophy or humanities. His philosophy studies had only maintained the bare minimum of form, so he simply recited a 'popular' intellectual he remembered.
Count Deruga rolled his eyes and glanced at Molin. The old man paused as if quite surprised, then leaned his upper body closer to Ian.
"How do you know of Lord Purn?"
"Yes?"
But it was Count Deruga who answered, not Ian. Molin chuckled heartily and shook his head repeatedly.
"Oh dear. Being on the border, news from the center must arrive late, so I suppose arrogant thoughts arose. I apologize to Count Deruga and Young Master Ian."
"No, no."
Molin had noticed the Count didn't know Purn. If he had, that temperament would have furrowed his brows in displeasure instead of that dazed expression.
"Lord Purn is the youngest son of the Hoikmen Viscount family, who has just undergone his coming-of-age ceremony. Though young in years, he's a genius among geniuses who entered Bariel University at the top of his class. Not long ago, he turned the world upside down by bringing up humanism at a scholarly debate in the palace."
The news was late on the border, that was true.
It took a full fortnight by carriage from the capital to Deruga's frontier territory. It was a fact no one, including the Count, had known.
While everyone looked at Ian in surprise, Ian himself was shocked inwardly.
'Teacher Purn just had his coming-of-age ceremony? I thought he was over a hundred years old.'
Not only was it a stranger's body, but he seemed to have traveled back nearly a hundred years in time. It was an extremely, incredibly astonishing situation, but no sign of it showed on the outside. Thanks to the emperor's ingrained composure.
"I see. You like Lord Purn's philosophy. But you just said the Papal Court doesn't approve. What does that mean?"
"...Humanism is the view that nothing is more important than humans, so the Papal Court, which serves God, wouldn't welcome it."
"Heh heh."
It was a perfect answer.
Molin felt the fatigue accumulated over a fortnight easing away.
"There's merit in this long journey. I didn't know House Bratz's new son would be so intelligent. Surely His Majesty will be pleased as well."
In truth, it wasn't a big deal for nobles to legitimize bastards. For esteemed nobles, bringing in illegitimate children from failing to control their loins was just gossip fodder. In the dull high society, it was a happening that popped up now and then, for men and women alike.
But Molin's following words were somehow off.
"And the Cheonryeo Tribe will welcome it too."
'Cheonryeo Tribe?'
Ian racked his memory for the familiar name. The Cheonryeo Tribe referred to the barbarians east of the border. The tribe welcoming his intelligence?
...In that case.
'It seems like a hostage.'
A bastard to be sent to the border-sharing Cheonryeo Tribe as the price for maintaining peace.
Count Deruga smiled wickedly and placed his hand over Ian's. Now that he understood the situation, he looked like a devil wearing the mask of a kindly father.
"Ian. I believe without a doubt that you will become a symbol of peace."
Peace was a formal agreement.
Conventionally, each leader sent their own legitimate child, but the barbarians beyond the border were fickle folk who might turn at any moment.
In fact, Count Deruga's second brother had died young crossing the border for peace. Officially an accident, but the truth was unverifiable.
So how could he send his one and only legitimate son, Chel? That's why he had hastily brought in Ian, whom he had ignored until now, to legitimize him.
'The palace must have noticed, of course.'
However, they couldn't just send anyone, so they were testing Ian's intelligence through Molin.
The brighter the child sent, the greater the diplomatic deterrent, which would benefit both sides.
Of course, since House Bratz's autonomy in the borderlands took priority, it was half a formality. But the other half could be seen as the palace checking the provincial nobles.
"Ah."
Ian grasped the situation at once.
Even before his death, House Bratz had maintained peace this way, exchanging hostages multiple times.
In the end, they were later brutally exterminated by the Cheonryeo Tribe.
It had been a disaster that it took a fortnight for the news to reach the center by express messenger. By the time other lords and the emperor of the day arrived leading armies, it was too late.
'My great-grandfather, was it?'
That had been Ian's great-grandfather's generation.
The emperor had driven out the Cheonryeo Tribe and concluded the incident by dividing the territory among the nobles and knights who fought alongside.
"Ian?"
Countess Mary called to Ian.
As if urging him to respond to the Count's words.
A reminder to recall his own duty.
Ian smiled faintly and moistened his mouth with water again. He didn't know what it was, but for now, he'd acknowledge one thing. Ian hadn't died. He had revived in the form of some inexplicable child.
"Yes, Father."
Count Deruga smiled in satisfaction at Ian's crisp reply. Everyone except Chel laughed happily, blessing the peace Ian's existence would bring.
"Now, please eat."
Only then did Deruga resume eating with ease.
Ian looked around briefly to regain a sense of reality. Above all, the only thing reminding him he was alive was the pounding of his heart.
'I have no idea what's going on.'
If this was Naum's magic, there was one way to confirm it. By going to the palace annex. And investigating for traces of Naum's magic.
But from the Bratz borderlands to the center took over a fortnight, a distant world forever unreachable for a child soon to be sold to the Great Desert.
Yes. It 'had been' such a world.