Legacy of the Living
"…Weren't we unrelated?"
"I had hoped you would think so, for now."
Speaking quietly, Ulrich closed his mouth. It felt as though he wouldn't continue unless she pressed him, so Roberta urged him on.
"Please tell me. What kind of relationship do I have with you, Lord Ulrich?"
"Strictly speaking, you are also of the Hilderson clan."
Roberta brought a hand to her lips, repeating the name to herself.
"Hilderson…?"
Ulrich had no biological children with his late wife, Hilde, but as if to compensate, he had adopted several children. Among them, one had married into Hilde's bloodline, and from that point on, those adopted children formed the Hilderson clan.
"Does that mean I'm a descendant of one of those adopted children?"
"'Descendant' is too distant a term. If we count the degrees of relation, there are only two between you and me."
"Then… to me, you are—"
"Your grandfather."
"In terms of relation," Ulrich added.
She stared at him blankly.
"I heard from Alonso that you know nothing about your parents."
"…Yes. I've asked before, but he never told me."
As if it were only natural, Ulrich nodded.
"It's not a story that brings anything good by bringing it up."
Then he turned his back and resumed examining the artifacts.
Roberta stared fixedly at his back.
"Will you not tell me either, Lord Ulrich?"
"Do you wish to hear it?"
"Yes. I do."
Ulrich answered immediately.
"Adalaide—that is your mother's name."
Roberta flinched.
"Have you heard it before?"
Though he had his back turned, Ulrich asked as if he had seen her reaction.
"Yes," she answered, searching her memory. It felt familiar, yet she couldn't quite place it. After a moment, she remembered—it was a name Beatrice had mentioned.
When the inquisitor had suspected Ulrich's identity and pressed Roberta, pointing out the alias Armin, she had said:
— Suppose there is someone who uses the name Armin. She told me the answer herself. She said he was her father. That he uses the name because he cannot forget his dead son.
The one who had given that answer was Adalaide.
At the time, she hadn't thought much of it. Among so many adopted children, wouldn't at least one have devoted themselves to the Pantheon?
But to think that child was her mother—it left her dazed.
"…So she was alive."
Ulrich's face couldn't be seen, but his tone carried slight surprise.
"You didn't know either, Lord Ulrich?"
"I thought she had passed away. While staying in Dithmarschen, news from outside reaches me only sporadically. I never heard what became of Adalaide, and it has already been twenty years since I last received word of her."
If there had been no news for twenty years, it was only natural to assume she had died.
"I should have told you sooner."
"No. Once you heard it, it was already too late. It would have been different if I had known earlier."
"What would have been different?"
"At the very least, you wouldn't have grown up separated from your mother."
She stared at him.
He lowered the hand that had been about to pick up an artifact.
"No matter how long one lives, there are still many difficult things. People say that as experience accumulates, the next time becomes easier—but that isn't always true. Especially when it comes to raising children… it is truly difficult. Even when I take them in with my own 고민 and sense of responsibility, they often end up going astray."
"…Like my mother?"
After a brief silence, Ulrich began walking toward the exit.
"Adalaide was a child with a strong competitive spirit. And just as much talent to match. The former Count Meyer was even wary that she might take his own child's position. He only relaxed once he realized she had little interest in that seat."
The "seat" referred to the position of steward—a role almost hereditary within the Meyer family, passed down from the adopted line of Hohenlohe. That meant Adalaide had been talented enough to threaten it.
"When talent and competitiveness meet, one tends to see the world as small. Adalaide was like that. Since she had never left Dithmarschen beyond the Ice Peninsula, that nature of hers had been restrained—but the problem came afterward."
The Ice Peninsula was a place Roberta, even after fighting through demonic realms multiple times, never wished to return to. No matter how talented one was, witnessing its brutal cold, unpredictable monsters, and even dragons would crush one's spirit.
"She must have had a chance to leave, then?"
Ulrich nodded.
"It was because of the civil war. I sent several people in my place to that conflict, and Adalaide joined them. That was the turning point. When the war entered a temporary lull and she returned, she was no longer the same person. It seemed that what had been sleeping within her had awakened."
Her standard of comparison had changed. Before, she had compared herself to the monsters and dragons of the Ice Peninsula—but afterward, she compared herself to ordinary humans, her own kind. Through meeting many people during the Osnover civil war, she must have realized her own level.
That she was, in fact, someone extraordinary.
"At that time, my mother's age…"
"She was about your age."
Early twenties—realizing one's own talent.
"Adalaide felt that Dithmarschen was too small. She believed that growing up there had stifled her talent, and she couldn't understand why I remained in such a place."
Dithmarschen was remote even among remote lands—bordering the demonic Ice Peninsula, plagued by descending monsters, and a place where summer did not exist. Harsher even than exile.
The Kormillius family governed it directly—not because the land itself held value, but because Ulrich had settled there. Without him, it would be nothing but a burden.
In other words, its value existed because of him.
Some, like Count Meyer, were content with that alone—but not everyone.
"You must have been disappointed in my mother."
Like Roberta's mother, there would be those who resented staying in such a worthless place.
"No. I expected that she wouldn't remain in Dithmarschen as she grew older. There had been many like her before. However… I didn't expect her to leave so suddenly, without any preparation."
They left the vault and climbed onto the fortress wall.
Soldiers of Marquis Olnef of Oestrua were patrolling. Ulrich passed by them and continued speaking as the night wind blew gently.
"After that, news kept coming for quite some time. She moved with great passion, so there were many who passed along word. I heard, one by one, about which lord she served under, what achievements she accomplished, and how she was praised for them."
She had left with nothing—and yet had surged forward along a path of success.
If that momentum had continued, how far would she have gone?
Roberta already knew how the story ended.
She had never heard the name Adalaide until Beatrice mentioned it. If someone that outstanding had continued on a path of success for twenty years, there was no way she wouldn't have known. And yet, neither Roberta—nor even Ulrich—had heard anything about her for two decades.
"Then came news that something serious had happened to her. Not long after, I also heard that you had been born."
Ulrich leaned against the battlement and looked out.
"Lord Alonso told me I was abandoned at a temple."
"To be precise, at the temple where Alonso was."
"…Did my mother go to Alonso herself?"
Ulrich nodded.
"Alonso was assigned to Dithmarschen a few years before Adalaide left. They met then. Since both of them had been under my care, they likely found each other quite tiresome."
"Tiresome…" Roberta let out a bitter smile.
"So they didn't get along very well…"
"They got along terribly."
She had suspected as much at times. Alonso would occasionally say, as a compliment, that she didn't resemble her mother.
"And yet… he still took me in."
"Can one hate a child for what their parent is like?"
"That's not as easy as it sounds."
"…Indeed."
Roberta leaned her arms on the battlement beside Ulrich.
"The Kormillius family must know about me as well, right?"
"Of course," he answered.
"And that's why you kept me close."
"That is not the case. If that were all, I would have sent you away before long. I kept you close because I judged you to be worthy."
"…Then wasn't it a bit much to reveal so much about yourself from the very first day?"
"After meeting you, I saw that you were not like her."
Wouldn't it be more natural for her to resemble her?
Ulrich raised the corner of his lips ever so slightly.
"I do not care for comparing people by saying whom they resemble."
Roberta frowned slightly as she studied his profile.
"…Then what should I call you now?"
"Call me as you always have. You may call me something else if you wish—but do you want that?"
Even if she did, there was only one option: grandfather.
The moment that word came to mind, her body trembled slightly.
"No," she said firmly.
"Good. I would not like to be called that by you either."
Awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck, Roberta gazed into the distance.
Countless thoughts swirled in her mind. What kind of person had her mother truly been? Why had all news of her ceased? Why had she abandoned her?
She had thought that learning about Ulrich's past was her role—but suddenly, she found herself tracing her own instead. As the subject shifted, her thoughts became tangled and complex.
She let out a long sigh.
Sorting through everything was important—but there was still something she needed to ask.
"You know about my father as well, don't you?"
"Not in detail. I never met him while he was alive."
At the word alive, she flinched.
"I only heard that he died shortly before you were born. He was not formally betrothed to Adalaide either, so I believe it is not something worth prying into."
She lowered her head slightly and touched her dry lips.
Having grown up under Alonso's care, she had never strongly felt the absence of a father. After her coming-of-age ceremony, she hadn't even thought about it much.
But still—a father was a father.
The fact that he had died before she was even born did not feel insignificant.
Roberta raised her head and opened her mouth to ask about him.
But just as she began, "Still—"
Footsteps echoed from below the stairs.
Fritz was coming up.
"Ah, were you perhaps in the middle of a conversation?"
"No. Speak."
"His Excellency is calling for you. It seems he has something urgent to discuss."
"It looks like he has quite a lot of questions," Fritz added, glancing around.
Ulrich straightened from where he had been leaning.
"Roberta, we will speak of that another time."
She was about to ask, "Can't it be now?"—but he had already begun descending the stairs.
Without waiting for her response.
She watched him for a moment, then followed.
***
It seemed there truly had been much to discuss—Ulrich was kept there through the entire night.
The three who held him—the inquisitor, the archbishop, and the marquis—greeted the morning with shadows under their eyes.
Naturally, Ulrich himself looked completely fine.
As morning came, he calmly packed his belongings.
He did not take the artifacts.
He picked up a few items, but none were on the list the archbishop had handed over. The artifacts that the fairy Praselli had been targeting were left exactly where they were in the vault.
"Will that be alright?" she asked.
"Now that the marquis has turned to our side, it is safer to leave them in the vault," Ulrich replied.
Leaving the rear to Marquis Olnef, Ulrich's group returned to the Langen bishopric.
Though the artifacts had been secured, the matter was not yet over.
"Soon, they will send a contact," the archbishop said.
"They won't know that I've switched sides. We'll be able to catch their tail."
Just as they had captured the hunter at Yusuf's grave site and pursued Karal of the Dawn Society, they intended to capture the contact sent to the archbishop and trace the anti-divinity faction.
No one knew exactly when "soon" would be—but Jokuster and Kormillius were already in a state of extreme tension.
The time when the artifacts would be needed was not far off.
"Your Excellency!"
However, what they had not expected was how soon that time would come.
"What is it?"
As they approached the eastern gate of Oberlangen City, a rider came rushing toward them in urgency.
There was little distance left—he could have waited and delivered the message calmly—but instead, with a flushed face and trembling hands, he handed over a letter.
Archbishop Giacomo's expression had already hardened when he heard the shout. As he read the letter atop his saddle, he clenched his teeth so tightly that the paper in his hand tore slightly.
Though brief, the contents were far from light.
"The Emperor has taken the field personally. A surprise attack and great victory at Sorebel. Now advancing toward Novasolon."
READ MORE CHAPTERS HERE : https://beastnovels.com/