ICM Chapter 144

It was near the end of winter. Even the little snow that had been on the shallow hill had all melted away. Only the scattered patches of snow remaining in the shadows of the surrounding forest reminded anyone that winter had not yet ended.

The sun-warmed earth was soggy and thawed. The workers who had been wielding pickaxes since morning switched to shovels and began digging into the ground. Considerable effort was needed to uproot the matted dry grass roots and the overgrown brush, roots and all.

The barren hill upstream of the Rosha River bustled with working laborers. There were over a hundred people mobilized, plus volunteers from both territories and knights who had returned from the border region.

When the workers dug up the earth, people standing by carried away the soil. In areas accessible to horses, pack horses pulled harrows to break up the ground.

A tent had been set up at a distance from where the workers were laboring. Though hastily erected and crude beyond measure, no one complained.

“Why are you standing out here in the cold?”

Drushia approached Ashika, who was standing there dazedly, and wrapped a blanket around her.

Though spring was coming, it was still cold weather. Even wearing an outer coat, Ashika’s lips were blue from the cold, and her hands clutching the blanket were stiffly frozen and unnatural. Drushia reached out and fastened the front of the blanket for her directly.

It had already been a week. Since Iben’s confession and the retainers from both territories had mobilized people and the excavation work had begun.

It was the season when spring was approaching. Fearing that warm weather and rain would cause the water levels to rise, the construction was pushed forward swiftly.

“I can’t imagine it.”

Ashika muttered with a half-dazed expression. Because she couldn’t believe the story she had heard from Iben, yet couldn’t not believe it.

“Grandmother watched her son die before her very eyes. How did she endure without going mad while buried all that time?”

Drushia pulled Ashika’s shoulder and embraced her. Feeling sorry for the chilling coldness flowing from her small frame, he tightened his arms around her even more.

“That too might be a curse.”

“…If you should die but cannot die, and want to lose your mind but cannot even go mad, then yes, that would indeed be a curse.”

Iben said she had come to the event site because she wanted to see her son, even from afar. When sudden torrential rain poured down, people took shelter in the temporary buildings in their respective camps.

And then that incident happened.

The accident at the time began with a landslide, they say. The Talion camp was buried under the pouring earth and debris, and immediately afterward the dam collapsed.

Those swept away by the river water at least had their bodies found, but those buried by the landslide could not be traced anywhere. Because the site had been completely submerged and disappeared. It was a truth no one had known until now, since no one had returned alive.

Watching her son die before her eyes, Iben alone survived. And she crawled out of the buried pile of earth by her own strength. She didn’t survive—she simply couldn’t die. A monster who couldn’t even die in a situation where she should have died, that was what Iben was.

Drushia gently caressed Ashika’s cheek and whispered softly.

“There’s a brazier over there. How about warming yourself up?”

“Grandfather has been out since morning too.”

In the distance, Weive was near the construction site. Like a tree rooted to that spot, he hadn’t budged for hours.

“If he collapses from overexertion, he won’t even be able to keep watch like this.”

Drushia urged again. Though he wanted to tell her to return to the castle and wait, he couldn’t dissuade her, knowing she felt the same way he did.

As if she couldn’t hear his words, Ashika’s gaze remained fixed on the site where work was in full swing.

“Do they have to dig up everything from down there to the top of the hill?”

The direction Ashika was pointing to was a triangular area where a shallow slope branched off to the side from where the river flowed.

“The terrain has changed over the years. Many trees have grown too. So they’re trying to dig down over as wide an area as possible.”

“It’s fortunate that the river water has receded so much.”

Drushia nodded at Ashika’s words.

“People say the waterway has changed. This area was submerged until just a few years ago.”

Moreover, drought had continued for several years in the Grand Duchy and surrounding regions. Because of this, land that had been underwater in the past was now exposed and dried up. Perhaps this might be the last chance. The last chance to find the missing people.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

Someone’s scream was heard from one edge of the construction site. The workers who had been moving busily all stopped their work at once.

“What? Did you find something?”

“A, a…, a person!”

People nearby began gathering one by one toward where the scream had come from.

“What… is this?”

Terrified screams and gasps erupted from various places.

Ashika dropped the blanket she was holding and hurried her steps as if entranced.

“Ashika, wait.”

Drushia followed behind her. If they had found a corpse, it surely wouldn’t be a pleasant sight. He was worried about Ashika being shocked.

Because people were crowding around, the small pit revealed below was not clearly visible. Weive, who had arrived first, couldn’t speak for a while, then barely regained his composure and gave instructions.

“Put away the shovels and pickaxes. Bring small tools.”

People who arrived late looked bewildered, not knowing what was happening. When five or six people rushed in and began digging the surrounding soil, the form of a buried person was revealed in an instant.

“What, what is that?”

“Good heavens!”

Only then did people realize why the worker had screamed. Even Ashika and Drushia were too shocked to speak.

The corpse pulled from the ground was in perfect condition. A pale face without a single wound and hair matted with dirt. It looked like someone who had died just moments ago, not decades earlier. Only the armor the corpse wore showed the passage of time, rusted red and corroded.

“Pull it out without damaging it.”

Weive quickly collected his shocked feelings. This was a site where someone who should have died couldn’t die and had emerged alive. What could be more bizarre than this?

“Tell everyone to stop using pickaxes and dig the ground carefully.”

Drushia shouted to the workers who had gathered. However, people’s agitation did not easily subside.

“Well, what in the world is all this?”

“The corpse is intact. How many years has it been buried underground…”

Far from being decomposed, it was so vivid that it seemed like it might spring up from where it lay at any moment, making it hard to feel like it was actually a corpse.

“Everyone return to your positions! Hurry up!”

At Drushia’s shouting, site supervisors repeated the orders from various places. People returned to their positions and resumed work, unable to fully process their shock.

“There’s one here too!”

“O-over here too…”

Subsequently, corpses buried in earth and debris were discovered in various places. Like the first corpse found, they appeared vivid as if they had just died moments ago.

In fear and dismay, the workers dug into the ground without even daring to breathe. The work was carried out with extreme caution, lest they damage the corpses that felt like living people. During the process of pulling out the bodies one by one, no one dared suggest taking a break.

As late afternoon approached, one knight who had been digging down at the edge of the buried debris stopped working.

“Huh.”

His gaze unconsciously turned toward Weive standing on the hill. The knight was holding a piece of cloak that had emerged from the ground.

Weive, who suddenly looked up, met eyes with the knight. The knight stopped working and moved his mouth without being able to say anything.

“Why…”

Weive couldn’t complete his question and jumped down from the hill. His urgent steps slipped on the steep slope and he tumbled down.

“Your Grace!”

Even though he had fallen and become covered in dirt, Weive paid no attention. Without any presence of mind to brush off the dirt, he ran to where the knight was.

What the knight held in his hand was a cloak with Igraine’s emblem delicately embroidered on it. Though stained with muddy water and deteriorated, it was definitely Igraine’s. The only trace of Igraine found in a place full of Talion corpses.

Weive pushed the knight aside and began clawing at the dirt with his hands.

“Your… Grace.”

He couldn’t hear the voice calling him. Finding the thick gloves cumbersome, he threw them off in one motion and scratched at the ground with his bare fingers. Like a beast searching for an air hole, his hand movements became increasingly urgent and desperate.

“Someone, please help here…”

The knight’s voice was choked and couldn’t finish the words. Igraine’s people scattered around finally realized something was wrong.

Ashika belatedly noticed the stirring atmosphere among the people. Without realizing it, she pushed away Drushia’s hand and headed toward where Weive was. Her increasingly urgent steps stumbled and slipped on the uneven piles of dirt.

“Ashika, wait.”

Drushia chased after Ashika and ran to the site.

An inexplicable premonition stirred through Ashika’s mind. The pounding of her heart grew stronger and stronger. Thoughts stopped and the bustling noise around her grew distant from her ears.

She became short of breath. Watching Weive frantically clawing at the ground, watching people desperately moving their hands to help.

Under Weive’s urgent touch, a form gradually began to emerge. When finally a complete human form was revealed, Drushia, who had followed behind, became dumbfounded.

“…Aunt…”

“Ah…”

Ashika and Drushia were speechless. So were the people gathered at the site.

The people Weive had unearthed were two. Lanche wrapped in a cloak like a blanket, and a woman hidden in his arms like a child. It was Jelosia Talion.

Ashika’s legs wobbled as strength drained from her body. Drushia practically lifted and supported her so she could maintain her position.

“…Father.”

Now she understood why Lanche’s corpse could not be found in Igraine’s camp. At the most dangerous moment, rather than fleeing, Lanche had run to the Talion camp to find Jelosia.

Fifteen years ago, Lanche was only twenty-six years old. Lanche, who had been a young man not much different from present-day Ashika, had ended his life buried in that pile of earth. Together with his lover, Jelosia.

“Huh…”

Weive touched his son’s unblemished face with hands blackened by muddy water.

“Huuu…”

Like a collapsed heart having convulsions, his hands touching his son trembled mercilessly.

Unable to even call out his name, Weive collapsed over his son’s corpse. A man who had never lost himself once in his lifetime collapsed for the first time.

It was a heartbreaking wail that tore at one’s insides. No one could open their mouth at the beast-like crying.

Ashika saw Weive let down everything and pour out his grief for the first time. No, she couldn’t bear to watch, so she buried her face in Drushia’s chest.

Drushia silently pulled Ashika into his embrace. The uncontrollable trembling was transmitted through her whole body within his arms. Not knowing what to do with his heavy heart, he held Ashika as she wept quietly like in childhood, embracing that sorrow.

People who had been missing for long years. Wounds that had settled in hearts like unresolvable lumps of endless longing. Those who were someone’s sons and daughters, someone’s parents, had returned.

It was a homecoming after fifteen years.