Chapter 530

Leo looked at Rune, who was offering him a formal bow. "How did you figure it out?" he asked curiously.

Seeing that Leo did not deny his words, Rune smiled. "As the Hero of the Beginning must already know, experience reveals many things."

Leo shrugged. "Unfortunately, I haven't lived as long as you. Well, I get what you mean, though."

Rune let out a faint chuckle. "I had my suspicions for a while."

From their very first meeting, Rune had sensed something in Leo's eyes. It wasn't the kind of feeling one got from a simply intelligent or promising young man with a bright future.

No, his eyes were those of someone who had seen countless battles and hardships. They were not the eyes a mere hero candidate, let alone a first-year student, should have had.

Leo's actions had been just as extraordinary.

The most shocking was that he had restored the Nebula Pioneer's lost spell, Magic of Blooming Flowers, and it hadn't been just any ordinary restoration.

As an elf, Rune had spent his entire life researching Stellar Magic. In terms of sheer understanding, he was one of the top five magic scholars in the world, yet when he examined Leo's restoration of Magic of Blooming Flowers, it didn't feel like a reconstruction.

It was as if someone who already knew the spell had merely written it down from memory.

It was not uncommon for lost spells to be rediscovered and restored by later generations, but unless one was from that era, even a fully restored spell could never be perfect. Not to mention, even now—over a year since Magic of Blooming Flowers had been restored—it remained too complex to fully decipher.

That was why Rune had found Leo's existence so perplexing.

As time went on, Leo's actions as a hero candidate also stood out more and more. At first, he had simply been an exceptional student, but before anyone realized it, he was accomplishing feats far beyond what a hero candidate should be capable of.

Rune had marveled at Leo's accomplishments while harboring suspicions.

Then, one day, his granddaughter, who had just returned from the world Dweno had conquered, said to him with a bright smile:

Grandfather! I met Lady Velkia! And you won't believe it—Sir Leo was there too!

Hearing Eiran's excited words about her ancestor and Leo's heroism had planted a seed in his mind.

Then came the return of Seiren and the descent of Luna.

From that point on, Rune had been constantly thinking about Leo. One by one, as he unraveled the tangled threads of logic, he arrived at a single conclusion, that Leo was none other than the Hero of the Beginning, Kyle.

"When I thought about it, it wasn't all that strange. The Hero of the Beginning, Sir Kyle, was an unprecedented all-class. And in all of history, only two people have ever been all-class."

Kyle and Leo.

"Even though your name is recorded in the Hero Record, you never received a title. When I thought about it, it made sense. If you already had one, there would be no need for a new one."

"Indeed."

"Besides, nothing is truly impossible. In this era, anything can happen."

Legion commanders who had been defeated during the Age of Calamity had reappeared. Heroes of the past had returned as the undead. Some names had even disappeared from the Hero Record.

Not to mention, great heroes like the Nebula Pioneer Luna, the Brave Hero Aaron, and the Comet Mage Seiren had all returned to the present.

"Given all that, it wouldn't be surprising if the Hero of the Beginning had also been reborn into this world. You have always been present in moments of miracles."

Moreover, Leo himself had continued to achieve accomplishments that others could only dream of accomplishing in a lifetime, many of which could be considered miracles.

"Even so, it couldn't have been easy to reach that conclusion."

"Magic begins with not dismissing possibilities. Lady Velkia left those words to my family."

"Luna must have drilled that phrase into Velkia's head nonstop." Leo recalled the past. "Even until the moment of her final journey."

"It seems Lady Luna's philosophy of magic was passed down to Lady Velkia."

Leo shook his head dismissively. "Not at all. Luna was just born with the belief that nothing is impossible and that if something doesn't work, you make it work. She never really had a philosophy about magic. It's just that Velkia was so incredibly stubborn that she had to nag her until the very end."

Rune smiled. You could have just let it be touching.

If it had been a final piece of advice from a master to their disciple, it would have been a beautiful tale.

"And to think that the words she heard so many times ended up passed down to her descendants. She really never changed," Leo added, further ruining the emotional impact.

Rune smiled warmly, while Leo plopped down into a chair.

"Have you met Velkia?" Leo asked, getting straight to the point.

"Yes."

"……" Leo closed his eyes.

He must have been disappointed.

No matter how wise Rune was, it had to have been a shock to see an ancestor he revered return as a revenant, and it was clear that Velkia had been the one who struck Rune down.

Who wouldn't be disappointed in a forebear who had lost control and gone mad?

Leo bit his lip.

"I can imagine what you're thinking, Hero of the Beginning, but there is no need to worry," Rune said calmly.

"What?" Leo looked at him in surprise.

Rune smiled. "I am not disappointed in Lady Velkia, and neither is anyone in the Ersar family."

Leo silently observed Rune, but he couldn't sense any falsehood in his words.

Groaning, Rune slowly stood up and tapped his back. "As the Hero of the Beginning must know, I am an old man."

Though his appearance was that of a young man, his body had aged. His eyes carried the weight of time, and the mana he exuded bore the depth of his years.

"I have lived long enough to know that the world is not purely beautiful, and that no one is perfect." Rune's gaze darkened. "It is simply… sorrowful. The Lady Velkia I once met had the purest eyes."

As the Ersar family patriarch, Rune had once ventured into Velkia's Hero World and met her there, so he knew how great an ancestor she was… and how kind of a person she was.

Feeling a deep sorrow, Rune asked, "Hero of the Beginning, do you know what happened to my ancestor?"

Leo approached the portrait of Velkia hanging in the office. In the painting, Velkia wore a blank expression. She had always been expressionless, but something about this version of her looked… sharp.

It must have been painted after the tragedy.

Staring at the image of his disciple, Leo finally revealed to Rune the truth, a truth that even the Ersar family had never known, one he had only learned through the Akasha Record.

When the story was over, Rune's hands trembled, and he shut his eyes tightly and bit his lip. "If I could, I would take away even a fraction of her sorrow and pain, but my voice will never reach Lady Velkia."

He clenched his fists. Indeed, it would be impossible for everyone… except for the one man standing before him.

Rune bowed his head toward Leo. "Hero of the Beginning, I know this is an unreasonable request from a mere descendant, but please, I beg you. Please… save Lady Velkia. Ease her pain."

Leo could feel Rune's unwavering reverence for Velkia. Not simply because she was the founder of the Ersar family, but because he knew, better than anyone, that Velkia was a person worthy of admiration.

Even after 5000 years, your descendants… even though they do not truly know you and have suffered at your hands, they still respect and love you, Velkia.

The world had forgotten the feats Velkia had accomplished. How she had rebuilt the world after the Great Heroes. How she had once again saved it when it faced a new crisis of despair.

It was not that the world had turned its back on her. With time, all things are naturally forgotten, but the people of the Ersar family never let that happen.

Through generations upon generations, they had passed down the legacy she had left behind.

With the power and history of the Ersar family, they could have ensured that Velkia was never forgotten in history, but they did not.

Not a single one of them had done so.

They must have wanted to carry on Velkia's will.

A noble life, silently sacrificing for the world. They must have thought that it did not matter if no one recognized it. That the world itself was valuable enough.

The people of the Ersar family had stubbornly respected their ancestor's wishes and followed in her footsteps.

I am proud of you. If I had left behind descendants, they would not have turned out like yours, but still…

Leo clenched his teeth.

But she could have been selfish at least once.

In all the glimpses Leo had seen of Velkia's life, there was not a single moment where she had lived for herself. She never thought of her achievements as anything special, always humbled herself and never ceased to strive forward.

Even now, the image he had seen in the Akasha Record was burned into his mind. If that had simply been Velkia's nature from the beginning, it wouldn't have been so painful.

"Just wait and see. Once we enter an era of peace, I'll become more famous than Master Kyle. People will start saying that you weren't as great as the other Great Heroes. Bleh…!"

He remembered how she would teasingly stick out her tongue.

"When peace comes, I'll become a great person and have my name go down in history like Master Luna."

She had always said it as if it were a given, and yet, even after accomplishing feats that should have immortalized her name, she acted as if she had done something wrong, as if she were apologizing to someone.

She never enjoyed what she had rightfully earned, never stopped pushing herself forward, as if she were being chased by something.

She had dedicated her life to the world.

Bihar must have been the same.

We pushed that burden onto you.

In the final moments, when Erebos was defeated and Leo closed his eyes, he had no worries about the world. He believed in his disciples, and had no doubt that the world would be able to stand on its own without him.

And indeed, for their entire lives, the two of them had rebuilt the world—one from the light, the other from the shadows.

However, Leo had never expected that they would spend their entire lives burdened with the duty of upholding the world the Great Heroes had saved. That like Lysinas, like Luna, like Aaron, like Dweno, and himself, they believed they had to dedicate their lives to the world.

You didn't have to live like that too.

Leo gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. If, with the exception of Aaron, the Great Heroes were the generation who had been robbed of peace, then Velkia and Bihar were the generation who never got to enjoy a life of peace.

For the four older Great Heroes, it was precisely because they had lost everything that they had become desperate. That was why, if any of them had survived, even Lysinas would not have lived as desperately as Velkia and Bihar had.

In the end, the idea of peace that had been natural for Kyle was an unknown world to them. They needed to be told, that they didn't have to shoulder everything alone. That they could find their own lives while carrying the world.

However, because they never learned that, their lives had been unbearably cruel.

I'm sorry, we stole your lives from you.

And now, that heavy burden was being carried by the descendants of his disciples. Bihar's descendants had lived their entire lives in the darkness, while Velkia's descendants had lived their entire lives in humility.

Whether it was Velkia and Bihar, did they fall short of the Great Heroes? Were they any lesser than the Heroes of Dawn?

"I have one condition," Leo said firmly.

"Please, speak."

"Don't live like Velkia."

"What?" Rune, who had been bowing, looked up at Leo in shock.

Leo's gaze darkened. "I can already guess how the Ersar family has lived for the past 5000 years. You've survived as the foundation holding up the world… as the cornerstone of the elves. Besides, I never taught anyone to sacrifice everything. Your family has done more than enough. The Ersar family… is one of the greatest hero lineages in history. So… you don't have to lower yourselves anymore."

"……" Rune bowed his head. For some reason, his eyes were red.

I must be getting sentimental in my old age.

Still, the fact that the work they had done for 5000 years had been acknowledged by someone other than themselves made his heart tremble.

"Velkia would have wanted this too."

Dear ancestors… could there be any greater honor than this?