Horace

## Description

Horace is Grayson's uncle. He is a mundane. Horace used to be a knight that served directly under the king (most likely Roy's father) before the incident with the cursed artifact occurred. It is mentioned that he has many connections.

Currently, Horace is in prison atoning for his crimes. He can no longer walk without a cane after his cursed artifact exploded.

## History

Horace had always felt like he was weak. He would never be satisfied no matter how much he honed his skills as a swordsman. He had an older brother named Hugo (Grayson's father) who he admired and adored. Horace worked as a fully-fledged knight while his older brother Hugo was a notary that worked at the castle. Before Grayson was born, Hugo and Horace went on a mission to investigate rumors about bandits. They were then suddenly attacked by those bandits. Horace was so terrified by the bandits' sheer numbers that his legs were unable to move. But, Hugo bravely strode forward and faced the bandits. As a result, Hugo was injured and ended up dying from the wounds he incurred. Horace blames himself for Hugo's death as he should've been the one who faced those bandits as a fully-fledged knight, but he was to scared to act at that moment. He stated that his cowardice and inability to act was equivalent to him killing his older brother himself.

In atonement, he vowed to protect his sister-in-law Yulia and his nephew Grayson in Hugo's place. So, he fawned over Grayson with all his heart and cherished him like his own son. However, even the smallest events in life would make him feel guilty. He felt guilty because if Hugo was alive then he would've been able to witness all of this, but he can't now because he's no longer in this world. No matter how much time passed, Horace was never able to get over his guilt. Hugo's death haunted him like a never-ending nightmare that he could never escape from. In the end, he couldn't bear the pain and sought power. This resulted in him being possessed by a cursed artifact.

It is assumed that it was after this that his personality suddenly changed and he ended up killing a lot of people in the palace using magic from the cursed artifact. Cursed artifact pieces were recovered from the crime scene, so this affirmed that Horace was in possession of a cursed artifact and used it. Horace was then driven out the palace and his whereabouts were unknown for a long time. His name ended up becoming taboo after this incident.

During this time, it is assumed that Horace was involved in the cursed artifact trade occurring in Invidia. There was evidence hinting towards this as Joel had stated that other people had told him that they received cursed artifacts from a person matching Horace's description. It was also assumed that he was working as part of a suspicious organization rather than independently. Joel believes that this was the case because the cursed artifact trade was too far spread to be only orchestrated by one person. Joel also suspects that Horace was only involved in distributing the cursed artifacts and not the production of them. This is because he had done an investigation into who was producing the cursed artifacts. Joel was unable to find out who was producing them, but he believes that he would've easily found out if Horace was the one producing them.

Horace also became known as the "Professor" to the villagers in the Southern Invidian Village during this time. Joel believes that Horace gathered followers in this village and other villages via his role as a professor figure and targeted those who had resentment towards magic. This was because people with weakness in their hearts were easy targets. He would then use his followers to sell his cursed artifacts all over the place. Joel believes that the organization Horace was working with probably established all kinds of places similar to that village.

When Horace heard that Grayson had returned to Invidia to investigate the cursed artifact trade, he was surprised, but thought that Grayson's actions resembled what Hugo would do. At this time, Horace had still been having nightmares about his older brother's death. Since Grayson closely resembles his father, Horace felt like his nightmare, that had only existed in his head, had come to life. He was terrified. The only thought that came to his mind was to make this nightmare stop by removing this creature that had come to get revenge on him. This is why he set a trap for Grayson in the Southern Invidian Village.

The first trap was having the villagers of the Southern Invidian Village convince Grayson or another Invidian knight to come investigate the Professor's House and then have the villagers ambush them there. It was also revealed that the entire village was working with Horace when Grayson and MC were able to escape the ambush and the entire village was hunting them down. The second time was when he kidnapped Yulia and left a note in her house saying "The professor awaits you". Horace knew that Grayson would come for his mother. Despite knowing it was a trap, Grayson and MC go there while Braedin went back to gather all the other knights.

When Grayson and MC came to rescue Yulia, Horace and his followers attacked them all at once. While Grayson was fighting off Horace and his followers, MC shoots a pillar of light magic into the air to signal their locations to the Invidian knights. Horace gets annoyed at MC's actions and tries to attack her and Yulia. But, Joel and the knights arrive right at that moment. The knights fought the followers while Grayson and Joel worked together to defeat Horace. When Horace was about to be defeated, the cursed artifact on his arm exploded everyone was knocked unconscious, except for MC who was protected by Grayson.

After that, Horace and followers were captured and put in prison. Once Horace returned to his senses, he couldn't believe that he had committed such horrible acts towards his beloved nephew and sister-in-law. In prison, Horace says he can't blame all of his actions on the cursed artifact. He explains that he couldn't escape the guilt over his brother's death because he was weak to begin with. Grayson was the embodiment of what was haunting him, so at that moment he felt like he had to exorcise Grayson.

Horace then tells Grayson that when they were trading blows, he felt like Grayson resembled Hugo when Hugo was protecting him from the bandits.

Currently, Horace is in prison atoning for his crimes. He can no longer walk without a cane after his cursed artifact exploded.

## Relationships

### Grayson Hotz

Horace was Grayson's father figure as Grayson's father had died before he was born. He taught Grayson swordsmanship and many other things.

### Hugo

Horace admired and adored his older brother Hugo. So, he still feels guilty that his brother died from protecting him from bandits.

### Joel

The cursed artifact from Joel resembles fragments of the cursed artifact used by Horace. So, it is suspected that Horace was the one who gave Joel a cursed artifact.

### Yulia

Yulia currently goes to visit Horace in prison despite Horace telling her that she doesn't have to force herself to come. She says that it's what family does for one another.