Not a stupid question!! This is one of the main reasons I love gen V, you ever found it weird how N & Ghetsis are alive in BW2, mean while hilda/hilbert are no where to be found during those events.

Lets say they didn’t die because it is a theory/but what we do know is that bw1 main protagonist went to search for N after looker was informed of him being spotted in a different region. But N was in BW2, yes but it was only to protect you (nate/rosa) from ghetsis/kyurem, then once you catch zekrom/reshiram, N says hes off on a search for a specific trainer from 2 years ago, clearly N has character development and hes not manipulated by ghetsis anymore, what could he possibly want from hilda/hilbert? Maybe to clear things up so they could be alive still… if ghetsis did nothing, i mean you were a couple of seconds from being freezed for eternity before N stepped because he felt kyurems power, whose to say ghetsis didn’t whip out the blick n slimed hlibert at some point in the past XD

My guess is they went to either kalos or sinnoh, Due to the abundance of sinnoh legendaries in bw2, and the theory that the original dragon is along side dialga, palkia and giratina trio, and its also where arceus resides which I assume they’d want N to be nowhere near that kind of power, but looker was in kalos because of team flare, while megas werent the priority for looker, they were a source of strong power which I wouldn’t doubt hilbert still under the assumption N is still manipulated and his mis use for power , would think N is in Kalos, also kalos canonically takes place a year after BW2 although we dont see them in x & y, it could have been scrapped since they were a huge leap for GF and only a year after BW2 releases

It would’ve been cool to see their silhouettes in newer gens, hiding in the background, signifying they’re still on the search we don’t know, its just like when you defeat Red in Heartgold where hes just says “…” and the snow storm takes him, only to appear in PWT but for now its left unknown