Chapter 281: Tough Guys (3)

[Marina. What would you do? If everyone told you that you had to kill the fruit of your love, what on earth would you do?]

I entered Peta Marina's house. Right in the middle of the neat furniture lay an oddly crumpled letter. It was a letter that had been suspiciously thrown into the middle of the yard, as if someone wanted a person to come here and see it. The first sentence of the letter was someone speaking to Marina. As soon as I read this sentence, I could guess that the writer of this letter was Peta Sirius.

[As a cleric of the Archdeity Church, I simply could not bring myself to kill my son. While 'he might harm others' is a valid reason to be wary, it is not a righteous justification for killing someone. That is why, Marina, I have decided to use the Oath of Meiga on my son. You probably do not know what I mean by this.

You might ask yourself what the Oath of Meiga is. But I cannot tell you what this is. The only thing you need to know is the phrase 'Oath of Meiga'. I plan to use the Oath of Meiga on my son.

Marina. Right now, I am sitting in a carriage heading to Ahildern, writing this letter to you. You were my loyal servant. Please understand that I cannot tell you the detailed circumstances either. If you were to learn the whole story of this incident, you might be disappointed in me. You might say this: How is this any different from killing him? How can you do such a thing to a human being?

But Marina. Please believe me. You might mock this as hypocrisy, but I absolutely could not kill my son. So, Marina, I want to ask a somewhat heavy and difficult favor of you.

Marina. Could you become this child's mother? I am not asking you to take care of him. I am not saying you have to meet him either. Could you accept the respect of the people of Ahildern as this child's nominal mother? And someday, could you welcome my son Lucius when he comes to find you?

This child's biological mother is already dead. She died at the hands of my comrade, the hero. So if Lucius ever longs for a mother's embrace, please hold him tight. And. If this child, who grew up as a cleric of the Archdeity Church, has a very violent and evil personality, please put an end to him with your own hands.

For my sake, could you please do this for me? I hope you can erase the traces of hypocrisy I left behind, my son, with your own hands. Do not forget. If this child ever utters the words 'Oath of Meiga' or shows an evil demeanor, you must definitely kill him. I am sorry for leaving such a heavy burden on you. You have always shown me nothing but loyalty, yet this is the only kind of task I can give you.

But Marina. What would you do? If everyone told you that you had to kill the fruit of your love, what on earth would you do? Even at this moment, Ahildern is getting closer, and my son Lucius is playing around by plucking the necks of mountain birds. Marina. I will wait for your reply. If you dislike it, please give me a refusal. I am counting on you.]

I read the letter one more time and tucked it inside my clothes. Looking at the story, I seemed to get a rough idea. When he was young, Lucius was a very evil human. He was so wicked that everyone around him was certain this bastard would grow up to go around killing people.

And this child's mother died at the hands of the previous generation hero, and Peta Sirius was certain that Lucius would definitely become an evil being without the Oath of Meiga. Furthermore, as if the Oath of Meiga was not enough, he had even prepared a backup plan to kill Lucius just in case the brainwashing wore off.

"What the hell? Fuck. Who the hell is my biological mother?"

First of all, she was not a human. Seeing things turn to such bullshit, she was definitely not human. Considering she died to the hero and Sirius was convinced that nothing but the Oath of Meiga would work, she was probably a demon for sure, but I had no way of knowing what kind of demon she was.

"Fuck."

The truth was always fucking awful once you knew it. Hiding my uneasy feelings, I looked over myself again in the mirror inside the house. Inside the mirror, I was an undeniable half-elf. White skin and a handsome face. Red eyes and pointed ears. Was my mother a demon that looked fucking similar to a human? And Sirius fell in love with a demon and even had a child while being a cleric?

"I took after my dad."

Clicking my tongue, I came out of the house again. I had no more business in an empty cabin. I completely dug up everything from around the house to the cross stuck in Sirius's tomb just in case there were other clues, but there were no more clues left. I disliked the smell of sulfur. The unpleasant smell, like squeezing a rotten egg right against my nose, was messing with my mind.

I suppressed my uneasy feelings and headed to the carriage again. I diligently moved forward, stepping on the squelchy land. The carriage was visible in the distance. When I frowned and stared at it, it was my carriage. A few people were gathered around my carriage. I had shoved it into a cave, but it seemed someone had managed to find it anyway. Perhaps they had just recently discovered it, as the people were murmuring while touching my carriage or laying their hands on the magic stones.

"Look at this. This! It's a magic stone! It's a magic stone! We're rich people now! If we sell this to the magic tower...!"

"Fucking hell, seriously."

I swore again and pulled out my mace. The people gathered at the carriage also noticed me and looked at each other with slightly bewildered expressions. They held out the surrounding tree branches, sickles, and rakes at me and shouted.

"G-Go away! W-We found this carriage first!"

There was no room for negotiation. I took a large step and approached the man yelling at the very front. He froze upon seeing me suddenly barge in. I grabbed the man by his collar with one hand and threw him to the rear. Several men who had been murmuring behind him got tangled up in the body that shot out like a bullet and went rolling away. The man tightly clutching a magic stone in his hand saw this and hastily fled.

I picked up a sickle that had fallen on the ground, aimed for his head, and threw it. The spinning sickle struck the man's head, cutting his head into pieces, and kept flying straight forward. The man, who had been flailing his hand holding the magic stone in the empty space, slumped to the ground and suffered instant death as he spewed blood.

The tangled men were crying out in agony. I smashed my mace down onto the heads of those collapsed on the ground with one hit each, then dragged the carriage and went up the mountain again. The remaining amount for charging still had a long way to go, so I had to endure sleeping outdoors for about a day.

After shoving the carriage in, I roughly laid out a spot on the ground and lay down next to the carriage. I felt annoyed as unpleasant events kept happening one after another. At the same time, this thought occurred to me. Was I originally this cruel of a person? It was a worry I had pondered several times, but the thought I had abandoned because no answer came up slowly crept back up into my mind.

If my body was a half-demon, my personality changing had persuasiveness too. If I was a half-demon, and therefore my mind was being influenced by my body to become increasingly wicked. My behavior up until now made sense too. Beating people to death without feeling a thing, and fucking women as if it were completely natural—everything made sense.

There definitely would have been room for compromise just a moment ago as well. If I had revealed my social standing and quietly scolded them, there was a high possibility they would have dropped their weapons and escaped. But instead of explaining, I killed every single one of them. I had murdered people who didn't even have proper weaponry, simply for the reason that I was annoyed right now.

Why am I so violent? Was I really a good person? My mind was complicated. Was I really a good person? The me in my memories was indeed a good person. To be exact, I was someone who had no time to be evil. My sleeping time was two hours a day. A harsh environment where I suffered from grueling work every day. The time I spent curling up in a caregiver's bed every day without even a space to stretch my legs and sleep.

And then, I fell into the world inside the erotic game. How? How on earth did I know this world was an erotic game? I had no time to play erotic games. I slept two hours a day and couldn't even go home. In what corner of my life, devoid of money and time, could I have possibly played an erotic game?

I could not remember. There was clearly a missing memory, but no matter how much I racked my brain, I could not remember. It felt like that memory would be the link connecting me and my past actions, but however much I thought about it, I could not remember. I stayed up all night with my eyes open, lying next to the carriage. Just in case someone else came looking again. I watched the cave entrance while tightly gripping the mace in my hand.

****

The next day morning. I returned to the mansion as soon as the carriage was fully charged. Robin, who had gone to work early in the morning, gave me a greeting. He was smiling slightly, as if he still had not adapted to the carriage of Alio Festa. I received his greeting with a face full of a tired expression.

"Good to see you, Robin. It's been a while."

"Yes, My Lord. Did you have a good meeting with your mother?"

"She had already passed away. If I had known it would be like this, I would have met her sooner."

"U-Um, please stay strong, My Lord."

Robin said that to me with a grave expression. I asked Robin. Come to think of it, Robin was someone who had served this family from the very beginning.

"Robin. Have you ever met my mother?"

"Sir Sirius told us that she was recuperating in another region because she was unwell."

"I see."

"My Lord. If you ever face any difficulties, I hope you will always speak to me."

I lifted my head and asked Robin.

"Robin. Don't you think I've suddenly... changed a bit?"

"Changed? What do you mean?"

"The thought that I've become too vicious, or that I've become too evil of a human. Have you never had that thought?"

"I have never had such a thought. Rather, I think I like your current appearance more, My Lord."

"My current appearance?"

"I mean your appearance that looks like you are fully enjoying a sense of liberation."

"A sense of liberation..."

Smacking my lips, I shook my head.