"Are you happy?"
I hadn’t yet gathered my thoughts, but what I heard made pause montarily.
Alysia?
Is that her real na?
"You found out I was dying slowly, you saw my arm cut off. Answer honestly, do not even try to lie."
Alice, or rather... Alysia, swallowed before answering. Her expression grew more tense, her deanor more agitated.
And yet...
"Yes..."
I couldn’t even blink my eyes as I listened to the dialog between the two.
I was simply... stiff.
But, then, a hand landed on my shoulder, Aiden’s hand.
I turned slightly to look at him... and saw the seriousness in his face.
He didn’t speak, he didn’t make a sound.
But... his expression said more than enough.
Now is not the ti.
It will co.
Do what you have to do.
...
He pulled his hand back and gave one last look.
It was as if he was asking ’okay’.
I swallowed slightly. I couldn’t take a deep breath because it would make too much noise, but... I tried to calm my heart.
Gradually, slowly... first my mind cald down, then my body.
He was right.
After this was over... we could have a long talk.
What was important here was what was happening now. Not the past or the future.
I nodded my head up and down, looking at him. And so he finally took his eyes off . With very slow steps, he walked behind Rian Laute, who was sitting in his chair, and then...
"Leonard Quie lost on purpose, he ant to lose all along!"
Right after he said that... Aiden slamd his cane hard on the floor.
~thud!
The sound echoed throughout the room. And both Alice and Rian Laute paused at the sa ti.
Slowly, the barrier around us slowly lifted and we beca visible to the two in the room.
And...
"Thanks for your help, Alysia."
Aiden spoke in a very cold, threatening, yet calm voice.
Before his next words, the energy of chaos surrounded his body, his left eye turning purple, his gaze completely on Alice.
"You did quite well for a parasite."
Parasite?
Doing well?
Alice... knew about this ’plan’?
In her conversation with Rian Laute, it didn’t seem like she did...
"Aiden?!"
No, she definitely didn’t.
And yet...
"Haaaaa..."
Finally, when it was no longer a problem to make a sound, I took a deep breath.
They both turned toward at once. And... they both stiffened at the sa ti.
"A- Adrian...?"
Alice stepped back involuntarily, her eyes widening to their fullest. But I... didn’t even look at her.
I squinted my eyes, constantly thinking ’now is not the ti’, and took my spear out of my bracelet.
The energy of the chaos radiating from Aiden reached out to Rian Laute, wrapping around his body in a structure that resembled veins.
But Rian Laute was not willing to let this continue.
His erald-green eyes sparkled for a mont, his mana filled the room with imnse pressure and power.
But then... it was gone, as suddenly as it had co.
The glow in his eyes faded, and then... he leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh.
The poison Aiden had ntioned was working.
His mana flow was so disturbed that even soone like him, at least in such a bad state, was struggling.
I moved slowly toward him, not caring that my footsteps echoed in the room.
I raised my spear gingerly, the sharp blade against his neck.
He was looking at . Emotionless, expressionless.
He was calm as if he didn’t care about the situation he was in.
No... like he accepted it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I turned to Aiden, who was standing behind him. He didn’t react, he just gave a look as if he approved of what I wanted to do.
With that, I tore my eyes away from him and turned back to Rian Laute.
"You... know who I am, don’t you?"
He didn’t answer.
"Who my father is."
Again... he was silent.
Yet this silence only served to make feel as if he was accepting my questions... rather than rejecting them.
I took a deep breath, gripping my spear tighter.
"I’ve only just learned who my family is, the past."
I wanted him to say sothing.
I didn’t like it... that he was being so silent.
"My only ’true’ goal in life was to find the man who killed my family. But... when I found out that it was my own grandfather who ’hired’ this man in the first place, all the hatred I had was directed at you, only hours after I learned of your existence."
I couldn’t stop my eyes from twitching, looking at his face.
"I’m... just curious. I want to hear it from you."
Still, I held myself back for the questions in my mind.
"Why... were you so obsessed with killing my father, your own son? Why couldn’t you... let us live peacefully?"
Silence enveloped the room. The air... felt so heavy for so reason that, under normal circumstances, I would have been tense in such an environnt.
But now... I just waited.
I kept waiting.
...
"You look like your father."
"...?"
"Not only in appearance, but also in behavior."
"The hell are you tal-"
I swallowed my words as I saw his expression change for the first ti.
"Adrian... that is a nice na for you."
His lips curved upward slightly, and a... tiny smile appeared on his face.
"It is a sha really... that you are a half-elf. It is a great insult for soone like you..."
I felt almost all of my facial muscles twitching. The anger I was trying to hold inside spilled out slightly, cracks appearing on the imaginary wall that protected my calm.
"What... are you talking about?"
He narrowed his erald-green eyes, and when he looked at ... it was as if he wasn’t looking at .
It was like... he was looking at sothing else.
"Your potential is even higher than mine... You can be even more talented and stronger than . It is a pity you grew up around humans. If it had been you who stayed here instead of your sister... things could have been so different."
Despite my trembling hands, I gently pressed the blade of my spear against his neck. Red blood slowly trickled onto my spear, then onto his clothes...
And yet he didn’t move.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, almost... as if at peace.
"Ethil has never been my son since the day he ran off with that woman. That is the answer to your question."
And... all the anger in disappeared in an instant after that sentence.
"Ah..."
I don’t know why, I just felt... like I was in the middle of a void.
A void where there was nothing, where all my emotions were being exploited.
"I... get it, I think."
All the anger, hatred, resentnt that I felt toward this man...
Everything was gone.
Only...
"It’s really... a pity."
There was emptiness inside , toward him.
"That I carry the blood of this disgusting family."
This man...
He didn’t deserve any feelings I might have for him.
I tore my eyes away from him, uncaring, and looked at Aiden. I nodded my head up and down once, and he broke the silence he’d maintained so far.
Though, his eyes weren’t on or Rian Laute.
He was looking at the fourth person in the room, soone who seed to have no idea what was going on.
"I told you, didn’t I, Alysia?"
He had seen and heard everything that had happened. Yet he had an expression that looked as if he was having difficulty grasping it.
"That I would destroy the Laute Family."
Alice’s eyes widened even more at his words. But Aiden didn’t wait for her to recover or react in any other way. He simply took the watch off his wrist and threw it at her.
The watch landed at Alice’s feet.
Then… a cold voice echoed in the room.
"Take it."
*******
I looked at the watch on the floor, then at the person who had thrown it at ... Aiden.
Adrian was still standing where he was, and my grandfather... was sitting calmly in his chair, as if he had completely accepted the situation and that he was going to die.
I never once thought... that I would find myself in a situation like this.
Even though I questioned whether he could really do it... the chances of him succeeding were so low in my mind that I believed he would fail no matter what.
But...
Despite this...
He had done it.
He was standing in front of , cold and calm.
"A parasite."
His words echoed in my mind, one after the other.
"You are a failed product."
Without stopping...
"And you will remain so forever."
But then, it all ceased.
What my grandfather had just said to Adrian echoed in my mind.
"If it had been you who stayed here instead of your sister... things could have been so different."
My lips curled up involuntarily, trembling, as my eyes slowly returned to normal.
I slowly bent down and picked up the watch, just as I was told.
"Tap on my watch, open the app with no na and no logo. You don’t have to worry about your contracts."
I don’t know why, I trusted... everything he said.
I had contracts with about five people, not to betray the family. And each of these mana contracts prevented from acting in a way that would put the family in a bad situation.
I had no idea how he would do it, why the contracts would be okay.
But... I still did exactly what he said.
Imdiately after I opened the app he was talking about...
Mana Contracts were a form of magic recognized by the system in whatever form it took.
The contract itself, its clauses, its status... everything could be tracked as long as it concerned soone with the system, whether it was made through it or not. Contracts were, after all, connected to the soul, directly.
And now, looking at the five notices in front of ... it was hard not to laugh.
I was free.
But I wasn’t.
My dream was coming true.
But not by .
The man I hated the most in my entire life was about to die.
But he was going to be killed by soone who had only hours before learned of his existence.
Even then…
It actually wasn’t that bad.
"You’re weak, sick"
Because that’s what I was.
"Soone who won’t even survive unless she obeys orders."
Soone who could accomplish nothing on my own.
Soone who will be dependent on soone at every mont of my life...
A parasite.
But does it really matter?
As long as I get what I want... does it matter?
No, it doesn’t.
I don’t know about others, I don’t care about them... but it’s not that big of a problem for .
Because I’m weak.
All that matters to is that my goal is achieved, no matter how it happens.
And that’s happening right now.
And so... the app finally opened.
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