Confirmation
"A portrait of Luna Moon! What a splendid gift."
"I never knew General Anton could be so thoughtful."
What the hell are they talking about.
"You weren't aware either, Your Excellency?"
"No. I never imagined General Anton was looking after Haydam this carefully…"
"It's been a full ten years since I've seen Luna Moon's face!"
What are these people even saying?
How is this Luna Moon?
This is my mother's face.
The chatter of the others in the conference room reached me as a dull, distant noise. Before I knew it, I had stepped closer to the portrait and was tracing the face painted there—my mother's face. It could just be someone who looked like her. There had to be some difference between this woman and my real mother.
However the others interpreted my reaction, pitying voices rose behind me.
"This… doesn't seem like a place we should remain."
"Perhaps it would be best if we stepped out for a while…"
"Your Excellency, may we adjourn the meeting?"
"…Yes. I'll announce a new schedule later through Major General Meursault."
They filed carefully out of the conference room, as if afraid of interrupting my examination of the portrait. Even Anton, who had brought the painting to screw me over, left with them.
But no matter how obsessively I studied it, the face was my mother's. Down to the single mole beneath her eye, this woman wore my mother's exact face.
Luna Moon? An NPC from this game called Safety Zone? The woman whose son I was pretending to be?
I realized I hadn't been breathing. Dizziness swam through my head, and the breath I'd been holding burst out all at once.
"Hah…!"
Here, of all places.
I never thought I'd come face-to-face with my own mother here. No—I hadn't wanted to see that person's face ever again if I could help it. And yet I'd run into her again in a place I never expected.
Dam-ah, listen carefully.
A voice from long ago—the last one I'd heard from that person—brushed through my mind.
You're a clever child. You'll be happy even without Mom. You'll be able to be happy.
When I asked why I had to be happy without her, she answered:
Because if you're unhappy, I'll be sad.
So I asked if even a cold-blooded person like her knew sadness, and the answer she gave was so utterly her:
Parents and children are programmed that way.
Yeah… she'd said something that absurd. I think we'd made some kind of promise while talking about it… Not that I had any reason to keep a promise with such an irresponsible parent.
But what mattered now wasn't a half-forgotten promise with my mother. It was the woman right in front of me, wearing my mother's face.
Why does Luna Moon have that woman's face?
What were the odds that the game company, while picking an Asian woman's face, had coincidentally used my mother's as a reference? But since that face had never actually appeared in the game itself, it was more likely that this world's Luna Moon and my mother just "coincidentally" shared the same face.
Of course, the thought that my real mother and Luna Moon might be the same person did flash through my mind for a second—that the woman who had been possessed into the otome game and lived as Luna Moon might have been my mother. But that couldn't be. It mustn't be. If it were true, then my mother had died in this game ten years ago and was already nothing but bones, and I'd dug up that grave and was playing the part of her son without even knowing she was my real mother!
No—someone had clearly possessed me into this world and maliciously slapped that woman's face onto the character just to watch me suffer.
Yeah. That has to be it.
Something this insane couldn't possibly be real. This thing is not my mother.
Separately from all that, Anton won't doubt me anymore.
All thanks to Luna Moon wearing my mother's face.
I'd known Anton was preparing a portrait of Luna Moon, but even so, figuring out what expression to make when I actually saw it had been a problem. My acting was improving by the day, but if I'd been talented enough to naturally pull off the face of a child confronting his mother, I'd have become an actor instead of a gaming shut-in. And then I'd been faced with a portrait of my actual mother. No acting required.
Because of that, they would have an even stronger conviction that I was definitely Luna Moon's son. Coldly speaking, that was good for me—even if it meant I would have to call the woman in this portrait "Mother" while carrying an unease I couldn't name.
…Even so, I should check once.
The face in the portrait still bothered me. I'd never thought I'd end up asking that guy for help, but…
HomebodyHoney.
He'd played otome games, so he might know Luna Moon's in-game face. Asking Daphne whether this was really Luna Moon would look strange, but confirming with HomebodyHoney shouldn't be hard.
Meanwhile, after the executive meeting was cut short, the pro-Daphne faction officers gathered again around Anton.
The pro-Hayden faction officers had taken the portrait of Luna Moon as a gesture of reconciliation, even smiling at the pro-Daphne officers as they left. But the atmosphere among the pro-Daphne officers was heavy and subdued.
"That reaction… there's no mistake, right?"
Someone ventured carefully, and the other officers nodded in agreement.
"It seems the theory that Lord Haydam was a fake was just baseless speculation after all."
"Then why did the slum residents say they didn't know Haydam?"
"Could they have been lying?"
"Luna Moon might have raised him in secret. Hide the name and the hair color, and he wouldn't look any different from any other child."
"Then what about the story that the grave was old?"
"Maybe the old people just got something wrong."
"I trust the look in Lord Haydam's eyes when he saw the portrait more than those old people's testimony."
At that, the other officers fell silent, with nothing more to say. The moment they'd seen Haydam's expression looking at the portrait, they'd even felt a faint pang of guilt for trying to test a young child with his mother's portrait. That's how dramatic the change in Haydam's face had been.
"Which means…"
It meant Haydam was Luna Moon's child—the Commander's child, without a doubt. Having seen that look in his eyes, the Commander himself would be even more certain about his own son.
"What are the odds that was acting?"
One officer still refused to abandon hope, and Anton, a crooked smile at the corner of his mouth, answered with a cold edge.
"If that was acting, then he's not an opponent we could beat with our abilities anyway."
"Mm…"
The officers shut their mouths with faces of defeat. Being told they couldn't beat a mere ten-year-old child was a blow to the pride, but Anton's point stood. Even if Haydam had known in advance that he'd receive Luna Moon's portrait at today's executive meeting and prepared for it—if a child could immediately act out that face on the spot, then no trap the pro-Daphne officers dug would make any difference.
Just as everyone present was thinking that—
"But wait, what's this about retirement?"
They'd all been deliberately avoiding the topic, but Lieutenant General Max, who was at least close enough to Anton as a military academy classmate, asked.
"Are you actually retiring?"
When Anton gave a short nod of confirmation, the officers stirred.
"No, this suddenly…"
"I've gotten quite old myself."
Anton swept his gaze over the other officers as he spoke.
"As old as I've grown, you've all been in your seats too long as well. Someone has to step down for the rest of you to move up, don't they?"
Inwardly, the officers hadn't exactly failed to think about their own promotions after Anton's retirement announcement, so they flinched but tried not to show it. Anton wasn't one to miss that, and he continued with a faint sigh.
"And… it isn't sudden. Ever since Lord Haydam appeared, I've felt that my years of experience can no longer overcome the recklessness of youth."
This wasn't just talk—it was sincere. Just keeping Major General Meursault, who was rising so fiercely, in check had already been feeling overwhelming lately. And now the Commander's viper of a son, Haydam, had joined the mix on top of that. From the moment Major General Meursault had shot Lieutenant General Bartom dead in the executive conference room, Anton's retirement had been all but decided. This army would clearly be controlled not by him, but by Haydam and Meursault—those two.
"Rather than spend years of humiliation as a figurehead general, I decided it would be better to step down while I still have my wits and watch from the rear. This was decided long ago."
"If that was the case, why didn't you give us any warning first…"
"Because I was going to present a gift to Lord Haydam, and it wouldn't do for you lot not to look surprised."
If he hadn't declared his retirement right there, these idiots would have watched with faces that said we've already discussed this among ourselves right up until the moment he pulled out the portrait.
The officers, belatedly realizing their mistake, looked at Anton with uneasy faces.
"If you're not here, General Anton, what are we supposed to do?"
"I've stepped down, so that Yosef will step down soon as well—don't worry. Without Yosef, that side is nothing but pathetic fools."
"Will General Yosef quietly give up the rank of general?"
"With me having stepped down first, insisting on staying at general rank would make him a perfect candidate for the next firing squad. Their side needs Major General Meursault to rise as well, doesn't it?"
"Ah…"
Anton briefly wondered if he could really retire and leave these fools behind, then quickly concluded that it wasn't his problem. In truth, though he hadn't told the other officers, Anton had something to fall back on.
In the end, my son Platon will become Lord Haydam's adjutant…
It still seemed to be a promise only between Platon and Haydam for now. That was why Anton had been so fixated on Haydam's origins. If Haydam were a fake, he needed to knock some sense into his own son who was about to stupidly devote his loyalty to him—now, while he still could. But after seeing Haydam's expression a moment ago, Anton felt disappointment and relief at the same time.
The future Commander is that boy.
His son had chosen the right side. If Haydam's origins were that solid and his abilities that outstanding, then his son, as adjutant, would stand at the center of power right alongside him. With even Daphne well-disposed toward Haydam, there was no need for Anton to step forward and pick a fight.
That was the thinking with which Anton had decided on this retirement. In a way, he'd admitted defeat after watching Haydam slip past even the portrait trap—but Anton had nothing to lose. He already had a foot in with both Platon, who would become Haydam's adjutant, and Daphne, who might even bear a successor.
Then someone spoke.
"What about this?"
The officer who'd spoken was the one newly attending the executive meetings in place of the dead Lieutenant General Bartom. Only recently promoted from major general to lieutenant general, he was the most eager among them—and, never having personally witnessed Bartom's murder, also the one who most underestimated Haydam.
"Everyone we met in the slums was someone who didn't know Lord Haydam."
"The order of events is different, but in the end, yes."
"In that case, what if we bring in someone from his slum days who might know Lord Haydam and question them?"
At that, Anton's expression shifted oddly.
"You're saying there's someone who knew Lord Haydam from his slum days?"
"I'm not certain how well he knows him, but among the child soldiers there's one boy who's been going around claiming he's close with Lord Haydam."
"Who is it?"
At Anton's question, the officer held out a prepared document. In the photo attached at the top, a golden-haired pretty boy with looks too fine for a soldier was smiling awkwardly.
"A boy named Darling Outsider."
Anton looked down at the photo for a long moment. He had already decided to take one step back—but a final confirmation wouldn't hurt. If this boy truly knew Haydam, he might hear something unexpected.
"Bring him. Don't handle him roughly. Treat him with the utmost care."