Episode 108
Translator: RaidenTL
Episode 108
SYSTEM: HP -60 (4,740 / 4,800)]
SYSTEM: You are taking -20 HP damage per minute due to ‘Smoke Inhalation’.
Leaving the corpse behind, Elysia frantically searched for the child. In the distance, something gave way to the flames and came crashing down with a roar.
A charred wooden plank fell from above. She dodged it with quick reflexes, but her forearm brushed against a table engulfed in fire. She heard the sound of her clothes burning and her flesh searing.
SYSTEM: HP -700 (3,980 / 4,800)
SYSTEM: You are taking -70 HP damage per minute due to a ‘Burn’.
“Ah, ugh…!”
Elysia wrapped the burn with the wet towel she was holding and looked around with a frantic expression.
The boy is nowhere to be seen. Should I just give up and get out?
But in that moment, the innocent face of the boy from the prayer room flashed in her mind, his hands clasped together as he earnestly listed his wishes.
She steeled herself, suppressing the terror that threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn't leave the child behind. With a throat raw from inhaling smoke, she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Ted Morris!!! Get out here now! If you don’t come out, I can’t take you with me! Damn it!”
Violent coughing made it difficult to finish her sentence. Elysia kicked aside anything in her path as she scoured the inside of the house.
The longer she inhaled the smoke, and the more the heat aggravated her burn, the faster her HP plummeted. She was running out of time.
“Fine, don’t come out. I’ll just find you myself… Anything, just please, please give me a sign.”
She closed her eyes and focused. From now on, she would trust her instincts, which had never once led her astray.
Beyond the crackling of the fire, she heard something. A clatter, as if a hand had swept things off a shelf. It was followed by a sob.
Elysia’s eyes snapped open, and she charged in the direction of the sound. CRASH! She practically tore off a door that was already half-burnt and gasped for breath.
“Found you…”
The boy was in the bathroom. It seemed he’d decided to hide where there was water. His face was dark and blotchy from smoke inhalation as he looked up at her with wide, startled eyes.
Ted, who had weakly knocked over a stool and some cleaning supplies, began to cry. Without a word, Elysia scooped him into her arms. The moment she lifted him with her injured arm, a pain so intense it felt like she would collapse shot through her.
SYSTEM: HP -500 (1,680 / 4,800)
She bit her lip to keep from screaming, to stop her legs from buckling. She couldn’t show the terrified child how much pain she was in.
“We’re getting out of here now.”
“M-Miss… I’m scared…”
Elysia studied the boy’s pale face, a result of inhaling far too much smoke. Any more and he would be in real danger. Biting her lip, she tried not to let her own panic show.
“I promise. We’ll be out of here so fast you won’t even know when it ended. So hold your breath for a moment.”
“Cough! I can’t… breathe…”
“You still have to. I’ll get us out of here before you even realize you were holding it, so just endure it for a little bit. Understand?”
After the boy gave a weak nod, Elysia covered his nose and mouth with her hand and exited the bathroom. The fire had spread even more aggressively than before, making it difficult to find a foothold.
Grunting, she readjusted the boy in her awkward grip and ground her teeth.
“I’m going to fucking kill that bastard…”
Elysia grabbed a stool with her free hand. She hurled it at the window, which shattered with a loud crash.
Unwrapping the towel from her wound, she used it to sweep away the larger glass shards before forcing her body through the opening.
A piece of glass she’d missed scraped across her back. With a dull thud, the two of them fell to the ground below.
SYSTEM: HP -150 (1,030 / 4,800)
“Cough! Fuck… Just kill me… Ugh…”
Elysia, who had landed hard on the ground while shielding the boy, gasped for air. She looked up at the house she’d just escaped, and her heart sank.
Wind rushed in through the broken window, fanning the flames and making the house burn even faster. If she had been even a second later…
In the distance, she saw Zenia running toward her, shouting something. Her ears were ringing, so she couldn’t make out the words. She must have screamed too much while looking for Ted, because her voice was completely shot. There was a metallic taste in her mouth.
It felt like there wasn’t a single part of her body that wasn’t injured. The only words that came to mind were curses.
Forgetting the child was even in her arms, Elysia let out a string of profanities. Perhaps because she had just escaped a life-or-death situation, an extreme wave of fatigue washed over her.
Elysia managed to get to her feet and gently laid the boy, who had passed out, on a patch of grass. Zenia collapsed to her knees beside him, bursting into tears and pressing her forehead against his.
Wiping away the tears that fell like rain, she murmured endlessly.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… Oh, my baby. It was my fault. I’m sorry… I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m so, so sorry…”
Elysia stared blankly at the boy’s mother, who was begging for forgiveness over and over.
Plop. Something landed on Elysia’s ash-stained cheek. She looked up and realized it was starting to rain.
Soon, the black sky opened up, and a downpour drenched them with a roar. The sound of the rain gradually began to extinguish the fire. Elysia opened her mouth, her face weary.
“I know you’re suffering. He’s a child from a marriage to a piece of trash, so it might have been hard to love him. You must have felt the urge to throw it all away and be free. Yes, I understand…”
An unidentifiable liquid—tears or rainwater—washed over Zenia’s face. She stared at Elysia with a dazed expression, her face crumpling with another wave of tears.
Self-loathing, guilt, and countless other emotions. Elysia reached out and wiped the woman’s cheek.
“Still, you’re an adult. And you know it too, don’t you? That he’s a child who survived hell right alongside you…”
The woman wiped her tear-soaked face with her sleeve and shrieked.
“I know! I know, but I feel like I’m going crazy…! I keep seeing my husband in his face, and I feel like I’m losing my mind! I’m not a mother. I don’t deserve to be. Ah, ahhh…!”
“You regret it, don’t you? Then that’s enough. You know none of this is his fault.”
Zenia’s brown, rain-soaked eyelashes trembled.
“It’s okay if you can’t love him. That can happen. But even if it’s just simple pity… just… protect him, help him… Please… He’s still just a child.”
At Elysia’s words, Zenia broke down crying like a little girl and managed a nod.
As she sobbed that she would, Elysia turned away and coughed a few times. Her mind was hazy, but her thoughts were crystal clear.
“What the hell is that guy? His goal wasn’t to kill your husband quickly, but to inflict the maximum amount of pain. He’s clearly familiar with killing, yet he beat him with his bare hands multiple times and struck him repeatedly with a weapon. It was an inefficient murder.”
“M-Miss, you need to rest—”
“And he avoided killing the child directly by leaving him in the fire…”
Noticing Elysia’s lips had turned blue, Zenia shook her in alarm. She must have looked like she was about to collapse, because Zenia shook her so hard her head rattled.
As Elysia choked back a wave of nausea, Zenia screamed.
“For now, just for a moment, you need to rest…!”
Her head was pounding, but she couldn’t stop thinking.
That psycho. He presented himself as a savior, extending a hand to someone in a vulnerable position. And he even offered to kill the child.
From that, I can see a powerful animosity toward fathers who are abusive to their wives and sons, and a disgust for helpless children.
But he murdered the father brutally, while he couldn’t bring himself to harm the child with his own hands, merely leaving him to die… Ah, I think I get it.
A chilling smile spread across Elysia’s face as she stared into the empty air and muttered.
“You… this family’s story felt just like your own, didn’t it?”
Somehow managing to move her throbbing hand, Elysia took out her notebook and wrote in a crumbling script.
「Male, 20s, physically healthy
Possibility of being abused by his father」
“Please, Miss…! You can’t move!”
“Cough! It’s not like my condition will dramatically improve if I stay still…”
“I’ll go get the person who came with you. Just hold on!”
Seeming to realize that words were useless, Zenia gave up trying to persuade her. She scrambled to her feet, scooped up her son, and ran toward the village.
Elysia leaned blankly against a wall, letting the downpour soak her completely. The rain had tamed the fire, turning it docile, though it still let out an occasional crackle.
There wasn’t a single part of her body that wasn’t in pain. Realizing this far too late, she groaned and threw her head back.
Her disheveled clothes revealed the pale nape of her neck. Tearing away the fabric that was starting to stick to her burn, Elysia muttered.
“Ugh, this is killing me, for real…”
Remaining HP 780 / 4,800. Treatment required.
Her head was spinning. She no longer had the strength to even feel a sense of crisis as her HP steadily ticked toward zero. Her mind was heavy, and the pull of sleep was sweet.
Elysia subconsciously thought of a man with hair as black as night.
“I’ll be right behind you. Always.”
Though she was dying, a faint smile touched her lips. She believed him. That he would arrive right on time. He always had, and he had even declared he would be there for her. So she wasn’t afraid.
Besides, she would just lose consciousness for a moment, and when she opened her eyes, she would be in Evan’s arms. Elysia trusted him so much that she had even forgotten the instinctive fear of death.
In that instant, she heard someone approach.
“…Who’s there?”
A movement that wasn’t Evan’s—one that was nimbler, quieter.