90. I'll Stay Here. You Go Away, Dad
90. I'll Stay Here. You Go Away, Dad
-Drip, drip.
The sound of blood beading into droplets and falling into the lake.
In this vast lake, a single drop was so insignificant it wouldn't even leave a trace, yet even as the blood diluted, the ripples spread faintly all the way to where I stood.
In stark contrast to the emotional display I'd seen before I lost consciousness, it was eerily quiet and cold.
"You seem to have a lot on your mind, Dad."
As I held my breath and stared, Philoi spoke, her murky eyes fixed on me.
The girl, who had planted her bloodied sword into the surface of the lake, continued in a flat, blunt voice, without changing the title she used for me.
"Well, I guess that's how it is. The me left in your memories was just a clueless little kid. You probably don't like seeing me this filthy."
Filthy? Hand on my heart, I hadn't thought anything of the sort.
What a person should feel for a girl who was crying in the middle of a battlefield just moments ago wasn't disgust, but pity.
"But what does any of that matter now? You didn't come here to talk about such trivial things anyway, Dad."
Yet Philoi continued speaking as if my thoughts were of no consequence.
Then, fixing her lifeless eyes on me, she asked.
"What you want is for me not to kill Mom, isn't it?"
-Drip, drip.
The silence was so profound that the sound of blood droplets hitting the lake was clearly audible.
It was a stillness that stretched on because I couldn't give Philoi any answer.
I now knew for certain that her purpose stemmed from her own will, not a curse, and I even found the reason itself to be valid at this point.
"That's a relief. You're not trash drunk on your own moral superiority, Dad."
Philoi took my silence in the face of that realization as agreement.
The hostility radiating from her was so sharp it prickled the skin, the kind typically only seen in adventurers who did the dirty work.
Yes, as if to show me she could never go back to being the child who used to act cute around me.
"Right, just as you guessed, Dad... That woman once abandoned her own daughter without a word. In a time when war was everywhere, she left her daughter, who wasn't even ten years old, without a shred of responsibility."
A bitter smirk twisted the corner of her lips.
And in her fiercely glinting eyes, there was only emptiness.
"It's only natural to want to kill her. That damn mother."
"...Philoi."
"Of course, you might not have any ill feelings toward Mom, but since it's already begun, it's impossible to end this just with my will or yours, Dad."
As if mocking me for thinking there might still be some other way.
Philoi persisted and firmly pressed her assertion.
"Dad."
Still using that title for me.
"Even knowing perfectly well that I harbor a grudge against her, Mom deliberately extracted a soul from a dead corpse and made a copy of her own daughter. Do you really think there's no reason behind that?"
My body flinched and shrank back.
It was a reaction that came before my head could even fully grasp it, because my subconscious had already accepted Philoi's words.
"Yeah, just as you're thinking now, Dad."
Purifying the soul of a being filled with vengeance and deliberately forging it into a weapon.
Isn't the reason for that blindingly obvious?
"From the very beginning, Mom made me because she wanted me to kill her. And she chose you as the person to help me with that, someone who could help me grow this strong."
Yet, as if even that faint hope was beneath her contempt, Philoi gave me no respite and drove the point home.
"You've already guessed it too, Dad. What Mom's true identity is. And that someone of her caliber wouldn't just hand over a precious item like a mithril Ego Weapon without expecting anything in return."
"......"
"...Yeah, if we've talked this far, I guess there's no need for more explanation."
-Sluice.
Soon, the sword was pulled from the water, and the moment its tip was aimed at me, even though she had bled so much that a pool of blood had formed beneath her, the sword's tip was still dyed a deep crimson.
As if demonstrating that her thirst for vengeance wasn't so light that it would vanish after a few words.
"Dad, do you understand now why I'm acting this way?"
Yes, everything I'd been through had been pushing me toward this.
This child was a being whose core was the soul of a hero with a grudge against her mother.
Tachia, who knew that and still made this child into a weapon, must have fully considered that she would eventually be killed.
"You've clearly figured out what you need to do to survive, right, Dad?"
And to that end, she handed this child over to me without asking for anything in return.
To me, who needed power more desperately than anyone.
Because she knew that someone like me—who was nothing without a weapon and had no choice but to cling to it—would never let this weapon go.
"...Yeah, you're right."
And that assumption was perfectly on the mark.
After depending on her for so long, there was no way I could even entertain the thought of parting with this child now.
"If you wish for it, and Ms. Tachia also wishes for it.... Then I, who received help from both of you, will just have to go along with it."
If a price truly had to be paid for all the achievements I'd made so far, I must never refuse this proposal.
"You finally understand. Then......"
"But not yet."
Philoi's words cut off abruptly at my reply, which I blurted out because I couldn't accept that immediate conclusion.
In that brief moment, the smile traced on her lips began to distort noticeably.
"Not... yet?"
"......Yeah, not yet."
A sense of betrayal.
I couldn't bear to look at her expression as she guessed my next words would be far from the answer she wanted, so I lowered my head immediately.
"I don't think now is the time to give you a definite answer."
I knew it was cowardly, but the situation was just too sudden for me.
There was no way I could easily accept overnight that I had to kill a person who had shown me kindness, and that the child I had considered my partner carried a mission to lead the charge.
"...Look at what you're saying."
Even though I bowed my head in shame, Philoi's emotions were still reflected clearly in my eyes.
Even without looking at her face directly, I could see it through her face mirrored on the surface of the water as the blood washed away.
-Boom!
The moment I realized fury was dawning on that expression, an explosive roar erupted.
Along with a fierce spray of water, my face contorted, and before I knew it, Philoi had struck my body and knocked me flat on my back on the water's surface.
"Dad. Do you think you have any kind of choice here?"
A chill seeped in from the water soaking my body.
And the moment a blade, even colder and sharper than the water, was aimed right before my eyes.
"The only reason you've survived all the dangers so far is because of me. If I stop cooperating with you here, you'll be dead in no time, Dad."
I knew it.
No matter how much I had grown compared to before, without this child, I would eventually regress to what I once was.
"If you want to keep surviving, you have to swear right here, right now, that you'll kill Mom together with me!"
"I know. At least that much."
"Then why...!!"
"Because I still don't know anything!"
Toward Philoi, who screamed like that, I also raised my voice and vented my frustration.
There was no hesitation.
Even with a sword aimed at my face, I had to say what needed to be said.
"Philoi, I don't know anything right now. I just found out why you want to kill Ms. Tachia, but aside from that, I'm still completely in the dark."
"Does that even matter? The only thing you need to know right now is that you'll die without my cooperation......"
"You of all people know how painful it is to be swept along without knowing anything!"
The moment the sword aimed at my face flinched and wavered, I knew my words had hit home.
This child, who carried the memory of crying out in helplessness when she was abandoned on a battlefield, would know better than anyone how painful it is to be helplessly swept along by circumstances beyond your control.
"Philoi, you want me to be sincere about your revenge too, don't you?"
Wasn't she already someone I'd given my heart to?
Even if she had committed a sin in the past, there was a huge gap between that and the person I knew.
How could I thoughtlessly carry out the goal of killing her based on that one sin alone?
"Then give me time. At the very least, about why Ms. Tachia abandoned you......"
"Do you think knowing the reason will change anything? No matter the reason, the fact that the woman is trash who abandoned her own daughter in the middle of a war and ran away doesn't change!"
"Then why is someone like that using your name as an alias?!"
A yell burst out of me from sheer frustration.
Philoi, who had been about to retort, closed her mouth and stared at me with wide eyes, as if my words had struck a nerve.
"...You're more curious about that than I am, aren't you, Philoi?"
I appealed to that Philoi.
Hoping that the sense of incongruity I'd always felt from this child—who was consumed by murderous intent and hatred for her mother—was not a lie.
"...I'm not curious."
"If you're not curious, then why do you keep calling Ms. Tachia 'Mom'?"
If her hatred were truly pure, there would be no need to keep calling her by a title imbued with familial affection like "Mom."
The fact that she hadn't yet discarded the affection and ties she held for her was bleeding through that title, so how could I just blindly obey this child's coercion?
"......."
"Philoi, give me time."
Philoi bit her lip, falling silent.
The moment I saw that, I realized there was still hope in this argument and reached out toward Philoi.
"If you really must have revenge, then first, let's start by learning more about Ms. Tachia......"
Even if in the not-too-distant future, revenge truly turned out to be the only answer, I wanted to suggest that we put off the immediate decision and make a judgment after a grace period, so that we could both have a clear mindset and a fair perspective.
-Slaaash!!!
But before my hand could even touch her, a blade swept through the air right before my eyes.
"...I'm disappointed."
My fingertips were knocked back by the force of the blow, and simultaneously, a rift began to form along the trajectory the sword had cut.
And then, the collapse of space began.
As everything around the rift was sucked inside, Philoi, who had turned her back on me, said quietly.
"I always thought you'd be on my side no matter what, Dad, but when you actually turn out like this......"
"Philoi, wait."
"I don't want to talk."
A sense of betrayal colored by disappointment and anger.
As if closing the door of her heart for good with that, Philoi began to gradually distance herself from me.
"I refuse to accept a weak, clueless fool who doesn't know his place as my dad."
"...I don't even want to look at you, so don't ever show your face in front of me again."
"Philoi, wait!"
We couldn't part ways yet.
When there was still so much I didn't know, we couldn't just separate so easily.
-Whoooosh!!
But that desperation was in vain, and my body, unable to resist the force pulling me in, was ultimately consumed by the darkness.
****
"Have you come to your senses?"
And as time passed, a gentle voice reached my ears before I knew it.
When I forced my body upright as if guided by it, I realized I was lying on a bed.
Had Ja-seong moved me to the bedroom after I lost consciousness?
"The spear......"
"Here it is."
As soon as I realized that, I looked for Philoi, and the old man who had been watching over me smoothly presented the spear to me.
His was a face I had seen before.
He was definitely the old man who had introduced me to Tachia......
"Judging by your poor expression, it seems the conversation didn't go well."
I didn't know why he was here, but the fact that he had stayed by my side and the way he spoke suggested he had a rough grasp of the situation.
I thought there was nothing strange about it. After all, he was the one who introduced Tachia to me in the first place, so he would naturally know a thing or two about Tachia and Philoi.
"What... happened to this child?"
"You'd know that better than I would. Weren't you the one who spoke with her directly?"
Just as he said, I could feel no reaction at all from the spear now gripped in my hand.
Just like the last image I saw of her, this child had completely shut her heart off from me.
I supposed I could still hold it in my hand, but at this point, I could only wield it as nothing more than a sturdy spear.
"So, young man. What will you do now?"
The old man questioned me as I stared down at the spear with pity.
To him, who seemed to understand my circumstances to some degree, I replied with a question whose answer was already decided.
"Old man, do you know? What I have to do to meet this child again."
"More important than meeting her is earning her acknowledgment."
"Acknowledgment...?"
"Whatever the reason, she is ultimately just a tool. The reason you couldn't control her is because her growth has far outstripped the speed of your own growth, you could say."
Therefore, in order to properly handle this child, I had to grow on my end and gain the power to control her.
But how?
Could someone like me, whose only ability was imprinting names, possibly grow enough to seize the upper hand against this child?
"For that reason, I have a proposal for you."
The old man smiled, a slight grin, as he spoke to me while I was consumed by worry.
When I stopped thinking and turned to look, a proposal I had never even imagined flowed from his lips.
"How would you like to become a Hero?"
As if to announce that the chance to finally resolve that lingering regret—the one I'd carried ever since arriving in this world—had at last arrived.