Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 59
Chapter Title: A Tumultuous Date with a Beastkin and a Demon (8)
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A young Answer from the memory spoke.
“Mom, why do those people point fingers at us and bully us?”
Answer wore a sorrowful expression, as if she would burst into tears at the slightest poke.
There was a simple reason for it.
Born in the countryside during a time when the conflict between metahumans and humanity still burned hot, she was openly ostracized by adults and children alike.
It would have been better if she were an elf or a vampire, whose appearances weren't so different from humans.
Her conspicuous inverted eyes and blue skin were enough to make people instinctively shy away.
Perhaps it was also because, for a demon, she had an exceptionally gentle and meek personality.
Faced with such blind violence from the masses, young Answer couldn't help but carry a deep wound in her heart.
It was a moment where she might have broken her promise to her mother and become a demon who hated people.
Her mother pulled Answer into a gentle embrace and said.
“It’s because those people are wounded themselves.”
“Wounded? They are?”
“Yes. This is an age where hatred breeds more hatred, until it can no longer be stopped. So, people want to hate first, before they are hated themselves.”
They are pitiful people who chose to hurt others rather than be hurt themselves.
Answer’s mother murmured as she patted her back.
But I’ve never done anything wrong…
Unable to hold back her tears, Answer buried her head in her mother’s embrace like a spoiled child.
With a small, helpless laugh, her mother gently stroked Answer’s hair and said.
“And it can’t be helped that people dislike demons. Most demons are terribly greedy, you see. Foolish creatures who can’t resist a shining soul when they see one. The Demon Lord of Pandemonium put restrictions on soul contracts to tell them to tone it down, but now they look for loopholes in every way imaginable. Honestly, it’s ridiculous.”
“…Mom, what’s a demon of Pandemonium?”
“Ah… it’s like a palace for demons, back in our homeland. It’s probably gone now. Are you interested?”
“Yes! Tell me!”
Answer’s mother lifted her from her embrace, sat her gently on the sofa, and began to recount old memories.
From the unbelievable story of a river of lava flowing where demons lived, to the exciting love story of how she and Answer’s father fought for their lives from the moment they first met.
As Answer’s eyes continued to sparkle at the stories that made her heart pound no matter how many times she heard them, her mother spoke, her eyes filled with nostalgia.
“One day, our Answer will surely meet someone with a soul so beautiful you’ll want to possess it. Just like how I met your father.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Well, ending up married and having a child like I did is extremely rare, but a day like that will come at least once in your life. And when it does… I hope you won’t become obsessed with that soul like other demons.”
“Huh? What does it mean to be obsessed with a soul?”
“You know, things like taking a soul as payment for a contract, or exploiting a weakness to make someone a slave. The kinds of things demons usually do. I’m not very fond of that. A soul is most beautiful when it’s shining as it is.”
Young Answer tilted her head at her mother’s words.
Having never seen a soul beautiful enough to covet, she couldn’t quite grasp what her mother meant.
Even if you don’t understand now, you’ll surely understand later.
After her mother’s last words, time in Answer’s memory flowed quickly.
Not long after, her mother fell ill and passed away.
But the bullying didn’t stop, and as soon as Answer became an adult, she fled the village and earned a living doing all sorts of odd jobs.
However, the discrimination against metahumans, and demons in particular, remained.
No, if anything, that sentiment only grew stronger with each passing day.
As much as demons were discriminated against by people, their grievances erupted into serious crimes.
This created a vicious cycle where such incidents only worsened public perception.
Finally, after being fired from the last job she had barely managed to find after only a few months, Answer, with nowhere else to go, headed to Nighthaven, viewing it as her very last chance in life.
But no matter how she struggled, Answer couldn’t shake off the prejudice against demons on her own.
Despair was the only thing that piled up in the heart of a girl who had never held anyone’s hand but her mother’s since birth.
There was a limit to how long she could endure with a strong heart alone, just to keep her promise to her mother.
Just when the cowardly demon was about to give up on everything, Answer finally came to truly understand her mother’s words.
“…?”
Two girls had been the first to extend a hand to her without any emotion at the sight of her demonic form.
One of them, the masked Yuria, possessed a soul of a density she had never seen before in her life.
A blazing white sun, so fierce it felt like you would get burned just by getting close.
She knew this was what it meant to find a soul so beautiful you wanted to possess it.
Of course, the naturally timid Answer couldn’t bring herself to be greedy.
She felt that if this beautiful soul were to be damaged by some mistake, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.
All she could do was offer the greatest thing she could as a token of her gratitude for their help.
And alone, she would take this encounter as a new lighthouse, a hope to light her way.
“Oh, how strange. The depths of her despair seem much shallower than when we last met. I thought she’d be filled with despair by now, pushed to the brink of death.”
“Hmm… Well, either way, this should still widen the rift among the metahumans, wouldn't it? Let’s proceed with the plan as intended.”
“Tsk, do as you please. It’s your plan, not mine.”
“Gack, gurgle…”
“Heehee, don’t move. I’ve pierced your heart precisely. If you resist, you’ll only make the wound bigger.”
On her way back after failing yet another final interview, she was attacked by a sudden duo and caught in an Invader’s scheme, which led to her current state.
Watching her life flash before my eyes in an instant, like a long film through her memories, I quickly realized the identity of the duo who had attacked her.
‘I had a feeling… So the masterminds were already pulling strings behind the scenes at this point. Then again, considering what happened with Drakel, I suppose it’s to be expected.’
They were a kind of cultist, intoxicated by the Invaders’ power and helping them cross over to Earth.
For now, the Invaders couldn’t cross over thanks to Earth’s unique environment, which had almost no mana in the atmosphere.
In preparation for the day the Invaders would cross the dimensions and reach Earth, they planned to incite conflict between metahumans and humanity to weaken them as much as possible.
And one of their activities… included kidnapping and modifying metahumans to control them as they pleased.
‘Does that mean Answer wasn’t a character who didn’t exist in the original story, but was one of the victims sacrificed by them…?’
Breaking free from the memory, I stood before Answer again and quietly bit my lip.
My thoughts were a complicated mess.
Now that I knew the whole story, a flicker of hesitation rose in my heart.
The cultists who caused this incident were probably long gone.
They would want to avoid any suspicion pointing their way.
So if I pulled out the fragment embedded in Answer’s chest, what would happen next?
Would Answer simply die, taking all the resentment with her as everything came to an end?
‘I don’t want that… Answer would be miserable even in death. There has to be another way…’
Standing before the stone-cold Answer, I wracked my brain until my head ached.
Then suddenly, I felt a poking sensation in my chest.
What’s this? Feeling curious, I reached for the spot, and to my surprise, I felt none other than the Tesseract there.
Startled, I immediately took the Tesseract out from under my clothes. It spun around inside its small cube, greeting me.
[ Mama! ]
“…?!”
I pushed back the white tablecloth to reveal my face, then lifted the Tesseract in both hands to meet its gaze.
The Tesseract, which had shown no signs of waking no matter how long I waited, was now clearly moving.
How did this happen? I blinked, happy yet bewildered, and then I remembered the backlash of power and memories when I had touched the fragment earlier.
It probably didn’t wake up from just that one event. The time it spent warming up in Raven’s closet must have had an effect as well. I guess hard work really does pay off.
“…!”
[ Tee hee! That tickles! ]
As if happy to see me again, I reached out with my psychokinesis and fiddled with the Tesseract, which was spinning inside its cube. It giggled with delight and wriggled about.
I still had no idea why it called me Mama, but in any case, it looked healthy, and for that I was relieved.
‘No, wait a minute. If the Tesseract is awake…’
Holding the Tesseract in my hands, I looked cautiously at Answer.
The power of possibility that had healed my own deep wounds and restored the elderly Drakel to his prime.
With this, I might be able to save Answer from her terrible fate.
But I had to consider that this power followed the law of equivalent exchange.
In my case, the Tesseract had paid the price for me, and Drakel had paid it himself before forcibly replenishing it by drinking blood, so it had worked out.
But in Answer’s case, I had no idea what to do.
Frankly, even if I restored her to her original state, it would be meaningless if her heart or other vital organs were taken as the price.
And asking the Tesseract to pay the price again… was something I needed to think carefully about.
I wanted to save that option as a last resort if possible.
‘…Ah, maybe this could work?’
Then, something caught my eye.
It was the Invader fragment, firmly lodged in Answer’s chest, still emitting power.
Come to think of it, there was something strange. How could this tiny Tesseract pay the price to heal my battered body without leaving a single scar?
The question was easily answered when I considered that the Tesseract needed Invader energy to awaken.
The Tesseract, being an Invader object, consumes their energy as a price. So, what if I used the energy flowing from this fragment they had embedded to control Answer as the price?
It was a brilliant plan that would save Answer and thwart the enemy at the same time!
Now, the important thing was to convey this thought accurately to the Tesseract.
Please let this work. I carefully brought my forehead towards the Tesseract.
Then, praying fervently that my thoughts would reach it, I connected myself and the Tesseract with my psychokinesis.
‘Tesseract. Do you think you can use the power coming from that fragment as the price?’
[ Hmm? Okay… I’ll try! ]
Did my will get through? After a moment of spinning in place as if in thought, the Tesseract replied in a voice filled with firm resolve.
Following the Tesseract’s request to bring it closer to the fragment, I moved it toward the one embedded in Answer.
A massive current of power spread in all directions, and the red characters that had been flowing from inside Answer’s eyes began to crumble and vanish into the air.
Soon, a white, gentle light erupted from the Tesseract, enveloping Answer.
It was so bright I could barely open my eyes.
‘Ugh…! I have to… hold on…!’
If I get pushed back by the force now, everything will fall apart.
Instinctively sensing this, I gritted my teeth and used my psychokinesis to support my body, enduring so I wouldn’t collapse.
The arm holding the Tesseract trembled, and every muscle screamed as if it would tear.
But this wasn’t enough to kill me, and it was no time to be whining over something like this.
Endure, don’t back down, fight back!
Did my efforts pay off? The power that had been exploding out began to gradually subside.
Finally, I let out a ragged breath and collapsed to the floor, where the red characters had completely vanished.
[ I did it! Mama! ]
“…”
And beyond the faint darkness where the light had settled.
There was Answer, the hideous wound on her chest gone, her eyes closed as if she were merely unconscious.
I did it. The tension that had been coiled up to my chin slackened powerlessly.