An End That Is Not the End
Every war eventually finds its end. No matter how long the night, morning always comes. Every disaster, too, must reach its conclusion.
Missing children: 402. Surviving children: 220. Confirmed dead: 101. Missing children: 81 (estimated, including those with no known relatives).
Parents clutching their children and weeping. Children with no one to greet them, being led by knights toward orphanages. Parents collapsing upon hearing their child was missing. Parents screaming over the bodies of their dead children.
How much must they have worried? How much must the knights blame themselves for failing to protect the children, and how much must the parents who stayed home hate themselves? I have no way of knowing. Even if I once had a friend who felt like family... the words "parent" and "sibling" have always been distant from me.
Some parents pounded on the knights with calloused, scarred hands, demanding to know what the hell they had done with the taxes they collected, screaming for their children to be brought back. They couldn't even stomp the ground where their children would be buried.
"Bring my son back! You bastards who collect taxes and call it keeping the peace! What the hell is this?! Bring my son back!"
"Where's the culprit?! Tell us where they are! You can at least tell us that much!"
"If you let my kid die, you should die too! If you let our daughter die, you should die with her!"
"Oh, my daughter... If I'd known, I would've bought her that pretty dress she liked... Oh, my poor daughter... Daddy's sorry... so sorry..."
Friend, did your parents weep like that for you when you died? If every child here had parents, could their deaths have been washed away with tears like this? I don't know. There's nothing more meaningless than "what if." I can only hope that tears from people who never existed might still cleanse their deaths.
"Step back. The bodies will be examined by the Imperial family, after which the state will handle the arrangements. There will also be compensation and an official announcement regarding this incident."
"Compensation? We don't need money or anything else! Just bring our son back!"
The enraged woman's hand struck the knight's chest. The knights stood firm, silently enduring the fury of those who had lost their children. Their harsh training meant the blows from ordinary citizens caused them no pain. Still, being cursed at and slapped couldn't have felt good. Yet they, too, were grieving. They didn't resent it. The guilt of failing their duty, of so many children dying, gripped their hearts. And because they also had families, they understood the anger was justified. But there was nothing they could do. Just as Ricardo had said, knights couldn't bring the dead back to life. All they could do now was silently accept the people's rage.
"Step back. The bodies will be examined by the Imperial family, after which the state will handle the arrangements. Regarding this incident..."
"This is difficult. Please return to your homes, and we will provide a detailed follow-up report..."
They mechanically repeated the orders from above, even knowing those words could never soothe the grief and fury. Because they knew this, they silently endured the anger and injustice. They couldn't say anything beyond what they'd been told, but everyone present understood the crushing sorrow in the air. It simply couldn't be accepted.
Who were the most pitiful today? The parents who heard their children were missing? Or the parents who learned their children were dead and found their battered corpses? They were all unbearably unfortunate and pitiable... but...
"I'll just pass through for a moment."
"Ah, Lord Werner, the bodies here are the ones with no known relatives..."
"I know. Move aside."
The most pitiful were the children whose deaths no one mourned. The poor children with no parents or siblings to cry for them. The poor children for whom no missing person reports had even been filed.
When I lifted the cloth covering the body, I saw the face of the little boy who had tried to steal my wallet. His face was covered in bruises, his body thin and frail despite looking so young, marked with old, small scars. I placed the knife he had carried into his right hand.
"I'm sorry, kid. I couldn't kill them all... even though I promised I'd kill every last one of them..."
At this rate, I'd get kicked out of the business. Reporting a failed mission to a client always made my flesh crawl. But now it wasn't my flesh that trembled—it was my arm. Because the child before me looked like that boy. I placed a wallet full of silver coins into his left hand.
"Don't steal wallets with just copper coins in them. In your next life, be born with this silver and live reading fairy tales instead."
I held the child's hand. Deaths that no one mourns are sorrowful... so at the very least, I would cry for them.
"Werner, are you all right?"
Camelia, who had barely pulled herself together, asked me. I wiped the hot tears streaming down my cheeks and answered.
"Sister, lend me some money."
"What?"
"Sister, it must cost quite a bit to bury these children in proper graves. My account is still closed, and it'll take time to reopen it."
"...I'll cover half."
Camelia quietly clasped her hands and prayed for the children's peaceful rest.
"But are you all right, Sister?"
"I'm fine now. I was just startled for a moment... I'm all right now..."
"Who was that person who startled you so much?"
"That person is my y..."
Before Camelia could finish, a voice from outside grated on my ears.
"Move aside. Shoo, shoo."
A frivolous, undignified voice—one that killed my appetite just hearing it. I stepped outside and saw a neatly dressed man with a mustache. He was in Werner's memories. The bastard who had mocked Werner for being an orphan, only to have his clothes burned and be hung from the city walls. He was apparently a relative of the Empress.
The man approached Ricardo, clasped his hands, and spoke.
"Oh my, Sir Ricardo, you've worked so hard."
"Viscount Lloyd, I don't recall summoning you."
"Oh come now, I'm the one in charge of this facility. Of course I had to come out."
So this bastard was the one responsible for the sewer facility?
"If you were managing the sewers during this incident and claim to know nothing, that would be strange. We'll be dispatching investigators later, so please cooperate..."
"Oh, you must be exhausted. Why don't you and the men have a drink..."
"I don't accept bribes. And those who follow me are all proper knights. I'd appreciate it if you refrained from using insulting terms like 'the men.'"
Ricardo's rigid, no-nonsense side that Melchior had mentioned was showing. Viscount Lloyd scratched his head, looking embarrassed by the stiff, businesslike attitude.
"Ahaha... Still, this is fortunate. The situation ended smoothly, after all."
"Viscount Lloyd, did you just say 'smoothly'? Do you even know how many people died when you say that?"
"Well, I heard a few died."
"A few?"
Hearing that, I reached out toward the bastard. It wasn't a calculated action—it came from pure emotion and instinct.
"O Fangs of Steel, pierce that man..."
Before I could finish the incantation, Camelia covered my mouth.
"I understand how you feel, but calm down. If you kill him now, the situation will spiral out of control."
She was right. If I, newly appointed as an imperial mage, killed a relative of the Empress, it would definitely cause an uproar. But I still didn't want to leave the bastard alone.
Ricardo's voice carried a hint of anger.
"Nearly two hundred children are dead or missing. And you still use words like 'a few' and 'smoothly'?"
"Well, at least there were no noble young ladies or young masters among the victims. That would've made things much noisier."
"You call that fortunate?"
"Most of them would've grown up to be thugs or pickpockets anyway, right? Let's just say the sewers filtered out the sewage. You know how it is. It's better for everyone if we don't make this tiring and avoid troubling His Majesty the Emperor. That's what a loyal subject would do, isn't it?"
Even as that son of a bitch named Lloyd spouted his disgusting words, Ricardo's voice only carried a trace of anger. He continued to treat him with the same mechanical, rigid attitude.
"Sister, let go. I'm going to kill that bastard today. If it causes problems, I'll just go to prison, damn it."
"Endure it."
Ricardo clenched his fists and continued.
"As the one managing the sewer facility, there's no way you didn't know about this. And there are reports that you've recently purchased multiple villas, which doesn't match your finances. We were going to hold off on punishment due to lack of evidence, but..."
"Haha, Sir Ricardo, please calm down first and listen to me..."
"Talk and my ass. Clench your teeth, you fucking bastard."
A dull thud rang out as a fist struck flesh. Camelia spoke to me in a calm voice.
"That's why I told you to endure. You didn't need to step in."
That guy looked like he'd completely lost it.