Exile
I’d said it before, but I had been a street orphan.
That meant I’d seen plenty of kids like me thrown away, left to rot, and die.
I sometimes felt sorry for them as they expired meaninglessly on the pavement, but at the same time, there was nothing I could do.
This world was not kind to street children.
It was hard enough for me just to survive each day on my own; I didn’t have the luxury of looking out for anyone else.
So, in order to live, I turned my eyes away from the countless miseries scattered around me and, in the end, chose to ignore them.
The person I had been in the past was terribly selfish.
...And yet even a selfish person like me had something they simply couldn’t look away from.
For example, a girl on a winter day when snow was falling, lying in some back alley with nothing but a rag wrapped around her bare feet, waiting only for death.
Or a girl abandoned by everything she had ever known, dismissed as possessed by a ghost simply because she carried around phenomena no common sense could explain.
Or a girl dying in a pool of blood after being framed for something she hadn’t done.
Those girls met me by fate in the final moments before death.
And, laughably enough, I couldn’t help but feel that they were somehow my destiny too.
Because I had one means of saving those children who were dying on the street.
Life Return.
An ability I had possessed from the moment I was born, something that belonged to no one else in the world but me.
A strange power that could save a dying life by sharing my own life with another.
—Never tell anyone that you possess such an ability. Never.
Long ago, an old ex-mercenary I had saved with that power gave me that advice.
—Your ability looks, at first glance, very much like the healing magic used by mages or the holy power wielded by priests... but there’s something decisively different about it. So from now on, live as if you don’t have such an ability at all. Unless you want to be dragged off somewhere and have your power exploited until the day you die.
As the old man had advised, I had firmly resolved never to use that power unless it was absolutely necessary... but in front of those girls, I ended up using it as if I’d been swept away by something.
Everyone was dying. No, if I didn’t do something, they would certainly be dead within minutes.
In order to save those children who had only the faintest thread of breath left in them... I had no choice but to rely on the power I possessed.
So I used it, and as a result, I saved the lives of four children who were on the verge of death.
And that was how we became a family.
I, who trusted no one in the world, took on the role of their older brother, while the children abandoned by their birth parents became my younger sisters in this absurd little family.
Then, a few years later, I noticed something strange happening to their bodies.
The children are too healthy.
Being healthy wasn’t a bad thing. For people like us, who couldn’t afford to see a doctor or a priest on a whim even if we were sick somewhere, good health was a tremendous blessing.
But the health I was talking about didn’t merely mean they were free of minor illnesses.
The younger sisters who had been revived through my power had undergone a complete transformation in their physical constitutions.
Eli, who had originally possessed a body so frail it was almost pitiful, grew more lithe by the day, while Letitia, who had once suffered because she couldn’t control her abilities, somehow became skilled at handling her mana with effortless grace.
It would have been possible to think that, as they grew older, their bodies simply matured and their talents naturally blossomed with age. But I knew it instinctively.
The reason my sisters had come to possess such remarkable talents was none other than my own power.
My ability didn’t merely grant life force to another person; it also strengthened the talents they had originally been born with.
Only then did I understand. This power of mine was something far beyond simply saving a single life; it was an ability with the potential to upset the balance of the entire world.
“...Have you lost your mind? And why would you tell me that?”
After hearing everything from me, Cartesia’s first response was nothing but a scolding aimed squarely at me.
“That’s an enormous secret! The kind of secret you should never, ever let slip, even if you’re dying! Are you still not thinking straight? You trusted your younger sisters and ended up in this state, and you still haven’t learned the lesson not to trust people recklessly? Huh?”
“...I guess so. Yeah, that’s true.”
And I scratched my head as I listened to Cartesia.
“It probably is a little stupid to trust someone else again so soon after getting stabbed in the back by the sisters I thought were my family. But if I don’t say anything now, I can’t save your sister, can I? And I’ve already told you everything anyway.”
At my words, Cartesia stared at me blankly, as if she’d lost the ability to speak.
But only for a moment. Then she let out a sigh with an expression that said she really couldn’t help herself.
“You’re honestly the most idiotic person I know.”
“...That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“Of course it isn’t. I’m insulting you right now.”
Saying that, Cartesia turned her head away with a somewhat awkward air.
“...This isn’t exactly my place to say, but don’t tell anyone you have a power like that. The ability to artificially enhance someone else’s talent? If that fact ever gets out, you’ll never get to live out your natural lifespan. You’ll die long before that.”
“I know that much.”
When I was little, I hadn’t understood what value this ability held. But after I started working as a mercenary and learned how the world worked, I realized just how dangerous my position really was.
If other people found out about my power, not only would governments try to kidnap me on a national scale, but deranged mages might also come hunting for me in order to dissect my head while I was still alive.
That was why, aside from the person standing in front of me—Cartesia—I had never told anyone about my ability.
Not even my younger sisters.
“Ah... right, your younger sisters. Since we’re on the subject, what are you planning to do about those girls?”
“...What do you mean, ‘do about’?”
“If I listen carefully to everything you’ve said so far, those sisters of yours rose to where they are now because your power enhanced the talents they already had, right? Then what happens if you remove that power from them?”
“...Honestly, I don’t know. Because I’ve never once removed my power from anyone before.”
Given that I had barely used the ability over the course of my life, it was only natural that I remained ignorant of its range and limitations.
“If we assume you remove your power from those girls, do you think there’s a chance their talents might disappear?”
“There’s a chance... I suppose. Because their talents ultimately came from my ability.”
“Then let me ask you this: do you really have the nerve to take that power away if it means those girls might lose the talents they have now, lose everything they’ve built, and sink into the abyss? Do you have the nerve to personally shove them into hell?”
At Cartesia’s words, I let out a quiet sigh.
Back then, we had become family because we understood all too well that we were the same kind of people—those cast aside by the world—and we had licked each other’s wounds willingly.
I had wanted, more than anything, for those younger sisters of mine never to live the same kind of life I had.
But that love of mine had returned to me today as an atrocity of the worst kind.
My sisters had clearly told me this: that I, as a person, was of no use to them, and that I should disappear from their sight.
Then that meant my ability was equally unnecessary to them.
My sisters had declared me to be someone they truly did not need, so even if the talent born from me vanished as well, there was nothing to be done about it, was there?
So... this was the end.
Our childhood ended here, and with this, it was over.
“.....”
I closed my eyes and focused.
I could feel it. Four slender connections spreading out from me, their origin rooted in my very existence.
That was the very thing that had once saved my sisters’ lives and, not stopping there, turned those children’s talents into something that could stand as the finest in the Empire.
And for a brief moment, I stared at those connections in silence.
Crack!
Then, without the slightest hesitation, I severed all four.
“...Ha.”
Yes, you said I was a person who was useless for anything, didn’t you?
Then I’ll make sure to watch closely and see what becomes of you once the power of that useless man is gone.
Everything that once bound you and me together... ends here.
So now go on. Try living well with your own strength alone, you fucking bitches.
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