Chapter 60: Fate or Destiny (2)
Chapter 60: Fate or Destiny (2)
"......Hmm?"
A young woman's voice. I checked who it was without thinking and was inwardly surprised.
Weren't sorcerers usually old? That woman looked like she'd just turned twenty.
Well, she did have an unusual air about her. After all, calming down the old woman who was making a fuss like that wasn't normal...
"First, let me apologize. I'm sorry you got caught up in such an unsavory incident."
"Ah... yes."
"My name is Ran. I'm the granddaughter of the old woman over there. Since I inherited my grandmother's blood, I'm proficient in sorcery as well. I don't know for what purpose you need a sorcerer, but if you take me, you should be able to achieve your goal sufficiently."
"She may be young and you might find her untrustworthy, but in this village, Ran is reputed to have even greater talent than her grandmother."
Since there weren't any other options anyway, I'd intended to take her even if she was a little lacking, but upon hearing the villager's additional explanation, my ears pricked up.
I quickly nodded, then spotted Cruel standing off to one side and frowned slightly.
"By the way, that man standing over there is not with me. If you thought I was with him..."
"I will follow you, milord."
As if to give me assurance, the woman's eyes held me clearly.
I glanced at Cruel, who was watching the situation without any objection, then subtly raised the corners of my mouth and extended my hand.
"Then, I'll be in your care."
* * *
Losing the sorcerer was of no consequence. Irrespective of proving his usefulness, the Duke wished for his own victory, and for that, he would eventually either find a new sorcerer or provide another method.
Since he now had something he wanted to do while remaining here anyway, Cruel didn't bother to object and quietly watched the one and only sorcerer join Deon's party.
Now it was time to achieve the reason he'd stayed here instead of leaving right away.
Cruel, who had been blankly watching the retreating backs of Deon's party, shifted his gaze. Eyes that looked like roughly cut green stones captured the old woman who was said to be a sorcerer.
He had many conversations he wanted to have with her.
Thinking of the flying stone, the shout that she must be killed, and the calamity—all of which had been sharply hostile—Cruel closed his mouth tightly and strode over to the old woman.
And the moment he spoke to her, subtly revealing a rough edge while she was catching her exhausted breath, the old woman abruptly lifted her head.
Their gazes met, and the old woman's eyes curved gently.
"Ah, ye came too. Aren't ye busy? Can ye afford to be here like this?"
"......!"
The momentum that had seemed ready to lash out at any moment faltered for a moment.
As if the way she had treated Deon earlier was a lie, the old woman with clear, transparent eyes looked up at him.
Whether she didn't know he was Deon's older brother despite being a remarkable sorcerer, the old woman gently spread her arms in a motherly manner. Not a trace of wariness in her.
"Come here, child. Let me hug you once."
"......."
"Come on."
They said she'd gone senile... was this, too, part of that senility?
Since it wasn't something that would cause him harm, he had no intention of worsening the old woman's condition, so Cruel awkwardly walked over to her.
The old woman gently pulled the arm of him as he approached very slowly, embraced him, and whispered affectionately, as if treating her own grandchild.
"Ye've gone through so much hardship."
"......."
"Truly, you've suffered so much."
Cruel quietly looked down at the old woman's face, which was so full of pity. Even though her expression looked on the verge of tears, his eyes remained utterly still and silent.
"Child."
"......."
"You are a child who will become the beginning of destruction."
"......!"
"Don't worry."
Fearing she might try to harm him as well, he hastily tried to step back, but the old woman held him tightly and hugged him, continuing in a still affectionate voice.
"I won't ever come to hate you. If even I dislike you, there won't be a single person in this world who loves you."
This wasn't his intention. He hadn't sent Deon off first for this.
His head was spinning. All sorts of suspicions and calculations kept rising and vanishing in his mind.
Why was she being so kind to him? Why was her attitude different from just before? Was she even the same person? Was there such a form of senility?
Could it all be an act? If so, what did she want? What in the world was this old woman, a former sorcerer, seeing?
Unable to even clutch his jumbled head, Cruel simply slowly closed and opened his eyes. Eyes that had grown harder than before stared at the old woman.
As if she knew without looking, the old woman smiled with her eyes closed.
"A life that is not loved is bound to be short. You must live a long life, shouldn't you?"
—Because you must win your unspoken wager with your younger brother.
Grab! In that moment, Cruel seized the old woman by both shoulders and tore her away roughly. Her body swayed helplessly in his grasp.
Even though it was a very unpleasant sight, Cruel couldn't care about it. His mind was filled with a single thought.
'How?'
How in the world.
Just as the old woman said, he was in an unspoken rivalry with Deon. They hadn't exchanged any words about it. There hadn't been any signal.
It was simply that, as they each pursued their own goals, things had turned out this way.
A fight over who would survive longer.
Deon was probably fighting a battle of 'who kills the other first.' It could be considered different, but to him it was the same bet.
Because when he died, it would have to be after Deon was already dead.
"Please, win."
"......."
"If you win, the calamity will not occur. Then the beginning of destruction will never come at all. So if you really feel like you're going to die or want to die, kill that child first before you die."
"......Ha."
The claim that she'd gone senile didn't seem entirely wrong, seeing how she couldn't distinguish between what should and shouldn't be said.
He roughly pushed her toward the village youth who had been nervously sidling up. Helplessly pushed away, she settled into the youth's arms.
Cruel looked at her coldly.
'Using cheap affection as bait to meddle needlessly...'
He'd let it be, curious about what she was saying and why, but he hadn't expected her to cross the line like this.
'Should I kill her?'
His right hand hovered near the hilt of his sword. At that sight, the youth supporting the old woman gasped softly, but Cruel and the old woman, the involved parties, were utterly calm without the slightest agitation.
A short silence passed.
His green eyes glared at the old woman's deep black eyes for just a moment; in the end, Cruel took his hand off his sword and turned away.
He was not yet so broken as to swing a sword at a senile old woman.
* * *
"They said you possessed even greater talent than your grandmother, right?"
I cautiously broached the subject, glancing at Ran, who had been silent the entire way down the mountain.
It wouldn't have been bad to descend in silence, but there was something bothering me, so I had no choice.
After all, hadn't she called me a 'calamity'? With words like 'must be killed' being thrown around, I couldn't just let it slide.
I still want to live. I'd rather not die without knowing the reason.
And since the one who'd said those things was a former sorcerer, it was all the more unsettling...
"Talent is not something visible to the eye, so it's hard to say."
"......Then let me rephrase. Your grandmother said something to you, didn't she? 'You saw it too.'"
"If you are referring to your fate and future, then yes."
Saying that, Ran looked straight at me.
"I can still see it."
"......."
I slowly scanned Ran's face. An expression utterly devoid of amusement, and clear, lucid eyes.
She didn't look crazy at all. Did that mean it wasn't nonsense?
"You might want to dismiss those words as the senile ramblings of an old woman, but regrettably, my grandmother's senility began after she saw that future."
"......No way, the reason she went senile was..."
Ran smiled bitterly.
"Knowing too much isn't always a good thing."
"......Did that old woman know me? How could she divine a future about me when she'd never even met me?"
"Actually, what my grandmother divined was not your future, but the future of a village child."
She slowly turned her head to look somewhere.
"You were deeply entangled in that child's fate, so she couldn't help but see it."
I followed the end of her gaze and saw a man looking at us from behind a tree.
'Shit! What's that!'
Looked about nineteen? Twenty? Anyway, he seemed around the same age as Ran, but why was he acting like that? He wasn't a kid. It was creepy.
Even when our eyes met, he didn't hide.
With dark hair and eyes typical of a southerner, his dark pupils were aimed straight at us.
As his gaze raked over me as if sizing me up, I froze for a moment and then belatedly called out to Lady Rien, stumbling over my words.
"......Lady Rien......."
"Yes, my lord."
"Did you know about him?"
"Yes."
Then why hadn't she said anything, damn it.
"You didn't say anything, so I just let it be. Is there a problem...?"
"No, nothing."
Right, she was also under the misconception that I was an unbelievably strong bastard.
I couldn't bring myself to say anything and just let out a sigh.
Anyway, so this meant I was in that man's future? She hadn't even divined my future—she just saw me in someone else's future, and yet she reacted like that...
"......Just what in the world did she see?"
"One must not carelessly speak of fate and the future. If you let it slip, the worst possible outcome could come about because of it."
"......."
"But I can tell you this much. To you, hatred is like a wildfire. It may seem like nothing at first, but at some point it will rapidly grow and eventually devour everything. That's why my grandmother must have told you to hate nothing."
My head felt even more complicated, but one thing I understood clearly.
'Fuck, so in other words, I'm going to cause some huge shit in the future, aren't I.'
I couldn't understand why I, who strove for as peaceful a life as possible, would cause such a disaster, but the root cause was 'hatred.'
The only person I currently hated was Cruel, so he was probably the fuse.
'I definitely need to deal with Cruel first.'
He'd been an eyesore anyway.
Because he'd become a Hero, I couldn't guarantee whose side the Emperor would take; he also had the Duke backing him behind the scenes, and the attention from social circles had prevented me from touching him so far, but I had to find a way quickly.
'Assassination would likely cause an uproar... should I just curse him instead...'
Hmm? Not a bad idea. I happened to have a sorcerer right next to me.
I was thinking of casually asking about a curse, but Ran's words, which I thought were finished, continued.
"And that child is like an explosive that will go off someday."
"Ah."
Was he still at it?
I looked at the man who was still watching us with a sour expression.
As if interpreting my gaze as 'interest in the man' or something similar, Ran murmured with a faint sigh.
"When the explosive goes off, it causes a fire; and conversely, when the fire breaks out, the explosive goes off. Because of that, I hoped you wouldn't run into that child as much as possible... but I suppose fate doesn't change so easily."
......What was she saying?
More importantly, she kept going on about fate, and the way she phrased it was a bit off.
Couldn't she just call it something like 'a relationship where you end up getting heavily involved in the future'?
Meanwhile, as if having confirmed everything he needed to, the man strode toward us with a resolute air. At the same time, Lady Rien placed her hand on her scabbard, on guard.
Before she could draw her sword, the man stopped walking and looked at me squarely, then slowly opened his mouth.
What came out was so absurd that it made my earlier tension feel pointless.
"Please take me with you."