Chapter 469: The Man Who Might Be My Father
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 469: The Man Who Might Be My Father
Hmm. For her to confess that her mother was a courtesan here of all places. No matter how I responded, it would make me sound like a terrible son. I chose my words carefully, softening them as much as I could.
“So your mother chose a profession of selling love. You must be so happy to have so many fathers.”
“Yes. Thanks to that, I was able to meet you, Father… I’m so… happy.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve never been to a place like that, nor do I have the power to dally with courtesans! I was so broke I had to work part-time at a host bar!”
If anything, I was the one being sold, not the one buying! …Wait a minute. Was I in any position to look down on her for being a courtesan? This was me spitting in my own face.
“You didn’t come as a customer, Father, but as an employee… The brothel was testing the waters with a business aimed at women, but when you ended up falling for a courtesan, they kicked you right out.”
“Is that the new backstory now?”
“Thanks to that… I gained the best father in the world.”
Even I have professional ethics. At the State’s host bar, I never so much as laid a finger on anyone directly related to my work. Hilde’s story was nothing but baseless slander.
Still… I was starting to understand why Hilde insisted on calling me Father.
“Hilde’s audience was her father, wasn’t it? Was your acting all for the sake of looking good for a new father each time?”
“…Yes. The brothel’s clients were all there to see my mother. Since I was a trace left behind by one of her former clients, the fathers shunned me. Even to my mother, my very existence was a flaw that lowered her price and prestige.”
“She’s the one who gave birth to you. How dramatic.”
“In the Empire and its vassal states that follow the Sky God’s doctrine, a child, once conceived, must be born. The same applies even to a brothel. Thanks to that, I was born… but for a child to survive, I also had to please others.”
Hilde murmured, recalling a past she could barely remember.
“My first father hated the very sight of me. Every time he saw me, his face would contort, and he would wave his hand to shoo me away. I didn’t know it then, but looking back, I think it was because of his sense of defeat at not being able to possess my mother. The only time he ever smiled at me… was when I called him father. It was a twisted smile, as if he were drunk on victory…”
“Haha. Your first father must have cared for your mother a great deal.”
“And yet, he never bought out her contract, saying he had no desire to bring a flower someone else had plucked into his home.”
“Dammit. She has so many parents that anything I say becomes a personal attack. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
It felt like I was being told to walk through a minefield. I was trapped, forced to listen to Hilde’s story.
“…My existence itself is my mother’s flaw. Because of me, the class of dignitaries who sought her out dropped, and her price fell. It would have been better if she could have hidden me… but a scandal attached to a courtesan never disappears. As her bookings dwindled, my mother grew furious. She said it was because of me.”
“Hmm. Isn’t it just that her value depreciated over time… That would be a rude thing to say, wouldn’t it?”
It must have been a little rude. Hilde pinched my side. She didn’t use any Qi, but a pinch hurt even without it.
“The only ones who were kind to me were the fathers who came to see my mother. The fathers who tried to maintain a veneer of dignity used me as a tool to display their own magnanimity. I tried desperately to win their favor. At least while they were around, I could pretend to be part of a family.”
“So that’s where your acting began?”
“…I suppose so. Whether you call it acting or fawning. I had to act so I wouldn’t be abandoned by my father or become a burden to my mother. For an authoritarian father, I became a good and obedient girl. For a vain father, I became a smart and precocious girl. For an old father, I became a doting little girl.”
“You call for a courtesan and get an ideal daughter as a bonus? At that point, she’s not a flaw, she’s an optional extra.”
I meant it as a way to lighten the mood, but Hilde just murmured self-deprecatingly.
“It was the ordinary process of a courtesan’s daughter becoming a courtesan herself. If I had stayed there, I might have ended up selling love like my mother.”
“That’s a relief. Ah, not that I mean your mother’s profession is something to be avoided.”
“Working in a theater troupe is much better treated and freer than being a courtesan bound to a brothel.”
“Which tune am I supposed to dance to here?”
As I grumbled, Hilde gave a small smile and whispered.
“…Or so I thought, but just as you said, Father, I just needed an audience. No matter what talents I honed or arts I learned, they were meaningless without an audience to watch. Unlike other people, I am not made of myself. I always need someone to define me.”
Hilde was acting out her past self. From the moment she began acting, she had consciously forgotten everything she had experienced, forcibly summoning the person she was back then. The times she was pursued after an accident during a performance, the time she devoted herself to the Sky God and served as a Crusader, the time she was summoned by the Saintess and worked in the shadows as an Camarilla. Forgetting her previous roles and returning to that more innocent time, Hilde stood at her origin and whispered to me.
“You can be that person, Father. If you would take me in. I will become a daughter for you and you alone. It won’t be me possessing you, but you possessing me.”
Fathers, audiences, the Sky God, even the Saintess. Hilde had made them all her audience and, disappointed by them all, now clung to me, the last one she had found.
“I will obey your every command and serve you with all my body and soul. I will become a Crusader for you alone.”
It meant she would forsake the Military State and the Sky God and devote everything to me. It meant I would gain a slave who would serve me faithfully and with all her heart. A powerhouse on the level of the Six Generals, no less.
An Camarilla who could transform into any appearance I desired, act out any persona, and infiltrate any place.
It was a rather bold temptation. The sincerity I felt from her made it all the more so. If I were just an ordinary, average person, I might have accepted in a heartbeat.
But unfortunately, I truly am an ordinary person.
“Is this performance an autobiography of sorts? It was quite impressive.”
My will is enough to move me and me alone. I have no intention of becoming a lord who rules over retainers like a vampire. That would be a waste of the retainers’ own desires.
I gently pushed Hilde away and said.
“But once you’re old enough, it’s time to become independent. How long are you going to keep looking for a father? No matter how much a father dotes on his daughter, if she sticks around long after she’s old enough to be on her own, he can only watch with a heavy heart.”
A firm rejection. From inside the blanket, Hilde blinked. Perhaps she hadn’t expected an offer in which she wagered her very self to be refused so easily. Hilde smiled forlornly and spoke.
“…That’s so cruel. Am I not enough to satisfy you?”
“It’s because I’m satisfied that I’m leaving you be. The moment I can control you as I please, you’ll cease to be interesting. I cherish and love my own hands, but I don’t consider them fascinating or wondrous beings. If actors moved exactly as I thought, why would I go to the theater?”
Some people seem to get confused because I bear the title Beast King. The Beast King is not one who rules over beasts. It is one who represents them—in other words, one who is swayed by them.
If a representative manipulates the beasts they are meant to represent, that’s just incitement. If that were the case, there would be no need for a Beast King in the first place.
As I answered calmly, Hilde was suddenly reminded of something and asked.
“Father. You have no intention of becoming the King of the Military State, do you?”
Oh.
Why bring up the heart of the matter now…? As I hesitated, hit squarely on the mark, Hilde calmly placed a hand on my chest and murmured.
“I felt it while watching you. You have no desire to rule over anyone else. You just watch and observe. That’s why you have no lingering attachments to anything. You left the Military State behind so easily, and you left Tyrkanzyaka behind without a second thought.”
“Well, that’s…”
“You won’t even try to possess someone like me, so there’s no way you’d try to possess a country. My plan was a long shot from the very beginning, wasn’t it?”
Warmth slowly returned to Hilde’s body. The moment I rejected her new role, Hilde began to reclaim and wear her old one. Returning to the Hilde who was a Crusader, an Camarilla, the one who had followed the King of Humans, she gave me a shove. Unlike before, her gesture was imbued with Qi, and I was pushed away, unable to resist.
With the blanket draped over her shoulders, Hilde looked down at me coolly and said to herself.
“You would rather I used force to drag you to the Military State, wouldn't you, Father? For me to act according to my own desires.”
“That’s not necessarily true. I did intend to visit the Military State eventually.”
“But… you would never become its king.”
I couldn’t deny it.
That’s right. If I had wanted to become king, I wouldn’t have left things to Captain Abbey or Historia. It’s enough for me that humans are the ones who decide the fate of humanity.
“It would have been easier for both of us if you had just lied and said you would have me.”
“My conscience wouldn’t allow it,” I answered honestly to the self-deprecating Hilde.
“I can stand being abandoned by you, Hilde, but I cannot bear to lose a brilliant actor. It would be a waste to use a treasure of humanity for my own selfish desires.”
“…”
It’s a shame, but it can’t be helped. That’s what it means to be the Beast King. Contrary to what is publicly known, the King of Humans doesn’t rule anyone. Unless, of course, humans feel as if they are being ruled of their own accord.
That is the life of a natural being…
Suddenly, I felt that sense of dissonance again. My judgment was my own, a decision befitting the Beast King, but something that had taken shape in my mind was pulling at my heart.
I couldn’t clearly distinguish it the last time I felt it… but I am a mind reader. I know what happens in the mind better than anyone.
That is my heart.
My heart, which I cannot control.
“In any case, both you and I have to escape the Duchy. Like it or not, I have no choice but to be with you, Father~. Tsk. How annoying.”
As Hilde murmured forlornly, I found myself saying words that just popped out.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It only makes me feel more miserable~. Just go to sleep.”
Hilde shot back curtly, then lay down on top of me just as she was. As if my body were a bed, she climbed on, curled up, and closed her eyes. Before long, I could hear the sound of her soft, steady breathing.
You’ll catch a cold sleeping like that… I started to say, but stopped. What did it matter? She could use Qi now. She’d be fine even if she slept naked.
Steam was rising from the water bottle heated by the power of lightning. The hot, humid air filled the small burrow. It seemed like a decent enough night to sleep with a heater in my arms. I, too, pulled the blanket over myself and tried to sleep.