What I Must Do For You
The melody shifted abruptly, twisting the very air around them.
“Hey… Morphino. How’s it going over there? Stop staring at them and tell us what’s happening.”
“The Saintess and the elf’s minds have sunk into a dark abyss, just as we desired… However, the knight has completely fainted. Inducing unconsciousness in an astral state requires letting go of one’s mental tether to an extreme degree. It seems I’ve learned a valuable lesson about the importance of precise force control when capturing an ant without killing it.”
“Hmph, what the hell is that supposed to mean? If he’s passed out, your mental torture tricks won’t work anymore. I knew it—your half-assed methods were useless from the start. I should’ve just tortured him properly from the beginning.”
“To be scorned by you… how shocking. However, it is merely that. If you wish, I can awaken them from the hypnosis and torment their physical bodies instead. That said, there is still one person remaining.”
Morphino spoke in a soothing tone to calm the impatient Mapharlok.
“One more?”
“Yes… This one refuses to fall under my hypnosis. As expected of someone who bears the title of mage.”
Cynthia, who wielded magic, was putting up a respectable resistance. But Morphino had no intention of backing down. He planned to treat her with a slightly different approach. It wasn’t particularly difficult. All he needed to do was change the score.
Suddenly, the demon wearing a black robe looked up at the sky. It was Beelzebub, the First Commander of the Eight Protection Army, whose power had been judged as S-rank within the Astral Realm.
“I don’t particularly care, but hurry up… Someone is coming.”
“Someone? Who?”
“I don’t know, but they’re quite skilled. I’ll be fine, but the rest of you might be in danger…”
“Someone you would acknowledge?”
“Hah! Perfect timing. I was getting bored anyway. Beelzebub, just stay put. I’ll take care of everything myself!”
“Very well. Please handle it, Mapharlok. In the meantime, I shall compose a requiem for you… Title: 『Rash Recklessness』.”
While Mapharlok argued with Morphino about not spouting nonsense, the Third Commander, Lucy Harpfelt, glanced at Beelzebub’s profile as he sat leaning against a tree trunk. There was a faint trace of something unusual—something almost like excitement that was rarely seen on him.
I don’t sense anything at all… Who could possibly be coming? Is this person so powerful that even Beelzebub would bother mentioning them first? Normally he wouldn’t show the slightest interest no matter who approached… This is truly strange.
Someone was approaching this place right now—someone who didn’t even register on Lucy’s highly sensitive radar—
“Hmph. It’s just mental manipulation magic that lets you experience past events in real time? This is nothing if you know the spell to sever the link.”
Cynthia stamped her oakwood staff on the ground and chanted a spell. A complex magical circle spread across the floor, severing the circuit connecting her body to Werther’s.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!! You son of a bitch!! Stop it!!!! Cutting the Achilles tendon is crossing the line!! You crazy bastard!!”
Thanks to that, even as she watched Werther’s tendons snap, Cynthia was able to remain standing. If she had experienced that pain directly… it would have been utterly horrifying.
“Werther… he was tortured this badly? He never told us once. I… I had only imagined the level of torture where you get beaten up a few times… This… this is way too much no matter how you look at it. It’s more strange that his mind hasn’t collapsed.”
Werther had given them a brief explanation that he had been tortured by Bael, but he never mentioned the intensity or specific methods. So everyone had taken it lightly. If they had known he had endured torture this severe…
But why had Werther kept these facts hidden from his party members?
The reason became clear soon enough.
Although the physical link had been severed, disconnecting the mental connection was far more difficult. In the past, she would have undone this without much trouble, but lately her magic wasn’t working as well as before. It had clearly… weakened. She didn’t know exactly why.
Because of that, Cynthia could feel Werther’s emotions and anguish as if they were her own. No—she had no choice but to feel them.
Those bastards aren’t even my friends anymore… I’m alone. In this world without family, I’ve been left completely by myself…
Loneliness. Isolation. Silence—
Werther had abandoned them in his heart. He no longer considered them comrades. Or perhaps it was they who had never truly seen him as one.
In the end, the reason Werther hadn’t given them a detailed account of his suffering was because he had closed the door to his heart. He simply hadn’t wanted to complain to people he wasn’t particularly close to. The deep wounds in one’s chest are something one only wants to show to those they can truly trust.
“So… this is how you were thinking, Werther. I had no idea… I didn’t know at all…”
She finally understood the large hole in the porter’s heart—that profound loneliness. Cynthia herself was no different from a loner. After clashing with her father the Emperor and running away, she had nowhere to turn. Everyone she knew was under her father’s influence, and the only person she could truly trust and rely on—Perma—had died before her eyes. All he left behind was a single book, like a final keepsake.
The contents of that book had thrown Cynthia into even greater confusion. It wasn’t the right time to describe in detail the mental wandering she had experienced over the past six months. But she had come to feel a certain kinship with Werther.
‘Me, who fought the Emperor and has nowhere to go.’
‘Werther, who was betrayed by his comrades and left alone.’
‘Couldn’t the two of us become people who heal each other’s wounds?’
‘Now that I understand Werther’s heart, this time we can truly become—’
Just as overwhelming emotion clouded Cynthia’s mind, the melody tickling her ears suddenly changed its tune. The fluctuation in the music began to distort the surrounding space itself.
Cynthia found herself escaping Bael’s chamber and looking down from above at a modern-style building she had never seen before. A man who appeared to be Werther was wearing work clothes and carrying heavy loads.
Suddenly, Cynthia realized this must be the “hometown” Werther occasionally mentioned. Seeing him carry heavy burdens even in his hometown, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought that being a porter truly was his calling.
“All moved. That’s all the work for today, right?”
“Mm, that’s right. You always do such clean work. Your diligence in never missing a single day is impressive too. How about it? Want to join us for a company dinner tonight?”
“Thank you, but I have to head straight to my next job.”
“What? You’re working again?”
“I have to pay for my little sister’s medicine.”
Werther turned his back on his coworkers heading to the meat restaurant and walked alone toward his next workplace. Inside a large truck, he endlessly unloaded boxes. He worked without rest—so much so that even Cynthia, who was merely watching, grew tired. Even when the other laborers ate, he continued working alone. The reason was that he needed to finish even a little faster so he could move on to the next job.
Next came food delivery, riding a rented motorcycle while wearing a helmet. That looked quite difficult too. Especially in the eyes of a princess who had never had any connection to manual labor, it was a wonder how Werther didn’t collapse. She couldn’t understand why he worked so hard, for so long.
That question remained until eighteen hours after he started working—right before Werther finally returned home.
“Oppa’s home.”
“Welcome back, oppa.”
A cute little girl wearing a cardigan over her pajamas greeted Werther as he returned from another exhausting day. She was so pretty that Cynthia felt a momentary pang of jealousy.
…No. It wasn’t just because of her appearance.
It was the loving expression on Werther’s face as he looked at the girl—an incredibly gentle look she had never once seen during their adventures together.
“You waited again without eating the food you prepared, didn’t you?”
“How could I eat comfortably by myself when oppa is working so hard?”
“Geez… You need to eat properly to get healthy.”
“Yeah! Let’s eat together now.”
“You really know how to talk your way out of things…”
The sight of the siblings tearing into the chicken he had bought from the mart on his way home from work was filled with clear happiness, despite their poverty. Cynthia finally understood that Werther had worked that hard just for this very moment.
“Oppa, after we eat, let’s go co~sleep with Jiwon.”
“Ah… sorry. I have to head out to work right away.”
“What? You’re working again? You’re going to get sick at this rate, oppa.”
“I have to work hard while there’s work available.”
“If you keep working like that, when do you even sleep?”
“I can sleep when I’m dead.”
“………….”
The younger sister put down the chicken she was eating and made a tearful face. Werther let out an “Ah, crap” groan, regretting his mistake.
“…Why are you talking about dying? You can’t die, oppa…”
“Of course I won’t die.”
“If oppa’s not here, Jiwon won’t eat or take her medicine.”
“That’s true. I know that very well. So I’m telling you, I won’t die.”
“Hiiing!”
The girl climbed over the table and threw herself into her brother’s arms. The way she rubbed her face against his t-shirt looked exactly like she was marking her territory.
“Jiwon doesn’t have parents or friends. Oppa is all Jiwon has. So don’t say things like you’re going to die.”
“Yeah, oppa was wrong.”
“Oppa will always stay with Jiwon, right?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t go anywhere else? No betraying!”
She hooked her pinky finger with his, casting a firm promise. Werther and his sister exchanged warm glances before bursting into laughter.
This was the first time Cynthia had seen Werther’s human side… Perhaps this was his true self.
As Werther gently wiped the chicken skin from the corner of his sister’s mouth, he spoke with deep affection.
“You know… I have a dream. Someday, I want to see Jiwon become healthy again, go back to school, make friends, meet a wonderful man, get married, and live happier than anyone else. Until that day comes, I absolutely won’t die, and I absolutely can’t rest. So… don’t worry about oppa. Just take care of your own body. I’ll go work again and come back.”
“I’m not getting married. I’m just going to keep living with oppa.”
“Hehe… Someday you’ll meet a man you like too. Until then, it’s fine if I’m the one who helps you. I’ll definitely make you happy. Never lose heart. Just because your body is sick doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. Because you have oppa… don’t worry about anything.”
The dark circles under Werther’s eyes were heavy after eating only chicken before heading back to work, but his gaze was fixed on hope. He breathed in the dawn air and headed off somewhere once again—
Werther’s feelings for his sister, his sense of responsibility as an older brother to make his poor sister suffering from illness happy no matter what, and his powerful will to endure any amount of grueling labor for that purpose—all of it flowed into Cynthia.
Only then did Cynthia realize why Werther had been so obsessed with returning to his hometown, and she painfully understood that she was not the person who could heal his loneliness.
“The way to apologize to Werther… is to send him back to his family’s arms, just as he wishes. That… that is what I must do for him.”
She had wanted to become his friend. She had hoped he would become her friend.
But if the person who could fill that empty space wasn’t her—if there was someone more suited—then she would gladly send Werther into that person’s embrace.
Cynthia made that tearful resolution.