The Children Who Found Joy
The children from the annex had discovered fun. “I want to join too! Even if it’s hard for Zia and Chloe, I want to do it with Epia and Serelda!” Eyes as dark as the night sky sparkled brightly, as if stars had risen within them. Carmela stared at me with those overwhelming eyes that somehow reminded me of an entire constellation. For a moment, I quietly strengthened only my senses with internal energy. I already knew my prediction would be about 99% accurate, but I did it anyway. To observe her properly. To see exactly how much Carmela was looking forward to this. To understand how happy she would be if it came true. I gazed deeply into her eyes.
…Inspection complete. It hadn’t even taken a few seconds.
“You really want to participate, don’t you?”
“Yeah! Director! It looks like it’ll be so much fun!”
The level of anticipation this child was holding inside right now was enough to shove the murderous impulses that had been slowly creeping out of her lately back into a dark corner. ‘This is no ordinary thing…’
To the children from the annex, who were anything but ordinary, I had given clear instructions. Do not kill people without reason. Even if they are villains, only act when your answer remains the same after thinking it over three times. And even if you take a villain’s life, never think of it as normal.
These days, Carmela was following my teachings well. But of course, it hadn’t been that way at first.
‘She was the one who gave me the hardest time during the initial correction.’
Zia had been completely broken when I rescued her, but she was a child with a fundamentally kind heart. Even now, I still found it strange that she could ever become the final boss. Serelda had grown up as a cherished treasure under the fervent protection of her cult, receiving every kind of education imaginable. She might be arrogant, but she possessed a deep capacity for caring about others. Epia was what people commonly called a beast girl. Nature hadn’t raised her intelligence, but it also hadn’t taught her to do anything worse than a beast would.
On the other hand…
‘No matter the reason, this child has spilled more human blood than anyone else here.’
When I had gone all the way to Carmela’s distant hometown, she was already a skilled assassin who had killed more than fifty people in total. ‘Her mother was the leader of an assassin guild. It’s not strange that she gave early training to her own daughter who possessed monstrous talent.’
Carmela was the one I had prepared myself the most to retrieve, and she was also the only one who had raised a hand against me during our first meeting.
Her face, which had been three times more menacing than it was now, suddenly changed into that of a child who was appropriately confused for her age.
“Was that fat guy your assassination target?”
“Ah, assassination target? Miss, are you involved somehow?”
Seeing me stand there with my arms crossed, calm despite having witnessed a murder scene, Carmela’s eyes instead lit up brightly.
“Then that’s perfect! Mother told me to kill any witnesses!”
I was the one who panicked. Not Carmela.
“If I’m involved, you don’t need to do that! I’ve never killed a witness before, and I really hate doing that kind of thing!”
Her voice was far too cheerful for the situation, but that wasn’t the only reason.
“You’re such a pretty sister I’ve never seen before! Do you have some kind of message for me? Um… surely I didn’t switch targets or make a mistake, right?”
I could feel that her words about not wanting to kill innocent people were sincere. That’s why I needed to look into it further.
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not involved. If anything, I’m the kind of person your mother would hate.”
“Ah, that means…”
“It means I’m someone who needs to be silenced. According to your mother, you’ll have to kill me.”
I observed her expression. Disappointment, lament, distress. There was even resentment asking why I had to say that. She scratched her head as if troubled, then her face hardened as if she had accepted it.
“I’m sorry, sister. I have to follow what Mother says.”
With those words, she literally vanished from the spot.
She extended her index and middle fingers, raising them in front of my left eye. Tap. The dagger flying precisely between her fingers toward my eye stopped right before it could pierce it. Then, with her other hand, she aimed for my throat. Using her middle finger and thumb, she caught the blade of the dagger she had swung at my neck.
Before the child, realizing she was being overpowered by strength, could let go of the dagger, I twisted my body, grabbed her by the neck, and slammed her to the floor. The two daggers clattered onto the ground with a metallic ring.
“To think you’re already at this level. Footwork that targets blind spots, throwing techniques, and immediately attacking from behind after a frontal assault. Excellent.”
“Ugh…!”
“You’re a genius. Just as I knew.”
I kept tightening my grip on her neck. Even as she struggled in pain, Carmela didn’t beg for her life. She simply glared at me. Even without hearing her answer, I could tell what she wanted to say.
Kill me.
She wouldn’t utter a word about her mother even if tortured.
“I’ll let you go.”
I released my hand. Carmela looked at me warily.
“Sister… what’s your purpose?”
“I’m not going to tell you. Just go. Keep in mind that I’ll be staying in this city.”
When I stepped back and waved, Carmela ran away with a tense expression that said she had no idea what was going on.
After that, Carmela didn’t return to the guild’s hideout. It was a rather sharp decision. She had judged me as an unprecedentedly dangerous person and wandered without returning to the hideout, so as not to cause even the slightest harm to her mother.
‘Ah, that’s quite the memory too. She was the most mentally exhausting one to bring back.’
It was around this time that I had directly witnessed with my own eyes the murderous impulses I had only known about through knowledge. I stayed in that city and observed how Carmela would act. More precisely, every time she targeted me for elimination and launched a surprise attack, I leisurely subdued her and let her go, repeating the process.
“This makes eight times now. You couldn’t even kill me while I was sleeping. Aren’t you getting tired of this?”
“Then… why do you keep letting me go?”
“Didn’t I tell you not to speak informally?”
“…Why do you keep letting me go?”
Since forcing her to talk didn’t seem like it would get real answers, I continued this taming-like repetition.
Then, on the day I blocked her tenth surprise attack, I unintentionally witnessed it.
“Three people. To smash them like this with bare hands…”
In a dark back alley, Carmela had torn apart three men who were trying to rape a girl. Even though her dagger had broken during the tenth surprise attack that day, leaving her without a weapon, she had killed them using only her bare hands, breaking joints and snapping necks. The girl had fled. When I appeared after discovering the scene, Carmela naturally launched a surprise attack on me.
“That’s sloppy. Even with bare hands, to just throw a thoughtless surprise attack like that doesn’t suit you.”
“Khh…”
Her eyes had gone completely wild. The child looked mentally absent, like someone who had drunk too much alcohol in broad daylight. With no choice, I slapped her cheek to knock her out and brought her back to my lodging.
“Ah.”
“Are you awake?”
When Carmela came to her senses, she didn’t try to run away as expected. Instead, she became surprisingly obedient. Setting aside the fact that I had killed those men, when I asked why her eyes had gone crazy, Carmela, who hadn’t opened her mouth during the surprise attacks, answered quite willingly.
“It happens sometimes. There’s something wriggling inside my chest, and it suddenly tries to burst out. It only calms down when I kill people.”
“…What happens if you don’t kill?”
“At some point, my self-control weakens like it did today… and Mother only told me what happens when it goes all the way. She said I end up killing indiscriminately until I regain my senses.”
It was an undeniably terrifying impulse. It was the kind of urge that even Epia, who had half the blood of a great demon, might possess.
“Have you ever killed an innocent person while trying to hold that back?”
“…No. Not yet.”
Perhaps because she had been watching me and her feelings had changed, or maybe she had simply given up, but after that Carmela spoke to me obediently.
“That impulse. Do you want me to teach you how to suppress it?”
“…Is that even possible?”
The odds were fifty-fifty. It was a conclusion I had reached by piecing together information from the bonus items you got after defeating Carmela as a boss, along with what I had seen in the setting book.
“Actually, enduring something like that well might be simpler than you think.”
“…What is it?”
“Finding something you truly enjoy. If you feel less stress, you should be able to suppress it, right?”
Carmela’s eyes clearly said, ‘There’s no way something as ridiculous as that could suppress the thing that has tormented me for so long.’ But I immediately picked her up like a cat and took her outside.
Anyone watching would have found it ridiculous, but it was the correct answer. I spent the rest of that day taking her around, showing her fun things she had never seen before, buying her delicious foods she had never tasted, and telling her interesting stories I had seen or heard while working as an adventurer.
“Ah… why does this actually feel pretty good?”
When we returned to the lodging after doing all of that, Carmela was crying.
I recalled the description from the drop item I had obtained after killing her when she appeared as the boss in the original work.
The uncontrolled murderous intent spread like wildfire. Only after she had burned everything she had ever given affection to with her own hands did it finally subside.
What she needed was but one thing.
Not to give affection, but to receive it.
It was such a small thing, yet there had been no one in this world for a very long time who could give her even that small thing.
I gave her the answer. Pointing it out a little painfully.
“It’s because you had a bitch of a mother.”
Anyone hearing it might think it was insane trash talk, but Carmela didn’t say anything. Because she had known from the beginning that I had come to meet her.
Carmela hated her mother. She harbored that hatred so deeply that even her mother had never noticed it. Even while smiling and acting cheerfully, she had always kept a single dagger in her embrace. There were many reasons, but the biggest one was this.
‘There’s no way she could like a woman who controlled her by giving affection not as a daughter but as an excellent tool, and who even made her kill her only close friend.’
Claiming that Carmela didn’t need friends, her mother had made her kill her own friend with her own hands. She had made her kill without knowing who it was, then gave her the twist that the person she had killed was her friend. If the first gift I received from my mother was something like that, I would also be ready to stab her with a knife.
“Will you tell me the location? Of your organization’s hideout.”
“…What if I still don’t want to?”
“Either way, it’s an eyesore of an organization that I’m going to clean up. The only difference is whether it gets cleaned up sooner or later, right?”
A brief silence fell. Carmela hugged her knees and stared at the floor, then slowly lifted her head to look at me. There was a faint sparkle in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“…I’ll ask you just one thing.”
“Yes.”
“Why are you taking care of me like this?”
“Because I like you.”
“——What?”
“I said, because I like you.”
“Uh, umm…”
It wasn’t a lie. I had liked her ever since the game days, which was why I was going through all this trouble to bring her to the orphanage.
For the first time, Carmela showed me an embarrassed expression. It was cute.
“…I won’t tell you the location.”
“Can I ask why?”
“I’d like to ask you not to ask why. Is that okay?”
“Really? Well, fine. I can find it myself.”
“Then… can I go now?”
“I’ll let you go if you promise not to do anything strange.”
Seeing her nod, I released her.
And one week later, the organization was destroyed. Half by Carmela, half by me. If we counted the organization members who had been slowly killed by Carmela as half, and the remaining members I had killed along with her mother, the guild leader, as the other half, then the organization was destroyed.
After that, Carmela took my hand and came to the orphanage after many twists and turns.
Because of everything that had happened…
‘To think we’ve come this far. That she would say she wants to stand in front of other people together with the children…’
I couldn’t help but feel happy at Carmela’s words right now.
“…Alright. You can participate, Carmela.”
“Eh, whoa, really?!”
“Yes. There’s no need for you to stay hidden away in the annex forever. If that’s what you want, then as the director, isn’t it my job to open the path for you?”
“Waaah!”
Carmela was so excited that she even jumped to express it. Yes, that’s all that matters. Enjoy yourself to your heart’s content, Carmela.
“…Um. Director?”
“Ah, Zia.”
Zia, who had come to the hall at some point and approached me and Carmela, spoke with a slightly shy face.
“Could I… participate as well?”
“…A man doesn’t go back on his word. If you want to, then go ahead.”
“You’re not a man, though.”
“It’s the spirit that counts, Carmela.”
In the end, after asking all the children as we went around, I sorted out exactly who clearly wanted to participate.
Participants: Zia, Carmela, Serelda, Epia.
“I, um, participating is a bit much for me… but I’d like to watch…”
Spectator: Chloe.
With these members, we would be taking part in the Keon-a-je. And in the blink of an eye, time passed, and the day of the Keon-a-je arrived.