Chapter 280 Monster
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
”Your own daughter…? Are you really trying to kill your own child?”
I couldn’t believe the cruel truth I was told, so I asked again, but Golarf-san’s response was incredibly cold.
”Because she’s my daughter, because she’s a being we brought into this world, I take responsibility and I will kill her.”
”Guh──”
”Why are you surprised? You know that’s the kind of being Grelego is, right?”
”…Are you serious when you say that?”
”I’m not the kind of person who jokes about such nasty things.”
”It’s even worse if you’re serious!!”
”──Neil-sama, do you understand now? This is the kind of person he is.”
”……I don’t understand at all, Melgis-san!”
Yeah, there’s no way I could have known something like this.
”Golarf-san, don’t you love your daughter?”
”Love her? The monster that killed my wife?”
”Your wife…? What exactly happened?”
”There’s nothing grand enough to tell others… but you’re the type who won’t be convinced unless you hear it.”
Looking into my eyes, asking if I want to hear, I silently nod my head.
”Rayla and I noticed our daughter’s abnormal power shortly after she was born.”
”Rayla? That’s one of the 4 who founded Grelego, right?”
”Yeah, Rayla, the twin sister of Reina, the first empress of the empire, and wife of Gran. I saw the child as a threat and told Rayla we should kill the child immediately, but she never accepted that. ‘Power is only dangerous in the hands of its user, if we raise her correctly, her power will never be dangerous,’ Rayla was incredibly stubborn and I knew she’d never bend, so I had to be the one to break. But you get it, right? How many years do you think it would take for a newborn baby to learn the right way to use power as Rayla says? Could you bear with a weapon being swung around unconsciously in the meantime?”
”Then, what happened to Rayla-san…?”
”It was one day, when Rayla was breastfeeding on the bed. I was getting fed up, so I told her to stop feeding directly and use a container instead, but she didn’t listen… She’d say nonsense like, ‘Feeding her cold milk from a container will make her a cold child.’ My unease was misplaced, though, as the breastfeeding ended without incident. ‘See? Everything’s fine,’ she smiled at me, comforting our fussy child who hadn’t had enough. That’s when it happened──suddenly, she released Origin from her entire body, and in an instant, Rayla was swallowed whole.”
”What happened?”
”When the Origin disappeared, there was no sign of Rayla left──only a human-shaped stain on the bed remained. It took me a long time to accept what had happened right before my eyes, because that’s not how a person dies, right?”
At Rayla-san’s final moments, we were left speechless.
”She must not have had enough, so she replaced her mother with breast milk. Unaware of the death of her mother, seeing it suckle the stain on the bed, any love I might have had left for her vanished. I had to destroy this fierce monster immediately, so I grabbed a sledgehammer and smashed her head, but as if time had rewound, the head I smashed was back to normal. Next, I tried feeding her to another monster, but after shet devoured the whole thing, the monster was swallowed by Origin and disappeared without a trace, leaving the one I fed it to. So, I tried burning every piece of flesh, every hair to ash and tossed her into a volcanic crater, but instead of lava, Origin flowed from the crater, gradually swallowing the mountain until there was nothing left where the mountain once stood. Ever since then, the monster seems to constantly release Origin to protect herself, making it nearly impossible to approach until we discovered that Gioniium could absorb Origin and temporarily disable her.”
Calmly, I listen to Golarf-san describe how he’s tried to kill his daughter so far, and I feel a cold chill run down my spine.
”In the end, you’re completely insane.”
Melgis-san says, then pulls out her sword, pointing it at Golarf-san.
”Want to kill me? I don’t mind, but that means you’d leave this monster alive, right?”
”Wait, Melgis-san!”
”Even now, Neil-sama still doesn’t see what’s going on? This madman might do anything if we don’t stop him here.”
”Madman? That’s a harsh word. I’m trying to think rationally, you know. Do you seriously believe I’m happily doing this?”
”Your actions may be understandable from Grelego’s point of view. But can you honestly say there’s no personal grudge? That you’re acting solely for the empire’s sake?”
”I can, because I’ve always done just that. You know it too, Melgis.”
”Of course I do. That’s precisely *why*…”
Melgis-san counters Golarf-san’s words, implying he knows all too well.
”Giving up personal gain and working only for the empire ── it’s easy to say, but we both know how hard that really is. That’s why, after 3 hundred years, you’re utterly crazy.”
”Hmm, I see. It’s true──normal humans couldn’t keep doing this forever. But don’t worry, Melgis. I’m an elf. Even you couldn’t endure what elves can.”
”──Is that really true?”
I question Golarf-san’s claim that elves can endure anything.
”I’ve talked to you about what elves are, Neil-kun. Are you doubting that now?”
”What I doubt isn’t what you said but you yourself. You said elves can’t store the past ── that we’re a light, shallow race.”
”So… what’s your point?”
I’ll say what I couldn’t finish telling him before.
”Then why do your words carry so much weight?”
If elves can’t accumulate the past, there’s a huge contradiction in what Golarf-san is saying.
To live in the present, unburdened by the past, you say ‘light and shallow’──but that implies knowing the weight of the past. How can someone who’s never known that weight speak of it?
”The elf you describe and you yourself are completely different. Don’t you realize that?”
”Now then… what will you do?”
”Stop trying to mislead us,” Melgis-san cuts in.
”Don’t bother with such a poor lie, Neil-sama. I understand what you’re getting at. You’ve often said, ‘I am an elf.’ You made it seem like you were talking to me, but weren’t you really trying to convince yourself?”
Come to think of it, Golarf-san once said, ‘If someone mourned and clung to a presence that’s been gone for 3 hundred years, they’d have to be crazy.’ That wasn’t just an analogy, was it? He was talking about himself.Thinking back, maybe all the stories he told him was for his own ears, to reinforce thus event.
That because he’s an elf, he can endure.
”So what if I do realize it? What changes if I get confirmation that I’m losing my mind? Will you kill me without a second thought if you’re sure I’m crazy?”
”That’s not what I want to talk about, and I’m sure Melgis-san feels the same.”
”……”
Melgis-san said nothing, nor did he sheathe his sword, but its tip trembled with uncertainty.
”You can’t cut away the past like other elves, and that’s why you keep telling yourself these things. It’s proof you’re still holding onto your sanity.”
”Who knows? Maybe I’m so far gone I don’t even realize I’ve lost my sanity. I can’t say for sure if *I’m* sane either. At least, someone who tries to kill their own daughter is called a madman by society, right?”
”…Do you really want to kill your own daughter?”
”You’re persistent. I have to kill her because I *have* to. I can’t let a monster like that roam free.”
”Couldn’t you temporarily disable her with Gioniium? Then, like Rayla-san said, you could teach her how to use her power properly.”
”That’s naive. If I could completely disable her, I’d have already taken care of that monster. There’s a limit to how much Gioniium can extract, and I’ve paid the price for letting my guard down.”
As he spoke, Golarf raised his left arm, showing it off to us. His hand transformed into a mere stick.
”That arm…?”
”It was taken from me when I thought I’d disabled her. I disguise it with the same magic I use to conceal my ears.”
”If you lost your arm, couldn’t a priest’s healing magic—”
”It was useless. The priest said, ‘It’s as if it never existed.’ Anything consumed by that power vanishes from existence. Even if she could control it, I can’t leave someone with such dangerous power alive.”
”As the founder of Grelego, you can’t overlook it, so you have to kill her. Is that it?”
”Yes, that’s it.”
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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