Chapter 91 – Rules of Barbarism.

It was the voice of a girl who seemed to be angry about something, yet sharp as if she was complaining. Usher, who looked at Mediah’s hard expression, looked at the place where the voice came from.

“Have you made any new friends in the meantime?”

There was a very small girl there. She is black with her hair in patches of white at first glance and her light brown eyes. Her bloodiness might have made her look weak because of her lack of pale skin, but instead her eyes as fierce as birds of prey made her look nervous and sharp. But what makes her stand out more than that is her small stature. Enough to look down slightly even though he is sitting in a chair. But she had a sense of incongruity to see her as a really child again.

Like Belka, she’s not just small in size, it’s like she’s shrunk down a kid her age. The first thing that came to mind was a gray dwarf named Heath. Even though she was an adult, she was about the same height as him, so it was not strange that she was smaller if she was still young. Upon meeting his eyes, he caught a glimpse of her pupils contorting with an unknown emotion, but she turned away from him and looked at Medea as if she had lost her interest. But that was the moment. The thing that Medea spurred her seat and jumped out.

“Hey you?!”

Seeing her, Usher stood up, but Medea had already left the cafe. The girl she briefly bumped into stared at Mediah, who bit her lip and stormed out of her cafe. He wondered what kind of relationship they had, but he decided to follow Mediah first.

“Haha.”

Even though Medea hadn’t run for long, her breath rose to the tip of her chest, and she leaned against the wall and looked around. She ran frantically and when she came to her senses, she found herself in a crevice in a cramped building.

“…They ran away again.”
“Why did she run when she couldn’t run very far?”

When she smiled bitterly at that fact. Mediah turned around in surprise at the unexpected voice she heard. At the entrance to her alley, Usher was watching her.

“Why is Mr. Usher here?”
“Then did you think I would run away and not follow you?”

At his words, Medea made a subtle expression.

“Then Belka and Lyudmila.”
“Is the girl’s name Lyudmila?”

When Usher reacted to her first name, she shut her mouth in pity. It was as if she had said something with her own mouth that she should not have heard.

“Ah, did you just leave me alone? Leave the girls alone!”
“Who knows what they might do?”
“Yes! But why?!”

In fact, Medea ran away and was worried about her daughters who would be in the cafe without any problems while in this shady alleyway.

“There’s no need to worry about that. Some of the old men who were following us from earlier remain.”
“Is it the Royal Guard?”
“Did you know?”
“Yes, I thought it would be impossible to go around without an escort. But I forgot because I didn’t really show up.”

Mediah knew the reason for not showing up. It was impossible for her not to be followed by her escort as much as her status was her status, but it was probably because she was considerate of her wanting to move freely as much as possible.

“Rather than that, why did you follow me?”

But now, Mediah’s biggest question was why Usher followed her. No matter how much her safety was guaranteed, she knew that he was someone who would stand by her girl’s side for now. That’s why it was all the more surprising that he had followed her.

“Well, if you’re not there, who pays?”
“To?”

But the reason was completely unexpected, so she stared blankly at Usher. And Medea, who slowly pondered his words, burst into laughter.

“Ahahaha!”
“Why are you laughing?!”

It was a serious story in its own way for Usher. The iron coins he had collected were worth more than he thought, so it wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it, but the problem was that he didn’t think that he would go to such an expensive place, so he didn’t bring that much money. So after her Belka made sure she was safe, she came after her. She had nothing to say as she laughed at the reason she had to take her.

“Whoops, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”
“…Okay, let’s go back quickly. For some reason, that girl is waiting too.”

The sight of her holding her stomach as if her stomach hurt from laughing so much wasn’t very convincing, so Usher held out her hand sullenly. But Medea didn’t hold his hand and just looked at him.

“Before that, I must apologize to Mr. Usher.”
“What?”
“You asked me to teach you how to deal with bullying children, right?”
“Huh? It was.”

There was something else wrong with Usher, but as he wandered around the city, he had forgotten about it.

“I’m sorry. Actually I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Yes, not at all. Nothing at all.”

Mediah’s voice was filled with bitterness.

“I’ll tell you a little old story.”

I was talking about something out of the blue, but I remembered the expressions she used to make from time to time, full of regret and self-destruction. Usher stared silently at her painful face, as if forcefully poking at her festering wound.

“It’s been 5 years already.”

She had one interlocutor of hers whom she did not know whether to call her friend… Or what she just called her pact. At that time, Mediah was getting tired. The children who were hired as conversation partners were difficult to be friendly with in the slightest. A child of hers seemed friendlier than anyone else in her presence, but secretly teased her by changing her demeanor like flipping the palm of her hand when no one else was around. Again, some of her children approached her just to see the gains she could get by being her friends with her.

Still, that was good enough. At least until the boy caught her talking about her behind her back, for a moment Medea could feel her joy at having made her friend. Of course, once she knew the truth, what she returned to was a stabbing betrayal that pierced her heart like an awl. Because of that, Mediah was able to know. She knew that to her children, she was just a tricky, annoying object to please. So, wanting to get to know the other kids at least a little bit, she shaved herself off.

She said she liked what the children liked, even if she didn’t like it, and she had to hate what the kids didn’t like, even if it was what she liked. She could become fully acquainted with her children only by concealing herself and covering herself with her pretense. Even though she felt alienated from herself, she still felt a little joy that she had made friends with her. But again she heard. She listened

“Media. Isn’t it funny?”
“Are you saying you like it when it’s obvious that you don’t like it? Or are you trying to be friends with us?”
“It’s just everything! It’s something we don’t particularly like!”
“I remember that! It looked like he didn’t like it, but he said he liked it. I forced him to eat it all.”

Medea wanted to make friends with them, so she did her best. Even the games she didn’t want to play, she played with the children. Even when her breath was up to the tip of her chin, she worked hard. Even the food she didn’t like, she ate it. But when she realized that all the hard work she had been doing was nothing more than a fun pastime for her other children. Medea didn’t try anymore. Because she didn’t want to be friends with those kids anymore.

From her petty personality to her status. To the children, being different was the same as being wrong, and being special was an object of jealousy, not a literal meaning. The children wanted to bring Mediah down below them. When I realized that they looked like monsters. She accepted that she was destined to never be close to her children. Medea let go of everything she had been holding back. Although she was foolish, she did not even know where she was.

She just didn’t want to rely on her as much as she could. She persistently kicked out the children who had contributed to bullying her so far. Her children were belatedly crying and begging her for her forgiveness, but her children were always rude to her. She didn’t have to be kind to her children either. Medea no longer servilely begged for her affection. It was very comfortable. It felt like she was dealing with someone inferior to her rather than someone equal to her.

The fact that she noticed someone and she didn’t have to play herself gave her a sense of liberation. Thus, she was completed alone. No, I wanted to believe that. Then one day.

“Are you Medea?”

She was the first girl she had ever seen with black hair. If she had lived in the castle, she would have seen it at least once. A strange child she has never met. But she had no expectations. She was giving up that all children would be there anyway.

“I’m not going to consider you a friend. I’m just hired to talk to you. Don’t ask for more than that.”

She was also a child hired by Mediah’s father as a conversation partner. Yes, she was a child no different anyway. However, her words were the first for Mediah as well. No kid had ever tried to hide that he had been hired to talk to her, for she hadn’t spoken so openly. Maybe she was different, I thought. She didn’t flirt with Medea or pay attention, but she didn’t force anything.

When she realized that fact, Medea was able to feel more comfortable with her than anyone else. There was nothing to be said of rudeness between them, and there was no need to notice each other, so they got to know each other better than anyone else, even though they didn’t consider each other friends. She doesn’t like being a nuisance, likes books, takes care of plants and likes animals. They had so much in common. Enough to take care of each other even if no one said anything.

They got used to each other. Even so, the reason she couldn’t really be her friend was because the line she drew felt like a wall that was too high for Medea. She thought that if she vaguely crossed that line, she might really be able to be her friend, but she was more scared than she was. She would be just showing minimal favors to Mediah as a conversation partner. Could it be that she, thirsty for affection, misunderstood it and considered me alone as her friend?

“Did you see that? Treating me a little kindly, thinking that I was a friend and wagging my tail!”
“Really? Why are you so naive?”
“If you do well, they’ll give you something better too?

Mediah feared that more than anything else. When I crossed that line without even realizing it. The words she said to her as a child were etched into her heart enough that she can still remember them. That’s how Mediah and she spent time remaining in an ambiguous relationship to call them friends or just a contractual relationship. It was a peace that was maintained because no one crossed the line, and also a time of silence that was stagnant without moving forward.

Maybe if it wasn’t for someone who intervened in the middle, they wouldn’t have frozen forever at that boundary? Then one day. Another child came to Mediah’s conversation partner.

“You are pretty!”

The child spit out those words after seeing Mediah from the beginning. That was another shock. I don’t know if it’s a boy, but I didn’t know that I would hear such a story from the same girl. From the beginning, she gave a friendly look to Mediah, but she quickly melted between them. Still, there was one thing that didn’t change. Even after the child intervened, she and Medea did not cross the line. Only that child crossed the line as if playing a joke.

Even so, she couldn’t erase her suspicious feeling, but she felt disappointed in herself for constantly doubting her for her continued favor, so Medea lost her vigilance and became intoxicated by her favor. She didn’t know then. That it would be the worst mistake.