#002. The Brainwasher is Too Kind (2)

#002. The Brainwasher is Too Kind (2)

Everyone in the market said my efforts were foolish, subtly encouraging filial impiety.

“Ian. Why don’t you just leave that household? There are more than a few adults eager to have you.”

“I’ll raise you, dear. Abandon that wretched woman and come to my house, eh?”

“Entrust them to the monastery. The Sisters will take care of your mother and sibling. It’s not right for a boy to be the head of the family when it comes to this world.”

Fearful that Mother would die if I left the house, I never once stayed out overnight.

Providing my modern knowledge to merchants, auditing their ledgers, mediating their petty squabbles—thus I eked out meager coin and rations.

Even when told to abandon my family, I would absolutely not yield.

“Just go.”

Mother said, gaunt and hollowed, having forsaken food for spirits, it seemed.

“I truly loathe the lot of you.”

“…”

“If you follow the Zeppelin Trading Company, you won’t need to live in this wretched slum. If you secure a clerical position at the Adventurer’s Guild, you could become self-sufficient.”

“…”

“I’ve never done anything for you. I don’t wish to do a thing. So, take your sibling’s hand and go—to the Zeppelin Trading Company, or the Adventurer’s Guild, just go!”

Mother, whom I believed would remember nothing, surprisingly retained every word of the elders who offered me dubious counsel, whether she was present or not.

A clear sign of a shift.

Still, I did not heed her words.

Even when Mother flung down her spoon, I rinsed it with water, wiped the spilled gruel from the floor with a rag, and spooned it up once more.

A woman of venom.

Three days she starved.

But I was more venomous still.

For in the end, I forced open her tightly sealed lips.

I am a brainwasher.

A trickster who twists and manipulates the hearts of men.

And with this wicked power, I will…

Remold this child abuser into an Angel Mama.

* * *

The woman loathed her children.

She hated her eldest, the spitting image of the man who whispered love then betrayed her, with a fervor.

If only she hadn’t borne children.

If only she hadn’t trusted that man.

Her life could have been so very different.

One day, as she cruelly abused and struck the child, filled with such regret and hatred, her hand suddenly lacked the strength to continue the beating.

“Do not strike the child.”

Driven by guilt?

Surely not.

She was barely able to restrain the urge to strangle them all.

But perhaps her instincts differed.

Her body, of its own accord, grew rigid, rendering her truly incapable of raising her hand.

“Fine, if I can’t kill you, then I’ll just die myself.”

She merely wished to drink herself to death.

Even when her eldest went out to work and returned.

Even when her youngest cried and begged for food.

She only drank.

Failing to fulfill a single responsibility as a mother.

“You call yourself a mother, acting like that?”

“Tsk, tsk. Just the poor children to pity.”

The women from neighboring shacks, women she’d suckled their own babes when they had nothing, were at her again today, tearing at her reputation.

“They say that eldest from the Guttersnipe’s is awfully bright, ain’t she?”

“Ugh. Better if she abandoned her mother and ran, I tell you. Can’t stand to watch it, her mother so devoted to such a thing.”

“Too young to realize the opportunity she’s facing, I bet. A position with the Zeppelin Guild or the Adventurer’s Guild, hardly a spot granted to someone from the slums.”

Loud enough for her to hear everything, their voices etched themselves into the ears of the woman drowning in her cups like some wretch.

There was talent, then.

Whose talent, hers or the man’s, she couldn’t say.

But she was certain that the girl’s character resembled her own, naive and foolish as she had been.

And that made her even angrier.

“Go away.”

She struggled to chase them off.

“I truly hate the likes of you.”

“…”

“If you follow the Zeppelin Guild, you won’t need to live in this slum. If you get a clerical job with the Adventurer’s Guild, you can stand on your own two feet.”

“…”

“I’ve never done anything for you. And I don’t want to do anything for you. So take your sibling’s hand and be gone, to the Zeppelin Guild or the Adventurer’s Guild, I don’t care!”

Even when she threw down her spoon and refused to eat, the girl would clean the floor and offer the spoon again.

No matter how cruelly she treated her, how deeply she wounded her in an attempt to forge a new life for her, the girl would not abandon her.

Just like she, in her foolishness, had clung to that good-for-nothing man.

Throb.

The woman’s heart pounded fiercely.

She couldn’t let her child live the same way she had.

So she wanted to teach her at least one thing: not to trust anyone.

Because that was the only thing she, stuck in her dead-end life, could teach her.

But the cruel eldest daughter even refused that.

She held out for three days, but in the end, it was the woman’s stubbornness that broke first.

The eldest would not budge, pushing the spoon towards her unless she was feeding the little one.

The hand of the child, who was starving with her for three days, trembled so badly that it bent back toward the floor.

Thud.

The eldest daughter collapsed, unconscious.

If she ignored her, she would starve to death.

If she were imprisoned, even in a prison worse than the slums, she could finally end this wretched existence.

As she turned away, a voice, like an auditory hallucination, echoed in her ears.

-You are a mother who cares for her children more than anyone else.

The eldest’s lips hadn’t moved.

It was just a phrase she had heard countless times, springing up on its own accord.

“…”

The man who had left without a word.

A woman who I believed as I pleased.

A child on whom I leaned as I pleased.

‘Truly, as she pleases. Emulating even what she shouldn’t.’

She laid her eldest diagonally across her lap, forcing her weakened, unmoving arm to wield a spoon.

Fine, I’ll concede this once.

But from now on, it’ll be different.

She manipulated the eldest’s jaw, making him chew and swallow the grains, then forced herself to finish her own meal with difficulty.

“If I cannot abandon you, then I’ll make you leave on your own accord.”

* * *

Mother started going out to work.

A situation that was both gratifying and worrisome.

━━━

＜Tutorial Quest＞

Time to take the first steps towards nurturing an adventurer.

Join the Adventurer’s Guild as a staff member and achieve your first accomplishment.

Reward: Enhanced Brainwashing Ability

━━━

━━━

Quest Objective: Eliminate the thugs who killed Mother.

Quest Guidance: Nurture a worthy adventurer and induce them to take on an assassination request.

━━━

Clearing the tutorial quest will invariably trigger the catalyst for Mother’s death.

If I frequent the Adventurer’s Guild with Mother, will that be judged as a clear of the tutorial, or an exception?

The dread was unbearable, but if I didn’t follow, she wouldn’t care – before her provocative gaze, I had no choice but to follow, spurred on by defiance.

“Take my hand.”

“Mmh.”

So, I took my younger sibling’s hand and trailed along to her workplace.

“Is that her? Ian’s mother.”

“A woman with a decent face, why would she do that?”

One might expect her to blush with shame at least once.

But, like the tenacious sort who would abstain from food for days, she glared at the slum dwellers who were disparaging her with a fierce look, silencing them instantly.

“I’ll take this job.”

Mother took on the task of hunting giant rats in the sewers.

The work of an adventurer, that is.

“This is troublesome. If your children were to die while you’re performing a Guild mission, who would be responsible…”

Before the employee could stop her, Mother’s hand shot out and grabbed his collar, pulling him closer.

As the employee stumbled, using both hands to grab the counter for leverage, Mother’s other hand flashed out like lightning and snatched the employee’s dagger.

The drawn dagger hurtled forward, aiming for just below the employee’s neck.

“Hiek!”

“Tell me. Are you weaker than a giant rat?”

“Stronger… stronger than the Big Rats.”

“My kids. You think I can’t protect them?”

“Ah, no, I don’t!”

Oh. Clap, clap, clap.

Mom scoffed at my applause.

She crumpled the request form in one hand and stormed out of the guild.

Unbelievably, this woman didn’t even stop her children from following her into the sewers.

Let’s see if you can follow me into this stinking drain.

She crossed her arms and stared this way from just inside the sewer entrance, as if daring us.

My younger sister hid behind me.

I felt like I was caught between a mother bear, gauging whether she could make it across the crosswalk, and her hapless cubs.

“Let’s go.”

I coaxed and soothed my sister, who was pinching her nose and whining, to follow along.

In the filthy, repulsive sewer, Mom searched for the Big Rats.

And then, as if unleashing pent-up fury, she inflicted the violence of a former child abuser upon those rats.

We siblings from the NPC era, how did we even survive?

That was the thought that crossed my mind as I looked at the Big Rats’ torn corpses.

“I could do this to you.”

“You are a mother who loves her children more than anything.”

“Don’t speak informally to your mother.”

How could I use honorifics with a woman younger than my past life self?

She should at least come to her senses.

But surprisingly, Mom, when not intoxicated or rambling, possessed a strong will.

So strong that there seemed to be no sign of the brainwashing sticking, no matter how persistently it was applied.

Mom channeled that strong willpower into hunting, completing the request in the blink of an eye.

“Hand over that sword.”

Our train wreck of a mother chose a rusty iron sword over the reward money, or steel, as a reward.

Looks like she was planning to begin her adventuring career in earnest.

“I’ll take the Goblin extermination request.”

“I’ll take the Paralysis Mushroom extermination request.”

“I’ll take the Ankle-Cracking Ant extermination request.”

Was my mother secretly a Swordmaster, and did my sister and I possess bodies with the potential of a Sword Saint?

I was starting to seriously suspect it, as Mom gleefully carved through monsters.

The estimation of our siblings’ survival skills, having lived through such child abuse, soared into the realm of awe with each passing day.

“We would like to issue you a formal adventurer’s license. Please continue to contribute to our guild. Theresa of Motherhood.”

“…Motherhood?”

“We attach a nickname to formal guild members to make it easier to remember them. It’s a better nickname than Bulging Bobo or Generous Elda, or Pale Kind, wouldn’t you agree?”

Clap, clap, clap.

The woman’s face contorted at my applause.

Even my little sister joined in, clapping her hands.

From all around, adventurers and staff gazed warmly, bursting into applause.

“A fitting title for Mother Teresa, who cherishes children more than anyone.”

“If we’re short on hands in the future, maybe we should bring in more mothers with kids. Heh heh heh.”

No matter how much she denied it, it was no use.

Anyone who looked at her already saw a diligent mother.

Trembling.

Shaking her shoulders and making a furious face was already too late.

To anyone watching, she was the very picture of a devoted mother, throwing herself into the dangerous work of adventuring for the sake of her children.

I am a mind manipulator.

A deceiver who twists and controls people’s hearts.

Using this wicked power, I am…

Smoothly progressing the stepmother’s righteous corruption.