#075. Mom is too kind (2)

#075. Mom is too kind (2)

Teresa felt power surging through her.

The name of that power was rage.

“Ronove. You were the worst father, but at least I thought the scars you gave the children were just the one time. That growing up without a father figure was enough.”

But it wasn’t.

“You abandoned Ian just like you abandoned me, hurt him twice. Someone like you, garbage like you, shouldn’t even exist in this world.”

Her steadfast will pierced accurately through the ‘despair’ of countless lives lost in the Blood Forest, and the darkness of the shadowy space that despair had formed.

Ronove, watching the results from the upper lounge, realized that Teresa had locked ‘eyes’ with him.

“I’ll kill you, Ronove!”

“Autobarrier.”

Before Ronove could even fully cast his defensive magic, an intangible barrier formed on the ceiling, the point to ascend to the lounge above.

Teresa crashed against the barrier, her legs now brimming with strength.

This leap, there’s no stopping it.

The barrier shattered with a single blow, allowing her to advance.

Ronove was genuinely shocked once more by the raw power Teresa had amassed, enough to threaten even him, the secondary mage of the Hero Party.

But it ended there.

The world cannot be hierarchized by brute force alone.

“Come and get me, if you can. But in exchange, the vampire boy you’ve been using will be brutally murdered by the doppelganger he summoned.”

Ronove saw Teresa’s eyes widen at his words, yet she couldn’t bring herself to charge. A confirmation of her weakness.

She hadn’t changed.

The limits of the human, Teresa.

No matter how prodigious her talent, how rapid her growth, these limits were insurmountable.

Confirming that his past decisions were correct, Ronove calmly turned away.

-You are a mother who cherishes her children above all else.

Teresa was indignant.

But not broken.

The words that stopped her weren’t Ronove’s, but the precious words Ian had spoken in the past to lift her up.

“Ian.”

“It’s okay. Let’s save Hansel together.”

Originally, Hansel and they had agreed to handle their respective tasks separately.

Having stepped into a situation akin to a sacrificial offering, Teresa and Ian had already cooperated with Hansel sufficiently.

Even if they ignored his plight and passed him by, Hansel wouldn’t say a word.

But Ian hadn’t.

That kind-hearted child couldn’t bear to ignore someone in trouble, not even this time.

Teresa realized that she was no different from Ian.

In truth, she had always been this way.

Someone who wasn’t prickly towards others, someone who readily showed compassion.

Ronove, who exploited her heart, recklessly judged her as ‘weak,’ and cast her aside, was the one in the wrong.

“The elders of the family were right, after all.”

Her eye for men had been atrocious.

But she was blessed with children.

More than she deserved.

“Why are you still here…”

Entering the dark space surrounding Hansel, one could see his utter dismay, as if he hadn’t anticipated their aid in the slightest.

“Spare us the obvious. Leaving you would only leave a bad taste in our mouths, so we stayed.”

“No. Whatever your doppelgangers were like, *this* one…”

Hansel stumbled, coughing.

Blood stained the hand covering his mouth.

Theresa’s face hardened.

Surely not.

A prickling sensation raced across her skin as dread settled deep.

A vibration cut through the air.

She thought she’d deflected it, but the residual shock, unabsorbed, pulsed against her wrist.

A woman of valor, one might call her, with a sturdy frame.

Thick brows and a squared jaw.

A resolute appearance, belied by a somber expression.

“Step aside. I would rather kill Hansel with my own hands than see him fall into a despair worse than death. Anyone who interferes dies, without exception.”

Hansel’s mother, Gretel.

Her doppelganger desired Hansel’s death.

* * *

Hansel’s doppelganger, a mirror of his heart, understood that her existence was a falsehood.

Killing Hansel would perfect her existence, but doing so meant defying the will of the one who commanded her.

This was a ritual completed through the ‘deal’ of blood-sworn vampires.

There were no exceptions.

The price of resurrection was eternal obedience.

‘Even knowing this, I cannot escape it.’

Gretel’s doppelganger felt grief.

What would happen if she defied fate and ended her own existence?

Hansel would seek out Marbas.

And demand answers for all of this.

Whatever the outcome, seeking answers from Marbas would be a misstep.

She now knew that everything the man had returned to her, everything he had bestowed, was a seed, a stepping stone for tragedy.

Her own past, the choice she made to embrace death, and how wretched she was as an avatar with that memories fully show Gretel that all of this is wrong.

Not Hansel.

The boy had already become a vampire.

A body capable of eternal life, so long as the blood flowed.

An eternal tragedy.

He had become the very thing to eternally satisfy Marbas, a mere plaything.

‘If Hänsel dies, he’ll be freed from the tragedy.’

Instead, she becomes the mistress of the tragedy.

In exchange for killing her child and surviving, she swears eternal loyalty to Ronove and is used by the vampire who orchestrated the ritual.

Undoubtedly, she will commit acts that the original Gretel would never have done without hesitation.

That, too, is a possibility that might continue forever.

If she receives the vampire’s blood and gains eternal life, an eternal tragedy, practically certain, is born.

Hänsel and Gretel.

Whether one dies and the other lives, Marbas is satisfied.

This was such a stage.

The human named Ronove obtains the pawn he desired.

The master of blood will sometimes borrow her to fight against troublesome enemies.

Marbas, who surrendered them to this contract, laughs while watching the eternally continuing tragedy.

That is why Hänsel had to die even more.

She couldn’t let Hänsel suffer such pain, pain that she could hardly bear.

“Move.”

“I can’t.”

“You have a child too.”

“That’s why I’m trying to stop you.”

“If you stop me, Hänsel will be even more unhappy!”

A stalemate.

Gretel could never have imagined that there would be a female swordsman in the world who could receive her sword so skillfully.

That’s why she became more desperate.

If time passes like this.

If the duration of the ritual elapses.

If she fails to kill the master of the memory, Hänsel, she will melt away into tainted clay and perish.

Skang!

The sound of clashing swords came even closer to her body.

The bloodlines etched on Gretel’s face and body increased.

The resolve to risk her life allowed her to dig more boldly into the precarious gap between the two.

Kkaang!

She wasn’t intimidated by the monstrous strength that would sweep her away, weapon and all, if she collided with clumsy force.

What she truly feared was not the death of the body, but the death of the heart.

Gretel’s desperation, to kill him for Hänsel’s sake, led to a gamble.

Kaaang!

In a close fight where she couldn’t waste a single sword technique, Gretel was cut on one arm.

No, she gained an opportunity to break through in exchange for one arm.

“Stop.”

Ian.

If Theresa’s child hadn’t opened his mouth while holding a dagger to Hänsel’s throat, Gretel could have severed Theresa’s neck in the time it took to bind Theresa’s sword with the bait of one arm.

Gretel turned to Ian without lowering her sword.

“Kill Hansel. Then I will spare your mother.”

“I understand time is precious to a doppelganger. Still, surely there’s room for even a brief conversation, don’t you think?”

“One minute. I won’t concede a moment more.”

Dark blood continues to trickle from her severed left arm.

The time Gretel lacked has dwindled further still.

“Hansel wished for reunion with you most ardently, thus it came to pass.”

“A fleeting moment of pity is but a prelude to eternal tragedy. There is no mercy in my hands.”

“I could have conjured a mother untouched by tragedy, but even now, it is Gretel who ended her life in sorrow that Hansel paints. Do you truly not grasp the meaning?”

Ian’s words finally struck a chord within Gretel.

Thinking back, it was true.

Why did he long for a version of her already steeped in unhappiness?

If the dead could be resurrected…

He could have resurrected a complete Gretel, not one broken by despair.

“It is because the moment Hansel most regrets in his life is when he left for your happiness.”

“!!”

“You said the reason for killing Hansel is to avoid tragedy? Then you are making a most grievous error.”

Ian was certain.

“Turning away from Hansel’s heart, killing him… that is the most agonizing despair he could suffer, a despair completed by death, an irreversible, eternal tragedy.”

“What do you know, prattling on like some human child? Do not speak so lightly of the future of that boy, who will suffer for eternity whilst enjoying immortality.”

One more step, and he could sway Gretel’s heart.

For that one step…

Ian was willing to risk it all.

“I know, for I too am one who can manipulate the hearts of those like Hansel.”

The risk of revealing his true nature.

The risk of Teresa’s suspicion.

To shatter the tragedy he and Teresa may have faced.

“A madman who believes himself a vampire? I’ve wasted my time.”

The power to make falsehoods reality.

This brainwashing ability, which was sure to work on a ‘Monster’.

He unleashed it towards Gretel.

[Brainwash Activated]

[Target Designation – Gretel]

[Command – Do not mistake the one against whom you should wield your sword.]

A tempest of fierce emotions swirled in Gretel’s eyes.

Shock, agitation, defiance.

Her hand began to tremble.

The sword’s tip wavered.

A forced will was compelling the ‘Monster’s’ actions.

And yet, she could shake it off, were she to truly try.

She was both ‘Monster’ and ‘Human’.

And because she was a ‘mother’ to one child.

But because she *was* a ‘mother,’ she couldn’t refuse the new option Ian’s words presented, the wisdom that opened her blind eyes.

The target Gretel should point her sword at.

Not Hansel, but someone else.

There was no other possibility for who that could be.

Clunk.

The chipped sword pointed toward the entrance where everyone had come in.

The one standing there was both a spectator who had watched a series of tragedies unfold from the far side of darkness, and the architect of those tragedies.

“Marbas. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? If I defeat you before I disappear, Hansel can be freed.”

Beyond the curtain of darkness, slow clapping resonated as Marbas, the high-ranking vampire who had lived for seven hundred years, revealed himself.