Chapter 111
I end up doing childcare, something that was never in my fate.
—
[Hahaha, the narrator has been doing childcare from the very beginning!]
[In fact, they’re still doing childcare even now. The narrator gives “childcare” as a form of protection fee.]
—
Letting out a sigh, I grabbed the kid first. While stopping him from twisting his body in anger.
“Stop.”
I only said that occasionally.
The child kept screaming and struggling for quite a while, until he eventually exhausted himself and collapsed on his own. During that time, I thought about something else.
Since everyone is desperately pushing toward different goals anyway, wouldn’t it be better to at least do something productive?
‘The next joint event.’
Events like this are fine, but I still needed to prepare for the joint events.
At the beginning, was the next joint event at Chapter 30? There were rules in their own way. But the problem is that at some point, even those rules get shattered. I needed to move on to the next chapter as soon as possible.
No… at the very least, I needed to properly keep up with what others were doing.
‘How long did I spend at Gaehwasan?’
Two weeks? I stalled for too long.
‘Once it passes around Chapter 100 of the Apocalypse, those boundaries disappear anyway.’
It collapses. The world collapses. More and more beings come charging in under the pretense of “events.”
At this point, they at least maintain some “formality,” but later on, they only call it an “event” in name… It’s no different from them just invading.
‘Of course, if you ask whether what they’re doing now counts as “formality”….’
Absolutely not. It’s not formality. They’re just tearing things apart however they please. Under a single tacit allowance.
While I was lost in those stray thoughts, the kid eventually calmed down somewhat.
“You’re… you’re all bad……”
Muttering that, the child eventually hid himself under the blanket and sniffled. Watching him, I let out a short breath. Yeah, from their perspective, we’re the invaders too. But from our perspective, you’re the invaders.
—
[In a world like this, there are no perfect victims.]
[It might be better to acknowledge and accept that.]
—
The kid sniffled for a long time. I didn’t try to soothe him by scolding… I just patted his rounded back for quite a while.
Gradually, the child stopped crying, still mumbling under the blanket he had pulled completely over himself.
“…Take me to Ernst.”
Ernst?
At that name, my eyebrows twitched for a moment. It’s a name I know. More precisely, a name I know unilaterally.
A name I saw in that notebook will.
“…Ernst?”
Who’s that? I don’t know anything besides the name.
“Yeah, Ernst!”
Hearing the child snap irritably, I tightly shut my eyes once and exhaled. At my reaction, the child’s shoulders trembled slightly.
“…No.”
I don’t know what he meant by that, but his voice became quiet again.
“Explain it. Who is Ernst?”
“…Ernst is Ernst.”
“Who is that, Ernst?”
At my words, the kid shut his mouth for a moment, then lifted his head. With a face smeared with tears from crying so much, he looked at me with a shocked expression and said:
“…Are you stupid? Don’t you have ears? Eyes? Are you a loner?”
That question didn’t sound like an insult, but rather…
A sincere question. He really seems to think something is wrong with me.
“You don’t know Ernst? Who are you? …You’re weird.”
It seems that in this kid’s brain, not knowing Ernst is impossible.
“…I don’t. So explain it properly. Who is he? What kind of person? Is he a man?”
The kid kept staring up at me in shock, then slowly began to explain in fragments.
“Ernst is… big.”
And huge, and with golden hair…
There was no point in listening further. What the kid was describing could just as easily be a statue. Or maybe a “saint.”
“Is what you’re talking about one of the statues?”
“What? What are you talking about? How could those be Ernst? Ernst is… when you see him, you just know he’s Ernst!”
What is Ernst, some kind of pronoun?
Anyway, at least it’s not a statue.
“…Is he one of the ones walking around?”
“Yeah! That’s why I’m asking you to take me! If he stayed in one place, why would I ask you to take me?”
Annoyingly logical.
Among the ones that move around and aren’t statues, there’s only one.
‘…That guy? That big one? The one dragging something around?’
Lee Hoin seemed to realize it too and stared at me. Then he mouthed:
‘We’re screwed.’
Ha.
After letting out a short sigh, I said:
“It might actually be faster for you to go by yourself than for us to take you.”
At that, the kid said:
“I can’t walk for long!”
What a mess.
—
[Do we even have to carry him too?]
[Burden? Treasure? ▼]
What should we do? Should we grant this outrageous kid’s request? Or should we coldly turn away and tell him to ask someone else?
This child could become your greatest benefactor… or just a burden.
Isn’t the most important thing for survival the ability to judge things like this?
[〉 Accept.
[〉 Refuse.]
—
I thought for a moment. Is taking this kid beneficial, or not?
I didn’t really care about what this kid actually was. The question was simply whether bringing him along would cause problems or not.
“You said you know this house well.”
At my words, the kid nodded.
“Then this… your parents wrote this, right?”
“Why do you keep asking about useless things……”
Eventually, he nodded. So it’s true.
“Do you know where the rest are?”
“I don’t.”
So he doesn’t know where the rest of the will are.
“Anywhere they might be?”
“How would I know that?!”
I covered my ears at the shout. When I frowned, the kid quieted down again. Ha, I can’t keep disciplining him the whole way.
“Then let’s make a deal.”
I threw it out casually, like playing an adult game kids go crazy for. The kid, who had been hesitating, lifted his head.
As expected, he bit immediately.
“…A deal?”
“Yeah, a deal.”
“W-what is it?”
I spoke to the now-focused kid.
“Simple. You read these will, and guide us to where the next ones might be. Once we find them all, we’ll take you to Ernst.”
These will. Judging by how these items appear in sequence, there might be some clue inside them.
First, what caught my attention was that the overall flow of the story in the will is unified.
Items. More precisely, a way to distinguish items.
If we find just that, we can tell cursed items apart from non-cursed ones. Not all cursed items immediately afflict you upon touch like metal poisoning…
‘At least we can filter them out before touching them.’
Even if we don’t know where Ernst is, we can follow the thudding sounds to find him eventually. The kid, blinking as if calculating, said:
“…That’s really all?”
“Yeah. That’s enough.”
“Okay.”
In the end, I picked the kid up. He was lighter than expected. Unnaturally light. As if he had no weight.
‘I’m not clueless about how much boys this age usually weigh.’
When you spend a long time in childcare facilities, you learn things without realizing it.
Like the average physical size of children who are properly cared for, or how kids react when they have unstable emotions.
“How old are you?”
“What do you need that for?”
“Right. Kid.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m already 13. You stupid invader!”
A 13-year-old this light? This small?
“I’ve never seen a 13-year-old this small.”
“Grr.”
The boy, clearly frustrated, hit my head repeatedly while in my arms. It didn’t hurt at all… There was no strength behind it.
“You’re really 13?”
“I said I am!”
After huffing for a while, the boy turned his head sharply and said:
“It’s been three years since that day, so I’m 13.”
“…That day?”
“My 10th birthday, idiot.”
“How do you know it’s been three years since then?”
“I just know!!”
As if he didn’t want to explain, the boy turned his head away immediately. I watched him for a moment, then handed him the will.
“Read it. Let’s think about where the next one might be.”
For some reason, this already feels like it’s going to be an exhausting journey.
***
In the end, the place the kid chose was the master couple’s bedroom. The will was sitting squarely in the center of the room.
—
[You have obtained Bernhardt’s will III.]
[ Bernhardt’s will III ▼ ]
It feels like my body is growing weaker and weaker.
I don’t know whether this is the price for collecting items indiscriminately, or simply old age, or whether this ruin itself is tightening around my throat.
But I grow more and more impatient. I keep becoming more impatient.
If I die, who will remain?
Now, the only ones who can protect the child are Ernst and I.
If I die, can the child really survive alone?
In the end, I pick up the pen again. In the end, I circulate mana again.
All of this is for my child.
—
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