Chapter 230
Chapter 230
What on earth had I been thinking?
The moment Theo met Evan’s eyes, he felt as if his breath stopped cold.
“I didn’t mean to….”
“Theo Lisitoel.”
Evan’s hand gripped Theo’s tightly.
Theo could not even bring himself to pull his hand away and met his father’s eyes directly.
Theo’s eyes, reflected in Evan’s blue ones, trembled with agitation and dismay.
“What do you take your father and this Academy for?”
“Evan, you and Theo are both still patients.”
“Be quiet, Artemia Baelin.”
When Evan barked fiercely, even Artemia had no choice but to shut her mouth.
This was not a realm she could handle.
Carelessly intervening in the affairs of a father and son would be self-righteousness and overstepping her authority.
But at the very least, she could delay it.
“Your son is still a patient.”
Healing light flickered in Artemia’s grasp and touched Theo’s body.
After prescribing even the Elixir she had kept just in case, she chased the two of them out.
There were still patients in the infirmary, and as a doctor, she wanted to avoid other patients getting caught up in the quarrel between two people whose emotions might run high.
The two avoided the infirmary and moved to the hideout.
This place was suitable for a conversation between only the two of them. At the very least, no troublesome interruption from someone else would occur.
Theo, returning to the hideout for the first time in a very long while, glanced at Evan’s face.
Anger still lingered in his expression.
“Father.”
“I know that you are no ordinary child.”
Evan’s sorrowful gaze turned toward Theo.
---
When I looked at Father’s sad eyes, even my disgust toward myself felt shameful.
To me, a reset was synonymous with destruction.
Father had already sacrificed himself once to save me, so just how selfish a choice had I been trying to make?
“But that does not become a reason for you not to rely on me.”
Those words could not have been more sincere.
They were so heavy that my throat nearly closed up.
It was a father’s love far too vast for a fake like me to possess.
I felt ashamed.
The son you love this much must be the real Theo Lisitoel, not me.
“Please rely on me a little more.”
At Father’s words, I slowly nodded.
Seeing me keep my mouth tightly shut, Father maintained his silence despite looking as though he had much to say, and stroked my head.
At the sight of Father seemingly holding back despite wanting to say so much, I could only keenly realize what it meant to have no words to offer.
Yes, this was my fault a hundred times over, a thousand times over.
“…Yes, Father.”
At the touch lightly brushing my head, tears almost poured out.
Absolute trust.
When I felt it, I instead felt as though I had been driven to the edge of a cliff.
Your real son is dead.
Because I took over this body, he left somewhere he can never return from.
Although this possession was not something I had wanted to happen, in this moment, it felt as though my throat had been completely blocked.
I felt as though I had committed a terrible, grave sin.
I could not even dare to sound Father out about the truth.
The hand patting my back as I kept my mouth tightly shut, and that warmth, were all too cozy.
Every single one of them was far too much for a son deceiving his father to receive.
At this point, it felt as if self-loathing had become my Passive.
Though I had always been the kind of human made this way.
Flick!
If it had not been for the clear sound and pain ringing from my forehead, I would have sunk once again into endless depression before Father’s eyes.
“Theo Lisitoel.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Whatever you are, you are my son. That alone is an undeniable truth that will not change, no matter what happens.”
The finger that had flicked my forehead without restraint gently rubbed my forehead as if it had never done such a thing.
Healing Magic rested on his finger.
“So please, at the very least, do not sink into depression alone.”
“…Yes, I understand.”
I could be certain of this much, if nothing else.
Of all the many characters, my possession of Theo Lisitoel’s body was the greatest fortune for me, and the worst misfortune for Father.
May the day come when I can someday confess all these sins to Father and apologize.
And when that moment arrives, I dared hope that what would dwell in Father’s eyes would not be disgust, but forgiveness and love.
---
It seems he didn’t scold him as much as I expected.
Looking at Theo’s face, which was slightly subdued but still more or less all right, Artemia thought so.
“So, is the discipline over?”
“Yes.”
“You seem to have enough spirit left to discipline your son, so now let’s go to work.”
At Artemia’s persecution that was not quite persecution, Evan bluntly nodded and leisurely left. Artemia sighed openly, something she rarely did.
Looking back on this first semester, she felt she might have to put a hand over her heart and consider whether she had truly been a good professor.
Artemia strode over and placed a hand on Theo’s forehead. After gauging his temperature, she felt relieved.
Fortunately, his physical condition was not that serious.
“You really do somehow survive every single time.”
“That’s… praise, right?”
“How fortunate that you hear it as praise, isn’t it?”
At Artemia’s smile through clenched teeth, Theo hurriedly averted his gaze.
“Do you feel responsible for Mordin and Iris’s deaths?”
At Professor Artemia’s question, Theo did not answer for a long time.
No, perhaps saying he ‘couldn’t’ answer was the more correct expression.
After swallowing his tears with great difficulty for a long while, Theo answered with as expressionless a face as he could manage.
“Yes.”
Theo was now keenly feeling responsibility for their deaths.
He could not save everyone.
Even knowing that full well, Theo Lisitoel foolishly took upon himself a death that no one would blame him for.
Within that calm answer, Artemia looked at the son of her foolish friend.
The father was a problem because he was too inhuman, while the son was a problem because he was far too human. How ironic.
Artemia swallowed a bitter smile.
“If you put it that way, Iris and Mordin’s deaths are also the fault of the Academy professors.”
At Artemia’s words, Theo stared at her with his eyes wide in surprise.
His gaze seemed to ask how on earth any of it was the professors’ fault.
What a grateful gaze.
Even though it would not be enough for him to argue that they had gone through hardship because of us, he was forgiving us, who had committed grave sins, with such transparent eyes.
“Iris was able to run so rampant because the Academy professors, the Empire’s leaders, and furthermore, the rulers of this land turned a blind eye to her.”
Iris Viden had clearly been a necessary evil.
She was evil, but necessary.
She was necessary, but evil.
In any case, if even one of those who had turned a blind eye to her had willingly opposed her, it would not have been impossible to remove her.
No one did it, that was all.
Because Iris Viden was far too useful to remove.
“Furthermore, if we had….”
If they had helped Iris when she had stood at a crossroads, perhaps even if she could not have become a good person, she might have remained an ordinary one.
Artemia pictured a future that would now never arrive, one that had been stripped away by cruel reality.
She still did not know exactly what had caused Iris to change, but she at least clearly remembered around when she had begun to change.
But Artemia had not crossed the line Iris had drawn.
What Iris had truly wanted must have been a friend who would willingly trespass beyond that line and stay by her side.
“Do I seem foolish, regretting it too late after losing her?”
“No, not at all.”
Not at all.
He understood Artemia’s feelings well enough.
Anyone could imagine a future they ultimately could not have.
“But I will not blame myself.”
“…….”
This was a statement for Artemia herself, and at the same time, it was also a statement for Theo, who believed he was the one responsible for that death.
“Self-blame is not self-reflection. It is nothing more than self-harm.”
Professor Artemia’s gaze was calmer than anything.
“Do not be too cruel to yourself.”
Father and Professor Artemia alike must have been determined to make him cry.
Otherwise, there was no way they would say words that made his heart ache this much.
In the end, he could not withstand the tears that surged up.
“At least Mordin could have lived without dying.”
“It was the death he chose for himself.”
“He was smiling. He said he wanted to live, so how could he smile before death?”
“That is… probably possible because he had no regrets about his own death.”
Artemia murmured softly.
Hearing that murmur, what Theo recalled was Evan Lisitoel’s death.
At the final moment, Father had smiled.
Because he had not known the destruction of the world that would follow, it had been a smile of relief, made because he had been able to burn his one life to save his son.
When he recalled that fact, his heart beat irregularly.
Had Mordin felt the same way as Father in his final moment?
“I don’t know.”
How on earth could that be possible?
Theo felt as though he would never understand their hearts.
“No one could easily understand that.”
Artemia dropped a small hard candy onto Theo’s palm.
At her look telling him to eat it, Theo obediently rolled the sweet strawberry-flavored hard candy in his mouth.
As the sweet taste lingered in his mouth, he felt the heart sinking without end improve a little.
Humans were… truly cunning.
To think his mood could improve a little from such a small sweetness.
Suddenly, his heart began sinking once more.
Artemia, who had been closely observing Theo’s condition, flicked Theo’s forehead without hesitation.
Flick!
“Ah.”
“Do not go assigning unnecessary meaning again to a candy I gave you so you would feel a little better.”
“I didn’t… do that!”
“Really?”
Under Artemia’s persistent gaze, Theo subtly averted his eyes.
Her gaze seemed to say, “Try fooling someone who can be fooled.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The living must go on living.”
“…Yes.”
“The Academy is under full class suspension, so you should quietly stay by Lerwon’s side.”
“Has Lerwon Sunbae woken up?”
“He woke up long ago.”
Lerwon’s injuries had not been that severe.
They were wounds ambiguous enough to even call injuries. He had only lost consciousness because of the curse’s invasion, and in practice, there were almost no actual injuries.
So on the day every battle ended, Lerwon finally opened his eyes.
“Then where is he?”
“At Golden’s mansion.”
The moment Theo heard Artemia’s words, his eyes went round.
At his expression, as if he had heard the most absurd thing in his life, Artemia had no choice but to agree, at least in that moment.