Chapter 67: Grey Fog [6]
A few minutes later, the massacre had finally ended. Dozens and dozens of dead bodies, torn and sliced into pieces, surrounded me like a graveyard.
Droplets of crimson blood dripped off the blade of my katana and landed on the ground that was already painted with the blood of the Nightmares. However, despite the bloodshed, not a single drop of blood stained my clothes. I made sure their filthy blood wouldn’t touch a single hair of mine.
"Sheesh, you really were trying to make the Nightmare species go extinct in this forest." Ezio said as he stepped out of my shadow, but I didn’t reply.
I had killed 30 of them, and unfortunately the majority of them had escaped, since I couldn’t chase all of them at once. I was nothing but a single man.
But alas, with this much carnage caused, I believed they wouldn’t return to this side of the forest for a long while.
I cleaned the blood off my katana and sheathed it.
"I doubt I could wipe them all out, there are too many of them after all." I replied and crouched near the dead bodies.
A feeling of regret rose in my heart after realizing that the dead bodies of the Nightmares were in no condition to be sold, but that feeling was washed away as quickly as it came, thanks to [Calm Mind].
What a waste.
I looked up and it was already dark, so it wouldn’t be wise to continue traveling. We’d have to camp here. I’d been traveling the whole day without rest, so it wouldn’t hurt.
"Ezio." I called Ezio, who was kicking a dead Nightmare and talking about why God created such creepy creatures.
I don’t know either.
"What?" He asked.
"Set up a camp for us." I said.
"Why do we need a camp when we can just sleep inside our futons?" Ezio raised an eyebrow.
I shrugged.
"I don’t know, I just feel like sleeping inside a tent today."
Ezio gave me a disapproving look and said, "Don’t wanna."
"It is an order, not a request." As soon as I said that, Ezio’s body moved on its own and started getting the camp ready.
"I hate this so much!" Ezio said in an angry tone.
"Sucks to be the loser, doesn’t it?" I snickered, then added, "I didn’t mean to set the camp here, dumbass, do it somewhere else, far from this mess."
Ezio shot me a glare and set up the camp at a distance far from the carnage.
After setting up both of our tents and starting the fire, we sat wrapped in blankets near it, roasting meat — cow meat to be exact, and not monkey. I had brought food for an entire month.
We just sat there silently for a few minutes, until Ezio broke the silence.
"Earlier, when you were under the illusion, I heard you speaking about your mother. Did the Nightmare use your mother’s image as bait?" He said quietly.
I didn’t reply right away, and just kept staring at the fire. I knew he wasn’t talking about my real mother, but Yves’s. Only after some moments did I reply.
"Yeah."
I missed my mom.
I’d been here for over 3 weeks already, and there hadn’t been a single day I hadn’t thought about her.
How she and my father were...
Sometimes I also wondered how they would react when they found out I’d gone missing.
Would they be worried, or perhaps even sad? Definitely.
Maybe they’d already found out and were searching for me...just like Subaru’s parents.
There wasn’t a single day I didn’t regret taking the deal with that man. Even though I’d been enjoying my stay here, I still regretted it. That’s why I had to reach the end of this story as soon as possible, if I wanted to see that man again and get out of here.
But how would I reach the end when I had never finished the book?
I had only written half of the story, which was still far from ending. Making me wonder whether I should just stay put and let the story unfold on its own, or interfere.
Who was I kidding? I had already interfered with the story, and what I was going to do in the future would affect it a lot. That man hadn’t said anything about me not changing the story, so I didn’t think it was a problem.
I had always wanted to write a good story. It didn’t need to be perfect, but memorable.
So this is what I decided...for the period of time I’d be here, I would do my best to change this story — the story I hated — into something memorable.
The first step was, of course, winning the rite of passage, and the next was, of course, meeting the main character at the academy, after all, the story revolved around him.
"I don’t want to pry, but I’ve noticed you haven’t sent any letters to your mother ever since you awakened." Ezio’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
Ah, right. Yves’s mother, the first concubine of the Duke of the North.
I frowned at the thought of her.
Yves didn’t have a good relationship with his mother. They used to, but that was before he failed his awakening.
From what I understood from his memory, his mother was a woman obsessed with the Duke, while the Duke barely even looked at her. Since she wasn’t his wife and couldn’t get his attention, she had planned to use Yves as a way to get it.
If Yves awakened a good Main Story, the Duke would definitely look her way.
So she made Yves train rigorously from a young age, and whenever Yves asked why, she would just say it was the only way the Duke would show them love.
Therefore, Yves trained as hard as he could to gain his father’s favor, but unfortunately for him, he failed to awaken. It was a devastating outcome, after all, Yves had been training hard for years by his mother’s orders.
His mother was disappointed, and lashed out at him, asking what kind of son he was if he wasn’t useful to her.
They were cruel words, and I felt disgusted.
How could a mother say something like that to her own child?
I hated it.
I detested it.
After Yves went to live in his own mansion, he never saw his mother again.
He always felt guilty that he couldn’t give his mother what she wanted, so he kept training. And maybe, just maybe, he could awaken and be loved again by his own mother. Because if his father didn’t love him, nor his siblings, who else would, if not his mother?
He wrote letters of apology to her, which she never replied to.
She was a bitch.
That was what she was.
I hated this type of person, one who only considered others — even their own kin — as tools. Such people deserve nothing other than the most painful punishment.
So now that I — Yves — had awakened, I wondered what she was thinking right now. Most likely how Yves could still be useful to her.
I glanced at Ezio and said:
"I’ve realized it’s pointless writing those letters when my mother probably has never read any of them." I made sure to fake a slightly hurt expression.
I continued. "She instantly gave up on me from the moment I wasn’t able to awaken, so why should I worry about her now, haha? I’m not going to run back to her just because I’ve awakened."
It seemed like my act was working, because Ezio had a slight frown on his face.
I shook my head. "But I don’t need pity, this is the family I was born into, and weakness is not tolerated."
Though I was faking all this, I couldn’t help but feel a bitter taste on my tongue after saying those words. I felt sad and felt pity for Yves.
A kid shouldn’t have experienced something like that.
Ezio’s frown disappeared and an aloof expression took over.
"Honestly, it would be rude to try and console you, after all, I don’t know how it feels since I’ve never had a mother nor a father." He said. "But all I can say is, don’t let the emotions of the past shackle you from moving forward."
I was suddenly a bit surprised by his words.
Would you look at that? This was the second time Ezio had said something that showed he actually had some wisdom.
A smirk formed on my lips.
I nodded and replied, "Thanks, I’ll take those words into mind."
"No problem." After he said that, something released a rumbling sound between us.
Ezio touched his stomach. "Let’s eat, I’m starving!"
Ezio took a bite of his roasted meat. "Ahhhhhh, so delicious!"
I smirked and started eating my roasted meat as well, because I too was starving.
We spoke a bit more while we ate, and hell, that bastard Ezio ate a whole cow in the span of thirty minutes! How gluttonous he was.
After that we went to sleep, and the next day we continued our journey.