Chapter 25
***
Wilhelm, having left Julian’s room, immediately exited the manor.
“…It’s still snowing.”
In the middle of the heavy snowfall season, the world outside the manor had turned completely white.
The head butler paused to think.
He wondered how many times it had been since the young master came to this manor that he had seen a world like this.
‘There was also a time when you looked at this pure white world with sparkling eyes.’
Children are naturally excited to see snow.
Even Julian, who had lost his parents early and never learned how to get along with other children, would unconsciously smile faintly whenever he saw snow.
But at some point, Julian began to look at that pure white world differently.
That faint upward curve of his lips, once filled with anticipation for a snowball fight, had at some point been replaced by an artificial smile.
‘It looked like you were seeing not the snow, but the polluted mana it might be carrying.’
Was it because he had matured too early?
At an age that did not suit him, Julian had started looking at the inside rather than the outside.
And yet, even then, he did not erase that faint smile when he looked at the white world.
As if he were still keeping his childhood, as if he were acting it out for the adults.
He was the same today.
“….”
While he was lost in thought, the head butler had already arrived in front of the annex.
He stopped thinking and brushed the snow off his shoulders.
After making sure even the snow on his shoes was gone, the old butler stepped into the annex.
He stood at the entrance for a while, letting his body warm a little in the heat before heading to the reception room.
Knock, knock.
When the reception room door opened, a man sitting on the sofa came into view.
A man who was sitting there with his back straight, as if this space made him uneasy.
The moment the old butler entered, he sprang up from the sofa.
Wilhelm offered the man his hand.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Shen.”
“It’s all right, sir.”
The scar-covered man took the handshake with an almost reverent attitude.
The man’s name was Shen.
In public, he was known as the head of the Ironclad Special Task Force.
“You carried out the mission excellently.”
Wilhelm sat down on the sofa opposite him.
As was his habit, he tapped his knee with a gentle smile.
But despite that friendly demeanor, Chief Shen did not relax.
Sitting on the sofa with his back stiff, the chief kept watching the old man’s every move.
Amid that uncomfortable atmosphere, the old butler prepared two teacups and set them down in front of himself and Shen.
“I’m not familiar with the tea ceremony etiquette of beastkin. I’m going to do this the way I know how, if that’s all right?”
“I’m grateful just to be offered tea, sir.”
Without waiting for Shen’s answer, Wilhelm poured the tea.
Each teacup was filled with steaming hot water.
Only after lowering a tea bag into each one did the head butler speak again.
“…Come to think of it, when was it that we met?”
“It was around this time last year, sir.”
“Right, so only a year has passed. For me to trust you... not much time seems to have gone by, does it?”
Shen’s shoulders stiffened.
His head gave a rigid nod.
“Remember? Last year, the young master saved you and your tribe from that vulgar circus. And he invited you, as their representative, to dinner.”
“…I truly am grateful for the young master’s boundless kindness.”
“And do you remember how you repaid the young master’s favor?”
Shen squeezed his eyes shut.
His memories returned to that day, bone-chillingly cold, when the whole world had turned white.
***
Shen and his tribe lived lives closer to those of objects than of human beings.
In the slave market of Limbus Pit H Sector, they were displayed like livestock behind iron bars, sold like goods, and returned when people grew bored of them.
Their lives were nothing but the repetition of that cycle.
When they were taken upward, their role was to become dolls.
They were made into test subjects for magicians who had only just learned magic, or dolls for swordsmanship practice.
If not that, then they became toys for relieving stress.
And when the nobles grew tired of them, they were shoved back into Limbus Pit.
Because even for slaves, the legal process of killing them was too much of a hassle.
In the process, their father, who had been the tribe chief, couldn’t endure that life and passed away.
And on the very next day after Shen had just inherited that position and become chief.
Shen’s tribe was ‘returned’ to Limbus Pit, as always.
“Mom, where are we going?”
Halfway along the line descending into Limbus Pit.
One of the tribe’s children said.
Under the overpass, a long line stretched out in the dark shadows.
Each person in line had a placard hanging from their neck, like a tag showing livestock quality.
<Transfer>, <Quarantine>, <Unregistered>…
Shen’s tribe was part of that line.
With a <Citizen Number Unregistered> placard hanging from their necks, they were silently walking down below.
“M-mom, where are we going again? Weren’t we supposed to live there?”
A tribal child asked their mother.
The child had been used as the young lady’s dress-up doll while the adults endured that terrible time.
They seemed unable to accept the current situation of being sent back down again.
“Mom!”
The adults could not answer the child’s cry.
At the time, the adults were exhausted by the death of the leader who had been their anchor.
Perhaps feeling sorry for the adults, the child suddenly stepped out of line.
The exhausted adults didn’t even realize the child had gone missing.
— Knock, knock.
And then, side by side with the line, the child knocked on the door of a black vehicle going down to Limbus Pit.
By the time Shen noticed, the child had already knocked on the car door.
— We’re done for.
That word dominated the minds of Shen and the tribespeople.
A car was a symbol of nobility.
Not knowing that, the child had knocked on the car door.
“No!”
The child’s mother screamed too late.
If the nobles they had encountered so far were any indication, it would not have been strange if the window rolled down and the muzzle of a gun pointed at the child’s forehead.
Shen and the tribespeople could not bear to watch what would come next, so they shut their eyes tightly.
But what followed was different from what Shen and the tribespeople had imagined.
The car did not respond at all to the child’s knock.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
And the car, leaving the soldiers bowing over and over again, descended beneath Limbus Pit as if nothing had happened.
That was the end of it.
The child returned to the line unharmed, with an iron tag added around their neck.
“Why on earth did you do that!”
“But... I made eye contact with the kid inside the car!”
The mother roughly pulled the child who had returned into her arms and scolded them.
The adults of the tribe scolded the child too, telling them never to do it again.
Even then, they never imagined that this would become a connection later on.
And that evening.
A healer from the smallfolk, who had been sorted into the H Sector exhibition hall, came looking for Shen and his tribe.
The healer, wearing a raven mask, introduced himself as Director Schnabel Isa from the Mercure Trading Company.
“I wanted to do a good deed for the child, but I was busy on my way to work. So, is the child here?”
Beside the director, who was tipping his hat in greeting, a young man who looked like his escort let out a sigh.
*
“If you get scolded by the head of the house for picking up things like this, don’t blame me.”
“Don’t worry, Otto. This isn’t the first time. There’ve been plenty before you.”
“What are you even going to do with things like these....”
“Well, even pig dung can be used as medicine, so there must be some use for them somewhere, right?”
After buying the entire tribe, the director sent them up to Civitas Square.
The director turned a company warehouse into lodging and provided the tribesfolk with meals and basic treatment.
“Hmm. Even I can’t afford to erase the scars, but I’ll bring in as much healthy skin as I can.”
Schnabel Isa worked miracles with nothing but a needle and thread.
Having worked a miracle comparable to a low-grade Heal on every tribesperson, the director then provided them warm meals and a place to sleep.
And he invited Shen, the tribe’s representative, to a luxurious restaurant.
“I hope it suits your taste. Ah, you don’t need to worry about manners. There will only be us here tonight.”
With the company head in tow like an attendant, Schnabel Isa casually sliced his meat and talked with Shen.
Shen felt as if all of it were a lie.
No, he was certain it was a lie.
‘What scheme are you up to this time, noble?’
As a child.
After taking the words ‘noble’s friend’ at face value and being betrayed, Shen no longer believed in nobles’ goodwill.
Because back then he had realized that, to nobles, a friend was no different from the affection one feels for a toy doll.
‘I need to run away first.’
So that night, after the first dinner ended.
He stole a few silver coins from Julian’s wallet while Julian was doing night consultations and ran away.
Driven by a warped sense of duty that he had to get his family away from that wicked hand no matter what.
And the next morning, before they had even discussed escape, Shen was caught and made to kneel before the director.
— “Young master. What are you going to do with this one?”
The one who had caught Shen at the time was the old butler.
As if he had known it would happen, the old butler had already bought off Shen’s close aides.
Shen lowered his head at the old man’s cold voice from above.
Wasn’t this exactly as expected?
Now they would reveal their true colors.
They would strip off the kind mask and show the sadistic nature hidden beneath.
But the director in the raven mask remained silent for a long while, then said this.
“Why did you take the silver coins? I would have given gold coins to those who were leaving.”
Shen lifted his head.
The eyes visible beyond the mask held neither anger nor contempt, only puzzlement.
“It seems there was a misunderstanding. Let me ask again. Gold coins, rope, and a dagger. Which will you choose?”
At that moment, Shen’s mind went blank.
***
“…I have never forgotten that day, not for a single moment.”
Shen replied in a hoarse voice.
He set the empty scabbard he had tucked inside his coat down before him.
That day, Shen’s tribe gained the right to choose among three things.
To choose the rope and receive training and a chance.
To choose the gold coins and leave the nest for a new home.
To choose the dagger, swear loyalty, and be promised revenge.
The Ironclad Special Task Force was made up of those who chose the third option.
Shen was one of them as well.
“If possible, all I want is to turn back time.”
“Right. It’s a relief you at least have some shame.”
Wilhelm’s eyes narrowed.
At the same time, the air in the room instantly turned cold.
“Honestly, I still don’t trust you.”
“….”
“Given where I come from, I’ve seen too much of how ugly humans can be. I’m the sort who thinks people can’t be fixed and put back to use.”
“….”
“And I still haven’t forgotten that you betrayed the young master’s goodwill. Do you know how badly the young master was hurt because of you?”
“He must have been heartbroken...”
Tsk.
Wilhelm clicked his tongue, cutting Shen off.
“After that, the young master never once thanked anyone outside this manor. And you wave that off as merely ‘heartbreak’?”
“….”
“Even after you all returned from your mission, he didn’t ask me to pass on his thanks until I said something.”
Wilhelm crossed his legs and looked into the teacup.
Right.
He remembered.
This was why Julian no longer smiled sincerely even when he saw snow.
Shen was not the first to betray Julian’s goodwill.
The countless adults Julian had first reached out to had always betrayed his goodwill.
The servants in this manor, the other executives at Mercure Trading Company, even the patients treated in Limbus Pit.
Those filthy adults had all so neatly betrayed the child’s pure goodwill.
Whenever that happened, Julian always reacted like this.
— “They’re people with a lot of wounds. I should understand them.”
But even Julian, who said that, ended up getting hurt little by little himself.
The child who had matured too soon was too good at hiding his own wounds, which was why it took the old butler time to notice.
And when he did notice, Julian had started justifying every kindness shown to him and every kindness he gave.
— “This is... well. I just did it out of politeness.”
— “You don’t need to thank me. It was only natural.”
After that, Julian never once expressed heartfelt gratitude.
And only the head butler, who had cared for Julian since he was one year old, could notice that fact.
The one relief was that, starting two years ago, that condition had improved somewhat.
After being accepted by the Nihirit family, he had begun to stop justifying goodwill, at least within this manor.
But Shen had driven a nail into Julian’s gradually improving condition.
Crack.
Remembering that fact, the old butler ground his teeth, forgetting even his dignity.
The old butler lifted his teacup.
He gave the cup a little shake beneath his nose to settle the surging emotion, then continued.
“You were someone with many wounds. I thought they were only just beginning to heal... and yet you went and dug them open. I don’t think I can call that heartbreak.”
“I believe I have committed a crime deserving death. For the rest of my life... I am prepared to atone.”
Even just this conversation, how many times had it been?
But Shen could not complain.
A wound cut by a knife ends as a scar, but a wound from biting the hand extended to you rots from the inside.
Now that he knew Julian’s goodwill was never hypocrisy or deception, he could not resent the head butler for hating him this much.
Shen himself was tormented by vicious self-loathing every day, after all.
“I say it again, I don’t trust you. Betrayal is only hard the first time.”
“….”
“So even if you say you’ll atone for the rest of your life, I don’t have much faith in that. Can’t you give me something more specific? I’d almost rather hear when you’ll be leaving.”
At the head butler’s sharp question, Shen hesitated for a moment.
Then he spoke again.
“I will atone until I can receive his thanks.”
The old butler’s shoulders twitched.
Because that meant Shen also knew what state Julian was in.
“…Then that is how it should be.”
Sip.
Wilhelm sipped his tea and gently closed his eyes.
When the old butler opened his eyes again, the sharpness in them had once more softened into kindness.
“Good. Now let us discuss the compensation for all the trouble you’ve gone to.”
The old butler recited the compensation Julian had prepared for the man sitting opposite him.
But as that compensation was listed one item at a time, the hearts of the two adults left in the room only grew heavier.
*
Once upon a time, there was a garden full of white lilies.
One day, a few red roses sprouted in that garden.
A young lily approached the roses and asked.
— “Hello, isn’t the sunlight lovely today?”
But the roses answered by pricking the lily with their thorns instead.
The wounded lily asked another rose.
— “Sniffle. Why did that flower prick me?”
But that rose, too, pricked the lily without giving any explanation.
— “Ow... Why did the flowers prick me...”
The lily asked another wounded rose.
And that rose, too, pricked the lily.
After a long time, a new lily came to the garden from far away.
— “Wow, what a beautiful garden! I want to be friends with you!”
At that moment, the scarred lily screamed in terror.
— “Don’t come any closer! You’re trying to hurt me, aren’t you? You’re trying to tear me apart!”
The scarred lily mercilessly hacked at the approaching flower.
And when it came to its senses, the lily realized.
That the petals of the red flower approaching it had been white.
That what had actually been dyed red was its own gaze.
And that the thorn that had been hurting it had, at some point, taken deep root in its own body.
— “Ah... ahh...”
The lily that had stabbed the new friend screamed in agony.
— “I should apologize right this instant...”
But when it saw the thorn-covered arm on its own body, the scarred lily quickly changed its mind.
— “No. After all, I’m... I was always that kind of flower.”
And it chose rationalization instead of apology.
A few months later.
— “What a truly beautiful rose garden.”
The once-white flowerbed had become a garden of red roses.