Ch.107Chapter 107. Recollections of a Degenerate

Tashian Pailoi.

The time I spent with her was, ironically, leading to reasons why I should hate her.

The happier a dream once was, the more painful the desperate reality becomes.

‘Answer me, mother. Why did you abandon me and leave?’

The more I waded through rivers of blood, the more I felt my love for her turning into resentment.

Despite years of repeated slaughter becoming familiar, the warmth I felt in her embrace…

The things she bestowed upon me that could be called “love” gave me hope that even someone like me could find salvation.

‘Was it my fault? Or did you simply want to see me suffer?’

It wasn’t until I became an adult that I grew tired of such false hope and killed my emotions.

Only after climbing to a position where no one could challenge me did I finally discard my fragile feelings and accept the world for what it was.

In an era where people died like trash everywhere, an orphan who lost their parents was nothing more than a common pebble on the roadside.

‘…Yes, mother is no more.’

And what was once my entire world—a mother—is merely someone an adult must become independent from.

Realizing I was past the age of childish behavior, I resolved many times to escape her shadow.

‘Forget about mother, from now on live for yourself…’

That was also why I embarked on the path of a hero.

I believed that if she had led me down the path of slaughter, then to forget her, I needed to accomplish something so great that I would forget I was even a slaughterer.

For me to live honorably while reigning as an object of fear to all, I felt the need to deal with calamities worse than myself.

‘Tashian… do you remember me?’

But what was the reality?

At the end of a journey supported by many people, why did the one who created the beginning of this story appear now?

‘It’s fine if you don’t remember. I didn’t come here to have a leisurely chat with you anyway.’

When the power she instilled in me resonated.

In that moment, I couldn’t maintain my composure and infused my blade with hatred toward her.

‘I’ll make you regret abandoning me. Damn mother.’

Suppressing even such lingering attachment born from love with the good cause of a hero’s mission, I boldly swung my sword at her.

Prepared to die here.

Forgetting my mission as a hero, focusing only on killing her.

‘With this much power, you could have simply run away.’

But why?

Why did I, who should have been mindlessly swinging my sword, feel sorrow from her roar?

‘This is a race you don’t need to protect. These foolish, arrogant people who believe they are the rulers of this world just because a bunch of tired idiots have disappeared—this is the race you tried to protect!’

Yes, sorrowful…

That day, I felt sadness from her cry.

To others, it might have been just a howl, but I still remembered the days I spent with her.

‘Do you think they will be grateful to you? Do you truly believe these people, who have placed all burdens on you and driven you to the brink of death, are worth protecting like this?’

I felt those past images blending with the present, giving meaning to her current roar.

I pondered whether her words were a sermon directed at inferior beings, or merely hatred and anger aimed at someone who annoyed her…

‘…I do believe so.’

Once I realized it was ultimately what could be called a cry of anguish, I felt my killing intent toward her gradually dulling.

I too had let out countless such cries since being abandoned by her.

Even if the cause was standing before me, if what I felt was anguish, I couldn’t help but empathize.

‘Even I, raised by a being like you, came to know that I am like them.’

But hadn’t I met people who supported me even in such a desperate world?

Wasn’t it because of their support that I seized the opportunity to break free from my past?

‘I learned that they too have personalities, beliefs, and lives.’

Having grasped the chance to die as a human thanks to them, there was no way I could retreat here.

If that feeling remained, this fight should prioritize a greater cause rather than revenge, putting others before myself.

‘I learned that humans are also a race that understands such differences, even though they fight because of their different thoughts.’

Such compulsion didn’t erase all my hatred, but it made me feel a sense of kinship with the being before me.

That kinship led me to compare my memories with her current self, applying them to human circumstances.

‘I felt love from you. The same as from those who took me in afterward…’

I imagined how an ordinary person would react if they saw themselves breaking down in front of someone they cared for.

I imagined what emotions one would feel if they showed their daughter, who had lived for what seemed like an eternity to a mortal but was merely a fleeting moment for an immortal being.

‘…You ran away then simply because you were clumsy and inexperienced. Even after living for ten thousand years, raising a child would have been your first time.’

You must have been scared.

Because you had lived for so long, something experienced for the first time must have been all the more confusing.

So you needed time to calm your heart.

And because those foolish warmongers wouldn’t even allow that respite, you went berserk.

‘I, as a human, believe I understand you.’

After reading such inexperience, I could no longer view the being before me as a calamity.

What calamity?

If all her actions truly stemmed from such inexperience, then the feelings she had for me could certainly be defined as “love.”

‘Give me a chance.’

Despite resenting such a mother, I chose not to swing my sword at her and instead appealed to her heart.

She might still be a monster who had burned the world, but if she possessed a heart that humans could understand, she would not ignore my current words.

If such a heart truly existed, I, who came here to die as a human, should not ignore it.

‘A chance to prove that the beings you’ve considered insignificant until now deserve to exist in this world.’

With those words chosen as a hero rather than an avenger.

With that final statement, I, having reached my limit, quietly laid my tired body down and closed my eyes.

-Thud.

Hoping that the confusion my naive mother felt would be severed by my current last words.

Hoping that my pitiful life, which was nothing more than that of a slaughterer, would leave some meaning through this final act of philanthropy.

****

-Clang, clang.

I realized that the life that should have ended was continuing with the sound of hammering that had been heard at some point.

I precisely realized this when my consciousness was quickly awakened, but the memories that had been woven with her still existed.

The memories of the one called Tachia Pailoi who became my original, and the heart of the mother-like being who forged that soul into a weapon.

‘When you are completed.’

Tashian Pailoi.

Why did she forge the soul of her daughter who died by her own hands, creating me?

‘If the day comes when you stand before me again like then… will you understand what this feeling I have is?’

She never once clearly explained the reason.

She simply imbued her hands with magical power and struck the anvil.

She simply focused silently on creating my body.

-Clang!

But the emotions carried in those hammer strikes were conveyed to me.

The memories I was born with taught me with what heart a mother who killed her own daughter was forging me.

‘Kill me.’

A time close to a lifetime for humans, yet merely a fleeting moment for an eternal being.

And enduring pain that would feel like eternity to one who should already be dead.

During that time, I knew all too well that she was waiting only for the day to pay for her sins.

‘Don’t forgive me for abandoning you.’

‘Don’t forgive me for not acknowledging my sin even after killing you.’

Each time such feelings were conveyed, I felt my feelings toward her converging into one path.

Love, resentment, the desire to sublimate life’s misery by reaching a heroic end…

I also realized that the reason for creating a being who inherited all of these was merely atonement for acknowledging the sins she had committed.

-Splash, splash.

Yes, that was the reason I was born, and it was my mother’s wish that gave me her memories.

If I truly loved the mother who gave birth to me, I had a duty to respond to those memories by relying on past recollections.

-…Splash.

After going through all those memories without losing myself, I was finally able to set foot before Pailoi who had visited that day.

“…Pailoi.”

An immature child who had just been born, having inherited the memories of a woman who wished to die as a hero.

“Can you talk with daddy?”

And thus, someone who considers me a father despite having nothing to do with such a fate.

Someone I could call my daughter.

****

-Whoosh.

The rain pouring down in this space, created by projecting the memory of the lake I visited to wash away blood, was washing the blood from my skin.

Just as the emotions I felt toward the person who came to find me brought about changes in this space.

“The person who passed their memories to me… wanted to die as a hero, not an avenger, in the end.”

As the blood on my body was gradually being washed away, I finally wanted to share with him the memories that formed my foundation.

The story of rebellion raised at the end of her life by a woman who pitied her own existence.

“Just because you fight for revenge doesn’t mean your life will be comforted. Because she realized that even the mother she thought was trash had maternal instincts.”

Love for her mother, hatred, the desire to break free from the past, and the calling as a hero awakened from it… and even her mother’s expectations for herself who inherited such memories.

I wanted him to understand that all of these led to the conclusion that she must stop her mother who sought to destroy humanity.

“So I have to kill mother. Because I love her, I must live up to her expectations.”

But that too was ultimately a result that came about as if pushed.

It’s just enduring and moving forward because there’s no choice; not once did I think it was okay.

I doubted every moment whether this was truly the right thing to do.

Whether it was right to rely on the memories I was born with and kill the mother who created me.

“But why…”

If it still had to be done, I hoped someone would drive in a wedge to erase my hesitation.

I thought if a third party, neither my mother nor my past self, appeared and drove in that wedge, I too could carry out the mission of killing her without hesitation.

“Why didn’t daddy come to the same conclusion as mother? If you had just comfortably reached the same answer, there wouldn’t have been any suffering.”

I hoped that person would be my father.

If he, whom she had chosen and who had awakened me, stood with me, I too could make a decision with peace of mind.

“Just… even if you had left me forever, you wouldn’t have had to suffer like this…”

But at this moment, I felt my heart swelling just by facing him who had come to find me with a tattered mind.

It couldn’t be helped.

I am a being who established my identity by meeting him.

With memories yearning for love mixed into that established identity, it was natural to have special feelings for a father who had no reason to be hated.

“But why did you appear before me, even in such a state? Why?”

Having turned away from someone who craved such family love, I ended up committing the sin of making him look just like my past self.

Yes, unconsciously distorting someone you’ve given your heart to is this painful and agonizing.

This is the emotion my mother feels, which is why she created me by molding her daughter’s soul.

“…Because I haven’t heard yet.”

Even as I felt such kinship, he was moving toward me.

Wading through the rain that poured down more intensely as my emotions heightened, washing away the blood that stained his body, he was closing the distance between us.

“What…”

“I saw your memories… but I haven’t heard your wish yet.”

Standing before me at the end, bending his knee to meet my eye level—my father.

Maintaining silence in such a state was clearly because he was waiting for an answer from me.

“My… wish?”

“Yes, your wish…”

He doesn’t scold me for closing my heart.

Despite his body and mind being broken on the way here…

“Pailoi. I…”

Instead, based on those memories, he sought to show understanding for the mother he had faced.

“I don’t think what Tachia gave me was a lie.”

I felt the desire to find someone who would embrace me in this harsh world growing stronger by finding someone who loved me.

“If you truly felt love for Tachia, I think what she had for me is no different.”

Yes, if she says she loves him, that’s something that must be protected.

I could understand all too well that such sincerity was expressed through the act of stroking my head.

“…Really.”

Because we’ve been together until now.

Because I felt how he who awakened my identity lived in this world while being with him.

“You won’t kill mother? Even after seeing all my memories…?”

“That’s why I came all the way here.”

Maintaining that heart until the end and coming here now, he still wanted to express his will without breaking down.

“So tell me, Pailoi, what do you wish for.”

Love, hatred, and the mission I embraced upon being reborn.

Despite treading on my fate, which I believed all led to the path of killing her, he hoped to intervene.

“…A family.”

Despite doubting whether I should answer that.

Before I knew it, my lips were moving as if drawn to him.

“I want to have a family.”

There was no way I could hold back.

In my past life, I reluctantly accepted such reality, but now I was just a newly born child.

My past self knows best how painful it is to be forced into such things as an immature child.

My immature mind, not yet fully developed, was making me break down at this loving question and reveal my true feelings.

“I want to know what it’s like to grow up under a mother and father…”

I don’t want to kill her.

My mother who loved me sincerely despite her foolishness.

I don’t want her to commit more sins because of me.

“…If that’s your wish, I’ll be with you.”

As if already prepared to accept even such an unreasonable request, his hands began to envelop my head.

Beyond experiencing memories, completely accepting me into his inner self.

“Let’s go tell her together, Pailoi.”

Conveying to me his determination to never lose himself.