Ch.111Gibson’s Port of the East (6)

After retrieving my wife, who had collapsed at the tower, I returned to the inn and called for Simon. I sat down at the table and explained everything to him.

“Hmm. Well, I more or less expected this.”

“You did?”

“How long has it been since you were scolded in Fernheim?”

Simon joked as he drank barley tea instead of beer while conversing with me.

He was a sage, and naturally, he had profound knowledge about the human mind.

“Simply put, it’s a matter of experience.”

“A matter of experience?”

“Didn’t you say you grew up without a father, mother, friends, or siblings?”

“That’s right.”

“And you suffered all sorts of abuse while struggling to survive?”

“Mmm.”

“Then drawing a conclusion is quite simple.”

After taking another sip of barley tea, he spoke with a seemingly sympathetic expression.

“For the concept of negation to exist, paradoxically, the concept of affirmation is also necessary.”

“?”

“You have no family, so you have neither empathy nor experience regarding family. The same applies to other cases. Of course, there must have been people who helped you, but they weren’t truly close to you… not the kind of relationship where you could openly share your feelings. They just taught you what needed to be taught because it was necessary for work.”

“…”

Why was it?

Even though I hadn’t heard his entire explanation yet, somehow I felt I could understand what he was trying to say.

“You’ve only experienced negative or neutral interactions, so naturally, you wouldn’t know what affirmation means. Even so, in your case, you’re very, very, very fortunate.”

“…What do you mean?”

“What do you think happens when someone who has lived their entire life in negativity encounters affirmation for the first time?”

“….Obsession?”

“That’s right. Obsession. It’s not particularly uncommon. As a joke, it’s like when socially awkward boys misinterpret a girl’s slight kindness as romantic interest and recklessly pursue her.”

“Ah…”

With such a specific example, I could grasp the general idea.

Of course, since no woman had ever been kind to me (except my wife), I couldn’t fully empathize.

“But at least you’re not like that. Though whether that’s positive is another question…”

“Do I have mental issues?”

When I asked that, Simon stared at me blankly for a moment, then burst into laughter as if he found it hilarious.

“Hahaha! Of course! Don’t tell me you’ve been living thinking you were normal all this time?”

“Of course not. I just thought other people were moderately insane like me.”

“Heh… heh… But that ‘moderate’ is ultimately your subjective view. If everyone in the world were like you, humanity would have gone extinct long ago.”

“…”

Simon continued to giggle, then repeatedly cleared his throat as if trying to stop laughing.

It seemed quite effective to me, and he did manage to stop laughing.

“Whew… Anyway. You’re not exactly a psychopath or sociopath. Of course, there are many other mental issues… but at least in terms of being capable of empathy, that’s true. Though that empathy must be based on understanding.”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“It depends on the person. For example, you said you didn’t understand why your wife confessed to you, right?”

“Mmm.”

“I’m still a bachelor at this age, so I might be wrong, but what happened before that?”

“Well… I paid for her surgery costs… visited her every day to talk with her…”

“She probably found that attractive about you. In a world where many couples break up over money, you paid that large sum and visited her hospital room faithfully every day to talk with her.”

“…Is it that common ‘kindness’ thing?”

“That’s right.”

Honestly, whenever I heard women say, “I love that my man is gentle,” I never quite understood.

I had never experienced someone being gentle to me, so I didn’t know why gentleness was considered good.

And that hadn’t changed.

Being gentle and being kind are different things.

And being rude and being aggressive are different things.

For someone like me who had only idealized dry, inorganic relationships that were neither rude, aggressive, gentle, nor kind, it was literally like living in a different world.

“You look like you don’t understand?”

“Well…”

“Understanding and accepting are different things. When your wife confessed to you, why did you accept her confession?”

“…”

I recalled when Raisha confessed to me.

She was crying at that time, and I was staring at her blankly.

I couldn’t understand why she was crying and clinging to me when the surgery had gone well.

And then I heard her sobbing, asking me to stay with her for life, and I instinctively felt I couldn’t refuse.

“Perhaps…”

“Perhaps?”

“Deep down inside, I might have wanted to know.”

“Know what?”

“What love is.”

When I said that, Simon looked at me with gentle eyes.

Like a grandfather looking at his grandchild.

“Wanting to know what love is. That’s a perfect reason to love, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“Victor. The world is full of deception wearing the shell of love. For power… for money… or for family… or for a stable future…”

“…”

“But you two trust and rely on each other. That’s a very important point. Much more than you both realize.”

“I see…”

I could understand.

In the dark harbor at night, criminal organizations would fill drums with concrete and drown people in the sea every day, and I grew up watching tattooed gangsters talk about loyalty and trust while turning people into fish food.

“Once you fall in love, love begins to sustain itself. Even the smallest thing becomes evidence of love, and the tiniest gesture becomes proof of love. Especially for your young bride.”

I listened to his words silently.

Love begins to sustain itself—what an interesting theory.

“She said she loves you because you didn’t abandon her, because you waited for her until the end.”

“Yes.”

“Then isn’t that a good thing? It’s proof that just as you waited for her, she will wait for you.”

“Hmm…”

“For you, an adventurer and knight, having a wife who will believe in you and wait for you until the end can certainly be called a blessing. Even though you received the message of the Sun instead of the Four Gods, it’s still the same. She will serve you when the sun is up and pray for you when the moon rises.”

I nodded at his explanation.

He had shown me why I had questioned her love and provided the answer.

I hadn’t been thinking that she would do anything for me.

Having never received anything from others, I didn’t expect anything from the woman who shared love with me.

Perhaps I had thought of my wife as something like a plant.

A one-sided relationship where I could give water, fertilizer, and love, but couldn’t expect interaction.

But with the sage’s help, I could see that wasn’t the case.

Perhaps I had literally been isolating myself from the world.

That is, I had been thinking of myself and the world… myself and others as separate rather than connected.

Is this what they call a defense mechanism?

A childish and elementary defense mechanism that erases the existence of others from my awareness to prevent them from hurting me.

“Perhaps I haven’t yet escaped from Parcifal… even after receiving the message of the Sun and becoming a Knight of Radiance.”

“You’re still young. Too young to even call young. You can think of yourself as special, or talented.”

Simon said that as he drank the last few drops of barley tea without leaving any.

“You were born into this world to enjoy it fully. Not to survive alone in distrust and fear. If you just remember that, you’ll eventually be able to forget the pain of the past.”

“Ha.”

I smiled faintly, then sat at the table imagining the scenic views of the Miriam continent I would soon visit.

Born to enjoy this world fully…

At least for me, those words were a kind of salvation.

Yes…

I too was a person worthy of living in this world.

Not as an abandoned orphan or a street commoner, but as Victor Walker—a free and dignified person deserving of respect.

“Thank you, Sage. Thanks to you, my mind is a little more at ease.”

“Logos will watch over you. Truly, the pursuit for the world and humanity never stops.”