Ch.300Catastrophe

Herman returned home much later than usual.

His eyes were completely unfocused from drinking, and not just his mouth but his collar was damp as well.

“Haa…haa…. Where are you, you little bastard…”

His breathing was rough. Cold sweat covered his flushed red face.

Anyone would instinctively sense danger and try to avoid being noticed.

“Welcome home, Father.”

However, Demian calmly walked into the living room and looked up at his father with an expressionless face.

The thought of hiding never occurred to him. When Herman was drunk, he would shout and break furniture if Demian didn’t respond.

Whether he answered or hid, the outcome was the same—he would be found. Whether he got hit or not depended on Herman’s whim that day.

Since the pain would be the same either way, hiding was pointless. Considering that broken furniture would need to be replaced later, hiding was even inefficient.

From the beginning, he didn’t understand why he should hide.

To the boy who couldn’t read emotions like agitation or desperation, Herman merely looked tired.

His inability to understand emotions led to an absence of crisis awareness.

He would have been better off running away or hiding. At least today.

“You bastard, did you see…?”

Herman’s expression suddenly twisted.

——-

Herman glared at Demian, who was staring back at him with a distorted, mask-like face.

After pleasantly finishing his business with Eila and leaving her house, he had been shocked to discover footprints beside the window.

His heart had sunk.

His breathing quickened and cold sweat poured down his face.

If the villagers discovered he had committed adultery with another man’s wife while abandoning his sick wife, they could both be stoned to death.

No, before that, he might become a pincushion for arrows from the enraged Diter.

He had no confidence facing a man who hunted bears.

‘Wait, wait…! These footprints look like they belong to a child…?’

That was better than being discovered by an adult.

Children likely wouldn’t understand what they had witnessed.

Still, he couldn’t completely relax.

Children had loose lips and might talk about what they saw without understanding it.

Feeling like he was walking step by step toward the gallows, Herman slowly followed the child’s footprints.

‘At the very least, I need to know who it is. And then…’

And then? A thousand grotesque thoughts swirled chaotically in his mind.

Persuasion. Threats. Silencing. Corpse.

Stream. Forest. Beasts. Burial. Disappearance.

Each thought was too horrible to speak aloud, but Herman, backed into a corner, had no other options.

Coaxing and threatening to keep the child quiet wouldn’t last long anyway.

As his gaze shifted from panic to murderous intent, the footprints he had been tracking suddenly ended in front of someone’s house.

Herman finally knew the identity of the witness… but he stood there silently for a long time.

Staring expressionlessly at his own closed front gate.

Eventually, Herman lowered his head and, instead of entering his home, turned and headed to the tavern. He couldn’t bear it without getting drunk.

And now, back to the present.

“What…? Are you talking about Aunt Eila?”

How did Demian appear to Herman as he looked straight at him and asked?

His calm tone and expressionless face devoid of any emotion seemed almost mocking.

The strong alcohol clouding his brain ignited the rage that had been building up.

“You monster, you dare mock me-!”

The next moment, his right foot was buried in the boy’s chest.

——–

“Kuh…!”

Demian felt his vision go white for an instant.

This violent attack filled with killing intent was unlike anything he had experienced before, cutting off his thoughts with intense pain.

The boy flew like a ball and crashed mercilessly into the corner of the living room.

‘Ah, it hurts…!’

His head was spinning, and his vision alternated between red and black.

Pain and confusion tangled together, leaving him unable to form words.

“Kek, kehek!”

Blood mixed with his labored cough.

A full-force kick from an adult male—he survived only thanks to his innate toughness and his reflexive backward bend of his upper body.

Even so, he was already seriously injured.

“Father…? Why…?”

A reflexive question. Herman, who had been backing away after realizing what he had done, flinched and instinctively looked at Demian’s face.

His eyes, streaming with bloody tears, showed only pain and confusion.

No anger, no fear, not even bewilderment… a monstrous face.

Though he had seen this face for ten years, it still gave him chills every time.

Fire sparked in Herman’s eyes.

The uneasiness from this sense of otherness and long-harbored anger erased his final hesitation.

“Who are you calling father! You monster!”

He kicked Demian again.

‘This thing’ couldn’t possibly be his child. This monster without even a heart.

So this must be the child of a demon that devoured his real child and was imitating it!

This was what he had thought every time he looked at Demian.

That he must be the spawn of a demon.

A demon that had devoured what should have been his proud son in the womb.

His wife’s body becoming too weak to bear another child must also be this demon’s curse.

He had wanted to get rid of this disgusting demon spawn many times.

But he couldn’t bring himself to end its life, so he just drank heavily to soothe his irritation and resentment.

Was it because of his wife who desperately protected the demon child, or because he lacked the guts to kill a creature with the appearance of a young child? Even Herman himself didn’t know the reason.

But now was different.

The alcohol had destroyed his self-control and conscience, and now he was in a situation where he would be in danger if he didn’t kill the boy.

“I raised you for ten years, and you try to blackmail me? You demon spawn! I should have killed you long ago! You monster pretending to be human!”

He kicked and stomped on Demian with the intent to kill, without any hesitation.

Violence inflicted without even a chance to breathe.

The boy’s body began to break apart.

His thin arms broke and his legs bent in the wrong direction.

Crimson blood flowed like a stream from his torn forehead.

Unable to even scream, repeatedly smashed and crushed, Demian felt the “threat to his life” for the first time.

Even without emotions, he still had survival instincts.

The wooden table overturned with a noise, and a wooden container of dishes spilled its contents.

The violence that had started in the living room had somehow moved to the kitchen.

And just as Demian’s life was about to end—

“What are you doing, Herman-!”

A woman’s piercing scream. Herman’s body froze instantly.

Turning his head, Herman saw his wife on the floor, looking at him with a shocked expression.

She must have woken up from the noise that reached her sickbed, realized something was wrong, and crawled all the way to the kitchen after rolling out of bed.

“Emma, no. I…”

“Are you insane?! How, how could you do this to our child…! Demian! Are you alright, Demian?!”

His wife, with a face Herman had never seen before, berated him and desperately crawled toward the demon spawn that had become a bloody mess. It was like a nightmare.

At that moment, Herman saw, for the first time, a smile appear on Demian’s face.

Perhaps it was his imagination.

His vision had long been distorted by alcohol, blood, shock, and anger.

But Herman was certain of what he saw.

In this ruined situation, with a bloodied appearance that made him look like a monster, the boy was smiling. While watching Emma desperately crawling toward him.

It was as if a demon that had bewitched his wife was mocking him… he simply couldn’t bear it.

“Move aside, Emma! You’re being deceived! That’s not our child! It’s just a monster that killed our child!”

Herman pushed his wife aside and raised his foot toward Demian.

This time he was determined to end his life for good.

“You’re the one who’s insane! What are you doing?! Demian, run away, Demian-!”

Emma screamed fiercely and desperately grabbed Herman’s leg. It was amazing how such strength came from a dying patient’s body—enough to make Herman stagger for a moment.

Herman, gritting his teeth, turned his head toward Emma.

At that moment, Demian’s survival instinct sensed it.

This was his last chance to survive.

He still couldn’t understand what emotions were.

He didn’t know why his mother was wailing or why his father was suddenly rampaging.

But he didn’t like the pain. For some reason, he couldn’t bear the thought of dying. He thought so unconsciously.

So Demian surrendered to his instincts.

Why? His body, which wouldn’t move just moments ago, now felt so fast and light.

“Don’t let go of—!”

Before Herman could finish his words as he raised his hand toward Emma—

– Shunk!

A gray spike pierced through the back of his neck.

—-

“Kuk! Kuhek…! What is this…!”

Pain like an electric current running through his spine. Herman’s face filled with shock.

So did Emma’s, who had been prepared to be hit.

– Thud!

Herman’s legs gave out and he fell to his knees.

From deep in his throat came a gurgling sound as blood foam flowed out.

“Kek, keueoek…!”

Herman touched his burning neck with trembling hands.

A gleaming kitchen knife, now stained red, had pierced straight through the center of his neck.

“You, you devil’s child—aak…”

He couldn’t turn his head because of the knife through his neck, but Herman could guess what had happened.

He could feel the weight of a small child hanging on his back.

That monster, with his dying body, had jumped up to an adult’s head height and stabbed a knife.

And with enough force for a kitchen knife to penetrate the neck bone!

‘Indeed, this was a monster…!’

Before Herman could say anything with his newfound conviction, Demian’s hand twisted the knife sideways and yanked it out.

The man’s head, having lost its support, bent downward as blood gushed like a fountain from the cross-section.

Herman’s blood splattered all over Demian’s already blood-soaked body, mixing together.

Perhaps they finally formed a true blood relation in death.

– Splash!

The knife, slipping from weakened fingers, fell into the crimson puddle, splashing bloody water.

Demian, having used all his strength, also lost consciousness and collapsed.

“Uh… uh…?”

Emma moaned blankly, staring at Herman’s head dangling like a pendulum.

But a neck severed except for a thin piece of skin couldn’t support the weight of the head.

Herman’s head tore off completely and rolled into Emma’s lap as she stared at the sudden carnage in shock.

“Ah…. Ah…. Aaaaah….”

A moan escaped between her parted lips. As Emma slowly lowered her gaze, what she saw was—

Her husband’s face, eyes bulging and tongue sticking out, covered in blood.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

A desperate scream echoed through the night sky.

=================

“That’s what happened. Mother lied to the villagers who came rushing in, saying she did it herself… thanks to that, I barely survived. It also helped that Uncle Diter had an emergency medicine at his house. The shock must have been too great for Mother, as she didn’t last more than two months after that.”

Despite telling such a shocking story, Demian’s voice remained completely calm.

I, on the other hand, was anything but calm as I listened.

…I never imagined there would be such a backstory.

I couldn’t think of what to say in response to this unexpectedly tragic past.

They say life is a tragedy when seen up close but a comedy when seen from a distance, but this seems tragic even from a distance.

……I should probably refrain from slamming him into walls from now on.

[Except for one thing, it’s a touching story.]

Touching…?

Where exactly do you find this story touching?

The mindset of barbarians.

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t understand it.

Anyway.

‘One thing? What’s that?’

[That even your first attack when near death was a jumping stab—it’s ridiculous. No wonder you can’t break that habit no matter how much I point it out.]

…Now that you mention it, that’s true.

That jumping attack of his was an ingrained instinct from the age of ten….