Chapter 12: Cowards (2)

[12] 2. Cowards (2)

That was a blatant lie.

In both my past life and my current one, there was a gap of a million years between my existence and nobility.

But to say that I was the eldest son of a fallen noble family…!

I was so shocked that I was actually angry.

However, I couldn’t bring myself to refute it.

This was due to my other lie: “I’ve lost all my childhood memories.”

Lies are like cunning bill collectors. At first, they ask for nothing, but then one day, they suddenly grab you by the leg and demand payment.

I could only watch her in silence. Clara smiled and said,

“It seems you don’t believe me.”

It was only natural.

I haven’t lost my memory, and the me in my memory was always struggling to make ends meet.

“But it’s okay. That’s not what’s important.”

What?

Clara smiled gently.

“What’s important is that I belong to you.”

It was a deeply unsettling confession.

It shook my heart, the tremors reaching my head and jumbling up my thoughts.

Clara continued, looking down at her hands,

“I know that this situation is confusing for you, Rem. Every action I take, every word I say, must seem random and disconnected to you. Because you have no memories of us.”

No, even with my memories, I couldn’t understand her actions. Going beyond that, she was starting to seem unfamiliar to me.

I thought about the reason why, and the answer came to me quickly.

“But I want you to know this, Rem.”

Clara looked up and met my eyes. A familiar passion flickered in her red eyes.

“I exist for you.”

She looked like a devout follower.

“If you want money, I will gladly give you gold and jewels. And if you want honor, I will gladly give you all the honor I can offer. And if you want me to die, I will gladly plunge a dagger into my heart.”

The Clara in my memory was an ungrateful and disrespectful girl.

To her, God was an unpaid servant who was available 24/7 and who, on top of that, sometimes dared to disobey her orders. Mass and rituals were just meaningless formalities.

In her world, she was the sun and the sky.

So who was this devout woman in front of me?

“Everything I have exists to be used for you. And it will be.”

My heart, which had been pounding wildly, had now calmed.

It was a confession, but not one made by a human to another. It was a confession made by a human to their god.

Clara bowed her head to me and said,

“In that sense, I have a favor to ask of you, Rem.”

Favor. At that word, I realized that the woman before me was a stranger.

She never asks for favors.

She only gives me orders.

Clara, a woman I didn’t know, spoke to me in an unfamiliar tone.

“Once this is all over, won’t you come to my church?”

***

“Good night, Rem.”

Ignoring Clara’s farewell, I stepped out of the tent. I staggered under the moonlight.

Clara’s voice echoed in my confused mind, like a broken record.

[If you come to the church, I can give you anything you want. Wealth, fame, women… anything.]

[If you wish, I can even bestow the title of Holy Knight upon the Rose Rem Mercenary Group. Of course, you’ll be exempt from all the rules and regulations.]

[So come to the church, Rem. So that I can give you everything I have.]

Heavy thoughts pounded against the inside of my skull. I clutched my head and stopped.

“Why…?! Just tell me why…!”

“Rem?”

I looked up sharply. I must have been walking aimlessly, because I could see the lights of the camp in the distance.

Parsley was standing there, her back to the lights, looking at me with a worried expression.

“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”

For a moment, I had the urge to run away.

Because, just like Clara, Parsley was also hiding something from me.

“…Do you want to come to my tent and talk?”

But when Parsley hesitated and asked me that. That urge shifted in a different direction.

Maybe Parsley would tell me the truth.

I had been planning to talk to Parsley after I talked to Clara anyway.

After a moment of deliberation, I finally nodded.

“…I’d appreciate that.”

Parsley hesitated for a moment, then pulled her hat down over her face.

“Follow me. I’ll make you some tea.”

***

The moment I entered Parsley’s tent, I felt a sense of relief.

Because it was just like I remembered.

Of course, since it was a camping tent, it was missing a lot of things compared to the room I remembered.

But from the overall atmosphere of the tent, I could feel the ‘Parsley-ness’ I knew.

Stacks of books as tall as me, tools whose purposes I could no longer decipher, bottles of potions shoved into unseen corners, and piles of the same blue, wide-brimmed hat.

“Here, drink this. It’ll help clear your head.”

I downed the tea Parsley had given me, and my relief reached its peak.

It was the drink that Parsley always insisted was tea, even though it tasted more like a potion.

It still tasted like a rat had lapped up someone’s vomit and then spit it back out.

I grimaced, setting down the teacup. Parsley, who had been watching me with a smile, lowered her gaze.

“…So, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

At that question, my relief vanished as if it had never existed, replaced by hesitation and nervousness.

But I forced myself to pull it together.

If you don’t push, the door won’t open.

The same goes for people.

If you don’t speak, you’ll never know.

And so I spoke.

“I asked Clara what happened between her and me in the past.”

“…!”

Parsley was visibly startled. After a long silence, she said in a small voice,

“What… did she say?”

“…She said that I’m the eldest son of a fallen noble family.”

*Thud*

I stared at Parsley, who had suddenly stood up, shocked. Glaring in the direction of Clara’s tent, she said, her voice full of venom,

“That crazy bitch…!!”

“P-Parsley…?”

Her anger subsided at my startled voice. She sat down again and apologized,

“S-Sorry… I… there are some things…”

Things? It was an intriguing word, but I decided to shelve that for now. There was something else I needed to ask first.

“…From your reaction, it seems like Clara lied.”

“Yeah, a blatant lie…”

“Then can you answer instead?”

Parsley’s face paled.

I pulled myself together and looked at her.

“If I’m not the son of a noble family, then who was I?”

“…”

Parsley didn’t speak for a long time.

I wasn’t disappointed, as I had expected this.

I simply waited for her to speak, patiently.

A silence so deep that I could almost hear the moonlight rustling.

But silence always comes to an end.

“…I don’t know the details.”

Parsley pulled her hat down low.

“But at least… you weren’t someone with blue blood. I can tell you that much for sure.”

I almost let out a cheer.

There was a ridiculous magic at the mage tower called Bloodline Detection, and it had been assigned to us as homework when Parsley and I were studying together.

And we had proven to each other that we were both commoners.

In other words, this was finally an honest answer.

Pushing down my excitement, I continued asking questions.

“And?”

“…And what?”

“What happened between you and me?”

Parsley’s shoulders trembled slightly again. But I pressed on.

“You said that we were friends. Can’t you tell me about that time? It might help me regain my memories.”

I stared intently at Parsley, whose entire head was now covered by her hat.

“Please, what was I like back then? And what happened that made me become a mercenary?”

“…”

…This silence was longer and heavier than the last one.

But this time, I could wait with anticipation.

I already got one honest answer out of her.

And Parsley was always a brutally honest girl.

I watched her with anticipation in my eyes.

“…I already told you, if you want to get your memories back, I can help you. I know a mage who specializes in memories. Once this is over, I can send him a letter and get the tools and materials.”

But what came out of her mouth was a bit off.

I wondered if I had misspoken, so I asked again,

“No, you don’t have to go that far. I just want to hear about what happened between you and me.”

“…Actually, now that I think about it, it’s better if I send the letter as soon as we arrive in Axolotl. Then we can start the procedure as soon as the job is finished.”

“…That’s good news, but I want to get my memories back before that.”

“…With the equipment, we can help you regain your memories within a week, no matter how long it takes. Maybe even two days if we’re lucky.”

It felt like I was trying to have a conversation with a foreigner through a translator. We were connected only by context, but the conversation kept going off track.

I had no choice but to be more blunt.

“Parsley, I want to get my memories back now. If you tell me about the past…”

“I said I can help you if we have the equipment!!”

It was the first time in a long time that I heard Parsley yell like that.

I was so surprised that I just stared at her, my mouth open. Parsley seemed just as surprised by her own outburst.

Then she suddenly pulled her hat down even further and said,

“S-Sorry… I-I didn’t mean to shout…”

“Oh, no, it’s okay.”

I nodded without thinking, still flustered. Managing to regain my composure, I continued,

“…Maybe I was being too hasty. As you said…”

I stopped mid-sentence, realizing that something was wrong with Parsley.

“S-Sorry… I-I’m so sorry…!”

She was trembling like someone who had been left out in the snow naked. She pulled down her hat further, as if trying to hide from the cold.

“I-I’m not worthy…! I-I didn’t mean to…! I-I just did what my mother told me to…!”

“Parsley…?”

“____!!”

As I tried to approach her, Parsley screamed like a beast and rolled off the chair. Panicked, I tried to go to her.

“Don’t come near me!!”

But a desperate scream stopped me in my tracks.

She was trying to bury herself under her hat. Curling up into a ball, she trembled uncontrollably.

“I-I’m sorry… J-Just please go back for today…”

I could hear the desperation in her trembling voice. It was like a thick curtain.

I hesitated for a moment, then turned around.

“…I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

And just as I was about to step out of the tent…

“I… I did something terrible to you…”

I turned around. Parsley, her upper body covered by her hat, was trembling pitifully. Tears fell from under her hat, staining her skirt.

“I-I’m sorry… T-That’s all I can say right now…!”

And then, burying her face in her knees, Parsley started to cry.

I felt a surge of words rising in my throat, but I swallowed them back. I didn’t think anything I said would reach her in her current state.

All I could do was repeat the same words.

“…I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

And with that, I left the tent.

***

I felt incredibly exhausted the moment I stepped out of Parsley’s tent. It was only natural.

One of my oldest friends had lied to my face and then said something as heavy as dedicating her life to me,

And the other suddenly had a breakdown and started talking about a sin that the victim, me, couldn’t even remember.

But I still had one more person to visit.

Amy, my childhood friend.

There was no particular reason why she was last.

It was simply because, out of the three, she seemed to be in the worst shape lately.

Ever since that night when she had tried to tell me something but failed, after we attacked the necromancers’ hideout, Amy seemed detached from reality.

Suddenly leaving the strategy meeting,

Staring blankly at the sky with clouded eyes during our journey here,

Looking more exhausted than cold like the other two during the mealtime fight.

And even setting up her tent far away from everyone else, by the lake.

As if she had left a part of herself somewhere.

So I actually thought it might be better to just leave Amy alone.

Seeing how Parsley, who had seemed fine, ended up like that, I didn’t think Amy would have a less intense reaction to my questions.

But in the end, I chose to go to her tent.

I was starting to get anxious myself.

Despite asking two people directly, my questions hadn’t been answered; they had only grown bigger.

I needed answers.

Even if it wasn’t the answer, I at least needed a small clue to unravel this tangled mess.

Suppressing my exhaustion, I walked towards Amy’s tent.

“….”

And there, by the lakeshore, in front of her tent, I saw Amy cutting her wrist.

…

For a moment, I couldn’t process the scene I was seeing.

But when I finally understood, I was already clutching Amy’s wrist, yelling at her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“Rem…?”

Amy’s clouded eyes turned to me. But I didn’t care, I just checked her wound. And then, my face frowned.

The wound was so deep that I could see bone.

I quickly poured a potion on it.

After making sure that the wound was healing, I wrapped a bandage around it.

Only after the emergency treatment was over did I finally look at Amy and yell,

“Are you insane?! Why would you…!”

“I was being threatened.”

Her voice was hazy, as if she were in a dream. Amy looked down at her wrist.

“I was threatened to go see you right now, or else I’d cut my wrists.”

“What the hell are you talking about…?!”

“But my legs wouldn’t move despite the threat.”

Amy finally looked at me.

I had thought her eyes were just clouded, but they were actually swirling with emotion.

I was familiar with the names of the things being swept away in that whirlpool.

Guilt, rage, loathing, and confusion.

Emotions that I had never imagined would appear in the eyes of that proud girl I knew.

“I don’t know anymore, Rem.”

Amy’s bloodstained hand gripped my prosthetic hand.

She looked up at me with eyes that seemed to be dragging me somewhere.

“What am I supposed to do?”

I could sense the desperation in her voice.

It was the desperation of someone searching for an answer.

But I didn’t know what answer she was looking for, and I didn’t know the reason for her desperation.

The only thing I could say was,

“…I’ll go get the saint.”