episode_0048

The child hugged Johanna tightly.

Johanna held a skewer in one hand and stroked the child’s head with the other.

“Clown Mister, it’s been a long time!”

Perhaps enjoying the petting, the child smiled and spoke to me.

“Am I ‘Mister’ again this time?!”

I slumped down, pretending to be dejected.

“Hehe.”

The child looked at me and laughed innocently.

I wondered if they were intentionally calling me ‘Mister’ after seeing my reaction.

“Hehe, will you still call me ‘Mister’ after seeing this?”

I stood up, snapped my fingers, and said confidently.

I created an illusion for the child.

“Wow!”

The place where we stood instantly transformed into a meadow.

Butterflies of various colors fluttered around us.

After entering the academy, my proficiency in illusions greatly increased.

“Clown Mister is amazing!”

The child cheered, spreading both hands wide.

“Even after this, you’ll still call me Mi—”

I stopped speaking and stared intently at the child’s arm.

“…What’s wrong?”

When I stared at the child silently, they flinched.

It was understandable that they would react that way since staring silently while wearing this mask would be unsettling.

“There’s a wound on your arm. When did you get hurt?”

I asked in a serious voice without realizing it.

There was a wound on the child’s arm.

Looking at the wound, it seemed to have appeared recently.

“Huh? Ah, you mean this. I fell while playing earlier.”

The child looked at their wound as if it were no big deal and spoke.

And I didn’t like that.

“Please wait a moment.”

I took out medicine for wounds from my subspace.

I wanted to use a potion if I could, but the only potion I had right now was a black potion.

“For a wound like this, you don’t really need to apply medicine; just leaving it alone…”

“Stay still.”

I cut off the child who was trying to refuse.

“Ouch…”

When the medicine touched the child’s wound, they made a sound as if it stung.

“It might sting a little, but bear with it. It’ll hurt now, but the scar will disappear.”

I checked the child’s body for any other wounds.

Fortunately, no other wounds were visible.

“Make sure to apply it to the wound once a day.”

I forced the medicine bottle into the child’s hand and spoke.

“Bu-but…”

When I gave them the whole medicine bottle, the child tried to refuse.

“I have plenty anyway. So don’t hesitate and take it.”

I pulled out dozens of medicine bottles and showed them to the child. In truth, they were all fakes created by illusion. The child, unaware of this, finally accepted the bottle without a word.

“…………..”

“……………”

Both Johanna and the child said nothing.

*Sigh.* Was I too serious?

The atmosphere instantly darkened.

As I was contemplating how to lighten this mood.

The child looked at the skewer in Johanna’s hand and spoke.

“Unnie, you’re eating that skewer again today.”

‘Again today’—did that mean Johanna usually ate that skewer?

“…Huh?”

Johanna heard the child’s words and avoided my gaze.

Could it be that the reason she looked at the skewer shop earlier wasn’t because she wanted to eat, but because she couldn’t eat it with me by her side?

“Sunbae, didn’t you clearly tell me earlier that I shouldn’t eat while on patrol?”

“……………”

“Surely, you haven’t been secretly eating it all this time, even though you shouldn’t?”

Johanna, seemingly embarrassed, walked away with a slightly reddened face.

“Where are you going? Sunbae~.”

“I have to go on patrol.”

Johanna’s steps were definitely faster than before.

“Sunbae, let’s go together!”

I stroked the child’s head, who had lightened the mood, and ran after Johanna.

While Johanna and I patrolled, the child also walked beside us.

It didn’t matter since we were patrolling by walking, not running.

Fortunately, nothing major happened during our patrol.

All that happened was a report of adventurers fighting in a shop. Upon receiving the report and entering the shop, the adventurers stopped fighting when they saw our academy uniforms.

This was because most academy students were nobles, which intimidated the adventurers.

Even recalling the game’s story, nothing major would happen for the next month.

“Clown Mister, will you come again tomorrow?”

The child, having heard that it was time to part, looked at me with sad eyes.

“…Well.”

I couldn’t carelessly promise the child I would come tomorrow.

This was because I had seen many people promise to come and then not show up when I was in the orphanage. And I understood how a child in that situation would feel.

“I’ll come tomorrow too.”

While I couldn’t give an answer, Johanna spoke.

“Okay!”

The child heard that, smiled brightly, and left.

“Sunbae, but can we really come out to patrol again tomorrow?”

I asked Johanna as we walked toward the academy. Even if Johanna was the disciplinary head, could she really do that as she pleased?

“They told us both to continue patrolling during the trial period.”

“Who did?”

“The disciplinary committee members.”

There’s no way they would do that?

I knew very well how much the disciplinary committee members liked Johanna. There’s no way they would give up an opportunity to patrol with Johanna.

I kept thinking about it until we arrived at the academy, but I still couldn’t understand the reason.

.

.

.

After all academy classes ended and I returned to the dormitory, I habitually tried to call Yerika.

“Ah…”

I only just now remembered that I couldn’t call Yerika today. Or rather, I had intentionally avoided remembering it until now.

‘What should I do?’

In the end, I spent my time organizing my subspace until night.

“Sigh…”

As time passed, the sighs escaping my lips grew louder.

It was already time to sleep.

Even lying in bed, the sigh didn’t disappear.

Could I sleep without medicine or Yerika?

*Rustle.*

I lay on the bed, tossed and turned for a long time, then fell asleep.

.

.

*Thump.*

“Haa… haa…”

I sat up, breathing heavily, and checked the clock.

10 minutes.

10 minutes had passed since I fell asleep.

The bed was already soaked with my sweat.

*Thump-thump.*

I walked to the bathroom to wipe the sweat from my face.

“Sigh…”

No matter how much I washed my face with cold water, it was hard to clear my head.

The contents of the dream I had just fallen into, no, the nightmare, kept coming back to me.

A cold back alley. Children who had lost their warmth. And conversely, the hot blood flowing on the floor. Everything came back vividly.

“Uweeeeh!!!”

I had only slept for 10 minutes today.

.

.

.

“Are you okay?”

Johanna suddenly spoke to me as we were walking on patrol.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You look very tired.”

Hearing that, I felt my face. Fortunately, the mask was still firmly on my face.

“How do you know that when I’m wearing a mask?”

“I don’t know either. I just had that feeling.”

“It seems your intuition can be wrong sometimes, Sunbae. I’m perfectly fine today too. Come on! Shall we hurry to where the little lady is waiting?”

Even after the appointed time passed, the child didn’t arrive at the meeting place.

It would have been normal to think that they couldn’t come because they hadn’t woken up yet, but perhaps due to the nightmare I had earlier, I felt uneasy.

“Sunbae, do you happen to know where that child’s house is?”

Johanna shook her head.

Right, there’s no way she would know.

“Sunbae, could you wait a moment? I’ll go find them quickly.”

“I’ll go too. It’ll be easier to find them that way.”

Just as Johanna said, with her help, we quickly found the child’s house. This was because when Johanna asked, others quickly answered.

The child’s house was on the outskirts of the capital.

The house was old and dirty, as if it hadn’t been maintained.

I recalled what some man had said earlier.

That the child’s mother had bought expensive alcohol and meat last night.

Looking at this house, it was clear they absolutely couldn’t afford expensive alcohol.

‘No way.’

My body trembled slightly, and worst-case scenarios kept shaking my mind.

“Sunbae, wait a moment.”

I grabbed Johanna, who was about to enter the house.

My words came out terse without me realizing it.

The wound on the child’s body and the child’s unusually quick perception kept coming back to my mind.

“I’ll go in first.”

I enveloped my body in an illusion.

“That form?”

Johanna was surprised to see my appearance. It was because my form was identical to the child’s.

I opened the door in the child’s form.

*Creak.*

The old door opened easily with my hand.

The inside of the house was a mess.

Trash littered the floor, and the walls were covered in mold. It was impossible to believe a child lived there.

A woman in the middle of the house looked at me with hazy eyes, as if drunk.

The woman was adorned with clothes and accessories that didn’t suit the old house.

The woman’s gaze turned to me.

When the woman saw me in the child’s form, the drunkenness vanished from her eyes, replaced by fury. It was definitely not the look of a mother seeing her child.

“Why are you here?! Mother told you not to run away and to stay with those people! My life is already messed up because of you, why can’t you even stay still!!!!”

I silently picked up the medicine bottle that had fallen on the floor.

It was the medicine bottle I had given to the child.

When I opened the bottle, more than half of its contents were gone. For a child to use half, they would have had to apply it consistently for at least a month.

The scent of the medicine I had given as a gift emanated from the woman in front of me.

“Why aren’t you speaking?! Are you ignoring me too?!”

The woman grabbed my shoulder, still in the child’s form. As her hand touched me, the illusion broke, and I returned to my original form.

“Huh?”

The woman was flustered.

“What are you?”

I was enraged.

I swung my fist at the bastard in front of me, who was less than human.

*Thud!*

“Haa…”

I breathed heavily.

The contents of the nightmare came back to my mind.

‘Oppa, please kill us…’