No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 82

Strangely, the past of the original body looked happy.

Appearing to be one or two years old, Cassice Demillang of that time unexpectedly had chubby cheeks. Pushing the swing he was riding on were his young silver-haired father and healthy mother. Laughter bloomed between the flower petals in the garden. It was a truly peaceful scene. However, I couldn’t help but use profanity.

‘Damn it. When did I ask for this kind of help?’

Logically, what I asked the damn forest spirit for help with was the black fox raid. I didn’t suddenly want to go on a trip to the past without being asked. But this damn life confronted me with ‘Cassice Demillang’ without even asking for my consent. At this point, it seemed desperate to feed me shit.

‘Is the spirit senile or what…’

Should I escape with magical retrogression? I can do that. Because I am ‘Cassice Demillang’. However, without knowing the intent of the forest spirit, I need to determine whether this is an extracted memory or a dimension constructed as a fantasy in order to decide on a countermeasure. But seeing the soft, living, and moving Cassice Demillang made me feel sick. I couldn’t figure out why, but I didn’t want to see that. It was such an intense rejection reaction that I wanted to run away from the spot.

Why is that? I couldn’t figure this out either. What is clear is that Cassice Demillang looks happy. The child who appeared to be about five or six years old stumbled while hopping to catch a butterfly while holding his mother’s hand. The baby, who was sniffling, brightly smiled, revealing the inside of his mouth missing a fallen baby tooth, when his father dusted off his knees. It was such an ordinary and lovely form of a family.

That’s why it was eerie. Something like this couldn’t be possible for Cassice Demillang.

It felt like Cassice Demillang would have been a son of a bitch from birth. The fact that he had a kind and gentle past is somehow disgusting. If you’re going to be a complete villain, live with that character from beginning to end.

‘Like me.’

Why is there a half-assed past coming out and making a fuss?

“…I don’t know what this situation is, but I have to say this first.”

Ryuseong spoke heavily. I didn’t have the energy to look at his expression or give a proper answer, so I closed my eyes tightly as if shuddering.

“What are you going to say?”

But the following words completely deflated me.

“You don’t look well.”

“…”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Ryuseong was the type of person who chose to ask if I was okay instead of prying into the situation.

I thought I knew that, but it felt particularly special in a moment like this. Just as I was hesitating about how to answer, the scene suddenly changed.

We were watching the past of ‘Cassice Demillang’ through a screen burning white in the midst of darkness, and a change began to occur in that happiness.

“No, please. Don’t do this.”

I’m the only one who thinks that slow motion has been applied to my senses, right? It was a screen where colors were vividly conveyed, but everything looked only in black and white. Sounds were also coming in, but I couldn’t hear anything. Like watching a black and white silent movie. However, my excellent lip-reading skills, which I don’t know when I learned, noticed the situation just by looking at the movements of the mouth. The child was being dragged away, and the parents were begging.

“My baby…!”

I could see the people dragging ‘Cassice Demillang’ away. They didn’t seem to have any intention of hiding their origins, so I clearly noticed the family crest on their chests. It was the emblem of Demillang.

But why is Demillang dragging away ‘Cassice Demillang’? Not only dragging him away, but forcibly extorting him like a kidnapping, trampling the parents clinging to them with military boots, making them kneel, as if treating him like a criminal…

There was another strange thing. ‘Cassice Demillang’, as if post-processed, never looked back even for a moment while being dragged by the hand of a person whose face was erased with a black scratch. Did the five- or six-year-old child not understand the situation? The next moment, as I was thinking that, sound suddenly rushed in as if my blocked ears were opening.

“If you don’t obediently follow, your mom and dad will die.”

Ah, fuck. Only then did I realize. ‘Cassice Demillang’ didn’t fail to grasp the situation. On the contrary, he understood it so keenly that he chose terrifyingly complete obedience. To a kid who’s only five or six years old, what the hell is this… I felt dazed as if I had been hit on the head. From that very moment, ‘Cassice Demillang’s emotions started to be fully felt by me.

As if synchronization was taking place…

***

“You’re obedient, huh?”

“…”

“Yeah, that’s how it should be.”

The man who was dragging him like a dog laughed lightly, making a nasal sound.

Cassice Demillang could tell. He was pleased with his obedience. It must have been the vulgar and petty satisfaction of someone who had tamed a beast with violence. But Cassice Demillang did not resist. He knew he couldn’t. It was an excessively rational judgment for a five- or six-year-old to make…

Cassice Demillang was a strange child from a young age. He remembered even his mother’s womb before the umbilical cord was cut and vividly remembered all the sensations he faced after birth. Language, words, academics, culture, refinement, art, nothing was out of bounds.

However, while knowing the average growth process of a young child, he didn’t know human fear because he hadn’t experienced it. As soon as he was able to hold his head up and his tongue could make proper pronunciations, no parent would not be afraid of a newborn baby speaking in polite honorifics. But Cassice Demillang acted that way. He later self-evaluated that it was a disaster that occurred due to ignorance.

And he respected his parents’ response more than anyone else.

“Mother and Father? You should call them Mom and Dad!”

They could have fainted in shock or gone crazy screaming that a monster had possessed their son, but they showed absolute acceptance. Isn’t it amazing? Not everyone pours out love just because they’re related by blood, but just because he was within their reach, he became a unique existence. Even the blessings of the ancients would not be more wondrous than this. Even the language praising God cannot be more overjoyed than this. Cassice Demillang’s birth was a blessing. It was not by the Absolute. Just a human embrace bestowed mercy upon him. Perhaps he had used up all the luck he should have received in his lifetime. Thinking that way, the trembling subsided.

Cassice Demillang loved his parents more than anything else.

“You are a child who should never have been born. Look. Everyone is suffering and in pain because of you alone.”

“…”

“Don’t forget, your birth is your sin.”

For the sake of protecting you, I could readily comply with such words. The genius that unhesitatingly committed thoughts impossible for a child reached a conclusion that should not be reached.

Actually, I know. My parents wouldn’t want that. Sacrifice? Dedication? Those are ridiculous words. It’s just dirty selfishness. Because I don’t have the confidence to survive alone, I’m shifting the loss to my parents, telling them to lose their child. I don’t want to lose, so you lose. Rather than losing you and living as a human, I will die. Even if I suffer a fate worse than death, if that’s the price to save you, I will willingly endure it.

If it were any other child, it might be different, but Cassice Demillang could truly do that.

“Do you want to live?”

“Change the question.”

A cheeky answer. A widely tearing mouth.

“Do you want to keep them alive?”

Cassice Demillang decided to do so.

Was it fortunate? Cassice Demillang lacked dignity. It was no different for himself or others. That was the reason he couldn’t feel anything other than physiological nausea despite the horrible daily life of being butchered. Experiment. Torture. No difference. Human. Meat. No difference.

Some people might not have been able to endure it. If you think humans are different from chunks of meat, there’s no way you can endure this treatment. But Cassice Demillang was different.

Sometimes Cassice Demillang thought. It’s quite intact for something that’s been put on the chopping block. Every day was like that. He was a fish on the chopping block. Demillang butchered him, peeled off his scales, and cleaned his guts. What would happen if they tore off the fins and sprinkled salt? What if you put a freshwater fish in seawater?

‘It would have been nice if it was a fun joke.’

However, even in the harsh days, there was light.

“Don’t misunderstand one thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are making a deal, Your Highness.”

It was because he overturned the board with his clever tongue.