Chapter 98 – The Weeping Woman (Eight)

Crunch─!

The necklace thrown forcefully to the floor shattered into pieces.

Fragments of the red gem scattered in all directions, scattering light.

“You, you…! What on earth have you…! Not only the information you wanted, but you could have even lured out the Doctor with that…!”

“It doesn’t matter. I can get information elsewhere.”

Curiosa was astonished by the completely unexpected situation.

But the one who had committed the sudden act was utterly serene.

“You…! You…! You’ll definitely regret your actions…!”

“Maybe.”

Ray answered like that and turned his head toward Madam Renia.

Woooooo──!

Sorrow, anger, hatred, regret.

The trapped emotions crumbled into dust and scattered into the air.

Wrapping around the sunlight streaming through the collapsed ceiling, they rose and sparkled with unparalleled beauty.

How much time passed like that?

Madam Renia’s vessel, from which all emotions had been liberated, became completely empty.

Plop.

One final teardrop that had pooled at the corner of her eye slid softly down along her faint smile.

Ray, who had been watching the entire scene without moving a muscle, turned his head and spoke.

“If you have nothing more to say, leave. As I said, I have no intention of exchanging information right now.”

“…….”

“Get lost.”

Curiosa leaped into the air and disappeared into a spatial rift.

Silence settled into the space.

Ray watched the dust drifting through the sunlight, guarding the two who were asleep.

“Huh, huh? D-did I fall asleep? Did something happen?”

He answered Philip’s question as he woke up.

“No. Nothing happened.”

In front of the half-collapsed mansion, the garden.

Thud.

Ray and Philip, wrapped in wind, landed safely on the ground.

Following them down, Madam Renia, who still hadn’t regained consciousness, was laid on a bed prepared from the wreckage.

“What on earth happened?”

“It feels like I had a wild dream.”

The street children looked at Madam Renia, unable to hide their confused emotions.

With the necklace shattered, the vessel’s emotions and spirit had returned.

However, all the events that had transpired remained vividly in their memories.

“I… I tried to attack those kids.”

“I stayed in this mansion for weeks, didn’t I? Not by force, but willingly.”

Everyone seemed greatly shocked, half-believing, half-doubting their past actions.

But even amidst that confusion, one fact shone clearly.

It was that they had been extremely happy during their time living in the mansion.

It wasn’t a false emotion.

They had truly been happy.

The feeling of happiness born from Madam Renia’s benevolent smile and warm care still remained sparkling within their vessels.

“Why, why isn’t she waking up?”

“Wait. She’ll wake up.”

That was why.

In the gazes of the street children, worry was more evident than wariness.

Just as everyone’s anxiety was deepening.

“She, she opened her eyes!”

“Shh, shh! You’ll startle her.”

Finally, Madam Renia regained consciousness, and gasps could be heard from all around.

“…….”

Madam Renia looked around with dazed eyes.

‘Children…? I’m sure the last… light…. Ah.’

Her mind gradually returned, and she began to perceive the situation.

The sensations of her body also returned, allowing her to feel the parts that had changed from before.

Thump.

She brought her hand to her chest.

The suffocating feeling that usually made it hard to breathe had completely vanished.

Her mind, which had been filled with all sorts of emotions and voices, was now cleanly emptied.

The next place her hand went was her own neck.

“……!”

The necklace was gone.

Tears she thought had dried up flowed.

She, too, remembered all the actions she had committed.

Actions she wanted to stop but couldn’t due to the emotions and impulses that surged like a tidal wave.

She, too, knew instinctively that the cause of those emotions and impulses was the necklace.

But it was a leash she couldn’t remove with her own strength while being swept away by emotions.

That leash was now removed.

A period had been put to the days that were herself yet not herself.

As she shed tears of emotion, Ray approached and spoke.

“The meal is over, but aren’t we having tea today?”

Renia said she was a mercenary who had once made a name for herself in the past.

“Not at all… you don’t… look like one.”

Veronica seemed quite shocked.

Indeed, it wasn’t an easy story to believe.

That a person who seemed the embodiment of grace and elegance was a mercenary, the very symbol of roughness and rawness.

“Then I got pregnant and retired. I couldn’t very well raise a child on the rough battlefield. I came down and settled in Sector 47.”

She didn’t know who the child’s father was.

That was just the way mercenary life was.

Anyway, she gave birth to and raised the child alone.

The child’s name was Joshua.

The small life born from her womb awakened her to the beauty and wonder of life.

“…I was happy. When Joshua laughed, I laughed with him; when he cried, I cried with him. I thought my life had existed for this child until now.”

They were happy days.

Until that day, ten years ago.

The past ill-fated connections formed during her mercenary life came to the mansion in the dead of night.

Harboring grudges.

Having somehow found out where she had settled.

At that time, the only place in the mansion with a light on was Joshua’s room, where he was reading a book.

The intruders, unaware she had a son, thought it was Renia’s room and climbed up the wall.

And they were even more delighted when they found Joshua.

「Let’s kill him. We’ll get to see that bitch suffer more.」

Joshua lost his life.

And the intruders also lost their lives at the hands of Renia, who rushed to the room upon hearing the screams.

In a terribly wretched, horrifying, and cruel manner.

“After that, I lived like a wreck. I didn’t take a single step outside the mansion, I didn’t meet anyone.”

She festered inside the mansion.

There was no one around to tell her it was okay, to comfort her.

A life neither living nor dead.

Countless amounts of time passed.

Suddenly, a man stood before her as she opened her eyes.

「You possess truly splendid emotions. If it’s alright, would you tell me your story?」

It was a giant of a man in a coat and a fedora, his face hidden by a mask and sunglasses.

Renia, as if entranced, poured out her story.

The man took out a silver thread and a gem from his pocket, fiddled with them for a moment, made a necklace, and held it out to Renia.

「It will help you shed your emotions.」

That was a lie.

The moment she put on the necklace, the emotions within her only amplified instead.

All sorts of emotions, including sorrow and anger, began to run wild.

Unlike before, the emotions were not released even in the slightest amount; they only piled up.

My son. Our son.

My beloved child.

Longing overwhelmed her.

She wanted to see Joshua.

The necklace knew the answer to how to fulfill that desire.

“…What happened after that is exactly as you experienced. I’m sorry. In my selfish heart, I brought you all here. I wanted to somehow fill Joshua’s empty place. How can I earn your forgiveness… I’m truly… sorry. I will gladly accept any punishment.”

The greatest emotion currently filling her vessel was guilt.

What should they say in reply?

The street children fidgeted uneasily, only looking at each other’s reactions.

“It’s okay!”

Then someone’s shout was the beginning.

“I, I’m okay too!”

“You don’t need to be sorry!”

The children, one after another, threw out words saying it was okay.

Words of comfort and consolation, thrown like flower petals, began to pile up around Madam Renia.

“It’s really okay! Don’t cry!”

“We were fine!”

“Hey, why, you’re the one crying.”

“I, I don’t know. Just… damn it. Must be dust in my eye.”

Colorful emotions rippled in the children’s vessels.

As blurry and hazy as their tear-covered vision.

In the process, some emotions crumbled to dust and flew away in the wind.

And other emotions sprouted pale shoots like flower seeds after a winter wind had passed.

It was an afternoon in October, a day when one felt like crying like a young child held in a mother’s embrace.

A few days later.

Busy noises and voices echoed throughout the mansion.

“Help me put up the pillar over here!”

“More! More! More forward! That’s it!”

Construction materials piled up everywhere.

Children wearing safety gear bustling about.

Construction was in full swing, completely demolishing the mansion beyond recovery and building a new structure in its place.

“Lift it all at once! At once!”

“Everyone together! Ugh… oh?!”

A huge steel beam, wrapped in wind, was lifted up with a flash.

It floated through the air and landed gently at the second-floor worksite.

Thud.

“Ooh! As expected of Lady Veronica!”

“Long live magic! Long live Lady Veronica!”

“The best, the best!”

At the children’s fervor, the corners of Veronica’s mouth danced loosely.

“What’s this much!”

Her mouth corners working hard whenever her name was called.

Veronica was the person among the group whose emotions showed most on her face.

Philip, watching from afar, nodded and said.

“Praise makes even Veronica dance.”

Philip was sitting in a chair in front of a broken table.

Ray, sitting opposite, responded.

“She is the best. Thanks to her, the work is progressing several times faster.”

“But still, Ray, your contribution is the greatest, isn’t it? You’re casting Enhancement Magic on all the workers.”

Ray shook his head.

“Still, it’s not as big a help as directly moving materials using wind.”

“If you put it that way, it does seem so.”

Philip turned his gaze back to the site.

Veronica was going around the site with Madam Renia, helping with the work using wind magic.

Perhaps she had picked up some tips from the Madam, who handled the same Wind Element, as she was using magic much more skillfully than before.

─Lady Veronica! People! You can’t lift people!

─Eeek! P-put me down! S-save me! Guys! B-burn my diary!

…She seemed a bit overly enthusiastic, but anyway.

Ray, who had been gazing intently at the children, parted his lips.

“I wonder why the Doctor gave Madam Renia the necklace and left.”

The necklace.

Philip’s back straightened up unconsciously.

That was because he had found out belatedly that Ray had shattered the necklace to save Madam Renia.

「It’s something I wanted to do. It has nothing to do with you. I also gained something by shattering the necklace.」

…That’s what Ray said, but.

‘Who knows. Maybe he did it because he saw I was concerned about Madam Renia.’

It wasn’t easy to completely shake off the feeling of guilt.

If they had investigated without breaking the necklace, they could have gotten more information about the person called the Doctor.

“The reason for giving the necklace and leaving… Couldn’t it have been some kind of experiment?”

The group was almost certain that the person who gave the necklace was the Doctor.

The appearance matching the man in the photo found in the basement.

And considering Curiosa tried to kill the Madam to silence her.

“The Madam said that for a while after receiving the necklace, she felt like she was being observed by someone. The Doctor was watching and then left. To check if the necklace he made was working properly.”

Philip’s words made sense.

If so, what did the Doctor hope to gain from the experiment?

The necklace that sucked in the children’s emotions and turned them into obedient dolls.

‘…The vessels were clearly empty. But the children said they definitely felt happy during their time in the mansion.’

The phenomenon observed with their eyes and the children’s testimony didn’t match.

“…….”

Could the Homunculus Curiosa mentioned and this incident be related?

Who was the Doctor, and what was his purpose in collecting Rainbow Shards?

Considerable time was spent pondering, but no satisfactory answer emerged.

Then Madam Renia approached.

“You asked a few days ago, right? If I knew anything about the Rainbow.”

In her hand was an old notebook she had found in the wreckage.

“It’s a journal I wrote every day during my mercenary life. I wrote everything down. What requests I received, what regions I went to, and what happened.”

Madam Renia’s hand, which had been flipping pages for a while, stopped.

“Ah, found it. My memory wasn’t wrong after all.”

Ray and Philip took the notebook Madam Renia handed them.

“…….”

“Huh…… huh… huh huh…… …huh?”

While reading the contents, Ray remained silent, and Philip couldn’t close his mouth, which was gradually falling open.

“It’s a fairly famous story. Among mercenaries.”