[Liam's POV]
"Liam, Liam, where are you, dear?" a woman calls out.
She looks for her son all over the house. She looks beneath the bed, inside the cupboards, and below the dining table. Slowly, she makes her way to the large wardrobe.
A faint voice can be heard coming from inside.
"Ah hah!" the woman screams as she throws open the door.
But there is no one inside.
"I swear, I heard him chuckle inside," she says. She closes the wardrobe door and starts to turn around.
"That was close," a small child whispers.
I am hiding not inside, but behind the wardrobe.
"Only ten more minutes. Then I won't have to study," I whisper to myself, holding a hand over my mouth as I hear my mother's footsteps return.
Suddenly, the whole wardrobe starts shaking.
My eyes widen as I see the massive piece of furniture being lifted into the air by my mother.
"Boo!" she says, shifting the heavy furniture aside easily. She smiles down at me. "Now that I have found you, you gotta study."
"Ahh, no fair!" I yell. I am clearly angry. "You used your power!"
I pout, on the verge of tears.
"Oh, shush. You said I just have to find you," she says. She bends down and wipes the dust off my clothes.
"Fineeeee!" I groan. I slip past her and start running. "But only if you can catch me again!"
"Oh, you! Come here!" she laughs, running after me.
And that was the last time my mother and I played around.
After that day, her health worsened with each passing day.
By the time I was seven, she had become completely bedridden. She could only move her mouth. Every other chore had to be done by the house maids.
Even after all the problems, she didn't forget one routine: telling me a story every night.
"Sleep early, or the monster will come get you," she used to say.
But as her health got worse, the stories changed. She started adding other things to our story time.
"Liam, do whatever you want, but never, ever trust any race other than humans. Especially those half-breeds."
Or:
"Monsters exist. That is why you must never be kind to any other race. They are monsters."
Or:
"Monsters will never look like us."
At the time, I didn't understand. But as I grew up and saw my father remarry my mother's half-breed maid right after her death, I understood.
I understood why she hated those things so much.
Back then, I didn't hate the other races as much as I should have.
Until I was eighteen, I tolerated them. I tolerated them at the academy, the guilds, and on the streets.
But then, I graduated top of my class in Survival Studies and Spear Arts. I became the best hunter in my entire town.
I earned the title: "The First Spear of Gonschinne."
I was the first person in the history of my town to actually graduate from the newly built academy.
When I left the town to become a real hunter, I remembered my mother's last words
"Liam, son... Be whatever you want... but do not be... greedy."
I wish I had followed that though,
But as time went by, I started becoming more and more greedy.
I started taking riskier, higher-paying missions. At first, it was great. I earned enough in a single mission to live comfortably for months.
But I didn't stop. No—I couldn't stop.
The thrill of winning against impossible odds. The thrill of killing other races. The thrill of destroying the lives of those soon-to-be monsters.
No amount of money could ever surpass that feeling.
Recently, we got a task to capture some rare breeds. We accepted easily.
We hunted them down. We killed everyone in that town who wasn't required, and we took the people we wanted. We did this to three different races of those monsters.
It was easy.
Though the last one put up a fight, we easily overpowered her.
As we were making our way home, we HEARD it. We SAW it. We RAN toward it. We CAPTURED it.
But we—no, I—shouldn't have been that greedy. It was the biggest mistake of our lives.
We tried to enslave him like we normally do to the others.
But now?
Those same chains I used to enslave those beasts are now being used to choke me.
The thing I thought we had CAPTURED is now proving me wrong. Proving a lot of things wrong.
It proved wrong that we were the hunters, and he was the prey.
It proved wrong that we were in charge.
It proved wrong that the one with the weapon is always the winner.
And the biggest thing it proved wrong was my mother's lesson.
Actual monsters don't look like beasts.
They don't look like any other race, any other being, any other thing.
True monsters look just like US.
And now, looking into his blood-red eyes...
feeling his weak yet overwhelming strength... sensing his indomitable spirit...
I realize what we have done.
I realize that we shouldn't have been that
greedy.
I realize that we shouldn't have gone there.
I realize... no, I apologize to the world for what we have done.