Chapter 166: Resolve to Die, Reason to Live (3)
I covered Abel’s eyes in a hurry, and immediately embraced him, startled. Thankfully he didn’t seem to intend on using his fist before a little kid. Azar’s fist stopped mid-air.
“You son of a dog…”
I did not know their stories, but Roxa seemed to have pressed Azar’s buttons for good. Azar pulled his face in the most horrific-looking way since I met him. He spoke as he chewed his lips.
“Let’s… make this the end of it all between you and me.”
“A-Azar!”
Azar truly seemed to be enraged. He held onto Roxa’s collars and dragged him as he walked on.
Roxa started to get dragged away not even putting up a fight.
I followed them hastily.
“Don’t do this! This is not the time for us to be quarreling among ourselves!”
Azar’s walking speed was quite fast too. Perhaps he was intending on punching a few times in a place we couldn’t see. He walked towards the road in the forest not too far ahead.
“M-mother! Wait for me!”
My feet dug into the sand whenever I took a step and I was simply too slow compared to Azar. I could not catch up to the two of them until they ended up entering the forest. I was about to enter too without no other choice.
“Ah…”
Before I could enter the path into the forest full of thick, tall trees on both sides, I was startled and had to stop. That was because Azar and Roxa disappeared right before my eyes like magic.
“W-what in the world…”
I thought it would be fine just as long as we didn’t go too deep inside, but I was mistaken.
The oddly suspicious-looking ‘entrance’ was not a simple forest but another gate inside Orcus, a different space.
I looked at the forest that swallowed the two of them in an instant helplessly, then looked down at Abel who arrived at my side. He seemed to be as surprised as I was.
‘My days, what should we do?’
“Duchess, what are you doing there?”
As I turned around, I saw Michael asking me a question after having returned with Deborah in his arms.
Looking at Michael and Deborah looking curious as to where the other two of them would have gone, Abel and I could not say anything.
* * *
It would have been right for those burden of siblings to have died five years ago.
They were a burden… a burden…
Yes, a burden like me should have just died to make things right — Roxa Tribolt was engulfed in a not-so-entertaining reminiscence he hadn’t had for some long time. Although he had nothing against Azar, he did not regret what he had said to him.
People aren’t born because they want to, but if they did, then they should at least not burden others in their life. That was what Roxa Tribolt thought.
“Wot could this be…”
He thought that he would be punched the first thing after being dragged here, but what happened was unexpected. For some reason, the surroundings that used to be dark even with three moons in the sky had become brighter.
The market street where numerous people came and went was in the middle of noon. It seemed that he was no longer in Orcus, and looking closely, it was a place in Roxa’s memory as well.
“Yer messin’ wi’ me, eh?”
There was an old house before Roxa who muttered as he stood.
This place with a run-down sign was a pub that sold drinks and food, while the second story was the owner’s living space.
Roxa knew this place very well, because on the second story of this house, on the shabby bed, lived a blind kid who would cough blood every day.
“Wot is da meaning o’ al’ dis?”
Though baffled, he was rather looking forward to the faces he may get to see when he opens the door and enter.
As he opened the door in a hurry, he could see the bustling inside of the pub.
A small rural estate in the Southern parts of the Empire, Pargonia.
This small bistro in the town where poor merchants got by with daily labor, was Roxa’s house when he was young.
“Oy owner! Lookie here!”
“Aye! Heading ye way!”
The owner of the place with his long white hair tied tight above his head managed to walk around diligently despite looking precarious with three to four dishes staked up in each hand.
Roxa felt a jolt of something striking through his heart from deep inside.
“Papa.”
Roxa ran to the man at once calling him, and the man running towards him from the other side had…
“Ah…”
…passed Roxa by as he went. No, to be precise, he passed right through Roxa’s body.
Dumbfounded, Roxa raised his hand and looked down at them. His hands were repeatedly fading in and out.
Only then did Roxa realize. He had not returned to the times he was longing for. He was merely put in a situation where he couldn’t do anything but watch the painful times as it was.
“Yer truly messing with me.”
Roxa turned around to look at his father for a while, then took the stairs up to the second floor. Before he even opened the old door, he could hear coughing sounds inside. In the only room with good sunlight, there was a small bed and on top of that bed lay a little boy about the age of six.
“Son, ye alright?”
The child — Roxa — had his mother spend almost all day nursing him. His mother was the youngest daughter of a small lord in the central continent, not from Pargonia.
In truth, his mother was not supposed to live her life penny-pinching like this. To take care of her burden of a blind son who happened to be born with some unknown disease, she willfully let go of her youth and early years.
Truly, it was not an entertaining story.
“Honey! Is ou’ah son doin’ okay terday? Dere just too many customas in today…”
“Oh I am sorry, honey! I will head right down.”
When his mother turned to look behind after hearing a voice from downstairs, her eyes met Roxa’s for an instant. Roxa flinched.
She shouldn’t even be able to see him, but seeing her eyes made his heart well up.
“I’m sorry son. I’ll help father out for a bit and come back quickly. You can be on your own, right?”
“Hagh…”
“Sorry, I’m so sorry.”
What would she be so sorry about? — Roxa could truly not understand. Looking at the back of his mother, who kept apologizing to him and barely leave the room, Roxa was enraged in a way he hadn’t been for a long time.
He knew the ending of this story. The couple, who should have been able to make enough living for the two of them to live by, had died tragically after living a life of hardship to pay for their son’s medication for a sickness no one even knew the name of.
They could have decided not to live such a way. They just needed to give up on their burden-like son who kept coughing blood every day.
“Jus…just go’n’die, will ye?” Roxa muttered as he looked down at his younger self suffering in bed with a look of pain in his eyes.
He suddenly flung at the little kid in bed, strangling him. It was impossible to make any physical contact with a being from different time, but despite knowing that, Roxa howled, continuing to strangle the little child’s neck.
“Please! Please! Jus’ go’n’die! Huh? Don’t eat up ye mama an’ papa who have done nothing wrong apart from giving birth ter ye lousy punk! Damn ye! Jus’ please! Kill yeself!”
Not even realizing that there were tears running down his cheeks, he continued to scream.
“Why! Damn ye! Ye good fer nothing…! Why, just why… what for, ya punk… why did ya get born ter make things so…”
Suddenly, his vision changed. In an instant, Roxa was placed on the first floor of the pub with the lights all off. He could see his father. He was on his knees before some aggressive and big burly looking men, pleading with his forehead on the ground.
“Me days, I am terribly sorry. If ye could allow me some more time, I will sell some more of dis and dat ter prepare da sum…”
“How many times are ye saying da same thing? Ye think we make business o’ money out o’ nothing, eh? An’ ye borrowed double dis month!”
“Me days, I beg ye pardon. Ye know wot it’s like with our household situation. It was a rather good medication dis time and it got me son bonnie better too. Please, jus’ a little longer…”
His father’s face was dark as he pleaded with those men.
This was a tragedy from the past that the little blind child could not see back then.
It was painful to face such devastation with his eyes open when he only heard of this only with his ears with his mouth clasped from the second floor. Roxa tried to grab a hold of his father’s arm with a terrible look on his face, but it was of no use.
“Shoot! Stop being so dramatic an’ get yeself up, papa! Why are ye acting like dis for? Damn, jus… jus leave me ter die if ya don’ have da money! Please!”
Even as the loaners spat at his head, his father continued to keep his smile.
Roxa could truly not understand.
“Why are ya showing me dis fucked up scenes eh?! Ya want me ter be sorry after seeing it, is dat it? I am already feeling… plenty…”
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t touch them. Waving his hand around in thin air, Roxa collapsed on his knees.
“…I am, still living me life everyday feeling like a sinner, why are ye doing dis ter me…”
“Oy owner. If ye canna pay up, ye gotta labor it off, ye know. It pains us ter urge ye da same. Ye better consider what we suggested the las time, eh?”
The aggressive looking man crouched and rubbed his father’s shoulder.
With a gaze like that of a snake’s tongue, he stared at someone trembling in the corner.
It was his mother.
This was a tragedy he knew all too well the ending of.
Not having power left in him to even scream and cry anymore, Roxa merely gave a helpless smile at what the man’s word obviously implied.
Father shot up from his knees and shoved them away with a forced smile.
“Thank ye all fer ye consideration. But give us some more time. I promise we will prepare da sum until da next deadline, aye…”
The loan sharks looked dissatisfied and left after spitting at father’s face until the last second.
“Ha, haha…”
It was too, too painful for him to even cry. Roxa’s absurd laughter dissipated through the air.