Side Story 10: Mother (6)
Rumble, boom, bam-!
Aisha flip-flopped like a fish out of water at the sudden intruder and Hades stumbled and fell back without being able to keep still.
The table with only one leg started tilting over and Aisha’s body was about to fall on the ground. Hades snatched her in mid-air with animal-like reflexes even as he was falling back.
Truly a unique chaos.
“Ah…”
Looking everything dumbfounded, Abel only then turned himself around.
“I-I’m sorry!”
There wasn’t even time to answer.
Hades’ hands were so fast and rose to undo the front of her dress already the moment they started kissing. So, Aisha was busy tidying up her clothes.
“You should’ve knocked… Why-why would our son do… something as impolite as this?”
Hades muttered as he assisted Aisha’s hands busily tidying up what she was wearing, as dazed as she was.
“I-I’m really sorry. I heard that father would be beating m-mother, so-so I couldn’t help…”
“Ah.”
Aisha realized.
Looking up at Hades’ face with sudden realization on it, she winced.
“There’s no way your father would do something that beastly. Your mom is too small for a beating anyways…”
“Th-then when you said she would be beaten…”
“Abel.”
Being found doing something intimate by their son for the first time, Aisha spoke with her face reddened from shame.
“He meant beating with his lips.”
“Ah… I-I didn’t know better.”
“No, it’s not surprising that you misunderstood. What did you come for?”
“I-I came because I have something to say to mother, but it’s not urgent. I-I’ll come later!”
“A-Abel!”
Abel slammed the door shut and disappeared right away even before Aisha could say anything.
Left with Hades, Aisha glared at Hades annoyed and huffed and puffed.
“Look what you’ve done!”
“What. He is old enough to know everything.”
“What kind of explanation is…!”
“It’s a good thing, rather. Now he won’t be bursting the door open here and there.”
“What are you even…”
Aisha slapped Hades’ shoulder with a baffled look. Hades, who laughed heartily without minding her hits, glanced at the door.
“He won’t be coming back now that he is so startled. Let’s finish beating you up.”
“I won’t be! You wife beater!”
“Hey now…”
Hades was about to snatch Aisha deftly but Aisha defied him.
Aisha ran off to the window side and Hades chased closely after her, clinging and sticking onto her once again.
Clank-
Aisha’s poor hands and forehead stuck to the window. So much heat was about them that the window was fogging up.
“How am I going to explain this to Abel? Beaten with lips? Were you serious?”
“What is there to make excuses for? We can just tell him that we were trying hard to give him that birthday gift he asked for.”
Led by Hades’ hand. The dress was lifted up at once. With her bare legs exposed, Aisha trembled and sighed.
“Our Abel is still an innocent 14 years old.”
“You think 14 years olds are innocent? I knew everything there’s to know at his age.”
Aisha twisted her body in the rain of kisses on her backside.
It was embarrassing to be doing the private mischief by the window, but this wasn’t just the first or second time it happened to tell the truth.
Giving up, Aisha looked out the window to see if anyone was there with the last conscious she had left.
“Honey, wait.”
“What now?”
“Ah don’t do it here. There’s someone outside.”
“What?”
“What is he doing there?”
Hearing Aisha’s baffled voice, Hades glanced outside.
Michael and Serena.
Michael came running at once with a quick notice, perhaps because of the rumor that Abel’s birth mother appeared.
Of course, Hades assumed that he had some ulterior motives, and in fact, he was even expecting a little.
“Hm, let’s hope our Grand priest with nothing but looks on him manages to help us out this time.”
“My, why do you say it like that?”
Hearing Aisha standing up for him, her sibling, Hades winced in discontent.
“He is good for nothing though. Now that dark elemental powers are all but gone, he can’t even be called a Crescentian technically. He lived relying on his pitiful brainwashing skills, I don’t know how he manages to keep his position as the grand priest nowadays.”
Muttering, Hades stared at Michael in the distance.
Since the demise of Gaionia, the powers of dark elementalist, as well as the curse he had put on his children, had disappeared. Hades knew he shouldn’t be feeling like this, as Aisha was delighted when she found out her dark elemental powers had disappeared, but he missed her ability to mind-control right now. After all, in some sense, it was the most necessary ability in this situation.
Another ex-dark elementalist aside from Aisha was standing right over there, but it would be the same if he had lost his powers as well…
“Why are you doing this? He came all the way here because he was worried for me and Abel. Don’t say such things like he is of no use in front of him. He might smile it off but I’m sure he must be upset on the inside.”
“Don’t make excuses for another man when you’re with me, would you?”
“My, how could he possibly count as a man to me?”
Hades looked at Aisha with a look of discontent as she stood up for him just because he is her sibling. He turned his gaze back to Michael beyond the window.
Indeed, he was nothing but a looker. his face was positively glowing even from a distance.
* * *
The grand priest “with nothing but looks” had a secret, a secret that neither Aisha, nor Hades, nor Deborah nor people of the temple knew.
Only the looker, no, Michael himself and the person who created his ‘secret’ would know of this.
Of course, the one who created his secret, his other sibling, was not in this world, so no one knew of his secret, at least within the empire.
“You were a priest… right? You are someone famous, yet I did not realize since I was living somewhere so far.”
It was Serena who started talking first as they walked side by side.
Michael turned to look at her quietly.
Looking at her reddened cheeks and flustered expression, she seemed to have taken likings to the grand priest’s angelic face.
Though it wasn’t anything special, this felt too easy. Michael felt a little crestfallen.
“What are you intending on doing, Serena? Could it be that… you will be staying within the castle as the Childe’s mother? So… His Grace duke Louvremont’s…”
Michael asked without finishing the sentence. Serena shook her hand right away/
“I-I don’t know that yet. I don’t know what will happen.”
‘Don’t know yet?’
Michael scoffed inside.
And she was acting all pitiful before Abel, telling him she would just stay for a few days to look at him and leave…
‘How gullible.’
Though he felt like clicking his tongue without her knowing, Michael gave a brilliant smile on the outside.
“The Childe truly is a good, beautiful young man. I have never seen a being with a soul that pure before. I wondered who he takes after, but now I see he is just like you, Serena.”
“Ah…no, not at all.”
Serena looked somewhat uncomfortable as she shook her head. Catching that sharply, Michael’s eyes narrowed.
Michael had a talent. A useful talent to trigger a bad person’s conscience with his good and kind looking face.
‘I thought it may be the case, but… it’s truly impressive if this is a scam. They dared to scam none other than Duke Louvremont, they must have guts.’
Looking at Serena, who seemed to be pricked on her conscience at the mention of Abel, Michael confirmed his deduction.
Though he could tell just from her expression, he would also need solid evidence.
As they arrived under the bony wisteria tree in the front yard of the castle, Michael looked back at Serena with his signature affectionate smile.
The afternoon sun seeped through the wisteria branches, engraving Michael’s white face with rays of light.
Serena stared up at his face dumbfounded.
As she faced the pair of blue eyes sparkling like jewels, Serena imagined that she experienced everything in her mind evaporating.
No, perhaps it wasn’t just her imagination.
It really felt as if she had lost all thoughts.
So much so that she may confess thoughtlessly if someone asked to tell the truth at this moment.
“Serena.”
“Yes…”
“You are now going to answer my question without lying, okay?”
“Okay…”
“Are you the Childe’s birth mother?”
“No…”
Looking at the charmed Serena answering in a daze, Michael gave a smile and asked.
“Why did you do this?”
“The Junior Count held my sister hostage and threatened me. I didn’t have a choice. But after coming here, I thought I might make an easy living if things work out for the best, so…”
“So, while you started off due to threats, now you are intending to join this scam with all the power and effort you can muster, I see.”
A dry leaf on one of the wisteria branches fell on Serena’s head limply.
Michael took it off with an affectionate hand and laughed.
If anyone sees the two of them where they cannot be heard, anyone would think them as a close couple.
“This is troublesome.”
Michael also knew that Abel was not Hades’ son by blood. In other words, Hades could never ascertain who Abel’s birth mother was, no matter who was brought in front of him.
And that was why this man, Junior Count Orgiu could plan this daring scam. He probably realized that Abel was not Hades’ son by blood.
‘There should be second and third scammers after him then.’
After making the two of them confess, the whole empire would be upturned. People would come claiming that they’re Abel’s birth mother left and right.
But there would be those who question their daring attempt to scam, and there would be a flow of mass opinion questioning the relationship between Hades and Abel. It was also only a matter of time before other scammers would surface.
“I have no choice then. In order to prevent any tiresome matters that may arise in the future, I’ll have you be punished in a truly cruel way, so as to warn people from trying. That means I can’t make you confess that easily. My, my, how unfortunate.”
Hearing sudden frostiness in his voice, Serena was startled as if she was being woken up from a dream and trembled.
She recalled all the things she said so thoughtlessly in front of Michael and shuddered.
Just why? Did she get enchanted or something?
“I-I…”
Slapping away Serena’s arm holding on to him in a most graceful manner, Michael commanded in his heart.
‘Forget all that happened here just now. And stick to your purpose of coming here. So that duke Louvremont gets angered to his core. Even better if you could make a scene.’
There was no need to lock eyes with her. A command as advanced as making someone lose their memory was not done through the primary ability like ‘brainwashing’, but the final ability ‘mind control.’
The grand priest “with nothing but looks” as the duke put it, was actually…
The most powerful man in the empire, based on abilities alone.
Because he was the dark elementalist who had woken up to his final ability, permitted not by Gaionia, but his brother Procreathor.