Chapter 103 Volume III - Chapter 24: A Shaken Father
After talking to Adrian, not much of importance happened in the past two days.
I had a brief meeting with Melany and we talked about our future actions, and to my surprise, she didn't explode at me. She was more cautious when talking to me, I could understand that, but she didn't seem to hold me responsible.
When I think about it, I can think of a couple of reasons. Probably the fact that we have averted a much bigger disaster with this one makes her less angry with me, but it doesn't change the fact that we have a lot of problems ahead of us.
We are going to have to tread very carefully now because we have lost a huge amount of credibility and all eyes are on us. Still, if things go a little bit smoothly from now on, we shouldn't have too many problems.
Apart from that, Clara visited me a couple more times during these two days. This time she was a bit friendlier than before, I felt like I could talk to her again, like when I first came to this world. However, she had to go back to Wiathen City because she had school, so we didn't spend much time together again.
That's not to say I didn't have any other visitors.
Although Lucia and Julian couldn't come because they had gone home, Adrian and Sue came to visit at least twice a day. So I wasn't alone, and Sith was there too. It was hard for me to feel alone.
Now I was being discharged. I wasn't allowed to make any sudden movements, I wasn't allowed to strain my muscles a bit and I could walk with the help of a cane, even though it hurt. For the first time since I woke up, I was wearing my everyday clothes.
"Your procedures are all done, get well soon."
When the nurse came to my room and informed me, I stepped out of my room for the first time with a smile on my face.
The hospital was quieter than I thought. I had expected the corridors to be full of people after the incident, but apparently, I was wrong.
I kept moving forward with the support of my cane. When I finally left the building, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of fresh air. I opened my eyes and looked up at the sky.
The sun was high up, but it still couldn't shine all the way to the surface. The clouds, the harbingers of rain, were slowly gathering, slowly covering the sun and directly the whole sky.
I didn't care though, I finally tore my eyes away from them and looked directly at the academy this time.
The academy itself was just like the inside of the hospital. It was subjected to harsh media backlash, criticism, and even people marching and blocking the gates of the academy, but... it was peaceful, at least it seemed that way.
"Hey... Look, isn't that Aiden Tenebra?"
"Probably..."
When a group of friends stared at me, thinking I couldn't hear them, I sighed deeply and glanced in their direction.
They stood still for a moment, then went silent. Finally, they started moving, walking away from me.
This is another outcome of the events...
After the students who were tortured by that man woke up, there was an extensive investigation. Then, with leaked information, the story was exaggerated and rumors started circulating that I had 'beaten' a B- grade man, and not only that, I had 'cut off his arm'.
And because they used a lie detector when I testified and I wasn't prepared this time, I had to say that I didn't remember anything, so I can neither deny nor confirm these rumors and it's... a bit frustrating.
Of course, the technology in this world is much more advanced than in my old world, so based on a broken dimensional portal device that was there, it was decided that I somehow led the man to the portal and he lost his arm because the portal closed on him. So I didn't beat him, but it wasn't enough to quell the rumors.
The exaggerations always took precedence over the truth.
I don't know how much of what I know is true because I don't remember anything, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm extremely famous now. I am now a legend in the media. I am seen as the star of the rotten academy, I keep getting invitations from other academies, universities, and... I am under even more intense stares than before.
Aside from that, there is a group of people who argue that I am exaggerated, that everything that is being said is a lie, and that this is all being said in order to clean up the face of the academy a little bit, but... whatever.
As I kept walking, suddenly a thought popped into my mind.
Hmm... Thanks to Melany they've been pretty quiet so far, but when will the reporters try to contact me?
'Egotistical.'
'Excuse me?'
'Nothing.'
I frowned at Sith but when I didn't get a response, I sighed and ignored him.
"Ah..."
When I looked around, I realized I was too caught up in my imagination. I had walked too far without realizing it.
"This place..."
When I saw the bench, which was relatively quiet and empty compared to the others, a smile appeared on my face.
This was where Adrian and I first had a long talk, where we became friends. It felt a bit... nostalgic, even though not much time had passed.
I slowly lowered myself onto the bench and sighed deeply. I could rest here for a while, I could think.
Now... what am I supposed to do, what am I planning to do?
I opened my watch and entered the note app, thought for a while, and finally started writing. When I finished, I had a total of five points in front of me.
<<------------------------------
1-) Investigate the Tenebra Family.
2-) Help Celine.
3-) Find Alexander and organize the dungeon cleanup.
4-) Talk to Ulka about the Malus Family and future research.
5-) Delve a little deeper into the Alysia matter.
------------------------------>>
For now, these were the most important issues on my mind. When I took a look at the list, the thing that caught my attention the most was, of course, number two.
I want to help Celine. After what she went through, after the unbearable pain she suffered because of me, I...
I paused for a moment, realizing I was angry again. I clenched my fist, but it didn't take long to calm down. I knew that being angry for nothing was not going to help me, at least for now.
"May I sit down?"
Huh?
"Sure."
I reflexively nodded before I even looked at the person who had spoken. I turned around, looked at the person sitting on the bench, and froze instantly.
However, this frozen state lasted only a few seconds. My astonishment was instantly replaced by calmness. When I saw the loneliness and sorrow radiating from the man, I felt a pain inside me and turned away.
The world was suddenly silent. It was as if the man's loneliness was reflected in the world itself.
"How old are you?"
"I'll be nineteen in about six months."
"You're two months younger."
"Yes, sir."
"If you don't mind, can we have a chat? Would you listen to this old man?"
"Of course."
Silence fell again.
"Do you know what happens when people get a power they've never had before?"
I squinted and looked up at the dense, graying clouds in the sky.
"The vast majority fall prey to this power."
"And what if that power suddenly starts to diminish?"
"They will do whatever they can to keep it."
The man smiled, but it was not filled with any positive emotion, not the slightest bit of joy.
On the contrary, his smile was full of pain.
"When I was young, after my father died, I was left in charge of the guild. I was still young, I hadn't even finished school, but I had to drop out because there was no one to run the guild."
I didn't say anything, I just kept watching the sky. Even though I knew this story well, I didn't move a muscle.
"When I was still a beginner, the people in charge of the guild went behind my back, using the excuse that I couldn't accomplish anything. They even tried to assassinate me because they wanted to take over the guild themselves, but they failed. They even formed a guild among themselves, threatening the workers unless they continued to oppose me."
It was a typical guild story. If the guild was even a little bit high-level, if there was more than one person in charge, this kind of thing was quite common. The difficult thing was to break through all this.
"A couple of times I almost lost my position. Once I really lost it because of a misunderstanding. But at the end of it all, I was back where I belonged. The more they tried to bring me down, the more they started doing different things... the faster I rose. When I got strong enough, I finished off everyone who betrayed me. I fought, I killed, I imprisoned, I tortured, I went into the black market, I did illegal things. I rose and rose and rose."
He took a deep breath.
If I had recorded what he was telling me, I might even have caused the downfall of his family. He was confessing everything, but he didn't care, and neither did I.
Like me, he turned his gaze to the cloudy sky.
"One day, one morning... I woke up and suddenly I realized where I was. I had risen too high, too powerful. Before I knew it, I was at the top. I had even married without love, everything was for power, but when I realized I was at the top... Suddenly everything seemed meaningless. Politics, war, nobility, economy, the guild... I didn't enjoy anything, I just did what I had to do, I became a machine."
The clouds grew grayer, darker.
For a moment I wondered why he was telling me all this, but it didn't take me long to realize.
He was tired, exhausted in the truest sense of the word. He was just regurgitating what had been building up inside him, he had stopped thinking rationally.
"My enemies were no longer within the guild, I was going head to head with the big guilds in different countries. I was almost the only pillar holding up the kingdom. No one tried to defy me, on the contrary, they were afraid of me because I was too ruthless, too merciless."
A smile suddenly appeared on his face, his voice softened as if recalling sweet memories for what he would tell next.
"And then I decided to pay more attention to my wife, I wanted to find out what my life meant, I couldn't bring myself to be a machine, so the relationship between us went from worse to bad to better. Love blossomed in the political marriage I had. I had a son and then a daughter. They were so sweet, so joyful that I found meaning in my life. My family became my everything, but then, just when everything was going perfectly, my son died in a dungeon."
He paused, a wistful expression appeared on his face. Not only that, there was anger in that expression.
"He was my pride. He was so much wiser than me, so much stronger than I was in my youth. I had great dreams for him. Even the father-son relationship between us was too good for a man like me. There was one thing I didn't like about him, though. He was too kind, too kind for this world."
For a moment his voice seemed to tremble, he was clenching his fist. He was even more angry. The air around us, already cold, was getting colder. Even the winds were blowing harder.
"His death was a self-determined sacrifice out of kindness. He left himself behind to save dozens of people and died heroically.
He was the pride of our family, the disaster he averted was no simple disaster. He saved thousands of people, not just a handful."
Mana began to condense around him, the world reacted as if it was sharing his anger. The atmosphere grew heavier, the air colder and colder. His presence alone was molding his surroundings.
"To tell you the truth, I don't care about the people he saved. Neither does my wife, my daughter. I'm proud of what he did, yes, but that's just an excuse we hide behind. Both my wife and daughter cried for days after him, and all I could do was pat them on the back."
Just a few seconds ago he was angry, now he was a grieving man. He was unstable, jumping from one mood to another.
"My whole life changed from that point on. After my son's death, my guild went downhill. We were at the top, everyone was afraid of us, and then suddenly... we hit rock bottom. We even came to the point of bankruptcy, but somehow I managed to recover from that. Still... there were a lot of people who approached me with bad intentions. There were assassination attempts on my daughter, my wife, and I realized something again."
"Power means everything."
A raindrop fell on my forehead.
"Exactly... If I had power again, then I would never have to worry again. I would be able to live with my family without any problems, I just needed to get back on top, but in trying to do that I made the same mistake again, I became blind again. I ignored my wife, my friends, my daughter. I tried to use them to gain power. I found out that my son's death was not a coincidence, but I gritted my teeth and let it happen. If I wanted revenge I had to get stronger. I became more and more blind. I consoled myself that everything was for a better future."
This time the raindrops overlapped. Soon the rain began to fall slowly. Neither I nor the man attempted to get up from the bench, even though we were getting wet.
"At least that's what I believed. And now... Now I've almost lost another one of my children. I... I went mad. I blamed people, I blamed the academy and attacked it specifically, using the media. I found myself plotting to bring down the royal family, I realized I was looking for ways to slaughter everyone in the academy's administration. I was desperate, but then I realized... even if it was the academy's fault... I wasn't innocent either."
He paused, waited a moment. He watched the raindrops, squinted.
"Actually, even the academy was not much to blame. The roots of this 'organization' were everywhere, not just in this academy. They were too big for the academy to handle alone. Blaming them was like asking why a rabbit couldn't escape from a fox. The biggest mistake... was mine."
I don't know how right it is for him to tell me this, even if I already know it... but just as he doesn't care, I won't either.
At least... I can do that.
"When I realized this, I spent all my money to cure my daughter, but when she woke up and I thought I could relax, my world came crashing down on me again."
I turned my eyes to the man next to me, this time fully focusing on his expression, which I had only glanced at out of the corner of my eye until now.
The noble-looking black hair I remembered was disheveled by the rain. The stern and fearless expression I remembered was gone. His bright blue, sharp eyes were replaced by blank stares. Normally in his fifties, he looked like a man who had just turned thirty, but now his old age was reflected on his face. There was no trace of his emotionless, calm self.
He was dejected, he looked in such a bad shape that he looked more like a poor passer-by than a nobleman.
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