The Hero’s Brother Is Bound To Be Depressed - Chapter 404
405 – What to do
It seemed like everyone had a lot of work to do outside the labyrinth, so as soon as they could get out of the palace, they decided to split up and gather later. Eli also went back to the academy, so I was left alone on the street.
The square in front of the imperial palace was still full of people. People waiting to enter the labyrinth, people waiting for those who entered the labyrinth… Numerous people were looking at the imperial palace with eyes filled with various emotions.
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A few people pointed at me after seeing the lily mask. I used space magic to get out of the way before anyone could attract attention. In an alley where no one could see, I put my mask and robe in the storage room and left the alley.
The place I would go after leaving the labyrinth was decided. Excluding the Academy, the only place left for me, who normally operates in few places, is the Modest’s secret hideout.
When I returned to Modest’s secret hideout, Amber greeted me with a strange look.
“How was the labyrinth?”
“It was exactly what I expected.”
In response to my answer, Amber touched her forearm and nodded. It looks like it’s full of trouble. I asked, feeling strangely uneasy at Amber’s unusual appearance.
“… “What happened?”
“no. It’s not like anything happened to Modest… .”
Amber, who was trailing off like that, sighed and took out a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to me.
“The guild leader ordered me to investigate whether any of the students at Transcendence Academy were connected to the sect. So, he mobilized all of the Modist’s intelligence power and closely investigated the connection between the students’ families and the church… “I found a few names.”
As I was reading the paper Amber handed me, I stopped at one part. Amber’s voice reached my frozen ears.
“Among them… “Lily has a friend.”
“… Baldwin, Aria Baldwin.”
The name written on the paper was Aria.
***
The peak of Bold Snow Mountain is a place that many people visit because of its beautiful scenery. Among them, there were people who forgot the name of Snow Mountain and climbed the mountain late at night, got lost and disappeared.
The Baldwin family, who runs a hot spring in the middle of the Bald Snow Mountain, invested a lot of money to install street lights and danger signs to prevent tourists from getting into trouble, but they were unable to prevent people from going missing. The snowy mountains are a place where it is difficult to even go back the way you came.
Most missing people wandered off the road due to illusions and wandered through the snowy mountains, where they were often found dead. However, in cases where the body was not even found, most people assumed that it had fallen asleep deep in the snow and forgot about it. That has kept the Baldwin family’s evil deeds hidden until now.
Lisa Baldwin was checking the list of guests who visited the hot springs and found some food that looked good. Sometimes, there were guests who came alone to the resort to soothe their minds. It’s a man. When I took a quick look at his face, I noticed that his eyes were dark and he looked tired, making him look like a customer who was in a lot of trouble.
Lisa, who sent a note to her husband saying she had found prey, aimed for the right moment. When her husband, Allen Baldwin, came to visit Lisa, she received a call from her staff that her guest had gone out to see the summit.
Lisa, who quietly headed to the summit with Allen, was able to see the guest looking down at the bottom of the mountain alone. Lisa, who exchanged a glance with Allen, nodded his head and went down the path first.
Lisa, who was waiting for prey in the cold, facing the harsh wind of the snowy mountain, noticed a customer trudging down the road alone and manipulated the lights of the street lights installed around the road.
The guest who followed the path relying on the light from the streetlight did not recognize the changed light from the streetlight and deviated from the original path and walked in a completely different direction from the hot spring.
As the customer moved away, Lisa returned to normal and adjusted the streetlamp’s light, and together with Allen, they took a shortcut and passed the customer. There were several villas of the Baldwin family in the Bald Snow Mountain, and the destination the guests were now heading to was one of those villas with a special-purpose basement.
Lisa lit a fire in the fireplace to warm the air in the villa, and then turned on all the lights in the villa so that guests could see them from afar.
After a while, Lisa noticed that a guest who had been wandering around the snowy mountain without direction as the light from the streetlight had disappeared, noticed a light in the distance and was approaching the villa.
Lisa patted the back of Allen’s hand and smiled as she waited for the customer to knock on the door. When the guest finally arrived at the villa and knocked on the door, Allen waited for a moment and then went down the stairs and opened the door.
“To come here in this weather…” “Have you lost your way?”
The customer nodded silently at Allen’s words. Seeing his body constantly shivering as if he was feeling cold, Allen turned his body to make way for him and said,
“Guests visiting the Bold Snow Mountain are always welcome. “It’s going to be cold, so come in quickly.”
Allen spoke softly and brought the guest into the villa, and as if she had been waiting, Lisa brought a thick blanket and handed it to the guest.
“Are you cold? “I’ll bring you some hot tea to warm you up right away.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
The guest, who was sitting on a chair near the fireplace with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, carefully wrapped his hands around the cup filled with warm tea that Lisa had handed him.
“Is there anyone who came with you?”
The customer shook his head in response to Lisa’s question.
“I came here alone. I don’t even know my family. little… I needed time alone. But while looking at the summit… “I ended up getting lost and ended up here.”
Allen and Lisa exchanged glances and nodded at the guest’s words.
“thank god. “I think we can rest here today and go down the snowy mountain together when the sun rises.”
The guest was grateful for Lisa’s kind words and drank the warm tea from the cup. And a while later, when the guest dropped his glass on the floor and fell asleep, the Baldwins skillfully grabbed his arms and legs and carried him to the basement.
Lisa, who was taking off her shoes after seating the customer on a chair, asked Allen.
“Don’t you think we’ll need two more until summer vacation?”
“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to do it with three people?”
Allen answered as he took out a device hidden on the basement wall. Lisa nodded, removing her guest’s shoes.
“That would be nice. Because you never know. then-“
When Lisa stopped speaking, Allen, who was putting the magic stone into the device, looked puzzled and turned his head. Allen, who was surprised to see Lisa with her neck held by the customer’s hand, quickly took out his cane and aimed it at the customer.
“You can’t let go of that hand!”
At Allen’s shout, the customer relaxed his hands and pushed Lisa away. When Lisa cleared her throat and fell to the floor, Allen approached her and stood in front of her as if protecting her.
I’ve never known anyone who didn’t benefit from the sleeping pills they took in the car, but today’s customer seemed to have a special constitution. Allen sighed inwardly and tried to control the situation.
“I think there is a misunderstanding. We were checking on the condition of a customer because he suddenly collapsed… .”
A low, cold voice cut Allen off.
“Have you been luring people into the basement like this all this time and killing them?”
Allen’s thick cheeks twitched as he spoke as if he already knew of the Baldwin couple’s evil deeds.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about- KaaaH!!!”
Allen was trying to swing his staff when he was caught off guard, but his hand was pierced by a spear that suddenly protruded from the side, causing him to drop his staff. When Allen fell down with blood gushing from his hand, Lisa screamed and grabbed his hand.
“aaahhh, honey!!!”
“Keueuuu… !!!”
While Lisa was trying to stop the bleeding from Allen’s pierced hand, who was screaming in pain, the guest kicked the cane that had fallen on the floor, pushed it away, and approached the Baldwins.
“Why, why on earth did you do that?”
Lisa cried and shouted at the customer who gritted her teeth and asked.
“What are you saying, this is a misunderstanding! “We were trying to help you!”
The customer let out a deep sigh at Lisa’s words. And soon the customer’s face seemed to melt, slowly flowing down and slime dripping from her face.
“W-what… ?”
Lisa, who was watching in astonishment, realized that the new customer’s face looked familiar and took a deep breath.
“you… Aria’s friend?”
Ross, who had taken off his slime camouflage, gave me a cold look and asked again.
“… “Why did you do that?”
Looking at the spear in Ross’ hand, Lisa, who thought the situation could still be resolved, said tearfully. Lisa did not forget how much she explained to Aria about Ross, who had become her friend, until she got tired of it during her vacation.
“It’s all for your friend Arya.”
“… “Is the murder really for Arya’s sake?”
“This is not murder!”
Lisa shouted and glared at Ross with teary eyes.
“Arya… “I lost my life to an illness a long time ago.”
“What is that… .”
“My only child died from an illness, and my wife and I couldn’t bear it. So he found a way to bring his child back to life… “I brought Aria back to life.”
“That is impossible. There is no magic that can revive a dead person. “It doesn’t require magic, it requires a miracle from God.”
Ross looked at Lisa with an expression that made no sense. Lisa, chewing her lip, revealed the secret she had been hiding.
“know. So we borrowed the power of God. Another god who can help us… .”
Ross muttered with a look that seemed like he finally understood.
“Did you receive help from the church?”
“Yes, we were able to bring our beloved daughter back to life with an oath of loyalty to the Order.”
“So are you following the orders of the church by luring people to kill them?”
“That’s not it! We, we… !!!”
Lisa could not continue speaking. Allen, whose hand was pierced, was breathing heavily, suppressing the pain and continuing to speak.
“… Aria was not revived normally. As you said, it is impossible to bring a dead person back to life. But we couldn’t give up on Aria… “With the Vice Master’s suggestion, we were able to revive Aria as a homunculus.”
“… .”
“A homunculus is a doll that can survive on human life force. We want Aria to continue to be our daughter… The life force of others extracted through the device is being injected into Aria. ”
Those words made Ross realize. In another world, the reason Transcendence Academy exploded and collapsed from within was not because of a bomb planted by a spy from the church.
The fact that the vice-priest created a homunculus and that homunculus entered the academy were all the result of probability. To explain why the academy, which boasted tight security, collapsed from within.
“… “Does Aria know?”
“Of course you don’t know. He’s a good kid, so if he found out the truth, it would be hard to bear… .”
Suddenly, Ross remembered a conversation he had with Aria one day.
“This is a secret… Actually, I have a big ponytail on my head. It’s such a terrible trick that my parents told me never to show it to anyone… !”
Ross smiled bitterly. Even in real life, nothing just passed by without meaning. Like a novel, ordinary conversation becomes a sacrifice to probability.
“… “There is nothing that parents cannot do for their children.”
Ross looked down at the Baldwins, who were on the floor looking up at him. He knew the reason for their evil deeds. And he himself knows what to do.
Ross put on his mask in silence.
The lily mask that punishes the wicked.
*
Amber, who had been tracking Ross from the beginning, spotted him leaving the villa and approached him. Amber looked at the blood flowing from Ross’s fingertips to see if he had been injured, but it wasn’t Ross’s blood.
Ross, who had been walking forward helplessly past Ember, stopped and slowly took off Lily’s mask. White breath flowed from Ross’s dry lips, ascended into the night sky, and slowly dispersed and disappeared.
At that moment, a sad voice reached Amber’s ears.
“… “We can’t be friends anymore, can we?”
Amber didn’t answer. That question was not asked of Amber, but of Ross himself.