CHAPTER 59………………
[An utterly perfect failure!
Oh dear, you have failed spectacularly at the commission you thought you had undertaken.
Lyla Mors has, in the end, taken her own life, and Siderius could not save his mother.
You did not understand the human heart. You could not comprehend it, and you acted as you pleased.
Because of you, a fragile relationship has shattered completely.
Thus, Lyla Mors curses you.
To you, who cannot understand people, someone forcibly grants a power.
So that you may not repeat the same mistake twice, you are given the ability to peer into someone’s past.
You have been granted an “Error Notebook.”]
When the parchment vanished before Esther’s eyes, the ground was already right below them.
“No…!”
Esther clutched desperately at Lyla’s clothes.
“Why… why would you…!”
In her mind’s eye lingered the bright smile of Siderius.
[Lyla, if you want gold and jewels, I’ll give them to you. If you want power, make a contract. If you want revenge, I’ll turn the Emperor into your puppet! So please… please…!]
Esther cried out in panic, but no magic was invoked, and their bodies kept plummeting.
Only when they were about to hit the ground did Lyla, who had been staring into empty air, turn her gaze toward Esther.
“……”
She whispered something into Esther’s ear, and Esther’s face crumpled.
[Why… why is it always you humans…!]
Lyla gave her a gentle push.
“Urgh…!”
Thanks to Lyla pushing her at the perfect moment, Esther only rolled across the grass a few times.
Finally freed from her reach, Esther was about to cast magic—
Thud—!
A sound rang out, so heavy and blunt that it was hard to believe it came from a human body.
Too weighty to be merely the sound of something falling, yet too fleeting, too fragile to be the sound of a life ending.
Esther no longer needed to cast any magic.
No matter how great a sorcerer the child might be, no matter if she were the seed of the future Demon King, she could not bring back the dead.
If awakened as the Demon King, she might raise the body as an undead—but that would only be an empty shell, “something else.”
“Ah… aaah…! Aaaahhh!!”
Siderius, nearly tumbling as he ran down, gathered his mother’s grotesquely twisted body in his arms and let out a beastlike howl.
Esther could only stare blankly.
[You have failed greatly. An ‘Error Notebook’ opens before you.
★ Do not fail next time!]
Once again, parchment unfolded mockingly before Esther’s eyes.
And then, her vision went pitch black.
Tok, tok, tock.
It was a sound like melting snow dripping down.
It was a moment of silence, the tension just before an orchestra began.
Yes, the birth of something inhuman began with the sound of blood and unripe droplets falling, mingled with a dreadful scream.
“N-no, it can’t be…! Aaah! Ahhh! Th-there’s no way I could have birthed that…! There’s no way I could have birthed such a monster…!”
“A monster… A monster has been born.”
“The witch… she was cursed…!”
What was born could not be called human. It was closer to a twisted clump of black cotton.
Even the Emperor was struck speechless at the sight.
“Shadows—kill everyone here. Nothing happened today… and the child died at birth.”
The Emperor, pale as death, tried his utmost to silence it, but whispers inevitably spread.
She went mad, lost control of her curse, and harmed people.
A black mage, a witch, was to be executed on the spot.
Thus, she had to die.
But to save her, the Emperor branded her with the witch’s stigma and himself bore the infamy of being a tyrant obsessed with one. He built a spire and confined her within it.
Because of her, the Emperor bore the name of a tyrant, and because of her, the child was erased from existence.
And so she regretted.
The thing that was born soon took human form.
The child who was said to have died was suddenly alive again, fueling more whispers.
To the eye, it was simply an ordinary infant. Though different in subtle ways, the child resembled both her and him.
It was terribly cold, but when she held it in her arms, there was undeniably warmth.
At times, that warmth melted her heart.
“Ah… You are, after all, my child.”
This was back when Siderius was still a small boy.
In the spire where she was confined with the infant, Lyla, with tearful eyes, cradled the baby swaddled in white cloth.
The child wriggled, then looked at her and beamed.
And so she cherished it.
Yet it had almost no emotion.
Unlike other babies, it rarely cried or laughed.
Even when neglected and starved in hysterical outbursts, it would not die easily.
“Why won’t you die! Why?! Do you want so badly to live? Why…?”
The more Lyla tried to raise it with affection, the more she realized it was not human.
It absorbed everything taught to it like a sponge.
Each time it called her “Mother,” goosebumps ran over her, and yet she felt tears welling.
Still, the fact remained unchanged—that it had ruined what could have been her “ordinary life.”
And so, she also hated it.
Thus, Lyla could not bring herself to kill “it.”
“Why…?”
She could not kill it… could not kill it… could not kill it… could not kill it…
“No, no.”
…She would not be able to kill it.
“No, that’s not true…!”
…She could never kill it.
“Ah… Why was I born this way…?”
At last, she turned the blade upon herself.
The child was not what she truly resented.
If she had been an ordinary woman who could bear an ordinary child, she might have met Siderius in an ordinary way.
The thought horrified her—and made her ache for the child all the more.
Thus, though she had birthed a monster, she could not help but love it.
And so, she could not kill it.
Yet even if she loved it, she could not help but resent the child who had been born a monster and ruined her life.
So she could never love it with her whole heart.
Even if she received its love, she could not give up the desire for the fruits of love. And even if she did abandon that desire, she could not believe that love would endure.
She could believe in nothing.
“…I couldn’t bear it.”
A sudden voice made Esther turn blankly.
“I couldn’t believe in him. I couldn’t love my child. I couldn’t accomplish a single thing.”
“So you think your death was justified? That I made the wrong choice now?”
She didn’t know if this was a dream, the afterlife, or the world of the unconscious.
She couldn’t even tell what language was being spoken.
“I exacted the greatest revenge on him.”
“And Siderius?”
“That boy… this loss will make him stronger. He’ll grow free of shackles like me, healthy and strong.”
“Why are humans always…! Why do you always…! Force what was never wanted upon others in the name of parenthood?”
Esther clenched her fists. Lyla’s eyes widened.
“It’s not for you to decide!”
Not Lyla, not the one who had abandoned her in the past—none of them had the right to decide.
“If I live, that child will forever be chained to the spire. If I live, that man will forever be a tyrant obsessed with a witch. If I live… I’ll go mad, resenting them both.”
Her words were slow.
“That’s not your choice to make!”
At Esther’s feral growl, Lyla blinked.
“I’ve come too far. The road back collapsed long ago, and my heart is shattered so finely I can hardly breathe.”
“I…”
“I know.”
Lyla spoke.
“I know you used every bit of knowledge you had to create for us what you thought was the most ideal bond.”
Esther had tried her best.
It had been a struggle to restore her power.
But perhaps it wasn’t only that.
Perhaps she couldn’t ignore it because it reminded her of her own past.
Perhaps she wanted to give them something she herself could never have.
“Even so, despite all that, I could never stop resenting them, nor could I simply love them, nor shamelessly accept their love.”
Plip, plop.
Something clear fell to the ground.
It soaked the floor beneath Esther’s feet, but she felt nothing.
“Because I couldn’t love… because I couldn’t be a mother… I’m sorry.”
It was regret.
It was the one word she could never say aloud.
It was the remorse of one who could never undo anything.
And it was also sheer selfishness.
The “Error Notebook” seemed to be a record meant to show Esther the parts she had not understood.
A fragment of a past she had never known flickered by in an instant.
And then, her vision brightened.
Esther slowly opened her eyes.
What she saw before her was utterly miserable.
