“Keuhp… Keuheuheuhk…”
Gerald had been lying in bed for two days now, looking filthy, doing nothing but letting tears stream down his face.
“I did nothing wrong… Why are these things happening to poor me… The world is so cruel to me… Huhh… huhh…”
With the Beksy hot spring resort project collapsing spectacularly, he had lost most of his fortune, and his own body was now in a state where it could no longer even function as a man, so the shock was only natural.
The problem was that he had always had an excessive tendency toward self-pity and melodrama.
With the greatest trials of his life striking one after another, there was no way he could respond with composure or calm.
Because Helga had raised him by coddling and doting on him nonstop, Gerald grew up into an adult whose ego was bloated far beyond his station, while his ability to handle crises was close to zero.
Helga fussed helplessly at his side, trying to console her fully grown son who was doing nothing but lying there and bawling.
“That physician must have been a quack! I will be sure to find an even more skilled physician and bring him to you.”
Making Helga’s efforts to lift his spirits seem utterly pointless, Gerald snapped irritably.
“They already said it was completely useless and even finished the surgery to remove it, so why are you looking for a physician now? What, if some famous doctor comes, will it grow back again? Huh? Aah…!!! Seriously!”
Gerald vented his anger on his innocent mother, pounding his own chest over and over.
Helga hurriedly indulged him, trying to soothe her endlessly pitiful son.
“Y-yes. That’s right. You’re absolutely right. Oh dear, my poor son, what am I going to do with you?”
Phrases like “What are we going to do now?” were something she herself used fairly often, in her own way, to show empathy and offer comfort.
However, though she didn’t realize it herself, the effect of that manner of speaking often turned out to be the exact opposite of her intentions.
That tone, while providing no real help at all, only served to provoke the anger of the listener, who was already sharp-edged from being in a bad situation.
When Gerald was in relatively decent condition, it wasn’t much of a problem since he didn’t pay much attention to Helga’s words anyway, but now things were different.
In his extremely sensitive state, Gerald reacted violently, like an earthworm sprinkled with salt.
“Ah, seriously, Mother! Why are you saying such useless things?! What do you mean, what are we going to do?! That! Why?! Are you asking me that?!! If I knew that! I would…! Kraaahhh!!”
Letting out a lion’s roar that rose from his lower abdomen, Gerald couldn’t contain his rage and tore at his own hair.
Startled by the explosive reaction, Helga tried to calm her son.
“All right, Gery. Mother understands everything now, so calm down, hm? What if the stitched area ends up getting damaged like this. Hm?”
But Gerald’s agitation didn’t subside easily. He deliberately picked at Helga’s words from just moments ago, rolling his eyes back and shouting.
“Hah, pitiful? Are you pitying me right now?! I lost my money, my body ended up like this, and now that I’ve fallen all the way to rock bottom, do I look pathetic and funny to you, huh?!”
Flustered and darting her eyes around, Helga quickly changed what she was saying.
“T-that can’t be, can it? Right, then my Gery, let’s pull ourselves together, get better quickly, and get back up. My son can do anything…”
Before she could even finish that sentence, Gerald flew into another rage.
“You need strength to pull yourself together, Mother! What do you keep saying I can do things for! It’s infuriating! Don’t you even feel sorry for a son who’s lost everything and ended up like this?! Uaaah!”
Just moments ago he had lashed out, accusing her of pitying him, yet when she tried to accommodate him by changing her words, he picked a fight over that too, making a complete scene.
For his entire life, Gerald had generally been ill-mannered and rude to his mother. Even so, Helga didn’t scold him; rather, she tried, whenever possible, not to offend his mood.
That was because of her own parenting philosophy: that “if you raise a child without crushing their spirit and treat them as precious, they will grow into someone who is treated as precious by others as well.”
She didn’t know why the more prestigious the family, the stricter they were in educating their children.
Because Helga had always coddled him and soothed him like a baby, Gerald usually refrained from saying anything truly vicious to his mother.
But when things reached an extreme situation, his vile nature was revealed in full.
He poured out his negative emotions onto his innocent mother without any filter whatsoever.
Helga was shocked that her cute, lovable baby angel was spewing such harsh words at her without hesitation.
Still, she wasn’t the kind of person whose thinking would change over something like this.
‘My Gery is just saying this because things are too hard for him, it can’t be what he truly feels. He’s such a soft-hearted child deep down…’
In truth, Helga bore a very large share of the responsibility for Gerald turning out this way, yet she was still firmly convinced that she was a loving and wise mother.
‘This won’t do. I need to let my baby know that this was wrong. If I discipline him gently, he will immediately burst into tears and throw himself into his mother’s arms.’
Letting the stream of foul words spilling from that hellish mouth go in one ear and out the other, she drooped her eyebrows into a worried curve.
“Gery, I know you didn’t say those things on purpose. In truth, you feel very sorry toward Mother and upset, don’t you? There now, it’s all right to be honest.”
Standing by the bedside, Helga spread both arms toward Gerald.
“Gery. If you apologize and say, ‘Mother, I am sorry. I was so overwhelmed that bad words just slipped out,’ I will be especially lenient with you. This mother doesn’t want her baby to suffer all night feeling guilty over making a mistake.”
However, she didn’t realize that this, too, was a manner of speaking that only further provoked the anger of a listener who wasn’t in their right mind.
Already so furious that his head felt hot, Gerald exploded once again at the cluelessly placid words.
“Ah, damn it, what apology and what leniency? If all you are going to do is spout that kind of crap, then get out right now! Seriously…!”
He even went so far as to grab pillows at random and hurl them at Helga.
“Ah! Gery! What kind of behavior is this… Ah!”
Dona, who had been standing outside the room peering in through the crack in the door at the whole commotion, let out a silent sigh.
‘This is a complete mess. I really need to get out of this place as soon as possible.’
There was nothing more to be gained by staying in this mansion anyway, and she had even nearly lost the hearing in one ear.
She could easily picture her own future.
‘If I stay here any longer, there won’t be a single part of my body left unharmed. I need to run before that happens.’
Even so, there were problems tying her down, so she couldn’t simply flee with nothing but her body right away.
She went out immediately, roamed around the Capital, and contacted the fake physician through a beggar child who made a living running small errands.
The next day. Helga was sprawled out in her room, letting out deep sighs one after another as she rested.
Normally, in the afternoon, she would spend her time inspecting the household or nitpicking and harassing the maids for no particular reason, doing this and that in her own way.
That she was lying around like this today was none other than because of Gerald.
The series of incidents that had recently struck House Lansval had been shocking, but more than anything, what truly shook her was her son’s attitude in treating his own mother like garbage.
“How did I raise him?! After taking such careful care of him and comforting him right by his side, he treats his own mother like that just because his body hurts? What is he, not even a teenager anymore?!”
Because his parents had raised him by doing nothing but shielding him, Gerald had failed to receive the preventive inoculation against hardship through appropriate experiences during his teenage years.
As a result, now, faced with the first great storm of his life, he could only flounder, not knowing what to do. Yet Helga didn’t consider her own fault in it at all.
“It’s truly disappointing… Raising a child is all for nothing.”
She had done nothing but endure and devote herself for her son, yet she couldn’t understand how things had ended up in such a pitiful state.
With the feeling of having been betrayed by the son she loved, it was as if a searing mass of fire was surging up again and again inside her chest. Sorrow and resentment filled her heart.
“Haah… My life, I lived it for nothing.”
While lashing out at innocent family members when one was driven to the edge of a cliff wasn’t good behavior, it was also not an uncommon occurrence in reality.
If a family member were placed in such a situation, it would be understandable for those around them to excuse it once or twice.
However, what she loved wasn’t the real Gerald, but the image of a good son that existed only inside her own head.
Helga let out a long sigh and lamented.
“Huuh… I clearly raised my Gery to be gentle and delicate, like a baby angel… How did he end up becoming this broken?”
Moreover, the love and affection she had for him weren’t solely because he was her son.
