185 – Trance
A few hours ago.
“Mr. Eli, now you realize who should be called a thief?”
Every word was clearly pronounced, and the expression “Soft” Suited it.
As if she wasn’t expecting my answer, Luna looked straight at me and added in a different tone than before.
“Don’t approach Ross any more.”
As I looked at Luna’s back as she turned around and left the waiting room, I let out a sigh of excitement at the surge of emotion in her heart.
It was an insult I hadn’t felt in a very long time. At some point, I even forgot that such feelings existed, but a disabled person who popped out of nowhere awakened them. And in a very, very unpleasant way.
The arrogant look on his face as if he were a winner, his soft voice as if he were teaching, and the way he pointed out the subject without knowing the subject made me want to teach him an unforgettable lesson.
… Anyway, the world doesn’t let the talent of genius rot.
He sighed as if letting out his emotions and leaned back. The locker in the waiting room, made of cold metal, took away the body heat from his excited skin. The feeling of coolness on the nape of my neck makes my head feel clean.
The discomfort has already faded. There is nothing more stupid than being swayed by those emotions.
This is not to say that this has never happened before. In the past, there were many people who had their eyes on the “Perfect friend” I worked hard to create.
Seeing how close I am to Ross, maybe it’s because of my primal instinct to steal it. There were children who approached Ross in a friendly way.
What no one paid attention to when it wasn’t mine… He judged that he was worthy of being friends just because he became mine.
But I had no bad taste in sharing my things with others. Ross had to remain the perfect friend to me, and he didn’t need any other friends to do that.
I didn’t even have to make a plan. We were young That means it’s time to believe in what you can see rather than what you think. I instinctively know what to do… He knew better than anyone in town.
Ross and a poor b*tch insisted on my suggestion to go pick raspberries. She pretended to be kind and spoke in a timid voice, but as she climbed the mountain, she made a lot of noise.
Ross was listening with an awkward smile… I was looking around. As expected, there were children who came looking for raspberries before us. If the discovery had been delayed a bit, it might have ripped out the noisy mouth.
Looking at us and boasting that this place has taken their place, I secretly smiled without anyone noticing.
In a situation where I was keeping an eye on a competitor who suddenly appeared, I unleashed my magic at the right timing toward the one who was ahead of me without anyone noticing.
The magical energy that flowed along the floor like the wind pierced the body of the child who was climbing the mountain. The child, who had no mana response, was thrown back by her repulsive force.
The situation happened in an instant. At the sudden scream, Ross turned to him and hurriedly tried to reach out, but a perfect response is impossible even for an adult.
Because of the steep terrain, there was a roll of debris along the way. It hit a tree and was bounced off a stone protruding from the floor. The white one-piece dress, which did not suit her, was stained with dirt and blood, torn, and changed to suit her very well.
“aaa… !!!!!”
With broken legs and scars all over the body, he screamed so much that his ears hurt.
The voice that had been annoying me just a moment ago now gave me a pleasant goose bump on my back. What should I do with this feeling? Refreshing?
The children who had been wary of us approached and looked at the place with a mixture of worry and curiosity, then turned their gaze to Ross, who reflexively reached out.
It happened at the moment when the children who were watching us were unable to see Ross and the beggar in the overgrown trees.
Ross in the eyes of children….
I couldn’t help but look like I had pushed the dirt away. As if everyone was wary of Ross, I almost burst into laughter as I surrounded myself so that no trace could be seen.
A child went down to the village and called the adults. With a careful hand, the grown-ups took the screaming ghoul back to the village.
While the boy and his parents rode in a wagon to the doctor in the next village, the villagers questioned the children about what had happened.
It is often the case that children get hurt playing dangerous pranks, but this time the degree of injury was severe. If it wasn’t your mistake, someone should be held accountable.
A child was frightened at the village chief’s stern expression for no reason and pointed at Ross.
“Hey, he pushed Rose!”
“Right, right! Suddenly, I pushed Rose down the mountain from her!”
“We saw it clearly!”
I bet you haven’t seen the direct shoving scene. If I had seen it, I wouldn’t have said that.
It was just an arbitrary guess based on what they saw later.
The tumbled thing, Ross, stretched out his hand.
Because children have a habit of blindly believing in what they see.
I looked up with a trembling heart, swept away by a very strange feeling. And I still remember the expression of Ross standing across from me so vividly that I still remember it vividly when I close my eyes.
Embarrassment, resentment, and a desperate look at not having one’s side.
Ross, with tears in his eyes, desperately insisted that he hadn’t done it.
The village chief was beaten for lying, and the children also believed in what they saw and denounced Ross.
The grown-ups who came to hear the commotion looked at Ross with cold eyes after hearing the circumstances. Ross’s mother, who arrived late, heard her story and approached me, not Ross, and asked.
“Did Ross really push?”
You shouldn’t betray your friends. You shouldn’t lie.
So I didn’t say anything.
Just….
With his head down, his eyes watering, his fingers wriggling, and his face full of conflict, not knowing how to answer, he just lifted his whale and looked at Ross.
Ironically, as if that had been the answer, Ross’ head turned with a clatter. Ross’s mother bowed down and apologized to the other adults, who clicked their tongues and muttered about her education.
But Ross insisted he didn’t until the very end. Ross, who wept over his injustice and refused to give up even after being whipped by his village chief, was eventually grabbed by his head by his mother and dragged away.
That day, the child’s screams continued to be heard from the next door. It was time for everyone to go to sleep, but the cries continued.
I gave food to Choco, who hadn’t eaten for three days because he rubbed his body against a friend who came to the house, and waited for Ross to finish his corporal punishment.
As I quietly listened to the sound of Choco hurriedly eating his food, finally, with the sound of the door opening, Ross, who had been beaten all over his body, was kicked out with not even a thread on his body.
“Well, well done. Well done…. Please send me Jibe….”
Ross knocked on the door with a voice full of tears. Hearing a call from inside the house to shut up, Ross closed his mouth and sat down sobbing.
After stroking cute Choco’s hair, I left the house with quiet steps and approached Ross.
Hearing someone approaching, Ross covered himself reflexively and met my gaze, biting his lip and avoiding his gaze.
Are you ashamed? That reaction was cute, so I moved closer to Ross.
“Oh, Odima….”
Ignoring Ross’s plea to not approach me in a small voice, I held out the rice balls I had prepared in advance.
“Ross, haven’t you had dinner?”
Ross, covered in bruises, slowly raised his head. His lips had cracked and thickened with blood scabs, and his blue eyes, swollen in the moonlight, were even prettier today. There was a convex hump protruding from his forehead, as if he had been hit with something.
I’m ashamed to be naked, but apparently he was more hungry, so Ross took the rice ball I held out with trembling hands and gobbled it up like chocolate.
“… I trust Ross.”
The hand that was eating the rice ball stopped. Ross looked at me with a face covered in runny nose and tears, as if he still had tears left to shed.
If you really believed, why didn’t you come forward? Could have asked But Ross wasn’t in his right mind right now. He has come to the point where he doubts himself due to repeated corporal punishment.
A rope thrown at me when I was struggling in the swamp of despair.
Sorrow and hostility toward parents who did not believe in what they said and children who lied about doing things they did not do were melted into my words.
“Go, thank you… thanks… friend….”
His lips were parted and his pronunciation was inaccurate because he was crying, but Ross was truly grateful to me, the only one who believed in him.
“Of course not. Are we friends?”
My answer made Ross shed even more tears.
“Me, me slowing down… Eri, Eri Puniya…. My Tin, Tingu is Eripuni in this Sesa….”
At that moment, I felt a very strange pleasure in my stomach. It wasn’t like the satisfaction I usually felt. My whole body trembled, and my brain felt like it was on fire.
I clearly felt the strange pleasure and created the most beautiful smile. Realizing that you will become addicted to this feeling.
“Yeah, that’s right. I am your only friend.”
He added as if he promised a perfect friend who only looks at himself.
“From now on, forever.”
.
.
.
I heard the sound of the door closing in my ears while I was immersed in old memories for a while. When I came to my senses, Ross, who had changed into a manly man unlike before, who was dwarf and gloomy in my memory, was approaching me.
Ross, who used to be swayed by me, now made me happy beyond satisfaction. If you expect a response of 70 points, return it to 90 points, 100 points.
Among the obvious people whose behavior is predictable, the only person who makes me happy.
An idiot who is happy with the joy of being off the leash for a while now, but doesn’t realize that he hasn’t been able to get out of the fence he’s set up solidly for so long.
Ecstatically, with a voice so expressive and a smile I hadn’t seen before, Ross looked at me and asked.
“Do you want to do something bad with me?”
At that question, my lower stomach wriggled again.