Chapter 300

Hermann came home much later than usual.

He had drunk so much that his eyes were completely glazed, and not just his mouth but his entire front was soaked.

“Haah… haah… Where is this brat…?”

His breathing was rough, his face flushed red, and cold sweat dripped down. Anyone could sense something dangerous, and it was a situation where one would instinctively avoid being noticed.

“Welcome back, Father.”

However, Damien calmly walked into the living room and looked up at his father with an expressionless face. The idea of hiding never crossed his mind. When Hermann was drunk, he would shout and break things if Damien didn’t respond.

Whether he answered or hid, being discovered was the same, and whether he got beaten or not depended on Hermann’s mood that day. Either way, it would hurt the same, so hiding was pointless. Considering the broken items that would need to be replaced later, it was just inefficient.

To begin with, Damien didn’t even know why he should hide. To the boy, who couldn’t read emotions like agitation or desperation, Hermann just looked tired.

The inability to understand emotions led to a lack of crisis awareness. Running away or hiding would have been better. At least for today.

“You brat, you saw it, didn’t you…?”

Hermann’s face twisted violently.

——-

Hermann glared at Damien, who was staring back at him with a mask-like, eerie expression.

After happily finishing his business with Eila and leaving her house, he had been shocked to find footprints by the window. His heart sank.

His breath quickened, and cold sweat poured down. If the villagers found out that he had abandoned his sick wife and committed adultery with another man’s wife, both of them could be stoned to death.

No, even before that, he might become the target of Diter’s rage. He had no confidence in facing a man who hunted bears.

‘Wait, wait…! These footprints… they’re still child-sized…?’

If that was the case, it was better than being caught by an adult. Children were less likely to understand what they had seen.

However, he couldn’t completely relax. Kids were known to have loose lips, and they might blabber about what they saw without even understanding it.

Feeling like he was taking steps toward the gallows, Hermann slowly followed the child’s footprints.

‘At the very least, I need to know who it is. And then…’

And then what?

All sorts of gruesome thoughts jumbled together in his mind.

Persuasion. Threats. Silencing. Corpses. The river. The forest. Animals. Burial. Disappearance.

Each thought was too horrifying to speak aloud, but Hermann, cornered as he was, had no other choice. Even if he coaxed or threatened to keep their mouth shut, it wouldn’t last long.

As his gaze shifted from panic to malice, the footprints he had been following abruptly stopped in front of someone’s house. Finally discovering the identity of the witness, Hermann… stood there silently for a long time.

Staring blankly at the closed gate of his own house. Eventually, instead of entering, Hermann turned and headed for the tavern. He couldn’t bear it without getting drunk.

And now, back to the present.

“What are you talking about…? Are you referring to Aunt Eila?”

Damien looked straight at him and asked back. How must Damien’s expression have seemed to Hermann? A completely calm tone, an expressionless face devoid of any emotion. As if mocking him.

The alcohol-fueled rage in Hermann’s mind ignited.

“You monster brat, how dare you mock me-!”

The next moment, his right foot slammed into the boy’s chest.

——–

“Guh…!”

Damien felt his vision go white for a moment. The murderous violence he had never experienced before made even his thoughts shatter in agony.

The boy flew like a ball and crashed mercilessly into the corner of the living room.

‘Ah, it’s broken…!’

His head spun, and his vision alternated between red and black. Confusion and pain tangled together, leaving him unable to form any words.

“Cough, cough!”

The blood mixed with his labored cough. A full-powered kick from an adult man. The only reason he wasn’t killed instantly was due to his natural toughness and reflexively bending his upper body backward.

But he was already severely injured.

“Father…? Why…?”

The question slipped out reflexively. Hermann, who had taken a step back in shock upon realizing what he had done, reflexively looked at Damien’s face.

The eyes shedding bloody tears were filled only with pain and confusion. No anger, no fear, not even bewilderment… a monstrous face.

Even though he had seen that face for ten years, it was always chilling.

Fire sparked in Hermann’s eyes. The discomfort from the unfamiliarity and the long-buried anger erased his last hesitation.

“Who are you calling Father! You monster brat!”

He kicked Damien again.

‘This thing’ couldn’t be my child. This emotionless monster.

So this must be the child of a monster that devoured my child and is mimicking it!

That’s what he always thought when he saw Damien. That brat must be a monster.

The monster that devoured what should have been his proud son in the womb. His wife’s weakened body, unable to bear another child, was undoubtedly cursed by that monster.

He had wanted to get rid of that disgusting monster brat countless times. But he couldn’t bring himself to kill it, so he drowned his irritation and resentment in alcohol.

Was it because of his wife, who desperately clung to the monster’s child? Or because he didn’t have the guts to kill a creature that looked like a child? Even Hermann himself didn’t know the reason.

But now was different. The alcohol had stripped away his self-control and conscience, and now, if he didn’t kill it, he himself would be in danger.

“After raising you for ten years, you dare threaten me? You monster brat! I should have killed you long ago! A monster pretending to be human!”

He kicked and stomped on Damien without hesitation, intent on killing him.

The relentless, chaotic violence left no room to breathe. The boy’s body began to break apart.

His thin arms snapped, and his legs bent in the opposite direction. A crimson stream of blood flowed from his torn forehead.

Unable to even scream, repeatedly crushed and shattered, Damien felt the threat to his life for the first time. Even without emotions, the instinct for survival still existed.

The wooden table flipped over, creating noise, and the wooden container of utensils spilled its contents. The violence that started in the living room had now moved to the kitchen.

And then, just moments before Damien’s life was about to end—

**”What are you doing, Hermann—!”**

A woman’s scream, as if tearing through the air. Hermann’s body froze for a moment.

Turning his head, Hermann saw his wife, her face filled with horror, lying on the floor and staring at him.

Awakened by the noise that reached her sickbed, she must have realized something was terribly wrong and crawled all the way from the bed to the kitchen.

“Emma, no. I…!”

“Have you lost your mind?! How, how could you…! Damien! Are you okay, Damien?!”

Scolding him with a face he had never seen before, his wife desperately crawled toward the bloodied monster child. It was a scene straight out of a nightmare.

At that moment, Hermann saw, for the first time, a smile appear on Damien’s face.

Perhaps it was just his imagination. His vision had been a mess for a long time due to the alcohol, rage, confusion, and anger.

But Hermann was sure of what he saw.

In the midst of the chaos, with his body drenched in blood and looking like a monster, Damien was smiling. Smiling while watching Emma desperately crawling toward him.

It was as if the monster that had bewitched his wife was mocking him… It was unbearable.

“Move aside, Emma! You’re being deceived! That’s not our child! It’s just a monster that killed our child!”

Pushing Emma aside, Hermann raised his foot toward Damien. This time, he was determined to end it for good.

“You’re the one who’s insane! What are you doing?! Damien, run, Damien—!”

Emma, screaming fiercely, desperately clung to Hermann’s leg. Where did such strength come from a dying patient? Hermann staggered for a moment.

Gritting his teeth, Hermann turned his head toward Emma.

At that moment, Damien’s survival instincts kicked in. He realized that this was his last chance to survive.

He still couldn’t understand what emotions were. He didn’t know why his mother was screaming or why his father had suddenly gone berserk.

But he didn’t like pain. For some reason, he couldn’t bear the thought of dying. Unconsciously, he thought that way.

So, Damien trusted his instincts.

Why was it? Just moments ago, his body wouldn’t move, but now it felt so fast and light.

“Let go of me…!”

Before Hermann could finish his sentence, raising his hand toward Emma—

—*Thud!*

A gray spike pierced through the back of his neck.

—

“Gah! Gah…! What the hell is this…!”

Pain like an electric current running through his spine. Hermann’s face turned pale with shock. So did Emma’s, who had braced herself for a blow.

—*Thud!*

Hermann’s legs gave out, and he fell to his knees. Gurgling sounds came from his throat as bloody foam spilled out.

“Gah, gah…!”

Hermann’s trembling hand touched his burning neck. A sharp kitchen knife, gleaming coldly, was lodged right in the center of his neck, dripping with blood.

“You… you devilish brat…!”

Though he couldn’t turn his head due to the blade piercing his neck, Hermann could guess what had happened. He felt the weight of something clinging to his back.

That monster child, with a body on the verge of death, had leaped up to the height of an adult’s head and stabbed the knife into him. And with enough force to pierce through his spine!

‘As I thought, this thing is a monster…!’

Before Hermann could say anything, Damien twisted the knife sideways and yanked it out. Losing its support, Hermann’s head tilted forward, and blood gushed out like a fountain from the severed neck.

Hermann’s blood splattered all over Damien’s already blood-soaked body. It was as if they had finally become true blood relatives only in death.

—*Splat!*

The knife, slipping from Damien’s weakened grip, fell into the crimson pool, splashing blood. Damien, having used all his strength, also collapsed, unconscious.

“Uh… uh…?”

Emma stared blankly at Hermann’s head, swaying like a pendulum. But a neck barely held together by thin skin couldn’t support the weight of a head.

Hermann’s head, torn off, rolled into Emma’s lap as she stared in shock at the sudden carnage.

“Ah… ah… ahhh….”

A moan escaped her parted lips. Slowly lowering her gaze, Emma saw—

Her husband’s face, eyes wide open and tongue bitten, now completely drenched in blood.

**”AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”**

A piercing scream echoed through the night sky.

—

“…And that’s how it happened. When the villagers came in shock, my mother lied, saying she had done it herself… Thanks to that, I barely managed to survive. It also helped that Uncle Dieter had an emergency healing potion at his house. But the shock was too much for my mother, and she didn’t last more than two months after that.”

Even as he recounted the shocking story, Damien’s voice remained calm. Meanwhile, I, the listener, was anything but calm.

…I never could have imagined there was such a backstory.

I couldn’t think of anything to say in response to such a tragic past.

They say life is a tragedy up close but a comedy from afar, but this is a tragedy even from a distance.

……I should probably stop slamming people into walls from now on.

[Except for one thing, it’s quite a touching story.]

Touching…?

Where exactly in this story is there anything touching?

The thought process of savages.

No matter how hard I try, I just can’t understand it.

Anyway.

‘One thing? What is it?’

[Even the first attack he tried, just before dying, was a leap and stab. It’s ridiculous. No matter how much I point it out, he just can’t break that habit.]

…Now that you mention it, that’s true.

That jumping attack of his, was it imprinted as an instinct since he was ten or something…?