Chapter 39

Chapter 39 – Laria Lepis (2)

A banquet was held. It was to celebrate Eris’s birthday. Generally, birthday banquets were held once the age of twelve was over. However, even as Lepis turned twelve, he never had a birthday banquet for him.

Although Eris was still underage, it was said that it was held without an outsider though the banquet was a banquet. Gifts and congratulations abounded.

Eris, who was being greeted, remembered his older brother, whom he had forgotten. He grew more emaciated and became ill.

After the banquet, he led his exhausted body to his room. Eris saw Lepis, who was waiting for him in front of his room. Looking at him, Lepis smiled brightly. His wrist, handing the gift, was noticeably thin, disturbing Eris’s head.

“Happy birthday.”

Eris did not like weakness. He brushed his hand harshly. The gift Lepis had prepared was thrown on the floor.

A brief silence lingered, and Lepis smiled awkwardly.

“Did… Did I do something wrong?”

He gazed at Eris with eyes that wavered aimlessly as if denying reality. Lepis grabbed his shoulder and shook it. Eris frowned at how such power came from slender wrists and pulled him away with a light gesture.

The wrists fell lightly.

“I don’t need a present from brother, you lacking child.”

Saying so, he passed Lepis, who was looking at his arm. The shoulder that he grabbed was hot, but his fingertips were cold.

“You… You became a monster, too.”

Eris, with Lepis’s muffled voice stuck in her ear, turned his head to look at him. He bent down and picked up the gift that Eris had thrown. Where did he forget the etiquette that he should not bow his back under any circumstances…?

He gazed at Lepis pathetically.

“Haa… Look at you now. How lacking.”

Eris approached the crying Lepis.

With no compassion, he felt nothing even as Lepis cried. He just found an example. He looked for the standard. He looked at Lepis, who was sixteen years old and looked shorter than him.

“…This place is crazy.”

“Huh? I think it’s brother who doesn’t fit in with our family’s dignity that is crazy.”

Eris ridiculed his remarks, which he would normally have ignored. He didn’t know why he was acting so impulsively. Lepis, who had already stopped crying, passed him.

A few days passed after that. Lepis was dead.

Eris looked at Lepis, who had become a cold corpse. Medicines were scattered around him. Even though he died, his funeral was not held and there were no common tributes.

Verica clicked her tongue with a cold gaze.

“It’s a shame I didn’t report the birth of the second child. It must have been a curse.”

Eris stared at Verica as she gently stroked his hair.

“Isn’t that right, Lepis?”

She called Eris the name of the dead Lepis. As she told her that she didn’t register the birth, she called him Lepis.

Eris wasn’t stupid enough to not understand.

“You must eat better than that. You’re sixteen, so why are you so small?”

“…Yes, mother.”

“You need to exercise right now.”

“Yes, mother.”

That day, Eris wore the same clothes that Lepis wore. The clothes fit just like they were tailored for him.

He was appalled. Did he think that he and his brother was a family? Eris seemed to know the answer somehow, even if he didn’t ask, and… he understood why Lepis told him about becoming a monster. He was a monster.

In his own brother’s death, even in Lepis’ death, he felt nothing.

Verica looked at Lepis, withdrawn in front of her. Gear was not an emotion allowed for him. She approached Lepis slowly and met his gaze.

“Are you scared of me?”

He was educated not to fear when the blade of death entered his neck. Lepis also wanted to erase unnecessary emotions, just as he had forgotten the feeling of compassion. He avoided her gaze without realizing it.

His hands trembled at the unfamiliar fear.

“You will need education.”

Verica’s hand gently stroked Lepis’ cheek. That night Verica and Lepis rode their carriage to Astrian. Curious about her mother’s family he was seeing for the first time, and for a moment, she led him down to the basement.

“Mother! I was wrong.”

Lepis was locked up in a warehouse. He knocked on the warehouse door to break it. It was a dark space with no light coming in. His delicate hands were torn as pain and fear corroded his brain.

It was dark, he couldn’t see anything.

It was so dark that he couldn’t even see his hands. It was a room for torturing prisoners, created in an era of magic. Darkness where they can’t see anything. Lepis was afraid. He screamed. It felt strange to touch something, but he couldn’t see it.

He remembered his dead brother. He was like a dead person.

“AAAHH! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!”

He screamed in monstrous horror, screaming even while crying. Then, after laughing for a while, he resigned and gave up acting. How much time had passed? No, he didn’t even notice how many days had passed.

There was the sound of a door opening with a creaking sound. He saw a hand that he could feel but couldn’t see.

Lepis stared blankly at the hand.

“It took 30 minutes just to calm down.”

Verica stared at Lepis with cold eyes.

Several times after that, he was locked up in that dark room. He learned that she would take him out of the room if he was quiet. Even though he knew that, the first few times he cried. Lepis looked at Verica, looking down at him pathetically, and bit his lip.

He would be thrown away. She would have another child.

Lepis was better than his older brother, so she raised him. He knew she would abandon him when a better child was born.

The next moment, he grabbed the hem of Verica’s skirt.

“…I’ll do, I’ll do… I’ll do better, mother.”

“…I like your sense.”

Lepis had not gone into the room and screamed since that day.

After that, the sadistic education continued. As the whip swung in front of him, he reflexively closed his eyes. He felt a tingling pain in his back. Several more times after that. He shouldn’t have blinked his eyes at the swinging whip.

He bit his lip.

Lepis was eighteen. Actual age fourteen.

He did not scream, despite the pain of the flesh being ripped. The moment he screamed, he knew he was going to be whipped again. Lepis bit his lip. There was no day when his body was good.

He was educated in politics, economics, academia, and swordsmanship by day, and was trained to kill emotions by night. As he took away fear, removed compassion, and killed sympathy, sorrow, and anger, he was reduced to the need for sleep, appetite, and s*x, the human needs. Still, she left behind a feeling of disgust.

Verica didn’t want her child to make friends with people who were inferior to him. She whispered to Lepis.

“Kill him.”

He was holding a dagger as she sat across on a chair and gazed at him. In front of Lepis, a young child resembling his dead brother was standing and looking at him.

“Please… Please, save me.”

The child crawled under his feet. Lepis stared at the child indifferently and stabbed him to death. He didn’t feel anything at all, even with the strange sensation of cutting through skin. He couldn’t feel anything.

Verica looked up at him with cold eyes. She was satisfied.

It was exactly the look she wanted.

“Now, you have become quite useful.”

She patted Lepis on the shoulder. Now, his physique looked like his age. He ate good food and exercised. Verica thought it was worth caring a little bit.

“I’m going to send you to the academy. Prove your skills there.”

Lepis nodded his head mechanically.

Verica thought it was time for her to publicize the masterpiece she had created to the world.

Don’t talk to the child of vulgar blood.

It was a sarcastic remark while looking at Lepis.

The academy students hoped that he would be angry when they insulted him. When he was angry, or weeping, they would try to demean him even more. However, Lepis didn’t even respond to their words.

The children, who had initially ridiculed him, did not bother him, perhaps losing interest when Lepis did not respond. They had no particular reason for harassing or for stopping bullying him. They simply were bothered by him coming from Duchy Astrian.

The results of the first test were posted on the bulletin board.

It was an unprecedented score. Lepis thought it was an obvious result. Those who mocked him shut their mouths. So, he got perfect marks in both exams in the first semester. The class was easier than expected.

It was at a low level that was far below what he had normally studied. This result was obvious.

In the second semester of his first year, he made a tight schedule and took twice the eighteen credits that ordinary students take, regardless if the classes were in the evening or in the early morning. Still, he did not miss a perfect score in all subjects.

At first, the students who had been clamoring for an investigation into what he had done, shut up when they saw their overwhelming difference with Lepis. They called him the academy monster. Lepis rejected all those who approached him out of curiosity, regardless of gender.

Those who were rejected by him heard the same thing.

—I don’t have enough time to study.

So, he attended his five-year academy for only two and a half years before graduating. He was actually the youngest to receive a diploma at four years younger than his known age.

Verica was very sorry for that.

“A diploma at the age of twenty-one… If they had known that you were originally seventeen years old, it would have been even more crazy. It’s a pity.”

She gazed at him with a curious expression. He hid his callused hands behind his back. Calluses were not an honorable trophy for her, who wanted the best results with little effort.

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