***
Samuel's tightly covered ears caught his mother's last words.
Breaking his promise to his mother, Samuel began to observe the situation through the crack in the closet.
And.
Creak.
As the door opened, two human males revealed themselves.
The humans each held the corpses of the servants whose throats had been slit.
Their eyeballs had been gouged out, and their faces had been trampled on, indicating that they had resisted until the end.
The humans threw their necks in front of his mother.
His mother's face turned blue.
At that moment, unfamiliar yet familiar memories came flooding back.
Samuel knew the owners of those necks.
They were the kind and warm people who had treated him like a younger brother.
And yet, those people were now lying there with their necks cut, their eyes wide open in resentment.
Gulp.
Samuel clamped his mouth shut, trying not to make a sound.
His bloodshot eyes took in the sight of his mother.
"You, you bastards...!"
His mother tried to attack the humans with her magic, but.
It was not enough.
Stab-.
With a single thrust of his sword, the human pierced his mother's abdomen.
Aside from her ability to use magic, his mother possessed a frail body similar in strength to that of other ordinary demons.
She was no match for the human army that had attacked the Seven Deadly Sins.
Such a person could never have been the opponent of the human army that attacked the Seven Deadly Sins.
Thud.
The human who had trampled on Mother’s new form, which had collapsed to the floor, snickered.
“The Lord was quite strong, but compared to him, the Lady is ridiculously weak? It’s just as you said.”
Thud, thud.
The human burst into laughter as if something was funny and patted the back of a woman standing behind him.
That woman was a half-demon.
Moreover, she was a half-demon who had been taken in as a servant out of pity by Samuel’s family, who had taken pity on her as an orphan.
“Y, yes……”
She nodded in agreement with the human’s words, her body trembling in fear.
“Thanks to you, things ended quickly, so the Commander will be pleased. I’ll keep my promise and spare your life.”
“Thank you……”
The moment she nodded her head.
Crack-.
Mother’s neck burst open.
Another human standing next to her had used magic to separate Mother’s head from her body.
‘Aaah……!’
Samuel covered his mouth with both hands and groaned, shedding tears.
He wanted to tear those humans and that half-demon apart right now.
But Mother had wished for him to survive.
He couldn’t possibly do that.
The human confirmed Mother’s death and asked the half-demon again.
“So it’s all over?”
“Yes, they’re all dead now……”
“Really?”
As the half-demon hurriedly bowed her head, the human stroked his chin as if gauging something.
Creak-.
The half-demon’s neck fell off.
That human had never intended to let the half-demon live in the first place.
“I said I’d let you go, not that I’d spare your life, so don’t feel wronged.”
Groan.
The human muttered as he watched the half-demon’s head roll on the ground.
Thud.
And that head stopped at the closet where Samuel was hiding.
Why?
The half-demon’s eyes were looking at Samuel.
With regret, sorrow, and affection.
“……”
Samuel couldn’t understand the meaning behind that expression.
Why was she making such an expression when she had betrayed him and Mother?
“Let’s go then.”
And so, the humans left with only Mother’s head, leaving the corpses behind.
That was when.
“Ah, wait a minute.”
The human mage who had stopped walking looked back.
His gaze was directed at the closet where Samuel was hiding.
Samuel’s shoulders trembled.
Perhaps he had discovered that he was hiding.
As Samuel was seized with fear, the human wizard let out a snicker.
And then.
Boom-!
A huge burst of magic slammed into the room.
The human wizard realized that Samuel was in the closet and intended to bury him along with the building's wreckage.
Unable to resist the overwhelming force of the magic, Samuel could only cling tightly to his clothes.
Then, in the midst of it all.
Thud.
Samuel's head hit the wall.
His vision went black, and he rapidly lost consciousness.
……How many days passed as he slept?
Swish-.
Samuel's eyes opened.
The surroundings were in ruins.
All that remained were shattered furniture, a half-demon, and his mother's corpse.
Squirm, squirm.
Maggots swarmed over his mother and the half-demon's bodies.
Gulp-.
In the midst of that, Samuel shuddered from the terrible hunger.
“…….”
But Samuel didn't have the strength to open his mouth.
Instead of Samuel, Gluttony wriggled out of his arm,
Crunch, crunch-.
It chewed on the half-demon's maggot-infested corpse.
And began to chew on his mother's headless body.
To survive.
To get revenge on the humans.
Samuel's tearless eyes, dry with thirst, heard his mother's last words echo in his ears.
― My child, you must survive.
In the deafening silence of solitude, Samuel devoured his mother's corpse along with the maggots.
The taste made him gag, but Samuel couldn't spit it out.
As his mother had said,
He had to survive.
“…….”
As he finished his meal, a sense of fullness washed over him, and his eyes began to close.
And when he opened them again.
.
.
.
.
Click - Click -.
The sound of a clock winding back echoed.
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that was overwhelmingly dark... I had somewhat ridiculed the overzealous hatred and suffering of the demon side in my mind, but Samuel's flashback establishes how cruel this world actually is.
ReplyDeleteYeah see I never do shit like this because even if a backstory isn't fully fleshed out in a story right away, I know that most authors do at least understand that trauma is a thing.
DeleteSeems to me like it wasn’t even a war, more like a one-sided slaughter. I think the mc should apologize to Samuel, it was fine when he didn’t know what happened to his family, but now that he knows I think he should apologize.
ReplyDelete