Chapter 94: The Weeping Woman (Part 4)
Rey cracked his eyes open to check his current location.
A dim corridor.
A view that swayed slightly up and down.
Thud─ thud─ thud─
Four pairs of footsteps echoed from directly below.
He was currently being carried somewhere by children.
...Where are they taking me?
Rey memorized the path while observing his surroundings.
After passing through numerous corridors and corners─
Thud.
The children’s footsteps halted.
At a room at the hallway’s end, they carefully laid Rey on a bed before leaving.
Creeeak─ thud.
"......"
Rey quietly opened his eyes and first checked Philip and Veronica’s locations.
Through binding magic, he sensed their presence in separate rooms nearby.
Their slight movements within a fixed radius suggested they were inspecting their surroundings.
Swish.
Rey propped himself up to examine his own room.
Desk, bed, table, wardrobe─
An elegantly furnished space. Yet all the furniture was smaller than standard size, as if crafted for children.
And another peculiarity─
Denain.
The missing gang leader sat slumped in a chair before the desk. Only his back was visible, his faint breathing indicating he was asleep.
Tap── tap──
Just as Rey tried to rise, footsteps approached. He quickly lay back down and squinted.
Creeeeak── thud.
Though the small window left the room dim, he recognized the entering figure─
Madam Lenia.
After a brief glance at Rey, she turned to Denain and conjured a faint orb of light in her palm.
"—No... sixteen... can’t be... my age..."
Her murmured words held faint confusion and worry, too quiet to fully discern.
Dismissing the light, she pinched the red gemstone on her necklace.
Huuuum──
The gem began emitting a soft crimson glow.
A charging stone. The mana stored in that gem is unmistakable.
Another clue supporting her ties to Mercrad’s organization. But the gem’s effects didn’t end there─
Emotions pooled in Denain’s vessel began draining into the gem. His vessel soon dried up like a drought-stricken pond.
Huuuum──
The gem pulsed stronger, its red light seeping into Denain’s body before vanishing. Darkness reclaimed the room.
Tap─ tap─
At approaching footsteps, Rey shut his eyes. Light soon pierced his eyelids, followed by a choked whisper:
"I’ve been waiting, my son. This time... Mother will protect you."
Madam Lenia activated her necklace again but froze.
"...?"
No matter how long she waited, the gem’s light refused to intensify. No crimson tendrils reached for the boy named Rey.
It made sense─ his vessel held no emotions to absorb.
Why? This never happened with the others...
Unaware of this, the woman could only panic.
"...!"
A chilling sensation engulfed her. Instinctively teleporting, she reappeared several steps away.
Swish!
A hand sliced through the air where her necklace had been.
"Did you use that to turn children into puppets?"
Rey rose from the bed, fireballs swirling around him. If she was truly Mercrad’s agent, seizing that charging stone took priority─ though he’d failed this time.
Didn’t expect her to react to an ambush that fast.
Impossible without extensive combat experience─ further confirming his suspicions.
Fwoosh!
Crimson flames illuminated both faces.
"H-how are you awake?"
"What is that necklace?"
"I-I didn’t mean..."
"What were you planning by doing this to children?"
"I-I meant no harm... it was all for them..."
Rey tilted his head.
Mercrad agents are supposed to be highly aggressive, yet Lenia hasn’t attacked. She retreats like a cornered criminal, her vessel devoid of hostility. Instead, she’s unraveling─ rage, sorrow, and regret churn violently inside. A powder keg ready to explode.
His earlier doubt resurfaced:
Why haven’t those pent-up emotions burst? Ah.
He realized─ the gem’s red glow encased her vessel, suppressing outbursts. At this rate...
Her vessel will shatter. Like Walter’s.
Though Walter’s emotions had accumulated faster than they could dissipate, the explosive result would be identical.
To get answers, I need to stabilize her emotions first─
Thunk. Click.
Madam Lenia’s retreating back hit a wall switch.
Bzzzt─
Flickering lights greeted him.
Bzzzt─ bzzzt─
The damaged circuitry of long-neglected fixtures. Their precarious flickering steadied abruptly before surging with violent intensity.
Bzzzt─! Bzzzt─! Bzzzzt─!
The light flickered like madness.
An unceasing dance of illumination in his vision.
Light and darkness rampaged through the room, as if trying to tear out each other’s throats.
Then—
Pop!
His vision flooded with light.
Through Rey’s narrowed eyes, the first thing he saw was Lady Renia, her face turning deathly pale.
“Ah, aah…”
Her pupils were fixed on the lamp’s blinding white glow.
Her usually kind eyes had been dyed with deep terror,
and lips that once traced elegance now trembled violently under overwhelming fear.
“Aah… ah, aah…”
Visions reflected in her eyes—
the forms of old enemies shattering windows to invade a lit room that night,
the sight of young kin mercilessly slaughtered beneath their blades.
“Aaaaaahhh──!!!”
Lady Renia clutched her head and collapsed to the floor.
Crash! Shatter!
At her piercing scream, windows exploded into fragments as picture frames and vases rattled violently before falling.
Rey instinctively stepped back.
“Aaaaahhh──! D-don’t come near! You demon! M-my son! Don’t you dare touch my son!”
Crack!
A fissure split Rey’s reflexively conjured barrier.
Lady Renia’s screams sharpened, creating the illusion of the building itself shaking.
“……”
No—not an illusion.
Snap!
Not unless he imagined the debris now falling from cracking walls and ceiling.
‘…Magic. Voice-based.’
With every scream, mana surged violently through Lady Renia’s circuits.
The emotions in her vessel raged wildly, resonating with her shrieks,
yet remained contained by the red gem’s suppression.
“Aahh─!! Aaaaahhh──!!”
The surroundings trembled as if struck by an earthquake.
He needed to stop the magic first.
As this thought crossed his mind—
“D-don’t come! Stay away!”
Lady Renia’s terrified form began distorting.
Where she vanished, mana ripples lingered—identical ones soon detected from the mansion’s top floor.
‘Teleportation magic. She fled.’
Should he have tried another method to calm her?
Soothing others’ emotions wasn’t something he was accustomed to anyway.
Rey gazed toward the fourth floor’s lingering mana ripples,
having already analyzed the spell’s color and activation principles from one glance.
‘Should I pursue?’
His internal mana couldn’t facilitate proper tracing,
but ambient mana could suffice—until a voice suddenly echoed in his mind:
『Never use ambient mana! Continuous use causes mana poisoning! Only use purified circuit mana!』
Truthfully, it wouldn’t be bad—
confessing to Veronica later would let him witness
that breathtaking white sun manifestation in her vessel when she worried over him…
“……”
Yet he didn’t want to.
…Why?
The boy who always ascribed logic to every action and thought found this reluctance profoundly confusing.
After contemplation, he convinced himself:
It was aversion to potential mana poisoning;
and without knowing how to calm Lady Renia, chasing alone was meaningless.
‘Destroying the necklace would release her emotions,’
but the necklace was an artifact he needed to examine closely—destruction remained a last resort.
‘Aaaahhh──! Aaaaahhh──!’
The mansion continued shaking violently under relentless screams. First—find what triggered her rampage.
Rey swiftly scanned the room.
Clink.
He retrieved a picture frame from the glass shards.
The palm-sized photo showed a younger Lady Renia smiling with a 6-7-year-old boy.
Focusing on the child’s face, he noted:
‘Looks like me.’
Not identical, but similar enough to explain their constant stares at the bookstore and mansion.
Thud—
“This is…”
Next, he found an old diary in the desk drawer.
Flipping through pages revealed clumsy handwriting chronicling a boy named Joshua’s joyful moments with his mother:
studying together,
learning magic together,
eating together,
sleeping together…
The entries abruptly stopped midway.
No forewarning.
The final date was ten years prior.
‘If the photo boy is the diary’s author, aged ~6 then…’
He’d be ~16 now—yet no such boy existed here.
Flipping further, Rey discovered:
“Mom, I’m sorry.”
“I couldn’t protect you.”
The pages bore dried tear stains.
Securing the diary and photo, Rey suddenly dodged—
Whoosh─! Crash─!
Regaining posture, he found Denain behind the split desk, gripping a broken chair leg.
“Youuu─! How dare you threaten milady?! I’ll kill you─!”
Denain—
outwardly normal: focused eyes, clear speech.
Yet…
‘No emotions.’
His vessel held none, despite his rage-fueled act.
A burning question arose as Rey wondered:
Just what are you people?
