Chapter 240: The Mist-Shrouded Mysterious Person

* * *

Tonight's dinner is Mekena soup.

Mekena is a large beast with yellow and black mottled patterns, three pairs of legs, and two pairs of wings.

However, its nature is gentle, and it is kept as livestock instead of cattle in the areas around the Naganahate Kingdom.

And Mekena soup is a traditional dish passed down in this region, made by simmering thinly sliced various root vegetables in Mekena milk to make them easy to cook through.

It's a favorite of most children, and Rana's son Ikeranjel is no exception, loving the sweet and rich taste of this soup.

...Or at least, that's how it should be.

After happily bringing the soup placed in front of him to his mouth, Ikeranjel... tilted his head.

"Hey, Mama... today's soup somehow doesn't taste good...?"

And he said such a thing.

"What...?"

Rana was serving soup from the pot onto her plate while listening to her son's complaint with her back turned.

She hurriedly sat down at the dining table, scooped up a spoonful of soup, and brought it to her mouth.

Her husband Parirot hasn't come home yet, but the winter sky, which darkens early, is already pitch black.

Naturally, magic lamps are lit inside the room, and in their light, the fat of the Topopolock meat floating in the light yellow soup sparkles.

There's no problem with its appearance.

"...Oh my, sorry, it seems I forgot to add salt."

"Whaaaat?"

But there was a problem with the taste.

Rana, who noticed the problem after taking a bite, hurriedly stood up, brought the seasonings from the kitchen, and sprinkled them into her son's and her own soup.

"There! Now it's fine!"

"Eh... how sloppy!"

Ikeranjel was smiling even while complaining.

And while still smiling, he brought the soup to his mouth... and furrowed his brows in confusion.

"Mama... what you just sprinkled, it's probably sugar, not salt...?"

"Oh my...?"

"Hey, Mama, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

Somehow, she seems absentminded, different from usual.

If you look closely, her complexion is also poor.

If she shows such a state, even her young son should be able to understand his mother's poor condition.

"There's no such thing."

"You told me not to lie, right, Mama?"

"......"

Rana stopped trying to keep up a smile and sighed.

She felt pathetic being worried about by her son, who is so young.

"If there's something troubling you, tell me, okay? If it's something I can do, I'll do anything!"

"There's nothing troubling me. Just... there's something on my mind, but..."

"What? What?"

Seeing her son listening to her with a look of great curiosity rather than worry for his mother, Rana slightly regretted saying too much.

But at this point, saying "Never mind, it's nothing" wouldn't convince her son.

So, Rana decided to ask Ikeranjel directly.

About the rumor of the cursed child spreading among the children.

* * *

"The rumor of the cursed child? Of course, I know about it too."

When his mother Rana asked about the rumor with a somewhat anxious look, her son Ikeranjel answered with a puzzled face.

On the other hand, Rana's heart beat loudly with a thump, and she swallowed with a small gulp.

"Let's see, the first one to find that cursed child was... if I remember correctly, Kappitetron from the dried fish shop."

"Umm... that round, short-haired kid?"

"Yes, yes!"

And Ikeranjel began to proudly tell the details of the rumor.

"On that day, after school ended, Kappi... went home once and then headed to the playground... while chewing on Sakketoba."

Sakke is a medium-sized fish monster, and Toba refers to its dried form.

Sakke is known to engage in intense survival competition with its own kind from the moment they are born, and it is said that out of the hundreds of thousands of siblings, only one can claim the river where it was born as its territory.

The young fish that lose the territorial dispute go down from the river to the sea and accumulate strength there.

A few years later, the physically and mentally grown-up Sakke form a gang and swim upstream to their hometown river.

To take revenge on... the master of the territory who drove them out.

Well, that aside.

"There, Kappi... encountered her. That... cursed child, a girl."

Ikeranjel lowered his voice and told the rumor with a serious face.

"The cursed child 'girl'."

Hearing those words, Rana's heartbeat quickened.

"Because she's a cursed child, she naturally has black hair and black eyes."

Her body trembles.

"Her skin is as white as snow, and her eyes are slightly upturned."

She can't stop the cold sweat.

"She was completely... a Dark Spiky Rock Man..."

"...Excuse me?"

Rana unintentionally let out a dumbfounded voice at the nonsensical word that suddenly came out of her son's mouth.

"Dark Spiky Rock Man...?"

"No, I don't know the details either!? But Kappi and the others who saw her always say that's how she looked! They say they have no choice but to call her that because of her appearance!... Anyway!"

With a cough to clear his throat, Ikeranjel hurriedly brought the story back on track.

"She suddenly appeared in the middle of the road, stood in front of Kappi who was walking alone, pointed at the bag of Sakketoba, and said... 'Give me that.'"

Ikeranjel spoke slowly at times, quickly at others, sometimes in a small voice, sometimes in a loud voice, adding tension to liven up the story.

His good storytelling skills were probably similar to his father Parirot's.

"Kappi, frightened by her uncanny atmosphere, tremblingly handed over the Sakketoba along with the bag. That cursed child nodded without changing her expression, and in return, she handed Kappi a beautiful... inedible churro, and disappeared."

...Inedible churro?

If it's inedible, isn't it not a churro in the first place?

"Kappi's story ends here. But there's a continuation to this story, you know?"

Ignoring Rana's thoughts that were gradually becoming confused, Ikeranjel continued the story.

"Gougindatz, the leader of the kids who heard this story from Kappi, made fun of Kappi. He said, 'Don't be scared of some cursed child!' And Gougin walked around the town with a lot of snacks. It seems he thought he would lure out that cursed child and bully her."

Gougin is quite a confident and violent person.

Rana also knew the boy well since he came up as a topic of conversation at home in a bad way.

"Then, the cursed child appeared in front of Gougin as well. And pointing at the bag of snacks, she said, 'Give me that.' But Gougin ate the snacks in front of the cursed child while mocking her. 'Who would give them to a cursed child like you! Die! Disappear! Idiot!' He cursed her with foul language."

If it's Gougin, he would certainly say something like that.

He is the son of the richest man in town and acts arrogantly, borrowing his parents' authority.

"Then, the next moment! The cursed child's atmosphere completely changed, and she started emitting a... terribly, frighteningly gruesome aura!"

"A gruesome... aura!?"

"Yes... and along with that, something like a black mist also... gushed out from the cursed child's body..."

(At that point, isn't she no longer human but a monster or something!?)

"Anyway, just being exposed to that aura made Gougin's legs give out, and he couldn't stand. He was carried home by his followers... and there, perhaps because the tension broke, he apparently fainted. And since then, Gougin has become unable to go to the bathroom alone at night!"

Ikeranjel's story ended after continuing with a few more examples of children who encountered that cursed child.

After hearing everything, Rana said,

"...Hey, Ike."

"What?"

Rana looked at Ikeranjel straight with a serious face.

"I wanted to hear rumors, not silly ghost stories..."

"No, this is the rumor about the cursed child!"

Ikeranjel was indignant.

* * *

Now, after hearing the rumor of the cursed child from her son, Rana felt a little relieved.

The reason being, that rumor was so absurd that she could judge it was definitely a made-up story by the children.

Having a strange appearance and black mist gushing out from the body?

There's no way such a mysterious person exists.

In the first place, if there was such a suspicious person, the guards would come flying before they could contact the children and catch them.

And in this cold season, it's not realistic for a cursed child to drift into this town from somewhere in the first place.

It's just as Belasato said.

This is just a silly rumor.

It's the same kind of story as seeing a flying earthworm or something like that.

Rana let out a sigh of relief, scooped up a spoonful of soup, and brought it to her mouth.

"Hey, Mama... why were you concerned about this rumor?"

Ikeranjel tilted his head and asked while watching his mother's behavior.

"Hmm... no reason. I just thought it was a bit ominous, that's all. There's no deep meaning."

While saying that, Rana brought the soup to her mouth one spoonful after another.

Although she had a smile on her face, she kept looking down at the table, never trying to make eye contact with Ikeranjel.

Ikeranjel felt something off about this completely unconscious behavior of Rana's.

He had never seen his mother like this before.

That's why he, who was perceptive for his age, noticed it.

His mother was hiding something.

"Hey, Mama... are you hurting somewhere?"

Upon receiving that question from her son, Rana trembled once with a start, stopped moving, then slowly lifted her face and finally looked at her son with a troubled smile.

Her son put the spoon on the soup plate, lowered his eyebrows, and looked at Rana with a frowning mouth.

She made him worry.

Rana was ashamed of herself.

"Well, I heard that a cursed child might be in this town. Of course I would feel uneasy, right? But that's all. There's nothing for you to worry about."

Rana said that to Ikeranjel gently with a smile, but he wasn't convinced just by those words.

He had to do something about whatever was troubling his beloved Mama, as a man.

The flame of justice began to burn in his heart.

That's why he thumped his chest and declared with full confidence,

"Hey, Mama! If you're scared and anxious about the cursed child, I'll defeat them for you! After all, I'm going to be an adventurer in the future!"

"STOP IT!!!"

Rana's response to that was a sudden shout.

His mother's loud voice that he had never heard before.

His mother's desperate, glaring expression that he had never seen before.

Upon receiving that, Ikeranjel instinctively drew back a little and held his breath.

"Hey, please. Please... don't do anything strange..."

Rana slowly stood up, wobbly approached Ikeranjel... and hugged him tightly.

"A cursed child is a very ominous thing... if you get involved with them, you'll become unhappy...! Absolutely, absolutely, even if that rumor turns out to be a made-up story... absolutely, don't get involved."

Rana's voice, quietly and slowly speaking to Ikeranjel, was trembling.

Because he was being hugged tightly, Ikeranjel couldn't see his mother's face.

But there were probably tears in her eyes.

He could tell.

And that's why he couldn't forgive it.

The cursed child who made his mother this anxious.

Therefore, his mother's words didn't reach her son.

For some reason, his mother seemed to think the rumor of the cursed child was a made-up story, but that wasn't the case.

The cursed child exists.

Several of his friends have seen that cursed child.

Contrary to his mother's plea, Ikeranjel's determination was set.

He would remove his mother's unease.

He would defeat the cursed child.

In his young heart, the flame of justice continued to burn bright red.