"Mo-mother, can you sleep next to me today?"
Queen Orc rarely slept with him. Allen had forgotten the last time his mother had slept with him because it had happened so infrequently. There was still no Reig, and he was very afraid of sleeping alone this time. Allen hated the darkness because when everything went dark, the air got colder. A few blankets were not enough for Allen. The only one who could take away his real cold was his mother.
It had been a long time since he had felt warmth; almost every night when his mother left, it started to feel very cold. That's why he asked his mom to sleep with him. At least for that time.
"Okay."
Hearing his mother's answer, Allen became very excited.
"REALLY?! DO YOU REALLY WANT TO?!"
He couldn't even believe his mother had actually agreed to sleep with him. From the beginning, he didn't expect his mother to agree at all. He just wanted to let her know that he didn't like being alone.
Allen and Queen Orc lay down on the wooden frond. Allen looked at his mother and chuckled.
"What's wrong?"
"I really wanted to sleep alone with mom, but now I don't want to sleep for some reason."
Allen felt nervous, and so did Queen Orc. They didn't know what to do when they were already lying on the bed, which was supposed to be for sleeping.
"Never mind, just sleep."
Queen Orc turned her body in the opposite direction from Allen. Now Queen Orc slept with her back to Allen. Allen once again smiled widely. For him, it was the happiest moment of his life. There was nothing else he wanted more than those moments.
Allen touched Queen Orc's back. Then he slept on his side, facing the Queen Orc's back.
"It's so warm..."
Allen tried to remember everything he felt at that moment.
"The smell of sweat, iron, leather armor, monster blood, and human blood... This is the smell of mother..."
He didn't like the smell, but because he had smelled it so many times, he got used to it and started to like it because it was his mother's smell...
Slowly... Allen closed his eyes and fell asleep.
The queen orc, who already knew Allen was asleep, tried to leave. Monsters didn't like being in that room, so Queen Orc wanted to move to sleep outside.
-SET
Allen, who was sleeping, grabbed Queen Orc's hand. Queen looked at the sleeping Allen. In his sleep, Allen was delirious.
"Don't go anywhere... mother..." there was a little water coming out of his closed eyes.
"I have to go."
Queen Orc slowly let go of Allen's hand and left the room.
Meanwhile, Allen's soul fragment shouted for the Queen Orc, who went to the white light outside the room.
"MOTHER! DON'T GO!!! I PLEASE! STAY HERE WITH ME!"
Queen Orc looked behind, seeing Allen's soul. Then she smile.
"Allen, don't hate humans, because you're also a human"
Queen Orc keeps walking outside the door.
"MOTHEEER!!!!"
...
...
...
Allen woke up from his dream with water coming out of his eyes.
He woke up in a small but tall room, about 10 meters high. The room had a stairway to go up, leading to a metal door. It was probably in some underground jail. There were traces of blood on the walls.
The light that shone into the room came from the air vent at the very top of the wall.
Around Allen, only wooden chairs and straws are scattered on the floor. He had been in the room for seven days. All he did was cry during those seven days, remembering his mother. Then every time he fell asleep, he dreamed of his mother. Now she was tired of crying; his eyes were starting to swell because crying was all he had done for the past seven days. Yes, that's it; he didn't eat anything; no one entered the room, and inside that, he ate only insects that happened to pass by.
The room was so cold Allen constantly shivered because of it. Luckily, he had a long black scarf that he found on the first night in this room. Feeling how warm the scarf was, Allen roughly knew who gave the scarf, more precisely, what the scarf was.
'Reig, thank you,' Allen thought.
Allen could feel it. Reig's mana was connected to him, but that mana was currently locked, so he couldn't do much. And for that reason, Reig never talks. Because of his fight last time, Reig could no longer emerge from Allen's shadow, so at least Reig turned himself into a scarf to keep him warm.
"Don't hate humans, because you're human too," Those were his mother's last words.
But strangely, he couldn't remember when his mother had said that, even though he saw how her life had ended in his hands.
"Why... why would mom say something like that? It was humans who killed you and ruined our lives,"
The light in Allen's eyes disappeared. He no longer cared about anything or what had happened to him.
-KLICK
Finally, after seven days, the metal door above opened.
When the door opened, there was a quite fat, round man, accompanied by five soldiers. Allen looked up, and their eyes met.
"Wow, you're still alive," the man said.
The man then descended, followed by the other five people. In his hand, he held some kind of whip.
Allen immediately retreated to the corner of the room. He looked at the door, looking for a way to escape. But there were also two soldiers guarding the door. Plus, he was starving, his body was very weak, and his mana was locked. So he gave up.
The fat man and the soldiers behind him were finally in front of Allen. Then...
-WHIP
"ouch!"
The man whipped Allen's body.
-WHIP
-WHIP
-WHIP
He whipped him repeatedly, the frown on his face implying he was outraged. The whip scratched Allen's skin, and his clothes were in tatters; all he did was stay still, bowing his body. After all, he didn't really feel the pain. Just a scratch like that had no impact on Allen, so Allen ignored it.
"Take this! Take this! Take this! This is because you killed Waldo, my son!"
Then, after a few minutes, he stopped whipping. He took off his whip, and adjusted his clothes and hair.
"Tie and take him," ordered the man to the soldiers.
The soldiers tied Allen's hands and feet. Allen, without resisting, just let them tie him up and take him.
"If it weren't for that man, I would have killed you!"
Since Leofric guaranteed his life, Leofric ordered Baron Barkaley not to kill Allen. For that reason, at least Barkaley locked him up in a room without feeding him. If Allen died on his own, then Barkaley had not violated anything.
"That guy must know that he won't die even if he doesn't eat for seven days," said the fat man, the Barony of Barkaley.
Arriving outside the room, Allen raised his head.
'It's bright, so this is the outside world."
Unlike in the dungeon, in the outside world, something was shining above the sky, the sun. Allen looked at it for a long time.
Besides being bright, he could see many trees, houses, and some buildings far beyond the fence. Then Allen looked to the other side, and there was even a bigger building than the others. It was the Barkaley residence. The Barkaley residence was located on higher ground, so he could see the peasant's house from there.
"Hey! Keep move!" one of the soldiers kicked his body to get going.
Allen was led towards the house. In front of the house, there was a horse-drawn carriage carrying an iron cage, like a cage for carrying wild animals, in which there was a chain to bind the animal. And besides that, there were three more horse-drawn carriages. One of the carriages was the Litter, an expensive carriage designed for nobles. And the other horse carriage was an ordinary horse carriage. Around the carriage, about 30 soldiers were standing.
Just as Allen approached the cage, someone opened the door forcefully from inside the house.
It was a girl who looked a little older than Allen. The girl ran towards Allen and then
-STAB
"AAAKH!"
She stabbed Allen in the left abdomen with a knife.
The soldiers immediately pulled the girl away, holding her back from doing anything further.
"JANE! STOP!" said the Barony, angrily
"HOW DARE! HOW DARE YOU KILL BROTHER!!! DIE! DIE YOU!"
Allen sat down, shivering,
Barony immediately ordered the soldiers to call a medic.
"Damn, if this kid dies, that guy will kill me," said the baron.
As for Jane, she kept shouting.
"DIE!!! DIE!!! DIE YOU, MURDERER!"
Two maids ran out of the house, approaching Jane. Then the Barony ordered the soldiers to put Jane in her room.
"Put her in her room, and lock the door."
Two medics arrived and bandaged Allen's wounds.
"Is he still alive?" asked Barony.
The medics remained silent.
"How?!" Barony asked again in a higher tone.
"Surprisingly, yes, Lord Barkaley. The knife didn't even go very deep. Apparently, it wasn't strong enough to enter his stomach. His body is very hard."
The people there were surprised by the medic's answer.
"I see… so it's just like the prince said—he's a monster. Hurry up and put him in the cage. We will head out immediately."
After bandaging his wounds, Allen was put in a cage, his hands and feet were chained, and then they departed.
The carriage passed through the residential area on its way to deliver Allen to the residence of Earl Wolverlope, whose territory was west of Barkley's.
Earlier, on the day Leofric and Mathias came to his residence, Leofric ordered them to send Allen to Wolverlope's residence. It was the only place that Leofric could trust to hide Allen. Barony Barkaley came along to greet Earl Wolverlope.
They walked through the peasant's house. Many people were gathered beside the road to see the barony carriage.
"Hey, order the soldiers to move to the front," said Barony Barkaley to his aide, who was sitting in front of him.
"Uh, why, sir? We also need guards at the back."
"Just do it!"
As his aide was about to get off, Barony immediately added his order.
"One more thing, open the kid's cage. No need to use the bars. Let him overheat there,"
The aide got off the carriage, ordered the soldier to open the cage's bars, and asked the soldiers to move to the front.
They resumed their departure.
Inside the iron cage, Allen was silent, sitting, looking at the sun, and thinking of his mother's ambiguous last moments in his head—her last words that were stuck in his head.
"Live" and "don't hate humans."
Suddenly, from the side, a fist-sized stone hit Allen's head.
"Ugh!" The stone scraped Allen's scalp and caused blood to flow out of his head. Although it didn't hurt much, it made Allen angry, and he immediately looked in the direction the stone was thrown.
He saw a little boy.
A child much smaller than him was crying.
It was that child who threw the stone at him.
Seeing his crying, Allen's angry face faded.
"Give it back..." muttered the child,
The boy then picked up the stone again and threw it at Allen again. This time, Allen dodged the stone.
"GIVE ME BACK MY FATHER, YOU MONSTEER!!!"
The face that the boy made pierced Allen's heart; it was the same face that Lavinia had made when seeing him in the goblin's room.
Seeing what the boy did, the other people around cried too...
They picked up stones and threw them to Allen.
"GIVE ME BACK MY SON!"
"GIVE ME BACK MY HUSBAND!"
"MY GRANDSON! MY GRANDSON! GIVE ME BACK MY GRANDSON!"
Everyone looked at him with that face—a face of deep hatred followed by sadness that brought tears to their eyes.
Allen covered his head with his hands to block the stones thrown at him and to turn away from those faces.
Then Allen, crying, murmured
"Why, mother... Why did you tell me not to hate them when they hate me this much?"