729. Test (4)
Kent, who was confessing his sins, immediately asked Oliver.
Ask Oliver to tell his own story.
At those words, Oliver unconsciously leaned back.
Oliver, who did not flinch at all in the face of the fierce attacks of the royal army, the defense force, and even the puppets.
To that extent, Kant’s demands were repulsive······. No, one could say they were fearful demands.
Oliver expressed his feelings openly.
“You’re suddenly asking for such an unreasonable favor.”
“I admit it. I know how much it hurts me.”
Kent, who broke into a cold sweat and had difficulty breathing every time he confessed his sins, admitted it.
No matter how unreasonable his demands were, he did not back down.
“Still, please.”
“Why are you suddenly harassing me?”
“I can’t tell you why right now. One, I’m not trying to bully you. Trust me.”
Kent was sincere, but Oliver refused, regardless.
“I believe that, but I refuse.”
“Wouldn’t it be okay if it was my friend’s dying wish?”
Kent suddenly brought up the subject.
However, Oliver didn’t seem particularly surprised. His face was stiff with discomfort, but he didn’t look surprised.
Kent laughed after seeing Oliver’s reaction.
“Huh, I knew that.”
Kent said so and then showed the dagger stuck in his side.
A familiar dagger.
It was the dagger that Jane, under Pan’s control, had stuck into Oliver’s side when he arrived in Neverland in the past.
Oliver pulled out his dagger, but for some reason it was now lodged in Kent’s side.
“······Did Puppet do it?”
Oliver, whose eyes see through all sin, asked.
Kent nodded.
“When you invaded with the zombie army······. In fact, you invaded Randa just to stick this sword in me. Didn’t you become quite successful? You invaded Randa just because of me?”
Kent joked with a dagger stuck in his side.
Although it was a little late, Oliver asked a question.
“Are you sick?”
“As you can see, it doesn’t hurt. My sense of pain is practically dead.”
Kent poked the dagger stuck in his side and the area around it.
It wasn’t a bluff, it was real. The reason Kent was able to have a normal conversation even with the knife stuck in his side earlier was because Kent’s body couldn’t feel pain.
It felt like a blessing, but it wasn’t because I didn’t feel any pain.
“I’m no better than a corpse right now. A living, breathing corpse. You already know that, right?”
Oliver nodded slowly.
Kent was, as he said, no better than a living corpse.
This was already somewhat noticeable outside the room.
The body was as good as dead.
It was just the sword stuck in Kent’s side… To be exact, the demonic power within the sword was preventing the decay of Kent’s dead body, forcibly binding his soul and body together to maintain his living corpse state.
That’s why Oliver remained silent as he looked at the knife stuck in Kent’s side.
The thing that killed Cant, but at the same time, the thing that keeps Cant alive.
“The puppet said it was a safety device. To catch you.”
“If I cross the line, you’re going to kill Kent with that sword.”
“I think so. You seem quite scared. Your fingers are nothing special, right?”
Kent, who always cracked jokes, swept Oliver’s hair back.
“······Why did you agree? If you hadn’t agreed, you wouldn’t have stabbed me.”
Oliver, who has eyes that see through everything, pointed out.
The dagger stuck in his side had tremendous power to revive the dead, but it was not possible with just demonic power.
Rather, since it was the power of the devil, more conditions were required to deal with it.
One of them was ‘agreement’.
A ridiculous and practically impossible condition where the person being stabbed hands over his life to another person.
Of course, Oliver didn’t really ask because he didn’t know. Oliver also knew right through the reason why Kent was stabbed.
It was because of the puppet’s threats. The puppet threatened to kill half of Landa’s population if they didn’t agree.
Even knowing that, Oliver asked meaninglessly.
Because this was all he could do.
That knife. It was not something Oliver could do anything about.
Even though the shell was broken and it was said to be close to omnipotent, Oliver could not do anything about the thing that had been influenced by demonic power.
That fact made Oliver feel helpless for the first time in a long time.
“Let’s not overlook such trivial things.”
“Trivial?”
“Yes. Even if I hadn’t accepted this, I would still have become a corpse at the hands of a puppet. In that case, I would rather be a living corpse. Thanks to this, I can talk to you like this, right?”
Oliver was silent. It wasn’t a lie, it was true. But it made him feel even more guilty.
It seems like this whole situation is my fault.
“Shut up.”
Kent suddenly stood up from his seat. He then dragged a chair over and sat down next to Oliver instead of across from him.
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“I think you’re mistaken about something.”
“······?”
“It was my choice to be stabbed with this sword, not yours. So, don’t make that face. Then, I can’t be honest. Also.”
Kent paused for a moment, looking straight at Oliver.
“You don’t have to tell me what you don’t want to tell me. But I really want to ask you to tell me about your sins. I’m asking you as a friend.”
Kent asked, looking straight at Oliver.
Oliver also looked straight at Kent.
He was sincere. He wanted Oliver to confess his sins of his own free will.
Oliver hesitated for a moment after seeing that sight. Should he tell of his sins or not?
It wasn’t an easy problem. Since I got these eyes, even looking in the mirror has become difficult.
When I look in the mirror, I see the sins I have committed.
It was difficult for Oliver to face his own sins.
It was so painful to see the ugly side of others, but seeing your own ugly side was bound to be several times more painful.
Oliver and Kent faced each other. An eternity of silence fell between them, and after a very, very long time, Oliver opened his mouth.
“There was a time when we didn’t give out potato soup.”
***
Oliver told a story from a very, very long time ago.
So, back when Oliver’s world was all about orphanages and mines.
“In the mines, they didn’t give food to children who didn’t work properly. They said, ‘If you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat.’”
“I’m listening.”
“So if you get hurt, it’s very dangerous. If you get hurt, you can’t do your job properly, if you can’t do your job, you can’t get soup, and if you can’t get soup, you can’t get better. In other words, if you get hurt in the mine, most of the time you’re as good as dead.”
“I’m listening.”
“Sometimes, children who are injured ask other children to share their soup. However, most of them do not share it. They do not have enough for themselves······. It was the same for me.”
“I’m listening.”
“The kid sitting next to me asked if I could share some soup.”
“I’m listening.”
“I didn’t share it. As I said before, I didn’t have enough for myself.”
“Do you regret it?”
Oliver shook his head.
“No, even if I went back in time, I wouldn’t have shared it. At the time, I was only interested in surviving. However······. I do wonder what it would have been like if I had shared it. Now that I think about it, I think I was the kindest to you. Maybe it was because you were sitting next to me.”
Oliver spoke as indifferently as usual. However, Kent saw Oliver’s eyes shaking very slightly.
“······Is this the end?”
“······no.”
“Then tell me. Anything.”
Oliver thought for a moment and then opened his mouth again.
“······I saw kids at the orphanage bullying other kids, but I just stayed quiet. I was afraid I’d get hit too. Should I talk about this too?”
“Whatever you want to say.”
“······I once blew up a kid named Tom alive to death because I wanted to learn black magic faster. We had a showdown. Over the position of official disciple. Now that I think about it, I think subduing him to some extent was also a method.”
“Why didn’t you do that?”
“Well······. I didn’t really think about it. Maybe, I didn’t think of people as people. I just saw them as a means to an end. That’s probably why I took the easy way out and became a problem solver, even though I was indebted to Kent’s beggar group.”
“I was the one who suggested the solution.”
“Even if others push you, in the end, it is your own will that moves your feet. Even if there had been another way, I would have taken the same path. That would have been the easiest and most comfortable way. Because I······.”
Oliver couldn’t finish his sentence. Looking at Oliver like that, Kent asked back.
“Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
Oliver thought for a moment and then continued.
“I am······.”
“I’m listening.”
Oliver continued to tell his sins. Each time, Kent listened as if it were his own business, and said that he was listening.
In room 444, where Oliver and Kent were, the sound of soft conversations continued.
For a long time.
“Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
“I don’t know. Whether I have sinned more or not.”
“That’s right. People are beings who commit sins without even knowing it as they live.”
“I am not human, and even if I did something unknowingly, it is still a sin.”
“Yes, sin is sin. It cannot be denied and it does not disappear.”
Kwak······.
Kent nodded and grabbed Oliver’s hand, squeezing it tightly.
Only then did Oliver realize that Kent was holding his hand.
There was some will in Kent’s hands, and just as Oliver was about to ask what was going on, Kent opened his mouth.
“Lastly, I have one more favor to ask. Could you please pull out this sword?”
Kent asked, grabbing the dagger stuck in his side.
“yes?”
“He asked me to pull out this sword. I tried to pull it out, but I couldn’t.”
The sudden request caught Oliver off guard.
“Mr. Kant-”
“-I was originally a dead life. From the day my greed killed my family.”
“······.”
“I was given a new life with the help of a nameless priest, but I thought of this second life as a bonus. Something I could throw away at any time, if I had a good reason to do so.”
“Do you think now is enough reason? If it’s because of me-”
“-It’s not because of you. It’s because I want to. Do you think it’s right for me to be alive right now?”
Kent asked Oliver. Oliver couldn’t answer right away.
Because it wasn’t right for Kent to be alive now.
A dying person can be saved, but a dead person cannot be saved, and should not be saved.
It was the realm of the gods, and it was a thing that shook the weight of life.
Kent, who knew that fact, smiled the same way he did when he first saw Oliver and brought Oliver’s hand to the dagger stuck at his side.
For some reason, Oliver couldn’t refuse the weak old man’s hand.
“I am neither dead nor alive now. It is truly a profane state. It goes against nature. Above all, it is not something I wanted. The reason I am in this state is simply to reduce the damage to the city, and it is simply because I cannot choose myself······. I want to meet my end as a human being. With dignity.”
Kent placed Oliver’s hand on the hilt of the dagger embedded in his side.
“I am asking you to help me meet that end.”
As Oliver’s hand went to the dagger, Kent placed his hand over it.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m serious.”
“Kant answered. Oliver pondered, one hand on Kant’s hand and the other on the dagger stuck in Kant’s side.
What is the best you can do right now?
Kent was effectively dead, and his remaining presence in this world was due to the power of the devil.
Oliver couldn’t help Kent. Kent was already dead. Oliver couldn’t bring the dead back to life. He couldn’t confront the demon’s power head-on.
All Oliver could do was draw his sword as Kent had said and let him die as a human.
Living like this, Kent was nothing more than a puppet or a living corpse held captive by the devil.
After much thought, Oliver came to a conclusion.
“Is there anything else you would like to ask for?”
“Actually, there is one thing. Can you hear my confession?”
“Confession…is this a sacrament?”
“That’s right.”
Oliver shook his head without realizing it.
Confession wasn’t something that just anyone could do, and Oliver in particular wasn’t one of them.
“I heard you did it once in the past.”
“At that time, it was an unavoidable situation.”
“It seems like it’s an unavoidable situation right now.”
“It would be of no use for me to hear it.”
“It doesn’t matter. I want to ask you something. It’s really my last request.”
Cant’s repeated request.
But Oliver, unlike the previous requests, could not possibly accept them.
Because this wasn’t it. Even if everyone in the world could hear confession, Oliver couldn’t.
Because he was the prince of hell.
At the same time, Oliver remembered a confession he had heard in the past.
A boy named Colin went to confession.
At the time, Oliver had no way to save the swollen boy, so he simply listened to his confession as if it were a painkiller.
At least to lessen the fear.
Because at the time, I thought it was the best thing to do. Because I thought it was okay if I could ease the boy’s fear even with a lie.
However, when Oliver finished his confession, he saw Colin, who had lost all fear, and he felt guilty for lying, and now he felt even more guilty than before.
“Oliver······. Please.”
In it, Kent asked, earnestly.
Oliver opened his mouth.
“Can’t. Tell me your sins.”
“My Father in Heaven, I have committed countless sins for my own greed.”
“Father, forgive us our sins.”
“I have hurt so many people to fill my own pockets. I have taken from and hurt men, women, children, and the elderly.”
“Father, forgive us our sins.”
“And right now, I’m about to commit another sin.”
“······?”
Oliver, who was confessing while holding hands with Kent, stopped.
Oliver looked up and saw Kent. He was smiling at Oliver. A sad, regretful, yet loving smile.
It was the same smile as parents watching their children at the park.
“I dare, I dare, to ask God. Please let me take upon myself the sins of the boy who is holding my hand right now.”
