On The Other Side: I Quit Being Human

My hand stops just an inch from the kid's forehead. I find myself asking what I should do to the kid, and I don't know the answer.

It shouldn't be that complicated of a question—I already know the right answer. After what I have done to the previous kid though, I can't easily bring myself to do the same thing.

Will killing the kid bring me some kind of a benefit? I am not sure about that: it will be yes if the kid is destined to be my archenemy in the future, and it will be no if the kid is going to be a mere ordinary civilian in the future.

It is actually a very normal thing to do—killing someone from the other race—but it becomes hard when the one you are going to kill is a kid. They have yet to participate in the commotion—it feels unfair to kill them.

Life is unfair though; some of the kids unluckily learn this sooner than they should. In this world, no matter what races they are, killing kids simply because they live is contemptible yet normal.

Going by that fact, I shouldn't even question myself whether to kill or spare—I should immediately do what I should do as a Demon ... I can't decide still however.

The kids of this world remind me too much of myself. Both of us have never wronged anyone, yet everyone is coming for us simply because we are there.

I hate Mark and my other former tormentors because I am sure I don't want to be them. Looking at the kid blankly staring at me reminds me of myself too much, and that makes me feel like I have become the very thing I hate to be.

"Fuck," I mutter under my breath. "You can curse your fate for allowing you to meet me, kid."

The kid slightly widens her eyes when I speak. When I cover her face with my palm, her eyes return to normal as her face loses all of its expression once again.

She looks unbothered, but I know that face well—what it is actually conveying. She is just tired of everything. She knows what is waiting for her, and she can't do anything about it. She has given everything up—even her fear of death.

That is the face of someone who has died even before her heart stops.

I click my tongue bitterly as I channel my Mana into my hand that is on the kid's forehead. Casting a Spell that I will be casting for the first time, I watch as the kid closes her eyes as if saying, "My end has finally come."

"[Memorum Delatrum]!"

The Spell is cast, and immediately takes effect the moment my hand exudes a white light. My Mana invades her brain, and due to the Spell, it slowly erases her memory about what has happened to her parents and her encounter with me.

I can't bring myself to crush the kid's head to pieces or cut her head off. I do still want to kill her however—this is my way of doing it.

[Memorum Delatrum] allows me to erase the kid's memory of the recent events, so she will never be able remember about this day.

Due to her fairly young age, she will only remember flashes of who her parents were, and will eventually come to believe she has been alone since she was just a child.

She will also slowly forget who she is, and become a completely new person after spending a few days of identity crisis. She will be reborn into another whole different person, completely forgetting who she was in the past.

This is my way of killing the kid. The only way to kill her without spilling her blood ... The kindest way I can think of that will prevent any unnecessary guilt from slowly eating my heart away.

The process takes around a minute. The kid has lost her consciousness by the it is finished, leaving me thinking about what I should do next.

I ponder whether I should take the kid away from here and let everyone know of her existence or just let her stay here and keep everyone in the dark about her existence.

"What should I do next, Vibiane?"

"H-Huh?! I—I didn't mean to sneak on you. I am sorry!"

I have noticed Vibiane's presence ever since I pondered about what I should do to the kid—before I erased some of the kid's memory. I let her be because I believed she saw the matter the same way.

I don't actually care who finds out first though; even if it was someone else, I would still let them watch what I would do to the kid. She is, after all, my "game," and no one other than me has any right over her—that's the basic rule.

Knowing that it is Vibiane, however, slightly relieves me, because we currently have the same same mindset about this kind of thing.

Turning my head to Vibiane as I let go of the kid's head, allowing the kid's body to fall limply to the ground, I stare at her silently. She turns silent, but I wait for her answer.

"I think... It will be best to keep her by your side for the moment," Vibiane says carefully. "That is, if keeping her alive is your intention. If you don't really care about her safety, you can take her somewhere away from here."

Vibiane answers my question with the exact answer I have thought she would say. It is apparent to me that she doesn't really want to let the kid die—at least, not in front of her.

She is just like me: I have no remorse for killing human adults, but I won't be able to kill the kids as easily as I kill the adults. The only reason why I could do such a cruel thing to the boy was because I just wanted to rile the Priest up.

There was a clear merit that I could get by killing the boy back then—that's why I didn't hesitate. Now however, I don't see any apparent merit in killing the girl other than eliminating a possible future enemy.

I will definitely think differently in the future, but I still can't bring myself to think killing a human child equals to killing a future enemy now, even though it is an undeniable fact.

"Should I let her luck decide how she will end?"

"If you leave her in the forest near this village, there is a chance she might survive. The Beasts won't be interested to eat her, but I can't guarantee what the others will do once you let go of her."

You shan't touch the other's game—it's a golden rule among us, Cursed Creations. No one lays a hand on other's possession because of this rule, and this is what keeps us united for all this time.

We leave everyone to their own devices.

There is a catch to it though; as long as we lose our right of possession, we can't protest if someone claims it. What signifies the right of possession? As long as the thing is in our hands or territory.

Ownerless things—any one of our possessions or what we have come to call one that we accidentally or purposely let go—are highly fought over. If the former owner wants to get them back, they have to also fight over the things.

In other words, none of my troop mates will touch the girl as long as she is with me, but once I let go of her, they will be free to do whatever they want to her. In this case, they will probably eat her.

"Let's keep her here, Layland," Vibiane says softly. "I will clean the blood off her, and sleep with her tonight—I will take care of her until we leave her behind."

"... Let's burn these bodies first." Nodding my head after a moment of silence, I gesture at the kid's dead parents. "We can't traumatize her by letting her see them when she regains her consciousness."

"Are we going to leave her here?"

"Yes. Keeping her alive for the night is the only thing we can do." I frown lightly. "Whether she can survive or not after is not our concern. We have done much enough for her."

"That is... True." Vibiane nods her head slowly in agreement.

Turning to the door that is just behind her, she closes it then scurries over me. She takes the kid off the ground as I stand over the bodies of the kid's parents, and brings the kid to the bathroom to clean her.

I am slightly surprised Vibiane is really serious about what she has said, but I guess that's what makes that idiot different than any other idiots I have met.

Chuckling to myself as I have just implicitly admitted I have come to accept Vibiane as my friend, I turn my gaze to the kid's dead parents.

It is only at that moment do I realize the claw marks on their body, and I instantly know who has possibly done that: the only Garou in our troop, Velucan.

I am sure he knew there was a living kid here, but he still decided to not kill her ... That makes three naive people in our troop.