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"My mother... is alive...?"

Glen stood stunned for a moment, unable to hide his shock. As soon as he regained his composure, he shook his head vigorously, denying the truth I had just revealed.

"No, no. That\'s impossible. I\'m a Baskhill, you know. I still remember. Even though I was very young, I definitely wandered around the palace, and there was a maid who worried about me. And..."

"And?" Elphisia prompted as Glen trailed off.

"Mother..."

"Your mother, and who else?"

"Father... ugh..." Glen groaned, unable to continue.

He then curled up, almost burying his face in his knees. It was as if a violent wave of confusion was trying to swallow him whole.

Elphisia posed a question to the suffering Glen. "Do you remember the faces of those people... the ones you mentioned?"

"That\'s..." Glen pondered for a long time. The silence that stretched on was almost unbearable. Eventually, Glen shook his head again, as if giving up.

"I don\'t. Nothing at all."

"I thought as much. After all, those memories you have can\'t possibly exist."

"What? Vice Director... what do you mean?"

"You\'d know just by opening a history book. You were born after the fall of the Baskhill Kingdom."

"..."

"The idea that you, as a baby at the time, wandered around the palace of a fallen kingdom, living with family and maids... that\'s a huge contradiction."

Glen immediately rebutted Elphisia\'s statement.

"But, but...! I really do remember! The palace, the maid, everything... It might not be vivid, but it\'s certain. I\'m really not lying..."

"I believe you."

"... What?"

Glen seemed to struggle to follow Elphisia\'s words.

Elphisia, too, appeared reluctant to reveal the truth to Glen.

But she couldn\'t keep her mouth shut and keep the secret forever. Elphisia shook off her hesitation and began to unfold the truth.

"Your memories are probably real. You likely did experience life as royalty to some extent."

"But... how is that possible? As you said, I was born after the kingdom fell..."

"... Even so, it\'s possible. Because... you\'re a child who inherits the blood of two royal families."

Elphisia knew all the circumstances. She must have learned the truth with her battered body in the now-lost future.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Elphisia was the one telling the truth, as she was the one who took in Glen and was executed for violating the Human Defense Agreement.

"Your mother\'s name is \'Letitia Baskhill\'. As you know, she was the princess of Baskhill."

"Letitia Baskhill..." Glen echoed, as if savoring his mother\'s name for the first time.

Then Elphisia fitted the final puzzle piece into Glen\'s thoughts. "And Letitia Baskhill\'s partner and your father is... the Demon King, \'Starke Rzel\'."

"W-wait a minute... Vice Director."

Glen blinked his wide-open eyes. Then he asked in one breath, "... You\'re joking, right?"

"..."

"Director... I must have heard wrong, right? Or maybe you misspoke... That can\'t be true, can it...?"

Whatever answer Glen wanted, you can\'t cover the sky with your palm. As I remained silent, Glen spoke rapidly, as if pushing his self-denial.

"I-I\'m human, aren\'t I? There\'s nothing demonic about me at all."

"That doesn\'t matter. While Tina\'s case is textbook half-and-half, it\'s not unusual to be born as one of the two species."

Elphisia countered. Glen then posed another question, attempting his own logic.

"But Tina is an extremely rare case, isn\'t she? How can a human have a child with another race?"

"The race capable of that is \'the bloodline of Baskhill\'. Judging by your black hair and eyes, you inherited the Baskhill blood strongly, so you could probably have children with any race."

"That\'s impossible..."

"For your reference, Tina\'s birth mother is also a distant descendant from a branch of the Baskhill royal family. That\'s why she could conceive a dragon\'s child. Though they\'re practically strangers, she\'s your incredibly distant relative."

"..."

It seemed Glen would need quite a long time to recover from the shock. And we had an obligation to wait until Glen sorted out his thoughts.

After keeping his eyes tightly shut for a while, Glen, almost on the verge of tears, asked me. "Director..."

"Yes."

"That day, at the hunting festival, I saw a demon who looked like me lunging at you."

He sought confirmation in a voice that seemed about to break. "Was that my father... the Demon King...?"

"... Yes."

I had no idea until I recovered my memories from before the regression. In this life, I encountered him for the first time at the hunting festival.

Looking back now, the two men resembled each other so much that I felt like my eyes must have been full of knotholes. If the Demon King and Glen stood side by side, anyone would guess their father-son relationship.

It was then.

"Glen?!"

Drip, drip.

Transparent tears fell from Glen\'s black eyes.

His face, with reddened eyes, was contorted, and hiccupping sobs kept escaping.

Finally, Glen asked in a trembling voice. "... Am I going to be abandoned now?"

"What?"

"Or do I have to be captured and punished...?"

The moment he asked if he had to be captured and punished, Elphisia\'s face turned pale.

While I was grappling with my bewilderment at Glen\'s statement.

Suddenly, Elphisia stood up, approached the crying Glen, and knelt down to his eye level. Her posture, kneeling on one knee and tightly grasping his small hand, seemed almost like begging for forgiveness.

"Why would you be punished...!"

"Huh...?"

Elphisia exclaimed, and Glen echoed.

"Why should you be punished... No one has the right to punish you."

Immediately after, I read Elphisia\'s lips as she quietly added.

\'I should have been the only one punished.\'

Elphisia was painfully swallowing those words, pushing them down her throat.

"You\'ve done nothing wrong... Glen."

Elphisia was trying her best to reassure Glen. Her attitude was somewhat desperate, powerful enough to stop Glen\'s tears abruptly.

That was natural, if anything.

Although I didn\'t directly witness Glen\'s end, the outcome must have been horrific. It seemed that at the scene, only the fact that Glen was royalty of Baskhill was revealed, but even that was a huge original sin.

Moreover, as Elphisia\'s subordinate, he must have been involved in various dark aspects, so his end was surely miserable.

Elphisia must have witnessed his end with her own eyes.

\'Now I can understand a bit.\'

I could see why Elphisia treated Glen differently from the others.

She tried to treat him better than Yulian and Tina, but couldn\'t approach him as openly.

She must have felt sorry and regretful.

She must have wanted to atone for the sin of abusing him. But even that atonement must have felt hypocritical to her.

She couldn\'t dare approach Glen warmly with a smiling face.

"Don\'t worry about anything. Nothing big will happen. Even if something big does happen, I\'ll make it like it never did... So..."

Elphisia continued in a breaking voice.

"I will..."

More accurately, she tried to continue.

She cut off her words there, remained silent for a while, and then brought up a somewhat vague story.

"... Actually, I committed a great sin."

"Vice Director...?"

"I committed a sin that I can\'t dare to be forgiven for even if I dedicate my whole life... but you don\'t even know to resent me..."

Plop. Drip.

Tears fell from Elphisia\'s ruby-like eyes as well. She hurriedly distanced herself as if she felt guilty for her tears wetting Glen\'s trouser cuffs.

"You keep saying it\'s not my fault... Instead, you thank me for saving you, and apologize for being a burden..."

"..."

"You were originally a child who would have grown up so kind... I, I... because I was an idiot and a worm... I didn\'t know that."

"..."

"I should apologize, but now I can\'t meet that child from that day... I don\'t know what to do or how..."

At that point, Elphisia\'s confession didn\'t continue any further.

Now, only a woman with drooping auburn hair covering her face remained before Glen\'s eyes.

Glen, who had been listening silently, pondered for a moment and then shared the answer he had come to.

"Actually... I don\'t really understand what you\'re talking about, Vice Director."

"Of course. Of course you don\'t..."

To Elphisia, who couldn\'t raise her face due to the weight of guilt, Glen said.

"But I know that the Vice Director I know always takes care of us warmly, and also looks at us with worry... I can tell that what you\'re saying is sincere."

"... You\'re too kind in your assessment."

"That\'s not true. You know what? I was actually sometimes jealous of Tina. She\'s so carefree and affectionate... So everyone likes Tina more... I almost became envious."

I was surprised by Glen\'s sudden confession. I never expected Glen to have such thoughts inside.

"But I didn\'t really get jealous. Because I knew that you paid special attention to me, Vice Director. Even though I wasn\'t adopted as a child like Tina."

Thinking about it now, it was natural that Elphisia didn\'t bring up the topic of adopting Glen. It would have been difficult to readily accept him as a son when Glen\'s parents were alive and well.

If a day like today came, it was also uncertain what choice Glen would make.

"So, what I\'m trying to say is... I think I would end up accepting it if such a good Vice Director asked for forgiveness. Ah, of course, I can\'t speak for the person you said you sinned against, but... anyway, that\'s what I think... um..."

Glen bowed his head deeply.

"I\'m just saying... that\'s how I feel... It might sound presumptuous, but..."

"... No, it\'s not presumptuous. How could I say such a thing..."

This didn\'t seem to be a place for me to intervene.

The connection between these two people continued on a side I didn\'t know about. If I were to wedge myself between them, it might be an awkward thing to do.

Elphisia, rarely honest, conversed with Glen. With her victim, who she couldn\'t bring herself to approach openly...

\'I should come back after some time has passed.\'

I quietly got up from my seat and moved. Glen gave me a pained look as if asking not to leave him alone, but I casually ignored it, flashing a thumbs up.

As I exited the room and turned my gaze, I was met with the eager eyes of three tiny munchkins.

"Dad, is Glen okay? You didn\'t scold him, did you?"

"We\'ve never been called in separately like this before. It\'s only natural to be worried."

"Director... If there\'s any wrongdoing, we\'ll take the punishment together...!"

Tina, Yulian, and Echo.

Looking at them gathered like this, they really were a peculiar set of connections.

Feeling my lips curl up, I awkwardly stepped forward and hugged the three children tightly.

"Oh, how did these cute things grow up like this... I absolutely hate spoilers about the growth process."

The reactions to my cringeworthy action were quite diverse.

"D-Dad?"

"What is this unseemly act?!"

"Director...?"

One way or another, I was living and breathing surrounded by quite a bit of happiness.

Such a sentiment suddenly bloomed within me.