(Side Story) Aien's Family
Where, exactly, is reality for me?
The world of Super Real is unquestionably a real world to me.
A world I love.
A world I cannot deny even if I want to.
But...
Right now, I am a player in a game.
The world where I originally lived has become nothing more than a collection of data to me.
“...Phew....”
Ingwang Kingdom changes almost every single day.
Seriously...
What an awful name....
Anyway.
Standing on a terrace overlooking the entire country, I watched the rising sun and let out even a short sigh filled with worry.
“A fate that had drifted away....”
What exactly did those words mean?
Had I only drifted away from it for a short while?
Was this place...
The world of Super Real...
The game world...
Where I was originally meant to be?
If so...
Was my presence in the other world the problem?
That body wasn’t even the body I had been born with....
Now that I could no longer log out and had started being treated as an NPC again...
I couldn’t help feeling that way even more strongly.
A fate that had drifted away....
Perhaps it was simply an unavoidable truth I had been turning my eyes away from.
“Lady Aien!”
When Mister left to search for Happy, he had assigned a whole group of guards to both Pie Unni and me.
Apparently, he had already been planning to assign guards because we were important officials of the country anyway.
Still...
Whenever something minor happened, they suddenly popped out of the shadows.
I wasn’t used to it, so they kept startling me.
“What is it?”
“Your mother is coming to see you.”
“Ah.”
I nodded.
“Thank you.”
What brought Mother here?
Recently, she had been staying almost constantly beside Father now that he had finally regained himself.
The two of them had been busy helping organize the Abandoned District and the country.
...
Still.
Seeing her often was nice.
She smiled much more these days too.
Now that everything that had been binding and suffocating her was gone...
Maybe this was what Mother had truly been like all along.
“...Aien....”
Mother had always looked endlessly young.
But now...
Wrinkles had begun appearing on her face.
Perhaps doing such intense work under Mister had finally caused time, which had once stopped for her, to begin moving again.
With complicated feelings, I approached her and took her cold hand.
Her expression was filled with hesitation.
For some reason...
I felt like I had to hold it.
“Your father and I had a long discussion.”
I blinked.
“...What?”
What was this about all of a sudden?
I stared at Mother.
But she continued hesitating.
If she was struggling this much just to begin...
Then this clearly wasn’t going to be something light.
“Even if we apologize now and tell you how sorry we are...”
Mother spoke softly.
“Both your father and I know that what we did to you will not disappear.”
“It’s okay.”
I squeezed her hand.
“I forgave you.”
Then I lowered my eyes.
“And it isn’t as though I was completely without fault either.”
Mother immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“That was our fault.”
Her voice trembled.
“I used you because I wanted to return your father to the way he once was.”
“And your father used you because he wanted to regain the glory he once possessed.”
Her fingers tightened around mine.
“We took advantage of you because you silently endured and kept moving forward.”
“Mother....”
We had already spoken about this once.
That was exactly why...
I wanted this conversation to stop.
Watching someone I had desperately wanted love from tell me she was sorry while tears gathered in her eyes...
It tore my heart apart.
Mother lowered her head.
