Chapter 50: I still know more than you
"Haa..."
As the morning sun and the first light kissed his dark eyes, it intensified and exploded, saturating his entire vision display.
His white hair shined in this sunlight, but not as brightly as the purple ends that were present there.
There was still darkness around his eyes. And he didn’t seem to have rested from the dark circles present under them.
Yet, what bothered him the most wasn’t his fatigue or the constant buzzing he was feeling on his ears. It was the utter brightness of this world.
"..."
He had become used to this scene, of the world far brighter than anyone knows, but his memories still reminded him how different it used to be.
He still remembered how easy it was to see the ’darkness’. He could barely ever sleep now, but things were different.
When he was younger and still untouched by this damned curse, he remembered having peace, seeing the darker parts of the world. He was living in a curse at all times. He was living in a world of colors brighter than a human was used to, every time he closed his eyes, he would see a strange light instead of the darkness that everyone should.
The colors had sound harder to miss and every sound was a color to his ears. When he first came to realise the presence of this anomaly, he always wanted to die.
He wanted to ignore every single thing there was in this world and give his life up. That would have been the easiest thing to do instead of suffering through each passing second.
But, Rainin was now in a better state than before. And, it was all thanks to the person sleeping soundly beside him.
"Haaa."
In a room decorated with far less ornaments and shiny things than what they have at Serulian, he pushed aside the blanket covering their body and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Then, looking down at his bare body, the blanket covering his bottom half, he looked around the room, seeing the simple things, the windows, the light filling the room, and lastly, the face of his sleeping mother besides him.
"The Sungrades seems to have changed for some reason."
He thought about the happenings of yesterday as he pulled up his pants and picked up his shirt on the chair.
There was water in the jar beside their bed, but he only picked up the glass.
-Ooooooooooooong...!
Then, he magically summoned his own water and drank it in a few gulps, a drop of water sliding down his muscular throat.
The magic was not his stronger skill but he was pretty good at it. He loved his swordplay, but as fate would have it, he had the talent for both the wand and the sword.
However, after his vision was cursed and his eyes started reacting to the light differently, he could not see normally, and if that was bad, he could also not live normally anymore.
"Hmmm... yawn~." The white lady yawned besides him, pulling the blanket to her side, covering her cold, white body.
He watched her for a moment, thought about the changes that came to their lives in the last few years, and then shook his head.
She was the reason he was still alive right now. She gave him birth and she was taking care of him all the time.
He still didn’t understand how she agreed to give him up to that young boy but he knew that she still wanted him to get better... and that boy was the only person who seemed to actually know about what was wrong with him.
’But still...’
He was the person she wanted to get killed because hews the easiest and the most useless element in this whole family.
The people here would have started an internal fight because he was killed within the Sungrade grounds and the family could have been weakened.
He knew his mother hated these people and wanted to get rid of them. But, she wasn’t foolish.
She was the smartest person he knew so, when her perfect assaination plot failed, and on top of that, when the person she hired for his amazing skills was captured, it was the first time he had seen panic in her eyes.
’He’s more dangerous than you predicted, mother.’
She was awake now, but still stayed under her blanket. That’s how she usually was so, he just sat there and contemplated about their current situation.
’He was ready for her when we arrived.’
The fact that he arrived there late was the first thing they should have noticed. It wasn’t carelessness. He was deliberately late.
He provoked her first and kept that strange warm smile to irritate her. Then, he threw secrets in her face that must not be easy to dig out.
On top of that, he was using strange powers to resist her constant attempts to invade his mind. He could tell how angry his mother was when he didn’t continue with telepathic communication.
’He knew her.’
Most of the people who think they know the so-called White Woman know nothing about her.
Her hidden past aside, they know nothing about her personality, her true nature, the way she operates, the cards she has up her sleeve, and especially her weaknesses.
No one in this world would know just how much she cherished her son. Even for a mother, her love for him was unusually deep.
And that boy knew that.
’Just what is he?’
From the way he reeled her into his trap, to the way he made it impossible for her to back down from any of the demands he had made.
He wasn’t even hiding the fact that he wanted her dead. It almost seemed like he had no fears... despite having a family, it seemed like he was a wounded tigre.
When he saw him looking at his mother so fearlessly, for a moment, it scared him.
The boy, scared him.
For a knight tamer of (Level-5) and a (tier-4) mage, being afraid of a young boy no older than 18 was the same as getting scared of a rat.
’But...’
Perhaps the rat they were dealing with right now had fire running through his veins instead of blood.
"He is dangerous, mother." He dropped his head on the shoulder that had just risen from the bed.
He tore him apart from her and convinced her that he had the cure for his strange curse.
With no other choice left, she retorted and negotiated a (three time help) directly from him and not the Sungrades, something that still seemed within that boy’s predictions.
Now, after escorting his mother back to their home, he was going to return here, and, he would serve him for the next three years under a [Sacred Oath] and in that time, he would cure him.
Personally, Rainin did not like these terms. But, he was too tired of relying on his mother. He was too tired of the pain and suffering.
He wanted this to end... he wanted to either sleep so peacefully that he never wakes up again, or at least return to being a normal person, and have a normal life.
"Of course he is dangerous, dear." She kissed his head, caressing his face gently.
She did not like it either. If possible, she never wanted him to stay away from her.
She had already lost her husband. She did not want to lose the only precious thing left her in life anymore.
"You know I would never let you go if it wasn’t necessary." He stopped her fingers, and held his hand as she said those words.
"I don’t know how to help you any better." She was utterly helpless against this strange curse.
If needed, she would have burnt down cities and killed a hundred thousand people if it meant her sweet sunny boy could live normally again.
She would have tortured villages and she would have thrown hoards of (SSS-rank) beasts into the [Blackwater Sea] as sacrifices. She would do anything for him.
But, it wasn’t so simple.
The curse wasn’t something that affected his body. It was not a curse from what that boy mentioned in the first place.
She did not know what it was, but he did.
He did know more than she did about this strange illness of her son, and she almost felt disgusted to admit that.
It was infuriating. As well as humbling...
"You must tell me if that bastard tries anything strange with you."
"Yes, mother..."
In this damned world where the mother was a monster and the son a broken little boy, the one who came to save them both was a bastard from the worst enemies they could have had.
The boy was playing a strange game with her.
"..."
And she would most certainly kill him if Rainin was hurt, even if she has to lose her head for it.
"Craw! Craw!"
The white lady had just woken up, however, her sleepiness completely vanished when both of them heard the voice of a crow on their window.
"Mother... that..."
A crow with blue patterns on its wings was waiting on their window.
"Yes, dear."
And attached on his leg was a message so important, they had to return back to the south as soon as they could.