Chapter 65: Right? You’re just drawing this for fun, aren’t you?
"...Cursed? What do you mean?"
Eiros lowered himself without thinking, leaning against an apple tree as the little kid led him further away, though still close enough to keep an eye on that lone child.
"Really... His mom and dad died, and they say he’s the one who killed them. At first we all thought it was just a lie, until he ended up killing his own brother too!"
"Right! He’s really evil! He’s gotta be cursed by the Blood Moon!"
"That’s why you have to stay away from him, mister."
’...Seriously?’
Eiros couldn’t help but feel genuinely confused. That obviously sounded made up, but for a group of kids to have come to a conclusion like this on their own...
It was pretty clear they hadn’t just made it up themselves. They’d probably been told a little bit of something, and pieced together this conclusion from there.
"...How do you all know?"
A kid trying to swing off a tree branch grinned widely as he answered:
"He told us himself!"
"Huh... W-what?"
"Yeah, he drew it out and told us he actually killed his brother by holding his head underwater until he died!"
"...!"
’The kid said it himself? Wait, how does that even—’
Eiros felt his thoughts spiraling. That was practically impossible, especially considering the kid wasn’t even ten years old yet, far too young to have carried out something that horrific.
But the boy himself had drawn it out and claimed he was the one who’d done it.
How could something like this even happen?
"Ah... Sis Erness is doing it again."
"Right, why does she care so much about that cursed kid?"
"Uh... what if Erness ends up in danger because of him?"
Eiros instinctively turned toward the boy speaking, spotting Erness smiling sweetly as usual.
’...Erness came here for that kid...? But why?’
Eiros blinked a few times, snapping out of his own thoughts when he felt a light tug at the collar of his sleeve.
"Mister! Mister! Why’re you just standing there? Shouldn’t you go save Sis Erness if she’s really your girlfriend?!"
"Ah..."
Eiros smiled awkwardly. Honestly, who was supposed to be saving who here?
Looking at Erness once more, that awkward smile softened into a small one, accompanied by a quiet sigh.
"Don’t worry, Erness can handle it. Also, could I know that kid’s name?"
Though he looked hesitant, the boy Eiros had asked stayed quiet for a moment before finally answering:
"Caldel. His name’s Caldel."
’Caldel...’
Eiros nodded.
"And Erness, could I ask how long she’s been coming here to see you all?"
"...Uh, she only started visiting a few days ago."
"Hmm..."
Eiros had no idea what Erness’s business here was, but figured it’d probably be wise not to pry into it too much.
Who knew, maybe as a spirit, Erness had some kind of conscience that made her feel sorry for that kid.
Right...?
Yeah, that seemed doubtful, but what else could he do about it?
Letting out a sigh, Eiros then spotted a man in black priest robes stepping outside. It seemed safe to assume he was the owner of the orphanage, since Erness immediately walked up to him and handed over the alcohol.
After chatting with the man for a bit, Erness came back over to Eiros with another bag. Inside were biscuits they’d bought earlier along the way, meant for the children.
Eiros remembered that Erness seemed to have a personality that just enjoyed buying unusual things.
Then, once Eiros made his way over to her, the kids around him instantly perked up, swarming toward Erness like she was some kind of idol.
"Sis! Let’s play! Let’s play!"
"Play! Play! Play!"
"Yes, yes, we’ll play in a bit. For now, how about we eat some biscuits first?"
Erness walked up to Eiros with a crowd of kids around her. Then she handed him the bag of snacks.
"Darling, could you pass these out to the kids for me? I need to go use the bathroom real quick."
Could a ghost even use the bathroom?
Well, presumably they could, at least to some extent, given their bodies functioned in a way that closely mirrored a human’s.
So Eiros nodded, taking the bag. Erness then walked off, heading into the orphanage building.
Next, just as Erness had asked, Eiros started handing out the biscuits to the kids. They looked pretty hard at first glance, but turned out to be soft enough that the kids took to them instantly.
There were quite a lot of children at this orphanage. Most seemed to range from about five to fourteen years old, none of them anywhere near adulthood yet.
Probably the ones who’d already grown up had left the orphanage to start living on their own.
Eiros didn’t dwell on that too much, since once he’d finished handing out biscuits to the kids, it was finally time for him to walk over toward the kid Erness had been so focused on earlier.
He approached with calm, steady steps, noticing that Caldel seemed completely absorbed in whatever he was drawing.
Then, as Eiros drew closer, Caldel noticed him and looked up, startled, his face going pale as he clutched his sketchbook to his chest.
"N-no! Stay away from me! I-I didn’t do anything wrong...!"
"Hm?" Eiros, caught off guard by that reaction, stopped in his tracks, genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected Caldel to act like this—after all, hadn’t the kid seemed perfectly cheerful around Erness?
So why...
’Ah, right, with the rumors around this kid getting worse, even if the other kids voice their fear of him, that doesn’t mean they’re too scared to actually bully him.’
So Caldel’s reaction was actually perfectly reasonable. He must’ve been a victim of bullying dressed up as justice, all because the other kids had branded him a cursed child.
That also left Eiros curious—was there something else special about this kid, something that made Erness pay attention to him?
He put on the friendliest smile he could manage, lowering his body slightly.
"I brought some biscuits, want one?"
Caldel still looked hesitant.
But Eiros didn’t stop there. "Look, I came here with Sis Erness. So don’t be scared, I’m not going to hurt you."
"Sis... Erness...?" Hearing Erness’s name, Caldel’s body trembled, as though he’d just heard a name that meant the world to him. "R-really? You came with her?"
Eiros smiled, hearing Caldel’s voice grow firmer, steadier.
"Of course, she’s the one who bought these biscuits too."
"Ah," Caldel let his guard down, glancing at Eiros hesitantly before stepping closer and accepting the biscuit. "Umh... thank you..."
Eiros nodded, curiosity swelling inside him as he watched Caldel tear open the biscuit wrapper.
"You like drawing?"
Caldel listened and nodded. "Yeah."
"Heeh... You must be pretty good at it, then."
"Ah, not really. I... I just draw because it’s fun, but I’m actually not good at it," he said, shaking his head sadly.
Eiros thought it over for a moment, then crouched down in front of Caldel and said:
"Mind if I see what you were drawing earlier?"
"Huh? Ah, sure, mister."
Caldel, still hesitant, stepped closer to Eiros, standing right in front of the swing. Then he set his sketchbook down on the swing seat and flipped it open to the page he’d been drawing on.
What Eiros saw made his brow furrow.
It was a drawing done in a mix of black and red.
The drawing looked genuinely childish—Eiros had a hard time making sense of it, but for some reason, he could feel that something about it was deeply wrong.
Eventually, Caldel pointed toward the center of it.
"I drew my family. This one in the middle, holding the knife, that’s me."
Then he moved on to a few other drawings that looked like scattered pieces of meat strewn everywhere, drenched in an overwhelming amount of red, genuinely disturbing to look at.
"This is... my brother... I cut up his body after drowning him, hehe..."
"....huh?"
Eiros felt his heart pounding hard. Caldel kept going with his explanation, saying he’d then cooked the meat from his brother’s body and mixed it in with his father’s bones.
At the same time, Eiros felt increasingly sick to his stomach, watching Caldel cry with a hollow expression, his lips curling upward into a smile despite the tears.
The nausea and the cold creeping through him at once left him feeling dizzy, his head starting to ache.
He didn’t know—he didn’t want to hear any more of this. This kid clearly had some kind of mental illness, but Eiros didn’t want to give up hope just yet, so he—
"You’re joking, right?"
Caldel froze, tears still streaming down his face as he turned to look at Eiros, revealing a thick darkness swirling in his wide eyes.
Startled as he was, Eiros didn’t stop.
"Right? You’re just drawing this for fun, aren’t you? Caldel?"
Caldel, who’d gone quiet, suddenly burst into a flood of tears, his face crumpling with genuine sorrow.
"Ah... Ah... You’re the same, aren’t you, you, you, you must hate me too, right?! You hate me because, because I killed my family! You hate me, hate me! You...!!!"
Eiros flinched where he stood, frozen, struggling to react as he watched Caldel’s emotions spiral wildly out of control.
Strangely, everything around them had gone completely quiet and still, leaving only him and Caldel behind.
"You..."
Eiros listened to Caldel’s voice, watching him with a hollowed-out emptiness in his eyes.
He couldn’t hold himself together anymore, and in the end, his mind simply couldn’t keep up with what was actually happening.
’What the hell....?’
***