The view outside the window was even larger than he had imagined.
“Ha... ha...”
And then, once again, the halo reflected in the window came into view: it was red, with two broken wings on the right and two angel wings on the left, four wings in total. In the center was a pentagram, and horns curved out from the ring around it.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah, s-sorry...”
Whack
“Guhk!”
Seeing that he was awake while the other children were still asleep, the robot mercilessly beat him again with a wooden club.
“I-I’m sorry, please... p-please stop...”
He was hit until even his pronunciation grew slurred. Only after writhing through the pain that crawled over his entire body did he barely manage to fall asleep.
----------------------------
“This place is hell. It’s an orphanage, but it’s more like a laboratory. Every so often, people in white coats come out and inject something into me and the other kids.
“As it goes into my body, it feels like bugs are crawling under my skin, and the pain is like my heart is stopping. And because my halo is unusual, unlike the other children, they keep injecting me all over my body. It feels like the new pain is being fused into me from the inside, pressing me down. I want to live.”
He spent a year enduring the orphanage director’s violence, the experiments, and the cold stares, all while writhing in pain.
By the time he had grown used to the pain, adults came looking for him. There were two of them. One was a pink-haired woman. Even while suffering, he realized that face looked familiar, and after digging through his memory, he finally figured out who it was.
“Misono Mika?”
He wasn’t certain, but if he wanted out of this hell, he had to struggle.
“P-please, choose me. I-I’m good at cleaning, and I can wash dishes too. Please, please, so please take me out of here.”
“Hmm. Let’s take that child.”
“That one? He’s a boy... though what would you even use him for?”
“You don’t need to worry about that. Just stop prying.”
“Tch. Fine, take the trash if you want. We don’t need it.”
“Th-thank you... thank you so much!!!”
“Good. Let’s go.”
---------------------------------------------
His eyes closed with relief at the thought that he had finally escaped. Finally. Finally. Finally, he was out.
I’m free. That’s what he thought. He was sure of it, until he experienced hell once more.
“Tch, you’re useless at everything. If you want to survive, work harder. A tool does nothing but do exactly what its master says. Understood?”
He hadn’t realized it. Mika’s family was a noble house, and what that meant was that they needed a child pawn for the struggle over power, one where schemes and every kind of corruption were carried out openly for the sake of influence.
That pawn was a young one used to gather information, an orphan boy with no background who could be discarded at any time, and who was strong besides. And even if they were exposed, using a child filled with that much despair made it easy to silence him—he might take his own life or make some desperate choice. If he became useless, they could simply bring in another child.
“Ha... ha. Ha... so that’s it? Nothing more than a tool, nothing less than a tool.
“Just material. Nothing more than a pawn to be thrown away if it’s no longer needed.”
“Who are you?”
He looked toward the voice. There stood a naive little girl, glowing in the brilliant light of the chandelier above.
“I... I don’t have a name....”
“What do you mean?! There’s no way you don’t have a name!”
“It’s true.....”
“Then I’ll give you one!”
“Huh?”
“Hmm, what would be a good name? Ah! How about Takashi Haruta?”
“Huh? Th-thank you...”
“Really? Then do you want to be my butler?”
“Huh? R-really?”
“Yep! You’re unusual, so you look kind of strong! So be my butler.”
“Ah... yes, understood...”
“But why is your back like that?”
His back was covered in wounds—slashes and tears from whips, clubs, and all kinds of instruments.
“Ah... it’s nothing.”
“What?! It’s not nothing! There’s no way someone can get hurt like that and be fine!”
Mika brought disinfectant and bandages. The wounds were so bad she had to pour disinfectant directly over his back.
“Aaaah!”
“Just bear with it a little!”
“Y-yes......”
Then he heard the door open behind them.
“Mika? Why are you still up...?”
Mika’s parents had witnessed the scene.
Then their expressions slowly hardened as they glared at him.
“Mika, get your hands off that horned bastard right now.”
“I know that, but I can’t just ignore someone who’s hurt! And he’s my butler now!”
“What are you talking about?”
“He said he’d be my butler.”
“Ha... Mika, that thing is nothing but common trash. There’s no need to get close to it.”
“Even so! He said he’d be my butler!”
“Fine, do whatever you want, Mika. But you’ll bear the responsibility yourself.”
“Okay!”
Listening to that, Haruta felt as if he were being treated like a dog, and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Still, he didn’t show it and carefully watched Mika’s parents’ reactions.
“S-sorry...”
“Shut up, you lowly thing.”
“Mom! Why are you saying that? What did this kid even do wrong?”
“Ha... Mika, when you grow older, you’ll understand.”
Then Mika’s parents left the room.
----------------------------------------------------------
About two months passed after meeting Mika.
By day, he was Mika’s butler. By night, he was a pawn used to uncover another family’s weaknesses. That was how he lived.
He didn’t know which family was hostile to Mika’s house.
But one thing was certain: if he could gather information, he thought he might be recognized somehow. He had to be. That was the only way.
“Lady Mika? It’s time to return home.”
Haruta, who had gone out for a short outing with Mika, stayed by her side.
“Haruta! You’re too strict. Loosen up a little!”
“It’s the lady of the house’s order. I can’t help it.”
“Hmph. I want to play a little longer.”
“You know that can’t happen, don’t you?”
Haruta led Mika back home.
“Mika calls you Haruta, does she?”
“...Yes.”
“Ha... The only reason a common thing like you can stay attached to our family is because of Mika, so be grateful.”
“Yes... thank you.”
“Good. You may go now.”
---------------------------------------------------------
He had worked in Mika’s family for a year. At last, he had uncovered the rival family’s weakness and returned.
He thought that now that the work was done, they would no longer lay a hand on him.
“Hh... Lady...”
“? What is it?”
“I-I b-brought it...”
And then he showed them the documents and records he had brought back, forcing his battered body upright to hand them over.
“At last, at last!!! Good! You did very well.”
“Th-then... can I rest now?”
“Yes. I’ll grant your wish.”
Then Mika’s parents invited him to a banquet they had prepared.
“I-is it really all right for me to receive this kind of treatment?”
“Fufufu, of course it is. You did wonderfully. This is your reward. Eat well.”
“Th-thank you!”
And as he devoured the food ravenously, his eyes began to droop.
Was it because the tension had finally left him? Or because he was simply exhausted? It didn’t matter.
He could rest. That relief made everything feel softer. It was the first time he had ever felt warmth and happiness like this.
“Fufufu, yes. Sleep a little. Then everything will be over.”
He couldn’t understand what those words meant, but he was too tired to question them.
---------------------------------------
“Hey, dig more. A little more. Yeah, that’s it.”
“What’s that sound?”
“Hey, is the kid awake?”
He had definitely finished his work and fallen asleep. But... was this a car?
Two men were digging into the ground with shovels, measuring the length as they worked. Then they looked over here. They were definitely looking at him.
“But what did he do that they want him buried in the ground where no one can hear him?”
“How should I know? But if we’re told to do it, we do it, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Hurry up and dig, idiot.”
“Um... what are you doing?”
“? Hey, he woke up.”
“So what if he did?”
The man—or rather, the robot—raised a shovel and brought it down on him.
“Guhk!”
“? What the hell? This kid took that?”
He was knocked flat by the shovel, but the moment he saw it being raised again, he seized the chance and tackled the robot to the ground.
“Y-you... what are you?”
“You answer me. Who sent you?”
“W-we don’t kno—”
“Answer properly!!!!”
In that instant, he lost what little reason he had left, snatched the shovel away, and drove it straight into the robot’s head.
Boom
The ground where the robot had been lying cracked open.
“T-that monster!”
Another robot called for backup over a radio and summoned the others. At a glance, there were more than thirty of them.
He picked up the shovel that had fallen to the ground and fought with it.
“The target has a halo! Permission to use firearms granted!”
“Firearms?”
He clearly heard the word firearms. They had definitely said firearms.
And when he saw the backup robots pull out pistols and rifles, the moment he raised the shovel, bullets flew toward his head.
“Guh—”
No matter how strong he was, even a student with a halo couldn’t stand after taking four magazines from a rifle. But something was different.
“Ah... ah, right... that’s what it was... AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
For a moment, his reason snapped. He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, everything was silent. His hands were slick with black oil, and on the ground, more than thirty—no, more than forty robots lay broken and scattered across the dirt.
And then he realized he had been abandoned, and he screamed. Something was flowing from his head, and he had lost all feeling in one arm. One eye was dim and blurry. His memory had clearly broken off somewhere, and his whole body ached. He wanted to rest right now.
Even his previous life had not been this hard. He still clearly remembered living alone as a basic livelihood recipient after losing his parents.
“Fuck, what did I do so wrong? Aaaah! Please, stop! Don’t take the light away from me, please!!!!!!!! Stop!!!!!!!”
He shouted, and then he remembered nothing.
He had definitely been adopted to survive, and there he had done all kinds of filthy work and eventually solved the problem.
He had thought he would be recognized, but instead he cursed the world that had made him this way.
Pain and hope are separated by only the thinnest line.
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