By the time I finished everything in a rush, it was already a little before 11 p.m.
I lifted my hands from the typewriter and stood up from my seat.
I had promised to stop by the children before bed, so I had to keep that promise.
I took a thermometer, a stethoscope, and a simple medical kit out of the first-aid box hanging on the wall.
I also grabbed the chart, since I had to keep up the pretense that the children were sick in case Dr. Ross and the research team came by.
At the very least, if I kept up appearances like this, there wouldn’t be any awkward questions later.
When I stepped into the hallway, the mansion was quiet.
The researchers had long since gone back to the residential wing, and the servants, including Herman, had retreated to their own quarters by this hour.
Which meant I didn’t have to worry about anyone watching me for the moment.
Free from other people’s eyes, my steps felt a little lighter. It was the only time I didn’t need to imitate an aristocrat’s gait.
So I headed down the hall toward the children’s rooms.
As always, I decided to start with the one who made me the least tense.
"Alfred, may I come in?"
I stood in front of Alfred’s door and knocked twice.
But there was no answer.
Light was leaking out from under the door, so he was definitely inside...
I knocked again, but still no response.
When I gently opened the door and stepped inside, I saw Alfred asleep on the bed without even a blanket over him.
Beside him, a military magazine had fallen to the floor next to the bed.
He must have been waiting for me and reading, then gotten too sleepy to stay awake and let it slip from his hand.
I moved as quietly as possible, then took out the mercury thermometer and carefully slipped it into the child’s sleeping mouth.
37.0 degrees. Slightly higher than an adult’s, but normal for a child his age.
Of course, that was only natural, since he wasn’t sick in the first place.
I looked at the thermometer for a moment, then picked up my pen over the chart.
I couldn’t write the actual reading down.
The moment I recorded a normal temperature, Dr. Ross and the research team would have proof that the children had recovered.
Then there would be no reason to delay the schedule, and before three days had passed, let alone a week, that cold needle would be back in his arm.
'That can’t happen.'
I moved the pen slowly.
[Temperature: 37.6 degrees. Suspected mild fever; rest required.]
It was a number that had nothing to do with the truth.
But this one altered number could buy that child a few more days.
Sometimes lies were useful, weren’t they?
After that, I took out the stethoscope and lightly pressed it to Alfred’s chest.
I heard a steady, even breathing sound.
It meant he was healthy, but on the chart I wrote:
[Respiration: Slightly irregular; coughing during sleep confirmed. Observation required.]
Then I placed a fever reducer and a glass of water on the bedside table and left a note telling him to take it when he woke up.
I wasn’t sure whether it was right to give medicine to a child who wasn’t even sick... but in the end, this was still for his sake.
Alfred shifted briefly, but soon returned to deep sleep, his breathing settling again.
Before I left, I picked up the magazine that had fallen under the bed and put it back on the shelf.
Just before closing the door, I paused and looked once at Alfred’s sleeping face.
It wasn’t the stiff expression he had worn all day while watching my every move. It was just the face of a child his age, sleeping soundly.
Yes, that was what a five-year-old’s face was supposed to look like.
I quietly closed the door and left the room.
When I stepped back into the hallway, Alexia’s door was right beside it.
By now I had grown a little more used to facing Alexia, so I stood before the door and knocked naturally.
"Come in."
As before, the answer came quickly.
When I opened the door, Alexia was sitting at her desk, writing something in a notebook.
When she saw me come in, she set down her pen and turned her head.
She didn’t say anything, but the tired look in her eyes told me she had been waiting for me all along.
"May I check your temperature?"
"Yes."
Alexia didn’t get up. She simply lifted her chin slightly and opened her mouth.
Then I placed the mercury thermometer in her mouth.
36.8 degrees. Normal here too.
After that, I opened the chart and, just as I had with Alfred, altered the contents little by little.
[Temperature: 37.6 degrees. Mild fever continuing; rest required.]
Then I carefully pressed the stethoscope against Alexia’s back and wrote on the chart:
[Respiration: Slightly irregular. Observation required.]
Alexia watched silently as I scribbled on the chart.
'She’s watching. She may have noticed.'
I closed the chart, took a fever reducer from the medical kit, and set it on the desk.
"Take one of these before bed."
Alexia looked down at the fever reducer for a long moment.
"I’m not sick."
"Still, just in case."
A brief silence passed.
Alexia picked up the tablet. Without another word, she swallowed it with the water.
But the child didn’t ask any more questions.
As I was about to stand up, I glanced at the chart for a moment.
[37.8 degrees, irregular breathing.]
That too was a complete lie.
But this lie would buy that child a few more days.
So that was enough. More than enough.
"Father, I have a question."
Alexia suddenly asked me a question.
'Did she notice I altered the chart?'
I swallowed dryly and answered.
"What is it?"
"The problem you gave us this morning."
If she meant the question from this morning, then it had to be...
"You mean why people shouldn’t hurt one another?"
"Yes. I’m still thinking about it."
Alexia held up her notebook, packed with writing. Inside, her notes on the answer to the morning’s question were neatly organized.
"You said there was something more to the reason people shouldn’t hurt others than simply breaking social norms or causing harm to those around them."
"Yes, I certainly did."
"Then could it be that the reason people shouldn’t hurt others is because of a feeling called conscience?"
I was surprised. I hadn’t expected the word conscience to come out of Alexia’s mouth first.
"That’s a good approach. Why do you think that?"
"On the surface, it’s because when people violate their conscience, they feel uncomfortable inside. If they act against the moral ideas they’ve learned since childhood, areas of the brain including the frontal lobe and limbic system become active, causing unpleasant feelings that interfere with daily life. Acts like hurting another person make those feelings root even more deeply in the brain."
I set down the medical kit I was holding and listened quietly to Alexia’s argument.
"In the end, the social norms or moral ideas I mentioned are derived from that conscience, and because violating conscience can cause psychological pain, people shouldn’t hurt others. That is the conclusion I reached to your question, Father."
When Alexia finished her short speech, I gave her a small round of applause.
"Very good. It’s clear you really put a lot of thought into it."
At my praise, Alexia lifted her chin a little with obvious pride, as if she were sticking her nose in the air.
She looked pleased both that her long-considered theory had been validated and that she would get out of dish duty.
"However,"
'However?'
Her expression changed at once.
"Unlike what you think, conscience isn’t actually that strong a feeling. It certainly does help prevent us from doing wrong by creating discomfort or fear, just as you said. But in my opinion... it still isn’t enough to fully control a person’s primal desires."
Having her confidently stated opinion, which she had squeezed out over hours, rejected, Alexia looked stunned.
"Perhaps, contrary to your logic, social norms arose precisely because conscience alone couldn’t fully control desire."
"But throughout history, many legal codes have maintained social order based on those very conscientious feelings. For example, religious laws like the Ten Commandments or the Quran also establish rules by prioritizing human conscience..."
"And yet the people who would break them always did, didn’t they? Countless people justified their own actions as righteous and ended up committing evil while blindfolding themselves with their own conscience. Then they brushed it off with things like, ‘I had no choice,’ or ‘What I did wasn’t wrong.’"
"But..."
Alexia tried to argue back, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say and trailed off.
And for the first time, I saw Alexia looking dejected.
'So she can make that kind of face too.'
The proud, haughty girl who always tried to maintain her intellectual composure had shown me a weak side for the first time.
"However, your answer did come very close to the truth."
So I decided to give her a small hint so she could regain her confidence.
"You mentioned religious laws, didn’t you? That may have come close to the answer."
At that, Alexia fell deep into thought.
"Hmm... let me think. If it’s religious law, does that mean some unscientific, abstract idea like being struck by divine punishment or falling into hell after committing a sin?"
I shook my head.
"Of course not. But if you rely too much on logic alone, it may be hard to find the answer."
Hearing another negative response, Alexia sank into thought again.
Just moments ago her eyes had been tired, but now they were bright with curiosity.
Then, from behind us, the door suddenly flew open and there was a thud.
"A-Alfred?"
Through the gap in the door, Alfred stood there with his hair all mussed up, rubbing one eye.
"I thought you were asleep. When did you wake up?"
"W-well, actually, I woke up when Father came into my room and put the stethoscope on me... but I figured getting up would just interrupt things, so I pretended to be asleep. But then I could hear you talking with Alexia all the way out here, and I got curious, so I was listening, and then..."
Alfred scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he continued. His eyes still hadn’t fully shaken off sleep, but there was something awkward mixed in with them.
I looked at him silently for a moment.
"So you were listening the whole time?"
"...Yes. A little."
Alfred answered softly, avoiding my eyes. At that, the atmosphere in the room sank into something subtle and strange.
Alexia turned her chair slightly to look at Alfred.
Whether because of the discussion just now or because of his unexpected appearance, her eyes had become even sharper.
"Then did you think about it too, Alfred? The reason people shouldn’t hurt others."
At Alexia’s direct question, Alfred hesitated for a moment.
He wore the blank expression of someone caught off guard by a question he hadn’t prepared for.
"I’m not really sure. Honestly, I thought about conscience too, like Alexia did. But if I had to say what I thought..."
Alfred scratched his head and spoke hesitantly, without much confidence.
"Maybe... it’s just because we’re scared."
Alfred spoke carefully.
"Scared?"
When Alexia asked back immediately, Alfred nodded.
"Yes. I’m scared of someone getting hurt... and I’m scared of hurting someone myself. In case... it can’t be undone."
He paused for a moment, then lowered his gaze to the floor and added,
"Once something is broken... I feel like it can never go back to the way it was."
It was a short answer, but it carried a weight that was unlike Alfred’s usual self.
By contrast, Alexia looked at Alfred’s answer with clear disapproval.
Perhaps because it wasn’t something she could derive through logic, her gaze also carried a hint of scorn, as if it were unscientific.
"Interesting."
I spoke quietly.
"Alfred, what you said may be the closest to the answer."
At the unexpected response, Alfred and Alexia’s expressions became complete opposites.
"Then are you ready to hear the correct answer?"
Both of them looked at me at once.
"Everything you said was right too... but I think the reason people shouldn’t hurt others is regret. Yes, Alexia, the social promise you mentioned, and Alfred, the love or fear you mentioned, and even the regret I mentioned, could all be said to be the same thing in the end."
Perhaps my words sounded vague, because Alexia’s eyebrows rose slightly.
"Alexia, you brought up conscience, but I think regret is a feeling with deeper and stronger force than conscience. Conscience, fear, empathy, and social norms... all of these are intertwined to form a single line."
I paused for a moment, then added in a lower voice,
"And the moment you cross that line, you pay the price."
At that, Alexia’s gaze wavered slightly.
"That price doesn’t have to come in the form of law or punishment. But one day, when the experimental table we looked down on is turned over, we’ll be the ones lying beneath that needle. And..."
I stopped for a moment. Feeling the children’s eyes fixed on me, I slowly continued.
"Only then will you understand."
My voice was very quiet.
"What the choices we made really meant, and what those choices left behind."
I glanced lightly at the medical kit in my hand.
"People can deceive themselves for as long as they like before that. It was necessary, there was no choice, it was the right thing to do, and so on. But the moment the positions are reversed, all those excuses lose their meaning."
I lifted my head again and looked at the children.
"Only then do you truly see what you’ve done. Even if regret comes later, nothing changes. That is why regret keeps inflicting pain that can’t even be compared to conscience, gnawing away at a person from within."
Alexia’s eyebrows lifted a fraction.
"That sounds less logical and more emotional."
"But emotion is also fuel for logic."
I smiled faintly.
"Just as an engine won’t run without fuel, logic can’t move without emotion either."
Alexia still seemed unable to accept it with her own mind, and only wore a suspicious expression.
I watched her face for a moment, then tilted my head lightly.
"You look unconvinced."
"...A little. No, honestly, in many ways."
Alexia answered honestly.
"I can try to understand that emotion creates logic, but doesn’t that also mean logic can be shaken by emotion? Isn’t that, rather, an imperfect system..."
I let out a small laugh.
"That’s true. It is, in fact."
At that, Alexia’s eyes widened just a little.
It was as if she were looking at me with a "See? I was right after all" expression.
"Human logic is not perfect. It changes depending on the situation, becomes distorted by emotion, and sometimes even turns away from the truth to protect itself. That is why human beings are incapable of perfect judgment. But because of that imperfection... they can also stop."
Alexia tilted her head.
"A being that moves only through perfect logic and efficiency would certainly be impressive, but the world is never as precise as a machine. In fact, the more precise a machine is, the more easily it can break from outside factors and variables. In the same way, the more perfect a person is, the more easily they can break."
I added quietly,
"That is why emotion inevitably exists to compensate for it."
The room fell silent.
Alexia could no longer argue and sank into thought, while Alfred simply listened quietly.
I looked at the two of them once more.
"So remember this."
My voice was quiet, but firm.
"It’s important to build logic, but you must always look at what that logic is built on."
I paused for a moment, then added in a low voice,
"If the foundation is empty, then no matter what you stack on top of it, it will eventually collapse."
A brief silence followed.
Alexia opened her notebook without saying a word and began writing something down.
This time, her handwriting was much slower than before.
Alfred was still standing there, but his expression had become much calmer than before.
After confirming that, I picked up the medical kit again.
"Let’s end the lesson here."
As I walked toward the door, I added,
"You’ve all thought enough for today, so now you need to rest too."
Just before I opened the door, Alfred asked cautiously,
"Father, then who’s going to do the dishes...?"
"The dishes..."
Right, now that he mentioned it, there had been such a punishment.
After a moment’s thought, I said,
"Even if the direction was different, I think both of you were essentially correct."
"Does that mean...?"
"You don’t have to do the dishes."
At those words, both children’s faces brightened.
Even Alexia, who had looked sulky just moments ago, seemed delighted by the exemption from punishment.
Seeing that childlike smile, I felt as if, for the first time, I was beginning to see the children’s true selves little by little.
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