novelraw Chapter 73 : Eden, the Garden (12)
Chapter 73 : Eden, the Garden (12)
Chapter 73: Eden, the Garden (12)
Hestia recalled a past when she had been happy.
They were days when she truly lived like a child in a family within a large mansion. The abandoned orphans mingled like real sisters under Mother’s care.
In Hestia’s memory, Mother had been kinder and warmer than anyone. She could still see how Mother cherished every child like a daughter.
Hestia especially knew that the Witch of Motherhood had lavished even greater love on her.
A life without want.
That dreamlike time ended on a peaceful night.
— Come, my daughter, follow your mother. There is a place we must go."
— Where are we going?"
— A good place."
The place they reached was a cold basement stained with blood.
Hestia did not remember what happened that day.
When she opened her eyes, Maximilian had already rescued her, and Mother was gone.
Later, Hestia learned that Mother had been a witch. Along with that truth came the horror that the girls Mother raised with love were either turned into witches or killed.
The circumstantial evidence was too clear to deny, yet in a corner of her heart Hestia did not let go of her faith in Mother.
The only day she would truly stop believing would be the day she confirmed the truth with her own eyes and ears.
That day was now.
Hestia advanced, lips trembling. Nike, flustered, released the grip he had on her waist.
"Tia! It’s dangerous! She’s a witch!"
"…Nike. It’s all right. Even so, she’s my mom."
"How can a witch be your mom!"
"…Please trust me."
Hestia sent him a desolate look.
It was the look of someone shaking with fear right before facing the truth.
Everyone pointed at Dionea as an evil witch, but Hestia clung to the memories of being loved and shielded her.
"I-It’s me. Do you remember? Hestia… You read me fairy tales every night."
Even that memory could not be a lie. It was a vivid memory with Mother.
"Of course I remember. How could this mother ever forget you? I am happy you have returned."
The Witch of Motherhood opened her arms. A primal urge to rush into that embrace raised its head. Hestia trudged forward, spellbound.
Her pupils were unfocused.
It was the look of someone who, hiding the dark truth, only wished to see what she wanted to see.
"Tia."
Nike called out to stop her. Hestia ignored him and kept walking.
Step, step.
As if she meant to forget an unhappy reality and return to those days.
To the mother who had taken in the orphan she had become after the witch took her parents.
To those nights when she had been loved.
As if trying to forget the memory of being dragged to a lab and almost eaten.
"Come to me. Mother loves you."
Just before Hestia fell into the witch’s arms, she halted and parted her lips.
"…Mom."
"Yes? What is it?"
"But… Why is your mouth on your belly?"
The witch’s face went cold.
"You can see it?"
"…Yes. Nike helped me open my eyes."
"Hahaha… Is that so?"
Those with anxious hearts often turned away from truth. Hestia had done so. The truth she faced was dark and unhappy.
Born into poverty, abused, and raised like livestock to earn money, she had never known love.
Then she became an orphan and, taken in by the Witch of Motherhood, received love for the first time.
Twisted as it might have been, Hestia felt content and took comfort in having a mother.
She believed the affection and attention she received then could not have been false.
At least, not until she saw Mother’s belly open a greedy mouth.
"M-Mom…? What is that really?"
"Why are you so startled, child? It is your mother’s womb. You are merely returning to where you were born."
Hestia’s heart plummeted. Her hands and feet turned cold.
The instant Nike removed the curse from her eyes, what she saw was Mother’s hideous and terrifying reality.
A dreadful mouth, teeth like a shark’s, split her belly open vertically and gaped wide. Could that be called Mother’s form?
No mother of any living creature in the world was like that.
She woke from the sweet dream. The brainwashing finally snapped away.
Witnessing the filthy, shocking truth, Hestia’s lips quivered.
"H-How… That can’t be."
"There is nothing strange about it. As a mother loves her child in any form, so a child should do the same. Do you dislike the way your mother looks?"
With her familiar rhetoric, the Witch of Motherhood disarmed her. Hestia’s obsession with Mother was especially strong, so she could not help but waver.
In her entire life, the only one who had shared love with her was an evil witch, and that witch was trying to kill her without a second thought.
"I can’t believe it..."
Hestia stopped walking. The steps that had moved closer to see became the posture of wariness.
The witch strode forward. With her movement, withered skins moved along, as if they were the same body.
"My daughter… My dear little girl. Do not fear. Your mother loves you."
The Witch of Motherhood changed her appearance. Since she had been exposed anyway, there was no longer a need to hide.
Mouths opened and split across her entire body. Teeth sharp as a shark’s parted those mouths. She was covered head to toe in mouths.
"…Is that your true form, Mother?"
"Does my form look strange to you?"
"…"
It was exactly what Nike had described to Hestia before pulling her from the mass of flesh.
Not a benevolent mother, but a monster with hundreds of mouths. Hestia had not believed it, but once Nike dispelled the magic on her, she finally could.
"Daughter. Why is your face so set."
At the question, Hestia stroked her own cheek. She could feel the tension in her facial muscles in her palm.
Hestia closed and opened her eyes, then spoke.
"Mom… You still love me, right?"
"Of course. No matter what you look like or what you do, I love you more than anything in the world."
Hestia stepped one pace closer.
‘...I had something I always wanted to ask.’
When the Witch of Motherhood had tried to force her into becoming a witch. Even now.
It was the question she had strained to believe until the end.
"Mom, do you know my name?"
"…"
If she loved her more than anything, she would know. That was proof of existence.
The Witch of Motherhood searched her memory and answered slowly.
"It’s Tia."
"…"
Tia was not her real name.
It was the name Nike used for convenience.
In other words, the Witch of Motherhood did not remember Hestia’s name. She had parroted the name Nike used. She had given the girls numbers to begin with, so that was natural.
Even so, Hestia had trusted it would not be so.
"I see."
At last, Hestia swallowed the medicine of truth and stepped back into reality.
"...A witch would never know love."
"Daughter?"
"What kind of mother claims to have borne her daughter in her heart, then rips out her heart and eats it?"
The Witch of Motherhood answered with a fishy smile.
"It was a pig’s heart."
"We’ll see."
Hestia’s demeanor turned lethal, like a loosened knot snapping.
In the moment she faced the reality she had denied and denied again, nothing was left to her.
Hestia was swallowed by a savage sense of betrayal.
"So... You brainwashed us, blinded us, raised us, then ate us…?"
"…"
The witch’s expression turned vicious as well. A child who defied her mother was the kind of target a witch hated most.
Especially when…
"If you had only behaved, I would have made you a witch."
All the more when the livestock she had raised so carefully would not obey.
"Who asked for that?"
"Ignorant humans do not understand how rapturous the blessing of the stars is. Should you not be grateful that your mother would let you experience that grace firsthand?"
"...So arrogant."
"Insolent wretch. You are the ungrateful one who knows no grace."
Hestia raised her war scythe.
The mother and daughter relationship was over.
From the start, she had been the only one who believed they were mother and daughter.
Because of her deprivation of love, she had forced herself to ignore the truth. Their relationship was less than that of livestock and keeper.
"I saved a piglet that was dying and fed it, and now it tries to betray me. How absurd."
"…"
"Love? Hahahahaha! Foolish girl. You think all those memories were really yours? The meat and entrails of pigs I fed to the guard dog at the house, done up as cake and omelets, those memories. Hahahaha!”
"…"
Devoid of motherhood, the witch poured out the most poisonous words.
"Fairy tales? They were grimoires. It was not me who came to you every night, it was a chimera. Hoho… How blind could you be to love that your eyes still shake in disbelief even now. If you are going to be stupid, then be obedient and take love to the end. Child. Yes? Child. Shall I tell you more?"
"…"
Hestia froze before the terrible truth.
What one vaguely knew and what one heard directly from the person once believed to be Mother were worlds apart.
Her last hope shattered to pieces.
Even the love given in lies had been entirely fake.
Hestia had never been loved, not once.
"Shut up."
"…?"
"Son, wait a moment. I am disciplining a sister who does not know her place."
Slice!
The witch’s head rolled across the floor. Hestia realized belatedly that the war scythe in her hands had vanished. Nike had hurled it with telekinesis.
"…Son? You should behave."
"Be quiet. I’ll smash that mouth!"
"...Good grief. You are all nothing but irritations."
Nike stepped in front of Hestia.
"If you hurt Tia, you die."
"What touching affection."
"It’s love!"
"What?"
Nike bristled and shouted.
"From today, I am Tia’s mom!"
"…?"
Even Hestia was dumbfounded by Nike’s declaration. No one listening could make sense of his words.
In his own way, Nike was trying to protect Hestia, but it was very hard to parse.
"…Nike, are you stupid?"
"A daughter must not call her mother an idiot!"
"…Ha."
Hestia laughed in disbelief.
The corners of her mouth would not come down.
It was funny and it was something to be grateful for.
Even without a mother’s love, someone loved Hestia.
That fact alone comforted and steadied her.
Hestia’s reality was not in the witch’s mansion. It was there, in the precious motive who meant to protect her.
Only Nike, who would risk his life to protect her, was her true love and reality.
‘...This is the answer.’
Hestia had become a witch hunter to find love. For that single reason she had come all the way here.
The result was success.
She had found true love.
Squirm, squirm.
The Witch of Motherhood reattached her severed head and rose. Bloodshot eyes glared at Nike and Hestia.
"Twice in a single day my face touches this filthy floor... I could not be more disgusted."
"Your face is filthier!"
"Silence! You vermin. Playtime with you is over. I will eat you all now."
Nike bared his teeth in a grin and stared confidently at the witch’s spilled blood with his fingertip leveled.
"You’re boring to play with!"
Whoosh!
Bloodflame bloomed again.
Nike raised flames from the witch’s blood on the floor. It was so precise and high tier a magic that even a tiny amount of blood showed tremendous power.
"You think the same trick will work?"
Crunch, crunch!
The rising black-red blaze was swallowed by the sharp mouths sprouting from the flesh.
"Hah…?"
Nike was taken aback. Those flames were not something you could extinguish by swallowing them. Especially not with a lump of flesh made of moisture and blood.
"How?"
The witch answered with absolute seriousness.
"I pretended to play mother, and you truly took me for some lowly witch?"
Hestia stood at Nike’s side.
"Nike... Something’s off. The Witch of Motherhood is known as fourth rank, but she shouldn’t have that much mana."
The witch’s bulk grew even larger. Masses of flesh clung to her body and swelled it.
Flesh-colored clusters gathered, and a countless number of mouths sprouted hideously.
The mana pooling around her crushed the lungs. It was an oppressive aura of a fourth rank witch could never display.
"Hahaha! You give me laughter to the end, foolish daughter. You hunters truly think you know us well? Fourth rank? Witch of Motherhood? You are so fond of little names."
"…What?"
Now grown to the size of a mansion, the Witch of Motherhood spoke her true identity.
"I will tell you specially. Who I am."
The largest mouth on her belly yawned. Within, endless teeth coiled into a spiral and formed a bottomless shaft.
A voice echoed from the depths of that pit.
"I received the name, Greed, from the Third Sage, the summer of sin, the witch who served the Pale Moon."
The maw of bottomless greed belched a stench and roared.
"Lowly ones. Call me the demigod Dionea!"