Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 21 - Chapter 6.2

Rudeus

“AND THAT IS HOW we ended up here,” Carlisle finished. Claire’s eyes were red, and Carlisle’s face was lined with sorrow.

There were a few different reactions from around the table. A few grimaces, a few frowns and folded arms. Therese had her hands over her mouth in shock. The Blessed Child smiled as though she’d known the details all along. Cliff’s face was unreadable, which made me wonder if maybe he’d heard this story before somewhere.

It all made perfect sense now that I’d heard it. What Claire had planned was unforgivable. She hadn’t gone through with it, but the fact she’d even thought about doing that to her own daughter was enough. I wasn’t about to forgive her for it, and it sure as hell wasn’t a cultural difference, or acceptable under Millis Church doctrine. I wasn’t sure if it actually constituted a crime in Millis, but from the reactions I was seeing here she’d definitely succeeded in disgracing the House of Latria.

If I’d abetted her, it hardly needed to be said that I’d have kissed goodbye to any hope of doing business in this town. And that was why she disowned me. Why she tried to do it all herself. She struggled over the decision alone and planned to take all the punishment alone.

The thing, though, was that Claire had her facts wrong.

“Was that, um, treatment…was it from two hundred years ago, by any chance?” I asked. 

Claire looked up in surprise. “It…it was!” she said. “Around two hundred years ago, it said, there was a woman in the same state…”

“And that woman was driven away from her village for what she did?”

“You know the story… Does that mean you tried it?”

“Of course not,” I said. The other case Claire had found had to be Elinalise. The story Claire knew was a pretty generous massaging of the facts, of course. Yes, Elinalise had been in the same state as Zenith, but after a few decades, she got better. It wasn’t until later that she turned into a total slut. 

To be fair, it’s in the nature of old stories to get mixed up as they get passed down. It makes sense that it got twisted in the retelling.

“I didn’t try that ‘treatment,’” I went on, “but I did meet that woman and heard her story directly.”

I guess I hadn’t put Elinalise in my letter. I’d kept way too much secret back then.

“I…I see,” Claire said. Her shoulders slumped like she’d been deflated. In her face, though, I thought I saw something like relief. “Everything I did was for nothing, then…”

“Yep,” I agreed.

“…I see.”

If she’d told me her plans way back on day one, I wouldn’t have gotten so mad.

Whoa there, Grandma, I’d have said, laughing her off. I know the woman you’re talking about and you’ve got the whole story wrong. How could you think that would work?

Yeah. I mean, probably.

“You should’ve told me,” I said.

“If you hadn’t known any other way to make her better, would you have been able to resist trying it?”

I didn’t reply. I didn’t know how to answer. I couldn’t just say “no.” If Elinalise had told me, “Screwing around cured me,” I might have done it. But not right away. I would have tried anything else first. But a few years had passed since I met Elinalise. If nothing had worked, how would I feel now? After dwelling on it for years, who knew what decision I might have reached?

“To think, you knew, and still I… Of all the foolish…” Claire began to cry again.

After finding out she’d tried to subject her daughter to horrible abuse for nothing, maybe she never wanted to see her again. Maybe there was still some bad blood there. Maybe she still had some mixed emotions.

Me, though—I felt great. Everything Claire had said and done finally made sense. When she said, “For the good of my daughter and my family,” Claire had been telling the truth.

And now here we were. And this huge production was because our falling-out got picked up and used to gain the upper hand in a power struggle. Claire did her best to keep everyone else unaware of (and therefore not involved in) her plan, to her credit. I guess she wanted to protect the Latria family from disgrace—Therese, and the uncle and aunt I still hadn’t met. But she’d gone about it all wrong. There just wasn’t another side to this. There had to have been a better option. All kinds of better options.

Even so, she’d done it for Zenith. And for me.

For the good of my daughter, and my family. I guess that was why Zenith slapped me and Carlisle.

I sighed. Then I remembered Cliff. Cliff, who’d tried to protect Claire.

“So, Cliff, when did you first hear about all this?” I asked.

“This morning. I ran into the three of them when they arrived at the church this morning,” he replied.

“…And you didn’t try to stop them then? You know all about Elinalise, don’t you?”

“The only thing they told me about the treatment was that it was something no decent person would condone.”

Hm, all right. I guess that follows. After all this time confiding in no one, Claire wasn’t about to just spill the entire thing to Cliff.

“I meant to tell you today, but then…” He trailed off. “I’m sorry.”

Then all this went down, and you never had the chance.

This was Cliff we were talking about. I was prepared to bet he really laid into Claire and Carlisle. What you’re doing is wrong. Return Zenith and apologize to Rudeus. That sort of thing. Then Carlisle, cowed by Cliff’s anger, confessed. Cliff probably felt uneasy at “something no decent person would condone.” Maybe they made him swear confidentiality.

That was why here, in front of all the others, he’d tried to argue with me instead of saying any of this out loud. He thought that if he could just stop things here, if he could get it through to me that Claire really had Zenith’s best interests at heart, there’d be the chance for reconciliation.

I couldn’t exactly say it was a good plan… Still, it was drafted out of consideration for Claire and Carlisle. It was Cliff, through and through.

The important thing here was that I had all the pieces at last. Talk about a relief.

Just as I was feeling good about things, Cliff looked around the whole room and said, “All right, allow me to ask again. We heard that all of this came down to a mother trying to help her daughter. Do you still mean to claim that ganging up on this woman to use as a scapegoat in your schemes is the will of Saint Millis?”

The pope wore his ever-friendly smile. The cardinal still looked sulky. The Cathedral Knights and the Temple Knights looked relieved, if anything. All eyes were on Cliff.

“This incident was all a big misunderstanding,” he continued. “Fortunately, not one person was killed. This affair all started with a mother’s love. I admit, time was wasted and losses were sustained in the confusion that ensued. Some of you have suffered temporary discomfort or injury. But is any of that so important? Can’t we let bygones be bygones? Can’t we forgive this woman, show some mercy?” Cliff looked at me. “Rudeus, the power to decide is yours. You have suffered the most here, and you have won the right.” 

I let go of the Blessed Child ages ago, I thought. But she was still sitting beside me, and still smiling like nothing she’d heard had surprised her. Like she was a real smarty pants, seeing through it all.

“That sounds fair to me,” I said calmly. There was still some bad blood between us, but I’d make time to have a good, long chat with Claire later. If she was the person I thought she was, we should be able to sort that out if we talked it out. She’d probably do something to irritate me along the way, but that was a normal part of knowing people.

“However, I have three conditions,” I said, then laid out my demands: “First, I want the Blessed Child to look at my mother’s memories and see if she can fix her.” I addressed this to the cardinal, but it was the Blessed Child who replied.

“Of course I will. We already had it scheduled, after all.” She still had that knowing attitude. Had she known she was going to examine Zenith today? Did she let herself get kidnapped because she knew, then manipulated this meeting? It was plausible.

“However,” she added, “I do not have the power to restore lost memories. I doubt that it will be within my abilities to cure her…”

“Even so, I’d like to try it. No objections from you, Your Eminence?”

The cardinal made a noise of assent. He seemed to be in a good mood. Probably because he saw his allies, the Latrias, were getting out of this more or less scot-free.

“Second, in exchange for my letting all this go, I expect your full and unqualified cooperation with the Dragon God Orsted.”

“It shall be so,” the pope said.

He was a given, but the cardinal nodded too and muttered, “Fine.”

I might even be able to demand the Ruijerd figures, I thought. Part of me wanted to try it, but I decided it was better to wrap up on a positive note. Things were fine for now. If I got greedy, it’d bite me in the butt later.

“Now, my third and final condition,” I said. I looked over at Claire and Carlisle. They stood still as stone, staring back at me. “I ask to be reinstated as a member of the Latria family.”

This was how the Millis incident drew to a close: the first to react was Therese. Her hand went to her breast and she gasped. Carlisle lowered his head, looking ashamed, and Claire started crying with big, hiccupping sobs. She was saying something that could have been “thank you” and could have been “I’m sorry.” It was hard to tell through the sobs. As Claire wept, Zenith laid a hand on her head.