127 127 "Mental illness" (1/2)

”Mental illness ......?

I whisper those words to Drage.

What the hell is that ......?

”I don't know the details, but the boy doesn't seem to have the will to live. That's why the functions of the body are being pulled down by the mind. It's not a physical disease, and I can't cure it.

In other words, the reason why this child is in this situation is because this child wants to do it.

After hearing this fact, I looked again at the face of this boy who looks like Shin, and then turned around to look at the manticore standing behind me.

...... You heard that right, Mr. Manticore.

The manticore does not respond to my call.

But I will ask more questions.

”The monsters I grew won't help me save the boy. If you want to save her, perhaps there's only one way. Tell us everything you know about her. Tell us everything you know about her, where you met her, why she's here, and how she got to be this way.

That will be the only way to save the child, I asked the manticore.

After a moment of silence, the manticore speaks up quietly.

...... The child was found a few years ago by me and my wife, who found it by accident.

Then the story is told from the manticore's mouth about his first encounter with the boy.

It was the manticore's wife who first found the boy.

She found the boy lying in the desert, alone and tired from walking around aimlessly.

His wife was a manticore, like him, but at the time their child had been born to her and had become ill and died of exhaustion.

Perhaps that was a factor, as his wife's manticore took care of the child while he was still down.

The boy was saved by the demon and lived with him, but at first he was still very cautious.

Even before he was picked up, he was already acting like he couldn't trust others for some reason.

However, his wife's manticore had fed the boy many times and waited patiently for him to get his hands on it.

After a few days, the tension between them began to dissolve as the boy dipped into the meal offered to him.

After that, the boy gradually developed a childlike smile and attitude befitting his age, and would often play on the back of the manticore or fall asleep with him in a body hug.

He would often play on the manticore's back and fall asleep with his body in his arms, as if he had lost his mother and was now reunited with her.

And so it was with his wife, Manticore, he says.

He met the boy just as he was about to lose his goal of living after losing his newborn child.

Even though they were of different races, he couldn't leave the child alone and dying, without a parent.

The manticore was so kind to the boy that he poured out his love for his lost child, and the manticore was also saved.

But that relationship only lasted a few years.

About a month ago, his wife's manticore suffered an unexplained weakness and died.

Details are unknown as to whether it was the same disease that once took their child.

But that's not the point. What is important is that the boy's mother, the manticore, has died.

Then, like his mother's manticore, the boy's body wasted away day by day, and eventually he fell ill.

After seeing the condition of their children and their wives, it was natural for the manticore to believe that this child had the same disease.

Then he heard a rumor that I was a demon grower and was waiting for me to come to the desert territory.

He didn't tell you exactly where he heard about me.

...... I see. So that's how it is.

I nodded my head, which was mostly understandable.

Then a certainty filled me.