Mistaken for a Masked Munchkin

Javert's Iron and Justice (16)

Javert Droit.

Serian Droit.

Mother and daughter, reunited only after crossing nine winters.

As if making up for all the longing that had piled up in that time, the two talked and talked.

"Mother, it's..."

Stories of sadness.

Stories of loneliness.

Stories of cruelty.

Javert spoke as if pouring out the knot in her chest.

The old woman simply held her daughter and listened to her voice.

A wrinkled hand patted her slender back.

Javert had put on the years and grown into a mature woman.

Even so, still. In Serian's eyes, she seemed to be the same fourteen-year-old girl.

"It must have been hard, my daughter."

"Mom should have been there to protect you all along..."

The girl had grown, but in front of the old woman, she was still small.

The tears never dried on Javert's cheeks.

The emotions that had pooled at the bottom of her heart for the past nine years.

Things she had lived with in cold silence, unable to shed them or speak of them for her entire life.

"I just... wanted to see your face again, Mother, even once."

Now that she had come this far, the sentences burst out like a broken dam.

The pooled water broke through iron armor.

Until that stream became a brook, a river, and then the sea.

Mother and daughter sat side by side, unraveling the confessions that had stacked up in layers.

"Your position is Chief Investigator? My daughter has really made something of herself!"

"If Mom had been there with you, I would have celebrated so much."

"I know I'm very late, but congratulations."

"Not at all. I simply needed something to devote myself to."

"Even so, um... well. Since Mother is congratulating me, I think I feel h-happy..."

Javert had passed from a fourteen-year-old girl and, before anyone knew it, become a twenty-three-year-old woman.

The girl had spent eight more years without her mother.

But even after so much time had passed, the woman was still Serian Droit's daughter.

Javert had never once forgotten that fact.

"Ahem."

The air bloomed softly.

Then, in the middle of it, the old woman's gaze suddenly shifted to one side.

"By the way... Javert, who is that gentleman standing over there?"

It was a black-haired boy.

Viktor had been standing silently in a corner of the study the whole time.

When Serian showed interest, he bowed first and offered a polite greeting.

"My apologies for the late introduction. I am Viktor. Though I am still lacking, I serve as Chief Investigator's Direct Aide."

"Viktor... The person you've been mentioning all this time! So the Direct Aide was here?"

"That is correct. I am always indebted to the Investigator."

"Oh my, from what I heard, our daughter is the one indebted to you."

Serian addressed the boy politely and without missing a beat.

Her distinct grace rippled through the study.

"I heard that when my daughter nearly made the wrong choice, Student Viktor appeared and stopped her. I truly don't know how to thank you..."

"Not at all. The Investigator is precious to me as well."

"That makes me so happy. To think our Javert grew up into someone loved this much by another person."

The old woman naturally smiled in satisfaction.

Her eyes looked at Javert and Viktor in turn.

A soft murmur followed.

"Neat features, polite manners, a devoted character, enough skill to take first place at an elite academy... and only five years apart from Javert."

A strange look flashed in Serian's eyes.

It was mischievous somehow, as if she could not hold back her amusement.

"Excuse me, Student Viktor. What do you think of our Javert?"

"Mother?"

"She is an outstanding person. I am always learning a great deal from Investigator."

"Not that kind of answer. I was asking what you think of her as a woman."

"Mother!"

"She is a charming person."

"Oho. Charming, you say. Then that means..."

Javert looked flustered, while Serian kept asking questions.

Viktor quietly smiled at the mother and daughter.

Time passed that warmly.

But if there was a beginning, an end was bound to come as well.

"Investigator? It is about time for you to return."

"......"

The past, glimpsed by begging for a miracle.

But even that could not last forever.

"Go on, Javert."

The old woman gave her frozen daughter's back a gentle push.

Her touch was kind and firm.

"You have your own world, and your own time, don't you?"

"......"

A person could not live on memories alone.

They could not stay stopped in one corner.

They had to remember and imagine.

Because humans were beings who always lived in three time periods.

Life as a person was an organic mixture of past, present, and future.

"It's all right."

Memories piled up and became reminiscence, and accumulated reminiscence became soil for imagination.

A person could not become human while remaining in only one time period.

If buried in memory, one became blind.

If obsessed with reminiscence, one became an antique.

If drowned in imagination, one became a soap bubble.

"It should be all right for you to go back now. If my daughter allows it, Mom will stay in a corner of your memories for as long as you want."

"......"

The twenty-three-year-old daughter gave no answer.

She only spread her arms and hugged the old woman tight.

Serian simply patted the woman in silence.

A short while passed, and the old woman made a request of the boy across from her.

"Student Viktor."

"Yes, madam."

"Please take good care of our Javert."

"Do not worry. I promised I would always stay by her side."

"Really, the more I see you, the more I like you. I think you would be perfect as our daughter's son-in-law."

"I will gratefully accept that, even as empty praise."

Viktor approached and gently took Javert's hand.

Before the two of them, a wooden door had appeared at some point.

The boy carefully pulled the woman along.

Following that pull, her red hair left the old woman's arms.

"Javert."

"......"

"Will you say goodbye one last time? With a smile for Mom."

"......"

The old woman's request.

The woman had to stand in front of the wooden door for a long while.

She looked like she might break down at any moment, but the boy's tightly held hand kept her steady.

"......Mom."

Thanks to that, the woman was able to speak.

Even as tears fell, she managed to force the corners of her lips upward.

"Take care..."

"Yes. My daughter should take care too."

"Thank you. Truly, for my whole life..."

"Mom was thankful too. For becoming the daughter of such a flawed mother."

"If... I could live again, even then. I would want to be your daughter, Mom..."

"Mom too. If I could live again, I would want to be Javert's mother then as well."

Javert and Serian both cried.

The two sets of tears looked exactly alike, as if proving they were mother and daughter.

Click.

The woman's hand turned the doorknob.

A door that ended the reminiscence and returned them to their original time.

White light poured in.

"Mom."

"Javert."

"I love you."

"Mom loves you more."

Their final words.

With the two of them smiling as the final sight, the view went dark.

Consciousness surged upward and was flung back into reality.

Ding!

[Sub Quest Cleared!]

-Title: About the Things We Regret.

-Objective: Clear Purgatory Floors 81-90.

And like that, Purgatory Floor 90 was cleared.

***

We returned from Purgatory Floor 90.

Cold air brushed my cheek.

"Mom! Dad!"

The first one to greet us after we returned was none other than Lua.

The black-haired girl came toddling over and plopped into our arms.

I felt the soft sensation of her cheeks against my hands.

Thankfully, she seemed to have waited quietly until we got out.

Right before entering the Memory stage, I had sent Lua out of Purgatory in advance.

'It wasn't a scene I could show Lua.'

Lua was a child who was extremely afraid of discord between her parents.

I couldn't show a child like that the sight of Mom breaking Dad's neck hundreds of times.

'I sent her out ahead of time.'

Thankfully, Lua smiled brightly for us.

Holding that tiny body tight seemed to wash away the exhaustion of the past few days.

'Quite a bit of time passed.'

About two days had passed outside.

I had expected it, but sure enough, time in Floor 90's phenomenon seemed to flow differently from reality.

We calmly sorted out the situation.

Surprisingly, the academy was quiet.

Since Javert had suddenly disappeared, I had expected chaos over a prison break or whatever...

'Looks like the Headmaster handled it well.'

Thanks to that, we were able to wrap things up without much fuss.

Javert seemed lost in thought, then said she would go to the Headmaster's office first and left.

Maybe there was something they needed to talk about.

I sent her off with a small smile.

If things went like this, the two of them would probably have a lot to say.

'They had too little conversation between them all this time...'

Father and daughter had always been sinners to each other.

The Headmaster carried guilt over leaving Javert alone when she was suffering.

On the other side, Javert thought she had destroyed her family, so she had never been able to lift her head before the Headmaster.

Their father-daughter relationship had never recovered in the original story.

This time, I hoped their story would heal again.

Even if they had never managed to express it to each other, there was no doubt that they loved each other.

"It'll be all right, won't it? This time."

I muttered the words lightly.

Maybe they were a wish, or maybe a prayer.

"Whew."

After they disappeared, the corridor grew quiet again.

I was left alone in the Purgatory corridor.

My fingers took the chance to operate the status window.

When I pressed the notification button, the messages that had piled up all this time appeared all at once.

Ding!

[Sub Quest Cleared!]

-Title: About the Things We Regret.

-Objective: Clear Purgatory Floors 81-90.

[You have cleared the stage perfectly!]

-Rewards will be provided. Please check your inventory.

Ding!

[Hidden Quest Completed!]

-Title: Devotion and Love

-Objective: Achieve 'mental death' 100 times or more for someone else.

[You have endured mental death 349 times for another person!]

-A special reward will be provided. Please check the Saint system.

Ding!

[Main Quest Cleared!]

-Title: Javert's Iron and Justice

-Objective: Stop the tragedy of Blue Night.

[Through a stunning performance, you have prevented the tragedy!]

-Rewards will be provided. Please check your inventory.

"I should do what needs doing."

Settlement time.

It was time to receive the rewards that had been delayed all this time.

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