Tragedy Comes When Nobody is There

It was eight in the morning when Hiro got out of the bed. He walked out of his bedroom just to find that Haugust was waiting for him.

"Err, good morning, Haugust-san. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, it seems that you woke up, I was just passing by, don't mind me."

'It's so obvious that you were here all the time...'

"I-I see. Miwa woke up already?"

Hearing Hiro's question, Haugust became serious all of a sudden.

"Hiro, I think we need to talk."

Sensing the seriousness in the air, Hiro became serious too, but he didn't know why.

"Hm, I think we need to talk, too."

"Let's go to a private room, the things I need to say are top secret. Follow me."

Frowning, Hiro followed Haugust.

Arriving in front of a big door made of high-quality wood, Haugust said:

"When you enter this room, don't get scared, okay?"

"What is in this room that would make me scared?!"

"Sigh...you will see. I don't believe that it's scary, but other people may think so."

Opening the door, Hiro first saw a picture. It portrayed a beautiful woman, she had a long and black hair, her black eyes seemed to reflect an uncomfortable sensation as if she was looking at you. Her dressing was certainly not from this kingdom, they looked like from the old Japan.

The most catching thing in her was that she was identical to Miwa, her hair was the same, her eyes were the same, the only difference was her maturity. This woman was like a mother, she had the air of a mother who cares about her children. As for Miwa, she still had that free spirit thing around her.

"Is this beautiful woman Miwa's mother?"

Smiling, Haugust emotionally said:

"Yes, she perished a few years ago by an incident."

"I'm sorry to hear that..."

"Do not, please." pausing for a second, he said.

"I'm here to make a request, it may be a little overboard, but, please listen to me."

Remembering about last night when the system said that Haugust could be a party member, Hiro was starting to speculate about some things.

'Is he going to ask to enter my team?' he thought.

"O-okay, say it, if I can do it, I will do it."

"Hmm, let's enter the room."

Entering the special room, Hiro didn't saw one portray of Miwa's mother, but various of them. They were distributed all over the room. They were all in different poses and in all of them, she was beautiful.

"Some people may think that I'm obsessed with her, but they didn't know her, she was a real angel in my life and I don't bring people here, never."

"Why are you letting me in? I don't think that it's an obsession, you just like her this much, right?"

"Hehe, yeah." after a pause, he said, "Sigh, before I make the request, I will tell you a story, it will not be too long."

"Go on."

"Thirty years ago, the Nark kingdom and the Zaion kingdom were allies. In the Nark kingdom a young man served the army, he was just sixteen. In that period, the Zaion kingdom was suffering changes in their king, then something happened and the royalty was in a deadly crisis. As allies, one should help the other, and that's what happened. The Nark kingdom sent an army to help the royal family from Zaion. When the army arrived, the situation was worse than they expected, the royal family was dead."

Pausing for a moment, he then continued.

"The young man was in that army, and right when we thought that we should go back, we found the princess almost dead. The entire family was not dead, it should be a good thing, right? At that time, we thought-they thought that they would help the princess to rise as the Queen, but what she said came as a surprise to us. She wanted to die, she said that she couldn't stand her whole family dead. But, how could we kill the princess of our allied kingdom? They didn't want to hand her over to the enemies, as a result, they came after them. Most of the army was killed off, the power of numbers are incredible. As the war continued, they decided to retreat. In the end, just a few of them survived, including the princess and the young man, who was very lucky."

"The young man is you and the princess is Miwa's mother, right?"

"Yes. Their scape was a success, but the trip to the Nark kingdom would take at least one month, that was hard for people in bad conditions like them. In one month, the young man and the princess formed a tie, that tie then transformed into a child named Miwa. They passed through a lot of criticism, but they cared not about it. As the man was growing up, he participated in more and more wars, until he became famous for his acts. Unfortunately, when he went to his last campaign, people from the Zaion kingdom got information about the princess, they came for her when the man wasn't there. They killed the princess, luckily, they didn't found the daughter. When the man came back, knowing that his loved one was murdered by those people, he became mad and his daughter started to ignore him. That's...the whole story I wanted to tell you."

"I'm sorry to hear that you-"

"I said no apologies, it's not your fault, why would you be sorry?"

Grinning, Hiro then said:

"Hmm, right."

"Now, Hiro, I will make an egoistic request, it's up to you to accept or not."

"Say it."

"As I'm quite good at judging people, I saw that you are a very sincere person, that's why I dare to ask you: can you stay here and protect Miwa in my place?"