The true

"Uh... truth is, I don't know what to say except one thing: this feels like déjà vu."

Edward felt genuinely sad about the story the man had just told, yet he couldn't help but notice this had happened before—he didn't understand any of it.

"What do you mean?" Cain asked, a touch of confusion in his voice.

"I mean this has already happened. What exactly does the story you just told me have to do with why you hate the General? I don't see where he fits in here."

"Ahh... you mean that... I forgot to mention it."

How could he forget something so important? Edward was starting to think something was seriously wrong with the man's head.

"Well, from my wife's illness to my son's death—all of it was planned and carried out by that bastard."

"What?" That statement genuinely shocked the young man, as he couldn't see how the General could have had anything to do with those events.

"For starters, my wife's illness was rare, but not incurable. I don't remember exactly when, but sometime after I died, I found out her condition was caused by a cluster of remnants that the General had forced into her."

"You see, remnants, as I've explained, are vestiges of desires people leave behind—things incompatible with humans once they're born."

"They can cause different effects on a person depending on what kind of desire they come from."

"In my wife's case, she was infected by several remnants of different desires, causing her body and soul to rapidly collapse, to the point where she even lost her existence."

"The General hid this using something called an 'illusory remnant,' which basically tricked the doctors who diagnosed her into believing it was a rare and incurable disease, when it really wasn't."

"And I couldn't—or maybe didn't want to—notice anything. I'm not sure if that remnant deceived me too, or if I was just blinded by the idea of having a normal life and trying to ignore the General's existence."

"Because my wife died, I had to work harder and grew more distant from my son, which partly led to his death. You could say the General was indirectly responsible."

"Though maybe I'm just making excuses for myself again..."

"..." Edward was completely speechless now. He never expected the General could plan all that just to ruin one man's life—a man who was even trying to escape him.

"And that's not all. Remember how I told you the rumors about him abusing his ex-girlfriend were false?"

"Yeah...?" The young man began to suspect where this explanation was going.

"Well, turns out they were true."

"..." Edward's eyes widened unnaturally.

"Yeah, that's exactly the face I made when I found out."

"W-what do you mean they were true?"

"See, that bastard the General used two remnants: the 'illusory remnant' and another one called 'lustful eyes.'"

"I've already explained the first one. The second basically unleashes the most intense sexual desires you have. On their own, they're completely different and have nothing to do with each other."

"But when combined, they create something abominable. In short, what the General did was use the illusory remnant to create a delusion where his lustful desires manifested as the affection my son desperately craved."

"In turn, my son, chasing after this 'affection' with his perception completely warped, ended up abusing his ex-girlfriend."

"All of this was deliberately planned by the General. He made sure to investigate my whole life and my family's, learning about the problems we had at the time and exploiting them."

"After the remnants' effects faded, my son returned to reality and realized what he'd done—but it was too late."

"His ex-girlfriend, for obvious reasons, hated him with every fiber of her being, and... well, you know what happened next. My son tried to take responsibility for what he did and make amends somehow, but there was nothing left to do."

"Eventually, with all the problems he already had, he chose to end his life—though he was still afraid to do it and, deep down, didn't want to."

"I also found out my son suffered from depression and PTSD because, as a child, he'd been kidnapped by organ traffickers who abused him in completely inhuman ways. And, of course, this was also the General's doing."

"I only noticed some signs of it because he tried to hide it as much as possible to avoid burdening me further."