In Love With the Strongest Man
Translator: Shizukuku
Editor: Helen
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Arc 3: True Identity
Chapter 14 “Oh Are you angry?”
“Naughty… Well, you’re not wrong.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Akane’s direction is a little different, but it’s not wrong meow.”
The possibility of having misunderstood, or even misheard, disappeared as everyone nodded their heads one after the other.
“You’re such a naughty species that everyone just agreed…?!”
“Shuka-san, please stop saying ‘naughty’ so much… You’re going to get me excited.”
“A naughty species…!”
I couldn’t help but hug Akane and tremble. But Akane was also an incubus. A naughty species. It was total chaos.
As someone who hadn’t had much emotional development since twelve, the existence of a naughty species like that was too stimulating.
“This guy’s such a clueless virgin.”
“Wait a minute. Please don’t lump me in with these guys.”
Akane slipped out of my arms and flopped on my lap, showing his belly. Then, he used his front paws to squeeze my hand.
“Akane is just a bundle of cuteness. There’s no naughtiness to me at all.”
“True, Akane is indeed cute, but an incubus… right…?”
“Meow, you say that, but Mew-ka hasn’t killed anyone, yet he’s the former head of the Assassins Guild, meow.”
“Ah… that’s true.”
“The incubus tribe is a species skilled in fascinating humans, including… doing naughty stuff. We possess ancient blood that allows us to enchant people and manipulate desires.”
Ideal explained it to me with a wry smile.
“So you enchant people… I see, so that’s why Akane is such an adorable cat.”
“Yeah, that’s right, meow.”
“Hey, are you really thinking about that cat with this handsome face right in front of you? You’re seriously rude.”
“Incubi rely on enchanting people to survive, so the stronger ones tend to take on the form of beautiful humans. The cat was born weak and it took on the form of a cat to survive.”
“I went all out on cuteness, meow.”
Akane got up, stretched, and bumped his head against my shoulder. It was an affectionate gesture. So cute. Incredibly cute. I stroked his throat in return, and he made happy, purring sounds.
“Hmm… I understand why Akane is cute, and why the two of you are beautiful, but why did the Ideal I met twenty years ago look older than his age?”
“Well, that’s…”
“You could guess that much just from listening to our story so far, right?”
In response to my question, Atu spread his hands wide in exasperation.
“Incubi take on forms that people will love in order to survive. Ideal was the unloved child of a woman who was impregnated by an incubus just for fun. He had no father and no one wanted a baby who would be a handful. So, he unconsciously grew up to an age where he wouldn’t be a burden to anyone.”
“What…?!”
It felt like I had been struck on the head.
Twenty years ago. When I first met Ideal, he was watching me enviously from the forest adjacent to the nobleman’s mansion. Clad in tattered clothing, he hugged his knees, sheltering his emaciated body inside a hollowed-out tree, enduring the rain.
At just two years old, he took on that form because he wanted to be loved, and grew up for that purpose. Indeed, a child who suddenly grew larger would be eerie. For the mother who was played with and impregnated, he must have been an unlovable child. It was unavoidable.
However, there was someone who I couldn’t forgive.
“Kill—”
“Kill?”
“I should have killed him… that noble…”
An unexpectedly low voice came out of me.
Upon realizing that the target was a child and intentionally failing the assassination mission, I had two options. Either kill the client who had issued the false request or face the consequences of failing the mission myself.
Either way, the honor of the village itself would be preserved. So I chose to accept the punishment. I thought I was prepared, but perhaps I was still afraid of actually killing someone.
However, now I deeply felt like I should have killed him back then.
—The nobleman client was Ideal’s uncle.
When I protested that the request was wrong, he told me that his sister was impregnated by a monster and it was creepy, so he wanted to kill both the mother and child. But since the woman still had some value, he’d settle with killing the monster’s child for the time being.
And yet, even though he didn’t feed it, the child didn’t die. In addition, it showed its monstrous nature. So he called in an assassin with a false request.
—He wanted to stuff the monster and put it on display so he could show it off to the other nobles.
“I’ve never seen Mew-ka look so angry before…”
Akane looks up at me with wide eyes.
“Oh— are you angry?”
Ideal murmured in astonishment. I nodded, thinking it was only natural.
“My insides are boiling…”
“—But… I’m a monster. I’m not a normal human. I’m a monster that could suddenly grow up and live by enchanting others… I’m a monster…”
The words Ideal spoke with trembling lips were likely what he had been subjected to in the past. Words that adults threw at a child with emaciated, twig-like limbs.
“And this monster took Shuka-san’s life from him…!”
“You were just a hungry little kid!”
I shouted, interrupting Ideal’s words.
“If you were truly an evil monster, you would’ve had a better life! I saved a starving, emaciated child who only survived by drinking rainwater! Abilities are just tools— whether you steal by enchanting people or by running away quickly, it’s the same crime. Just having an ability doesn’t make it a bad thing and it’s not a reason for a penniless, starving child to go hungry…!”
In this world, there were many different races. By the age of twelve, I had seen both sides of the world through my work.
There were ogres who use their exceptional physical abilities for evil, and there were ogres who used those abilities to help others. Demons, angles, and humans were the same. Even if their characteristics and abilities were different, they were all similar in my eyes.
The same should be true for the incubi. The Ideal I saw back then was just a normal child. However, even if he was an incubus, it wasn’t normal for such a child to be starving at the age of two and to transform his body in order to survive. Of course, it wasn’t normal for a five-year-old or a six-year-old either, but two-year-olds usually didn’t have that kind of awareness.
“You’re just a victim of unjust treatment! It’s only natural… to be angry…!”
“…It isn’t natural…!”
Ideal kicked over a chair and stood up. Just a few steps away, he ran up to me with a wild look on his face— and hugged me tightly.
“You choosing to get angry like that, thinking it’s only natural, was the choice that kept me alive, the choice that changed your life, Shuka-san! Don’t say it like it’s nothing and don’t take your own life so lightly… Why do you always put yourself second for the sake of others like that…!!”
Ideal looks straight into my eyes. I thought I saw his red eyes sparkle, but then jewel-like tears spilled out.
“I want to make you happy for all the life I’ve taken from you, yet I’m the only one who ends up saved by you.”
The beautiful man cried and clung to me as he pleaded.
“Please, don’t suffer or endure any more pain, and be happy. —Please, Shuka-san.”
—It was a prayer so tender that my heart felt like it was being squeezed.
[Arc 3 End]
