Chapter 4 The Fireplace: Childhood, Wild and Straightforward Justice...
A spark?
I am not the spark.
My mother is saying strange things again.
Mainkuhn remembered his name.
He remembers the screams around him when he was born.
"Master, Miss has truly given birth to a demon's child!"
He remembered the old hand pulling painfully on his bald tail.
"Throw that brat out! Throw him into the sea! Throw him into the cesspool! Throw him into the Grey River! Throw him where those Fontaines dump their garbage!"
"Don't let me see it again!"
He remembered that clear, hoarse child's voice.
"Uncle, your garbage bag is moving. Fontaine's laws don't allow abandoning living things."
He remembered the servants' lazy and perfunctory attitude.
"Alright, kid, you're lucky. Here's two hundred Mora. Throw it into the Grey River."
"What's inside?"
"How should I put it? It might be a cat, or more likely a monster or something, but it's definitely not human."
He remembered the bag being untied, and a look of astonishment and pity flashing in the boy's icy blue eyes.
"Okay, two hundred Mora."
He didn't remain silent for long before snatching the money from the servant's hand.
"You sold him to me."
"...ah?"
He remembered his adoptive parents' initial complaints and difficulties.
"It's too small. We've never raised a baby before."
The complaint quickly turned into surprise when it reached his face and ears.
"Oh my god, look at this amazing quality and appearance!"
He remembered being held in small arms.
With his hands full, the boy used his toes to flip through the picture book with a rustling sound.
"Maine Coon, the largest cat breed, can grow up to 1.2 meters long."
"About the same height as me now."
He remembered the boy staring blankly for a while, then placing the swaddled baby on the bed and lying down next to him to compare.
"You're so small! It's easy to die if you're too small. Please don't be a kitten." The older brother was silent for a while, then touched his soft ears with concern.
"I hope you can grow to 1.2 meters tall. How about we call you Mainecoon?"
I may be a little slow-witted, but I'm not so slow as to forget my own name.
So the half-demon looked up at his mother earnestly and explained:
“I am Mainkuhn, not the spark.”
He then reached out to the brothers in the fireplace house:
"Don't kneel down to me."
*
Under Kujavina's incredulous gaze, the kitten pulled Rongnuok up as if nothing had happened, and then stood motionless in place again.
"Mother!" In the eerie silence, Main's downy ears suddenly stood up, her lynx fur bristling.
"I heard a grasshopper landing on a blade of grass! May I catch it, Mother?"
Although it asked a question, the kitten didn't wait for anyone's reply and rolled into the grass.
There are two!
With a joyful cheer, Maine rolled out of the grass again, picked up a grasshopper, and handed it to a newly promoted 'trash' next to him, whose face was pale with fright.
"What's wrong with you? Here, take this. Oh, and you can't eat this, Clementine told me."
"Who would eat that! You idiot!"
The child's pale face turned blood red with anger.
The children's unease at being forcibly divided into three classes—"spark," "firewood," and "residue"—was lessened by the kitten's rude behavior.
"Pepe, look! He didn't eat the bugs this time!" Clementine was so moved she almost cried. "Little May really is listening to me now. He's becoming more and more like a person. That's wonderful!"
“…Hmm.” Peruvieri had no time to respond to her friend; she secretly peeked at her mother’s face.
So this is what human faces can look like!
"...little beast."
Every nerve and muscle beneath the skin was twisted with rage, yet the executive officer suppressed it with his extraordinary control.
The corners of her mother's mouth still curved, but that curve was devoid of any gentleness; it was stiff and sinister, like it was made of paper.
"Calm down...calm down, he's a fool who doesn't understand reason, he's never grasped the benefits of power..."
"We can't kill him, we can't, he's a promising child..."
Qualifications?
Peruvelli quietly looked at Kujavina, watching her mutter to herself nervously, watching her fists clench tightly, and then finally relax.
So that's how it is. Maine's abnormality, like the "curse" on my finger, was both called a trait by my mother.
After a while, Kujavina smiled elegantly again. She stepped forward and slapped the grasshopper away from "Remnant's" hand.
"Eh? Mother?"
"Oh no, it got away."
"Mainkuhn, my fine son."
Ignoring the frightened child beside her, Kujavina abruptly turned the cat's head back, staring directly into his naturally cold, golden beast eyes, trying to entice him once more.
"The scraps are all low-grade garbage, and they don't deserve anything from you."
"On the contrary, you can take everything from him—toys, food, even dignity..."
The extremely detailed explanation stopped the children, who had been reduced to rubbish, from laughing and their eyes widened in horror.
"?"
Maine tilted his head to look at her, thinking carefully for a long time.
The grasshopper fled back into the grass and disappeared.
"Oh, I understand."
The half-demon cat suddenly understood.
"Mom wants grasshoppers too, right?"
The child raised his hand and generously placed his own in the executive officer's hand, with a pure and innocent heart:
"This one is for you. You don't need to snatch it from him. My brother said that's not right!"
"......"
The insect's antennae scratched at her palm through her gloves, and Kujavina felt an unprecedented sense of irritation.
“............”
A stupid and ignorant beast, an incomprehensible animal.
The words have already been said to this extent, don't you understand yet?
But some of the children had already shown signs of understanding, their eyes revealing innocent malice.
"...Hey, Rongnock, 'Residue'."
Or do you simply lack the awareness to plunder?
No, that's impossible.
"I want your bracelet, you'll give it to me, right?"
Because Mainkuhn is a little monster who has no fear of killing, he is absolutely no more human than a human!
"Hey! What are you doing—ugh!"
Mainkuhn.
Kujavina threw the bug away and grabbed the kitten that tried to stop her:
"Watch, this is the right way to do it."
You must study hard!
*
Mainkuhn also received instruction from his family.
[Maine! Don't do that!] The black-haired, blue-eyed child pulled the kitten up and pretended to pat its bottom.
[Don't you dare bite your brother White!]
[But he hit me first, waah—] Before the fight even started, the toddler began to wail, so much so that the future duke had to facepalm repeatedly.
[Then tell me why he hit you.]
[。] The toddler immediately fell silent, nervously twitching his little fluffy ears, his short lynx fur trembling incessantly.
The offspring of humans and demons possess immense strength, yet their brains are not fully developed. The combination of the two is simply a disaster, and causing trouble is a common occurrence.
[Sigh...recite what I taught you again.]
[...Mainkuhn, you are different from others, so at home you must respect your parents and be harmonious with your siblings; outside you must do good, eliminate evil, and help the weak.]
Two- or three-year-old children, who can't even use a knife and fork properly, can recite this passage by heart.
Only in this way will people accept you.
After the boy finished reciting, he breathed a sigh of relief and felt much more relaxed.
[Okay, tell me the whole story.]
[...]
[I'll apologize, brother, please don't follow me!]
......
Brother, I hate The Hearth House. It tells a completely different story from yours. Can you find me a different foster home?
"Why did Mother do that?!"
Clementine was crying bitterly beside Maine, her arms and legs covered in injuries.
Driven by a simple sense of justice, she immediately went to her mother after class and strongly expressed her opposition to the new system.
As a result, he was beaten up on the grounds of being unfilial.
“I raised you, taught you, and helped you grow up. Now you want to disobey my orders?”
The children heard this and fell silent.
"Our mother was doing it for our own good."
Oriz, fiddling with her fingers, witnessed everything as the "firewood."
"Rongnuok, his swordsmanship is terrible, he's always slacking off..."
"Mother did the right thing."
Jiro, as always, respected the strong and respected the strong. "That guy is too undisciplined! He won't improve unless he's put some pressure on him."
"Rongnuk is indeed weak and stupid, and all he does every day is shout 'I love fluff the most'."
The children chimed in with Jiro's words intermittently, because none of them were scum.
"Even among all the dregs, he is the weakest, which is only his own fault for not trying hard enough."
"Otherwise, why is it that no one else gets bullied, but he is?"
Everything seemed so reasonable. The children carefully unearthed their mother's good intentions, brushed away the dirt, and breathed a sigh of relief, letting the cracks spread among them.
"This isn't right!"
Only little Clementine protested, "He's not very good at swordsmanship, but he can sculpt clay figures, do math, and run really fast. He's not a bad kid!"
"You shouldn't have treated him like that!"
"I'm going to talk to my mother! I must have misunderstood her! Once she knows she's done something wrong, she'll stop!"
Don't go.
But Peruvée took her scarred arm, her lifeless eyes filled with a plea:
"At least today, let's not get hurt again, okay?"
Mainkuhn sat on the windowsill, tilting his head to listen to all the children's reactions and observe them through the cat's eyes.
The half-demon could not comprehend what was happening before his eyes.
A mother harms her daughter, brothers bully each other, and family members ignore each other.
not understand.
Its instincts told it that it should share its prey with even the weakest member of its pack.
During his six years as a man, his older brother taught him:
“We are family, so I will protect you, love you, and never give up on you.”
"Isn't this what a normal family and family are like? This is what my brother and I, and my brother and other family members are like."
With its tail thumping impatiently on the floor, Maine pulled on its airplane ears and asked the black-and-white-haired little girl who was bandaging her friend's wound.
"I don't know what home looks like."
Pepe carefully placed a small butterfly on Clementine's wound.
"The children of the House of Hearths are all orphans."
Mainkuhn couldn't understand anything that happened today.
But oh well, there are always many things cats don't understand. So what if they don't understand? It's not a big deal.
There's only one thing the cat is very clear about.
If you feel unhappy, you must take action!
"Where is Rongnuok...?"
*
"Rongnuok~ How dare you eat~ You're clearly a piece of trash~"
"...I'm not a piece of trash." A feeble rebuttal.
"Still denying it! Give me yours! You won't need it anyway, even if you're full!"
"No, don't do this!" A powerless refusal.
"Hey, aren't they going a bit too far?"
"Are you going to stand up for 'trash'?" His companion looked disgusted.
"How could this happen..." Clementine couldn't bear it any longer and turned to pull her friend, "Pepe! Come help me!"
"No." The future servant calmly ate his bread.
“! Could it be that you also…?” Clementine looked dejected.
No, I mean...
The little finger, stained black by the curse, pointed forward.
Maine is gone.
Half-demons always wear a smile, and even when they show their sharp teeth, they are not scary.
But when his face darkened, revealing his slit-like pupils, the children belatedly realized...
...Mainkuhn looks so fierce.
"Mainkuhn, are you coming to play too?"
The bullying child was a little scared and took the initiative to befriend him.
"Little Mei... sob."
Rongnuo looked at him with a wronged expression, and for the first time did not ask for the cat's tail.
"......"
Ugh, so annoying! Why is this so frustrating?
Children and cats are the two least patient creatures in the world.
The cup on the table must be pushed, and the dangling pendant must be bitten.
Laugh when you're happy, cry when you're sad, yell when you're angry—these are all natural laws, pure wild instincts.
So if you're unhappy about something in front of you, then you should...
"Take care of it!"
Mainkun bent his knees to gather his strength and kicked the leader in the butt!
"Boss!"
"ah!"
Caught off guard, the little rascal stumbled and fell heavily to the ground amidst the screams of his underlings.
"Ouch! Why did you hit me!"
I don't like you.
"You!...Fine, you're on good terms with Rongnuok, I'll accept this loss."
The little rascal rubbed his buttocks and looked at him, ultimately not daring to resist.
"I'm not bullying him anymore, take that useless guy's homework from over there... Ah—!"
With her sharp nails drawn into her palm, Maine punched him hard in the face!
Thump!
The little rascal fell backward and landed on the ground, both shocked and terrified.
"You! Why did you hit me again!"
I don't like you.
In his narrowed pupils, agitated by restlessness, nothing could be seen but a dazzling golden light.
"You, you!"
The little rascal covered his face, trying to hold back his tears, his eyes welling up with redness: "I'm not eating anymore! I want to go out and play!"
He tried to run away, but Maine swept his leg across, and the child fell to the ground!
"I don't like you, so I'll leave it at that."
"Waaaaah!" The child's bottom, face, legs—everywhere hurt—and he couldn't take it anymore.
"You're bullying me! Waaaaah! You guys, you guys beat him up!"
The children looked at each other, none of them stepped forward or helped him up.
"Boss, but he's 'Spark'..."
"Waaaaah... What's wrong with the fire seed? Does the fire seed give you the right to bully people? Waaaaah!"
The sound of aggrieved crying erupted completely.
"Huh? So you know that this kind of behavior is called bullying!"
Amidst the pathetic cries, Rongnuoke angrily stood up and smashed the plate hard on his head!
BOOM!
"So you knew!"
BOOM!
"This kind of behavior! Ugh!"
BOOM!
"It's called bullying! Waaaaah!"
A note from the author:
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