The Caretaker of Tenants From Another World - Chapter 122 (Patreon)

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Chapter 122

The dormitory managed to come out unscathed. Our parking lot, however, was going to need repairs. The poor caretaker, who was my temporary substitute while I was detained, had apparently hid in the bathroom during the whole ordeal. She passed out and needed to be carried away by ambulance.

Even after a whole week had passed, the incident with the Royal Black Guards still weighed heavily on everyone. For Irapesha, it was seeing old friends and fellow soldiers treated like criminals. For Tamara, it was almost losing Ange, who held it together better than any of us.

Cresta especially, with regards to Remmy…

There was murmuring within Remmy's room. I knocked on the door and the talking stopped. The cat girl herself showed up a moment later. Speakers from the computer played fanciful audio of a paused video game.

"Brought some fresh milk," I said, lifting the carton up.

"Perfect timing!" Cresta pulled me in by hand. "Remmy opened her eyes today!"

Sitting inside a fish tank with a puddle of milk surrounding her was Remmy in blob form. Cresta reached in to bring the slime out, whose eyes took notice of me. She was so small, about the size of a baseball.

"Remmy? Are you still you?" I poked at the blue blob.

Remmy nodded as best as she could. The core within her gelatinous body was a whole marble again, no longer cracked or in pieces.

"I've been playing video games for Remmy. Thought the music might cheer her up. I think I'm getting pretty good at shooting games now, too!" Cresta exclaimed.

Remmy squeezed her eyes shut and shook. A resounding 'no' if I'd ever seen one from a ball of slime.

The color on Remmy was a little off. Her blue body had a piece of pink suspended within. Like someone had squirted a droplet of dye that didn't diffuse at all.

"Akira?" Mercutia stood awkwardly just outside of the room. "I'm ready to leave."

"You guys going to see Captain Clarissa?" Cresta asked.

"Yeah. She's being sent back to Weyera tomorrow. It's Mercutia's last chance to see her. You guys behave while I'm gone. Don't mess with Remmy too much!" I warned on the way out.

"Don't worry. We're just going to play catch with Tamara in the backyard, using Remmy as the ball!" she said.

"That's the opposite of what I want you to do!"

When we reached the laboratory, Reggie was outside waiting to scan us in. Before entering underground, I casted a look towards the hangar where the doors were left slightly ajar. Scientists were going back and forth, preparing the portal to transport Clarissa back to a doomed world.

Mercutia was quiet the whole way. Who could blame her? She had only just recently learned who her true mother was, only for that same woman to be sent away soon.

Grace was there to meet us at the end of the corridor right before Clarissa's holding cell. Her left arm was in a cast and sling, hair cut short to salvage what wasn't singed away, and face caked in aloe vera lotion to help recover from the burns.

"I had to cancel a date looking like this. Guy was a neurosurgeon," Grace lamented her misfortune.

"Meh. You deserve better than a hedge fund apologist anyway," Reggie teased.

"Sorry… about all that happened." I apologized deeply with an instinctive bow. "Thank you for saving Mercutia though. I'm not sure I can think of any other human who would throw themselves in front of a goddamn fireball."

"You can't? I can," she said, then turned to open the door.

We're led into a cell with Clarissa behind a glass pane as large and wide as the wall. Four guards, three humans and a netherfolk, tossed their cards to the table and leapt to their feet to stand at attention.

"Poker?" Reggie asked, pointing to the cards. "Deal me in."

"Reggie." Grace cleared her throat.

"Alright. Alright. Let's take this game outside, boys." He gathered the cards and corralled the four out the door with him.

Mercutia walked up to the glass pane that separated her from her mother.

"Take as long as you need," Grace said before exiting.

Both Mercutia and Clarissa stared at each other through the glass, unable to come any closer than inches apart.

"Do you want me to leave, too?" I asked.

"No," they said at the same time.

"Well… Okay then…"

Like mother like daughter, I suppose.

"Do you regret it?" Mercutia asked her mother.

"My intentions have always been to keep you safe. Do I regret it? No. Had I the chance, I would go back in time to ensure I succeed," Clarissa said with firm resolve.

"I don't care about that! I mean… when you abandoned me. When I lost my parents, I thought I was all alone. You didn't care to think how I was doing all those years?" she cried.

"Mercutia… of course, I cared. The war led me to making decisions I otherwise wouldn't have. You think I didn't want to nurse my own baby? To raise you? All I could do was give you a name. I already lost your brothers. I didn't want to lose you, too. When I finally saw you again, a teenager in search of a new home… I wanted to give you the world and all that came with the Raynard Duchy, but until we've wiped the world clean of demons—"

"You don't really care about me, do you? You waited until I could be useful to you as a Royal Black Guard. Even then you kept it a secret… I came here with a million things to say, but now… I just see someone obsessed with killing as many demons as possible."

Mercutia whipped around to leave until Clarissa pounded her fists against the glass.

"Wait!" Clarissa wailed. "Mercutia, please don't leave. I… I love you so much, my little girl… I just want to get a good look at you again. Please? I don't want to go without seeing you one more time…"

It was hard to stomach. Clarissa was both a mother in mourning and a coldhearted torturer. When I looked at her, I wondered if she could have had a change of heart under my care like with Cresta. Maybe some people were beyond saving, their ideologies too cemented to mold any differently.

Did that mean they should suffer? Or be denied a second chance? Even Saralash found it within her heart to repent a little.

"Ange and Saralash cared more about me than you ever did…" Mercutia mumbled, intending for those words to hurt and going for the door.

I snatched Mercutia's hand, seeing that it had hurt her more to say that.

"You don't mean that. What Clarissa did to you was shitty, and I wouldn't wish a mother like that on my worst enemies. But it doesn't change that she loves you. At the very least, I don't blame her for that. She made the ultimate sacrifice only a mother could make so that you had a childhood. Before you walk out that door, do you really want your last meeting to be like this?"

Mercutia shook her head and began to choke up. She ran back, collapsing to her knees in front of the cell. Clarissa brushed a hand over the glass where her daughter's head was. The pain of not being able to hold each other was evident in their tears.

Knowing my own mom, who sacrificed so much to raise and put me where I was today, she always had my best interest in mind.

"Thank you, Akira… May I selfishly ask that you give us the room now?" Clarissa asked.

"No problem," I said.

On my way out, I lingered a few seconds longer to catch their heart to heart.

"I want to hear… about my father and my brothers," Mercutia said.

"Well, let's begin with your brothers, Duncan and Perel. Those silly boys. Always rushing head first into danger."

It sounded like they were going to be just fine, so I shut the door and joined the others outside for a game of poker.

Irapesha, Ange, and Tamara accompanied me to send Mercutia off. The airport was packed. People and luggages barreled past us by the hundreds, in a hurry to make it to their flight. Though this was to be expected of an international airport on a Friday afternoon.

As we reached the final security checkpoint that only flyers were permitted to pass through, Mercutia hesitated to move another step.

"Still have regrets?" I asked.

Mercutia smiled. "Not anymore. I'm glad I was able to be with my mother when she went back to Weyera. Your new handlers even allowed me to hug her. I thought I wouldn't get to, so… thank you for that."

"Hm? Could it be then that you have grown too accustomed to living with us? Can't bear to leave, I see." Ange teased.

The elven girl returned to us and faced Ange directly.

"My mother never apologized to you. It probably won't mean much coming from me, but on behalf of the Royal Black Guards, I'm sorry for all the pain and trouble we caused you. I had a lot of fun, and… I hope I can keep in touch." Mercutia lowered her head apologetically.

Tamara leapt up and wrapped both arms behind Mercutia's neck, the impact nearly knocking them both over. Taken by surprise, her hands hung limp for a moment until she returned the embrace.

"Then when you come back, send a letter instead of putting us in a bubble." Tamara beamed.

"I'll be sure to," she assured us.

When they let go, Ange clasped Mercutia's hands together within her own.

"I shall never forgive Clarissa. But thank you for seeing past what I am," Ange said, smoothing out the shirt she had picked out for her.

As Mercutia turned to say goodbye to Irapesha, both of them straightened their postures like it was back in the army again. The stoic demeanors cracked to a more lighthearted one, and Irapesha planted a clawed hand on Mercutia's head.

"If we visit you, I expect you to show us to more dim sum restaurants," Irapesha said.

"Okay, but I have to remind you that you're supposed to spit out phoenix claw bones, not munch on them like fried chicken!" Mercutia exclaimed in laughter.

We chatted for a little while longer, and it was clear Mercutia wanted to stay with us. After bidding each other goodbye, she marched a few steps and, as though a bulb had lit up in her head, ran right back to us. To me in particular, hands on her knees and gasping for breath from the mad dash.

"Remembered you left something behind at the dorm?" I asked.

"Yeah…" Mercutia panted, then fished into her pocket to give me a puzzle piece. "Can you finish it and take a picture for me? I couldn't get it out of my mind after all."

"And if I don't?"

Her cheeks inflated like balloons.

"I'm kidding! I'll get it done and snap a picture for your caretaker to show you. Until then, have a safe flight and try not to suffocate anyone else in a barrier," I joked.

Relieved, Mercutia let out an exasperated sigh and smiled.

As soon as we got home, I pulled out the unfinished puzzle from under the coffee table. It had been waiting for a while now. When I pressed the last piece, the beautiful beach landscape almost came to life. I could practically hear the gentle waves crashing against the shore.

"Now I gotta get a frame and find someplace nice to put this."

Maybe Cresta would like to go for a ride. We would need to find a different arts and craft store since the nearest one was destroyed by a netherfolk.

"Cresta! Want to go shopping?" I shouted on the way upstairs.

"Uh… Akira, I'm in Remmy's room. You might wanna come in and check this out," Cresta said from behind the door.

"Why? Did something happen to—"

I opened the door to Remmy in blob form on the desk. However, the blue slime girl had something sticking out the side of her like a pimple. It was another blob, pink in color and much smaller, attached to her gelatinous body.

"Oh, it's the caretaker. Fancy meeting you again under such awkward circumstances," the pink slime said, in a familiar voice that spoke with sadistic drawl.

"You've got to be kidding me. Is that Saralash?!"