Chapter 242: Viktor’s Past

"I believe my sister lived out a normal human lifespan. But compared to an elf’s lifespan, it was very... very short. My sister quietly accepted the marriage my Father had arranged for her, but it was never a marriage she had wanted."

Viktor continued, explaining that his sister had already been in love with someone else at the time.

"She never told me who that person was. But I know for certain that it was not His Majesty the King. My sister described His Majesty as a kind person, but she never said that she loved him. Even after they married, they lived completely separate lives, and there did not seem to be any love between them."

"Even so, I was surprised when the two of them had a child. But then again, my Father and his lawful wife had two children despite their relationship being little more than a political marriage, so I suppose it was not impossible."

"Some time after my sister’s marriage, my Mother passed away after battling her illness. But she was happy that she had been able to see my sister as a bride and meet her grandchild."

"Still, you can probably tell who benefited the most from my sister’s marriage and the birth of her child without me having to say it."

"On her deathbed, my sister told me not to resent my Father and said that she had been happy. But there was no way I could believe that."

So that was how Viktor’s father had obtained the title of the queen’s father and the grandfather of the future king. There was no doubt that those connections had made his position completely secure. Elves also lived for a very long time, making it difficult to strip someone of a position once they had obtained it.

In other words, his daughter’s marriage had made Cassian’s power virtually unshakable.

Still, Viktor spoke about everything so calmly that Qiu Nuoya almost found himself taking his words at face value and overlooking how painful his past actually was.

Viktor had suddenly lost contact with Qiu Tailang, a brother-like figure who had earned his trust and treated him kindly, without ever learning why. Then, when his sister, who had probably occupied most of his world, got married, he could no longer even see her freely.

Thinking about the young Viktor who had been left with one precious person after another taken away from him made Qiu Nuoya’s heart ache.

And the person connected to both of those losses, King Warrington de Velikorya, had never treated Viktor with much kindness.

His sister apparently never came to hate King Warrington. But the more she defended him, the more Viktor’s anger toward the king must have grown.

His precious people were being taken away from him because of circumstances among adults that he could do nothing to change.

Thinking about what Viktor must have felt during what was probably the most turbulent period of his adolescence, Qiu Nuoya wished that, if possible, he could have been there by his side back then.

"My Father probably wanted to make me a bureaucrat as well. Once I came of age, I was taken into service at the royal palace. But I have never been good at dealing with people. I had no interest in competing for promotions, and I was already tired of the constant mind games between colleagues."

"As long as my sister was alive, I continued working at the palace because I wanted to have at least some connection with her. But after she died, I grew sick of everything. Politics, struggles for power, all of it. So I ran away from home."

With that, Viktor let out a sigh.

"While I was working at the royal palace, I also tried to investigate Qiu Tailang on my own. But there was almost no information about him, as though everything concerning him had been deliberately concealed. Naturally, I could not find anything that might have given me a clue about his whereabouts either."

"However, I did find plenty of things that appeared to be his achievements. The strange thing was that most of them had been rewritten as my sister’s accomplishments."

"I realized almost immediately that the information was false. After all, I was the person who understood my sister better than anyone."

"Of course, I confronted my Father about it, but he only danced around the subject and refused to tell me anything. I had already been disappointed in my Father, and I also grew disgusted by the Silvermere family’s indifference toward Qiu Tailang, despite how much they had once appeared to respect him."

"After going through one thing after another, I eventually ended up where I am now, working as an adventurer."

"That is my life. It was a long story, but I suppose it was not particularly interesting, was it?"

It certainly could not be called an entertaining story, but Qiu Nuoya thought it had been quite a profound one.

It was the first time he had ever learned about Viktor’s past.

Viktor must have met many people after becoming an adventurer, but he had rarely talked about those days. Perhaps that was because Viktor had spent such a long time living on his own.

Qiu Nuoya remembered something from shortly after they first met. When Viktor had left to take on a dragon subjugation request, Qiu Nuoya had told him that he would cook dinner and wait for him.

Viktor had been momentarily at a loss for words.

At the time, Qiu Nuoya did not understand why Viktor had reacted that way. But elves lived long lives, and Viktor had spent so many years living a life unlike that of ordinary people. He had never even had an elven friend with whom he could share that long life. Perhaps that was why such a simple thing as Qiu Nuoya’s words had meant something special to him.

Without realizing it, Qiu Nuoya reached over and gently patted Viktor on the head as he sat beside him.