Chapter 34: Coincidental Truth

“Ugh, useless bastard, you can’t even get rid of a punk like that and brought him all the way here… ?… !!! You, you are!!”

Meanwhile, the beastman who seemed to be the leader, just like me, started to react violently as soon as he saw my face.

That was a unique reaction that could only be shown if you knew something about the other person.

On top of that, the memory lingering in his mind didn’t seem like a good one.

His eyes were filled with fear and shock, trembling as if he had encountered a monster.

Naturally, as the leader reacted that way, the other beastmen with him began to panic as well.

Some of the beastmen standing next to him shared the same reaction, their faces turning pale and trembling, but most of the thuggish beastmen looked confused and didn’t understand what was going on.

Especially the beastman who stole my wallet couldn’t hide his panic in this situation, standing in the middle, unable to decide whether to run or stay.

However, it was only a matter of time.

At the leader beastman’s scream-like retreat command, they all started running frantically into the alley.

Then, as I finally regained my composure, I quickly took control of the situation.

Paaah!!

Thud! Pow! Thud thud!!

I started by striking the back of the beastman who stole my wallet, knocking him unconscious.

Then, I chased down the group of fleeing beastmen, focusing on the leader beastman, and soon managed to overpower him completely.

I kept a close eye on the situation, worried that other thugs might come to rescue them, but once they ran deep into the alley, they didn’t look back and completely escaped.

Then, the face of the leader beastman, who was firmly subdued under my hand and staring straight ahead, twisted in a very satisfying way.

Perhaps he had trusted his subordinates, even if only slightly.

Looking at him, spewing curses with a voice full of betrayal and anger, I waited for him to calm down for a moment.

***

After some time, I was finally able to have a proper conversation with him.

“…You, what the hell are you doing to me? What did I do wrong!! That idiot stole your stuff, not me! I don’t know anything about it! And the thing that happened last time, I already finished it back then…”

“Last time… what? What are you talking about? When and where did we meet?”

The leader beastman, still lying on the ground, struggled to turn his head and glared at me.

Then, his words, full of deep resentment, were enough to provoke my nerves.

It was closely related to the topic that I was most curious about at this very moment.

Thinking that it had been the right decision to capture him, I asked in a calm voice, devoid of emotion, but all I got in response was a bitter laugh and an unmistakable, open hatred.

“Hah? Are you missing a screw in your head? It wasn’t something that happened a long time ago. Just recently, you made us look like this, and now you’re asking where we met? What the hell? Stop with the damn jokes. Or is the ‘military automaton’ resetting its memory every day? Huh?”

The man, who was getting even more frustrated, spat out ‘that word.’

At that moment, my thoughts completely stopped.

That word was a key.

It was a strong external stimulus that forcibly twisted memories back to their original state.

Ah…

The words “military automaton” and the face of the leader beastman lying in front of me made the memories of that day, which I had somehow forgotten, suddenly and vividly resurface.

That’s right.

I had definitely met the beastman in front of me in an alley similar to this one.

That day, a group of beastmen punks approached me, targeting the items I had bought.

Of course, there was no way they could have been my match, and they were easily handled under my control, without putting up any resistance.

The one thing I hadn’t expected was that their leader had figured out that I was a military automaton.

I could vividly remember his voice, screaming in anger, calling me nothing more than a machine created for slaughter.

And I clearly remembered that, at that moment, I couldn’t bear to listen to it anymore, so I knocked him out with a single blow and fled the scene.

That was definitely a real event from the past, as proven by the reaction of this beastman right in front of me.

However, I couldn’t understand it at all.

***

That day, I had passed by a traveling circus after finishing my shopping and ended up losing track of time while watching it.

I returned later than usual, expecting to be scolded by Yuria, but then, by coincidence, they had prepared a surprise party for me…

A celebration for my 10th anniversary since entering the Blue Palace, and everyone was there…?…

‘Huh?’

‘Now that I think about it, how did that party end?’

‘I clearly remember the start, but the ending feels like it has been completely erased, which is a strange situation. What’s even more difficult to understand is that I didn’t feel any sense of unease about those strange memories of that day until now.’

‘Even if I were to generously assume that something went wrong with my memory circuits and I couldn’t recall the details of that day, I had gone straight to the circus after my shopping. I had spent most of my time there.’

‘In other words, there was absolutely no connection between the alley where I encountered these beast thugs and where I had spent my time that day.’

In the end, my train of thought naturally shifted to why I had been in that dark alley back then and exactly what had happened just before that moment.

This distorted puzzle, which didn’t seem to fit together, subtly hinted at the fact that there were still memories I hadn’t recalled.

“…Answer my questions honestly from now on. On the day we met, a traveling circus definitely visited the capital and performed all over Trassion, right?”

“Huh…? A traveling circus? A performance? What kind of nonsense is that!!”

“..?”

***

“Stop talking nonsense and get the hell off me, you rotten doll! What exactly do you plan to do with me!!”

The large, beast-like man, who was struggling more fiercely in response to my cold, detached questions, seemed to have no intention of answering.

But in that moment, I felt a chill spread through my entire body.

As if it was waiting for the right moment, one ominous thought flashed in my mind.

As the worst possible scenario I could think of began to take shape, its impact immediately reflected in my actions.

I tightened my grip on his arm, which I had twisted behind his back, and with a cold voice filled with nearly insane determination, I pressed for a more detailed answer to my question.

The man screamed in unimaginable pain.

The intense torture seemed to have worked.

His stubbornness, which had made him try to ignore my question to save face, soon crumbled.

And the information he revealed through his broken voice was enough to completely shatter my shaky sanity.

“Ahhh~!!! Ughh!! I don’t know, I swear I don’t know!! I’ve never heard of a big performance like that recently! Who the hell is spreading such nonsense?!”

The scream, like a shout that made my worst assumption real.

In fact, the hypothesis that the traveling circus never even visited the capital that day… shattered the foundation of my memories.

But on the other hand, this was also a clear answer that could explain the completely separate, disjointed memories.

‘If one of the memories is a lie, then the other one must be the truth, and there was no need to think too deeply about that.’

‘Then… what was the dazzling performance by the circus in my memory?’

Crack!!!

The confusion and errors in my memories were too much for me to handle.

The small boat of logic I had been clinging to in that storm of chaos quickly capsized.

Immediately after, I knocked out the leader of the beastmen with a single blow, retrieved the wallet from the small-time thief lying not far away, and without thinking twice, I ran out of the alley.

The objects in my bag shifted and rattled with the impact, but my mind was already focused elsewhere.

All that filled my thoughts was the small hope that the beastman I had just spoken to had been wrong, and that, in fact, the traveling circus had indeed been there that day.

And I needed to confirm that again, no matter what.

After running wildly, I arrived at the destination—a general store located deep inside the commercial district.

Among the regular shops I frequented, this was the one I trusted the most, and I had built a long relationship with the owner.

If anyone could provide a clear answer to the questions swirling in my head, it was the shopkeeper, Mr. Lycanthrope.

And my expectations were spot on.

“Hmmm… you mean the day you last bought the magic stone? That’s strange. I’ve never heard that a traveling circus came to the commercial district and performed that day. But, there was a public procession of criminals who had committed serious crimes passing through this area. Of course, I didn’t go see it myself because of the shop, but I did hear about it from others.”

The shopkeeper, showing some surprise at my urgent question, took a moment to think before giving me a serious answer.

And at that exact moment, I had the overwhelming feeling that the thick fog clouding my vision had suddenly cleared, and all the memories from that day came rushing back.

That day, my body had felt unusually strange.

Then there was the parade of human prisoners that seemed to add fuel to the fire.

The welcome I received from Lady Yuria and Mr. Mark when I returned in tatters, followed by the cheerful party.

But then, the strange break in the memory, as if someone had deliberately cut it off, and the final image before everything turned to darkness—the bright red eyes I had last seen…

All the pieces of the puzzle finally clicked into place.

But that truth was something so terrifying and hard to accept that I almost wished I hadn’t figured it out.