"I stabbed you. Why didn't you dodge?"
There was actually a hint of reproach in the girl's voice.
But… why did you stab me?
You stabbed me, and now you're blaming me for not dodging?
Otto's thoughts scattered in every direction. He took a step back, pulling himself free from the girl's embrace.
He reached toward his abdomen, gripped the handle of the dagger, and slowly began to pull it out.
But halfway through, a thought suddenly struck him.
If he pulled the dagger all the way out like this, wouldn't he start bleeding heavily?
But he had already pulled it halfway free. There was no way he could just stick it back in now.
The dagger came free from his abdomen. His right hand was already moving to press against the wound, but Otto had never learned first aid.
He thought he might die.
At that moment, he finally realized just how dangerous the world five hundred years in the future truly was.
After being hugged by a girl, he was immediately stabbed. That maid had definitely been better.
Still, Otto felt a little puzzled. The dagger had already been pulled out, but he did not feel any blood flowing out of his body.
Lowering his head, Otto saw only a slash torn through his Overseer's robes at the abdomen. There was no trace of blood. And only then did he realize something else: despite having been stabbed, he felt no pain at all.
There is something strange about my body.
Otto looked at the dagger in his hand. There was no suspicious fluid on it either, but a name was engraved on the hilt.
Cecilia Schariac.
Is that this girl's name? But Schariac…
Otto's mother's name was Sabres Schariac. She had been a member of the Schariac family. Could this girl be some kind of relative of his?
"Give it back!"
The white-haired girl snatched the dagger from Otto's hand. Otto retreated another step without making it obvious. In his eyes, no matter how pretty this girl was, she was still just a madwoman who stabbed people without warning.
For a moment back there, Otto had truly thought he was going to die.
"You're not allowed to touch my mother's keepsake!"
Kiana — the girl Rita had called "young lady" — carefully sheathed the dagger again.
That dagger was her mother's memento.
Kiana Apocalypse was the only daughter of Cecilia Schariac, and her mother had died in a past disaster.
Her original surname had been Kaslana, inherited from her father, Siegfried Kaslana.
But she had abandoned the name Kaslana.
Because on that day, when she watched her father take only that "impostor" with him, it felt as if the sky had collapsed over her world.
Dad, why didn't you take me with you?
Her mother was dead. Her father had not taken her away.
And so she had been left in Otto's hands.
She vented all the bitterness knotted up inside her onto Otto, blaming him for her mother's death and her father's departure, the way people sometimes dump all their pain onto the person closest at hand.
And in truth, Otto really had been connected to both her mother's death and her father's leaving.
But Otto had also treated her very well. It was he who had raised her from childhood and nurtured her as she grew.
And yet, if not for him, she would still have grown up under the care of her father and mother.
That was what made her feelings so complicated.
Otto had caused her mother's death and forced her father to leave. By all rights, she should hate him.
But Otto had also raised her for more than ten whole years — longer than her own parents had.
After more than ten years, even an old sow could grow attached.
Kiana had even thought something like this before: If Otto really were my father, I think I would be very happy.
And so she had taken Otto's surname as her own.
It symbolized the part of her that was Otto's adopted daughter.
But she still wanted to kill Otto.
That was for her mother's revenge.
As for Siegfried… whatever. I don't want to think about him anymore.
After reaching adulthood, she no longer followed Otto around the way she had when she was little. Instead, she only met with him once in a while, almost as if she were avoiding him.
After each routine meeting, she would first try to find a way to kill Otto. Otto, for his part, would usually pretend to be left in a sorry state by her efforts, but in the end, she always failed.
She had made an attempt on Otto's life with her own hands. She had simply failed.
And after failing, she would begin carrying out the duties of an adopted daughter: chatting with Otto about what had happened these past few days, and sometimes even kneading his shoulders or pounding his back for him.
Kiana had thought before that if this went on any longer, she might actually end up developing a split personality.
And yet, this bizarre harmony had continued all the same.
So then why hadn't Otto dodged today?!
Normally, the sequence should have gone like this: she would draw the dagger, and then Otto would seize her wrist and twist it behind her back, causing this assassination attempt to fail as well.
After acting out their revenge drama, they could move right on to playing out the warm and harmonious family drama.
She had even specially brought along one of her favorite video discs today, planning to watch it together.
But this time, Otto had refused to follow the usual script. Kiana even realized that he was wearing his Overseer's robes, and his face was utterly expressionless.
The person standing before her was not Otto, her adoptive father.
It was Otto, Overseer of Schicksal.
Where was the smile he usually showed me? Is he angry?
Kiana still held the dagger in her hand, suddenly at a complete loss, like a child who had gone too far and was now facing a parent.
Did Otto… no longer want to keep up this twisted relationship between them?
Straightforward by nature, she actually did not even know where to put her hands now. They froze awkwardly in midair, while Otto continued to look at her with a blank expression.
Kiana found Otto's gaze strangely unfamiliar.
It was as if he were looking at a complete stranger.
Her nose stung with sourness. She did not like Otto looking at her like that. Gripping the dagger in both hands, she lowered her head and said in a dejected voice,
"I'm sorry."
Otto looked at her lowered head, puzzled.
I haven't even said anything. Why is she apologizing already?
Otto hid his confusion inside. Kiana kept her head lowered and did not raise it again, as though she would remain like that forever unless Otto spoke first.
For the first time in his life, a girl was apologizing to him.
And then, in Otto's mind, the words the girl had spoken just now surfaced again.
A keepsake from her mother?
If it was a keepsake, then her mother must be dead. And if she had stabbed him with her mother's keepsake, then that meant her mother's death was very likely connected to him.
At that moment, Otto suddenly realized something extremely important.
All this time, the joy of becoming the Overseer had gone a little to his head, and he had completely forgotten something crucial.
What he had inherited was not merely the glory accumulated over more than five hundred years.
He also had to bear the sins and mistakes he himself had accumulated over those same five hundred years.
Whether it was a debt of love or a debt of blood, he had to bear it all. His enemies were not going to spare him just because he was the Otto of five hundred years ago.
Otto swallowed.
After being stabbed by the girl, he had begun to realize that his situation might be rather bad.
Even when his own father, Overseer Nicholas, went out, he would bring plenty of guards with him.
Can I really handle this?
Otto asked himself that.
And right now, there might very well be an enemy standing right in front of him.
What was he supposed to do?
Should he seize the dagger and kill the girl first?
With that thought in mind, Otto raised his left hand, then held up the index and middle fingers of his right like a blade and poked Kiana in the stomach.
His fingers jabbed lightly into the girl's abdomen like a tiny knife.
Kiana looked at Otto in confusion as he poked her stomach with his fingers. It only tickled.
Forcing himself, Otto managed to squeeze out a faint smile. After doing that, his heart began pounding violently, as if it were trying to leap out of his chest.
Then Otto raised his right hand. Recalling what his mother used to do to him, he placed it gently on top of the white-haired girl's head and softly stroked it.
"Good girl."