Gavo's body trembled slightly, and the mind that had been clouded by fury regained a little clarity.
She turned to look behind her and found that her adoptive father, lying on the handcart, was struggling to stretch himself toward her and lightly tugging at her pant leg.
His eyes held calmness and love, and that gentle gaze brushed over Gavo's heart, extinguishing part of the raging fire within her.
He said nothing.
But Gavo understood what he meant.
He was telling her to let go of her obsession.
He was telling her not to commit slaughter.
Yes, this was exactly how her adoptive father had always been.
This noble man trusted human nature unconditionally, and in his eyes, everyone had something worth redeeming.
He pursued virtue and pitied sin.
He would rather forgive the culprit than see his child stain her hands with blood.
But another person standing here clearly held the exact opposite view.
"Even if these people didn't hurt your father, they've all done filthy, disgusting things."
"These bugs deserve to die. Killing them is killing them."
"Or are you planning to let the bastard who hurt your father go free?"
Griffin's iron hand, which was supporting Gavo's gun, shook forcefully as he continuously urged her to kill every single one of them.
This was the starting point of the broad road he had paved for her.
The very first time he saw the determined eyes beneath this little brat's mask, he had been deeply shaken.
Because those eyes looked far too much like his own.
Only the scum with the strongest convictions possessed that kind of desperate hunger to survive.
From that moment on, he had believed with absolute certainty that this little one was the same kind of person as him.
But after further contact, he had also discovered that Gavo was vastly different from him.
That difference irritated him, but it also made him worry...
Plunder in order to survive.
That was the creed he lived by, and the way he had climbed step by step to become the legend of the underhive he was today.
In this garbage pit called the underhive, only those more ruthless than the vilest human scum and more cruel than the fiercest beasts could survive.
Human nature was evil, and therefore only the evil could keep living.
If you wanted to slowly pull yourself out of the swamp that dissolved everything, then you had to climb upward over endless piles of corpses.
He wanted Gavo to become the next him.
And he wanted to pave the road for her.
As for why he was doing this, even he himself did not know.
Was it only a passing impulse?
Or was it something else?
He had no answer...
Her adoptive father and Griffin.
Two completely opposite beliefs.
One moved her toward mercy.
The other moved her toward cruelty.
Even the whispers of the unseen things in her ears split into two voices, pushing against each other in something close to an argument.
Gavo closed her eyes.
Her hand still held the gun raised, but her finger did not pull the trigger.
She could feel two gazes fixed on her from very close by.
One gaze was gentle as water.
The other was cold as fire.
For any normal person, this was a simple yes-or-no question.
Choose mercy, and spare the scum mixed in with the innocent.
Or choose cruelty, and kill without caring whether the guilty and innocent were mixed together.
But she was not normal.
She had her own way.
Gavo slowly opened her eyes.
She had no intention of fulfilling either person's expectations.
She stretched out one hand and slowly pushed Griffin's iron hand away.
From the Gavo standing before him now, Griffin felt a strange kind of presence.
It was cold and decisive, and every movement carried an unquestionable authority.
Griffin's eyes trembled slightly, and he let Gavo push away his powerful iron hand.
He became curious about what this little one intended to do.
Holding the gun in her left hand, she crouched down and used her right hand to support her adoptive father, then slowly walked him over to the bound scavengers.
"Someone among you hurt my father. Admit it now, apologize on your own, and I'll let you go."
This was Gavo's final mercy.
But unsurprisingly, these worms of the gutter either shook their heads or kept silent.
Not a single one of them admitted it.
Some of them even looked at Gavo like she was an idiot.
What a joke. Who would admit something like that?
They did not believe for a second that this person in front of them would actually spare someone who confessed.
That was right.
People could lie.
But their souls could not.
Under Gavo's Emotion Visualization, every fluctuation of the soul was laid bare before her eyes.
Under her cold gaze, the souls of those pieces of trash began trembling violently.
Gavo took a deep breath, then helped her adoptive father back to the cart and gently laid him down on the bedding again.
Just as she was about to stand, her adoptive father grabbed her hand once more.
He shook his head lightly.
"Father, I know exactly what I'm doing."
"Unconditional trust in human nature and bottomless hatred of human nature are both the greatest denial of human nature itself."
"Don't worry, Father. I will end this in my own way."
"The innocent should not be implicated, but the guilty must be punished."
Determination shone brightly in Gavo's eyes.
Her adoptive father let out a sigh and slowly released her hand.
After settling him properly, Gavo stood up once more.
The rage in her chest was now so intense it felt ready to leap out of her body.
She had given those scum one final chance.
Yet they could not even offer a single apology to her adoptive father.
Since they had rejected Gavo's mercy, then next they would witness her cruelty.
Following her memory, she walked to the person whose emotional fluctuations had been the most intense earlier.
When she pressed the muzzle of the gun against his head, his disgusting begging very nearly made Gavo throw up last night's dinner.
"Tell me. Who else?"
That one sentence instantly shattered the already fragile mental defenses of this pig, who had been terrified to the point of collapse.
Although Gavo could roughly tell who was involved through their emotional reactions, testimony from an accomplice was still more reliable.
This piece of trash, groveling like a maggot and begging for mercy, immediately lifted his head and spoke like a man clutching at his last straw, naming three others in one breath.
In his desperation for even the slightest chance to live, he also explained in detail why they had attacked Gavo's adoptive father.
They had noticed that his cart often contained a great quantity of recyclable goods.
After losing their last rations in a pipe-side gambling den, they had set their sights on that deformed man, who often took long detours alone.
That day, they saw Gavo's adoptive father running excitedly while carrying something, and they assumed he had found some kind of treasure.
So they acted on their greed and attacked him at the first opportunity.
"If we'd known, we never would've done it... it wasn't worth it."
That sentence caught Gavo's attention.
She pushed the muzzle closer and asked coldly,
"Why do you say it wasn't worth it?"
"If I answer, can I trade it for my life...?"
Under Gavo's icy stare, he swallowed, then explained:
"Because it wasn't any kind of treasure at all."
"It was just a box of saccharine candy you could eat like snacks."
(End of Chapter)
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