The Outer God Needs Warmth-Chapter 228: Song of the Betrayed (8)

Victoria boarded a train at the largest station in the capital.

The train she boarded headed east, then made a large curve, heading southeast and then south.

After traveling south and then southwest, if the train had continued west, it would have reached Vern City, but Victoria did not go that way.

Instead, once she reached the southern part, Victoria changed trains.

She traveled further south.

Then, she got off at a station.

Victoria looked around the rural area with a puzzled expression, wondering if this was the right place.

The train station had nothing but a small platform made of stone and a small station building; it was truly a countryside station.

The fields, covered in deep green, stretched out before her, with a mountain range rising high in the distance. The mountain range had been visible on the eastern side ever since the train started heading south.

Victoria took her luggage and stepped out of the station.

Splash.

As she lowered her gaze, she saw the muddy ground, and the mud splashed onto her legs and bag.

However, Victoria did not ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) scowl. As she stood still, droplets of water sprang up from her clothes, wiping the mud clean and drying the moisture around the road.

She then looked around.

Victoria furrowed her brow.

Not for any particular reason. It was simply because in one corner, clearly visible, was a pile of broken, wind-up machines.

"It hasn't been long."

Victoria muttered quietly.

At first, she wasn’t sure what she meant.

But when she realized that it referred to the condition of the broken wind-up machines, she started walking again.

Without packaging, she walked along a road mixed with dirt, mud, and sand.

Occasionally, she took out a letter, muttering the address as she passed under the relatively hot sun, despite it being winter.

And finally, Victoria arrived at her destination.

Compared to the capital or Vern City, the wooden building was outdated.

Victoria read the sign in front of the door, checked the mailbox once more, and then entered.

She knocked on the door and waited. An elderly man and woman with dark skin came out. They had expressions filled with various emotions as they asked for Victoria's name.

Victoria told them her name, and they introduced themselves and said:

"How nice to meet you. Please wait a moment."

Saying this, they loudly called out Beatrice's name.

After a moment, a very haggard-looking, scarred woman in loose clothes came out.

She had changed so much compared to three months ago, but it was her—Beatrice. Looking at her, Victoria asked cautiously, as if she couldn’t believe it.

"Mom?"

"Huh? Tori? Why are you here so early?"

Beatrice seemed incredibly flustered.

The elderly woman approached the flustered Beatrice and calmed her down. And one word stood out: Daughter-in-law.

That meant the man next to her was the grandfather.

Ah!

This was Morris’s paternal side.

When a big incident happens, the last place you can rely on is the parents’ home.

Of course, most people can’t rely on their parents, but that’s just how it is.

In the first place, the number of people who have parents in the population is small, and even among them, those born to parents who can help them is like a rare star in the sky.

If you don’t have wealth, if your children are expected to be independent, or if you’re abandoned despite having everything, or even if you were born in a happy family, the family that comes to mind is only a dream family.

That’s not the child’s fault.

Simply put, in terms of percentages, the world is more filled with such people than not.

Still, if many believe they can create a happy family, people will get married. When that crumbles, they’ll give up on creating a family, like a world only seen in faded memories.

Even if there are many unhappy people, if they can dream of a better future, they’ll keep building families.

But if the society they live in, instead of selling dreams, forces them to face cold reality and not let them dream, the future will disappear. If all they’ve seen is the past, how can they look to the future?

Investing happens because there’s a better future. If all the indicators show a fall to the ground and someone tells you to invest, very few would buy it.

In that sense, Victoria is lucky.

She not only met Morris and Beatrice, but also her grandparents.

"I came for the break. But where's dad?"

As soon as Victoria finished speaking, the expression of the family around her darkened.

Wait, what happened to Morris?

"Well, since you’re here, we should meet with dad."

With a solemn expression, Beatrice approached Victoria and hugged her tightly. Victoria’s face stiffened as she understood the meaning of this action.

"Mom, what’s going on with dad?"

Beatrice whispered softly, still holding Victoria.

"He’s... sick."

After saying this, Beatrice pulled away from Victoria and took her hand, leading her inside the house.

Deep inside the house.

She led Victoria to a room that seemed to have been used by a boy.

And there, she pointed to the bed.

A pale man was lying on the bed, groaning. The once burly man now looked emaciated.

But Victoria’s gaze wasn’t on Morris’s face. She was looking at the other side.

His leg.

Where his right leg should have been, there was a deep indentation.

It was a pitiful sight.

Now, Victoria understood why only Beatrice had replied to her letters, why there was nothing about her father, and why the letters had been so unusually short.

She probably didn’t know how much to write in the letters.

"Mom, what happened?"

Beatrice approached Morris, wiped his sweat off, and then led Victoria back outside.

They spoke in the hallway outside the room.

When the riot broke out in Vern City, they barely managed to escape. But during that time, Morris had injured his leg, and he had hidden it. By the time they arrived here, his leg was already in a serious condition.

If you are reading this translation anywhere other than Novelight.net or SilkRoadTL, it has been stolen.

The infection had spread so much that his right leg, which had the wound, was already necrotic.

So, they had to amputate it.

That was the worst of it, but now, Morris had been bedridden for several weeks.

Beatrice bit her lip and told her daughter to prepare herself mentally.

Those were words meant for someone who might die soon.

"Why did this happen to you, mom?"

Victoria asked, looking at the scars all over Beatrice’s body. But Beatrice shook her head.

That meant she couldn’t tell her.

But just looking at the scars, it was clear that it wasn’t just a simple injury.

After all, if you were running away, it’s strange to endure wounds until they caused sepsis. Hundreds of memories flash in her mind.

At least these weren’t wounds older than two months.

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They were relatively recent.

And two months ago, Victoria had visited Vern City. So, it was highly likely that they had been living somewhere else before coming here.

Hmm?

Come to think of it, the incident in Vern City triggered something.

They broke the wind-up machines. But it didn’t end there. There was also a lynching aimed at a person from a major corporation.

When people are angry, do they act rationally?

If you looked like you worked for a big company, you would have been the target of the anger.

"Let’s play soccer! You’re the ball!" That’s what happened.

Beatrice’s scars all over her body.

The reason Morris had to travel so far while hiding his injuries.

And her grandparents were meeting Victoria for the first time. Was it that rare for a family to be so distant?

It must have been a serious situation to seek out parents you haven’t been in contact with for so long.

And if your parents have been distant, it’s hard to just go visit them, even if your house is about to be destroyed.

There was something hidden in the middle.

But Victoria didn’t seem to know that.

No, it’s better to say she had no time to care.

When she returned home, her mom was in shambles, and her dad was dying. Plus, her mom wasn’t just physically hurt.

Her pupils were frequently dilating and contracting, and her hands were faintly trembling. She was trying to hide it from her child, but the more she tried to hide it, the more obvious it became.

Yeah.

This is the worst.

In other words, this was the perfect situation for me to walk into.

I finished gathering my thoughts and got out of the car.

There may have been some kind of royal transport pass, but if you know the address, they’ll take you for free. Of course, I had to switch cars several times, but since I was being driven, I couldn’t complain.

"Thank you."

"Yes, please contact this number anytime if you need anything."

The person who had driven me handed me their business card.

After I took it, the person returned to their car, and soon the military vehicle drove off, leaving me to approach the house I had seen earlier.

I knocked on the door.

Screech.

The door immediately opened, and Victoria’s grandfather appeared. He had tan skin, thick arms and legs, and muscles honed from years of hard labor.

Around him were rice paddies. And from the back, the smell of livestock reached me. Plants and animals. It didn’t look like they were having trouble getting food.

In the big cities of the country, people are dying because they can’t eat properly.

But here, they’re lucky.

"Who are you?"

"I’ve come to bring bad news."

He made a strange expression, but I ignored it and went inside. I walked into the corridor where Beatrice and Victoria had made their space for themselves.

"Hello. Unfortunate humans."

I looked at Victoria and Beatrice, who were staring at me in stunned silence, then pushed them aside and entered the room.

"Bel?"

As I got closer to the bed, a disgusting smell hit me. It was the smell of decay. Victoria hadn’t dared approach, but under the armpits, the flesh had rotted, and pus was leaking out.

"I’ll offer myself to you. But later, when you finish everything, I’ll take everything you have. How about it?"

After the flesh of my entire body swelled, it turned hard like pottery and slowly turned to sand, scattering.

And beneath it, a blue-skinned man, still dazed, looked at me.

"Bel?"

"Hello, Morris. It’s been an unfortunate day."

Then I turned around.

"Right, Victoria?"

Victoria avoided my gaze.