Five minutes later, they were standing in an empty hospital room, face to face, ready to talk.

Carlil had tried to help the lady on the road, but she refused. After entering the room, he also brought her a chair to sit down, but she refused.

From those eyes, Carlil could get a resolute message.

Lowering his head, Carlil inevitably smiled bitterly.

Talasha Yuton's identity was somewhat similar to him in a sense, in fact, he couldn't even believe it when he knew about it - is there another person in the world who raised the genetic prototype?

However, she is clearly far ahead of him on the road of fulfilling her obligations.

"I don't want to use Robert Killiman as housekeeper to speak to you, Mr. Carlile."

Yudon spoke in a low voice, bravely being the forerunner in their conversation. She was much shorter than Carlil, but despite the fact that she was facing a giant of giants, she had no fear.

She even dared to look directly into Carlil's eyes, coupled with a long gaze.

"You should be able to tell that I'm coming to see you with an emotion I shouldn't have. It shouldn't be, but there's no way I can control myself. You may already know who I am, or maybe you don't. In conclusion, allow me to introduce myself to you. I am Talasha Youton, Robert Killiman's adoptive mother."

She gripped the brass tip of her cane tightly, her thumbs quickly interlacing the smooth surface. The lady was not in good health and was emotionally tense, which aggravated the matter.

It was obvious, and Carlil could hear the less obvious hissing between her words.

She has a problem with her lungs, perhaps the root of a disease left over from her youth, or it may be a disease caused by hard work......

Carlil didn't think any further, he let the thoughts go away.

"I know that, ma'am." He whispered. "I've talked to the Ultramarines, and they've told me something...... Necessary."

"Is it necessary to know who I am in Maculag?"

Talasha Youton leaned back in shock, and after the brief moment of surprise vanished, she inevitably took a deep breath.

「...... I see, thank you for informing me, Mr. Carlile, this is really not what it should be."

"Shouldn't it?" Carlil shook his head and laughed. "You are Robert Killiman's mother."

"Adoptive mother." Yutun corrected. "There's nothing to be proud of or boast about, he doesn't need me and his adoptive father to live well. He is the Emperor's son, a genetic protogen."

"Is that King Connaught?"

"You know?"

"I've seen many statues of him in the city these days, and ah, the portrait in your son's room."

「...... I told him he should take the portrait down." Talasha Yuton pursed her lips tightly. "In any case, he should not have put a portrait of his adoptive father with a portrait of his real father."

"Why not?" Carlil asked rhetorically.

Yudon's eyes widened in surprise.

"His biological father, the Emperor of Mankind, gave him life. But it was King Connaught and you who made him Robert Kiliman. His surname is inherited from King Connaught, isn't it? There's an ancient Terragu saying, I don't know if you've heard it, it's not a mouthful to say in Gorgothic, it's very simple."

Carlil looked at her calmly.

"If you are not born, it will be difficult to return it for a hundred lifetimes."

「......」

Talasha Yutun was silent.

It was a long time before she whispered.

"No, it's not." She said. "Raising an abandoned baby is indeed a commendable virtue, but Robert's situation is different, Mr. Carlile."

"He was brought back to the court by my former master, King Connaught, you know

What did I think when I first saw him? I was still very young, but I still thought I must have had something wrong with my eyes, otherwise how could I have seen such a child?"

"He smiled at us in his swaddling clothes...... His skin was sparkling, and he laughed like an angel, and he was...... But my first reaction was not to love him, but to be afraid."

"He was clearly a transcendent being, and his adoptive father knew that, but never interfered. As he grew older, he soon became taller than everyone else. That's when I realized what really made him special."

"He was only four or five years old at the time, and while the other children were wielding wooden daggers in the courtyard and happily engaging in heroic battles with imaginary enemies, he was immersed in our history and the progressive advancement of technology."

"At dinner time, he would wave a newspaper and tell his adoptive father, who was busy with work, that there was something new in Maculag today. This was their exclusive time, because Robert had deliberately saved the newspaper for this time."

"He would be happy if there was anything about scientific progress, and if there was not, he would be depressed. This was the only time he would seem like a child, and most of the rest of the time, he would read a book and think silently...... And the way he thought about it—"

Talasha Yutun clenched her cane and took a few more deep breaths.

Saying too many things at once was a bit overwhelming for her, but it wasn't a problem, and Carlil had no intention of stopping it. Why should he stop it?

As the lady said, she was not talking to him as a housekeeper, but simply as a mother.

She may not have known what Carlile's identity is other than that of a Legion instructor, but she has made a rough guess based on the privileges and freedoms her adopted son has given her for the past four days.

She believes that Carlil has a special identity.

She didn't know what it was, but she didn't care. According to Carlil, Talasha Yudon's only purpose in coming here to him was probably just to find a solution somehow.

She wanted her son to come out of the study.

"—he thinks like a machine, Mr. Carlile. Rational and cold, even to the extreme of what I could bear, until this time, I was still a little afraid of him, and I couldn't help but be afraid of him...... Until I started to see more."

"He was ostracized by children his age, and rightly so. Few people would treat him like a child, and Robert wanted to play with them, which they refused. But he doesn't talk to us like other excluded kids, he just locks himself in his room and that's it."

"One night he locked himself in his room for so long that his father even had to go with me to find him. We opened the door to his room, and found the child, who was taller than everybody, curled up in his room silently and weeping."

"He realized we were coming, and he seemed panicked. His father asked him why he was crying and if he was being bullied, but he didn't say anything but told us not to worry about him."

"He didn't eat that night, and I worked late into the night, still thinking about his situation. So I went to the kitchen, got some loaves of bread, and knocked on his door again."

Perhaps it was Carlil's silence that gave Talasha Yuton the strength to continue—and at this moment, the lady showed an expression that was somewhere between sobriety and trance.

She smiled, and her cane gesture no longer looked uncomfortable. Her back straightened, the wrinkles on her face stretched, and she smiled and shook her head.

"That was the first time I realized that Robert Killiman was also a man."

She said softly, speaking softly with a mother's expression.

"He's shrunk behind the door, Mr. Carlil...... From then on, I began to love him with all my heart. Because I know that he may have something we can't do

and the power to possess a body beyond the human body, but his heart still belongs to the human being. He stands with us, and He stands between us."

Carlil nodded calmly, not commenting. He didn't have anything to say, and Yutun did a lot better than he did in this matter. And the lady looked at him and laughed again.

"You may wonder why I'm telling you this." She asked.

"Yes."

"The reason is actually quite simple...... Sir, Robert explained to me who you really are on the afternoon of the first day of your arrival. He doesn't like to lie or hide from me. So I know that you, too, have raised a genetic proto—or rather, the Emperor's son."

I see. Kalil suddenly realized, he nodded, and was about to speak, but Yutun stopped him with a gesture. The posture is gentle but resolute.

"Please let me finish." She pleaded solemnly. "I'm not telling you who you are, so I don't want to find a sense of identity in that way for you to tell me the truth about that night."

"My son won't lie to me or hide anything from me unless he really can't say it. And I never ask about such things. The reason I'm here to tell you that story as Talasha Yuton is just to want you to understand one thing."

"What's the matter?"

"I want you to understand that I am his mother."

In the empty hospital room, a woman far shorter than a giant, leaning on her cane, declared in a voice that was so firm that "I will not allow anyone to hurt my son, not even you, Karil Lohals."

With that, she turned and left. Carlil stood in the middle of the room and smiled wryly. He came to the window and stared at the night. Or rather, staring at a star he couldn't even see.