The Retired Supporting Character Wants to Live Quietly-Chapter 169 - Human Warmth (5)

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]

Chapter 169 - Human Warmth (5)

I followed him.

I burned everything in the house with magic, save for this notebook.

It would have only been baggage for the journey, and everything I needed was already in my mind.

The man who had embraced me was named Dian.

A kind yet slightly lazy-seeming person with a peculiar aura about him.

He said he was gathering companions to kill the Demon King and end the war.

And that I was to be the final member of his group.

When I asked how he had found me, he said that word of the “reclusive Crazy Mage Kaiden, holed up in a dormant volcano researching destructive magic,” had already spread far and wide.

The other companions numbered three.

First, Linus, the righteous but slightly inflexible swordsman. His martial prowess had earned him the title of Hero.

His unwavering, resolute gaze made me think it would be difficult to get close to him.

Next was Celine, a hunter from the northern nomadic tribes who shot her bow with her eyes closed, relying solely on instinct.

Though she was kind and gentle, her sharp intuition made me feel wary of getting too close.

Lastly, there was Lormane, the Oracle Priestess.

She seemed overly innocent, almost naive to the ways of the world.

Even though I had spent my entire life in a remote mountain with my mother and later isolated in the dormant volcano, I felt confident I understood more about the world than she did.

This priestess seemed capable of only two things: praying and stealing glances at Dian.

So I became close to her.

She was so pure that she accepted me as I was, and I thought that even if I grew close to her, my secret wouldn’t be exposed.

I didn’t tell them that “Kaiden” was actually my mother’s name or that I was a golem created from a mix of my mother’s and the Demon King’s hair.

I feared that if I revealed the truth, Dian, who had embraced me, would abandon me—just as my mother had lived in fear of being abandoned by my father.

Though I had loved my mother, I had never truly understood her.

Now, I thought I might finally grasp a bit of what she had felt.

The priestess was kind to a fault.

She said she could understand why I had attacked them back at the volcano.

She bought me clothes, shared delicious food with me, and stayed by my side during battles.

To her, I was just a young human girl, rescued from squalor and in need of adult protection.

But my motives for staying close to her were different.

I didn’t like how the priestess admired Dian.

She was a human woman. She and Dian could fall in love and even marry.

That was something I, a golem, could never have.

If that happened, Dian would leave my side.

Even though Dian was never mine to begin with and never could be, I didn’t want to lose him.

It felt like how my mother had spent her days staring out the window, waiting for my father, who would never return.

So, I grew close to the priestess, looking for opportunities to drive a wedge between her and Dian.

The priestess was too trusting, never doubting anyone.

That made it easy for me to use the illusion magic I had been practicing on her.

They say that it's human nature to return kindness with kindness.

But I wasn’t human.

# # # # #

As the priestess and Dian drifted apart, I naturally slipped into the space between them.

To avoid raising suspicion, I altered my body into a male form. With my slime-like properties, it was an effortless transformation.

During the journey, Dian and I had many conversations.

And just as I had deduced the truths of the world while reading books in the basement of my stone house, I came to understand Dian’s true identity.

Dian was from another world.

More precisely, this world was a story—a novel someone had written. And Dian was someone who had come from the world where the novel existed as fiction.

He already knew everything about the future.

Eventually, Linus, the Hero, would slay the Demon King, and peace would return to the world.

“What happens after that?”

“I don’t know.”

He said that Linus was the true protagonist of this world.

Dian saw himself only as a supporting character, someone to guide the story to its proper end.

But to me, Dian was the protagonist of my life.

Dian wanted this truth to remain a secret, fearing it would cause chaos if others learned that this world was just a novel.

I didn’t care what happened to others, but since Dian asked, I kept his secret.

At night, when he couldn’t sleep, Dian would tell me stories about the world he came from.

Skyscrapers, cars, airplanes, the internet, computers, movies, games, wars, and technologies more advanced than magic.

It was a true paradise, unlike anything described in the books I had read.

Listening to Dian’s gentle voice as he spoke of his world filled me with indescribable happiness.

It was a tone I had never heard from my mother, who only ever scolded me, cursed at me, or muttered to herself about my father.

“Do you want to go back there?”

“Of course. But I can’t. So I’ll make do with living here. It’s not so bad, really.”

From that moment, I began researching magic that could send Dian back to his world.

I calculated that the joy of making Dian happy in his true world would surpass the happiness I felt just being near him.

But it was impossible.

Crossing worlds required the combined power of five Archmages, and only two existed in this era.

No era had ever seen five Archmages alive at the same time. Dian would never be able to return.

So, I changed my approach to illusion magic.

If I couldn’t send him back, maybe I could make him believe he had returned.

If I perfected my illusions to the point where reality and fantasy became indistinguishable, perhaps I could grant Dian his wish.

In the city I created, Dian would find happiness.

Maybe I could live there with him, too.

So, I devoted myself to mastering illusion magic.

# # # # #

At the Demon King’s castle, I met my father.

The war had taken its toll on him; his once-handsome face was gone, though his sharp, penetrating eyes remained unchanged.

He didn’t recognize me.

All he saw was an enemy, someone who had inflicted massive damage on his forces.

His attacks were devastating.

With a single swing of his sword, he split a pillar, and the resulting debris severed the hunter’s leg.

The priestess collapsed, having exhausted her divine power.

My father was not only powerful but resistant to magic, rendering my spells nearly useless.

Even so, Dian and Linus fought him with unyielding determination.

Outnumbered, my father was eventually pierced by Linus’s sword and seemed on the verge of collapse.

The ending Dian wanted was within reach.

But then my father unleashed a hidden ability—a mental attack that dredged up his opponent’s most traumatic memories, incapacitating them.

“Aaaaaahhh!”

Linus and Dian screamed, dropping to their knees. What horrors had they seen?

In front of me appeared my dead mother. She hurled curses at me relentlessly, her lifeless form writhing.

I stood silent, staring down at her, but my hands trembled uncontrollably.

Why was I, a golem, reacting this way?

“This wasn’t in the original story…”

Dian, clutching his sword for support, staggered to his feet.

“This wasn’t in the original story…”

Straightening his grip, Dian shouted:

“There’s no massacre ending in the original story!!!!”

With a single stroke, Dian’s blade severed my father’s head.

As my father fell, Dian collapsed, clutching his head and groaning in pain.

The terrible memories were still tormenting him.

I wanted to ease his pain. Don’t hurt anymore, Dian.

Ignoring the vision of my mother, I cast an illusion spell on Dian.

It seemed to work. He crawled toward Linus, who was trembling and drooling on the ground.

Gripping Linus’s shoulder, Dian shouted:

“Snap out of it, Linus!”

“Dian…?”

“Take the sword!”

Dian forced his sword into Linus’s hands.

“You killed him, Linus!”

“What…?”

Through his dazed vision, Linus looked at my father’s decapitated body.

“You killed the Demon King!”

“I…? No… You did…”

“You killed him! Linus, the Hero, cut down the Demon King!”

I understood why Dian was doing this.

He had said Linus was the true protagonist of this world.

Dian wanted to ensure the story followed its intended ending, supporting the Hero rather than altering the narrative.

If that was what Dian wanted, I would help him.

I cast an illusion spell over both Dian and Linus:

“The Hero Linus, with the aid of his companion Dian, slew the Demon King.”

# # # # #

Linus became the Empire’s hero.

But Dian, my hero, wasn’t there.

When I asked Linus where he had gone, he said he didn’t know.

In that moment, I finally understood my mother.

When she realized my father would never return, it drove her mad.

But I was a golem with reason. Instead of losing myself, I focused on a new goal.

Dian couldn’t return to his world, but he must be living somewhere on this continent.

I would keep researching illusion magic.

Someday, when I saw him again, I would gift him the life he had longed for on Earth.

So I entered the Tower of Illusions.

I don’t know what became of that diary.

Maybe I dropped it while evading the mages who tried to recruit me on my way to the tower.

In the tower, I waited for a long, long time.

Carefully crafting and refining the illusion of Earth’s city.

I wanted Dian to feel at home there.

To feel like he had returned.

If Dian was happy, then I would be happy too.

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# # # # #

“Thank you, Kaiden.”

Dian said.

“If it weren’t for you, I might have gone mad back then. And I wouldn’t have been able to bring about the ending I wanted. I truly thank you.”

“That can’t be true. Please, don’t forgive me. You came here to punish me, didn’t you?”

“No. I came here to say thank you.”

Not here to punish me?

But Mother always struck me whenever I made a mistake.

I couldn’t understand it.

How could someone thank me when I had done wrong? It didn’t make sense.

“Dian!”

The priestess, freed from the shattered illusion, ran toward him but froze when she saw me.

“Kaiden…”

Lormane, the priestess. She was one of the people I had deceived and wronged.

Surely, she would curse me now, just like the vision of my dead mother.

It was fine. She had every right to hate me. Ten years of resentment must have built up inside her.

Go ahead, curse me. Pour out your anger.

But Lormane didn’t.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

Huh…?

It felt as if a hammer had struck my mind.

Not curses, but concern? Why?

“I’ll heal you.”

Lormane’s hands, glowing with divine light, gently touched my head. Warmth from her holy power spread through my entire body.

Ah… Ahh…

Only now did I realize it.

These people… they truly cared for me.

I felt guilt. I felt regret.

For deceiving those who had been so kind to me.

For all the terrible things I had done.

Slowly, I opened my mouth.

“I’m sorry…”

It was strange. Tears began to well up in my eyes.

“I’m so sorry… I truly am… sorry…”

“It’s all right, Kaiden.”

Lormane smiled warmly.

“It’s enough that you understand now.”

Her smile felt so warm that I couldn’t hold back my sobs.

A golem, feeling emotions and shedding tears.

Mother had made me too perfect.

Had she truly wanted me to be like a daughter born of her and my father?

But that didn’t matter anymore. I didn’t need to know, nor did I want to.

Because right now, Dian was holding me.

And Lormane had forgiven me.

Just like on the day Dian first came to my cramped stone house on the dormant volcano, where I had been consumed by destructive magic and my mother’s final wish.

Human warmth.

As a golem, I had no right to desire such a thing.

And yet, now, I was enveloped in it.

[Translator - Peptobismol]

[Proofreader - Demon God]