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“Could you tell me who you received it from?”
“……My father gave me when I was born… is what my mother said.”

Considering its significant price, only a select few could afford to obtain it. Nevertheless, I’m glad my guess was on point. This should save me the hassle of explaining why it ended up in Torsti’s possession.

Feeling inwardly relieved, I presented him with a proposition.

“Would you be willing to remove it for a moment?”
“…Why?”

His question carried a touch of guardedness. Though I understood the importance of caution, I couldn’t help but feel that his wariness was unnecessary…

And then, a realization struck me, pointing to one possible explanation.

“Have you been explicitly instructed never to remove it?”
“!”

It hit the mark, judging by his perturbed reaction. Before Torsti can regain his composure, let’s seize the opportunity and make a decisive move.

“I believe you would believe my words if you remove it for a moment.”
“………”

As my accurate prediction seemed to lend credibility to my words, Torsti wavered, his hand trembling, before finally grasping the bracelet.

It appeared to be magically sealed, preventing it from being removed easily. However, as Torsti chanted a spell, there was an audible click, and his bracelet split in two. In that instant, Torsti’s body contorted with pain, emitting a sharp sound.

“G… Guh…!”

His face twisted in anguish, Torsti remained frozen, unable to even cry out. The intense, searing pain consumed his entire being, causing his pale face to glisten with sweat.

Releasing my barrier, I carefully sliced through the skin on my arm and collected the blood in the now-empty glass. I moved his head upwards and positioned the glass to his lips.

“Don’t be startled. It’s alright. Drink it slowly.”

At first, Torsti’s initial reaction was one of discomfort, evident in his grimacing expression and apparent unease. However, as the excruciating pain gradually subsided, a sense of relief washed over him, fostering a sudden and profound reliance on the source of his alleviation. Eventually, he willingly grasped the glass and consumed its contents.

Having consumed the blood within the glass, Torsti remained in a state of bewilderment for a brief moment, before comprehending the gravity of his actions. Once again, his shoulders trembled, revealing a mixture of guilt and confusion.

“What… What just happened? I… What have I…!”
“Please, try to calm down. First, let me heal your wounds. Close your eyes, if you will.”

With a composed incantation, I cast the recovery spell – Heal, causing Torsti’s wounds to swiftly regenerate.

Torsti appeared astounded by the rapid restoration of his injuries, yet it was only feasible due to the removal of the bracelet. In truth, anyone could have undergone such healing under these circumstances.

Nonetheless, removing the bracelet posed its own set of complications, indicating that the situation was far from straightforward.

At any rate, there was no longer a need to keep the bracelet removed.

Torsti nodded silently and reattached the bracelet, his face contorting as he wiped away the blood stains on the bed and around his mouth and looked at them. The blend of revulsion from consuming another’s blood and the lingering sense of euphoria created an unsettling mixture of anxiety within him, leaving him unsure of how to reconcile these conflicting emotions.

While some individuals might choose to take their own lives in such a situation, Torsti seemed to be managing it well, showing no immediate signs of distress.

“You will… explain this, right…?”
“Of course.”

He didn’t have the initial disdainful gaze from before but it was still thorny.

“What I just did was an act to restore the essence of being human.”
“…Being human…? What…are you talking about…?”

In my previous world, human genetic information would be an accurate way to describe it but various circumstances are different in this world, so the explanation becomes more tedious.

“Our human bodies are shaped by the information that defines the nature of our existence. Your body was on the brink of losing its ‘human form,’ but it was replenished by acquiring a fragment of humanity.”
“Losing my body…?”

Torsti gazed at his palm dyed by my blood.

“…What… am I…?”
“What flows in your body aren’t divine factors but ogre factors.”

The ogre factors granted individuals extraordinary physical abilities by eliminating the limitations of their body’s stats. However, its fundamental nature was akin to a bug that had deviated from the system’s control. The specialization in physical attributes was merely a side effect of this glitch. Ogre factors like mine, the Ogre God, and its dependent Gabril, possess a unique trait of being specially recognized bugs that counteract the flaws caused by the Ogre factors. Hence, we don’t experience such malfunctions. However, those who inherit the Ogre factors as a genetic mutation are genuine bugs and inevitably face problems similar to Torsti’s.

The drawback of inducing panic, frenzy, and confusion in surrounding life forms also affected the mutants themselves, leading to uncontrolled outbursts.

To mitigate these issues, they needed to assimilate information from normal humans.

To put it in Earthly terms, you can think of “Vampires” or “man-eating Ogres” who consume blood and human flesh to sustain themselves. Although, in the case of Ogres, perhaps they just rampaged and never had an ego of their own.

Incidentally, in this world, there were no instances of infectious diseases apart from those triggered by magic or sorcery.

The unreasonable and irrational practices of selection and forced promotion of a culture that used to occur regularly in that world have been replaced by external adversaries like monsters and demons, so they have simply become redundant elements, in my opinion.

That doesn’t matter now anyway.

“I… Forget being the child of a god… I was a child of a demon all along…”

Torsti muttered that with a dry laugh. He looked like everything suddenly made sense to him, but I was still in the middle of explaining.

“You were judged as such so you were given that bracelet.”
“This bracelet…?”
“Yes.”

Considering the events that unfolded earlier, Torsti couldn’t help but acknowledge it, even without my explicit affirmation.

The function of his bracelet-like treasure, Samsara of Substitution, was to assume the burden of soul detachment caused by curses or instant-death spells. In other words, it can be rephrased as the donning of a substitute soul.

While it protected against binding contracts and fatal spells, it also inadvertently absorbed the effects of healing and support magic as a proxy. This drawback made it challenging to achieve complete recovery from wounds.

However, in his case, he was able to obtain an unintended consequence of bug correction through the utilization of the substitute soul.

“The Emperor doesn’t wish for your death at all.”
“…!”

I believe that his memories being contradicted evoked fear in him, leading to his resistance to embracing expectations.

However, by vocalizing my thoughts and having him hear them, hope unexpectedly sprouted in his heart. Once hope takes root, one cannot help but move forward. I might be using hope as bait to lure this person, only to ultimately cast him into deeper despair. Nevertheless, I couldn’t suppress the overwhelming need to express it.

“When you weren’t chosen by the divine swords, and when you were leaving the empire… Consider the reason why that bracelet wasn’t taken from you.”

I wanted him to understand that he was different from me who was abandoned knowing I would die.

“…I……I was not abandoned…?”

I didn’t answer him as he muttered while looking at his palm.

“Can… Can I continue living…?”

I didn’t answer again.

Expecting a reply yet not hearing it, Torsti finally looked my way. As he looked at me with a mixture of puzzlement and a desperate plea, I returned a smile-like expression that I wore as a receptionist, neither affirming nor denying.

I had the ability to provide an answer at that moment. However, if one were to live relying on answers bestowed by others, they would inevitably cling to those answers and use them as an escape when faced with adversity.