Chapter 7
738words
I no longer wished to have anything to do with them. Even if it meant death, I refused to keep sacrificing myself for them.
"I'll expose him and make sure he's utterly ruined," I said coldly to Mavis.
Her face grew even paler, and there was a trace of pleading in her eyes.
She asked sadly, "Why? Our parents are already gone. Besides the two of us, Irvy is our only remaining family in this world. Do you really want to drive him to death?"
I sneered and retorted, "Family? Would you still call him family if I told you he was the one who killed Mom?"
Mavis froze. Then, she shook her head in disbelief. "That's impossible. Irvy is so kind. He would never do something like that. He might be Dad's illegitimate child, but he didn't have a choice in that. He never wanted to be born with that identity."
Ignoring her defensive statements favoring Irving, I sent a video file to her email.
I had used the 500 reward points to exchange for the truth behind Natalia's car accident. This footage was a bonus reward from the system.
In the video, a very young Irving sat beside a woman. His eyes were full of malice as he stared at our mom, who was playing with Mavis and me.
He said, "It'd be great if she died, then you can be with Dad, and I can become the heir of the Caldwell family."
Then, with some hamburgers, he convinced several other children to lure Mavis and me away from the playground. When Mom was frantically searching for us, Irving suddenly appeared before her and led her to a deep pond.
"Ma'am, I saw them fall in over here," Irving said to her.
As Mom anxiously called our names, he tossed a wooden stick at her feet. She tripped over it and fell into the pond.
Besides the playground surveillance footage, there were also recordings of me alone over the next five years. In them, I writhed in agony, driven to the brink of madness by the intense pain.
Mavis lifted her head. Her face was pale, and she was unable to utter a single word.
She knew very well that I had no reason to put on a show when I was all alone. Every bit of that pain had been real.
In a quiet voice, I said, "That was the price I paid for your health. As it wasn't a real illness, the hospital could never find anything wrong."
She opened her mouth. Her voice came out hoarse as she called my name.
"Luc, you… Irving said you were here on a mission. So, everything you did for me was just for that mission. He also said the system cured my illness, and that you didn't really have to pay any price for it at all. So, I—"
I cut her off with a cold laugh, "Why is it that you believe every word he says, but not a single word I say?"
I was indeed here on a mission. But many of the things I had done for her weren't out of necessity in order to complete my mission. It was simply because she was my sister that I genuinely wanted to help her.
"Luc, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry," Mavis blurted.
She broke down, sobbing inconsolably as she apologized over and over again. But those words meant nothing to me anymore.
Exhausted, I got up and walked into the kitchen. Only then did I notice that all the sharp objects in the house had been removed. The doors and windows had also been fitted with an extra layer of bars.
Did they really think this was going to stop me?
When I filled the bathtub with water and was about to sink myself under, Shiloh rushed in and dragged me up.
"I won't let you die until you've paid back everything you owe Irvy!" she exclaimed.
Her face was ashen. Yet, the system's notification sounded in my head.
"Shiloh's affection toward you has reached 20 out of 100 points. You get 200 reward points. You may trade the points for a video revealing the truth."
