Peaceful Life System: I only need to live peacefully-Chapter 100: Meeting Elara’s Father (2)

It looked like this matter was much deeper than what Riku had expected it to be. Someone was planning something big, and this basement was an important piece of the puzzle.

However, before Riku could process the full extent of this hidden hoard, a figure emerged from the deeper shadows at the far end of the storage chamber.

The man was gaunt, his clothes tattered, his skin almost entirely covered in the dark, pulsating crimson marks of the Creep. Yet, he moved with an unnerving steadiness, his eyes, though bloodshot, holding a spark of sharp awareness.

Elara stared at the silhouette stepping out from the deeper shadows with her breath hitched.

The way he moved, the set of his shoulders even beneath the tattered clothes... it was so familiar.

"Is that...?" she whispered, her voice trembling, half in fear, half in a wild, burgeoning hope.

As the figure stepped further into the dim torchlight filtering from the tunnel, his features became clearer. Gaunt, yes. Ravaged by the crimson marks, undeniably. But beneath the horror of the Creep, the lines of his face, the shape of his jaw...

Elara’s hand flew to her mouth, a choked sob escaping. Her eyes, wide with disbelief, began to fill with tears. The suspicion, the desperate hope, solidified into a heart-wrenching certainty.

"Papa...?" she breathed, the word a fragile thing, heavy with weeks of fear and sorrow. Then, louder, as tears of overwhelming joy began to stream freely down her cheeks, "Father! It is you!"

The Creep-infested man looked up, his gaze sweeping over Riku and Lila, then finally settling on Elara. A strange expression crossed his face – not the joyful recognition of a father seeing his lost daughter, but something akin to mild surprise, quickly masked.

"Elara, my dear," he said, his voice raspy but surprisingly composed. He extended his arms as if for an embrace.

"You’re here. Come, child. I have been searching for you for so long. I knew you would come here to find me."

Elara took an instinctive step forward, her vision blurred by tears. "Papa! You’re alive!"

"Elara, wait!" Riku’s voice was sharp, his hand shooting out to stop her. He stepped in front of the girls, his eyes narrowed on the man. "Hold on."

"Huh? What happened?" Elara, surprised by Riku’s sudden reaction, asked in confusion.

"I don’t know, just a hunch. We will know soon." Riku said, as he turned to the creep infested man.

"Sir, your daughter was worried sick about you," Riku said, his tone even. "But you seem... remarkably mobile for someone so deeply afflicted by the Creep. I’ve seen men with fewer marks who can barely stand. How is it you move so freely?"

The man chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. "Ah, the Creep is a strange beast, is it not? Perhaps my will is stronger than most. A father’s love, you see, it can grant unexpected strength when his child is near." He looked pointedly at Elara, his expression softening into one of paternal affection.

"I’ve been so worried, Elara. Thinking only of you. I knew that you would come here, so I was waiting here in advance."

Elara, hearing this, took another hesitant step forward, her heart warring with the doubt Riku had planted. "Papa... you really are alright?"

"Of course, my dear," the man said, his voice warm. "A little worn, perhaps, but seeing you has given me new life."

Riku interjected, "Impressive resilience. Most with such advanced marks are consumed by pain, their minds clouded. Yet you seem perfectly lucid, almost... untouched by the agony."

The man’s eye twitched almost imperceptibly. "The pain is there, son, believe me. But one learns to endure. For family." He winced slightly, as if to emphasize his point. "And I have been conserving my strength, knowing Elara would find me."

"And exactly how did you expect Elara to break the spell you cast on the entrance?" Riku asked with his arms akimbo.

"Who said that she had to break it? She only needed to be nearby and call for me, and I would have come." The man said, still maintaining the smile on his face, though it seemed that his expression was getting a bit impatient.

"Oh? You would rather have met her in a place like this, filled with malicious mist and the very thing that almost killed her in the whisperwoods? Do you still care about her?" Riku pressed on, this time directly pointing at the stones emitting the mist.

At this point, Elara had already understood where Riku was getting at.

"Papa," Elara suddenly spoke, her voice small but clear, the tears still on her cheeks now mixed with a dawning confusion. "When we were in the Whisperwood... you shouted my name. You sounded... so scared for me. But now... you seem surprised I’m here, not relieved I’m safe."

The man’s facade faltered for a split second, which he tried to recover. "My dear, of course, I am relieved! The shock of seeing you, after fearing the worst... it overwhelms an old man."

But Elara was slowly backing away now, her earlier joy completely extinguished, replaced by a chilling doubt that mirrored Riku’s. The man before her looked like her father, sounded mostly like him, but something was fundamentally wrong.

His last words had just confirmed that.

"No.. You cannot be my papa. You cannot be... He would never call himself an old man! He would always call himself a young and virile man, aiming to bed a fellow merchant lady from Luxia one day. He was a pervert, but he was also a good man and father."

"Who are you? What have you done with my father?" Elara asked desperately.

The man’s eyes, which had been fixed on Elara with feigned warmth, darted towards Riku, then back to her, a flicker of something cold and calculating within them. Finally, he gave a soft sigh.

"Heh, looks like it is useless, eh? I guess I should have finished you off right from the beginning."

"Now, die."