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Volume 5 Trouble File First Second Half Part 3

But even so, even if she was technically the one calling the shots here because she was an adult here, she still chose to leave the decision of what to do from now on up to Izayoi, since saving that kid from the facility was something that he has decided completely on his own, without having his decision influenced by anyone else.

「Izayoi. No matter what you end up deciding, I want you to remember one thing. No matter what the circumstances were back then or what was your reasoning or the lack of thereof, you ultimately decided to help that child, so your intentions must have been to save her from the very beginning, am I right? And if that is indeed how it was, then you cannot just tuck your tail between your legs and run away. Not from the choice that you have made.」

「. . . I know. You do not have to remind me.」

If Izayoi decided to run away, then Canaria would most likely have not blamed him for it, but on the other hand she was a person who hated those who were trying to run away from taking responsibility for their own actions, and if he tried to leave that kid behind without even trying to take responsibility for saving her life, then she would have never forgiven him. But it is not that she was forcing him to make such a difficult decision out of spite or because she decided to mess with him, she was making him make such a choice of his own accord for Izayoi’s own good, because she knew if she did not pressed him hard enough now, he would have only grown up to become a useless adult who would not be capable of making a decision and sticking to his convictions if he was ever to be put in a situation that would have required him to make a truly difficult choice with lasting consequences. . . .. but that peculiar mixture of rigorousness and kindness was precisely what Izayoi liked about Canaria the most and what he respected her for.

「And now that the serious part of the talk is behind us. . . . I am really glad that you decided to help the victim of those experiments and that you decided to bring her back with you. That is all the proof I needed to see that you have really grown up to be a compassionate and carrying boy, exactly like I envisioned you would become.」

「And there you go spewing that usual cryptic bullshit of yours. It is really driving me nuts, you know? Also, if you knew about the existence of that facility already, then could you not have told me about it earlier? That way, maybe we could have saved more than one person.」

When Izayoi countered her argument, Canaria looked as if she was genuinely hurt by that statement of his, which was a pretty rare sight.

「. . . . Idiot. If I really knew about that place earlier, I would have done something about it sooner myself.」

「I know, I know. Expecting something like that of you would just be like mixing idealism with realism, and that is always a recipe for disaster, but I know that if there was even one percent of a chance that you could have done something about it then you would have tried it, even if you do not have the means to doit right away . . . .. so I am sorry. What I said just now, I. . . . . I did that just because I wanted to vent my own anger on you, and I should not have done that. 」

Izayoi apologized to Canaria, and then a heavy silence has fallen between the two of them. And then Izayoi noticed that Canaria was holding a medical records carte in her hand, most likely belonging to that kid from the breeding grounds.

「Are those. . . .. the medical records of that black Albino kid? I have to admit, I knew that the Albino people and their meat had a special meaning to those who practice cannibalism, but I never would have thought that there would be so many people who would be engaging in such sick practices, and that there was going to be so many of them willing to go to such extreme lengths to obtain the Albino meat. I realize that there are still many areas of the world where Albino People are treated like abominations just because the color of their skin is different from that of other people and that many of them are still convinced that their white skins hold magical properties, but it is just beyond my scope of understanding that someone would really go so far as to create an entire facility where they would breed, manufacture and sell the processed meat of the Albino people to various regions around the world, including the most rural ones.」

The superstitious belief in the magical properties of the white skin of the Albino people is the one which has been present in various mythologies of both east and the west since the ancient times, and is one of the few that has managed to survive until the modern times. Back in the ancient times, in the cultures where the caste system was employed, the color of one’s skin might have even been the cause of conflicts or personal tragedies, because there are stories of people and even spouses being killed because their skin was too dark. One of the most prominent examples of such discrimination based on the color of one’s skin would be the Gods and heroes of the Indian Mythology. All of them are mostly depicted as having blue skin, because according to Hindu beliefs the color blue is associated with the infinite and the immesurable, and is considered to the color of the things that are clean and good in nature, while the black and darker skin colors are associated with evil and everything that is considered to be unclean.

In the parts of the world where the white-skinned people lived, children that have been afflicted with Albinism could be considered as miraculous and destined to become prodigies or geniuses in the future, and could often become the objects of worship. However, the regions of the world in which the black-skinned people lived were much harsher and fiercer in their treatment of the Albino people. Since black Albino’s were thought to be cursed at the moment of their birth, their skins and body parts were considered to have mystical properties and were therefore used not only in cannibalistic practices, but also for the ornamental purposes and as catalysts in magic rituals, therefore all of their body parts and internal organs tend to be selling for a really hefty price on the black market.

Objects of worship, magical ceremonies and rituals, cannibalism and various forms of blasphemy and immorality. . . . . . . for the people who tend to enjoy some or all of the things listed just now, Albino’s are like the best possible drug that they could get high on, which is why they have always been discriminated against, hunted down and killed just so that their remains could be then used for the entertainment and pleasure of others, so in order to protect themselves and their dignity as human beings from those who would try to hunt them like animals and then use as trophies for their sick deviancies, they had no choice but to constantly fight for their own survival while being forced into nomadic lifestyle filled with little more than anxiety and fear of whether or not they are going to be able to live long enough to see another day, and in the most remote parts of the Outer World where civilization has yet to progress as much as in the rest of it, such a state of being has persisted even today.

Normally, you would think that the human society should do everything in its power to protect these people from the unjust oppression that they were facing, but as Izayoi soon discovered these people could not count on society to help them, and moreover, even though they were weak, they had no choice but to become strong so that the society that was supposed to extend its helping hand towards them did not end up killing them for its own profit instead.