Lackey's Seducing Survival Odyssey

Chapter 1721: All I ever wanted was for her to be happy and… I wanted to be part of that happiness.

“Your mother… died.”

Jonathan slowly closed his eyes after uttering those heartfelt words. The words felt heavy in his chest, carrying years of unspoken truths and painful memories.

Although his mother had abandoned him long ago, Aether had never openly hated her.

At least, he had never shown that hatred in front of his friends. Whenever her name came up, he never spoke with bitterness, nor did he rant about revenge or complain about the years she had stolen from him.

Instead, he would occasionally ask whether anyone had heard news about her, quietly checking on her well-being as though she were still an important part of his life.

That much he loved her.

That was the part Jonathan could never understand.

The woman had abandoned him and cast him aside for years, yet Aether continued worrying about her as though she had done nothing wrong.

No matter how many times Jonathan tried looking at the situation from different angles, he could never comprehend why someone would continue caring for a person who had treated them so cruelly.

Why would he do that?

Why would someone care for the well-being of a person who had cast him aside like nothing?

That’s something not even his friends managed to understand.

And it wasn’t only his mother.

There was also his ex-girlfriend.

Neither woman had left him with pleasant memories, yet Aether seemed incapable of letting either of them go.

This was something none of his friends ever understood… he never moved on with his life.

Sometimes Jonathan felt as though invisible chains were wrapped around his friend’s heart, dragging him backwards whenever he tried to move forward. The people who hurt him the most somehow occupied the largest space within his thoughts, and despite all the pain they caused, he never truly stopped caring about them.

That was why Jonathan immediately recognised the lie from earlier.

When Aether claimed he had been searching for his friends, Jonathan almost laughed.

The excuse was absurd.

This was the same man who had spent years obsessing over his mother and wondering about his former lover.

There was simply no way that his first priority after returning would be searching for his friends.

Dream on!

Even the rest of their group would call bullshit if Aether tried presenting that story as the truth.

Still, Jonathan had chosen honesty.

Instead of offering comforting lies or giving his friend false hope, he had decided to tell him the truth directly.

He expected tears, denial, anger, or perhaps complete emotional collapse. In fact, he had already begun preparing himself mentally to comfort Aether through the inevitable breakdown.

‘This is for the best,’ Jonathan thought as he steadied himself.

Then a strange sound reached his ears.

Munch… Munch…

Jonathan’s brows slowly knitted together.

The unmistakable sound of someone eating echoed through the room, completely shattering the heavy atmosphere he had spent the last several minutes building.

Confused, he opened his eyes and turned toward Young Aether.

What he saw made him question whether he had somehow imagined the entire conversation.

Young Aether was calmly eating cookies.

Not nervously.

Not absent-mindedly.

Not as a coping mechanism.

The boy was genuinely enjoying his snack.

His expression remained completely relaxed as he casually chewed another bite, paying more attention to the cookie in his hand than to the devastating truth Jonathan had just delivered. A few crumbs fell onto his lap, yet he looked entirely unconcerned by either the mess or the conversation.

“A-Aether?”

“Hmm?”

Young Aether glanced toward him while continuing to chew.

Jonathan stared at him for several seconds before speaking again.

“I… I just told you that your mother is… dead.”

“Hmm… okay.”

Young Aether nodded as though Jonathan had informed him that the weather might be cloudy tomorrow. After responding, he casually reached for another cookie and continued eating without the slightest change in expression.

“…”

Jonathan could only stare.

The reaction was so absurdly normal that it actually felt more disturbing than a breakdown would have been.

For a brief moment, Young Aether even looked confused by Jonathan’s expression, as though he genuinely couldn’t understand why his friend was staring at him so intensely.

“Aether.”

“Yes, buddy?”

Jonathan narrowed his eyes and carefully observed the young man’s face.

“…”

There was no shock.

There was no grief.

There was no anger, denial, or even visible sadness.

The emotional response Jonathan had prepared himself for simply wasn’t there.

Instead, Young Aether looked completely indifferent to the news.

A strange thought suddenly entered Jonathan’s mind.

‘Maybe being reborn changed him more than I realised.’

The idea sounded ridiculous at first, but the longer he thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. After all, nobody experienced death, reincarnation, and an entirely new life without changing in some way.

Perhaps the attachment he once held toward his mother had simply faded over time.

Feeling that he had finally found an explanation, Jonathan slowly relaxed his shoulders and let out a quiet breath. His concern gradually gave way to curiosity as he leaned slightly forward and studied his friend’s unusually calm face.

“Aether… are you seriously not bothered by this at all? I thought… You would grab my collar and start shouting at me or something. Ahaha…”

The cookie snapped between Young Aether’s teeth before he leaned back slightly and stared into the distance. His eyes seemed unfocused, as though he were looking beyond the room and into memories that no longer held any warmth for him.

“It… it really doesn’t matter anymore, Jonny. Honestly, I’m not even sure I’d feel anything if she suddenly appeared right in front of me.”

His voice carried a strange coldness, not born from hatred but from exhaustion. It was the tone of someone who had spent years longing for something, only to realise that the thing he desired had… never truly existed.

Jonathan’s eyebrows rose slightly… he didn’t expect this from Young Aether as he watched Young Aether force a faint smile onto his face.

“All I ever wanted was for her to be happy, and… I wanted to be part of that happiness.

Back then, I honestly believed that if I just tried harder, she would eventually look at me and see a son worth loving.

Haha..Ha…”

A bitter laugh escaped his lips.

“Looking back now, I was just fooling myself.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but my… existence was probably a curse to her.

I wasn’t her happiness.

I wasn’t someone she could be proud of.

In her eyes…ha… haha… I was the defective product that ruined her career, destroyed her future, and… tied her down when she wanted freedom.”

The smile on his face slowly faded.

“To her, I was never a son… I was just a mistake she couldn’t erase.”

For several moments, neither of them spoke.

The room felt strangely quiet as Young Aether stared at the half-eaten cookie in his hand before taking another bite.

After swallowing, he simply shrugged.

“Whatever. She’s dead. That’s all there is to it.”

Jonathan remained silent as he stared at his friend.

Years ago, Aether would have broken down upon hearing such news. The boy who desperately sought his mother’s approval would have cried, screamed, or refused to believe it.

Yet the young man sitting before him now accepted her death with nothing more than a shrug and a tired expression.

There was no visible pain.

There was no relief.

There was no hatred.

The attachment that had once defined such a large part of his life seemed to have burned away completely, leaving behind only… indifference.

“Though…” Young Aether said after a moment, “I am curious about my step-father. What happened to him?”

Ironically, he found himself more interested in learning about the man who had entered his mother’s life than about his own blood mother.

Well…

Not his blood anymore~

Jonathan shook his head.

“I don’t know. After everything happened…”

Young Aether nodded and didn’t press the matter further; instead, he asked,

“What about your mother and father? I haven’t seen them anywhere since I got here.”

The moment those words left his mouth, Jonathan froze.

His expression stiffened, and his hand slowly tightened into a fist.

After several seconds of silence, he lowered his head.

“T-They… were killed by the monsters.”

Young Aether stared at him for a moment before quietly reaching out and patting his shoulder.

“Sorry, man.”

Unlike his own parents, Jonathan’s parents had always treated him kindly whenever he visited their home. They never looked down on him and never made him feel unwelcome.

If anything, they had often treated him like another son.

Ironically, that kindness was exactly why he had kept some distance from them.

Back then, he had worried that becoming too attached might create problems.

Children could be possessive, and he never wanted Jonathan to think he was competing for his parents’ affection.

Rather than risk damaging their friendship, he had chosen to remain polite but distant.

Looking back now, he regretted it a little.

After all, they had been genuinely good people.

Young Aether withdrew his hand and let Jonathan gather himself before asking quietly,

“So what exactly happened?… What happened to Earth 14 years ago?”

Jonathan took a deep breath before slowly nodding.

Then he began explaining everything that had transpired from his point of view, recounting the events that had transformed Earth into the world it had become today.

____

[A/N: I know I promised to keep my release schedule on track, but please forgive me. This week ended up being much more chaotic than I expected, and I wasn’t able to finish another chapter in time. I’m really sorry about that. Things should return to normal starting tomorrow… at least, that’s the plan. 😅]