What does it mean that the Demon King was killed by a wheelchair?

"..."

"..."

They stared at each other... stared at each other... stared at each other for seconds, time seemed to stand still, but House's expression changed repeatedly, from stunned to slightly angry to fearful to completely bewildered...

Although it was a bit embarrassing to say this, he seemed to have lost miserably in the eye-checking segment. The child's expression remained unchanged from beginning to end, and he just stared at House with his terrifying black eyes, comparable to Kayako's.

Gradually, House couldn't take it anymore. He shuddered, frowned, and looked away. Damn, it's amazing that this human can look like a ghost... If he looked any longer, House was worried that he would die from looking at him.

"Hey... what's wrong with your eyes? Are you born with some kind of disease?" House asked, twitching his lips as he chatted with the other person.

But then the little brat suddenly curled up into a ball and started biting his thumb, and with that messy, bird's-nest-like hair... he was genuinely afraid the kid would suddenly blurt out, "Watashi wa Lde shi..."

"Hmm... Light pupil syndrome."

Although he looks a bit strange, he seems to have a decent character. He speaks in a humble yet assertive tone and is very friendly.

"What kind of illness is that? I've never heard of it before. Are you from the same place as Uncle Sang?"

The boy shook his head: "No, I was adopted by Grandpa Sangbo while fleeing famine on the road. As for the name of the disease, you probably haven't heard of it, because I named it myself."

House's mouth agape slightly: "You named it yourself?"

"What's wrong?"

"Uh...it's nothing. What's your name?"

"Verete".

"Virette... it's still a transliteration..." House muttered under his breath.

"What did you say?"

"Huh?" House, embarrassed by being overheard, looked away. "Nothing, nothing...you must have misheard."

"Oh, I see."

"..."

"..."

Silence is the Cambridge of tonight... but if there were a bridge between the two of them, House would be the pedestrian on that bridge, and this Verette would probably be the kappa monster from the riverbed...

Once the topic cooled down, the two people, having nothing left to talk about, naturally shut up.

But the child was acting strangely; even when he stopped talking, he kept staring at House without moving.

House got goosebumps all over from that cold gaze. He turned his head away to kill time, but when he turned back after a while, he found that the brat was still staring at him.

House couldn't take it anymore. Damn it, have you never seen a disabled person with a big hook?

He smacked his lips and said:

"Tsk...hiss...I'm not a kid, I said staring for a while is enough, are you never going to stop? It's kind of creepy, stop looking, okay?"

Verette, however, remained completely unfazed. While speaking casually to House, her eyes remained fixed on him: "I...are you afraid of me?"

"Holy crap...?"

Children speak without thinking, and these words made House, who had been holding back, itch with urgency and wanted to fight.

He rolled up his sleeves, veins bulging at the corners of his eyes: "You're deliberately picking a fight, aren't you? Let me tell you, I'm a descendant of Confucius. Whether you can sit at the table or not, I'll beat you up without hesitation."

"Fight?" Veret spread his hands. "What problem would fighting solve?"

"If you don't want me to keep looking at you, just say so. There's no need to warn me like this," he said woodenly, shaking his head. "This behavior is unnecessary. We can solve the problem with the simplest conversation."

"..."

His awkward and affected remarks made House's anger feel like it had hit a brick wall... What's wrong with this weird kid? He's talking nonsense... But House really can't argue with him like this. How to put it... This kid looks like the kind of kid who has "some mental problems." House isn't insulting him, he's just stating an objective fact. There's no intention of discrimination, but House himself has seen quite a few people like this.

In the welfare home, many elderly and young people with frontal lobe damage have this problem. They seem to be born lacking the ability to accept one, two, three, or four kinds of emotions. Perhaps it is fear, perhaps it is anger, perhaps it is melancholy... In short, these emotions that are familiar to ordinary people are ethereal to them, and they cannot feel them.

The final outcome of this condition is hard to say. To put it mildly, it's not a serious problem; sometimes, it might even make the patient more vulnerable.

But to put it extremely, most of the world's most notorious serial killers, kidnappers, and the like have this problem... Because they cannot feel emotions and cannot empathize with others, they become the greatest devils in the world.

The most interesting point is that there is actually no difference between the two types of people mentioned above. Whether they are angels or devils, it makes no difference to them, after all... they have no emotions.

Having figured these things out, House couldn't help but feel a little more understanding of the child.

After all, he's sick, so it's understandable. After all, King Hou Guoyu of Jiji Kingdom once said that what a Silver-level person says is equivalent to what a... late-stage person says.

What could I do? I had no choice but to comply.

So House stopped paying attention to him and let him see what he wanted.

But after a while, the child still wouldn't calm down. He actually crawled up to House and reached out to touch his face.

This startled House, and he slapped the other person's hand away.

"Hey kid, I won't say anything, but why did you actually attack me? Do you even know what it means to be admired from afar but not touched?"

Veret shook his head seriously: "I don't know."

"..."

House chuckled in exasperation. He turned his wheelchair around, picked up the small body, and placed it directly in front of him. "Come on, tell me, why are you staring at me like that? Do I look like your father?"

Veret shook his head again: "No, you don't resemble anyone."

"Then why the hell are you even watching chickens...?"

"It's precisely because you're unlike anyone else that I'm curious." Viret suddenly widened her eyes, which had no whites, and stared at House. "I've never seen anyone like you before. You're special, unlike anyone I've ever met... I want to understand."

House rolled his eyes at him: "It's not your fault, kid. I never dreamed I'd run into a wheelchair-bound weirdo like myself who pulls his own legs off to beat people up."

Verette completely ignored House's nonsense: "No, not like that. You...you have a unique aura about you, in your speech, your mannerisms, your every breath..."

The child tilted his head little by little, like an owl:

"Where do you come from? It's as if you're not from this world."

"—?"

Clang—!

"Ouch! Ouch! I'm so sorry! I bumped into a rock! Mr. House, are you alright?!"

Old Sangbo's concerned questions came from outside the car, but those words were as faint as a mosquito's buzz to House's ears. They say children speak without restraint... but this child's words are too innocent, aren't they?

He tried hard to keep his expression steady. It was something that had never happened before that he had been recognized in just a few words... Even if he was trying his best, he shouldn't have been exposed like this, right?

"I said, child..."

"Looks like I was right." Without a moment to argue, Verette cut to the chase and turned away decisively. But then, perhaps remembering something, he turned back to House and said:

"You don't need to worry, I mean no harm. I just can't resist seeing these things, I just want to figure it all out. I won't tell anyone, knowing the answer is enough for me."

House could only stand there awkwardly with his mouth agape. "Damn it, you've already said everything, what am I supposed to say next..."

But for no apparent reason, Verette suddenly asked House a question:

"I just heard... your name is House, right? Mr. House, I have a question for you."

House gave a wry smile: "...Please speak."

"I don't know what you'll do in the future, but I'd like to know, what is the purpose of everything you're doing now?"

Vitry is a really amazing kid. He said these things without any emotional fluctuation, but House could still hear the 'humanity' in his words.

This was a sincere question from the child. Although he didn't have a good impression of him, House hesitated for a moment before choosing to take the risk and reveal his true feelings to him:

"For what... House raised his chin, took a deep breath, and said, "Probably, so that I can weigh this world anew with my own two legs."

Veret didn't react at all; he simply blinked and replied casually, "Oh... okay."

"And you?"

"Um?"

House raised an eyebrow and chuckled, also curious about the question: "What about you? What are you doing all this for?"

Veret answered this question without even a second's hesitation:

"【truth】"

"truth?"

"Yes, the older I get, the more I realize that there are too many false and unreasonable things in this world; the world is like a jigsaw puzzle, some parts are pieces that fit perfectly, but some parts are obscure things that are forcibly pasted on. People seem to habitually believe in obscure things, and I think that's wrong."

"So, I want to use [truth] to remove those obscurities. So I think..." the child paused, then said, "If you can get bread by handing over coins; you can get power by paying taxes; you can get paid by doing labor, then I'm very curious—"

"What must be offered to know all the truth of this world?"