Disclaimer: Professor Layton is property of Level-5.
-The Walking Monster-
There were some people in the world who would give up everything for love.
Love of money, that is.
Family, friends, time—they would leave them all behind in the dust as they chased after the little slips of green paper. He wondered what they saw in money. Did they think that it would lead to happiness? A certain amount was needed, to be sure, but was money's value so high that everything else could be considered secondary? Money was only as valuable as humans deemed it to be. It was relative, inconstant; surely it could not be that precious. Those people were chasing smoke dreams, he thought, if they thought that money was all that they needed to have a happy, problem-free life.
Money was never the problem. Not for him.
His parents were well off enough to live comfortably and his foster mother…well, she was wealthy to say the least. In fact, her estate could be comparable to that of the Reinfold family (he had once looked into the family for an article he wrote). With the inheritance of her estate and his genius business sense, he had become more materially wealthy than most voracious men could ever dream of being.
Too bad money couldn't help him.
It did nothing to quell the anger that boiled from within him as he watched the man who killed his parents (not to mention several others) become the prime minister as a reward for his crimes. In fact, money made it worse. His hate drove him insane. His wealth was like power in the hands of someone who could not control it. He made more mistakes than he would like to think about, and although he had promised to atone for his wrongs, he had killed too many for there to be a clear path to forgiveness. Yet, he was still rich. After all, it was either allow him to continue his business and trades to repair the damage his war machine had done to London, or have the taxpayers do it.
Too bad money still didn't help much.
Money could rebuild buildings, but it could never revive the dead. He could feel the hate in the eyes of those who passed him. He did not blame them. After all, had he not once felt the same hate? The eyes multiplied and burned even more harshly after his release from prison. He had been young and foolish. His mental stability had been questionable. He was not the only one at fault. The eyes knew all that, but logic never works with hate. He was the walking monster and they might as well have been the enraged citizens with pitchforks trying to kill him. He found himself seeking refuge in Hershel Layton's home with increasing frequency. He and his daughter at the very least seemed to forgive him, although he could not understand why. Even this forgiveness was painful. He had done nothing, as far as he knew, to redeem himself. Almost immediately, he would duck back out into the world of the eyes. Surely, he thought, if he spent enough time among the hating eyes he would be able to find the way to atonement. Yet the path was obscured, leaving him to stumble and scratch himself over and over again as he fumbled for it. Funny how freedom was so very painful.
There were some fools in the world who would give up everything for money.
He sometimes wished that there were more of those fools in the world. Maybe then, the path wouldn't be such a puzzle to find.
A/N: It's been awhile since I wrote something this short. I'll probably edit this later once I'm not supposed to be doing my homework.