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“Okay then, why don’t you guide us to your house?”
“As if I will! What more are you going to do to my younger brother!”
The young man resisted desperately, but he couldn’t escape out of Zich’s sturdy arms. He tried to throw punches at Zich’s face, but Zich avoided them with minimum movements or used his other hand to block.
The scuffling went on for a while, but in the end, the young man gave up while panting with his reddened face. Thus, Lubella intervened. She was still kneeling on the floor.
“We have no intention to do your brother any harm. We truly want to solve the problems that are going around the city right now. Besides, I might be able to heal your younger brother.”
“You want me to believe that?”
Words about Zich and Lubella’s deeds had spread throughout the whole city, and their not-so-great first meeting made the young man doubtful of them.
Zich added, “Hey, it’s understandable why you can’t trust us. I will lay out the facts so that you can think about your situation more clearly. Isn’t your younger brother in a really bad condition? He probably isn’t hurting in a specific area, but he keeps getting weaker as if he is moving closer towards death.”
The young man’s pupils shook.
“No matter how much he eats, he loses weight and has a hard time walking. In the end, he can only lie on the bed. But even that’s only for a short while, because he will die soon.”
“…”
The young man didn’t respond, but his tightly gripped fist proved that Zich’s words were correct.
“Even if you don’t guide us to him, your younger brother will die. Even if you work hard selling goods, how likely will you be able to save your brother’s life? Shouldn’t you try to grasp even a strand of hope in a situation like this?”
Zich’s words were like a demon’s temptations, and the young man bit his lips.
* * *
The young man guided Zich and Lubella to a house in the slums. Like the place they were staying in, the house was worn-out, shabby, and smelly.
“It must be him.”
A young boy was sleeping on a bed made out of a rotting pile of straw underneath him and a dirty straw mat over him. It didn’t look like the boy was diseased. His complexion looked alright, and his breathing was normal. However, the boy was extremely emaciated and bony like a mummy; and even while considering the fact that the slums’ residents didn’t get enough nutrients, the boy’s condition was extreme.
“Yes, Lady.”
The young man, Timmy, answered Lubella’s question. Timmy was still wary of the two, but as if he thought he should get along with them to help his younger brother, his tone and speech had become polite.
Without hesitation, Lubella placed her hand on the boy’s chest. Timmy flinched but didn’t stop Lubella.
“How’s his condition?”
“It’s as we expected.”
Lubella took her hand off the boy and answered Zich.
“I almost can’t feel any of his life force. Instead, I can feel Bellu’s dirty energy. What we thought was right. This boy is the sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice? My brother is a sacrifice?”
Timmy hurriedly hung onto Lubella, but Lubella wavered. She was hesitant to tell the dark truth to the boy’s older brother. Thus, Zich came forward in her place.
“I will explain it to you simply. Some guys spread the undead in this city and falsely charged us with those crimes. They are the Bellid guys. You know about them, right? And those guys sucked away your brother’s life force to complete a ritual. Thankfully, they didn’t take enough to kill your brother, but that can happen any moment now.”
A bunch of gigantic schemes and conspiracies had just been revealed to him, but Timmy wasn’t curious about that.
“T-then what? Can my brother get better?”
“Yeah, of course.”
With her head lowered and her heart filled with guilt, she asked in surprise, “Really?! Is there really a way for him to get better?”
Even she didn’t know how to cure a person whose life force was taken away from them.
“Yes, there definitely is one.”
“H-how…?” Timmy pitifully asked as if he had thrown away all of his wariness about the two.
“It’s simple. We just have to give back the life force that your brother lost. Then, as you can expect, we just have to know where your brother’s life force went.”
Zich’s voice changed slightly.
“How did your brother become like this—does anything come to mind? Like where he went or who he met before he collapsed.”
“Someone comes to my mind.”
“Oh, really?”
Timmy seemed sure, and Zich and Lubella got their hopes up.
“That’s good, buddy. You just increased the chances of your brother’s survival. So, tell us. Where? Or who?”
“That bastard, Sude.”
“Who?”
“The bastard, Sude. You know, the guy you helped us beat up. That bastard.”
“What?”
Lubella spoke up unintentionally while listening to their conversation.
Timmy looked at Lubella. He had a lot of anger on his face, and Lubella dipped her neck.
“I’m saying, it’s that shopkeeper bastard you saved!” Timmy shouted.
Zich quickly covered Timmy’s mouth. For Zich and Lubella, who were in hiding, it wasn’t good to make a commotion. Thankfully, Timmy didn’t shout after that, but even as Zich blocked Timmy’s mouth with his hands, Timmy continued to glare at Lubella.
“Hey buddy, let’s calm down. We have to move secretly. That will be better for your brother. You understand, right?”
Timmy nodded, and Zich took his hand away.
“Then, explain to us. Keep in mind that you will increase your brother’s chance of survival the more details you give us.”
“…It happened ten or so days ago. That day, I also came back after making money. I don’t know about you guys, but for us, if we rest even one day, we will starve. I can’t rest even if my brother’s condition is like this.”
Timmy wiped down his brother’s forehead. Maybe because the boy felt a familiar hand, a smile formed on his face after a bit of tossing and turning; it was a touching scene, but the boy’s stick-skinny body actually made the scene look more pitiful.
“I was a bit late that day because there was some work that made good money.”
Timmy had come home with a sack that was fuller than usual. But the satisfaction he got from feeling the sack’s heavy touch didn’t last long.
“My younger brother wasn’t at home. He was always home by the time I came back from work because I told him that he has to stay inside the house at nighttime.”
Of course, Timmy went to look for his brother. In the slums, where it wasn’t an exaggeration to say law and order didn’t exist, all kinds of thoughts filled Timmy’s head. However, he didn’t give up; his brother was his only family.
“I wandered around the slums for a long time until I found my brother in an open area.”
However, his younger brother wasn’t the only one there. There was a man wearing a mask.
“My younger brother was lying on the floor, and the man was crouching over him.”
The man was sticking something into his younger brother’s arm. Timmy could still remember it vividly as the chilling and terrifying blade glinted under the moonlight.
“I didn’t even have the time to think. I lunged towards the man while screaming. The man was surprised, but I was faster than him, and we got entangled in a fight.”
The fight had continued. Although Timmy’s skills were superior to the man’s, he had to watch out for the man’s knife—it prolonged the fight and Timmy eventually lost the man.
“But I still succeeded in taking that man’s mask off.”
Timmy distinctly remembered the face revealed by the moonlight.
“To look for ways to make money or even beg sometimes, I went to the shopping and business district many times. And there, I was especially familiar with one person.”
“And that guy must be Sude.” Zich continued for him.
Without even having the time to chase after Sude, Timmy had checked his brother’s state first. He examined his brother’s arm which had been pierced by a knife, but it was strange.
“There wasn’t a trace of blood or even a single scratch. And my younger brother woke up soon afterward. I was relieved. I just thought that my brother almost got mixed up in a kidnapping that happened in the slums, and I had just imagined the knife. But after that incident, my brother lost energy and fainted. And he began to change into this, as you can see.”
Timmy looked at his younger brother pitifully.
“Even if I somehow found some food and fed him, it was useless. I thought I was going out of my mind since it didn’t seem like he was hurting anywhere, but he kept getting weaker. Like you said, it was as if his life force was getting sucked away.”
Then, he remembered the man who had attacked his brother and the man’s chilling dagger.
“A dagger that didn’t leave a mark after piercing into a person. I thought it had to be a rare item, and it could explain my brother’s strange condition.”
As expected, Timmy had gone to look Sude; since Sude was someone he knew, it wasn’t hard to find him. But there wasn’t anything he could do. The Magistrate didn’t care for poor people like him, and their opponent was a member of society unlike them.
“But I couldn’t stand by when I thought of my younger brother. So, in the end, I thought of resolving things by force.”
“You must have met me then.”
“Yes, I thought I should take the guy’s dagger first. Then, I thought I could use it to trade for information about curing my brother. I also thought that even if the guy refused to tell us anything, in the end, the Magistrate might do something with a piece of evidence like that.”
Timmy stopped talking for a moment and glared at Lubella again.
“But some virtuous person ruined everything.”
“I-I’m sorry. I misunderstood…”
“Misunderstood?”
Timmy’s voice was sharp.
“Why? Was it because we were one-sidedly beating him up? Or was it because we were people from the slums? Or because I was a gangster bastard’s son? In your eyes, did you just see us as the strong and the guy as the weak? So, were you certain that we must have been in the wrong?”
Timmy’s voice started to grow louder and louder.
“Because of your great misunderstanding, my younger brother…!”
“Ok, ok, buddy, stop it. Let’s calm down.”
Zich patted Timmy’s shoulders.
“Don’t criticize her too much. As you said, the Lady has only lived a refined, protected life and hasn’t experienced much. Besides, she is aware of her faults and is trying to fix them too. And that is a surprisingly difficult thing to do.”
Timmy suppressed his anger.
Lubella couldn’t make a single retort, and each of Timmy’s resentful words pierced the corners of her heart.
* * *
With the clue about Sude, Zich and Lubella went out of Timmy’s house.
Timmy even saw them off from his house’s door.
“I beg you. Please cure my younger brother.” As if his emotions had calmed down, Timmy talked politely again.
“Yes, even if I have to swear it on my life, we will succeed.”
Maybe because Lubella felt a sense of debt towards Timmy, she showed fierce determination. Timmy stared at Lubella for a moment and nodded. Zich and Timmy also exchanged greetings.
“Hey, buddy. Thank you for your cooperation. Don’t worry too much. Your brother will get better soon.”
“I really beg you.”
“Of course. But I am curious about one thing. Surprisingly, you don’t seem to resent me. Is there a reason for that?”
Zich had ignored Timmy when Lubella first appeared in the alleyway. It could be said that Zich had betrayed Timmy. However, Timmy surprisingly didn’t show particular hostility towards Zich, and there was a clear difference in his attitude between Lubella and Zich.
“Ah, you mean that.” Timmy hesitated for a bit and said with embarrassment, “You were the first one besides my friends… who wanted to help me for no reason at all. Help us, who our own parents abandoned. That’s probably why I can’t really feel hostile to you.”
Why? Zich’s face froze like a bird hit by a bird gun.
“What’s the matter?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
Timmy looked at him strangely. But Zich didn’t say much, and Timmy didn’t ask further.
“Anyways, did you guys really not kill Mr. Mayor and the Deputy Mayor? Or cast a great curse on the city?”
Even though his mind had only been focused on his younger brother, Timmy began to collect his senses and asked questions. It was also strange that Timmy added ‘Mr’ before only the Mayor, but Zich answered him.
“If you know the truth, you will be in danger. It’s better for you not to know.”
“Then, just tell me if Mr. Mayor is dead or not.”
“He died.”
Zich thought this much was fine to tell Timmy, but Lubella thought, ‘Why did Timmy show interest in only the Mayor? Was he happy that the greedy Mayor was dead?’
However, Timmy’s response was completely unexpected.
“That’s regretful. He was a good person.”
“Sorry?” Lubella was surprised. “A good person? The Mayor?”
“Yes, he was too good of a person, making it hard to believe that he was from this greedy city.”
“But the rumors about him weren’t really great…”
Timmy scowled.
“Did you hear them from merchants or people related to them? Those people dislike the Mayor because the Mayor tried to help poor people like us with the city’s taxes. Of course, most of the merchants weren’t happy about that. And unfortunately, since the merchants have a strong voice in this city, rumors about Mr. Mayor naturally grew bad.”
“But the Mayor’s lifestyle was extravagant and wasteful, and his house was so big. It’s hard to see him as a person like that! He looked greedy too!”
“What are you talking about?” Timmy spat out in an annoyed voice, and Lubella closed her mouth. In her confused state, Lubella looked like a dying tree, struggling to hold onto its center.
“Why does it matter that his lifestyle was extravagant, or his house was big, or he was wasteful? As someone who was in charge of the city, he was also a successful merchant. Although it can make some feel jealous, it doesn’t matter what he does with his own money. In addition to that, he always donated to the poor. Among all the merchants in this damn city, he was the only one who spent money on the poor and cared about us. And what do you mean that he looked greedy! What does one’s character have to do with their looks?”
“…”
Lubella couldn’t say a word in response.