Chapter 71

“Where on earth have you been for the last three days?”

“Well, the thing is…”

The missing person who had returned looked perfectly fine.

Exasperatedly so.

“To be honest, I don’t really remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

Avenger Colono spoke as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

“You were missing for three whole days without a single word of contact. Do you think it makes sense that you don’t know what happened during that time and that there’s nothing wrong with your body?”

“But what can I do when it’s the truth? Look at this, I feel light as a feather. I think I’m in much better shape than usual.”

The returning employee said so as he picked up his children with both arms.

The three-day disappearance didn’t seem to have left him with any mental or physical trauma at all.

Rather, he seemed somewhat excited.

Even his body looked healthier than before.

“Aren’t you lying? Everything you’re saying is completely nonsensical…”

“That’s enough, Avenger.”

I stopped Avenger, who was continuing to press the employee.

“What more are we going to get by hanging onto someone who says they don’t know anything?”

I looked at the man and said.

“We’ll be going now. If you remember something or if something goes wrong with your body, tell us immediately.”

“I don’t think there’ll be any problems at all… but well, I understand.”

The reaction of the second returned missing person was exactly the same.

“It’s a mystery,” Avenger said.

“It’s a guess that doesn’t make sense even to me… but maybe Malik really didn’t do anything to these people? He just kept them unconscious for three days and let them go when the time was up.”

I nodded my head and asked him.

“The means?”

“He might have used something like drugs.”

“Then the purpose?”

“Isn’t it to send a warning to the Young Lord? He’s saying that if you try to encroach on the lower district any further, he can do worse than this.”

I turned my gaze to Izack Arenta.

“Mr. Izack. What do you think about this hypothesis?”

“…It might be true.”

“I see. But to my ears, it sounds like a huge leap and doesn’t add up.”

Avenger nodded as if that were an obvious fact.

He knew it too.

It was a truly inconsistent hypothesis.

But he had only mentioned it because it was the most logical conclusion we could reach right now.

I said.

“Setting aside whether there’s a drug that can keep a person asleep for three days, if he was going to give a warning, he shouldn’t have done it like this. We’ve lost nothing from this warning. Rather, we’ve only learned the lesson that we need to strengthen security and control. This warning doesn’t serve as a warning at all.”

“But there’s no other way to explain it.”

Right. That was the problem.

The incident was incoherent, so I didn’t know what was going on.

There were only fragmentary clues.

I stared at the notes scribbled in my notebook.

It was something I had written.

1. Revenue growth in the market has stagnated.
2. The number of upper district people heading to the lower district has increased?

During that time, I hadn’t controlled the market or the gates, but I had been monitoring them.

That was the clue I had obtained.

‘Of course… the evidence is too weak to consider this much change as an abnormal situation.’

Number one could be called a natural stagnation considering the upward curve at the beginning.

Number two, as well, wasn’t strange if explained as the upper district people’s repulsion toward the lower district having decreased.

I crumpled up the note.

And then I said to Izack and Avenger.

“In conclusion, that’s how it turned out. ‘Nothing happened.’ …At least the parties who were missing seem to want to treat it that way.”

I spread my palms toward the two men.

“What are your thoughts?”

Avenger answered.

“Of course, we must investigate further. We have to find out what kind of scheme is afoot.”

This time, Izack also agreed.

“Yeah. That would be right.”

I asked Izack point-blank.

“Do you have no intention of providing us with information about Malik?”

“…What do you intend to do with that information?”

“I’ll be able to deal with Malik.”

—Sigh.

Izack’s sigh sank heavily.

“I’d like to tell you if I knew. But what kind of influence Malik is exerting on the lower district now, exactly where he’s staying, how far he can take things. Even I don’t know that.”

Izack said.

“I just had a bit of a personal friendship with him. Even that, I left most of it in the past. I know almost nothing about the current Malik.”

“Then tell me about the person you knew in the past. What kind of things is he capable of?”

“…”

After a deep silence, Izack finally opened his mouth.

“Anything. But… conversely, he might do nothing at all.”

After the two left, Adele Simoni placed her arm on my shoulder.

I asked her while leaning my arm on the table.

“Adele. What do you think of what Izack just said?”

“It wasn’t a lie. I don’t know exactly what it means, though.”

It’s not a lie.

I thought so too.

Izack isn’t the type of person to gloss over things with a lie.

Rather, if he was going to, he would have just kept his mouth shut.

The problem is how to interpret the meaning of those words.

Then Adele said.

“Is an answer going to come out even if you keep racking your brain like that?”

“…”

It was an irritating thing to say, but it wasn’t wrong either.

It wouldn’t be of any help to just imagine this and that on my own.

Then what should I do…?

It was a subject that didn’t even need agonizing over.

‘I have no choice but to see for myself.’

“Let’s tail someone.”

“Who? Izack? Or the subordinates of Malik we filtered out in the interviews?”

“No. Didn’t Izack say he doesn’t know Malik’s whereabouts? We’re already tracking Malik’s subordinates. They don’t seem to go to the lower district much.”

Adele looked down at me intently.

‘Then who?’

I answered her gaze.

“An upper district person.”

“Good work, Captain of the Guard.”

“Young Lord.”

The Captain of the Guard saluted me.

We were looking down at the lower district from atop the gate’s walls.

“I told you to monitor the people coming and going, right?”

“Yes, we are definitely recording the number of upper district people heading to the lower district and lower district people coming to the upper district.”

“Then do you happen to know someone who passes through the gate most frequently?”

I asked without much expectation.

Unless they were doing inspections, there was no way the guard would know the identities of individuals.

However, the Captain of the Guard brightened up.

“I know that. Though it’s not officially recorded. He’s a fellow who comes almost first every morning and crosses to the lower district every day.”

It’s already suspicious.

I’m in luck.

“Do you know his name or what he does?”

“I don’t know him well since we aren’t exactly on speaking terms, but he’s definitely a resident of the upper district. A young fellow. I’m not sure what he does for a living, but he heads out early every morning and returns right as the gates close for the evening. I don’t recall him ever being late.”

“Good. You did very well.”

I patted the Captain of the Guard on the shoulder.

The next day, we arrived at the gate at the crack of dawn and waited for our target.

Just as the Captain had said, the target appeared right as the gates opened.

Using the shadows as our companions, we began to tail him.

“He looks exhausted.”

“He does. I wonder what he’s up to, heading out this early and skipping sleep… I suppose we’ll find out if we keep following.”

I replied to Adele Simoni’s observation.

She gave me a sharp poke in the side.

“Not him. You.”

“Ah.”

“Does the Young Lord really have to come out personally for things like this? You could have easily sent someone through the Chief Steward.”

“We don’t know what might be waiting at the destination. When facing an abnormal situation, it’s better to have someone on-site who can make immediate judgments.”

“And you’re uneasy if that person isn’t you? Is that it?”

She let out a little smirk. I answered without a hint of a smile.

“There’s another reason. Actually, this is the real one.”

“What is it?”

“If I come, won’t you step up as well?”

“Ugh…”

—That’s true.

She murmured that last part in a voice so low it was barely audible.

As the target turned into an alleyway, we lowered our voices. Even in the winding backstreets, we managed to maintain a steady distance from him.

Whether her ears were exceptionally sharp or she was reading his presence, Adele seemed to know exactly where the target was even when he was out of sight.

‘As expected, I was right to come with Adele.’

For an upper district citizen to navigate these lower district alleys so boldly… it wasn’t something anyone would do without a specific purpose.

Suddenly, Adele spoke up.

“…That man just got lost.”

“He’s from the upper district; isn’t that to be expected?”

“Didn’t they say he’s been coming and going almost every day since the gates opened? If so, he’s been here at least ten times. He shouldn’t be getting lost.”

“Maybe he had a guide until now? And today he just happened to have to find his own way.”

“True. That would explain it. But I think another explanation is more convincing.”

“Another explanation?”

Adele glanced at me and said, “It’s not the path he usually takes.”

I felt a bit deflated by the unexpectedly mundane explanation. But the question that followed made me speak up.

“If that’s the case, his purpose is different from his previous visits. I wonder where he’s going…”

“Well. Maybe he’s not trying to go anywhere.”

“Not anywhere…? Whoa!”

Without any warning, my balance collapsed.

It was because Adele had tripped my feet while simultaneously grabbing the scruff of my neck.

‘What do you think you’re doing?!’

…I didn’t even have time to ask.

As she knocked me down, she pulled me into an embrace and spun around once. Then, swinging her arm like a whip, she threw something.

A scream followed immediately.

“Aaargh…!”

Ah, dammit. It looks like something’s happening again.

I stayed still and left myself in Adele’s arms until she was ready to help me up. Fortunately, she pulled me to my feet right away.

“If you try that one more time, I’ll turn every last one of you into mashed potatoes.”

A chilling threat.

There was no way those words were meant for me.

The tip of the mace she had drawn was pointing at the thugs who had suddenly appeared. One of them was collapsed on the ground with an arrow through his leg.

It was obvious that Adele had thrown that arrow. Then, knocking me down must have been for the same reason.

I immediately said to Adele, “Thank you.”

Adele gave a shy smile.

“…Don’t mention it.”

However, the thugs didn’t seem to appreciate the warm atmosphere of our exchange. They surrounded us from both ends of the alley, gradually narrowing the distance.

Then, Adele’s mace let out a thunderous roar.

In an instant, the wall to our right crumbled into dust.

Adele shoved me into the opening of the collapsed wall… no, she practically threw me!

I tumbled onto the floor of an empty house.

“Ugh…! I’m grateful, really, but if I have to be grateful a third time, I think my back might actually break.”

I rubbed my sore backside where it had hit the floor.

Adele said, “Stay there for a bit. I’ll pick you up once I’ve cleared them all out.”

“Wait…! You can’t kill them!”

“They tried to kill you. They’re bottom-feeders with no future anyway. But I’ll leave one alive. We need someone to take us to that ‘Malik’ fellow.”

I felt a momentary conflict.

In my heart, I wanted to tell her not to kill anyone. But that felt like too much of a demand to place on Adele in this situation.

“Hold on… Adele!”

“Yes, just hold on a moment.”

It was someone else’s voice entirely that finished my sentence.

I braced myself against the floor and stood up, stepping back out into the alley.

The owner of that voice pushed past the shoulders of the thugs and stepped forward.

“I believe I told you not to act on your own. The people there are guests of Mr. Malik.”

The speaker looked toward Adele and me.

He bowed deeply in greeting.

“Please forgive the rudeness of the lower district, Young Lord Shane.”

His attitude was incredibly polite.

“Mr. Malik is waiting for you.”