Ch#202
* * *
"Push more! More, all the way in!"
Tie kicked her legs wildly.
Tese tan sighed and pushed Tie, wedged at his side, a bit further into the Subspace.
Then Tie flailed her arms and finally snatched something from inside the Subspace.
"Got it!"
What came out was a heavy bag made of stiff leather.
Tese tan quickly took hold of it.
"Vice Leader, super strong!"
Receiving Tie's cheers, Tese tan set the child and bag down on the floor.
Tie immediately dragged the bag waddling toward Chae Bok-su and Jeong Myung-ja.
"Grandma, Auntie, look at this! Tie's rich now!"
Jeong Myung-ja looked puzzled.
Chae Bok-su also narrowed her eyes, watching Tie untie the bag's strap.
"Tie got super super strong! Did tons of Mana Stone sieges! Bought a house with the rewards!"
Tie undid the tight knot with her small hands.
Then she yanked open the bag's mouth wide and plunged her hand inside.
"So there's tons of this! And this is, right away."
What emerged in the child's hand was a thin, flat lump of gold.
"Pure gold!"
Chae Bok-su's mouth fell open.
Tese tan, sitting behind her, corrected her.
"Not pure gold. But high gold content, probably."
"Yeah, high gold content!"
As Tie set the gold coin down on the floor, it clinked.
The child plunged her hand back in and pulled out another fistful of coins.
A few slipped through her short fingers and rolled unevenly across the slanted floor.
Chae Bok-su unwittingly reached out and snatched a coin trying to slide under the fridge.
"Grandma's the best!"
Chae Bok-su glanced once at the cheering Tie, then at the coin in her hand.
Then she muttered in disbelief.
"......Gold? Real gold?"
"High gold content!"
"Unnie, it seems real."
Jeong Myung-ja said in a tense voice from the side.
Chae Bok-su blinked with a confused face.
Then she turned the coin this way and that under the light.
Soon after lightly biting the edge, she suddenly dropped it from her hand.
"......It's real. Really real!"
Tie began quietly dividing the pile of coins she'd set on the floor into two.
"Yeah. So this, and this."
The child pulled out another fistful from the bag.
"And this makes......"
Two small piles of gold coins formed on the floor.
"Tie has lots, so if Auntie and Grandma each take one......"
"Enough!"
At that moment, Chae Bok-su shouted sharply.
Tie jumped in shock, eyes going wide.
Jeong Myung-ja also stared at Chae Bok-su with a flustered face.
Anger showed on Chae Bok-su's face.
"No matter how dirt poor I am, you think I'd take your money? I won't, I can't!"
"G-Grandma......"
Tie's eyes widened in shock.
Jeong Myung-ja grabbed Chae Bok-su's arm.
"Unnie, why are you like this? You're scaring the kid!"
"If you've made a lot of money, go live well with your dad."
Chae Bok-su's eyelids trembled.
"Why come back here? To make us see more ugly sights again......!"
Veins bulged on her wrinkled hands.
Chae Bok-su suddenly grabbed Tie's shoulders and said.
"Go now! Go home!"
"G-Grandma?"
Tears finally welled in the child's eyes.
But Chae Bok-su only opened her eyes wider fiercely.
"You said everything's there! House, subordinates, money! Everyone knows you and Mr. Kim!"
"Hic, hueeng......"
Tie began to sob pitifully.
But Chae Bok-su continued.
"Go live there! Don't you dare even dream of staying in this neighborhood, ever! Got it?!"
Chae Bok-su tensed her lips.
"This is all pointless!"
She ruthlessly shoved the gold coins Tie had piled up.
The stack collapsed, coins scattering everywhere.
"You must still be too young and clueless, but who the hell are we to you? Who are we for you to give us this? We're strangers, strangers!"
The child's sobs cut off abruptly.
Tie looked up at Chae Bok-su with shocked eyes.
"We're, huh?"
Her throat catching, Chae Bok-su took a long breath and said.
"Just live well on your own. Then we can let go too, how nice that would be."
"Unnie!"
Jeong Myung-ja covered the child's ears.
Chae Bok-su, who had been frozen with a dark expression, abruptly stood from her seat.
Then she began shoving Tese tan's back.
"Go! Take the kid and go up to the second floor for tonight."
"......"
"Can't you hear me? Go quick!"
Tese tan finally stood from his seat.
"Let's go."
Then he carefully picked up Tie, who sat dazed and lost.
Marbas, who had been watching from the corner, crept out and said.
[What about that drunkard? Shall we put him in the Subspace for now?]
The unconscious man from 203 was still out cold.
As Tese tan nodded, Marbas used mana to stuff the man into the Subspace.
Then he crawled into Tie's hand and said.
[Master. You have to close it......]
Focus finally returned to the child's eyes.
"......"
As Tie sent mana with a listless expression, the open Subspace mouth began to close.
[We're just closing it for now. No plans to kill the drunkard or lock him away forever, so rest easy.]
Even amid it all, Marbas personally reassured Jeong Myung-ja.
"Go! Go!"
By then, Chae Bok-su had repacked the gold coins and shoved the bag into Tese tan's hands.
No sooner had Tese tan left with Tie than.
The iron door slammed shut behind them with a thud.
"......"
A chill wind whistled through the rain-cleared night alley.
Tese tan checked Tie's complexion and turned left.
Next to 107.
As they climbed the old, narrow stairs to the second floor, 203 soon appeared.
Tie remained silent even after arriving at 203.
Tese tan set the gold bag in one corner, laid Tie on the already prepared bedding, and said lowly.
"She's trying to cut ties."
The child lifted her big eyes, lips pressed tight.
Tese tan unwittingly stroked Tie's forehead.
"Those people weigh on your mind? Is that why you wanted to stay here."
The child took a small breath.
How much time passed.
Finally, a tiny sob of 'Uh, heu' leaked from her tightly shut lips.
Tie burst into tears and buried herself in Tese tan's arms.
"Tie wants to stay here......! Wants to keep living with Grandma and Auntie, hueeng!"
"......"
"But Uncle Basto and Brother Veil too. Grandpa Nordics and Raoul and Brother Enzo and Kkamangi and Leader and uncles and Princess Association President, uh, heu!"
"......I see."
Tese tan shut his mouth, feeling a strange sensation.
He quietly looked down at the sobbing child's tearful face.
'Something...... twisting inside.'
Tie had cried in front of him several times before.
But it had never felt as heavy and uncomfortable as this moment.
A chest so unbearably stuffy.
A strong urge to stop the child's tears.
A wish to take on all the burdens Tie carried himself......
'Familiar feeling.'
Tese tan pulled the child tighter into his arms as if entranced.
Suddenly, something became crystal clear.
This moment, what Tie was clinging to was him.
So he had to protect her.
Tie was someone he had to protect.
Pain throbbed in his head again.
Another flood of memories crashed in, making his expression ever more complicated.
* * *
Meanwhile, in 107.
"Unnie, why are you really doing this! You're scaring the kid!"
Chae Bok-su roughly shook off Jeong Myung-ja's hand.
"Didn't you see the kid's eyes?"
"Huh?"
"Do you think I don't know Tie? Those eyes! The eyes that do whatever she sets her mind to no matter what!"
Chae Bok-su roughly wiped the tears wetting her eyes.
"If we mess up, she'll abandon her home and stay here! We're about to hold that kid back right now!"