Ch#215
Like a drop of ink falling onto paper, the Subspace slowly spread and rippled.
[Tie-!]
At that moment, a familiar voice came from beyond the Subspace.
Tie jumped to his feet.
"Kkamangi!"
The sound was sucked into the Subspace.
At the opposite end of the endlessly deepening Subspace, something hazy like a mirage appeared.
Tie grabbed Tese tan's arm and shook it.
"......Dad! It's our home!"
At the far end of the distant passage.
The familiar scenery of the base's first floor came into view.
[Kid! You okay?!]
Veil shouted from the front of the gathered members.
[Come through now! Hold tight to the Vice Leader's hand and come over! Can you hear me? Hey?!]
In his urgency, Veil thrust his upper body into the passage.
Basto grabbed his shoulder in alarm.
Basto looked toward Tie and said.
[Tie, no need to be scared! It's already stabilized using your mana!]
Tie's eyelids trembled.
'We weren't apart that long.'
Seeing the members' faces again made all the tension in his body melt away.
[Tie, it's okay.]
Lucarion's voice came again.
He stepped forward in front of the members and extended his hand toward Tie across the passage.
[It'll be fine. Don't be afraid.]
Tie swallowed and cautiously stepped forward.
The Subspace had now fully widened, its floor lowered enough for Tie to step onto.
As he stood before it, a faint breeze brushed his hair.
At that moment, a warm sensation touched his hand.
Tese tan gripped Tie's hand tightly and asked.
"Shall we go?"
Tie looked up at his dad.
But before nodding, he took one last look at the soundly sleeping grandmother and aunt.
"Grandma, Aunt."
It was just regretful, not sad at all.
He recalled what he had said to Marbas.
'This isn't Tie's home. This is like a bus stop where the kindergarten bus stops briefly.'
Tie let go of his dad's hand for a moment and squatted down between the two sleeping people.
"It was such a good place."
Tie murmured.
"When it's hot, a cool breeze blows......"
107-room Grandma, who always fanned him in the summer.
"When it's cold, sunlight shines down."
203-room Aunt, who took care of him like a mom.
"It was such a really, really good place."
But Tie's final destination was Talochioum.
Having come such a long way back, now he truly had to head there.
Tie wiped his eye corner and smiled.
"Thank you for bringing Tie all the way here."
The two in the stopped time gave no reply.
But Tie stood up bravely.
Then he took the sack he had prepared in advance from the corner of the room and placed it on Grandma's vanity.
He grabbed his dad's hand again.
"Let's go!"
Tese tan silently stroked Tie's head a couple of times.
The two stepped forward at the same time.
Then light flashed from the open passage, and the gale suddenly stopped.
The clock in the darkened room 107 began ticking again.
Tick-tock- Tick-tock-
"Myung-ja......"
Chae Bok-su slowly rose from the bedding.
Seeing the empty spot beside her, she said in a hollow voice.
"......They're gone."
Where Tie and Tese tan had lain, only neatly folded blankets and pillows remained.
"Sister, sob, Sister......!"
Jeong Myung-ja sobbed and hugged Chae Bok-su.
Chae Bok-su held back tears and roughly patted Jeong Myung-ja's back.
"It's okay, it's okay...... They didn't leave without a word."
"How are we supposed to live with this emptiness now? How will we see them if we miss them?!"
Chae Bok-su closed her mouth without answering.
She unnecessarily felt around the spot where Tie had lain.
"This is really strange."
The four years they spent together felt like forty.
That she could love a child whose name and origins she didn't know, with not a drop of shared blood, this much.
"Tie......"
Jeong Myung-ja sniffled and parted her lips.
"Tie was just so pretty."
She grabbed Chae Bok-su's hand.
"Even a single word from her was like an angel, impossible to hate no matter how hard you tried."
"Wherever she goes, she'll do well."
"Of course. She'll thrive anywhere. No more suffering in a strange land, with her dad......"
Chae Bok-su and Jeong Myung-ja faced each other with tear-streaked faces and smiled.
The next day.
Perhaps due to the chaos, it was only after the sun rose that the two discovered the sack Tie had left on the vanity.
Inside were gold coins and jewels she hadn't accepted last time.
"......In the end, this......"
Tears rolling down Chae Bok-su's cheek soaked the note from the sack one by one.
[<Tie's letter to Grandma and Aunt>
This isn't bad stuff, it's all things Tie worked hard to earn.
If you take it to the toad jeweler uncle, he'll change it to money without asking anything.
Because Tie used magic to bewitch the toad jeweler uncle like a fox spirit. (Marbas says to be sure to mention he helped too)]
The child's handwriting was crooked.
Traces of erasing mistakes with an eraser and rewriting were evident here and there.
[Grandma, Aunt, don't get sick. Even without Tie, be healthy forever. Tie will be healthy too.]
The solitary period at the end of the paper was heartbreaking, so Chae Bok-su swallowed sob after sob.
The dilemma was long.
The two first carefully stored the jewels Tie left in the deepest drawer.
They couldn't bring themselves to use them right away.
In the afternoon, the two headed side by side to the nearby university hospital Chae Bok-su had been attending.
But from that day on, they never had to return to the hospital.
For a very long time.
* * *
"Woo woo woo-"
Tie pounded on Basto's chest, bang, bang.
"Woo woo, can't breathe......!"
Basto finally released Tie from his embrace.
He said with a teary face.
"S-Sorry."
Tie quickly flashed a big grin.
"It's okay!"
Instead, he hugged Basto tightly himself.
Then someone pulled Basto and Astie apart.
"Kid! Me first!"
It was Veil, his eyes bloodshot red.
Tie tilted his head.
"Veil bro, crying?"
"Cry? Why would I cry?!"
Veil dropped to his knees on the floor.
Then hugged Tie tightly and buried his face in the child's hair.
"You...... went back to your original world, right."
Tie held his breath.
"So I was worried you might've!"
"......"
"Gone and not come back......"
Tie blinked, at a loss for words.
Hearing Veil's words, he felt it.
The faint trembling transmitted through his arms.
Tie hesitated, then hugged Veil back like he did Basto.
"Veil bro, of course Tie came back."
Veil pulled away from Tie.
His navy-blue eyes stared straight into the child's green ones.
"Is that how it is......?"
"Yeah! Tie's the leader! I even signed the pledge!"
Veil closed his mouth.
He recalled the contract he had forced the child to write when they first formed the mercenary group.
"Third, no withdrawal!"
Tie recited the third clause of the pledge fluently.
"Tie can't leave the mercenary group without permission from the executives! Absolutely! No matter what!"
Veil's eyes trembled.
He couldn't hold back and hugged the child once more.
"I just made you write it. You know that."
"Yeah, I know."
"It wasn't because of the pledge. You can break that anytime. I just......"
"Yeah. Veil bro likes Tie so, so much, I know that."
A laugh finally burst from Veil's lips.
Then Tie looked around and asked in a puzzled voice.
"But where's Grandpa Nordics?"
Raoul and Enzo, Libia and Aleric, Victor too.
All the members were gathered, but only Nordics was missing.
Tie, freed from Veil's arms, ran waddling to the kitchen.
"Grandpa!"
Then, just in case, he ran up to the second floor too.
"Grandpa Nordics!"
But Nordics was nowhere.
"......Weird?"
The grandpa who cherished Tie more than anyone wouldn't be absent on the day Tie returned.
No.
Nordics was someone who never left the base alone to begin with.
"Tie."
Then Basto approached and cautiously grabbed Tie's shoulder.
Tie turned back with an anxious face.
Basto, hesitating, parted his lips in a serious voice.
"Grandpa Nordics is missing."
Tie held his breath briefly.
"The day of the Day of Ruin opened. The day you returned to Jongno-gu."
"......"
"He's been gone since then."