Ch#61
* * *
"That's exactly why Trebaga might not come here."
Elanes concluded in her refined voice.
Riper swallowed hard.
‘......So that's the situation he's in.’
Grim Reaper members knew better than anyone how packed Trebaga's schedule was.
They were the ones constantly losing commissions to them, after all.
But something felt off.
‘I thought those guys had at least wrapped up the big stuff?’
He'd assumed their quietness over the past few days meant they were holed up resting.
But sieging massive magic stones that had sprouted at the empire's border?
And getting decent pay from the neighboring country to boot?
Riper narrowed his brow unnecessarily.
‘Even for that bastard Tesetan, a schedule like that would wear anyone down.’
At the same time, his stomach started to ache faintly.
‘If you keep getting on my nerves, I won't leave a single magic stone for you from now on?’
It was because Tesetan's words from Pearl City came to mind.
‘That was real, you damn bastard.’
Riper shuddered and muttered.
“......That unlucky prick.”
Elanes beside him burst into laughter.
She looked at Riper with a sly glint in her eyes and said,
“Still, he's handsome, right? Just seeing his face melts away my rising anger.”
Riper glared at Elanes wordlessly. Then he turned his head toward the Armory.
Now that he knew the situation, his mind grew even more complicated.
“Then how the hell do we destroy the subspace?”
To rescue Berugon, they had to destroy the subspace's surface from the outside.
But Krazar's subspace was inaccessible from the exterior.
It was concealed by a power humans couldn't touch, and there weren't many ways to reveal it.
‘Realistically, there's only one option right now.’
That was utilizing Tesetan Veronío's ‘those eyes.’
“Well...... for now, just you and me have to do something, right?”
Elanes said then.
Riper furrowed his brow, then glared at her in frustration.
“Do what? We can't save Berugon or not without destroying the subspace surface first. Don't you know we need that bastard Tesetan for that?”
“I know. Tesetan has to use ‘those eyes’ to visualize the surface before we can do anything.”
“You know and yet you've been......”
Riper shut his mouth mid-sentence.
Then he sighed and shook his head.
What was the point of arguing.
Continuing to talk with Elanes would just make him more frustrated.
“Do you have a plan or not.”
He muttered under his breath, and Elanes grinned.
“A plan? If you mean a plan to save Berugon, then obviously not.”
“What?”
“But if it's another plan, then yes.”
Elanes drew close to Riper's side.
“A plan to make Trebaga suffer and for you to reclaim rank 1—does that make sense?”
Riper froze in place.
Elanes was beaming with delight over whatever thrilled her.
“How about it? Tempting, right?”
It was absurd.
Yet it was also enticing enough to make his mouth water.
The grievances from being pushed aside by Trebaga all this time flashed through Riper's mind.
Grim Reaper.
A decent rank 2 mercenary group.
But lately, they could barely snag three or four large commissions per quarter.
‘All because of Trebaga.’
Because of that mad monster-like Tesetan Veronío bastard who made his chest tighten just thinking about him.
“First, we take our members to the Armory.”
As if reading Riper's mind, Elanes continued brightly.
“After that, you know? We poke around and do our best.”
“Do our best?”
“Yeah. So that even if we can't save the factory chief, we can claim we did everything we could.”
As Riper's eyes narrowed, Elanes shrugged.
“Think about it, Riper. I even gave up my day off to come here. You're no different, right?”
“......”
“You're not even one who gets a lot of national commissions from the Union. Yet every time a mobilization order drops, you come and go like a grunt.”
Riper's eyebrow twitched.
Elanes's words rang completely true without a single miss.
Silvar's Scream under Elanes somehow managed to snag national commission start rights from the Union often.
But not Grim Reaper.
‘Constantly pushed aside, screwed over, ignored. Even though we're higher ranked.’
And yet, when mobilization orders came, it was hard to refuse—that was the problem.
Like a clown catering to the boss's mood every day.
Nothing else falling their way, just like Elanes said, like grunts, like dogs......
As Riper clenched his fist, Elanes added,
“But that's not the important part.”
“Then what is.”
“The important thing is that the harder we work on this, the more like trash Tesetan Veronío will look by comparison.”
Elanes, who had lowered her voice at some point, giggled.
“That'll put them in real trouble, don't you think? If the factory chief dies, the Church will go berserk right away. Complaining about their knights' weapon supply. Then what happens next?”
Riper swallowed hard.
What came next was obvious.
The Church would hound the Imperial Family.
Questioning if the Imperial Family could stand by while holy knights protected imperial citizens' safety.
And not just that.
“Talk of the long-standing trust between the Imperial Family and Church breaking, the gods' wrath weakening holy knights' power—every rumor under the sun.”
Then, through that process, the emperor's layered anger would......
“Pour onto Tesetan and Trebaga.”
As if to say exactly that, Elanes nodded.
“Yeah. They say it's the era of free mercenaries now. An age where any mercenary can live freely without watching their step.”
It might be somewhat true.
Better than the past when mercenaries were despised.
Better than those days of open clashes with holy knights.
But,
“If it were really that free, why would we be doing this? Right?”
Elanes grinned.
“No matter how free, we're still hunting dogs for the high and mighty. So......”
Her eyes gleamed coldly.
“It's time Tesetan learned to fear power.”
“......”
“Why we've put up with being the Union's slaves despite the hassle. Why we've poured bribes to curry favor with the Imperial Family and Church. Time he learned.”
As silence fell between them.
Elanes whispered her final words.
“So, what do you think?”
Riper, who had been glaring at the Armory, clamped his mouth shut.
“......Yeah. I've gotta look out for myself first.”
The two soon started walking toward the Armory.
* * *
Meanwhile, inside the subspace.
“......Sniff.”
Tie wiped the snot trickling from under her nose with her sleeve.
It was a scene Veil would have recoiled from in disgust, and Basto would have rushed over with a handkerchief, but the problem was......
there was no one around Tie anyway.
“Sovereign King...... show yourself before me at once, Sovereign King......”
Ah, one person.
Berugon was shambling like a zombie under the hazy streetlight glow.
Tie carefully stepped down from the footrest onto the floor.
Checking the outside situation made her mood even gloomier.
‘The factory chief and the red mist chasing after him are still the same......’
It felt like hours had passed subjectively, yet the two were still pursuing her.
Tie sighed and glanced around.
Dim darkness with lights off.
Children's chairs neatly stacked in the corner, toy boxes, praise sticker board on the wall.
A dejected voice leaked out automatically.
“Came to kindewgawten......”
The place Tie was now was Hanbit Kindergarten.
Inside the welfare center building she had stumbled into while wandering the streets minutes ago.
