I Became A Married Man in Another World
Chapter 67
067 The Pomegranate’s Temptation
Anri sighed softly as he watched the man enter the restaurant and take a seat across from him.
His eyes followed the retreating figures of the family leaving the establishment. They didn’t look like they had much, but they seemed happy. Anri felt as though he had never once made such a natural expression as that little girl when he was a child, yet she had been laughing constantly, her joy practically rolling off her. What could possibly be so interesting about simply eating a meal?
‘I envy them, regardless.’
He was the one with more, yet that family in their shabby clothes was the one that was happy.
Anri chuckled to himself, recalling the woman’s shocked expression upon hearing the prices. While the man seemed somewhat accustomed to it, the woman appeared to be in a restaurant like this for the first time. He had never seen someone eat while crying, then laugh, and then cry again.
Once the restaurant door closed completely and the family was out of sight, Anri turned his gaze to the man before him. The man’s expression was grim.
“What is the matter?”
At Anri’s question, the man lowered his voice.
“That man just now—is he someone you know?”
“No. Today was the first time I’ve seen him.”
“He was the Magician in the merchant caravan. Our captain died because of him.”
“….”
So that arrogant man ended up dead. Anri masked his expression as he looked at his companion.
“Didn’t he use wind magic? I understood him to be quite capable.”
“It’s strange, but that man back there dodged the arrows the captain fired. Moreover, he’s a high-ranking Fire Magician. He unleashed an incredible amount of mana even from a significant distance.”
“That is surprising.”
If he possessed such high ability, his current appearance was a mismatch. He should have been wearing better clothes, at the very least.
Anri recalled the Magical Beast perched on the child’s head. It resembled the rabbit he had raised in secret from his father when he was young.
“….”
The rabbit he had kept in a secluded, overgrown corner of the estate had been disposed of after his father discovered it. He had been beaten with a thick wooden switch until nightfall, accompanied by the lecture that his behavior was unbecoming of a nobleman. Not that anyone would ever truly acknowledge a man who had bought his title with money, no matter how much he mimicked the nobility.
The man who was a Magician felt similar to the Hunter who had sold him that rabbit back then.
‘His clothes, and the fact that he has a Magical Beast… Is he a Magical Beast Hunter?’
However, the roles of a Magical Beast Hunter and a high-ranking Fire Magician did not fit together at all. Something felt off.
The Tairon Kingdom stole money from this country, their enemy, to fund their war efforts. Anri’s father was in charge of that process, pocketing a hefty commission in return.
Anri was merely a subordinate, his father’s puppet, but if danger struck, he would be the first to die.
A server arrived to take their order, causing a brief lull in the conversation. Once the server left, Anri asked, “What happened to the two who were supposed to be brought along?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t show up at the meeting point. They were supposed to break away from the caravan even if things went wrong, but they didn’t appear when the time came.”
“They might have been captured.”
Anri lowered his eyes slightly.
‘If it looked like things were going wrong, they should have been the first to get out.’
‘Are they going to die in the end?’
He was a younger brother Anri didn’t get along with, but the boy had still called him “elder brother” when they were young. However, they were never truly like real brothers to begin with. They were merely two people connected by half their blood.
Anri placed a seed he had been fiddling with using his wind magic onto a plate. The round seed looked like the face of the little girl he had seen earlier.
“And the goods?”
“As planned. However, we couldn’t produce them. Many others died besides the captain. We don’t have the luxury to turn our attention elsewhere right now.”
“I see.”
That meant more work on this end. If someone had been captured, the fact that the bandits were actually soldiers from the enemy kingdom would be exposed. There was a possibility that the Border Count would catch on to the situation by then and come after Anri.
‘I have to erase the tracks.’
Anri put on the hat he had placed on the chair beside him and stood up.
“As for the final goods, there will be no contact for the time being. Our merchant guild will step back and erase our tracks first.”
“What!”
The man shouted loudly, then flinched and lowered his voice again.
He glared at Anri with a fierce face.
“What are you trying to pull! Are you saying you’re going to abandon us?”
“I’m not abandoning you; I’m simply cutting contact for a while. Surely you don’t want both of us to be caught and die side by side?”
“But this is the middle of an enemy country. Without you, we…”
“How foolish. You are bandits right now. Then you should act like the real thing and stay hidden. Right now, this country is too busy with the war to bother with bandits. As long as you remove any traces of being enemy soldiers, there will be plenty of places to hide.”
“But…”
The man grabbed Anri’s hand on the table. It hurt. He was a soldier fellow with nothing but brute strength.
Anri stirred a bit of wind around his wrist. The man’s grip weakened slightly. It was a meager ability, but it was somewhat helpful at times like this.
After pulling his hand away, Anri leaned forward slightly and spoke to the man.
“I will be away from this country for a while, so do not come here. You’ll only get caught.”
“Don’t give me orders! You money-grubbing merchant dog!”
“….”
Anri left the restaurant, listening to the man’s low-voiced reproach.
He had heard that the leader of the bandit group, as well as the man from earlier and several others, were nobles of Tairon. It seemed that to a nobleman, a merchant looked lowly even if they held the same title or wore the same clothes. Yet, it was also the nobility who sold their titles for money from such lowly merchants.
‘Ridiculous bastards.’
Anri returned to his lodgings and packed his bags. Just in case, he changed into cheaper clothes.
Without the “feathers” of fine clothing, he was a man of very plain appearance. Since he usually dressed flamboyantly on purpose, simply changing his clothes and swapping his hat transformed his impression entirely.
He was different in many ways from his brother, who had a flashy appearance but acted filthily.
After pulling a hat made of ordinary wool deep over his eyes, Anri left the lodgings.
The location to receive the goods had already been decided. Since the man had said it was as planned, they would have arrived by now. Even if one of the bandits had been caught, there was still some time. But he had to hurry.
As he left his lodgings and crossed the plaza, he saw the family he had met at the restaurant. The child was running around here and there, and the couple was walking slowly while watching her.
‘A high-ranking Fire Magician, hm… Shall I check just how good he really is?’
He walked past the plaza and down the main street. After walking for a while, he scanned the nearby alleys. There were many vagrants in this area who would do anything for money.
They asked no questions. If you gave them money and told them to take a hundred lashes, they would take them; if you told them to jump from a high place, they would do it even if it meant breaking their legs.
Anri stepped slightly into an alley where people were sparse. However, he did not go too deep. The alley was a sort of exchange. There were established rules.
The person making the request would only go as far as the point where they were barely visible from the main street. Up to that point, it was safe. Everyone followed the rules set by the vagrants who controlled the alleys.
But beyond that point, it was a lawless zone. One would be stripped of all valuables and left naked, beaten to death by the people living in the back of the alleys.
Even the city guards did not enter the alleys where the vagrants dwelt. That was how dangerous the place was.
Only those who lived inside the alleys would know what lay behind them, and who lived or died there.
As Anri stood in the alley, several men who had been clinging to the shadows of the wall approached him.
“Milord, do you have some business?”
“Bring a person, a certain man, into the depths of this alley. It will be easy if you use the man’s child or woman. Hmm, let’s make the request for the man and the child. You just need to bring those two here.”
“And after that?”
“That is all. Whatever you do with the man and the child is up to you. I simply want that man to enter the depths of this alley.”
“That’s an easy task, milord. Where is the man?”
“In the plaza.”
“That is…”
The men looked at each other.
“We try not to touch people in the plaza if possible. If we mess with places like that, even this city won’t stay quiet.”
Anri opened a small pouch and showed it. It contained one gold coin.
The men exchanged glances once more and asked, “Is that man a local, or perhaps a wealthy foreign merchant?”
“No, he’s likely neither.”
“Then we will take the job. However, if that person turns out to be a merchant or a local, we will stop the work the moment we find out. The same applies if he’s not in the plaza. Even so, we won’t return the money.”
“Fine.”
“Tell us the target’s characteristics.”
“A child with a Magical Beast on her head, and her father.”
Anri dropped the coin pouch into the man’s outstretched palm. The men wanted to hear a few helpful details. Recalling how the child had been eating a pomegranate with such relish, he told them that story.
One of the men went off somewhere. Was he going to get a pomegranate? The remaining man asked, “Do you want some kind of proof?”
“No.”
Proof wasn’t necessary. If he was a high-ranking Fire Magician as the bandit said, Anri would know even if he couldn’t see the man clearly. Since it would be difficult to simply walk out of the depths of that alley, he would definitely have to use magic.
“Thank you for the business, milord.”
The men bowed their heads and retreated into the alley. Anri turned and walked out.
There was no need to worry about the men not keeping their promise. The rules of the alley had been maintained from long ago until now. As far as Anri knew, they had never been broken.
The money dropped by outsiders was like a lifeline to the people inside the alleys. If trust were broken even once, no one would be able to trust the people of the alley again. The ones who knew that better than anyone were those living within.
Anri went and stood at a suitable spot from which the alley was visible. After a short while, the child came into view.
There were a lot of people. Dorothy was running here and there when she saw a man walking across the plaza wearing a huge cloak and carrying a wooden barrel. What strange clothes.
Dorothy, who had been running forward, quickly turned around and ran back to her Dad and Mom.
“Dad! There’s a weird person over there. He has a face on a huge cloak!”
Mom and Dad looked at the man. They had puzzled expressions on their faces.
Dad and Mom didn’t seem to know what the cloak-person was either.
A passing mister said with a laugh, “Little girl, that’s a mobile toilet. The cloak hides the customers while they do their business.”
“Huh?”
That’s weird. You can just go on the ground, so why go in a cloak? It was so strange that Dorothy started following the mobile toilet cloak-face. She followed him this way and that.
The cloak-man sighed and shook the wooden barrel vigorously. Yuck!
The smell!
As she turned to run away, she saw a child in the distance.
It was a girl. She was wearing small, tight clothes, just like Dorothy used to. The girl was holding a pomegranate in her hand.
“Ah!”
Those are really tasty. Just thinking about it made her mouth water.
Should she ask Dad to buy another one? Mom would definitely say no. She was crying a little while watching Dorothy eat the pomegranate earlier.
Just then, the girl took a bite of the pomegranate and held it out toward Dorothy.
It seemed like she was saying she would share.
‘She’s such a good kid!’
Before she could even think, Dorothy’s body was moving. She slipped through the adults this way and that.
The girl smiled a little, then turned and started to run. Was she saying she’d give it and then not giving it? Dorothy’s pace slowed as she felt dejected.
But the child ran a little, then stopped and held out a piece again. The pomegranate looked so delicious, it felt like it was calling out to Dorothy. Come here, Dorothy, eat me.
Dorothy started running vigorously again. Oz, on top of her head, let out a peep.
“I know, Oz! I’ll give you a bite too.”
As she ran this way and that following the girl, Dorothy suddenly found herself out of the round plaza and standing in a strange street. It was narrow and smelly. It smelled similar to the mountain shack before she met Dad and Mom Lij.
Uh, where is this? As she looked around in confusion, the girl spoke from a short distance away.
“Come here, I’ll give you this.”
The girl held out the red pomegranate. It felt like Dorothy could reach it if she just ran a little more. But…
She remembered what her second mother had said. It would be better to abandon a child like that.
The things her dead father used to shout every time also seemed to ring right in her ears. Useless girl, if you were a boy, I would have raised you as a hunter.
Dorothy spun around. She had to go to Dad. She had to go back before Dad decided he didn’t need her. Hurry, Dorothy. Mom and Dad might leave without her. She would be left all alone in a strange city, in a strange alley.
Just as she was about to run, someone suddenly appeared in front of Dorothy.
He seemed to have been hiding in the shadows. He was a very skinny man. And he looked really, really scary. He had a face that wasn’t as scary as Dad’s, but he was scary.
He reached out his hand to grab Dorothy. Her body shrank back instinctively. Oz let out a peep. Right, let’s be brave. Dorothy had Oz. Because it was Dorothy and Oz.
Dorothy turned around again. She thought she should run in the opposite direction. But there was a man behind her too.
No, she was going to be caught. Tears pricked her eyes.
“No! Dad, Daaaad!”
It was the moment Dorothy cried out. Even though it was still daytime, a pitch-black shadow fell over her head.
