Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Old Spider and Atonement (1)
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Walker had truly rounded up the illegal implant users in droves.
Shu and I had captured about the same number. The police hauled away the ones who had been hit with Green Dream and turned into quivering messes, one by one.
The people being taken away were all in pretty bad shape.
I watched the police cars disappear from view with a queasy feeling.
"Useful."
Walker glanced at us and said curtly.
"Even the Old Spider won't hold it against us for bringing you."
"Thank you."
Not like we did anything special, though.
Walker turned wordlessly and started walking.
Shu and I had the good sense to follow him. The commotion had made us quite late. Evening had long since passed. I was hungry and a bit tired. It stung that we'd gone all the way to the game shop and hadn't bought a single game.
But now that things had turned out this way, we absolutely had to meet the Old Spider before leaving.
I felt a little bad for Shu, who'd missed dinner too.
We walked in silence until we reached our destination. The Old Spider's house wasn't far. A rundown steel-frame building deep in Harlem, its rusting beams starkly exposed.
Walker flung open the door of a house that looked utterly disconnected from the raucous Halloween atmosphere outside.
"Whoa."
Shu, who had been standing in front, peered inside and let out an exclamation.
"What a rich person's place."
Just like the senior said.
As the weathered iron door swung open, an interior completely at odds with the exterior unfolded before us.
A marble foyer with gold-plated sculptures hanging from the ceiling. A sleek mirror over two meters tall. A taxidermied bear holding a silver tray.
Nothing about it looked cheap.
I stepped inside with my mouth agape onto the ivory marble floors.
A faint musk scent hung in the air.
I followed Walker, inhaling the pleasant aroma. Soon we entered a reception room carpeted with warm-toned Persian rugs.
Someone was already seated on the sofa in the spacious room, waiting for us.
Only one person was there, and drinks were prepared exactly matching our numbers, so it was impossible not to realize he was the rumored "Old Spider."
I blankly looked down at the small old woman sitting there in a cable-knit cardigan, holding a cup of cocoa.
She... looked small and kind.
"Walker, you're here."
Even her speech was like a friendly grandmother's.
"Those fools caused a ruckus again, making you late, I see."
Scratch that first impression.
Her words were vicious despite the smiling face.
Still, she strongly gave off the vibe of a sweet, generous grandma. The kind you'd want to help if you passed her on the street.
Walker didn't reply and stood in the corner of the reception room.
The Old Spider smiled warmly, then turned her gaze.
"Mr. Hildebert."
Ah, she knew my name.
"And you young Badgers. You haven't had dinner, so sit down and have some panini with us."
"Get to the point and wrap it up quick."
"You might not be hungry, but the other two probably are."
Sipping her cocoa, she sounded exactly like a friendly grandma.
"Have a seat. I didn't poison it. Goodness, look how skinny you both are."
Shu quietly went and sat next to the Old Spider.
And so we ended up having an unexpected dinner. A table decorated with cute jack-o'-lanterns.
I swallowed stretchy cheese while furtively observing the Old Spider sitting nearby.
She knew me.
But I had no memory of her. Unlike with Lee Seung-hyun, where memories flickered in and out, she just felt like a complete stranger.
Was it because time had etched lines into her face?
The reception room was filled only with the sounds of eating.
Just when I thought she might finally start talking, she looked at Walker and Shu.
"Could you step out for a bit?"
Shu and Walker glanced back and forth between me and the information broker.
"I have some private words for this rookie Badger."
"Don't pull any funny business on my junior."
Walker stood without hesitation.
Even as he did, he looked down at the Old Spider and added,
"I don't want to get chewed out by the Supreme Commander for failing to protect his favorite subordinate."
With that pointed warning, the senior smoothly exited the reception room.
Shu followed without a word. Right before leaving, Shu mouthed, "Contact me if anything happens."
The door closed in front of my nodding face.
The moment the footsteps of the two faded away, the Old Spider spoke.
"Do you remember me?"
Oh no.
I looked at the Old Spider, who was gazing back at me with a kindly smile, feeling awkward.
"...Sorry. Not at all..."
"Ah, that's understandable."
The Old Spider didn't seem offended.
If anything, she chuckled softly, holding her cocoa cup. Her face suggested she'd expected that exact response.
I apologized to her as she sipped her cocoa, my mind unsettled.
"I'm sorry."
"Not at all. It's really understandable. I unilaterally admired you, but it would be a stretch to say we really knew each other."
"You admired me?"
Why?
My inner thoughts must have shown on my face.
The Old Spider laughed heartily and set down her cocoa cup.
"It seems your memories really are all gone."
"Yes..."
"You were the kind of person a young girl could admire."
She met my eyes and smiled softly.
"You had that cool spiky white hair, always standing at the center of people, laughing relaxedly. Every time I went to the lab holding my parents' hands, I'd watch you from afar."
"The lab?"
I'd heard about the long hair before, so that wasn't surprising.
A spotless white floor came to mind. Memories of sitting there playing games with Ray. So I must have been in something like a lab.
Did I grant eternal youth to humans there?
Meeting someone who knew me from back then, when I spent time on that flawlessly smooth floor, made my stomach churn.
Ye-hyeon didn't know that version of me, and Colton had no intention of telling me about it.
Maybe this person could give me answers.
The Old Spider swallowed a marshmallow floating in her cocoa.
"My parents were brilliant scientists, and at the time, I was recognized as a scientist myself despite my young age."
A prodigy, then.
"Thanks to that, I could sometimes go as far as the reception room in the most heavily secured lab. But unlike authorized scientists, I couldn't go inside."
"There was a reception room in the lab?"
"Of course. You always came out as the representative, but you don't remember?"
The underworld information broker said something bizarre.
"You and Kyle were their representatives, right?"
What?
I leaned forward toward the Old Spider.
"What did you say I was?"
"The leader."
The information broker fixed her sharp, intelligent eyes on me.
"You were their leader, Mr. Hildebert."
My body went rigid.
For a long while, I forgot how to move. I stared blankly ahead, not even registering what expression I was making.
Soon, voices burst from somewhere in my brain.
Not just one or two voices speaking to me in various tones. I recognized each one: Deltei, Nol, Yvonne, You, Lin...
And countless others.
The ones I swore to protect until my dying breath.
And the moment I set foot on Earth with them.
Another chunk of memory came crashing down.
Bile rose in my throat.
"Where's the bathroom?"
"Go out of the reception room and straight down the hall to the end."
The Old Spider didn't flinch even as I shot to my feet and asked.
"Say the word if you need a sedative."
I headed to the bathroom without looking back.
I flung the door open roughly. No time to close it.
I barely reached the toilet before vomiting up everything I'd eaten for dinner.
Even after that, my stomach didn't settle, so I heaved up stomach acid too, retching.
The sour smell of stomach acid stung my nose. My vision blurred with tears.
After a long bout of vomiting, I slumped against the wall.
I barely suppressed the urge to cry. The memory of vowing on my sword to dedicate this life to my people stabbed at my heart. That memory now lingered only as a faint, dreamlike image. The harder I tried to make it clear, the more it faded into haze.
With the sword I swore to protect my people, I had ordered Ray's death.
While saying we should hope a fragment of emotion remained in Ray.
And that sword was now in Ye-hyeon's hands.
"Enough reason to grind your teeth and want to kill her."
I let out a hollow laugh, recalling what Jin had passed on.
"Wouldn't even sate your thirst drinking her ground-up corpse."
Why did I betray them?
Why did I turn my back on Kyle and point a blade at Ray? Why did I abandon those I vowed to protect and side with humans?
I knew war was coming. I knew the time to fight Ray would arrive. It must have been a carefully considered decision.
But no matter the reason, the fact that I betrayed my people remained unchanged.
That sin wouldn't erase even if I atoned for it my whole life. Even if I took back the sword from Ye-hyeon and slit my own throat with it. Even if I died gruesomely butchered by Colton's hand, the one I once clasped.
"And on top of it all, I'd forgotten it all so comfortably."
I spat a hollow laugh in self-mockery.
"The worst leader since the dawn of time."
Not even qualified to cry and say sorry.
I sat slumped in the bathroom, the sour stomach acid smell lingering, until Walker and Shu came, grabbed my arms, and dragged me out.
***
No strength left to stay there longer.
The Old Spider told me to go back and rest. She said there wasn't much else to tell anyway.
She had been a clever but young guest at the lab back then. She could watch me from afar but rarely had a chance to approach and talk. I was always surrounded by people, busy discussing important matters with them.
She said she'd only spoken to me briefly twice.
"You gave me chocolate both times."
The Old Spider covered her mouth as she laughed.
"You said you'd heard from my parents that I liked chocolate. The way you put it in my spiky-haired hand looked so cool."
"Did I do that?"
I smiled weakly.
I really couldn't remember.
No energy left to recall more anyway.
I gave her an apologetic smile.
"Sorry. I don't remember."
"It'd be weirder if you did. You met so many people then. I was just an immature kid desperately wanting to be among them. My parents really liked you too."
"What were your parents' names?"
As I asked faintly, a strange smile played on the Old Spider's lips.
"If I told you that, you'd figure out my name too."
I'd completely forgotten she was a big shot in the underworld.
And so our brief meeting ended. The Old Spider handed me over to the seniors waiting outside the reception room. Walker grumbled as he supported my limp form.
The information broker saw us off to the entrance with a kindly smile.
"Take care going back, Mr. Hildebert. Come find me anytime you want."
"You turn the kid into mush and then give a flowery send-off."
Walker said bluntly.
"Wipe that rosy glow off your face; it's annoying."
As Walker could hear, we left the Old Spider's house.
I couldn't ask how a promising young scientist like her ended up as a famous underworld information broker, how she knew Walker, or why someone so rich lived in such a rundown area.
No strength to ask.
Even as Shu kept peering at my face with faint worry beneath his stoic expression, I could barely react. One remark from the information broker had turned me into complete mush. Without Walker, I couldn't have walked properly.
I was dragged along limply, my soul adrift, in my senior's grip.
Somehow knowing, Walker dumped me not at the dorm but at the cabin.
"Contact us if something comes up."
Shu said, his stoic blue eyes filled with concern.
"We'll tell Senior Yoon."
"Thanks."
I greeted the two seniors with my utterly drained voice.
"Sorry for the trouble."
"Grow up."
Walker said darkly as he left the cabin.
"We'll talk later."
The door closed carefully. The house of Ami and Yoon, adorned with dangling pumpkins across the way, faded from view.
I was left alone like that.
Silence gradually settled in time with the seniors' footsteps fading away.
Even after their presence was gone, I stood there motionless for a long while.
Only when my legs began to ache unbearably did I turn toward the bed.
After that, I don't remember.
Maybe I didn't want to.
***
The next day, Yoon woke me.
He entered the cabin and lightly shook my body sprawled on the floor.
"Ah."
"I heard."
True to form, the master got straight to the point.
"Can you get up? Let's check out that game first."