The Bruised City (3)
Swish—clang! ["Damn it, you, you bastaaard…!! Uwaaaah. Smells like a chicken coop."]
Once the chains binding the man's arms were undone, Jurchen, true to his hardy warrior's physique, merely rubbed at the raw marks left by torture before lifting his head high.
"Hell yeah, that feels refreshing! Thanks, Yohan—my comrade!"
"Keep your voice down. And my name is Yohan."
"Yohan, I don't think I'll forget this debt until the day I die."
"You mean you'll forget it?"
"Whew, I really thought I was done for this time. Never been pushed this close to death in my life…."
"…So why exactly are you locked up in here?"
The man's name was Jurchen von Raghound. The Karlank Empire was vast, home to countless noble houses. Just as my own family stood as a bulwark against barbarians and demons in the north, his house was a frontier count family guarding the western borders against foreign tribes.
"In the western reaches of the Karlank Empire, nomadic elves who lost their World Tree periodically cause trouble."
There had been that great western expedition Roban once mentioned, hadn't there? Eclipse was also from a rural western village, so there had been some setting about watching the triumphal march. The very house that raised the army and led that march was none other than his.
He was also one of the game's characters. Playable… no, semi-playable? Non-playable? I couldn't quite define him myself, but he possessed a rather unique background.
He boasted top-tier tanking performance, the kind that could take a beating like a butcher's block, yet if there was no elf in the party he would leave the game. On a randomly generated turn he might rejoin, making him an incredibly finicky character. If his absurd luck failed to trigger, there were times he wouldn't appear again until the game ended. A truly deranged character.
Ah, why did the absence of an elf cause him to leave? Because this guy was a severe elf fetishist. Born into a frontier count family tasked with repelling the elven tribes, yet he harbored a fetish for long-eared old hags. So according to the setting, without an elf around he would get aroused at the sight of any big-eared woman on the street and abandon the party… that was the concept.
Even his actions were beastly and unpredictable, so he never gained much popularity in the original work. But to me, who had sucked the marrow out of Eternal Eclipse, he was a memorable, peculiar existence.
"Still, one question remains."
Why was someone who should have been studying diligently at the academy here?
"Why am I here? Obviously because classes were boring as hell, so I came to watch the arena fights. Then I figured I might as well join in."
"That's not obvious at all, you lunatic! It's the middle of the semester. As a student, what were you…"
Jurchen planted both hands on his hips with brazen confidence.
"Who are you to talk, senior? Whatever weird business brought you here, we're in the same boat."
"…Fair enough. Haah…"
"Kahahahaha!"
The man laughed heartily and continued.
"Anyway, to put it plainly, I came to participate in the arena where all the big shots gather, only to get wrecked by that mad fist-fighter called Nonedon."
"Then you should've just slipped away quietly."
"No way. How could I? I got so pissed in the moment that I went all the way down to the bottom of this ship to free his slaves, and got caught."
"…You damn idiot. That is so like you."
"You know me?"
"No, you moron."
According to my memories, Jurchen was a character unlocked only after the Vitagarte rescue episode. He had no appearances before that. If that was the case, then during the early-game blank period he had been captured here, tortured, and escaped?
"Wow, so that was the setting."
It wasn't even in the setting book. Still, if that was true, then this guy could be put to good use.
I called Cryan, who was diligently keeping watch as I had ordered.
"…Jurchen? Why is this person here?"
Surprisingly, Cryan seemed to recognize him as well.
"You know me too? Looks like we've got a gathering of like-minded troublemakers."
But Cryan shook his head.
"No, I don't know him well."
"Then what?"
"He's a delinquent student who frequently skips lectures. I was ordered by your homeroom professor to find you for several days, but you were nowhere to be seen. To think you were captured in a place like this…"
"My infamy pierces the heavens. I've become a man feared by every professor."
"That's not a compliment, Jurchen."
"I know, but everything depends on how you look at it. Don't make me sound pathetic."
One way or another, his extreme positivity showed no signs of breaking. Instead, he made a bold declaration.
"Well, I know I look like a total scoundrel. But since you've freed me, I have to repay the favor. So, where do you want to go?"
Cryan glanced at me sideways, as if he had already read the situation. His eyes seemed to ask whether we could really trust this guy. But the fact was, he was the only reliable option we had. Jurchen might be a scoundrel, but at least he wasn't the type to half-ass things—provided we kept his elf concentration topped up.
I nodded.
"Nonedon Naigerse's private quarters. That's all we need."
"Huh? Just that? You don't need the treasure vault, the decoration storage, or the explosives depot?"
"Why would we do something that crazy? What we're looking for is just one conch necklace. We only want to snatch that."
"C-conch?"
Jurchen asked again, flustered.
"You can just pick up conches on the beach. Why go through all this for something like that? There's no reason for that expensive guy Nonedon to keep something like that in his private room like a treasure."
Cryan answered irritably, as if defending the precious conch.
"I'm sorry, but there's a reason. It's precious to me. Logically speaking, the chances of it being in his private room are low, but… we won't know until we check."
"Ah, is that so?"
Jurchen stroked his beard neatly and spoke.
"So to sum it up, you guys are sneaking into this prison through the bars instead of using the entrance, all to find a single conch. You're really asking for trouble."
When I shrugged, Jurchen covered his mouth and started snickering.
"You crazy bastards."
"It's that important. Don't mock us."
"It was a compliment. This is one hell of a crazy plan. I don't know what you're doing it for, but just hearing about it gets my adrenaline pumping."
He said,
"Is this a way to screw over Nonedon?"
"Depends on how you look at it."
"Then count me in. I'll help."
It was a very dopamine-addict, "might as well live while I'm alive" answer, typical of Jurchen. Cryan still didn't seem to like him, but even he had to admit there were no other options. I spoke.
"Then properly repay the debt with your life. Guide us to the private quarters."
"Yes, captain!"
Without hesitation, the man strode forward and flung the door open.
Bang—!
"What the— Prisoner escape situa—! Gurk."
Crash—!
He beat the crap out of a low-ranking guard who had been slacking off by the door and said,
"There's only one guard in front. You guys just trust this good-for-nothing and follow me."
Leaving Jurchen behind, Cryan asked me,
"What about the remaining prisoners?"
"…We'll freeze the door shut to keep them quiet and leave them. They're useless."
"Fine by me. It's not our fate anyway."
Alright. Let's go.
***
Reaching Nonedon's private quarters required passing through countless guards and security systems, but Jurchen's guidance was excellent.
"Breaking through that corridor ahead is a bad idea. Two guards are patrolling alternately, so taking the similar path on the lower floor is much better."
"…The armory is right in front, so security is tighter? This is high-grade intel, actually. I got it by getting one of Nonedon's underlings drunk."
…And so on.
Honestly, I had no idea what possessed him to try freeing the slaves at the bottom, but the fact that he had rolled around in the muck to map out the ship's structure was undoubtedly true.
That wasn't all. Surprisingly, we worked quite well together. Much as I hated to admit it, our roles were clearly divided.
Vwoong—
"Using petty tricks like this…"
Cryan took the lead in neutralizing traps and surveillance devices installed where strange flows of mana could be felt. Meanwhile, Jurchen and I handled the lookouts posted at key points, making sure to clean up afterward so nothing was visible.
Crack—
"Oof, captain. Why not just cut their throats with a knife?"
"You want to see a sea of blood? I don't have the confidence to clean it up."
"I never wanted to die with my neck snapped either. It looks too painful."
"Then instead of just punching jaws, why not do a clean ambush?"
"This is all I know how to do. It's my specialty."
"You want things to get noisy."
"Kahahah, as long as we enjoy it, isn't that enough?"
Well, even so, it was obvious why he got caught despite knowing the layout so well. When forced to use his body, Jurchen had a bad habit of getting carried away and drawing attention to himself.
"Really, he's exactly like in the original."
However, at least for now, I—who had mastered physical work—was by his side, and since I kept him in check, there were no problems.
Thus, when we finally arrived in front of Nonedon's private room and checked for signs of life, fortunately…
…there was no one inside.
"Let's go in."
When opportunity knocks, you seize it. At my signal, we all agreed and carefully opened the door.
But the moment we opened it, what we saw exceeded all imagination.
"……!"
"Whoa, what the hell is all this. Is he insane?"
"My god, what kind of mental state…"
This room had a completely different structure from the image of Nonedon I knew. In the game, Nonedon…
…wore only the finest suits and accessories, giving off the vibe of a mafia or gang boss.
"Was his madness this severe?"
This room was truly the embodiment of disorder, with items scattered chaotically everywhere. Even the walls were covered in bizarre, psychotic patterns drawn at random.
"Cryan, what do those Bible verses scrawled all over the wall say?"
"Didn't you learn that in noble imperial studies, Jurchen?"
"I guess not. Translate it for me."
"Hmm, I must die. I must die. I must die. I must die. I will atone for my sins. I will atone for my sins. I will atone for my sins…. It's repetitive."
"…Ugh, damn."
What a creepy person. I knew the boss's insides were this rotten, but seeing it in person created an overwhelming sense of dissonance. It was terrifying.
"So, is the conch really here…?"
Seeing all this, my intuition stirred.
"…The description I remembered might not be true after all."
No matter what, even if Nonedon's room was supposed to contain the conch, there was no way he would leave his younger sister's memento in such a messy, creepy room. After all, this was a completely different point in time from when he appeared in the original history. Was there some unknown setting where he kept the conch elsewhere before his main story appearance?
I glanced at Jurchen.
"Jurchen had experiences in a background I didn't fully know. So Nonedon might be the same."
Thinking that way, my intuition gradually turned into certainty.
"…It's completely different from what I knew."
When I muttered to myself, Jurchen, who also knew Nonedon's appearance, agreed.
"I completely agree, captain. Someone who dresses so stylishly that you'd want to learn from his fashion sense keeps his room like a pigsty."
"…But what does it matter? We've safely arrived, so we've already done half the work. Let's grab the conch and leave before he comes."
However, Cryan, who couldn't have known this fact, urged us on. The water was already spilled. Agreeing with that, we rummaged through every visible spot—desks, drawers, cabinets—with reckless abandon.
But as expected, it was as expected. Occasionally we found expensive items like gold coins or watches, but the conch we sought—
—was nowhere to be seen, no matter how hard we looked.
Yet even in that, I discovered something suspicious.
Click—
A suspicious thickness in one corner of the drawer. When pulled out from the outside, the inside shouldn't have been this narrow, yet strangely the bottom was thick.
"This is it."
With my gaze fixed there, I lifted the gap as if possessed.
And sure enough, after a few tugs, the drawer clicked and opened once more. Dust billowed out like a cloud the moment it opened, as if it hadn't been touched in years. Perhaps it had been deliberately left unopened, or maybe so much time had passed that whatever was inside had been forgotten.
"A photo?"
And inside was a photograph.
I was astonished.
"…To think something like this was here."