You Were the One?
“Then what am I supposed to do from here on out?”
“Nothing special. Just kidnap me.”
“...Pardon?”
Dining stared at Kael with a blank look on his face.
...What the hell was that supposed to mean?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
...Do you really think this will work?
“What, you’re awake?”
I’ve been awake since a while ago. I was waiting to see just what kind of stunt you were going to pull, and... you really are doing something absurd.
“I figured this was enough to be worth a shot.”
All or nothing.
He’d gotten the idea from a rat trapped in a barrel of beer.
Hagen had said that Cecily, the head of Bipolar, was absurdly cautious.
In other words, she was a coward.
That curse probably came from that bastard too.
It was only circumstantial, but the timing was too perfect. No other suspect came to mind besides those bastards.
If only you, brat, could use even a little more of my power, finding that curse-monger would be nothing.
“What, so that kind of function exists too?”
...Your tone is strangely irritating.
“Hey, that was a compliment. What’s there to get irritated about?”
So there really had been something that convenient built into it.
Complaining about what I can’t even use right now is pointless.
Kael clicked his tongue.
It was a pity, but there was nothing for it. When you had no teeth, you chewed with your gums. That was how the saying went, wasn’t it?
“Anyway, all that matters is whether the result turns out right, isn’t that enough?”
And that’s what you call words? ...Fine, do as you please.
“That was the plan from the start.”
He had nothing to lose.
And wasn’t there a saying that as long as you got to Seoul, it didn’t matter which road you took?
Besides, old man, you can’t even get away from me anyway, can you?
Kael already knew it, because he’d tried to throw Balmung away more than once. Balmung couldn’t stray more than a certain distance from Kael’s body.
Back then, Kael had been horrified, thinking what the hell kind of creepy thing was this, but now it seemed useful enough to exploit.
“Silence! It’s not as though I choose to--”
Balmung exploded in protest, indignant and offended, but Kael didn’t hear a word of it.
It’s a little cramped.
Kael’s body was fully restrained at the moment.
Rope was wrapped around him several times over, and his eyes were covered with cloth.
This was Kael’s plan.
He was staging a kidnapping.
A self-made performance, so to speak.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“...You caught the guard captain?”
Cecily frowned. She had just heard an entirely unexpected report from one of her subordinates.
The guard captain, whom she considered the biggest nuisance of all.
She had been told that one of her executives had captured him.
“How, exactly?”
When she asked for the process, she got an answer that was almost impossible to believe.
“With a sleeping pill... they put him to sleep?”
Cecily knew that the guard captain often frequented the restaurant run by Bipolar.
Dining, the restaurant’s owner and one of the organization’s executives, had exploited that fact by preparing sleeping pills in advance, and when the guard captain came in, he served him food laced with them.
Then, the moment the guard captain fell asleep, they captured him at once.
“...And you expect me to believe that?”
“I didn’t believe it either, so I checked... but it’s true. It was definitely the guard captain I know.”
“Hah...”
She didn’t know whether to be pleased or miserable.
He was caught that easily?
A hollow feeling washed over her. All the hardships she had gone through suddenly felt meaningless. What exactly had she spent that fortune hiring a curse caster for?
No. I shouldn’t look at it only negatively.
Still, emptiness was only a passing feeling.
What mattered was the fact that the guard captain had been captured.
If they laid a hand on him directly or harmed him, the Empire might move.
Her goal was not to kill the guard captain, but to turn him into her puppet.
Time was running short.
If they delayed any longer, the whole board might be overturned.
After gathering her thoughts, Cecily opened her eyes and said, “...Bring that guard captain here as quickly as possible.”
“Understood.”
Her subordinate left the room. All that remained now was to go find that creepy curse caster.
“...Haa.”
She let out a sigh and wore a conflicted expression. Turan was a difficult and unpleasant presence even to her. To be honest, she didn’t even want to be in the same place as him.
But in the end, Cecily went to find Turan.
The underground chamber she had given him.
The moment she stood before the door, her body instinctively began to resist. She wanted to turn around and leave right then and there, but she couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, Cecily knocked carefully.
Knock, knock.
“...Enter.”
However many times she heard it, that voice was still chilling.
The moment she opened the door, a stench hit her like a wall. And once she stepped inside, a shocking sight unfolded before her.
She instinctively covered her face.
What in the world... is all this?
The chamber held a scene so vile she didn’t even want it to reach her eyes. Animal corpses or guts would have been trivial by comparison. Things whose identities she didn’t even want to know lay scattered everywhere in wild disarray.
As the boss of a criminal organization, she had seen plenty of brutal things and never so much as blinked.
But this was enough to make her physically recoil at first sight.
“...What is it?”
Horribly dim eyes turned toward Cecily.
Suppressing the feeling that her heart was being squeezed, Cecily answered, “...My subordinate says the guard captain has been captured.”
“...What?”
For an instant, Turan’s expression hardened.
“So I told them to bring him here at once. If we’re going to place the curse, it seems more effective to do it with him right in front of us.”
“...”
Cecily wore a faint smile.
Turan’s eyes narrowed. Her words were more than enough to irritate him.
Ever since his curse had been broken, he had been in a foul mood.
Not even a knight commander, just a mere guard captain, had broken his curse?
He had been making every possible preparation to restore his wounded pride.
And yet... the man had been captured?
“...Then I’ll need you to prepare things as quickly as possible.”
Cecily lowered her head slightly.
Just as she was about to leave the underground chamber.
“Who said you could leave without permission?”
A dark energy began seeping slowly from Turan’s body.
Black power moved like a snake and wound itself around Cecily’s body.
“What is this...!”
She tried desperately to move, but her body no longer obeyed, as though she were a puppet being controlled by someone else.
Cecily’s pupils trembled violently.
Swish.
The sound of a cloak dragging along the floor drew nearer and nearer.
Terror began to drain the color from her face.
“...A puppet does not resist.”
The focus in Cecily’s eyes slowly vanished.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Kael was now being carted by wagon to Bipolar’s stronghold, trapped inside a cramped wooden crate.
When Dining reported that Kael had been captured, Cecily had immediately ordered them to bring him to where she was.
Playing unconscious is harder than I thought.
Thunk, thunk.
Being hauled around like freight inside a narrow, hard wooden box was not a particularly pleasant experience.
How much time had passed like that?
Just as Kael’s patience was starting to wear thin, the crate was finally opened.
“...This is the one?”
“Should be. But this bastard... he still looks asleep, doesn’t he?”
“How much sleeping pill did they shove down his throat?”
Tsk. One of the organization members clicked his tongue and scratched the back of his head.
Moving an unconscious adult man was far more tedious and troublesome than expected.
The complaining man hoisted Kael onto his shoulder.
“Jesus, why is he so heavy?”
“Hey, stop whining and just hurry up.”
“I’m not exaggerating... haaa, never mind.”
The organization members grunted as they started carrying Kael away.
“...What’s this?”
The one left behind to clean up spotted a single sword lying in the wagon.
He glanced around cautiously.
Easy pocket money, more or less.
It didn’t look like it would fetch much, given how shabby it was, but even melting the metal down would probably be worth something.
After making sure no one was around, the man reached for the sword.
Then, at that very moment.
Get lost.
The man froze as if he’d been electrocuted, then toppled over like a cut string puppet.
Tsk... that stench is absolutely unbearable.
The smell was too thick to hide, soaked deep into the air.
Balmung hated that smell with a passion.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Kael was moved into an old building.
It was the place Bipolar used to lock away slaves and organ harvest victims.
Blindfolded, Kael had no choice but to rely on hearing and smell.
And yet, surprisingly, that was enough to judge the situation without much trouble.
Strange.
It was hard to describe in words, but it felt as though his senses had spread out wide. The energy extending from him seemed to be feeling around the space.
He could faintly sense the size and structure of the room he’d been locked in, the number and build of people nearby, even whether or not they were armed.
Is this what the old man was talking about?
Expansion of perception.
Balmung had said that as his skill improved, he would be able to feel more and more.
But until now, Kael hadn’t really felt anything concrete enough to say, ah, so this is it. Just that his senses had become a little sharper than before?
But now, Balmung’s so-called expansion of perception was plain as day.
This feels like I’ve become some kind of psychic.
As he was entertaining that pointless thought, click, click, click.
He heard footsteps in polished shoes.
Finally.
Along with them came the scent of perfume. Sweet, with a strangely sensual edge.
But as the footsteps drew closer, the hidden smell beneath it all began to surface.
A damp stench of blood and rot.
The smell of corpses.
The moment the tightly shut door opened, Kael was certain of it.
“You were the one?”
You bastard who dumped that filthy curse on me.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇