A Number to Hold Onto
Countless people flung the door open and rushed inside. Startled by the noise, Laila clutched her smartphone tightly to her chest.
"Noona! Are you okay?!"
Chum burst in with the bodyguards and hurried over to her, frantically checking her condition. Her hair was messily torn, and an unfamiliar coat soaked in blood covered her body. The walls on either side were riddled with impact marks, and one section in particular was stained deep red with someone's blood, filling the air with a thick metallic scent.
"What the hell happened here…"
It was a sight even bodyguards rarely witnessed. As they stared in shock, their eyes trembling, Laila glanced at them and spoke to Chum in a slightly shaky voice, still not fully calmed.
"You got here faster than I expected. I only contacted you a moment ago."
"Of course I did! Why did you take so long to reach out?! No, what is this situation? What exactly happened here?!"
Unlike Laila, who was trying to stay composed, Chum poured out his panic and worry without restraint, firing off questions like a machine gun. Laila scratched her cheek awkwardly at the sight.
"Well…"
Honestly, she hadn't expected to be able to contact them again either. She had been drowning in despair, convinced this time was truly over. If he hadn't come to save her once more, what would have become of her by now? The memory of the hair sealed inside the frame made her face turn deathly pale again.
"……"
She gripped the smartphone in her hand tightly, as if trying to erase the memory, and recalled what had just happened.
"Alright, that's enough."
The man peeled the clinging Laila off him, saying that if the concert ended up delayed because of this, there would be no point in having saved her.
"It'd be troublesome if that guy dies from blood loss too."
With those words, the man glanced at Fred, who was now sprawled limply on the floor, unable to even scream. Then he turned his gaze back to Laila. Still not fully calmed, she grabbed the coat he had draped over her the moment he tried to pull away, looking up at him. After watching her faintly trembling arms for a moment, the man slipped a hand into his pocket.
"Here. This is yours, right?"
What the man handed Laila was her smartphone. It was clearly the same model she had thrown at Fred in the waiting room, complete with the visible cracks from the impact.
"I can't exactly take you there myself due to circumstances. I've turned on location tracking, so use that to call your manager to come get you."
If he ended up running into the Master while escorting Laila… just the thought made his legs go weak.
"Well then, I'm off."
He approached the fallen Fred and gave his body a few casual kicks with his foot. As if by magic, the bleeding stopped completely. It was just short of fatal blood loss. As expected of a high-ranking mage, he had lasted quite a while. At this level of exhaustion, he probably wouldn't struggle when being taken away. Thinking that, the man lifted him using only his index finger and thumb, holding him as far away as possible, as if touching filthy waste.
"W-wait a second!"
Laila grabbed him in a panic as he looked ready to leave at any moment.
"Why? I already told you, you need to go."
He had mobilized the underworld. The kidnapping incident probably wouldn't even make it into the news. Since he had resolved the matter fairly quickly, the fans likely hadn't noticed anything either. In other words, as long as she returned quickly, everything would be fine. Laila carefully held out her smartphone toward the man, who showed not an ounce of concern for her trembling body and was only thinking about the concert and the girl who would smile while watching it.
"Please, at least give me your number. I'll repay you later somehow."
"No need."
She was clearly one of the most famous superstars in the Ellemental Kingdom right now. If the man wanted, he could easily receive an astronomical sum as thanks. But from his perspective, someone who scraped together every last coin from the underworld, money wasn't something he desperately needed. On the contrary, it was something he had far too much of, no matter how much he spent.
"J-just a moment!"
For most people, experiencing something like this even once was rare. Having someone save you in a moment of crisis. Once could be dismissed as coincidence, but if the same thing happened twice, it could only be called fate. Laila had no intention of letting this opportunity slip away. She hesitated for a moment, thinking about what to do.
"I'm still not fully calmed down… and at this rate, it'll be hard to proceed with the concert. But if I could at least text with you, I think I'd feel more at ease…"
This wasn't a lie; it was the truth. Just like when she held onto the shoes he had left behind whenever she felt nervous. Holding something of his overlapped the memory of him saving her with her trauma, making her feel that he would come to rescue her no matter what.
"……"
What was this now. Hearing her say that, the man couldn't refuse as easily as before. It almost sounded like a threat: if he didn't give her his number, she'd ruin the concert. Threatening the person who saved her like that. This was why celebrities were such a pain.
'Why is she so desperate to get my number?'
She was the same person who had looked ready to rip his arm off. Normally, people would be trembling in fear and begging him to leave quickly, wouldn't they? As he thought that and rubbed his face, he finally realized the reason. It was because of this ridiculously handsome face, wasn't it. Damn plot convenience.
"Haa."
Well, what could he do? If she was saying she couldn't do the concert without his number, then for the sake of the girl's happiness, sacrificing his number was a small price to pay. The man snatched Laila's smartphone, naturally unlocking her pattern in the process, entered his number, and handed it back to her.
"Don't spread it to anyone else. And don't contact me too often either. I've got things going on these days."
"……Yes!"
How had he known her unlock pattern? Laila didn't even think about such a trivial matter and was simply overjoyed that he had given her his number.
"Um, what about your name…?"
When she grabbed him one last time as he tried to leave and asked, he turned his head with an openly annoyed expression.
"I don't know. I threw away my name a long time ago. Just save it however you want."
With those words, he leaped over the broken wall the same way he had come. When she rushed over to look, all she saw was the distant ground five stories below. The man had already vanished without a trace.
"I was lucky."
Returning to the present after the flashback, that was all she could say to Chum, who kept asking questions. Chum stared at her blankly for a moment, as if at a loss for words. Then, with a tearful voice, he placed his hands on her shoulders and lowered his head.
"I'm so glad. That you're safe."
"……Thank you. For worrying about me."
Despite everything that had happened, it seemed her luck with people was pretty good after all. Her boss, who had unhesitatingly gifted her an expensive artifact after learning one of his entertainers had gone through something major. Her manager, who was this worried about her. 'And above all…' There was also the person who appeared dramatically every time she fell into crisis and saved her. Now, instead of shoes, the smartphone containing the man's phone number—which would become her new routine—rested against her chest as she quietly closed her eyes. It was strange. Just that alone was enough to gradually calm her pounding heart.
"I guess we'd better hurry. I need to redo my hair and change into a new outfit."
Opening her eyes again, she smiled brightly as she spoke. Chum flared up and shouted.
"The concert is the problem right now?! We need to get you to a hospital first!"
"I'm fine. I didn't get hurt anywhere."
More than anything, he had been looking forward to her concert. That alone was reason enough to make sure she performed. "I'm sorry to the fan I was supposed to meet beforehand. If it's okay after the concert, could you tell them we'll meet then?"
"No, is that really the issue right now?!"
"We don't have time to get angry. We're already cutting it close."
This concert—she was going to finish it perfectly no matter what. The faint trembling in her body subsided in an instant, and a firm resolve settled in her eyes.
"Definitely."
Brilliant lights. Explosive sound. Laila's sweat and passion as she sang on stage spread to the audience, making their hearts race.
"……Is she really okay?"
The fans, who knew nothing of the kidnapping incident before the concert, cheered and applauded her performance. But Arina, who knew what had happened, couldn't simply enjoy the show with a light heart.
"She'll be fine. Someone handled it."
His personality was trash, but his abilities were excellent. Far better than some manager who would just stomp around in panic when their talent disappeared.
"Did Uncle take care of it after all?"
At Kain's words, Arina looked up at his face. That put her somewhat at ease. As far as she knew, her uncle never made empty promises.
"Well, I didn't handle it myself."
"……?"
"Anyway, just watch and enjoy without worrying. Act your age and don't concern yourself with adult matters."
Now then, how should he deal with this thunderous brat? Thinking that, Kain's eyes turned toward the ceiling sparkling with lights, gazing beyond it.
-The concert's starting, so I'll be going now! Please watch me!
On the rooftop of the Ellemental Art Hall Center's grand theater. Sitting there and feeling the faint vibrations of sound coming from beyond the wall, the man pouted with a dissatisfied expression.
"I told her not to contact me so often."
Even though he had only given curt replies or ignored her out of annoyance, she kept rambling on by herself. For today, he let it slide, thinking it was her way of relieving tension, but if this continued, it was going to be incredibly tiresome and annoying.
"It's not like she's teasing someone."
Without a ticket, she couldn't even get in, so what was the point of watching? Of course, if he decided to go in, there was nothing he couldn't see, but he had no desire to go through that troublesome effort just to watch. More than anything, the Master was inside.
"It'd be a disaster if I got caught."
With those words, the man roughly shoved his smartphone into his pocket and looked up at the night sky. Unlike Yggdrasil or the Fan Empire, the night sky in the Ellemental Kingdom was completely devoid of stars, obscured by the city's lights. The only thing visible was the lonely moonlight shining in the distance.
"It was definitely pretty, though."
Looking at that moonlight reminded him of Laila's face as she sang energetically below. As expected of a celebrity, she had a prettier appearance than the average person, probably thanks to camera-friendly features. The fact that he, with his high standards for beauty, gave such an evaluation indirectly spoke to just how attractive Laila was.
"Should I peel off her face later?"
No, forget it. She was the celebrity the girl liked. If it ended up in the news later and shocked the girl, that wouldn't do. It seemed he would have to completely give up on taking Laila's face.
"So it was you after all, Jealousy."
At that moment, a clear voice came from within the empty darkness.
"……"
He hadn't sensed anything until the voice spoke. But the moment it did, an overwhelming presence pressed down heavily on him alone. The man, who could overwhelmingly suppress even 5-star mages, broke out in a cold sweat and stiffened visibly like a frog before a snake. Then, his head turned with a creak like a rusty hinge. What he saw was a black shadow that erased even the moonlight, darkening the night further. Though it had manifested in the form of a wraith by clumping together thoughts, that aura was unmistakable. The atmosphere that seemed to freeze all time around it…
"That bad habit of yours hasn't changed."
Jealousy, one of the Seven Deadly Sins of the underworld. The most narrow-minded, petty, and whimsical villain in the underworld. A narcissist who loved dressing up even more than Lust, adorning himself with all sorts of expensive things to show off. He was also someone who, when it came to things he wanted, became more obsessive than even Greed and would stop at nothing until he obtained them. One of his hobbies was peeling off the faces of handsome men and beautiful women to make masks. In the Fan Empire, these were known as "Inpimyangu," tools of disguise used by assassins, and fittingly, he was renowned as the underworld's greatest assassin.
"……A person can't change in an instant, Master."
Of course, even Jealousy was someone who trembled and knelt before the Death King.
'Haha, I'm screwed.'
He never expected to run into the Master like this. What excuse could he possibly make? Jealousy's mind raced. But Kain had no intention of giving him time to make excuses and cut straight to the point.
"I saw your traces in the waiting room."
"……"
That single sentence was enough. Though usually too lazy to think, the Master's insight was terrifyingly sharp. Deducing the entire situation from a single small clue was an extremely simple task for him.
'Was it when I picked up the smartphone?'
Before Kain and Arina arrived at the waiting room, Jealousy, who had noticed Laila's kidnapping beforehand, had been greatly flustered. Perhaps because of that, he had been slightly lacking in his usual caution, leaving behind a small clue he normally wouldn't have.
"You've been hanging around Arina?"
The underworld's greatest assassin. That also meant he was a specialist in infiltration and disguise. The only reason he would come all the way here to save Laila, someone he had no connection to, was one.
"The timing was probably after the Grant Department Store incident. The fact that you avoided my eyes so well suggests you've been focusing on the academy. What, are you posing as a professor or something?"
"……"
So he figured all that out too. As expected of the Master.
"Was it Pride who ordered it? I distinctly warned you not to loiter around unnecessarily."
Truly fitting for underworld natives—none of them ever listened when told to do something.
"Haa, whatever."
Clicking his tongue at the fact, Kain's summoned wraith disappeared below the building with a sigh. Even after a long while, the expected punishment never came. Jealousy stared at the spot where he had vanished for a moment, then twirled his well-maintained, flowing hair while muttering hesitantly.
"Does this mean silent permission?"
Or was it a silent warning to get lost now that he'd been caught? From the atmosphere and feeling, it seemed more like the former—giving up and telling him to do as he pleased. After thinking for a moment, Jealousy let out a sigh of relief, shook his head, and flopped down on the spot.
"Phew. I thought I was dead."
His heart had nearly exploded. One small consolation was that now that his identity had been discovered, he no longer had to follow the girl around while worrying about getting caught by the Master. Thinking that he could guard her more comfortably from now on, Jealousy let go of all his burdens at once and gazed at the music echoing from behind him and the moonlight pouring down, soaking in the night. Until the moment a text from Laila arrived after the concert, asking if he had enjoyed the song.