4-The Day I Returned
4-The Day I Returned
It was hot.
Heat was pouring down onto my eyelids. It was night. It was clearly night.
My hand didn't move.
I looked down at my wrist. It was a chain. A cold, hard chain linked to the central iron ring of the auction block. The sensation of metal against my skin wasn't unfamiliar. That was even stranger. It should have been an unfamiliar sensation.
The metal number tag hanging from my neck tapped against my chest.
Number 354.
"...Ha."
Air left my lungs. I tried to breathe in again, but it didn't come properly. It felt like my lungs had shrunk. Or maybe my body had become too small.
It was the body of a fifteen-year-old.
Gazes poured in from all directions. Hundreds of eyes were on me, and murmurs swept in like waves. Somewhere, the auctioneer was raising his voice.
The lights were precisely illuminating the auction block. They lit up the auction house like broad daylight, and all that light was pouring down from above.
"Now, this item is—!"
Words I knew. A scene I knew.
The auction block. The auction house. The market. It was the day I had first stood here, a few days after my birthday. Both feet pressed against the wooden floor of the block, the number tag hung around my neck, and chains bound my wrists.
But why was I.
Here now.
My hand trembled. The chains on my wrists clinked. It was a fifteen-year-old body. Not the body that had turned twenty. Just moments ago, I had clearly been twenty. A body that had lived five more years.
I opened my palm. No calluses. All the calluses built up during five years at the mansion were gone. It wasn't that hand. It was an unfamiliar hand. No, it was the original hand. A hand that had experienced nothing, shouldered nothing.
"...I'm back."
My lips just moved. I didn't even know if a sound came out. The noise around me faded away like tinnitus.
I died. I definitely died. I fell off a cliff, my breath stopped, and darkness settled. The last thing I felt was the wind.
It wasn't a cold wind. It was a wind that smelled of spring. That had, strangely, put my heart at ease.
But now, I was standing on the auction block.
Laughter leaked out. A soundless laugh. Twisted and warped. I didn't know if this was a situation to laugh or cry, but it just leaked out. It was as if my body had given up on making a judgment.
So this kind of thing exists.
This kind of thing really does exist.
From the auction block, I slowly looked down at the crowd. The auctioneer barked out the starting price. It started at 10 million ahn. As hands began to rise among the crowd, my eyes moved automatically. I had seen these gazes before, last time. Now, I looked at them as remembered faces.
A greasy-looking middle-aged man. A lady holding multiple leashes. A lecherous viscount. All faces I remembered. Five years ago, in my last life, and now in this auction house. Nothing had changed.
And over there, 70 million ahn would be called. Chauvin, the head of the Showbang family. And at the edge of the crowd, Mae-hwa would appear.
The moment that thought crossed my mind, my insides sank coldly.
=====
Mae-hwa.
Those hands killed my mother. Killed my father. Killed my five-year-old siblings. And then took me in and cared for me for five years.
I hope you live.
That was all. Those words hadn't left my mind for five years. I still remembered the temperature of when I first heard them. With a cold, stumbling voice, those words handed to me by that hand. Why had it felt so good, why were those words engraved like a name.
I knew. And yet I had wavered. That was the problem.
I would never again be drawn into that name. The sound of the curtains being drawn every morning becoming familiar, the warmth of the person sitting beside me in front of the pond becoming a given, all of it. Once was enough. Familiarity was poison. Warmth was a worse poison.
So I had to think differently.
I needed a different option. I intended to live. This time. Not because I didn't want to die.
If dying just meant coming back like this, then I might as well live and do something else. I now knew that death wasn't an escape. Then, in the direction of living, in a different direction. I had to calculate from the beginning.
As I kept scanning the crowd. My gaze stopped.
At the edge of the crowd, there was a man leaning as though he were just looking at the stalls. He was wrapped in a robe. A thick material with no reason to be worn at this time, in this weather. It was even stranger considering the merchants around him were in thin linen shirts.
A beard protruding from under the robe. Scruffy, as if untrimmed. And a gaze that intermittently scanned the crowd. It seemed like he was wary of something, yet also seemed to be hiding the very fact that he was wary. Standing in that corner, he acted like someone who didn't belong anywhere.
My heart pounded hard once.
Leard von Crucius.
A name that would turn this country upside down. No one knew it now. Not the name, not the face. Just an unidentified drifter. A man standing in the corner of the auction house, wrapped in a robe. Someone no one gave a second glance.
But in two years, this person would shake the Papacy. He would drag out everything: this order that ran in God's name, and the things rotting beneath it. He would become the name the nobles feared most, and the name the poor prayed to most.
The worst and greatest heresy.
Right at this moment, he was standing in the corner of this auction house, wrapped in a robe.
My mind raced.
A dangerous person. He might be even more dangerous than Mae-hwa. But at least, he was someone who wouldn't care about what state I was in. Someone who wouldn't call my name. Someone who wouldn't draw the curtains every morning. Someone who wouldn't try to sit beside me in front of the pond.
That was enough. That was sufficient for now.
Better than that hateful witch.
I raised my eyes. Far away, dust was rising at the end of the road. A carriage was rushing this way. It was fast. As if late. As if in a hurry. I could see the coachman swinging the whip hard.
I knew. That was Mae-hwa's carriage.
My stomach churned again.
The moment that carriage entered the auction house, things would go exactly as last time. Dragged away like last time, assigned a room like last time, the door opening without a knock every morning like last time. Called by name like last time. And getting used to it like last time.
No. Absolutely not.
=====
50 million ahn. 60 million ahn. 70 million ahn.
Chauvin's hand went up. The countdown began.
"Are there no further bids? Then we begin the countdown!"
"10." The carriage drew closer.
"9." Leard put his hand inside his robe. A motion pretending nonchalance. But his eyes moved. Slightly. Towards the countdown.
"8."
"7."
I inhaled. My lungs were still small. A fifteen-year-old's lungs were too small to handle this kind of air. Still, there was no other way.
"6." Mae-hwa's carriage was turning into the entrance. I could hear the sound of wheels rolling. The sound of hooves pounding the stone road.
"5."
"Leard von Crucius!"
The sound burst out.
From atop the auction block. Amidst the commotion of the bidding. In front of hundreds of people. I called that name no one knew.
In that instant, silence descended.
The crowd turned their heads. The auctioneer froze. The countdown stopped. The hand holding the gavel stopped in mid-air. And the man wrapped in the robe.
Froze.
It was a fleeting moment. A moment less than a second. But I saw it. The wary gaze turning into bewilderment. Swiftly changing to a gaze calculating how I knew. And then to a gaze trying to hide it.
As expected. It was him.
My heart raced. I felt cold sweat seeping through my whole body. I didn't know if this was the right choice. But even if it was wrong, right now this was the only choice.
"I know who you are! And I know what you'll do in the future!"
The crowd murmured. Leard slowly looked at me. The eyes visible under his hood were sharp. Before being hostile, it was a calculating gaze. Not a threat or fear. Just calculation. Whether this situation was a gain or loss for him.
I looked straight into those eyes.
I didn't avert my gaze.
"I know a lot. Things that will be helpful to you."
The sound of the carriage came. Right at the entrance. The creak of wheels. The sound of hooves. The sound of stopping. A brief silence just before the carriage door opened.
My heart dropped with a thud.
"Take me."
I suppressed with all my might so my voice wouldn't crack. It felt strange speaking adult words with a fifteen-year-old throat. But it was fine. Everything was strange anyway.
"Faster than Chauvin. Right now."
Leard's eyes narrowed. He was calculating. This situation. This boy. How I knew his name. Whether having his name called out so publicly was a threat or an opportunity for him. One second felt like an hour.
There was the presence of someone at the auction house entrance. The sound of catching breath. Footsteps that had rushed over. The sound of a long robe hem brushing the ground.
"W-wait a moment—"
It was Mae-hwa's voice.
My insides turned cold. The moment I heard that voice, my whole body stiffened and then relaxed again. My muscles remembered. How they had responded to that voice for five years. I didn't take my eyes off Leard. I couldn't.
"Decide. There's no time."
One second. Two seconds.
It was too long. In the meantime, cold sweat ran down my back. It felt like the ground beneath my feet was swaying. I didn't know if the auction block was actually shaking or if my body was trembling.
Then Leard slowly put his hand into his robe. And.
He raised his hand.
"80 million ahn."
A low, dry voice. An emotionless voice. A voice that said the calculation was over.
The auctioneer's eyes widened. The crowd stirred once more. Chauvin's smile vanished in an instant. And the footsteps that had stopped at the entrance began moving quickly again.
My breath eased a little.
"80 million ahn! Any further bids—"
"W-wait a moment!"
It was Mae-hwa.
Hearing that voice, I clenched my teeth. So my teeth wouldn't clash. Quietly, so no sound would escape. The crowd must not know. That this body reacted to that voice.
"1,000,000."
A murmur burst out. Mixed with ridicule. I could hear people saying she must have misspoken a digit. I also heard them calling her crazy. And that they couldn't believe a number like 1 billion had come up in this auction house.
I closed my eyes.
I hope you live.
Those words came to mind. When I first heard them. In a cold, stumbling voice. Why it had felt so good, why it hadn't left my ears for five years. It was laughable, thinking back now, that a single line had kept me going for five years. And it was a word given by those hands even though I knew what they had done.
I knew and yet I had wavered. That was the problem, and that was the end.
I opened my eyes.
"Th-that is, 1 billion ahn."
It went quiet. Completely. The auctioneer froze. Leard's eyes moved slightly. Chauvin opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, then finally spoke.
"1.1 billion."
I blinked. This hadn't happened last time. The last time, as soon as 1 billion came out, no one followed up. There was a changed variable.
Leard von Crucius. Just by this person, who had butted in from the start, coming onto the stage, the flow of the auction changed.
"1.1 billion ahn! Any further bids—"
"1.2 billion."
It was Leard. Dryly and calmly. As if the rising amount was nothing. The thought that it was amazing he had money crossed my mind, but now was not the time to think that.
"1.3 billion."
Mae-hwa. Every time I heard that voice, somewhere tightened. Near the pit of my stomach. Somewhere I couldn't tell if it was lungs or heart. I exhaled. Quietly. So it couldn't be heard.
"1.4 billion."
Leard. The same voice. As dry and calm as the first. As if there were no reason a voice calling 1.4 billion should differ from one calling 100 million.
The room grew taut with tension. The auctioneer was sweating cold. The crowd was swallowing their breaths. Unable to say anything in front of these numbers. On the other hand, they seemed excited, reduced to mere spectators.
"1.5 billion"
Mae-hwa
"1.6 billion"
Leard
"1.7 billion"
Mae-hwa
"2 billion."
Leard's voice cut across the room. Low and heavy. As if to end the conversation.
It became completely quiet. Chauvin, the auctioneer, the crowd. They all seemed to be holding their breath. No one could make a sound in front of this number. Not even Mae-hwa.
A long, long silence.
"...Are there no further bids?"
The auctioneer's voice trembled.
No one spoke.
"Then sold! 2 billion ahn!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The gavel came down. Three times. The final sound echoed throughout the auction house.
Applause erupted and murmurs swept in like a wave. I closed my eyes. Just for a moment. I kept my eyes closed for a moment.
Behind me, I heard Mae-hwa breathing. Without words, only breath. Irregularly. As if swallowing tears. I knew that breath. The first time I heard it, the second time, the fifth time. That breath always made everything crumble.
I decided to pretend not to hear.
I must not waver. I had already experienced it last time. My heart had wavered at that breath, I hadn't rejected those hands, and so five years passed. Once was enough. There was no need to go through it twice.
The guard approached and unfastened the chains. My wrists were freed. I descended from the auction block. The moment my feet touched the ground, I felt a presence behind me.
I didn't turn around.
I knew what kind of look I had sent from this spot last time. Thank goodness. That look. I now knew what it was. It wasn't that I was glad to be alive. Nor that I was glad I could be taken away. Just. It was just. If I put a name to that look, I felt I would waver again.
I walked looking straight ahead.
Having finished talking with the auctioneer, Leard was walking this way. His eyes were on me. Still calculating eyes. Eyes calculating where this boy had learned his name, how he had judged him useful, and whether 2 billion wouldn't be a waste.
That was fine. Because I was also calculating. This time. From the beginning.
"You said you know a lot."
Leard approached and spoke lowly. His voice was quiet. So the crowd wouldn't hear. A voice that already recognized his name had been publicly called. Trying to quickly handle it.
"Where did you learn it."
"I'll tell you when we've gotten close enough that you can ask me directly."
Leard narrowed his eyes. A brief silence passed. Calculating eyes. Not whether he liked the answer or not, but calculating what this answer meant.
And. The corner of his mouth, just a little.
Went up.
It was an expression I had never seen before.
An expression I hadn't seen even in my last life.
I didn't know this person could make such an expression.
Was it that he liked the calculation... something like that.
Okay.
This time.
I decided to live.
...For revenge.