The New Sucker in Sector 12
While Jamie worked on draining Vita’s strength, I decided to have a talk with the boy we’d brought in.
“You didn’t run.”
“…….”
A dagger was still buried in his calf, but the entrance wasn’t locked and no one stood guard. If he’d wanted to, he could have escaped easily enough.
Yet our boy simply lay curled on the floor exactly where Jamie had first set him down, quiet and obedient.
I met his gaze—far less hostile and wary than before—and reached out a hand.
“Never mind the running. Your hands are free, yet you’re still holding that handkerchief in your mouth. I’ll take that to mean you won’t bite your tongue even if I pull it out. Fair?”
“…….”
He gave a careful nod. I caught the corner of the cloth protruding between his lips and drew it free.
“I’m a complete amateur when it comes to medicine, so we’ll leave the calf as it is for now.”
“…….”
Blood still seeped out in tiny amounts, just enough to darken the fabric around the wound. At that rate, unless someone yanked the dagger free, he wouldn’t bleed out anytime soon.
“Name?”
“Bark…”
“All right, Ba—”
Uuuuugh!!!
Bang! Crunch!
“Hmm. Looks like I’ll need proper soundproofing.”
Since the conversation had already been interrupted, I went to the kitchen, grabbed two bottles of clean purified water from the Benefit Shop and a chair, then returned to the living room.
“Drink.”
“…….”
I tossed one bottle to the boy named Bark and sat down on the chair I’d brought.
“Don’t if you don’t want to.”
“…….”
I cracked the lid first and took a long, cool swallow. Only then did the boy follow suit, tipping the bottle and dumping the water down his throat in a frantic rush.
“Cough, cough!”
Unlike me, who’d merely wet my throat, he emptied the bottle as if someone were chasing him and ended up choking hard, coughing for a long while.
“Once you’ve settled, I’ve got a few questions.”
“…….”
The coughing fit had been rough; his eyes were faintly bloodshot and even a little wet.
“Where are you from?”
“Sector 11…”
According to the district map Ms. Secretary had shown me, Sector 11 lay to the southwest of this house.
“I can already guess, but I’ll ask anyway. Why cross into Sector 12?”
“To make money…”
Yeah. Figured as much.
Every place is a sewer, so most people just dig in where they were born and raised. If you’re going to deal with lunatics either way, better the ones you already know.
“Come to think of it, Sector 11 is where the Fairy of the Night operates, right?”
“…Yeah.”
That explained the odd sense of familiarity even though I’d never actually gone there with Ms. Secretary.
Sector 11 bordered the light zone of Sector 10, the boundary sealed by a wall of smoke that looked like fog but was pure lethal toxin.
“H-hey!!”
I was briefly wondering how Olivia—the one who’d helped me interrogate that guy named Deungyun—was getting by when the boy suddenly spoke as if he’d made up his mind.
Creeeak.
As if on cue, the bedroom door swung open and Jamie dragged Vita out by the hair. Vita hung limp, a bloody mess.
“You worked hard.”
I hadn’t gotten a good look while she was being hauled, but once Jamie dumped her in front of me, Vita’s condition was worse than I’d imagined.
Arms and legs twisted the wrong way were the baseline; the index and middle fingers on her right hand looked especially bad.
“No permanent damage, I hope?”
“If you set them properly, no problem at all. I’ve experienced it myself, so you can trust me.”
Nothing beats a personal guarantee. I nodded.
“She doesn’t look ready for conversation yet, so feed her this.”
I handed Jamie the water bottle I was holding and turned my attention back to the boy.
“Continue what you were about to say.”
“…Someone in Sector 11 started spreading rumors about you, hyung.”
“Rumors.”
What came out of the boy’s—Bark’s—mouth was definitely not what I’d expected. Jamie seemed just as surprised; both our gazes locked onto him at once.
“They said a new sucker had moved into Sector 12, someone easy to fleece. Said you’d know him the second you saw his face because he was Han Chinese. The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were the guy from the rumor.”
“Priest.”
Jamie called to me, but I raised a hand to cut her off.
“Any idea who started it?”
“That far… no.”
“Hmm.”
I rubbed my chin, looking thoughtful. Bark’s eyes rolled around for a moment before he carefully spoke again.
“…I don’t want treatment. Just let me live and send me off. Then I’ll find out somehow who started that rumor and bring the name back.”
I brushed my lips with my fingers for a second, then spoke calmly.
“One more question.”
“W-what is it?”
“Was it really just for money that you crossed over?”
“…There’s no other reason to come here.”
“Right.”
That was the end of the conversation.
“Jamie? Patch up his leg just enough and send him out.”
“Th-thank you! Thank you!! I’ll definitely find out!!”
Bark bowed with a radiant smile of pure joy. I answered with nothing more than a polite business smile.
Jamie glanced at me briefly, then dropped to one knee, clamped both hands around Bark’s right thigh where the dagger was still buried, and squeezed hard.
“Ghhhk……!!”
Tears spilled from Bark’s eyes. Unfortunately for him, no adult present was the sort to be moved by a child’s tears.
Shlick.
The dagger slid free of his calf with deliberate slowness under Jamie’s grip. She pressed the handkerchief I’d left on the floor against the wound, then pulled out another and bound it tight.
“Get lost.”
“Th-thank you. Thank you.”
Bark’s face had gone deathly pale, yet he kept bobbing his head toward us until the moment he vanished through the door.
“Priest.”
“I know.”
I met Jamie’s worried gaze with a smile that held a little more sincerity than the business one.
“It’s not as blatant as the special management zones, but a fair number of organization members have already filtered into Sector 11, haven’t they?”
Jamie blinked once instead of answering.
“In some ways it’s even more sensitive than Sectors 13 or 14, so of course they would. Which means if a rumor like that really was circulating in Sector 11, I would have heard it from your mouth first—not from that boy’s.”
“…….”
Only then did her expression lighten. She nodded.
“Honestly, the kids in the slums are sharp.”
“You don’t survive here if you’re not.”
I’d only been living here a little over a month.
But the place was so densely colored that it had been more than enough time to grasp how things worked.
“Priest.”
“Yes?”
Jamie hesitated a moment before continuing.
“I know it’s overstepping, but if you let that child go as he is, I believe the chance he’ll become a negative factor for you is extremely high.”
“I agree to a point.”
First, word might spread that I was softer on kids than expected.
That would naturally raise the odds of all sorts of strange things coming to cling to me.
Honestly, that part didn’t bother me much.
A few heads cracked open and the rumor would die down fast enough.
“There’s a possibility that child will sell you out.”
“He walked away after taking a knife, so he’d make useful bait.”
“Exactly as you say.”
I looked down at Vita, who had begun to twitch as if she were about to wake.
“You didn’t overstep at all. Thank you for worrying.”
“Not at all.”
Jamie bowed her head slightly. I smiled faintly and went on.
“Still, don’t worry too much. I’m not broad-minded enough to simply let someone who tried to play me walk free.”
“Mm.”
She made a noncommittal sound—agreement mixed with the knowledge that she shouldn’t show it openly—two conflicting feelings colliding in her voice.
“So I’d appreciate it if you’d wake up already.”
I stretched out my left foot and nudged Vita’s ruined right fingers.
“Ugh……!!”
Vita, who’d been faking unconsciousness, couldn’t hold back the pain. She groaned and thrashed hard.
“Since you’re awake, let’s talk.”
I jerked my chin. Jamie moved to Vita’s head, grabbed her hair, and hauled her upright.
“Did you attack me because you mixed up dream memories with reality?”
“…Do I look like a psycho to you?”
“There are many kinds of mental illness.”
Mine, for example.
“Then I’d like to hear the reason you attacked me—or rather, the reason you showed killing intent. If you tell me straight, I’ll fix your body right away and pretend the earlier incident never happened.”
“…You don’t know?”
“Hold on.”
Vita looked ready to flare up again, so I decided to correct the part she seemed to be misunderstanding first.
“What I designed was only the happy parts of your dream, Vita. I’ve peeked into your dreams twice myself. So I can say this with certainty: the nightmare you had wasn’t my doing. Goddess Verdia interfered.”
“…….”
The sharp aura that had been leaking out of her scattered into nothing. The deep furrow between her brows smoothed back to normal.
“That reaction tells me I’ve got the general picture.”
The girl I’d seen in her dream.
She had clearly been an actress following a script, yet she hadn’t been one of the dream’s native residents.
“Vita. Do you know this? Gods casually do things we humans think are impossible. That’s one of the reasons people worship and fear them.”
I drew a small crystal vial of Nectar from my coat.
“The reason you’re angry is probably because of the precious person you met in the dream. More precisely, you’re furious that someone freely toyed with your memories and that precious person.”
“…….”
She didn’t answer, but in this case silence was agreement.
“If that’s what drove a wedge between us, then luckily it looks easy to fix.”
I stood, dropped to one knee in front of Vita—who was still being held upright by Jamie’s grip—and matched her eye level. Then I uncorked the crystal vial.
“The person you hold so dear isn’t a dream resident created by divine power.”
“……?”
I held out the clear, sky-blue liquid that made you wonder what it would taste like.
“She is real. Goddess Verdia brought her in herself and cast her as an actress—payment for the privilege of watching your dream.”
“R-real… y-you mean…?”
“Yes. If you can’t believe it, I’ll swear it.”
Vita’s pupils dilated so wide she looked almost helpless. Her lips worked soundlessly for a long time.
“Judging by the reaction, the misunderstanding seems cleared up.”
I gently waved the Nectar in front of her widened eyes.
“I won’t tell you what this is. But if you want to make peace with me, drink it.”
“…….”
She didn’t answer. She simply stared at the Nectar in my hand, then—
“…Ah.”
—softly parted her lips, still swollen from Jamie’s beating.