The Golden Bell (3)
There are people like that.
Appearing normal on the outside while their insides are all twisted.
“Senior, I heard things have been rough for you lately?”
Lecas came into my office.
He was the 1st-grade prosecutor assigned to the Capital Defense Force, two years my junior.
Of course, he was now an immeasurably high-ranking official, but even so, a greeting suited for someone who had once been my senior was appropriate.
“I bought some desserts so you might feel better if you ate something sweet.”
He had the manners of someone dropping by a colleague’s office.
His hands were full of desserts.
Marian seemed quite pleased.
He looked perfectly fine on the surface.
He stuffed a fried corn-flavored cookie into his mouth and swept his gaze across the office.
“Hey, what kind of charges get your entire desk emptied? Not a single thing left. I always thought you were so meticulous about your own management.”
The more he let his true feelings show, the blacker the soot that spilled out.
Lecas bent his waist and thoroughly checked the low bookshelf before standing straight again.
His blue eyes were shaking as if satisfied.
“What brings you here?”
“I’m worried because your name is all over the news every day, so I came to check. You look worse than I thought.”
Lecas, who had been scanning the room, let out a low whistle.
Unlike the alcohol scent clinging to my body, a refreshing mint scent wafted from him.
“Do you need anything?”
“Nothing.”
“I could speak well with the National Tax Service, or even the Audit Bureau. There must be something you want me to pass on.”
I put my hands in my pockets and drew closer to him.
“How have you been lately?”
Lecas’s pupils flickered subtly.
Every time they blinked, the red dot inside his blue eyes became sharply visible.
“Senior, you seem like someone who has completely erased the past. You’re still the same whether then or now.”
Lecas’s mouth was smiling, but his eyes were not.
The red dot that revealed its presence in the center of his pupils kept flickering ominously.
Lecas seemed to have given up on his search and slipped his hand into his pocket to match my posture.
His blue eyes appeared to be recalling the past.
* * * * *
After being appointed a freelance prosecutor of the Capital Defense Force, the first partner I was paired with was the prosecutor two generations below me, Lecas.
He had been refreshingly cheerful without a single wrinkle.
Always number one, but not the type who acted superior; he loved pranks.
Born into a wealthy family, raised with plenty of emotional support, and a young man with both body and mind in good health.
But it didn’t take long for him to change.
He was always blocked by the wall I was.
Losing the number-one title that defined him, and the Capital Defense Force’s attention shifted entirely to me.
That was when I remembered.
He had always been restless, as if chasing something.
“If you team up with a useless guy, it’s as good as death.”
“Haa, if it weren’t for that guy, I could have caught the culprit faster.”
“He’s probably a spy. It seems like operational information leaked.”
They started blaming external factors for the failure.
The more they did, the more he was isolated.
Neighbors and the command stopped looking for him, and only mundane, promotion-far work was assigned to him, making his performance hard to notice.
But Lecas was a natural talent.
Outstanding physical condition, sharp mind, and overwhelming ability helped him return to the field.
That was his mistake.
He had been too hasty.
Haste invited mistakes.
“All clear.”
“The site situation is clean. Terrorists are gathered inside the tower.”
Lecas’s low voice came through the magic transceiver.
Lecas had been ambushing the base of the heretic-terrorist suspects.
Intelligence that they were preparing terrorism against the Gilorian Empire palace.
Suspects: heretic-terrorist group.
The Capital Defense Force immediately mobilized the Counter-Terrorism Unit.
The unit was composed only of top-tier agents.
Clearly, the Capital Defense Force command headquarters had lost sight of their goal in the eyes of the palace-terrorism storm.
Lecas, who had returned to the field team leader for the first time in half a year, was weighed down by the burden of self-proof.
‘Lecas should not be sent as the field team leader.’
My objection was in vain.
The Capital Defense Force command headquarters’s decision could not be overturned.
“Lecas, you must thoroughly search for any traps.”
I had no choice but to stay at the base since I had to command the air support unit, and all I could do was repeatedly warn Lecas.
- Alpha here. Entering the second base.
The movement of the top-tier agents, real-time confirmed through the magic video recorder, was swift and concise.
“Wait a moment.”
But faint mana devices appeared in my eyes.
“Lecas, it’s a detonator.”
- Senior, it’s a device disguised as a bomb.
“We have to confirm it properly and enter. Hold on. Send the bomb disposal team.”
- This is the perfect opportunity. I’m the most accurate right on the site.
“Lecas’s order. Wait.”
- I’ll handle the aftermath. Alpha One, Alpha Two. Entering.”
The memories that followed were stained with blood.
The terrorist group chose suicide.
Everyone on the site died.
Only Lecas survived.
* * * * *
“I… Shall we sit and talk?”
Suddenly, a clear face turned us back to reality.
It was Marian, who had prepared cookies and tea.
Lecas looked at Marian with a bitter expression and asked,
“Is it enjoyable?”
“Well… I guess so.”
“Senior, no, Prosecutor Zeo is not that kind of loyal person.”
At that time, I had attended the Investigation Committee for the All-Team-Member-Death Incident and stated the facts as they were.
I had not prepared any defense for him, nor offered any separate consolation in private.
“Yes… I don’t have much loyalty to any race either. Elves are fine.”
Marian smiled brightly and returned to her seat.
Lecas stared at her back in disbelief.
“She’s a good person. Life is unfair.”
He muttered quietly.
“What comes out of your mouth doesn’t sound like you, Prosecutor Lecas.”
“Lecas Major.”
Lecas corrected, raising his eyes.
That was right.
Lecas had been fast-tracked for his counter-terrorism heretic suppression achievements.
Although everyone had died, the actual terrorist group had been preparing palace terrorism and, right before execution, the bomb the counter-terrorism unit had touched had killed the terrorists.
In any case, from the performance perspective, it was clearly a ‘success’.
And he was now the Major of the Capital Defense Force’s Counter-Terrorism Unit.
“What’s the point of being a major? You can’t even handle the field properly.”
Lecas had chosen the path of a bureaucrat who commanded them instead of appearing on the frontline.
Commanding thousands of agents, but handling the Empire’s dark matters rather than the case itself, he had become a bureaucrat.
Instead of consolation, I offered him warm tea.
“Senior hasn’t changed. No words, no consolation. Only to me? Or to Alex too?”
Lecas smiled bitterly and drank the tea, but I couldn’t do the same.
Lecas quietly muttered to me, frozen in place.
“Still, we occasionally contact each other. How much Alex followed Senior. He recently had a second child. Did you send a gift?”
A faint vitality returned to Lecas’s face.
“Even though I don’t feel like it, I should ask about my health too.”
Lecas smiled bitterly and lifted the golden hair covering his forehead.
On his forehead was a third eye.
A third eye that poured out a massive torrent of light as if to engulf the world.
That eye was closed, leaving a large scar.
“No matter how hard I try, he can’t open his eyes.”
He said in a bitter voice.
Lecas’s remaining two eyes were shaking unhealthily.
Along with the red dot left in his pupils.
Suddenly, I wondered what color those closed eyes might have been.
Like the clear blue coral of before, or would ominous red light be swirling?
“I’ll be in touch soon. Take your time, Senior.”
Lecas tossed out his words and prepared to stand.
“It was you?”
I pressed on Lecas’s shoulder as he tried to rise and asked.
A person who could move the National Tax Service, the Audit Bureau of the Prime Minister’s Office, and create false charges.
Lecas smiled shyly like a boy.
“It could be, or it could not be.”
He left those words and left the office.
I stared at Lecas’s retreating back for a long time.
Lecas crossing Hunter Street also stood still, looking up toward my office.
“Senior, is there something wrong? Did something happen between you and Major Lecas in the past?”
Marian asked cautiously.
“……”
“If your heart is bothering you, should I send a gift to that younger brother Alex from earlier?”
Seeing my expression freeze, Marian flinched slightly.
I let out a small sigh and said to Marian.
“You don’t have to worry.”
“If I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t have. Now that I do.”
“There’s a black star on the Capital Defense Force Memorial Tower.”
“What? Black star…”
I nodded lightly.
“…Alex died in the field five years ago.”
Lecas, who had been staring at me for a long time, turned his back and entered the bar on Hunter Street.
* * * * *
Two days later, I received another summons notice from the police station.
It was a notice to receive a psychometry magic spell from an agent dispatched by the Spirit Tower Association.
“It’s normal. Perfect as can be, and no impulse disorder or anything.”
I was locked in a sticky tube for over two hours and came out.
“It seems the complainants were under hypnosis magic. There’s a faint trace of mana left behind.”
The investigator told me the case was closed along with his hardships.
Of course, it was not guilty.
“I don’t know how many times the Fri-da Headquarters Chief came to the police station.”
The investigator shook his head and exhaled like a sigh.
It seemed the Fri-da Headquarters Chief had gone into a frenzy.
Rather than worrying about me, he probably couldn’t tolerate a crack in the Capital Defense Force’s reputation.
“But, what is your relationship with Major Lecas…?”
“?”
“He personally commanded the case.”
“Ah…”
I pretended not to notice the sticky gaze of the investigator and changed the subject.
“By the way, hypnosis magic?”
A trace that ordinary people would not notice.
The shop owners who had been hypnotized still had faintly shaking red dots in their pupils.
I had rung so many golden bells to confirm this.
The reason I asked the investigator even though I pretended not to know was to find out the identity of the person who performed the hypnosis magic.
More precisely, whose hypnosis magic they had used.
“There’s a rumor circulating that heretic groups are using Lecons lately.”
“Lecons?”
Surprising.
Although Lecons had fierce appearances, they lacked strong attack means, but they were monsters highly skilled in hypnosis magic.
They had the ability to store specific thoughts in others’ memories and use them advantageously for themselves.
The reason Gilorian Empire had not specially guarded against them was because Lecons were a race extremely loyal only to instinct.
Lecons used this ability only for hunting prey.
They marked the red dot like their trademark in the prey’s pupil and made them hallucinate before hunting.
I don’t know in which dungeon Lecons’ hypnosis ability was first discovered, but the Hunter Association secretly developed hypnosis using Lecons.
But secrets don’t last long.
After a few guilds that used group hypnosis magic inside the dungeon were wiped out, the Capital Defense Force intervened upon discovering the situation.
Currently, the Mana Commission had restricted Lecons’ hypnosis ability by law and used it only for special criminals like traitors.
“Have there been any movements from the heretics lately?”
“I can’t give detailed information because it’s investigative secrecy. However, the Clovan Dungeon can only be entered by palace knights right now. It will likely be restricted for a while.”
The palace had directly intervened.
What was happening in the dungeon again?
Or at the Gilorian Empire border?
Very few people knew about Lecons’ hypnosis ability.
The usage method of the ability developed by the palace Hunter Association was known only to the top counter-terrorism response team of the Capital Defense Force.
And right now, the highest leader of the counter-terrorism response team was Lecas.
In my mind, a document I had seen in Fri-da Headquarters Chief’s office not long ago flashed.
The [City Monster Terror Response Plan] document with photos of people whose bodies had burst and died in horrific forms attached.
But the photos on the document had scars that were clearly different from what monsters would have done.
“So, who is the criminal who ordered me to be sued?”
“The chairman of the Merchants’ Union.”
“What was the motive?”
“That… committed suicide.”
The investigator hesitated for a long time before carefully speaking up.
“Whether it was actually suicide or murder is unclear… but orders came from above to treat it as such.”
It was impossible not to recall Lecas’s dangerous appearance when he visited my office days ago.
* * * * *
A week later, I received notice that all investigations into me, including the National Tax Service investigation and audits, had concluded.
“As I thought, there’s nothing better than having Jeon Woo-yeol.”
Fri-da Headquarters Chief informed me.
“Lecas Major was working hard.”
I had tried to live while forgetting the past.
But the past connection continued until now.
The time to meet him again had come.