Jack and the Mad Dog
"Se-Seya, it hurts..." Jin, who was piggybacked on Seya's back, whined.
"Will you shut up? Whether it hurts or not isn't the problem right now, so just bear with it," Seya said, lowering his voice. Normally, he wouldn't have been this sharp, but the current situation didn't allow him to indulge Jin's whining while carrying him.
Seya squeezed himself into a narrow gap between the shacks of the shantytown and scanned the area. The big bearded man was a persistent bastard, still searching high and low for them.
What a stubborn old geezer, Seya thought, clicking his tongue.
"Kids! Come on out! I'm just trying to help!"
Terrified by the man's booming voice, Jin finally began to snivel.
"Jin, don't cry. Crying here won't do us any good." Seya muffled Jin's mouth as the boy sniffled and sobbed, keeping his own voice to a whisper. Even then, Jack's shouting from not too far away did not stop.
In Jack's mind, it was an effort to find the children quickly, but to Seya and Jin, it was nothing short of terrorizing.
Watching this in trembling fear, Jin glanced at Seya and spoke cautiously. "B-but he keeps saying he wants to help us while chasing us. Running away is scarier... Can't we just a-ask him for help?"
At the stuttered words of the younger boy, Seya's brow furrowed instantly. Knowing Seya's temper, Jin flinched.
"Jin, did you forget what the adults who said they'd help us did to us?"
Jin shut his mouth and nodded.
"You can't trust any adults. Got it?"
"...Yeah." Sniffling and swallowing his tears, Jin held it in.
Confirming this, Seya anxiously looked around. The opponent was a bearded giant, but he was tougher than he looked. He was the fastest and most persistent adult Seya had ever seen. He remembered running like crazy a few days ago to lure him away when he was loitering in front of Jill and Jin's house.
Just when Seya thought he had shaken him off, the man would catch up right behind him. Just when Seya thought there was no way he could follow him here, the man would somehow burst in. The memory still sent a shiver down Seya's spine. That day, Seya had completely drained his stamina from running around uselessly and had to lie in bed all day the next day.
In other words, this was not an opponent he could shake off while carrying Jin on his back.
After a moment of deliberation, Seya lowered the trembling younger boy from his back. To the bewildered Jin, Seya spoke quickly in a hushed tone.
"Alright, Jin. Listen to me carefully. You stay hidden here. Once you see me lure that old geezer far away, run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. Then go back to where Jill is."
The young boy's eyes shook with anxiety. "B-but what about you, Seya?"
"I'll shake him off quickly and follow you," Seya answered dismissively, rolling up his outer coat and strapping it to his back. Since the clothes Seya wore and the ones Jin wore were nothing more than filthy, soot-stained rags, it actually looked like a fairly convincing decoy of a small child at a glance.
"Am I really going alone?"
"I can't lure him away with you on my back. Are you scared?"
"Of course I am. I'm not fast like you, Seya..." Jin mumbled, looking up at Seya.
"Of course. I'm the fastest. Besides, you managed to come all this way by yourself today, so what's there to be scared of on the way back? You should worry more about Jill than that mister. When you get back, it won't end with just a simple scolding."
Flicking the forehead of the insecure Jin, Seya spoke with forced cheerfulness. "Alright, I'm off. When you get back, tell Jill to give me all her food from now on. And don't tell Mir about what happened today!"
Showing a confidence that made it seem like his escape was a foregone conclusion, Seya quickly darted out from between the wooden planks where they had been hiding.
Not long after, the man's shouting could be heard from a distance.
"Huh? Hey! Wait a minute!"
"Do you think I'd actually wait?!" Seya's voice, equally loud, echoed back.
Listening to their shouting filtering through his tightly covered ears, Jin curled himself into a tight ball.
***
He runs like a bat out of hell, Jack thought as he stared at the back of the filthy child's head, which seemed just within reach but remained frustratingly elusive.
His speed was one thing, but his ability to change directions was absolutely mind-boggling. He would suddenly veer right in an alleyway, or run up a wall out of nowhere. Every time Jack thought he was catching up, the kid would vanish from sight with some miraculous trick, leaving Jack's head spinning. But if Jack slowed down even a little, the distance widened instantly, leaving him no time to map out these winding alleys.
If our guys had legs this fast, we'd have nothing to fear. Clicking his tongue, Jack shook off the useless thoughts and poured more strength into his legs as they kicked off the ground. The distance closed slightly once more.
How does a kid who looks like he hasn't eaten a decent meal in his life have so much stamina? And he's not even running alone; he's carrying another kid on his back.
Staring in reluctant admiration at the child running at such a speed while carrying another, Jack suddenly narrowed his eyes. Wait, is that actually a kid? It's dark and small, but...
Just as he thought this, the kid turned another corner in the alley. One of the legs dangling from his back struck the wall with a dull thud.
Jack stopped in his tracks.
"Dammit."
How stupid of me. He had been so distracted by the kid's sheer speed that he hadn't noticed. Whatever was strapped to that back, it wasn't the kid who had appeared at the blue-roofed house. Otherwise, there was no way that crybaby of a child would have taken a hard hit to the leg like that without making a single peep.
He immediately spun around and headed back toward the spot where the fast kid had first emerged. As Jack deliberately made loud footsteps, he felt the kid glance back at him.
"Huh? Hey! Where are you going?!"
The tables had turned.
Seya, who had been grinning confidently thinking the man had finally given up the chase and was heading back, cried out in panic as he realized the direction Jack was running. Confirmed in his suspicion, Jack smirked.
"I asked where you're going, you old geezer!!"
Even the rude remarks echoing from behind felt amusing now, and Jack sprinted forward with vigor. This is absolutely thrilling.
***
Yigo Crysa, who had once again ceased functioning like a powered-down robot, stared blankly into space, completely unaware of whether a squirrel or a human was standing right in front of him.
It had been several hours since Mentil Abaran had placed her suggestion on Yigo Crysa and departed. Outside, the dawn sun was likely beginning to show itself.
Her firm yet gentle voice echoed in the silence. A voice that was far too soft for someone threatening to drag away every single member of the Crysa family if he failed to find it within a week. Yes, it was Mentil Abaran, without a shadow of a doubt.
The problem was, why was Yigo Crysa the target of that threat?
"Why you, of all people? There was absolutely no reason for this in the original story."
Even speaking to those unfocused eyes, there was no way Yigo could answer.
She had said "every member of the Crysa family." Who could guarantee that didn't include the one Crysa left in the Fides Duchy?
***
At the edge of the shantytown, where a crumbling pillar stood next to a filthy sewer, squeezing through a tiny gap revealed a long path reeking of an unbearable stench. On these harsh streets, few would bother to push through a path that appeared blocked at first glance.
If one endured the foul odor and ventured deeper and deeper inside, a boulder as tall as an adult blocked the way. Adults usually assumed this was the end of the road. But by squeezing a small body through the narrow crevice, a vast cavern soon welcomed the visitor.
In this spacious cavern, about a dozen children had built crude, makeshift shacks with their clumsy hands. Though they were ragged hovels barely fit for human habitation, the environment was not much different from what these shantytown children were already used to.
Relieved to have finally made it back, Jin burst into tears.
"Sniff, ugh... Sis! Sis!" And he wandered around, searching for the sister he relied on most.
Since Jin wandering around crying was not a rare sight here, the other children did not stop what they were doing to look. Here, "what they were doing" mostly consisted of eating stolen food before it spoiled, or lying perfectly still to avoid wasting precious energy.
"Jill! Your crybaby brother is making a racket again!" One of the children, annoyed by Jin's crying, shouted loudly.
"I told you not to call my brother that!" Soon, Jill, wearing a tattered brown dress, approached with a scowl.
Seeing his sister at last, Jin felt a wave of relief and, true to his crybaby nature, wailed even louder.
"What is it? Jin, what's wrong? Did someone bully you again? Or are you hungry?"
"S-Sis, Seya! Seya...!" Jin stammered to Jill, who was checking him over with rough but caring hands.
"What about Seya?"
At the voice cutting in between them, Jin gasped.
"Mir!" Jill called out in relief as Mir approached them.
The moment Jin saw the face of Mir, Seya's closest friend, his chest tightened and ran cold, as if he had swallowed a fistful of freezing snow. While others claimed Seya, with his mad-dog temper, was the scariest, Jin found Mir—who was always glued to Seya's side—far more terrifying than anyone else here. Feeling as though any lie would be instantly seen through under Mir's quiet, measured speech, Jin could barely even meet his eyes.
"Jin, did something happen to Seya?"
"Oh, right. Jin, where on earth did you go to look so pale...?" Jill's face suddenly paled as she spoke. "Where did you go? Did you go back to the house?"
Fearing that only more sobs would come out if he spoke, Jin simply nodded.
"Oh, for heaven's sake! I told you it's dangerous to go there now!"
Jill and Jin had moved their shelter here precisely because of the giant man who had come looking for them at their house a few days ago. She had felt anxious ever since young Jin kept fretting about what would happen if their father returned while they were gone. Jill wanted to punch her past self for merely brushing it off, unable to bring herself to tell him that their father would never return even if they waited a lifetime.
He finally went and did it.
While Jill scratched her head in frustration, her pigtails shaking as she scolded her brother, Mir remained perfectly calm.
"Jin, I asked what happened to Seya."
"H-he got caught by that mister. The one who came to our house back then..." Jin's throat tightened as he recalled the last image of Seya being lifted by the scruff of his neck by that mountain of a man. "Because of me... Seya got caught because of me!"
"Then why did you go there again?! Dammit, if he really got caught... Mir! Where are you going?!" Jill ran her hand roughly through her hair as she scolded Jin, then yelled toward the back of Mir's small head as he walked away.
But Mir did not look back.
Sensing that the cold gaze Mir had directed at him in his final moments held more than enough silent condemnation, Jin hung his head and could only stammer out answers to Jill's barrage of questions.