The Manhunt (2)
"That Natalia bitch—she said she needed money to buy a house! ARGH!"
"I told you to stop lending money to the girls······."
"Ah, but she seemed fine when I first met her! She had the face of someone who always honored her debts!"
"What kind of face reading is that supposed to be, Irina······."
Situation: emergency.
Lyuba Tavern had gone into lockdown.
Word was that Natalia had run off with Irina's money.
Seriously, does she lend money to just anyone?
There were suckers, and then there was this sucker.
Lately everything had been so warm and fuzzy that I'd been feeling vaguely uneasy about it. Right. This was how things were supposed to be.
A place packed full of women selling their bodies was legally required to have at least this level of incident.
If anything, it was strange that we'd gone this long without one.
"When did she leave the shop?"
"Two hours before closing."
"Ha. Damn. That's a decent head start······."
"Contact the guards right away. I'll look into hiring a bounty hunter."
Considering they'd just lost a sum worth an entire house, both Irina and the Master looked remarkably calm.
The only two here actually panicking were Sasha and me.
Tia, for her part, just sat on my lap yawning······.
"Blonde woman, early twenties. Roughly fifty kilograms, a hair under a hundred and sixty centimeters tall. Yes, yes. And also······."
Irina snatched up the phone immediately and began describing Natalia's appearance in painstaking detail.
The Master was next to her, apparently firing off calls to somewhere else as well.
Truthfully, this was none of my business by this point, but it wasn't all that late yet, so I decided to watch the show a little. I'd gotten curious how this would resolve itself.
"Ah! They say she's already passed through the city gate! The North Gate!"
"Damn it. That was fast. At this point there's no choice but to hire someone."
"Get me the cheapest one you can find."
"About that. They've all clocked out for the day—apparently only one is on standby right now."
"What's the problem? Hire him right now and tell him to go after Natalia!"
"Well, the thing is, that guy happens to be Sailor."
"Ugh."
Irina's face crumpled on the spot.
Who the hell was this Sailor guy?
"Sailor? What's that supposed to mean?"
"We've got mercenaries stationed here on permanent standby. Think of them like contractors—they'll do anything for money. And among them, the one infamous for charging absolutely extortionate rates is the guy they call Sailor."
"How much is he asking to track her down?"
"Ten million won."
"Ugh······."
"Seriously?! It's not like he has to track down some woman whose location he doesn't even know—we're handing him the direction and everything, and it's still ten million won! HA!"
So this Sailor fellow was apparently the highest-priced errand boy in the whole 'we-do-anything' agency business.
And he was the only person currently available.
From Irina's perspective, it was enough to make her climb the walls.
She looked even angrier now than she had when she first heard the money was gone.
"Ugh. At this rate the remedy's gonna cost more than the disease."
"What are you going to do? Just let her go?"
"No. Hire him. I need to show these girls that anyone who steals my money and runs gets dragged back no matter what it takes."
A woman with a vicious streak, apparently.
I'd assumed she was a total pushover, but there was more to her than that.
I took the bucket of popcorn Sasha tossed over and quietly munched away beside Tia, just spectating.
"Yes. Yes. Ten million won. I'll transfer it immediately. Is that all settled? Yeees!"
"Is it done?"
"Yep. He's on his way now, and he'll deliver her straight back here once he's got her."
"As he should. It's ten-million-won service. If I'd had to go pick her up myself, there'd have been a Star Point bombing."
"Well, everything on our end is done, so I guess now we wait."
From here on out, all that was left was waiting.
Maybe because she'd just burned ten million won in a single heartbeat, Irina's face had turned absolutely thunderous.
Even when Tia pestered and teased her from the side now and then, her expression refused to soften. She was clearly furious.
"Imo. Imooo."
"······."
"Irina Unnie?"
"Ougu-ougu. Did you call me, our Tia? Sorry, I couldn't quite hear you."
"That's a lie."
"It's true, it's true. Unnie's ears just don't pick up the word 'Imo' very well."
Though the way she melted into goo at 'Unnie' made me think that wasn't entirely accurate.
Anyway, we'd waited about ten minutes when the phone buzzed with a long rattle.
The Master, standing right at attention beside it, snatched up the receiver in a flash.
"What did he say?"
"Capture successful. Says he's delivering her now."
"Excuse me? Already? Did that bastard seriously just stay chatting next to Natalia the whole time?"
"How do you think he got so fast—and so expensive? At least the ten million's money well spent."
"Money well spent my ass. Ten million won to grab an unarmed woman by the hair and drag her back? Does that sound reasonable to you······."
Sounded like the job had wrapped up neatly.
Now, so long as that Sailor fellow didn't drag back the wrong woman entirely, everything would be perfect.
Irina was still grumbling out one complaint after another—
In other words, it hadn't even been five minutes since the call came in.
The door burst open roughly, and a man shouldering an enormous sack stepped inside.
"Am I correct that you placed the service order? The customer name, let's see here... 'CuteSparklingMagicalGirlEriri'?"
"I don't think that's us—"
"That's me······."
The Master raised his hand high, face burning red.
Good heavens.
Why on earth would anyone pick a nickname like that······.
I was too stunned to produce a single word.
"Please verify the merchandise. Not a scratch on her—I only knocked her out."
"Oh. Right. Natalia."
Irina peered inside the sack and clapped her hands together.
Fifteen minutes from request to capture, plus delivery. That was practically lightning-fast sorcery.
So this was the might of the number-one errand runner in the business.
Expected a hulking brute. Apparently not.
He'd said mercenary, so I'd pictured some hulking man, but he was fairly short and slight of build—you could have told me he was a woman and I'd have believed it.
First time I'd ever seen a man smaller than that Leopard bastard.
Actually, maybe he really was a woman.
But something was odd about Tia.
She kept staring intently at Sailor's face, which was mostly hidden by a mask, only his eyes showing.
"What is it, Tia?"
"Person Mama feels like seen somewhere before."
"······?"
At Tia's words, I studied him more carefully a second time.
If Tia knew someone, there was no way I wouldn't.
Yet no matter how I racked my brain, my memory contained no pervert wrapped head to toe in clothes that black.
"You sure?"
"Mmmm······?"
Tia's head tilted in confusion.
Apparently she wasn't certain after all.
Figured.
The only gloomy-looking person I knew was that priest—Alex? Alexander? Something like that.
"I'll transfer the payment first thing tomorrow morning, once the sun's up and the banks open."
"Confirmed, my lady. Thank you for your patronage, and please call on us again."
"Hahaha. Of course I will."
Irina beamed a radiant smile.
Translated, that meant: let's see you catch me calling again.
Just as Sailor was about to leave the shop, his gaze drifted toward Tia—and stopped for a moment.
Then that gaze climbed slowly upward and came to rest on my face.
It was only the briefest instant, but I saw his eyes waver ever so slightly.
"Excuse me—"
"I'll take my leave now."
He flat-out ignored my voice, and in the blink of an eye, Sailor was gone.
Just in case, I hurried outside after him, but he had already vanished without a trace.
I'd wondered if he might be someone who knew about me······.
"What was that about? Someone you know?"
"No. Or... maybe I don't know him."
"Ooh. How romantic? Did he fall for you?"
"What on earth are you talking about······."
Ugh.
A wave of nausea washed over me.
There was no way I'd ever fall for a man.
"Now then. We burned ten million won catching this adorable little thing, so what are we going to do with her?"
Irina flipped open the sack and upended it, and out tumbled a blonde woman dead asleep, oblivious to the world.
Oh. I remember her.
The one who kept shoving Tia to the ground for no reason whatsoever.
The one who ignored Sasha's frantic plea to borrow a pad—even with a stash of them right there in her bag.
Looking back now, she was trash to the very core.
"What could we do that would make the rumor spread that she got properly wrecked······."
"Just kill her. Cut her head off and hang it above the shop door. That'd make a fine warning to the others."
"······."
That was a joke.
But I felt everyone's stares stabbing into me, prickly and sharp.
Even Tia was looking up at me blankly.
After glaring at me for a moment as if I'd lost my mind, Irina finally spoke.
"You idiot. Then we'd never get the stolen money back. Killing her is off the table."
"······."
Wow, she's really taking this seriously.
Apparently I was the one in the wrong for cracking a joke in this situation.
I decided to take a step back and let the two of them sort it out themselves.
"Should we just sell her off as a slave?"
"Confident we can get more than ten million for her? Though I doubt anyone would pay that much for a rag like this."
"Then how about making her work unpaid for a while? I'll collect her wages on her behalf."
"No. I refuse. This type of employee, I decline."
"Then honestly, killing her like Yulia said might not be so bad. If we disassemble her and sell the parts off to hospitals piece by piece, we'd pull in nine figures, no problem."
"Oooh······."
"T-Tia. Shall we go somewhere else for a bit?"
The conversation had gotten way too gruesome.
Thoroughly frightened, I rushed Tia outside.
My joke was about to become reality.
Only then did I notice that Sasha had also fled out with both hands clamped tight over her ears.
I gazed at Sasha for a little while, and my heart grew complicated.
If I took a job as a maid, free outings would become difficult, which meant I wouldn't get to see Sasha or Irina often either.
I found myself wanting to make a few more memories.
"Let's leave the cleanup to those two and call it a day."
"Y-yes, let's······."
"Sasha. Do you like curry?"
"Sorry? Curry?"
"I made way too much of it. If you want some, stop by our place and eat before you head home. Or I could pack some for you, either's fine."
"Sha-sha! Mama's curry is su-per tasty!"
"Then shall we impose on you, just this once?"
"Hehehe. Hold Mama's hand. Hold Sasha's hand······."
For the first time, I was about to have a guest over at our home.
But strangely enough, it didn't feel like inviting a guest at all—it felt as comfortable as welcoming family in.
Sasha and I each took one of Tia's arms and walked side by side down the street.