Voice of the Heavens (2)
The defining traits of mermaids, as they always appear in old tales and fairy stories, are simple enough.
For one, their voices are breathtakingly beautiful, and they are beings of peerless beauty from the waist up — with a fish's tail below.
'But unlike the stories, a mermaid can change her lower body at will.'
Which meant that if she wished, she could walk about on land just like a human.
Of course, there were limits to how long that could last, and she needed time in her fish form to recharge.
Marin spoke with a deeply sour expression on her face.
"Yeah, I'm a mermaid. So what about it? You never seen one before?"
"No, it's not that, but……"
Oscar had seen mermaids plenty of times in his past life as well.
Exchange between humans and mermaids had been more active than one might expect.
Even so, that had mostly been along the coasts; this seemed to be his first time seeing one in the inland regions.
Catching that thought on his face, Evelyn added her own explanation.
"Marin is a half. Because of that, she can maintain her human form for much longer, and she's largely free of sea homesickness as well."
"A half — as in, between a human and a mermaid?"
"Yes."
"Ah……"
Merfolk were so strikingly beautiful that political marriages with other races had been common since ancient times.
Some mermaids did marry and live happily, but most ended up afflicted with sea homesickness.
'And once they wither away from that illness and die, their half-blood children are usually cast aside.'
They were beings welcomed by neither land nor sea.
Perhaps that was why Marin Maria had started singing at such a young age……
The moment Marin caught the look of pity on Oscar's face, she exploded in fury.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! My parents married for love, and they're BOTH still alive!"
"……"
Well, that was a relief, then.
Oscar, feeling awkward for no good reason, coughed dryly and spoke firmly.
"In any case, what can't be done can't be done. If you go through with this concert, there's a high probability you will die. And above all, the audience could be put in danger as well."
"……I know I'm being selfish. But the stands are ringed with protective artifacts, so it'll really be fine."
Gripping.
Marin clenched both fists tight and stared straight into his eyes.
"Even if it kills me, I can't give up this concert. That's how resolved I am."
"Marin!"
Evelyn scolded her with a deliberately angry face, but it didn't so much as brush her.
"You know it too, right, sis? If we get scared and back down here, there won't be another chance."
Crunch!
Sparks seemed to fly from her gritted teeth and glaring eyes.
"……I've spent the past three years running toward this one performance and nothing else. All that time, even as I was discriminated against and looked down on like it was as natural as breathing, I endured it — playing nice, playing innocent, heh-heh-ing my way through. I sang until I was on the verge of bursting a lung every single day, and I stayed up every night composing songs and writing lyrics. The reward for those goddamn grueling days is sitting right in front of me, and I'm supposed to give it up over some petty jealousy and spite……? Don't make me laugh. I can't give it up."
You could feel the smothered rage and the buried sorrow packed into every single word that left her mouth.
Faced with that raw, unvarnished emotion, Oscar asked:
"Why are you betting everything on this one performance? Even if you never stood on that stage, anyone with ears knows you're the best."
"……As you know, I'm a half, and my mother's human. Which means, obviously, the mermaid side is my father's."
She gave a single nod.
"They live in a fishing village where the sea is right at your feet the moment you stumble. Naturally…… they assumed sea homesickness had nothing to do with them. I thought the same thing at first, myself."
"What do you mean?"
"Yeah — my father was diagnosed with sea homesickness four years ago."
Four years.
Those struck by sea homesickness usually died within five, so there wasn't much time left.
"You're asking why I'm staking my life on this performance? Because if I hold a concert at the Baran Dome, I earn the right to perform before His Majesty the Emperor at the New Year's celebration."
"……Ah. I see."
Now he understood.
What it was she wanted.
"Judging by your face, you've got a fair guess. That's right — if I deliver the finest performance of my life before His Majesty, the reward I receive in return will be a few drops of Elixir. And that's what I need."
The Elixir, the legendary panacea, would wipe sea homesickness away without a trace.
Having reasoned it through that far, Oscar felt a genuine, unguarded admiration.
"So you've been planning this since four years ago?"
"……I tried everything to save my father, but the only thing I was better at than anyone else was singing. So this was the only path I could choose."
"……"
Because she wanted to save her father. A girl from a fishing village had gripped the microphone with that one thought, and nothing else —
carrying the ambition to stand on the stage every singer dreams of and bring home the cure before her father left for the heavens.
'……And in just three short years, she made that dream a reality.'
Even without anyone explaining it, he knew the journey must have been brutal.
It would have been hours of whipping a young heart that wanted to rest, to sleep, to play, just to keep going.
……Honestly speaking, it was more than a little impressive.
Impressive enough that he wanted to pat her head and tell her she'd done well.
"Mm."
Oscar drew a breath in through his lips.
He'd come from a back alley, never knowing who his parents were — and of course, he'd never had a father either.
'But that thing called a father — if it feels anything like Master did……'
When it came to the desire to save someone by any means necessary, he could sympathize more deeply than anyone.
Hooooh. With a sigh pulled up from the very bottom of his lungs, Oscar spoke.
"First, I'll verify whether the audience's safety has genuinely been secured. If those measures pass my standards…… then make peace with dying on that stage if it comes to it, because I won't be accepting retractions."
"Th-that means?"
"Let's give it a shot. But in exchange, there's one bit of practice we'll need to do first."
"Practice? What kind of practice?"
"What was the word for it again… ah, right."
As the word came back to him, Oscar smirked.
"It's a kind of rehearsal."
A lavish mansion built at the very highest point of Baran's wealthiest district.
That place was Ara Sweet's family home.
Without ever setting foot in a luxury hotel, she could take in the whole panorama of Baran with a single glance.
Tink, tink. She swirled her whiskey glass and spoke.
"I knew she was stubborn, but I never imagined she was this bad."
"Tell me about it. Does she actually not believe we'll kill her?"
"No — she'd rather die on that stage than walk away. That's how dogged she is."
She thought of the woman staying somewhere within the Grand Baran Hotel, visible in the far distance.
'……Marin Maria.'
When they'd first met, Ara was already a name on everyone's lips, and Marin was a fresh-faced rookie who had just debuted.
She still remembered, crystal clear, the look in the girl's eyes as she came to pay her respects at the waiting room where Ara was staying.
'The moment I laid eyes on that lowborn country girl, I knew.'
Ah — those are the eyes of someone dreaming the same dream as me.
Of course, she hadn't thought much of it at the time.
Anyone could dream a dream, after all.
Even if it was a hollow dream that would never come true.
'But that insolent little thing chased after me — slowly, but relentlessly.'
And by the time she came back to her senses, the girl had already overtaken her.
Her standing as the diva of the next generation, the singer expected to grace the Baran Dome, had begun to waver.
From that point on, she tried every dirty trick there was to drag her down.
She quietly spread articles about her lowborn country origins, and those articles caused an absolute firestorm.
'And then she suddenly got wrapped in this plucky-girl-supporting-her-family image, and her fame shot through the roof.'
When she used her close junior singers to orchestrate a group ostracism,
the fans sensed something was off, played detective, and only the juniors ended up falling into ruin.
She tried to sink Marin any number of times after that, but every single time, the girl slipped away like she was blessed with luck.
'At this point, I have to stop calling it luck.'
If no one else, Ara Sweet could be certain of one thing.
Those seemingly clueless, innocent eyes were nothing more than a disgusting mask.
Perhaps behind that mask lurked someone truly shocking — someone spitting out curses without a moment's hesitation.
'……The Baran Dome.'
She turned her gaze and drank in the majestic dome rising in the far distance.
Performing there was her dream — the dream of every singer.
Frankly, she had never once doubted that Marin Maria would be the one standing there.
As much as it galled her, even she acknowledged the girl's talent.
'But it's supposed to be me first.'
Grip. Her hand tightened around the whiskey glass.
If Marin had followed the unspoken rule of the industry and yielded the venue to her senior this year —
and then quietly held her concert next year, nothing would have happened at all.
It would have ended with nothing more than a vague "I just can't stand her as a person."
But the dogged little thing had scraped and clawed to beat her, and in the end she'd claimed the venue.
'She means to humiliate me to the very end, doesn't she.'
In that case, she had no choice but to accept the challenge.
A deep smile spread across Ara's lips.
'But she'll soon find out just how foolish it is to make an enemy of me in this city.'
A city that ran not on dusty logic or noble causes, but on money, violence, and power.
An anthill of vice that people flooded into day after day, lured by that freedom and the empty dream of climbing the social ladder.
That was the Free City of Baran.
"Oh, by the way, I heard something interesting earlier."
At her manager's words, she turned her head.
"Something interesting?"
"Yeah. Apparently every time Marin leaves her lodgings, she's moving around with some man."
"A man……? A secret lover?"
"No, it doesn't seem to be that kind of scandal. From what I can tell, he's a bodyguard."
A bodyguard, hmm.
A light laugh escaped her lips.
"That is amusing, I'll admit. Wherever did she dig that one up?"
"Uh… probably some mercenary office or other?"
At her manager's naive answer, she shook her head slowly.
"Every mercenary in Baran City has already been contacted. Whatever price they're offered, I'll pay triple — and they are to refuse the job, no matter what."
Even without that, her father was already the odds-on favorite to win the next mayoral election.
No mercenary who wanted to keep working in Baran would dare get on his bad side.
Cocking the corner of her mouth upward, she looked back at her manager.
"……That bodyguard of hers. Shall we take a look at what he can do?"
"You mean kill him, right? Got it. I'll send a couple of decent ones or so."
Once the manager left the room, she sipped her whiskey and let out a playful, sideways smile.
If the bodyguard you fought so hard to find died right in front of your eyes — what kind of face would you make then?
To give the conclusion first: Oscar accepted the job.
He had visited the dome in person and inspected the stands, and the claim about the safety measures had turned out to be true.
He couldn't even fathom how much money had been poured into it — the protective artifacts installed there were practically an impregnable fortress.
"So that's really all the practice you wanted done? There's nothing more?"
After finishing the rehearsal, Marin Maria asked as they strolled along the frozen winter riverside.
The "practice" he'd insisted they do together had been, from her perspective, almost anticlimactically simple.
"Yes. It will help enormously. I assure you."
"……Hmm. Okay, then."
She nodded hesitantly, then let out a long breath and broke into a smile.
"Whew! I guess I can savor this freedom right now, huh? When Mr. Kilian isn't around, I was too scared to even go outside. I've been living on room service for every meal. I really am so grateful."
"……"
Don't be fooled by that angelic smile.
Behind it lurked a demon of profanity, ready to spew every filthy word in the book.
"I'm just earning my pay, that's all."
This was a job worth a full million bel, after all.
Once this business was over, it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend that money fitting himself out with some proper equipment.
Just as that leisurely thought was carrying him along —
"……"
He felt killing intent aimed at him.
Two sources: a man jogging across the great bridge ahead, and a middle-aged man ice-fishing on the far bank of the river.
'Only two, is it.'
Oscar glanced at Marin and Evelyn, who were chatting away in perfect peace, and let out a faint sigh.
No sense in needlessly unsettling those two.
Wind Bullet
Twang — twuum.
With two gunshots fired in near-total silence, the bodies of both men came apart.
"Worth every coin."
"Yeah, we get it — could you stop tooting your own horn now? I'd rather not hear people trash-talking you out in public too, you know?"
"……"
I really did earn my pay, though……
Oscar's eyes drooped into a sulk.