Chapter 28

Chapter 28 : The Traitor Under the Lamp (4)

The fixer’s office was already in a place with plenty of foot traffic, but it still did not feel like enough.

A terrifying Underfolk!

What if he is actually the Former Underworld Lord!

The horror of an Underfolk creeping into everyday life!

Testimonies are pouring in from people who say they were bewitched and nearly devoured!

……To spread rumors like that, I needed an incident.

And the best possible place to attract attention.

So I camped out in the library I had come to frequent thanks to Konu, propped my chin on one hand, took up the most arrogant posture I could manage, and stared down every single person who walked by.

Most of them now recognized my pitiful image and passed me by with clean indifference, but a few frowned or picked petty fights.

Naturally, I scraped more effectively at their tempers with a half-enlightened smile like some Buddha.

For the sake of the rumors, I deliberately brushed back my hair to reveal the reddened iris.

From far away in a corner, I heard someone suck in a breath.

‘Mm, very good.’

—Thinking that idiotic thought, I flipped through whatever random book I had happened to pull off the shelf.

Then, in the middle of that, a face suddenly thrust itself out from between the books.

It was someone so unwelcome that the corners of my mouth, which I had been forcibly holding up, immediately began to tremble.

“Riiiwin? What are you doing hereee?”

Large, green eyes bright as the deep forest itself sparkled with heated excitement.

“Ru.”

Whenever she wore that expression, it was only ever because she intended either to dump a mountain of troublesome work on me or to unleash her research fervor regarding the Underfolk.

I hid my cold sweat as best I could and laughed weakly.

Ru’s eyes narrowed, then opened wide again.

“I heard you really did it?”

“Did what, exactly?”

“Timol!”

“Ah.”

I swallowed as I felt the attention of the people around us shifting this way.

Ru was unexpectedly being useful……

“How did you kill him? What weapon did you useee?”

“Please don’t kill someone who’s still alive.”

“Are those bloodstained eyes your Frameee?! Ah! So that was it! I heard people saying it resembled the overwhelming power of the Former Underworld Lord!”

“Reeeally?”

The rumors had already spread that far?

“I mean that legendary lord who made all kneel at his feet and recited blood-soaked screams! Aren’t you dying to know whether the tale about him laughing while driving blades into people’s hearts is true or not? They say no one could resist him, and that even after they died, they didn’t realize they were dead!”

Ru was excited.

I let all that rapid-fire chatter run in one ear and out the other as she reeled her elongated speech in tight and spilled it out at machine-gun speed.

Mm. So the Former Underworld Lord hadn’t really been human after all.

“Ahaha, I wouldn’t know. As you’re aware, I lost my memory…….”

“Ah! Right! In that case, why don’t you come with me and let’s investigate everything together, one by one, in lovely detail?”

“I don’t happen to have a hobby of being dissected alive.”

“Ahahahaha, Riwin really is an entertaining person.”

When you say that with your eyes shining like that, it sounds like something else entirely.

Still, thanks to her, I had every eye in the library on me now, so perhaps things had worked out well enough.

“Instead of this, why don’t you come visit the Record Archive sometimeee?”

“I heard not just anyone can enter there.”

“But Riwin would always be welcome, wouldn’t yooou?”

I smiled back at the smiling Ru and subtly shifted farther away from her.

A chill ran down my spine for no reason, and my perfectly healthy wrist began aching in phantom pain.

Help was help, but aversion was aversion.

“But speaking of Riwin being that Sek……”

“……?”

“I heard he visited the Record Archive once.”

“Who did?”

“Sek.”

“What?”

Wasn’t the forest’s domain supposed to be structured so that the Underfolk couldn’t enter?

Even I had collapsed coughing blood from the very entrance.

Though, of course, during the last operation I’d worn the bracelet and crossed without any trouble at all……

I looked down at the bracelet still wound around my wrist, threaded with green beads.

So it wasn’t impossible.

My eyes shifted to the Treasure Hunt quest sitting in the corner of my vision, and then I blinked and looked back at Ru.

Could this be useful?

“If you come next time, I’ll show you the rare booksss.”

“That means you want me to copy them, doesn’t it?”

“Yes! I do like that Riwin understands even when I only speak vaguely, ahaha.”

Treasure or copying. That was the question.

Apparently done with her business, Ru waved both hands enthusiastically and left the library.

When I looked around, the people who had been listening from between the shelves, from the reading seats, and from the corridor where they had been loitering for no reason all flinched and moved out of sight.

I stared at the front entrance Ru had just gone through for a moment, then rose as well.

‘Was even Ru stepping in all Pan’s doing?’

Shaking my head, I left the book I had taken out lying on the chair.

I had stopped halfway through a dull volume titled The History of the Five Domains.

---

A few days later, after spending idle hours lying in the hammock on the terrace where the breeze blew gently, Ochel set down a heavy box and asked,

“I brought the things you requested. So the rumors were true?”

“There are so many kinds of rumors that I’m not sure which one you mean.”

I absently brushed back my messy hair and opened the box.

Inside were the little belongings I had left in my room, the cookies and food ingredients I had asked for, and some blank notebooks, all neatly arranged.

“I meant your eye.”

“You can make out even something that small?”

I asked as I carried the whole box into the office.

Still with her eyes covered, Ochel only laughed aloud.

Even after I set the box down in the living area inside, put the items away roughly, and came back out holding a fresh notebook, Ochel still hadn’t left. She was wandering around the office, waiting.

“Was there something else?”

“I was wondering whether living here is more comfortable for you than staying at the ruler’s castle.”

“It’s not bad.”

The fixer’s office wasn’t large, but it was more than adequate to live in.

By temperament, I preferred something cave-like to a wide, glamorous place, so as long as I had somewhere to lie down, I was satisfied.

It was cozy enough, quiet enough, and comfortable enough.

And lately, because of the rumors, people had stopped visiting, which made it even better for doing things alone.

“Ah, it must be troublesome to keep bringing things over here.”

“That’s my job, so it’s all right.”

“That’s a relief.”

I went back out to the sunny terrace and sat on the edge of the hammock, then raised my brows at Ochel, who had followed me.

“If there’s anything you’re curious about, ask. The rumors have been awful, but I don’t actually eat people.”

As I opened the first page of the notebook and drew a few quick lines across it, Ochel laughed softly again and stepped closer to peer down at it.

“Did your Frame unlock during the last incident?”

“Mine?”

“Yes.”

“You can see that sort of thing too?”

“A Frame is one of the strongest energy waves there is.”

“Then how does my Frame look, from your perspective?”

“It’s faint. Quiet. But it’s also like a wave, and it frightens me because it feels as though it could become a tidal surge and swallow everything at any moment.”

“That’s rather an excessive evaluation.”

Her direct assessment, without the slightest filter, made my pen nearly slip and ruin the page.

Imitating Ochel’s smile, I signed my name at the bottom of the little palm-sized page.

Rough, but not bad.

Then I tore out the sheet, held it up in the sunlight, and handed it to Ochel.

“I’ll give you my first drawing made here. A gift.”

To be precise, I’d chosen her first because I knew she would use her blindness as an excuse and wouldn’t be able to identify it properly, but I didn’t bother saying that aloud.

“Riwin really does create awkward situations.”

“It’s fine even if it ends up getting tossed away among other scraps of paper.”

Ochel tilted her head, then rolled the paper up and held it carefully in her hand.

Once I saw that, I tucked the pen into the notebook and tossed it carelessly onto the hammock.

“Have you given up on improving your image?”

“It isn’t as though I’m the one spreading the rumors, so telling me about it won’t…….”

“By any chance, has your memory returned? There’s a rumor going around that Riwin was the Underworld Lord.”

I had just started to lie down in the hammock when I stopped and stared straight at Ochel.

That was indeed a rumor I had spread on purpose.

It was bait, thrown out to catch a certain sort of fish.

Ru had been too transparent, too obviously sent by Pan, to leave any room for suspicion. Pering had dismissed rumors entirely and only complained that he wanted less work, so he was out. And the elders who came by every other day practically salivating at the thought of killing me—well, if it turned out I was the Underworld Lord, they’d welcome that instead, so I could set them aside.

Which left Ochel. I couldn’t help being curious why she, in particular, reacted so strongly to that rumor.

“If I were the Underworld Lord, do you think I’d be living like this? I heard he was the mysterious sort.”

“His whereabouts are certainly unknown.”

“I heard he was dead. And that the current Underworld Lord is someone named Karon.”

“Is that so?”

“So you didn’t know. Pan and Pering both knew, so I assumed you did too.”

Ochel didn’t answer.

I shrugged and settled comfortably into the hammock again. She probably knew well enough that anything I said here would sound like an excuse.

Resting my head on one arm, I asked something I’d picked up not long ago.

“But I heard you’re not a member of the forest. Where are you from?”

“……It seems the aide told you. I belong to the Mist.”

“That Mist?”

“Yes. I know that Lord Kuis’s investigation went too far. Please set aside your prejudice.”

I steadied the instinctive shiver that went through me and looked at Ochel as she spoke in that soft tone.

So that was why she covered her eyes? Was there something under there if I lifted the cloth?

The questions came flooding in, but I stopped myself.

In an age where people moved about freely, what did it matter who belonged where?

Pan walked around like this even though I myself was an Underfolk in the forest.

---

I’d scattered enough bait.

For easier access, I spent a while lodging and eating at the fixer’s office rather than the ruler’s castle, and by the time I had nearly grown accustomed to that life—

I was stretched out on the sofa in the main hall, with only the faint lights touching the plants left on, waiting for the right moment.

Or rather, it wasn’t so much waiting as a habit of mine whenever I was alone.

Seeing the Power of Phantasm wasn’t anything grand. It was closer to a warning sign that something unfamiliar was there.

Something like, There’s something suspicious here. Be careful.

I had chosen the fixer’s office as the meeting point because the entire building fell within the effective range of my domain.

Nearby, a red aura seeped from the travel record. Farther away, faint pink mist clung to the potted plant Pan had left behind the last time.

The plant had been unexpected.

I’d assumed the Power of Phantasm would only be found in traces left behind by the Master of Phantasms—that is, Sek.

“Is it the power of a Frame?”

The thought came to me suddenly, and once I judged that it sounded plausible, I finally understood why the crimson shadow had been surging behind the window.

I slipped the dagger Pan had given me behind my back and waited for the presence beyond the glass.

Was it Timol or not?

Would the trap succeed or fail?

The wavering shadow pushed open the terrace window and came in the very moment the night market lights all went dark.

Cautious footsteps, a red aura thrashing more violently than ever, and long thorny vines stretching out.

I didn’t wait. I welcomed the intruder first.

“If you’d just come through the front door, I might have mistaken you for someone else and let my guard down.”

Instead of answering, he lashed out with a whip dense with thorns.

It cut through the air with a short, sharp whistle, caught several flowerpots in its path, and shattered them with a series of hard cracks, turning everything into chaos.

The sofa I had liked rather well was torn apart in the process, and soft white stuffing went floating everywhere like snow.

“You imposter. You talk too much.”

“Oh dear. I can’t believe you actually used that line—”

I never thought you would!

Red lines traced the whip’s path before it even swung.

That was what had let me dodge the first strike.

And again, I moved first, evaded the blow, and shoved the burst-open sofa in front of me to make a barricade.

“A trivial Underfolk like you could never be Lord Sek.”

“You know Sek?”

“No!”

“Ah…… what?”

My footing slipped at the absurd confidence with which Timol threw his rolled thorns like flying daggers.

In truth, the entire premise of this trap was the dangerously flimsy assumption that no one knew what Sek actually looked like.

For a moment my heart sank so hard I thought the entire plan had come apart, but I forced myself calm and pulled the corners of my mouth up into a smooth smile.

“Looks like I didn’t hit you hard enough that time.”