Chapter 64

Chapter 64 : The Edge of Truth (6)

Clocks were not my field of expertise.

Though it would be stranger if they were.

The fact that even the members of the Mist, who were specialized in repairs, had clung to it for nearly a year and still failed to fix it confirmed that this was not a simple mechanical defect.

In order to find any other external factors, I decided to spend a day or two grasping the atmosphere of this place first.

The smell of oil would not leave the floor.

It was a small pub filled with a damp heaviness from the mist, a humidity that weighed down on the shoulders and seemed to cause joint pain.

I shook my head at Murel, whose face was flushed.

“You asked for alcohol even though you cannot drink?”

“It is not that I cannot drink. It is just that I have not touched alcohol for nearly two hundred years, so my body cannot accept it.”

“What kind of logic is that?”

“This kind. Ah! May I order that too?”

Murel pointed excitedly at the snacks being eaten at another table.

I threw down a tip, added to the order, and swept my gaze over the surroundings again.

For a land of the dead, where the mist was said to be ghosts and so on, the atmosphere was full of life.

Fixing something meant reviving it. The will to grasp the thread of things that had reached the end of their lifespan and keep them clinging a little longer to this world. There was no room for melancholy to cling to that energy.

Even though everyone here had a history of rushing in to try repairing the clocktower’s clock, they did not seem to have given up.

“This place reminds me of the old days because its atmosphere resembles the Underworld.”

Murel’s eyes sparkled as he carefully picked up a snack made of meat skewered and rolled around a stick to make it easy to eat.

“It resembles it?”

“Yes. There is no mist, but the smell of oil and the noisy vitality do.”

I thought of the sphere that had been thrown at us last time as an Underfolk object.

It had been a mechanical device that moved as interlocking parts worked organically together, and it had looked even more alien because it did not suit the nature-friendly forest at all.

“Then what is your opinion? What do you think caused the clock to break?”

“In my opinion as a Creator…… perhaps it reached the time when it was meant to die.”

“Its lifespan ended? Does that mean you think reviving it will not work?”

“It is not that it cannot be done, but the truth is that even if something is revived that way, it will not last long.”

“How skeptical.”

“It is reality. Ah! This is truly delicious. Lord Iwon, you should try one too!”

“No, thanks. You eat plenty.”

I waved a hand, propped my chin on it, and sipped the remaining alcohol when I noticed a gaze that kept glancing this way.

It was a gaze I had felt from the moment we entered the pub.

The gaze sent from behind a corner pillar diagonally across from me was growing more and more blatant.

I had chosen my position with that in mind, but the other party would not know that.

At last, he sprang from his seat, strode over, and slammed his fist down on the table.

For a moment, the surrounding attention gathered on us, but those who seemed to think it was merely a common quarrel soon turned their interest elsewhere.

He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a cloak that fell to his knees. Dark circles hung so heavily beneath his eyes that even pulling his hat low could not hide them, making him look even more haggard.

“What is it?”

“Did you come…… to repair the clock?”

His trembling eyelashes were fixed straight on my eyes. I pulled up the corner of my mouth and asked without removing my chin from my hand.

“How did you know that?”

“Haa…… I have seen you before. In the Forest’s Domain.”

“Oh…….”

You know me, and you are openly approaching me?

“I want to go somewhere without people and talk.”

“Must we? We have not even finished eating yet…… Murel?”

Murel, who had hurriedly eaten every snack, downed one final cup of alcohol in one shot as a palate cleanser and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Let us go!”

Go where?

When I blinked in disbelief, the man in the hat joined him and nodded.

I shook my head and rose. I knew it would be advantageous to hear information from this man.

Most of all, he probably knew I was Underfolk, so it would be easier to talk.

“I have a place where I am staying. It is not far from here. Is that all right?”

“Not bad. I was already having a hard time going back and forth between the ruler’s castle and here.”

When we left the pub, the old lamps lighting the darkness flickered several times.

I glanced at them and followed his guidance through a dark alley thick with mist.

All while thinking that, once, I would never have followed a stranger this easily.

The reason I became interested in him was nothing else.

The broken lines I had seen at the clocktower were hanging from him too, exactly the same.

In other words—the clocktower and he were suffering from the same symptoms.

“It is humble for someone like you to enter, but there is nothing I can do.”

He climbed the outer stairs of an old building tucked away in a corner of the alley and opened a small door at an awkward third-floor height.

It felt like a tiny room. The building itself was a two- or three-story multi-family house packed close together, and as expected, the interior was cramped. With three people inside, even sitting face-to-face felt burdensome.

At least because there was not even the usual furniture, leaving it empty, the three of us could enter at all.

Perhaps he had not unpacked, because as I examined the boxes piled in one corner, I waved away the dust flying toward me.

“Cough, khh. Air the place out.”

“Airing? Why bother?”

Pale dust swirled every time something moved.

I half-gave up and sat roughly on the stacked wooden boxes.

Murel finally pounded on the warped, stuck window until it opened, and in the meantime, the owner of the room held out a notebook.

“I am Herton. I was the repairer in charge of the sensor lamp at the Dock. Though I have probably been fired by now.”

“Ah…… I heard that thing keeps flickering and needs to be repaired.”

So you were the former repair person who ran away to Mist’s Domain.

“I entrusted it to my successor. Was it not handled properly?”

“I heard your successor followed you to Mist’s Domain. Did you not meet him?”

“Humil, that bastard…… well, that is not important.”

Herton pressed hard at his temples to ease the headache rising over him, then jerked his chin at the notebook he had given me.

“It is the clocktower repair log my mentor kept. As you heard, the problem began around a year ago. Start from the middle.”

I roughly flipped through the worn notebook and searched for the date when the clocktower had stopped.

『― Day ― Month

Clocktower hands stopped.

???? (Impossible)

No problem found with the power source.』

『― Day ― Month

No component defects found.』

『― Day ― Month

Requested design plan.

Rejected.

Do they not recognize the severity?』

『― Day ― Month

One week passed.

Cause remains unidentified.

Mist energy growing unstable.

Severity beginning to be recognized―attended meeting.』

『― Day ― Month

No conclusion reached.

Unnecessary hypothesis……

Checked clocktower again.』

They were progress notes made up of a few short lines.

Even when I looked further, the situation did not improve. Herton’s predecessor continued checking the clocktower to the point that he nearly took it apart, but the hands did not move.

“So it was not a mechanical defect.”

“Right. It means something else was the cause, and that is a field you Underfolk know better.”

Since I knew nothing, I glanced at Murel, and Murel nodded, affirming Herton’s words.

With another deep sigh, Herton told us what had happened so far.

“Two days ago, I made a suggestion to the Ruler. I pleaded earnestly with Lord Katesa. I told him that even if the Ruler had to kidnap an Underfolk, that thing had to be repaired.”

“So you were the reason I was kidnapped?”

“Were you not the one who came on your own feet, rather than being kidnapped?”

“It was both.”

He slumped onto the floor, looking as though he had not washed in days, and sighed.

It did not seem like he had reached this state simply because he had not been sleeping or because he could not solve the problem.

I tapped my palm with the heavy notebook, thought of the bitter situation, and swept my gaze over the room again.

Traces of things moved in haste. A dwelling just sufficient for taking short naps. A warmth that showed no sign of someone living here. Dust that had settled deep.

I did not like the situation it implied—that the person he called his mentor was no longer in this world.

“Do you eat?”

“……?”

Herton asked back with his hollow gaze, as if wondering why I would ask such a thing.

“Because it seems no one would know if you died on the street.”

“Hah, death does not frighten me. Lady Retu will make me peaceful.”

“For someone who says that, you seem overly fixated on the path your mentor left behind.”

“This is why Underfolk…… Do the emotions of others mean nothing to you?”

“I think becoming someone who survives as intact as possible and can spend even one more day solving the problem should come before clinging to something you cannot solve while drowning in emotion.”

“Sophistry.”

“Is that not how you complete your mentor’s path?”

Well, as someone forcibly dragged into that path, I preferred having even one more mentally intact repairer.

I glanced at Murel, who was needlessly tapping my shoulder beside me, and stood.

“I would like to borrow this notebook for a while.”

“…….”

“Mm…… I will be inside the clocktower, so if you have something to say, come there.”

“Get lost.”

“Yes, yes.”

I left the dusty room and trudged down the old creaking stairs. Even as we walked, Murel, who kept following behind me, tapped my shoulder again and again.

“You can say what you want to say too.”

“Lord Iwon, you are not very good at speaking.”

“I know.”

I have been misunderstood a lot too.

As I swept back my hair out of habit, my fingers caught on the hair tie Retu had bought me.

I roughly untied it, shoved it into my pocket, and headed for the clocktower.

Reading the notebook had given me a rough sense of things.

---

How should I raise my Achievement points?

I lay flat on my back at the top of the clocktower, one hand supporting the back of my head, and thought about it.

Whether to use Random Loading or Designated Loading.

I would not deny that Designated Loading was the most optimized hint, both in quality and quantity, for resolving the cause.

The problem was that I currently had only 19 points, leaving me one short. On top of that, once I loaded it, that would be the end.

Even if I had the points, spending them at once might mean I could not use it later when I truly needed it. That fueled my dilemma.

There were many things I had to find out right away, such as Pering’s movements, how far Karon had tracked me, and the parts of the Original Work where Sek’s presence was revealed.

Well, first I had to raise 1 point.

Should I drain my points for the Time Quest, or leave it to Random’s luck, open three or four pieces of the Original Work, and then give up? That was the question.

‘Hey, system.’

I called the system inwardly, but it stayed quiet.

I know you are working fine, so come out while I am asking nicely.

Whether the Boundary of Death expands or not, I have nothing to lose if I leave it alone, do I?

Would it not be better to wrap up this quest nicely now? And if it goes well, I might even think more actively about destroying the Original Work, right?

…….

A suitable blend of threats and coaxing did not work.

‘What have I not tried yet?’

I blinked, then turned my head and stared hard at Murel, who was crouching behind the clock with shining eyes.

As expected of a Creator, Murel was interested not only in Phantasmal Species, but in all kinds of miscellaneous objects. In a way, it was only natural that he would be fascinated by the sight of this enormous clock, where hundreds or thousands of gears interlocked and moved.

“Murel.”

“Yes, Lord Iwon.”

“Have you more or less finished grasping it?”

“I have not grasped even half of it yet. The notebook is the only reason the efficiency is high enough for me to get this far.”

“Mm, then you must be busy.”

“Not right now. Is there something you want me to do?”

Looking at Murel tilting his head, I smiled.

I have not yet been hit by an Underfolk, after all.

Ding!

[I did not know you had that kind of taste!...(*￣０￣)ノ]