Chapter 70

Chapter 70 : Recruiting Party Members to Grab the Past by the Collar (2)

Pan pressed hard at his furrowed brow and thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Pering is not the traitor.”

“The evidence is clear, though?”

“Still, he is not.”

“Was it something you ordered him to do?”

“No.”

I had asked in case he was a double spy, but Pan only shook his head with his face hardened. Was this denial of reality?

“Retu warned you. Prepare yourself.”

“First― we will know if we wait and see on that matter.”

There was nothing more I could add to Pan’s firm faith.

When it came to betrayal by someone one trusted, one had to shove it right in front of their eyes before they could think even somewhat rationally.

Besides, I want Pan to get stabbed in the back by someone he trusts. Wouldn’t it be a little fun to see that arrogant, confident attitude collapse?

“They said the dagger made of desert metal was obtained from a merchant who drifted into the night market.”

“Even if some time has passed since the war stopped, weapons used against them must have been common enough to obtain.”

Pan pushed me aside and squeezed onto the sofa.

“To begin with, that weapon was evidence that an Underfolk could not wield it. It was not an object we could learn much more from by tracing the purchase route.”

“You are rational at times like this, but soft when it comes to relationships?”

“I said it is not Pering.”

I pushed away Pan as he bristled and thought of Pering from last time.

The way he had taken every bait I threw had not been like the usual Pering, and the way he seemed anxious, as though waiting for something, had bothered me too.

It would be nice if a scene I could openly confirm in the Original Work appeared.

Suddenly, Pering’s childhood appearance came to mind. Pering, who had resembled Konu, like yellow wild grass.

The fact that he had grown into this now was probably all Pan’s fault.

I shoved the sprawled Pan into the corner and changed the subject.

“The one the Underworld is sending is supposed to come here, I hear.”

If Ariti had safely gone to the Underworld and Pan had confirmed that before returning, it was about time for the person sent by the Underworld to arrive here.

I looked at Murel, still sprawled and cackling. Murel was pestering Fluffnix, asking for just one red feather.

Pan followed my gaze and swept his eyes over the terrace once more, then pressed a hand to his forehead as if his head ached.

“What karma did I build up with the Underworld…… Not one, but three of them. No wonder that Karon bastard was brazen enough to…….”

Grumble, grumble.

Pan swallowed the words to himself and grumbled for a while, then rubbed his dry face and glared at Murel with hollow eyes.

“Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow at the latest.”

“Mm, was the name Quiro?”

I let the cackling laughter flow past me and pulled up the corner of my mouth.

It has been a while.

---

The ruler’s castle was noisy.

In my case, people had whispered over whether to kill me or spare me, and Murel had simply been treated like a strange person, but Quiro was an Underfolk visiting with the formal envoy position.

In the morning, the Quartet, including Konu, had come by and caused a commotion, and Ochel had brought over items while reciting the atmosphere, so I roughly knew the situation at the ruler’s castle.

Whether it was noisy or not, I was out on the office terrace, leisurely photosynthesizing with Murel.

The moderate sunlight filtering between the trees washed away my gloom on its own.

If I napped like this for half a day and solved the occasional commissions that came in, the day would pass in no time.

Another peaceful day at the Fixer office!

After how busy I had been running around lately, this peace felt even more precious.

“Lord Iwon, have you heard the news?”

“If you have heard it, there is already no one left who does not know.”

He must have heard it from Konu, who had come chattering this morning.

Murel had been the first to notice my change.

Perhaps he had found the old image in the subtle change of energy, my expression, and the way I spoke.

Murel was happy about it.

The fact that he stayed excited and kept laughing showed that he was not hiding that emotion.

I lay in the hammock as though melting into it and raised an arm to rest over my forehead.

“Do you know Quiro?”

“Hmm, of course I do.”

Despite saying he knew them, his expression was not exactly pleased. When I raised my brows and pressed him for more, Murel reluctantly continued with a rotten look.

“Quiro was…… for now, the one with the highest hierarchy after Lord Iwon.”

“Really?”

“If Lord Iwon disappeared, that bastard should have been the first to search for you. Why they are fawning under that bastard Karon is truly a mystery.”

Karon, who had not even existed two hundred years ago. Murel added those words, then muttered something more, full of puzzlement.

The one who had stood closest to the Underworld Lord. Confidant. Errand handler. Sandbag. Simple machine. More titles like those continued until Fluffnix flapped his wings, and only then did the filthy slander stop.

“He is coming.”

“They are coming.”

From far away, the one striding toward us with the distinct black hair of the Underfolk flying behind them was clearly Quiro.

Though once they came almost close enough, they looked busy carefully smoothing down the hair that kept tangling uncontrollably in the wind between the trees.

Black hair and Red Eyes. Among the three Underfolk here, they looked the most like an Underfolk.

Quiro wore angular glasses, using them as a way to soften their red eyes. Perhaps someone had recommended them, because they seemed uncomfortable with the hair that kept tangling in the glasses and repeatedly took them off and put them back on until our eyes met.

Their impression had grown much softer than when we met in the negotiation room, but more than that, the area beneath their eyes was so dark they looked like a tired Office Worker No. 1 steeped in exhaustion.

I remembered their first impression being fairly sharp, as Murel had said, so what had happened in the meantime?

“Murel?”

Quiro looked not at me first, but at Murel sprawled beside me, and their eyes widened.

At the reunion after two hundred years, Murel answered by waving his hand wildly, and Quiro’s face twisted even further.

I stared at that scene and rummaged through my head, wondering whether any fragments of memory remained.

Even Murel had left faint traces of memory, but Quiro did not remain at all. Not even a single grain.

As though someone had deliberately deleted the data.

‘Lost data…… is it something similar?’

I smiled brightly and waved after Murel.

My appearance had changed from when I was Sek, but people around me had acknowledged that the atmosphere resembled him a lot. I had expected that bastard would naturally recognize me too.

“That, your hair…… was it a lie in the sky?”

“There is no need to introduce myself openly as Underfolk, is there?”

“Then those Red Wings were also a lie…….”

“It would be nice if I had wings or something.”

“Underfolk…….”

“That is what people call me.”

As I steadily answered Quiro’s words, Murel laughed beside me and waited for Quiro’s next reaction.

It was not the reaction of someone who had made a huge fuss saying, ‘My Lord, I have been waiting.’

Quiro clenched their jaw and showed patience, then calmly opened their mouth again.

“When I saw you in the negotiation room, I was confused.”

Quiro, who had been asking as though interrogating me with a coldly cynical attitude the whole time, took a deep breath and completely changed their atmosphere.

“I wondered whether you were someone I knew. But since you insisted you were Surface Folk, I could not readily seize you.”

Had I already been found out from then? Come to think of it, Quiro, who had seemed indifferent and had been busy smoothing things over throughout the negotiations, had been flustered after facing me up close.

I had been complacent, thinking that surely an aide would not recognize me when Karon himself had not.

“The reason I insisted on coming to the forest was also entirely because of you.”

“Mm…… is that so?”

“Seeing that even the Director of Ruka serves beside you, I became certain. I thought you had died…….”

Quiro choked up, then clenched their jaw again and steadied their breathing.

At this rate, they would cry.

The joke had not been anything major either, so I raised my body from where I had been lying and sat roughly on the hammock.

“I thought I had lost you…… so I had no choice but to cling to that excuse…… hoo. What use is any of this? That bastard was enjoying himself leisurely with you.”

Quiro’s burning gaze looked ready to tear Murel apart.

Murel, who had been chewing on a nearby tree branch with his sharp teeth, twitched one eyebrow at that gaze.

What are these people doing in someone else’s house?

They looked ready to clash at any moment, so I waved my palms toward both sides and reminded them of the purpose.

“Finish introducing yourself.”

“Ahem. I am Quiro, Direct Aide to the Underworld Lord.”

“Direct means Karon?”

“…….”

Quiro wore a pained expression and chewed on their lip for a long while, then lifted their head with a solemn expression.

Then they knelt on one knee and took position while looking straight at me.

It looked similar to when I first met Murel―.

“My Lord! I have been waiting…… keuh-heuk.”

―or so I thought, but before Quiro could even finish speaking, they vomited a fistful of blood. It was something I had done often lately, so the familiar smell of blood mixed thickly with the wooden deck.

Quiro fell face-first into the bloodstain they had spilled and collapsed just like that.

I rubbed my temple and kicked Murel’s hammock over despite his calm expression.

“Uwah!”

“Handle this.”

“I do not know what this bastard is so happy about that they would even cough blood and fall asleep.”

“Their energy has declined.”

“What did they even do? They only traveled long-distance, did they not? In the past, they could fight for ten nights straight and still be fine…… is their current workplace that hard?”

While Murel tilted his head and shouldered Quiro, I narrowed my eyes and read the red energy following Quiro.

I had seen it trailing behind them from far away.

I had thought the surging Red Mist and threads were simply the energy of Quiro’s Frame, but that did not seem to be the case.

For now, we laid Quiro on the office sofa. While waiting for Murel, who had gone to wipe the blood from the terrace, I thought carefully.

When they said “My Lord,” the Red Mist that had surged up tightened around Quiro’s chest and throat and did something.

That was clearly what had caused them to vomit blood.

“I need to get some medicine to erase it. Anyone who sees this will think it is a crime scene. Should I roughly draw the outline of a collapsed body before coming back? Konu would like that.”

“Why would Konu…….”

Remembering that he had borrowed a book about criminal investigations last time, I closed my mouth. We had to clean that up before Konu came.

“Have you seen this symptom before?”

“Not except when Lord Iwon does it. To begin with, Underfolk are physically special and do not get sick easily, so the only time they pour out that much blood is when they have been sliced by a blade.”

Right. I am weak. Pathetic. I vomit blood all the time. Yes.

I found the medicine I had used when I vomited blood and handed it to Murel, then stared down at Quiro.

So it was not a medical issue. As expected, it was something caused by the Power of Phantasm.

While Murel cleaned up the traces on the terrace, I roughly went inside, wet a cloth, and tried to wipe the blood from Quiro’s face.

‘Well, look at this?’

The Red Mist at the spot I touched writhed violently, and Quiro retched up blood again.

I frowned, threw the bloodstained towel roughly onto the groaning bastard’s face, then went out to the terrace and called Murel.

“Hey, I think that one is wearing a leash.”

A dog collar Karon had put on them.