Chapter 76

Chapter 76 : Forgotten Being (3)

Facing Pering’s calm expression, I awkwardly avoided his gaze and fiddled with the mirror in my pocket.

That bastard Pan.

It seemed he had already babbled everything I had said to Pering.

At his attitude, clearly different from when I had gone to test him last time, the corner of my mouth twitched. Of all times, why did he have to come when I had just found Desert Metal?

Grit. Only after I heard the sound of my own teeth grinding did I realize I had been clenching my jaw too hard.

I mussed my hair and roughly perched on a table at a suitable distance. It was a position where I could respond easily if things went wrong.

“I am curious what part of me made you call me a traitor.”

“Is that the only reason you came?”

“Among other things.”

“I was desperate for tea,” Pering added as he rubbed at his mouth.

There is no tea for you. Even if there is, there is not. I poured curses over Pan inwardly and glanced at Quiro, who was still sniffling.

“When someone is contaminated by Desert Metal, they show unusual tendencies. Crying is one of them. They will be fine by tomorrow, so please focus on me.”

Pering’s mood had sunk after failing to get tea.

I shrugged and raised my brows. What did he expect me to do?

“I am wondering why you called me a traitor.”

“Did you tell Pan the results of the investigation into the dead Elder?”

Pering was the one who had not told Pan what Retu had come and dropped off. It was likely because Pering had inevitably become involved in the result of that investigation, but still, was that not too obvious?

Pan had said no, but I had no intention of withdrawing my suspicion of Pering.

There was the suspiciousness of the day I tested Pering, Retu’s direct warning to be careful of the aide, and the messenger he had sent to the White Sea after returning first was still a question too.

“I heard something, but there is no explanation and no excuse. So of course I would suspect you, would I not?”

So explain it now, if you want.

At my attitude, which showed no intention of backing down, Pering’s expression hardened.

I was curious too.

Why had Pering done such a thing?

Pering had shown even a little goodwill toward Sek, but the hostility toward the Underfolk I had felt when I first saw him was still clear even now.

No matter how I thought about it, he had no reason to throw in with Karon, so why Pering?

“If my work-worn attitude caused a misunderstanding, I have nothing to say, but it is not me.”

“A person who betrayed someone does not say they are a traitor.”

“You are free to believe what you wish, so that is fine. I was simply curious why you― suspected me.”

“Pan did not tell you? The Ruler of the Mist came here and mentioned you directly. She told me to be careful of you.”

“I heard. Do you know that being careful and calling someone a traitor are not on the same line?”

“Do you know that that claim is wordplay?”

I frowned and glared at Pering.

He had come to test me. Not to deny that he was the traitor.

Did he think it did not matter if I suspected him because he had Pan’s solid support?

Or―.

“Kkeuheuheuk. What have I done…… hng.”

H-hng?

I had been passing through some serious thoughts, but the sniffling words right beside me stopped my mind.

He had been lying there as though he had no will to support his own body, so I had left him alone.

“Quiro?”

“Hueeeng. It is all my fault that Lord Iwon ended up that way. Snf. I did not even know you were suffering such hardships because I failed to serve you properly, huuup.”

“Where are you wiping your snot?”

Quiro, who had been crouched with his knees hugged to his chest, had begun muttering. The information coming out of his mouth was rising to a dangerous level if Pering heard it.

I pressed a hand to my forehead and ignored Pering asking whether I really would not give him tea.

Why is everyone around me like this?

“You said that lasts a day?”

“According to records, yes. There may be individual differences.”

“That is an inconvenience that makes one want to lock him in some corner.”

I had just stood to put Quiro in the inner room before he could keep babbling when Pering, who had risen as if his business was finished, caught me as though he had remembered something.

“What is it?”

“Is Riwin unaffected by Desert Metal?”

Pering jerked his chin toward my pocket.

He could not possibly know about things like Sovereign, mind, or inside. Was it simple curiosity?

For that, Pering’s face looked almost certain.

“When my lord told me to stop searching for Lord Sek, I was puzzled. I wondered what he had seen in a useless, foolish Underfolk like you to make such a judgment.”

Still holding my arm, Pering used his other hand to search my pocket and take out the mirror.

The reason I set Quiro down and did not stop Pering was partly because I did not care whether he took it or not, but also because what Pering said next left me troubled.

“You were much better before, Lord Sek.”

That bastard Pan, just how much did he go around blabbing?

Whether it was betrayal or misunderstanding, Pering did not care. He had simply come to confirm the fact that I was Sek.

I glared at Pering as he left, looking relieved, and threw the still-whining Quiro back onto the sofa.

---

I had been looking for Pan since morning.

I met Pan, who was nowhere to be seen in the ruler’s castle, the office, the Immigration Hall, the Record Archive, or the Execution Ground, only after the sun had fully set.

Finding Pan pointlessly steeped in lonely dramatics inside the Greenhouse, where only faint blue lighting had been left on, I first took a deep breath and calmed myself.

Because I wanted to go over right now and grab him by the collar.

If I had seen his face early in the morning and talked to him then, my mood would not have soured this much.

“Hoo.”

I swept back my hair and approached Pan, who was watching me as though he already knew I had come.

“Yo―.”

“First, shut up for a moment.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pan, who had been sitting on the edge of a small fountain inside the Greenhouse, awkwardly started to stand, then sat back down and became obedient.

I glanced at the small bird-shaped statue in the center of the fountain, then sat roughly nearby too.

Drip, drip, drip. The sound of falling water came from behind me.

I sighed again, then opened the conversation with Pan, who seemed to already know why I had come.

“Did you tell Pering?”

“Tell him what?”

“Sek.”

“Thaaat, well, I thought Pering should know, so I did tell him.”

Pan, who had something to feel guilty about, dragged out the ends of his words and spouted nonsense.

“Two more Underfolk attached themselves to you, and considering the way they treat you, it does not look like a social gathering…… anyone can see it is a master-servant relationship.”

“So?”

“I told him in advance before I had to suffer through his nagging. Just so he would know. It is not as if we can hide it forever, and it is something that will gradually be revealed anyway―.”

“―so you specifically blabbed it to Pering, whom I called a traitor?”

Pan closed his mouth.

There was no need to ask why he did not suspect Pering of being a traitor, because it meant Pan trusted Pering that much.

So share the proof of that trust with me too.

I handed Pan the Travel Log I had brought with me. Pan raised his brows and tilted his head, but I already knew that was just a trick to make himself look innocent.

“You said you already read all of it. Did you not see anything suspicious?”

“Suspicious? Wellll, no.”

Pan flipped through the notebook again while rolling his half-lidded eyes here and there.

I snatched the notebook back from him and looked at Pan as I said,

“If, as it says there, what was needed was not comfort but warmth, then stop going on about fun and share what is going on.”

All the more if you consider me Sek.

After adding that, I left Pan sitting there in lonely dramatics and rose from my seat.

I now realized that Pan had chosen this place as somewhere to hide from me because of the statue in that fountain.

The Red Threads were chaotically forming a larger fountain, shooting into the sky, then creating a waterfall that struck the floor.

The range wrapped around the fountain’s perimeter just enough, and it rippled in response to my movements.

“This place is famous as a confession spot.”

“……?”

When I looked at him with an expression that said, So what? Pan shrugged and voluntarily explained what he had seen.

“The fountain statue is unbelievably good at detecting lies. For example, if I say, ‘You are not Sek’…….”

No sooner had Pan spoken than one wing of the formerly pure white statue turned red. An illusion followed, as though blood were dripping down mixed with the scattered droplets.

“Truth?”

“It is a lie, actually?”

“Mm…… I am rather handsome.”

The bird that had been shedding tears of blood was enveloped in blue mist as if nothing had happened and performed an effect as though flying through a blue sky.

“Oh…….”

“You must hear people call you shameless a lot.”

“Do I care?”

The statue was a kind of lie detector. Had he deliberately waited here for me to find him because he was ready to tell the truth?

“You ordered Pering to do it.”

“You are starting with questions right away?”

“Yes. Obviously?”

“Hah, go ahead. I will answer.”

Looking down at Pan as he crossed his arms and arrogantly lifted his chin, I refined my first question.

“Did you tell Pering to attach himself to Karon?”

After blinking a few times, Pan let out a hollow laugh and nodded.

“I did.”

The bird still maintained its blue mist.

Inside me, anger boiled past the point of disbelief.

During all those moments when I suspected a traitor, searched for one, dug into the Elder, received threats to my life, and went through the process of persuasion, Pan had already known the truth.

“Pan took a list too, though. Hmmmm. He said it was not helpful in this matter…… wait!”

I had suspected it before, when I saw the surveillance-exception list I had asked Ru to check.

I clenched my jaw and held back my words. If I opened my mouth, even I could not guarantee what I would say.

If Pering had attached himself to Karon because Pan ordered it, then why did the system tell me to find the traitor? It even progressed the Original Work when I failed.

‘What the hell does the system want from me?’

Even if I had exposed the traitor, if that situation had been intended by Pan, would anything have changed?

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I was looking for you.”

“You mean Sek.”

“Is that not the same thing? Anyway, the rumor that you, who maintained peace, had disappeared had been around for quite a long time. Though I did not know that blood-reeking bastard would be occupying that seat.”

“So?”

“It was an order I gave as soon as you, whom I suspected to be Sek, came to the forest.”

The statue still shone blue. It meant everything he said was true.

He had planted that so long ago, hidden it well until now, and now he was telling me?

Feeling hollow and stabbed in the back by someone I had trusted, I only bit down on my lower lip.

“That was then, and this is now. Since Ariti is currently staying beside Karon, I judged there was no need to cut off the connected line.”

“You do not care that information leaks in reverse?”

“Information?”

“He told Karon that I was Sek.”

During the forced Original Work scene, “Under the Lamp,” and when I had used Designated Viewing to see Karon visit the Former Sky’s Domain, Pering had obviously spilled information about me.

It was information I had not pressed or mentioned because I could not exactly say I had seen it through Original Work Viewing.

Even now, Pan was raising one eyebrow in puzzlement at my words.

“The messenger. The one you sent flying to the White Sea.”

“There is a misunderstanding. I was also the one who ordered him to leak the information to Karon that you were Sek.”

Are you the final mastermind or something?

When my face twisted, Pan waved his hands and hurriedly added,

“You were under my protection at the time anyway. If he came looking, I would have been grateful.”

I can destroy him in my own domain, Pan’s eyes said.

This place was more advantageous to Pan than anyone else.

“He might be a double spy.”

“Mm, about that. I think that is impossible.”

“What confidence.”

“Pering is someone for whom the Surface World is most important. Even if he did attach himself to Karon, the end of that choice would benefit the Surface World― that is why I trust him.”

Annoyingly, it seemed the fountain had never intended to turn red from the start.

Should I have grabbed him by the collar from the beginning?