Elqueeness [EN]: Chapter 451

451. The Chase

“…Are we being followed?”

“Why else would I be hiding at this hour?”

True, he wouldn’t have sought me out so badly injured if things were normal. I have no idea what happened. Wasn’t he just supposed to hand over the documents? As I tried to remove his clothes to check his injuries, my hands kept slipping because of the blood. I couldn’t tell where he was hurt or how, but he’d lost a lot of blood. I was worried he might die from excessive bleeding. I should have bought some hemostatic agents [medicine to stop bleeding]. Of all things, I hadn’t prepared any medicine, so I had no way to provide first aid. The thought that he might really die scared me.

“Hey, Father. Could you help me just this once? Chris seems to be in grave danger. He might die if we leave him like this.”

I had no choice but to ask Ellyuen for help. I felt like I had to grasp at straws, even if I was going to be rejected. Ellyuen frowned slightly and rose with a displeased expression. I was grateful, but my face hardened. The fact that he was willing to step in so readily meant that Chris’s condition was truly dire. Soon, Ellyuen extended his hand, and Chris’s breathing became easier. As I was feeling relieved, Trowel muttered,

“Are we getting strange, or is this guy strange…?”

“Huh?”

“Just talking to myself. But he managed to wake up. I thought he’d fallen asleep for good. He’s definitely sensitive.”

“What would have happened if I hadn’t woken up?”

“You would have found him dead in the morning.”

…This is supposed to be a reward. Shouldn’t there be no risk factors even if I can’t protect it if it’s a reward? Besides, this involves the life of an acquaintance, so they could have given me more details. Even I wasn’t comfortable this time. I stared at him with a stern look, and Trowel shrugged.

“I’ll skip training today.”

“…Really?”

“Even if the body heals, mental fatigue accumulates. Sometimes it’s better to rest.”

I see, I took it too much for granted that he was telling me things. I should be grateful that he even gave me hints. The reason I could hear the window was because I was in a light sleep. If he hadn’t mentioned it, I would have slept soundly without knowing anything.

Even I thought it was an amazing change of attitude, but looking back, that was the truth. No, it was even less like him to help me prepare in advance under the guise of giving me a reward.

“…Thank you.”

Trowel’s eyes deepened at my careful words. He seemed to immediately understand what part I was referring to. An unreadable gaze studied me silently for a while. He seemed a little distressed, and he also looked angry. But that emotion didn’t seem to be directed at me.

He seemed to mutter something again, but I couldn’t hear the content. I didn’t ask and quietly closed my mouth. It was a night of many disturbances.

* * *

Chris regained consciousness in the morning. As the sunlight streaming through the window covered his face, his body, which had been as still as death, finally began to move. His brow twitched, his breathing deepened, and his eyelids fluttered slightly. It didn’t take long for him to groan deeply and open his eyes with a frown. His black eyes, which had been staring blankly at the ceiling, wandered around as if lost before stopping when they found me. The focus in his hazy gaze sharpened.

“You’re awake?”

“…Elle?”

“I was just about to wake you up. Are you hungry? I brought breakfast.”

I pointed to the table laden with food so he could see it. Cream of mushroom soup with beef, smoked bacon and scrambled eggs, roasted potatoes and rye bread. It was today’s breakfast, which I had ordered and received by urging the inn’s kitchen as soon as it opened.

I usually eat a lot by myself, but this time I prepared a little extra thinking about his share, so the table was overflowing. However, even with the mouth-watering sight in front of him, Chris just blinked blankly, his face uncomprehending. Then, with a bewildered expression, he suddenly sat up. His face was full of confusion as he quickly felt his body.

“Huh? What’s going on? I’m alive?”

“You’re quick to realize that.”

“Wow, no way. What day is it? Did I wake up after a really long time?”

“No, it’s the morning of the same day.”

“Really? But why doesn’t my body hurt at all? I was pretty badly injured.”

“Because I healed you.”

“No, still, it’s too light. What kind of recovery potion did you use? Can you really heal this cleanly in an instant? Wow, even the old scars are gone?”

“Okay, let’s eat first.”

I took a seat at the table first, and only then did Chris stop making a fuss. As he got out of bed and sat down hesitantly, he kept glancing at the sofa. It was because he was conscious of the two Spirit Kings sitting there. But whether he did or not, Ellyuen and Trowel showed no interest in him.

“Aren’t they eating with us?”

“No, don’t worry about them. Oh, but I think you should thank them. If it weren’t for those two, Chris might have reached the gates of the underworld by now.”

“Oh, th-that’s right. I’m very grateful. Thank you.”

There was no response to his hasty greeting. They just opened their eyes and gave him a brief glance. Chris looked embarrassed at the perfunctory reaction, but he didn’t seem to expect much in the first place, so he quickly started eating as if nothing had happened. He picked up a utensil and took a sip of the soup that was closest to him. Then, with a strange expression, he put the utensil down again.

“What’s wrong? Doesn’t it suit your taste?”

“No, it’s not that… I just feel a little strange. I never dreamed I’d be alive and well and eating like this.”

“I didn’t think I’d be eating breakfast with Chris this morning either. What on earth happened?”

“Um, sorry. I surprised you a lot.”

“It’s true that I was surprised, but I’m curious about the situation, not trying to hear an apology. Just tell me honestly. It’s related to the document I gave you, right?”

“Huh?”

Chris, who had paused, froze. He was clearly flustered, as if he hadn’t expected me to take such a straightforward approach.

“Actually, I saw the contents too.”

“…I thought you might have. You didn’t ask anything.”

“So you can just talk comfortably. Don’t even think about pretending you don’t know anything after coming all the way here. You know you’ve already dragged me in the moment you came to me that dawn, right?”

“…Sorry.”

“I told you I’m not trying to hear an apology. I’m not angry, I’m worried about Chris.”

I sent him a look that said to explain the situation properly, and Chris scratched his face with a groan.

“Ahem. I don’t know where to start or how to explain this.”

“Tell me everything from beginning to end.”

“It’s not something to decide so lightly. You might really get into trouble if you know everything.”

“That’s my share to bear.”

He groaned again at my firm answer. But he also seemed to know that he couldn’t just gloss over it as if nothing had happened. After hesitating for a long time, his face changed to one of resignation.

“Actually, I’m from Umbra.”

“Umbra?”

“Um, you don’t know. It’s Emperor Seik’s direct bodyguard. It sounds good, but only a small part of them work on the surface, like guarding duties. The main force is the Shadow Army. They mainly monitor, conduct undercover investigations, and assassinate if necessary. You can think of them as the Emperor’s secret weapon.”

“What about working for the merchant guild?”

“That’s right too. It was part of a mission. That’s how most of the work there is done. They live among ordinary people and are only deployed for necessary operations.”

“Then are you still doing it now?”

“No, I’m just a normal hunter now. Believe me. I just retired after a few years because it didn’t suit my personality. No one knows I’m from there. I’m telling you for the first time now.”

The explanation that followed was detailed. Umbra had a structure where you couldn’t even know exactly who your colleagues were or how many there were, except for your direct superior and peers. They called each other by code names, and there was almost no contact unless they were deployed together on an operation, so once they retired, they were no different from strangers. The reason he was revealing his past was simple. Davian was from Umbra.

“That guy is my peer. He was the only one I exchanged real names with. I kept in touch with him even after I retired. Then, a few years ago, he left on a mission, and soon after, I lost contact with him.”

The events that followed were as I knew them. After losing contact, Chris had assumed that Davian was dead. Unable to identify or mourn the death of his friend, he devoted himself to his work as a hunter to forget his sense of loss. Then, after the guild was dissolved due to some incident, I appeared with news of him while he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol. To be exact, it was a mission that he had forcibly passed on to me.

“Knowing that the guy I thought was dead was alive gave me a jolt. I wondered what he would think if he came back and saw me like this. That’s because Davian is a guy with a bit of a story to tell. I promised to help him later when I made it big.”

I didn’t bother asking what the story was to the man who was smiling awkwardly. It wasn’t important now anyway. In any case, Chris, who had guessed the intentions of his friend who had entrusted him with the document, decided to deliver it to the head of Umbra. He tried to contact them using the contact method he knew, and fortunately, a reply came back, and the place and time were also smoothly set.

“But it wasn’t the boss who came to the meeting place.”

It was a masked man who looked suspicious at first glance who was waiting for him. Chris, who had confirmed his appearance from a distance, instinctively realized that he had fallen into a trap. But when he tried to back out, he had already been ambushed. He lost consciousness after receiving a strong blow to the back of his neck, and when he woke up, he was locked alone in a dark space. The document was naturally taken away.

At first, Chris naturally thought that a torturer would come. There was no reason to keep him alive otherwise. But for some reason, the person who kidnapped him just kept him locked up. Food was delivered silently under the door twice a day, but no one approached or spoke to him. Then, this morning at dawn, a great commotion suddenly arose, and the door was broken along with the vibration. It seemed to be an unexpected accident that occurred in the process of the commotion, not deliberately broken. Anyway, thanks to that, Chris was able to escape from inside. Although he suffered fatal injuries from the pursuers who immediately followed, he ran desperately and finally managed to shake them off. After that, I was the only one he could think of asking for help.

“Do you know who kidnapped you?”

“I don’t know. But I think the Demon God’s Temple was involved.”

“…Yes?”

My face hardened at the unexpected mastermind. What kind of connection was it, it was the Demon God’s Temple again.

“Actually, there was something in that document that bothered me a little. You said you saw the contents too, right? Do you remember the list that was included?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Most of them are names I don’t know, but a few names were familiar. I’m a believer in the Demon God, so I sometimes go to the main temple to make offerings. They were the same as the names of the priests there.”

In other words, that unknown list was a list of Demon God’s priests. It was the most unremarkable thing, so I didn’t even pay attention to it, so I was a little dumbfounded. Why did they get a list of priests? It may not mean anything, but the atmosphere of the Demon God’s Temple has been strange lately, so I was worried.

“Of course, they may be homonyms [names that sound alike], but it’s still a bit unsettling, right? So I went to the Demon God’s Temple before contacting them. But the gatekeeper blocked me from even going inside. He just kept repeating that there were no such priests. It was like they were all names he had never heard of. But I’ve definitely seen them before.”

“That’s a little strange.”

“Right? Suspicious, right? But well, I didn’t find out more than that. It’s none of my business anyway, and I thought I was meddling too much, so I stopped.”

“But why do you think the Demon God’s Temple is behind it?”

“The gatekeeper who turned me away at that time had the same physique as the guy at the meeting place.”

“…!”

“The color of his eyes and his voice too. His posture and breathing habits were the same too. Well, I received Umbra training, so I remember those parts well. It’s definitely the same person.”

If he’s so sure, it must be true. I frowned deeply. It had been a long time since I had taken my hands off the tableware. It was a waste of the cooling food, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

I don’t know where it’s connected from or what’s going on. I asked for an explanation to satisfy my curiosity, but the more I heard, the more I felt like I was falling into a complex maze. Chris also had a stiff face.

“It seems like something is happening in the Demon God’s Temple. I don’t know what it is, though.”

* * *

Contrary to the uneasiness that had settled uncomfortably, the days that followed were peaceful. The daily life, no different from usual, was as ordinary as if the events of that dawn were a dream. After several days passed without anything happening, Chris couldn’t stand it and forced himself to go out. He was going to check if he was being followed, but he couldn’t feel any signs or traces. It was the same even if he openly roamed the downtown area and visited the Hunter Association. It was a little unexpected that they didn’t take any action even though they had already confirmed Chris’s identity. Even if they thought he wouldn’t find out anything, they would usually attach surveillance.

Or is there something else going on? He said there was a commotion when he escaped, so it’s clear that there was a problem inside. Maybe they’re too busy dealing with that to pay attention to Chris. In fact, the Demon God’s Temple is not in a position to move rashly right now. Public opinion was bad due to the monster incident and Quanzer’s incident, and the relationship with the imperial family was also strained. I don’t know the inside story, but that’s how it looked on the outside.

“Seeing that they have a bad relationship with each other, they may not be in the same group.”

“Well, how can we know what those higher-ups are thinking? It’s a world where getting backstabbed is a daily occurrence.”

“Then what are you going to do with the document? Even if you lost it, you should at least tell them that there was such information, right?”

“No, I’m sorry to Davian, but it’s better to watch the situation for now. The contact method was old-fashioned, so there was a possibility of leakage, but the ciphertext [coded message] written in the reply was real. I don’t know who is involved from where to where, so I should be careful.”

Even as he said that, Chris steadily watched the movements of the Demon God’s Temple. In the meantime, his hunter qualification re-examination day was approaching. I heard that he had already recovered his former skills by then, so I wasn’t too worried, and the result was, as expected, a pass. He was finally able to establish a guild.

However, no one wanted to join. Quite some time had passed since he posted the recruitment notice, but not even a common inquiry came in. Considering that it is a common phenomenon for people to show interest once a recruitment notice is posted, even if it is a trivial guild, it was an unnatural situation for anyone to see.

“Sorry, it’s because of me.”

Chris felt a deep sense of responsibility. I shook my head at him, who was feeling sorry.

“I know Chris doesn’t have a good reputation. I was expecting that much.”

“It’s not just a matter of reputation. Actually, there’s a more complicated story.”

“Is it related to the sudden death of the Dawn’s Bow Guild Master?”

This was also something I had guessed. Chris, who had paused as if I was right, slowly nodded.

“…That’s right. He didn’t die in an accident. He was murdered.”

“Murdered? By whom?”

“The master of the Jinhon Guild. A guy named Theo, he was our master’s half-brother.”

His brother is the culprit? I looked at him in embarrassment, and Chris smiled bitterly.

“He hated the master, who was the son of a concubine [child born out of wedlock]. In that situation, he sent an urgent message saying that he was in danger while subjugating and asked for help. The kind-hearted master couldn’t turn a blind eye and went to save him, but he never came back. The guy who was in danger returned unharmed.”

I felt like I knew what had happened. Even I, who had only heard about it, couldn’t have known that the guild members at the time didn’t know about this obvious part. Chris’s expression became fierce, as if he was still grinding his teeth even now.

“It was a trap set by that guy, but there was no physical evidence at all. And almost all of the guild members who tried to respond to the incident died or became disabled due to unknown accidents. I’m the only one who’s still intact. Thanks to that, everyone was either co-opted by Jinhon or got scared and left the system.”

“I see.”

“That vicious bastard, even after the guild was dissolved, he kept trying to use his hands on me. Later, he even touched not only me but also the people close to me.”

In the end, Chris, who couldn’t bear to see his acquaintances in danger, stopped associating with anyone. Then, later, he even used his henchmen to approach and try to ambush him. He had completely isolated him so that he could not trust people. Come to think of it, when I went to see him, he mentioned such a name and was disgusted.