Chapter 264 – For You.
– Squeak
The calloused old man’s hand grips a brass teapot that looks like a porcupine with indentations here and there, and the grumblings he draws silently in the teacup resonate throughout the quiet room.
“Take it.”
“Oh, thank you.”
Usher looked at the scene and accepted the glass held out in front of him. In the cup where the seaweed was steaming, the tea water, which was infused with a faint green light, was fragrant.
“Thank you?”
She said Erica, who was handed her glass with him, as if she were following Usher. Krikaliev and Thaddaeo also take the cup and remain silent with the old man. Usher caught in the silence and only looked at them. After all, the old man had only been sitting around a small table since he had brought them to his house. But it was Krikaliev who broke the silence first.
“I don’t need long words. You have a motor core, right?”
“Hey! I hear you’re talking to your father, whom you haven’t seen in a while…!”
“Tadaeo. Stop, you don’t have to care.”
Thaddaeo shouted in an angry voice, but it was none other than the old man who cut him off.
“Mister!? No matter how much this guy!”
“It’s one night. Staying for one night is enough. So you should stop too.”
He bit his lip at the resolute old man’s voice, and finally raised the glass in front of him and drank his tea.
“You can use the room as it is. I have work left, so I’ll go first.”
The old man quietly gets up from his seat and opens the door. The click, click, sound of a cane, squeaking, and the sound of the iron door echoing through the room signaled that he had left the house. Krikaliev let out a smirk as Usher was dazed, not knowing what had happened.
“Anyway, it’s still the same.”
He rose from his seat and looked at Usher.
“First, let’s look at the room you’ll be staying in. From the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like much has changed.”
As Krikaliev climbed the stairs, he felt Thaddeo follow them as Usher and Erica followed. The sound of trees being crushed and bent resounded unnervingly, but the stairs did not collapse. The smell of old trees, somewhat different from the scent of the forest, lingered in the corridors and walls of the second floor that were neatly finished and reflected the sunset. And the place I arrived was in front of a wooden door. Krikaliev stretched out his hand for the door, paused, let go of his strength, and cautiously opened it.
“Oh, I didn’t even clean it properly.”
“Is this the uncle’s room?”
The room was littered with all sorts of clutter. Unlike the smell of wood in the hallway, the reason why the smell of metal smelled outside was probably because of the decorations made of iron that are full of this place.
“Yeah, I guess you guys should sleep in another room.”
“Wow! So many shiny things!”
At that time, Erica, who had been following Usher quietly, ran behind him and Todo also started to look around his room. The floor was also full of junk, so it seemed like there wasn’t enough space for her feet to step on, but the girl skillfully jumped between them and looked around at the things in her room.
“”Erika!?””
When Usher called out to her in surprise, he turned to the sound of her voice and met her eyes with Tha Daeo. Soon after, I was in a bad mood to see him frown, and I tried to say something, but the girl’s voice came before him.
“Usher, look at this!”
Usher freaked out when Erica poked at one of her odds and ends.
“Don’t touch it carelessly!”
“Okay. I wouldn’t even move anyway…”
-Kick-k-k-k-k-ki-lik
However, Krikaliev’s words did not go further. Because the thing the girl touched started to make a small noise.
“This looks just like the one on the ceiling!”
As Erica said, what she saw was, as she said, the cogwheel of her looking up from her downstairs. However, unlike the cogwheels on the ceiling, which were close to brown, the iron color was clean enough to reflect light, and the small cogwheels were rotating interlockingly in a small box. Seeing this, Krikaliev quietly moved to Erica’s side and watched it together.
“…That man is also useless.”
Usher looked at it, and eventually, unable to overcome my curiosity, I stepped into his room. I didn’t realize it from the outside, but when I went inside, the room full of clutter was organized in its own way so that people could walk through it, so it wasn’t as difficult as I thought. But what caught my eye first was the things that filled the room. Drawers and desks for storing clothes, bookshelves covering the walls, and countless statues occupying the floor.
“What’s all this about?”
If you look closely at the things you thought were junk, each one seemed like a luxurious ornament. It looked like a simple statue, but it didn’t look like an object that was left standing as it was, with traces of something connected and divided into parts so that it could move.
“Things I made as a hobby in the past.”
“Are you uncle?”
Usher looked at Krikaliev in surprise. The things here were made only of iron, but each one didn’t seem to be inferior to most crafts. You mean he made it himself?
“It’s roughly like this.”
Krikaliev opened a chest of drawers and took out a key. Then he picked up a statue resembling an unknown insect near him and inserted it into the side of the insect and turned it around. At the sound of something spinning and winding, Erika’s gray light shimmered.
“Oh, is that moving too?”
“It’s a flaw that the power is simple and short, though.”
He placed the insect on the floor, and it began to move as if it were really alive and lunged at Usher.
“Oops! What is this?!”
All of a sudden, the insect looked similar to the karambisque he had seen on the way, and bit Usher’s ankle with its tongs. Because insects are made of iron, it hurts even more. When I grabbed it by the back of the thing that bit my ankle and picked it up, it seemed as if his legs were moving and struggling as if they were really alive. However, the way the wheel under the ship turned turned taught me that it was not an insect.
“Keuk-kuk, I also got my ankles stamped on it a long time ago, so I just left it there.”
“If you know that, please show me something normal!”
Still, it was amazing that he made something like this.
“Interesting!”
“It’s amazing. Now that I look at it, it’s just a useless toy.”
Erica also clapped her hands in admiration, but he looked at the gears that gradually slowed down and said bitterly.
“But it looks too expensive for a toy?”
Because toys were stuffed with cloth or cotton, or simple ropes or stones that were used for play. Of course, I didn’t even think of making it with expensive iron, and I couldn’t even make it movable because it wasn’t enough just to carve it like that.
“Because I was curious about how a toy I received as a toy worked, so I opened it and made it myself.”
“…Do you usually think of making something like that yourself?”
I don’t know what the original looks like, but if it could move like this, it would be expensive.
“I got scolded for using iron when it was useless. But when I got a chance, I secretly borrowed my father’s furnace and made it however I wanted.”
“Then those gears are toys too?”
However, among the clutter here, what stood out to me were the little boxes containing the cogs, just like Erica’s first move. I don’t know what role a cog wheel plays in detail, but I knew that it was used to move something. It seemed strange to see only small gears in the box like puzzle pieces.
“I just made it to practice.”
“Practice?”
What came to his mind was the words of an old man who owned a tavern that Krikaliev could have become a kuratar. Because his father said he was Kuratar, who oversees the blacksmiths who make gears. Could it be that Krikaliev really wanted to follow his father and become Kuratar? Usher looked at the insect in his hand, but the iron insect had long since stopped.
“Huh? What is that?”
Did you find something? Erica, who had been quietly looking around, looked at one place with a puzzled look. If she followed her gray light, in a corner of a certain bookshelf, a certain picture was in a neat frame.
“No way.”
Krikaliev murmured in surprise and picked up the frame.
“It must have been in the drawer.”
Then, seeing him quietly watching the picture in the frame, Usher became curious. At first glance, I saw a man and a woman in the picture, but it was because I couldn’t see it properly because the sunset light was reflected.
“Me too! I want to see it too! What picture is it?”
When Erica stomped her feet and wanted to look at the picture he was holding, Krikaliev knelt down and let her see it too. It was an opportunity for Usher too, so he walked over to the girl and looked at the painting. Even though it was made of black and white and gray, it was an old painting that strangely seemed to have taken people and landscapes as they were. There were a girl and a boy just about their age. I couldn’t tell who the girl was, but I could guess the boy.
“Are you the uncle?”
“Yeah, when I was quite young. It’s really unfamiliar.”
The boy with dark, dark hair seemed to be more appropriately described as being fierce rather than docile. Even so, it is not threatening because of the half-closed eyes as if it is annoying?
“Then who’s the kid right next to you?”
Erica asked the white-haired girl next to her if she was interested. The girl stretched out her lightly wavy hair and stretched out her hand in front of her with a bright smile. It was an old, simple black-and-white picture, so the exact color of her hair was unknown, but she was definitely a beautiful girl nonetheless.
“Evil?! What, what?”
As she stared at the painting, she suddenly screamed at the pain she felt in her side. And let her turn her head in search of the cause.
“Aha ♪ You can’t look too closely at other girls ♪”
“Yes, ah, okay. Because I got it.”
She looked at him and smiled fiercely at Erica, and Usher shook her head and nodded her head. Apparently, she was even more jealous than Belka. As I looked at the items in Krikaliev’s room, the time passed by evening and became midnight. The old man hadn’t returned home until then.
“Well, you guys should sleep here.”
Krikaliev led them into an empty room as if he was used to it.
“Wait a minute, let him sleep separately…”
“Come and draw something now. You shouldn’t overprotect your children.”
“It’s not like that!”
Thaddaeo shouted and said something, but he could not overcome Krikaliev’s power and was dragged away. He was hungry because he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but somehow he didn’t feel like eating anything. It wasn’t that I couldn’t sleep, so I was staring blankly at the ceiling, so I heard a small sound.
“Can’t you sleep?”
Looking to her side, I saw Erica lying face down with her pillow propped up underneath her, putting a key in a small metal box. When you turn that key, a small sound is said to be a music box that plays music. What she had been especially fond of, Krikaliev had given her willingly. Looking at Erica like that, Usher asked the question she had been looking for her chance so far.
“You know, Erica.”
“Yeah, tell me ♪ Usher.”
The girl looked at him with a sweet smile just because he called. He managed to utter a question that was almost swallowed up by the still gray, glistening affection.
“Isn’t Erica worried about Belka?”
It could be rude, so I hesitated, but in the end I had no choice but to ask. He still doesn’t know what Belka is going through, and his heart feels tight every day. For some reason, Erica had the feeling that she didn’t really care. Still, she was worried that maybe this question would hurt her, so she opened her mouth as Erica tilted her head.
“Um, well. Maybe it’s because we’re used to it?”
