Chapter 271 – For You.
When they found each other, none of them spoke first. The reason can only be known to each of us. However, there were those who could not allow even that moment of silence. Tadak! A shrill voice echoed through the building along with the sound of spurring the floor.
“Let go of Erica!!!”
“Gagging?!”
Soon after, Thaddaeo kicked his legs at the shadow that rushed at him in an instant, and at the same time he got hit in the stomach and lost the girl he was holding onto. He staggered in shock as he saw his assailant. There, a boy who could be mistaken for a girl because of his exceptionally pale appearance and flowing dress was glaring at him as if he couldn’t overcome his anger. It was none other than Usher who moved faster than anyone else on the spot.
“Fuck, what a kid…!”
He was dumbfounded that the place where a guy who was more than half of himself hit was more painful than he thought. But that’s for a while. Usher looked at Erica first.
“Erika, are you okay?”
“Ugh, Usher.”
As her Usher hugs her, who is sitting on the floor, her Erika, reassured, falls into his arms. Seeing this, Thaddaeo’s fever flared up again. All in all, why is he among many, many people? He gnashed his teeth and tried to get closer, but he couldn’t.
“Hey, I think we have a lot to talk about.”
Before that, I heard Krikaliev’s voice with the feeling of a tight squeeze on his shoulder.
“Tsk, was it like that?”
The kid wasn’t particularly concerned about him. It’s just that there was already someone behind him who would catch him. He just cared more about Erica. I didn’t resist tying him up, thinking that he was a guy I really didn’t like until the end.
“Higuk, higguk.”
Finding Erica and Thaddeo, they trudged through the sunset with the girl whimpering. Since it was a building in a remote area, the way back was long and the steps were even heavier. And the place they arrived at was the Isga restaurant they had visited together before. However, a sign saying it was closed was hung in front of the door of the restaurant, and as evidence of that, the iron chimney, which must have been smoking for a long time, quietly watched the sunset.
– Bang bang bang!
Krikaliev knocks on the dining room door, and the iron door shakes and rattles. For a while, a fairly loud sound echoed through the streets.
“Who knocked on someone else’s door like this!!”
Drooling! A black, short-haired woman pushed the door open with a tired face and poked her head out.
“Is it okay if I take care of you for a little while?”
“Yakaf? Why do you guys…”
Isuga frowned incomprehensibly, then found Erica sobbing on the backs of Tadao and Usher, who had her wrists tied to crumpled iron and dragged on ropes, and her face hardened.
“Ha, come in.”
After receiving her permission, they went straight into the store.
“Oh, over there.”
“…Why?”
When Erica called out while gently pulling on the hem of Isuga’s clothes, she seemed to be contemplating what kind of face to make before finally opening her mouth.
“I want to take a bath.”
When her girl couldn’t bear to face her, she rolled her gray hair and muttered her words, and Isgar sighed and pointed to the back of her shop.
“You’ll find it at the end of the hallway.”
“Thank you.”
As Erica whispered to her and tugged at her clothes on her back, he took her without a word and walked to the place where her Isgar pointed at her. Izuga, who watched them quietly until the door closed and disappeared, let out a deep sigh and sharply raised her eyes.
“So. I can roughly guess. Let’s hear it. What happened? In detail. Tell me straight.”
Krikaliev, who had been silent at her words, opened her mouth after watching Tha Daeo.
“At first, I thought it was just a kidnapping. That little girl isn’t usually pretty. But it was like that in the Pavilion sector.”
“Pavilion sector…”
“It’s all about the guys who don’t really care about us. But if they kidnapped the kid, who would have ordered that?”
And there was one person who had nothing to do with the Pavilion sector and seemed to belong to it.
“I’ll hire someone else. Why don’t you advertise that you’re the culprit? Tadaeo.”
Yekrani was in fact the person in charge of commanding the datchiks, who were like guards. It also plays a role in managing floors so that they cannot come and go without permission. That’s because he had the authority to request support from the Pavilion Sector or give some orders.
“I can’t do that. The guy I hired at most might have an eye on him again. It’s better to use the Pavilion sector.”
Thaddeo, who had been silent until now, said with a smile.
“But no matter how much I could ask for it in the Pavilion Sector, I couldn’t hide in the Pavilion Sector at all.”
So it was necessary. A place where there are no people and few people know.
“That place was, after all, an abandoned warehouse that we often went to play when we were young.”
“Wait a minute, could it be that place that Thaddeo bought?”
She seemed to know about the place as Ysga had been hanging out with them as well. Krikaliev and Usher were able to visit the place because Lucas knew that Thaddeo had bought it.
“Yeah, and that’s where he did something bad to the kid he kidnapped and we got him. That’s it.”
When Krikaliev finished speaking, Isgar had already left his seat and stood up. Sure enough, she stepped in front of Thaddaeo and slapped him on the cheek. Aww! The sound echoed through the silent dining room, undisturbed.
“Big!”
Unable to overcome the impact of being slapped on the cheek, Thaddaeo rolled on the floor along with the chair. But her actions didn’t end there.
“How could you?! How could you!”
She continued to punch him in the face as he fell. Now he was striking with his fists, not his palms, but his hands were tightly bound by crumpled iron and rope, so he could neither touch the floor nor resist. Although he was still punching her as if he had no intention of resisting in the first place.
“It’s all about it. Does that have anything to do with Deborah?”
Krikaliev just looked at Isgar and asked Lucas.
“…Okay.”
Deborah was the sister of Iscah. Even among them, she was quite late, so to them, Deborah was like her little sister.
“Not long after coming of age, I suddenly got engaged to Thaddeo.”
“Crazy, isn’t that a net thief?”
When Krikaliev was frightened after hearing Lucas’ words, he laughed sadly as if he was happy, but sorrow permeated him.
“Gigkick, you’re saying the same thing as Isga. Of course, Isga was against it too. But what can we do? Even with Thaddaeo, you know that Deborah is stubborn, right?”
“It was. I want to see who I look like.”
“Anyone can see that it’s you.”
“Ghm. Is that how it works?”
The old stories that were so slightly enjoyable were also short-lived. Because Lucas’s words continued.
“The trouble happened later. Deborah suddenly went missing.”
At that time, it is said that the whole town was not a mess. They, of course, all those who wanted to be friends with her went out to find her Deborah. But no matter how much I searched, she was nowhere to be found. As if she had gone down to the ground. A year passed and by the time everyone gave up. Suddenly, Thaddaeo became Yekrani and eventually caught the culprit using the Pavilion Sector.
“You remember that, too? Carls, that jerk.”
“That guy who came up from downstairs long ago?”
It was true that the downstairs and the upstairs could not go back and forth, but it wasn’t that there wasn’t a single way for people downstairs to go upstairs legally. To prove one’s abilities. That guy was the one who came up that way. He said that there was no blacksmith downstairs, so he came upstairs to study under it. He was the one who often quarreled with Thaddeo, Lucas, and Krikaliev, so he was still remembered.
“Yes, he was the culprit.”
At first, the guy was evasive, but the pavilion sector thoroughly secured evidence that he was the culprit, and eventually he confessed to the crime. The reason was very simple. The guy Deborah liked had confessed.
“I couldn’t believe it. Was he a real beast?”
“It’s worse than a beast. It’s better if that’s the end.”
How did he know that he knew the secret passage between the lower and upper floors, and through it he hid Deborah downstairs? And whenever there was a chance, she would go and do things. Until she took her own life by biting off her tongue. That’s how Thaddaeo managed to find Deborah downstairs. It was already way too late.
“But I never thought things would turn out like this.”
Lucas’ bitter voice fell to the ground with a sigh. By the time their talk was over, Ysga got tired and stopped beating Thaddaeo. Although Thaddeo’s face was already a mess with bruises all over.
“Tell me! Tell me! Why did you do that!”
“…He said it goes up.”
“What?”
When Isgar frowned at her, as if he did not understand what he was saying, Krikaliev stepped over to him.
“Really? Is the fact that a girl who looks like Deborah goes up to the ground following a man, is she dissatisfied and upset enough to do such a thing?”
“You know best what it means to rise above!!!”
Where did that power come from? Thaddaeo pushed Igar, who had been hitting him on top of him, and grabbed Krikaliev by the collar with both hands bound together.
“You, not anyone else!! You, who was a genius, became like that even after you went up! But you want to let Erica go smoothly?!”
Shouldn’t I have died when I went up!? Even if it ended up like that, why didn’t you come back!?
“Why? To you, not us! Not your father! No one! If it wasn’t more important than going up!! If you were going to go up anyway! Why would you come back here! Bring a kid like that! Encourage Erika!?”
Thaddaeo’s loud, exhausted breathing filled the silence. That was something neither Lucas nor Isuga could say. I had always heard how dangerous it was to climb up, and it was hard to pretend not to know Krikaliev. Krikaliev quietly watched the man who grabbed him by the collar before opening his mouth.
“So?”
“Are you still going to take Erica?! Why don’t you tell me to die instead?!
But Thaddaeo was speechless. On the contrary, he was strangled by Krikaliev.
“That’s why you’re asking. Is that why you did such a thing?”
“…That.”
“You said you wouldn’t let me go up? You wouldn’t let the little girl go up?”
Then you shouldn’t have satisfied your petty desire with such a thing!!
“Even if you truly think so. Truth is revealed in action. Your actions determine your honor!”
Krikaliev’s voice echoed through the Tseng Restaurant.
“Think about it. Where’s the honor for that kind of thing? Where’s the idea? Don’t make excuses. You’re just a fucking son of a bitch.”
Eventually, Tha Daeo shut his mouth and bowed his head.
