Carb Sears (R) 476

Chapter 476 – Wreaths.

The place where the old gentleman arrived was a small shop, a space where various musical instruments, from large wooden cellos to similar instruments made of plywood, boasting a variety of colors, were neatly placed.

“Are these all instruments?”
“It’s just an old man’s pastime.”

To say that it was a simple pastime, even at first glance, there seemed to be no place that was not stained with hand stains.

“Wow. To be able to see it up close like this.”

Lydica had forgotten her shyness since entering her shop, and she seemed busy looking at the many instruments.

“Hehe, you must be curious about why I brought you guys.”
“Isn’t there any reason for me to trust you?”
“Is it…”

The old gentleman, listening to Usher’s story, gave her a pitiful look, but then slowly closed and opened her eyes and continued.

“Don’t worry. The old man just found someone to complain about.”

He took a small tobacco pipe from his bosom, brushed off what looked like dried grass, and lit a match.

“Whoa, you seem to be from another country. You don’t seem to know much about the situation here.”
“Compared to what the elders know, there will be many shortcomings.”

No matter how much research Usher did, he couldn’t compare to what he’d been through all these years living here himself.

“Chuck, what can an old man do but watch?”

He took a deep breath from his pipe and let out smoke.

“Just looking at you makes even this old man feel a little sick.”

The puffy smoke rises into the air like an old man’s dream of the past, then flows through a small window and disappears.

“If we had done a little better. If we had done a little more. If we had led a little better. Wouldn’t it be common to see people like you?”

As Usher looked at him, not understanding what he was saying, he continued his speech with a bitter expression on his face.

“When did I ever see a young man and woman holding her hand together on a street like this?”
“Are you saying no one has visited this place?”

Usher then sensed that something was strange. He felt a sense of incongruity at the point where all he could see on the street were elderly people. But he thought he was simply going to enjoy a festival somewhere else.

“Even 10 years ago, many young people visited this place. As you know, isn’t it a good place for lovers like you to whisper love?”
“Hey?!”

Could Lidica have overheard their conversation? She froze as she watched her instrument. The old gentleman laughed out loud at the sight, but he couldn’t hide his bitter feelings.

“But now that decade feels far away. I think everyone present was like me…”

When you think about it, it was also bizarre. The old people withdrew as if they were giving them the stage, and the sound of the music that raged at the end as if they knew their regrets.

Even the sound of applause that was pouring towards them.

“So earlier…”

Lydica, who came to Usher’s side, heard the story of the old gentleman, and she seemed to understand them.

“Heh heh, don’t get me wrong.”
“Yes? What did I misunderstand?”
“Perhaps, even if it was the old days, if they had seen the young lady dance, everyone would have acted the same way.”
“I-I didn’t mean that!”

Seeing Lydica scream at her blushing, he looked at Usher with a mischievous grin.

“You captured a very pretty young lady too.”
“It is.”
“Mr. Usher!!”

As he sympathized with the old gentleman’s teasing, Lydica protested by pulling the hem of his cloak resentfully, but she didn’t seem to know that she wanted to tease him more.

“Then do you know how Paciphenia became like this?”
“Is there any reason to ask that of an old man?”

The old gentleman seemed to have noticed what his question was about, but pretended not to know. Usher had already noticed that this country was not functioning normally.

“I heard that the elder is Arbiter.”
“…Yes, there was an experience of leading the country as an elder at one time.”

He took out the badge he had seen earlier from his chest and sighed. He was inwardly surprised by his higher than expected status. From Lydica’s reaction, I knew that being an Arbiter was not an ordinary position, but I didn’t think that he would be in a position where he could be directly involved in affairs of the country like the Council of Elders.

“But that’s all an old story. Minos, since he became president, the Arbiter has become an organization whose name remains.”

Minos, the moment she heard that name, Lidica flinched. Usher pretended not to know that and asked the old gentleman.

“What did he do?”
“Puhuh, well. It’s hard to say that he did it alone, so I have nothing to say. After all, are we all guilty?”

The old gentleman’s eyes, filled with deep remorse, were soaked in helplessness as if he was looking back on the years from which he could no longer return.

“What crime do you think you committed?”
“A lot. Too much. Maybe my blindness to the immediate benefits they offered me was the start of it all.”

Not knowing that all of that will not be kept, no, even worse, it’s a bad proposal.

“By the way, I’m in love with Dimakaeri. I’m living a very hard life.”
“”…””

Usher met Lidica’s eyes and looked at the old gentleman again.

“What do you think of witches, old man?”
“These are poor children. All the achievements and work they have done for this country have been denied because of the nonsense that cannot be recognized by evidence or credibility.”

Upon hearing the story of the old gentleman, Usher finally opened his mouth.

“Then, do you know of an inn where you can stay with this child?”

The reason why he couldn’t keep carrying Elkanah was because of the situation where he had no choice but to stand out. I couldn’t stay at her house all the time because of Lidika’s Dimakaeri.

‘I was told that virginity is checked periodically.’

The reason he came here with Lidica was because a warden would soon come to her house to confirm her virginity.

“Keuhum, yes. If that’s the place, that child and her will accept you.”

He clears his throat, rises from his seat, puts on the bowler hat he has draped over his chair, and leaves his shop. As he walks along the old gentleman, he sees the changing scenery around him.

“…”

Then, what came into sight was an unknown knight sitting on the side of the road and staring blankly into space. It was hard to tell if there were people inside or not.

“Sueuuu.”

The rusty breastplate that squeaks and rises and falls slightly tells us that there are people there.

“Leave them alone. They are pitiful people wandering the streets without a place to go or a home.”

As Usher approaches, the old gentleman shakes his head and speaks. He would have been so if he had been called a simple homeless man. But the problem was that they didn’t look like one or two.

One on the side of the road, one on the lamppost, one on the bench, one on the wall of the building. Scattered at every corner of the street, they looked like armor that had been swept away with a lot of rust.

-Kick
-Kiik

If it weren’t for the helmet, which sometimes turned its head in response to hearing the sound of their footsteps, I wouldn’t have thought they were alive.

-Kkigiik, rattle! Kiki-Ik, rattle!

At the moment I heard from the front, the sound of armor moving that seemed to echo through an empty space, I involuntarily got nervous and brought my hand to the sword at my waist, but I had no choice but to lower my hand and let go of my guard.

“Ha, ha, medic! Medic!”

He passed by, gasping for breath in ill-fitting armor, unaware of them passing by.

“No. You can live. Carl, wait just a little longer. Don’t abandon me.”

In one hand, holding the ownerless gauntlet as if it were someone else’s. The voice that echoed from the inside of the helmet went away. Elkanah was just startled by the sound, though she shivered inside his cloak.

“…Who are those people?”
“They’re the ones we’re not responsible for.”

The old man only answered Usher’s question like that. He felt that too much was left out of his story, but he still did not know the details, so he had to follow him.

“Now, if it’s this inn, you guys will be happy to accept it.”

The place we arrived soon was in the back of an alley. The door that covered the waist like a guild door, the small gas lamp sticking out of the alley, and the sound coming from inside informed that this place was open.

“Then I’ll just go back.”
“What about the elders?”
“Sorry, but I’m not very friendly to them either.”

The price of ignoring the voices of young people is high indeed. The old gentleman murmured those words and quietly walked away from the place he had guided them to.

“What are you going to do?”

As Lidica’s question came when his back figure disappeared, Usher checked the inn again. It is a space that has become dark in an instant, but if you look at the sky, you can see the bright sky even though it is slowly setting down.

“Do you have any final guides for today?”
“…Yes.”