Chapter 609 – Failure
Nora glanced out the darkened window and spoke in response to Evat’s invisible spirit.
“Like Evat said, it’s a bit late.”
If even Nora agrees with Evat, I have no choice but to leave.
But Nora’s kind words that followed made me feel satisfied.
“It’s late, why don’t you sleep here today?”
As expected, unlike her petty subordinates, Nora’s distribution was different.
Helena seems to be living up to her name as a priestess of the liberation front.
“Shit, priestess… That’s…”
Evat seemed taken aback by Nora’s recommendation.
‘Stupid guy.’
He doesn’t know about the relationship between me and Nora.
I guess Nora didn’t tell Evat about me.
〈Relationship? What is your relationship? Aren’t you making a strange mistake just because I gave you a pickaxe? 〉
Cosmos seems to have a bad head.
You don’t even know that.
〈What? 〉
‘Listen carefully, Cosmos. To Nora, I am the man of prophecy who will save Helena!’
〈When did Nora say that? She just said she saw you next to Helena. Isn’t the memory distortion too severe? 〉
Despite Nora’s favor, Evat did not give up.
He frowns and glares at me.
If you have any sense, the look in your eyes tells you to reject it and go away. On the topic of subordinates…
“…”
Originally, I had no intention of sleeping here.
But after seeing Eva Tran’s cheeky reaction, he suddenly wanted to sleep here.
“Hmm… Can I really go to sleep?”
“Of course! There are still plenty of rooms left.”
At Nora’s willing permission, I gave Evat a wry smile, and his face turned into a shit-chewing face.
“Are you hungry? Then let’s have dinner together.”
I wasn’t hungry.
I can’t remember the last time I felt hungry. Still, I had a desire to enjoy food.
Nora prepared me some decent food.
‘I didn’t expect much, but…’
Bread, fruit, salad… You can also see food that looks like stir-fried meat.
It was not a sumptuous feast like the one Sunni used to prepare when I lived in Zephia. But compared to the green soup served in the inmate dormitory, it is heavenly food.
“I heard the price of Karaz is expensive…”
“It’s a bit like that, right? But I didn’t buy this.”
“You didn’t buy it?”
“Yes, the natives who were treated thanked me and brought me food and ingredients. Thanks to that, I don’t have to eat that tasteless green soup provided by the lodging.”
As expected, doctors are treated well no matter which world they go to.
The food tasted good too.
Is this the taste of success?
After finishing the meal, Nora gave me a room on the third floor.
It was different from the shabby inmate accommodation.
It has a room twice as large as my accommodation, a large bed, and simple furniture such as a table and wardrobe.
That’s not the only advantage.
There will be no uninvited guests or thieves coming and going like last night.
“…”
After all, humans seem to be insatiable animals.
When I looked at the inmate accommodations, I thought the prison was good enough… But seeing a better place made me a little greedy.
‘I need to think about moving my accommodation.’
Nora created this treatment center not simply to make prison life easier.
Did you say it was an underground operation to find Helena?
Nora can be said to be a doctor who treats people. Naturally, her people have no choice but to be friendly towards her.
This means that Karaz information can be obtained from patients without difficulty.
And one more thing.
With Nora running this small hospital, joining the Helena Liberation Front becomes an attractive option for prisoners.
Even if she gets hurt, she can get treatment from Nora at a low cost.
Of course, this method was only possible because Karazu was a special place.
If it had been another big city instead of Karaz, it wouldn’t have been difficult to find a hospital, and treatment fees wouldn’t have been as expensive as here.
However, Karaz lacks medical facilities.
Nora, who has healing abilities, is a precious being in Karaz.
It was a very clever way for Nora to create her treatment center.
〈 Perhaps it’s because I have the know-how to run a pseudo-religion, so I’m prone to this. 〉
Cosmos still doesn’t seem to like Nora.
Is it jealousy…
She seems to be jealous of Nora, who is close to me.
〈What?! What nonsense is that!〉
I think I hit the nail on the head.
〈No! 〉
*
*
*
I slept comfortably at Nora’s treatment center,
The next day she also served as escort for the Bolton party in the mines.
And after finishing the escort, I waited for Nora in front of the mine management office like yesterday.
There was nothing special I had to do right now to find Helena.
It looks like he was picked up by the military for assault, and it’s dangerous to say he’s looking for Helena in that situation.
I was thinking of calling Suni to investigate after some time had passed, but the method was also a bit ambiguous.
Although this city is large, it is a closed space.
It is a place where outsiders cannot enter and cannot leave, except for prisoners.
I don’t know how long ago this city was built… But it must have been hundreds of years?
In that case, there was a high possibility that the natives of Karaz would all know each other across a single bridge.
Since the surveillance device was not visible, I thought that the surveillance was lax… But I need to think again about whether it is really lax.
Once in Karaz, the prisoners jumped out.
This is because it came from outside.
There was nothing to talk about, especially since I was tall, and Sunni was also a human being that the natives of Karaj did not know about.
If you think about that, I think it would be difficult to do a hands-on investigation.
If the military conducted a full-scale investigation, it would not be difficult to determine the inmate’s whereabouts.
I think Nora noticed that too and created a treatment center.
I also planned to lead a quiet life for a while, serving as an escort for the Helena Liberation Front.
As I was watching the prisoners leaving under Bolton’s leadership… Nora came up and handed me her request fee.
She said that I had received her commission fee.
“Now that I think about it, I think I left my bag at the treatment center.”
“Really? Then let’s go back together.”
When the answer I expected came back, I smiled with satisfaction.
“Mr. Bark. If it’s a bag, I brought it.”
“…?”
Evat came in from somewhere and held out the bag I left at Nora’s treatment center.
“…”
“Mr. Bark?”
As I was just looking at the bag, Evat called me again.
It’s an innocent expression that asks why on earth you don’t take the bag. That face looks like it’s laughing at me… Is it my mistake?
In the end, I received the bag with a sour expression.
〈Phew…〉
I opened the bag while Cosmos laughed.
I saw a bundle of money that I received as a commission fee yesterday.
I counted the money.
“You really think I touched the money?
“I’m just counting. It seems like you have more of a sense of victimization than I thought. Evat, if you want to assist Nora well, you’d better get rid of those negative thoughts.”
“…”
*
*
*
After falling victim to Evat’s plot, I had no choice but to break up with Nora.
I had no choice but to head to the shopping district.
I planned to have dinner at a suitable restaurant and then go back to my accommodation.
Other prisoners cannot even dare to buy food in the city.
This is because the loan must be repaid.
But it didn’t matter to me, who had already given up on that idea.
It was when I was wandering around the shopping district looking for a restaurant.
I saw a woman sitting on the street crying loudly.
There were pitiful looks from passers-by, but no one approached her.
I could have ignored it, but I had no choice but to stop.
Because she was a woman with a good reputation.
She was one of the members of the magic stone mining party led by Bolton.
I don’t know the name.
She has never even talked to her.
It hadn’t been long since I had escorted the Bolton party, and I wasn’t a sociable person enough to come forward and talk in the first place.
But I don’t know why she was sitting on the street crying when she should have gone back to her dorm by now.
It’s too bad to just ignore someone you know crying so sadly.
〈Not because she’s a woman? 〉
‘Uh huh… Cosmos, how many times have I told you that people’s good intentions should be seen as they are?’
〈Hmph! Wow! 〉
I approached the crying woman and asked.
“Why are you crying here?”
When I spoke to her, she looked at me while she was crying.
“Bah, Bark…”
*
*
*
She revealed her name as Nehru.
Nehru had a cute, puppy-like face.
Would you say it’s a sight that makes you cry a lot?
I brought her crying to her restaurant nearby to soothe her. She happened to be looking for a restaurant to have dinner, so she was doing both work.
Nehru asked me with an earthquake in her pupils as the waitress placed one food after another in front of her.
“B-Bark… Is this… Is it okay to eat it?”
As she continued to swallow her saliva, she had a look on her face that I couldn’t refuse.