novelraw Chapter 6 : Chapter 6
Chapter 6 : Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Four corpses had appeared in the counseling office. The floor was soaked in blood. I had no regrets about killing those bastards, since they deserved it, but the thought of dealing with the aftermath made my head ache.
‘Contact Director Justin…?’
Castalners was a criminal organization so notorious that the Security Bureau had issued a wanted notice for them. Killing wanted criminals who had drawn their blades first and trespassed would not lead to legal repercussions.
‘…Feral Wolf is the problem.’
Some people regarded Feral Wolf as a hero, while others saw her as a criminal. However, the Security Bureau treated Feral Wolf as a criminal who carried out private acts of vigilantism.
If I reported this as it was, Feral Wolf would be arrested and put on trial. That could not happen.
‘The counseling is not over yet.’
Whether Feral Wolf was punished by law, received a reduced sentence due to the consideration that her personality was split from Nyxle’s, or was eventually released, all of that needed to happen after the counseling was completely finished.
That was why I wanted to handle this incident as quietly as possible. It seemed I had no choice but to contact that man.
DING—!
I opened the window and rang the small bell hanging on the window frame. Shortly after, a bird flew in from afar. Its speed was unbelievable, almost like a bullet.
CHIRP, TWEET.
The bird tilted its head and chirped cutely. This bird was called a “Gipone.” It was a bird whose flight capability and intelligence had been enhanced through magical techniques, a kind of carrier pigeon. To be precise, it was simply a faster and more accurate carrier pigeon.
I wrote the details and my signature on a note and handed it to the Gipone. Holding the note in its beak, it flew off with bullet-like speed. Then, before even five minutes had passed by my sense of time.
KNOCK KNOCK.
There was a knock at the door. When I opened it, a familiar face appeared.
“…Sigmar.”
“It has been a while, Kain.”
“I did not expect you to come in person.”
“I happened to be passing nearby. That aside…”
Sigmar swept his gaze across the interior of the office. When he saw the five corpses and the pool of blood on the floor, he laughed.
“You really went all out.”
“They were Castalners members. They deserved to die.”
“I know. They have sock tattoos around their ankles. Bastards who deserved it.”
Sigmar’s gaze stopped on the corpse with the sword tattoo.
“This sword tattoo belongs to a Castalners executive. His name is Omantis. What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean, what do I want to do?”
“There is a bounty on him. If you turn his head over to the Security Bureau, you can collect it. It is not a huge sum, but still. How about it, should I cut off just the head and turn it in?”
I looked at Omantis, the Castalners executive. He was saying that we could collect the bounty by handing over the man’s head to the Security Bureau, but I did not particularly want to do that. Once again, the existence of Feral Wolf weighed on my mind.
“…Handle it however you want. I do not want to go in and out of the Security Bureau. I have my reasons.”
“Then I will take Omantis’s bounty, and I will not charge a separate cleaning fee.”
“You were planning to charge a cleaning fee?”
“Even between comrades, payment is payment. It is best to be clear about money to avoid trouble later.”
I stared at Sigmar as he cleaned the office, then asked,
“Is the work manageable?”
“It is hard. Still, it suits my aptitude, so it is interesting in its own way. What about you?”
“Similar. It is hard, but fun.”
“And Erisa, is she doing well?”
“She is.”
By the time our conversation ended, the cleanup was already finished.
As a professional in this field, Sigmar worked quickly. Only a few minutes had passed, yet the office was spotless. The stench of blood that had filled the room was gone, replaced by a pleasantly refreshing scent.
When Sigmar finished cleaning and prepared to leave, I saw him off.
“Thank you, Sigmar.”
“You should be the one thanking me? I am the one who should be grateful.”
Something about Sigmar’s tone made me feel an inexplicable sense of foreboding. Sure enough, he soon wore a sly smile.
“This guy you killed, Omantis, is a pretty big shot. His bounty is actually quite high.”
“How high?”
“About five hundred thousand Leon.”
My mouth fell open. With five hundred thousand Leon, one could buy a house on the outskirts of Lumiere. With that money, I could even purchase the neighboring building I had been eyeing to expand the office.
“You said it was not a big sum earlier… you damn swindler.”
“Haha, sorry. I have been a bit short on money lately. If you need information again, call me. Considering our relationship, I will give you a good price.”
Sigmar grinned slyly.
“See you again, comrade!”
“After bleeding me dry, you call me comrade? Get out.”
“So cold!”
With that, Sigmar left.
Sigmar was a “comrade,” a friend and colleague who shared the same past as I did. Making use of his aptitude, he worked as an information broker, errand runner, or cleaner in the dark underworld of the back alleys. He was a useful friend whenever something needed to be handled unofficially, like today.
In any case, after finishing the cleanup with his help, I returned to the counseling room where Feral Wolf was restrained. From inside, I could still hear a GROWL and the sound of the restraint chair CLANKING.
Before opening the door, I suddenly thought about the connection between Castalners’ attack and Feral Wolf. It was not something I consciously tried to think about. My accelerated thoughts, driven by Dawn’s Call, were forming conclusions on their own.
‘Castalners is chasing Feral Wolf.’
They had said that Feral Wolf attacked their organization. Why had Feral Wolf attacked Castalners?
Under normal circumstances, I would have simply thought that Feral Wolf attacked Castalners as part of her “judgment.” Castalners was an organization that committed enough atrocities to deserve judgment.
‘But Feral Wolf said that her actions were not something grand enough to be called “judgment.”’
Aside from that justification, there had to be a clear reason for Feral Wolf to attack Castalners.
‘Castalners is a human trafficking organization.’
Human trafficking did not only mean organ trading. Buying people and selling them to slave traders, troupes, or mercenary groups was also human trafficking. Castalners was an organization involved in all forms of such trafficking.
After finishing that line of reasoning, I entered the room where Feral Wolf was.
The moment I stepped inside, Feral Wolf’s red eyes glared at me fiercely. With a threatening GROWL, she shook the chair again. The CLANKING sound grew louder than before, to the point where I feared the chair might finally break.
Fortunately, the restraint chair did not break. It was extremely sturdy to begin with, and more importantly, Erisa had administered a stabilizer, “Mist’s Lullaby,” at the right time.
I approached Feral Wolf, close enough to be dangerous. When I suddenly closed the distance, even Feral Wolf seemed startled and stopped struggling for a moment. I looked at her calmly.
“So until now, what you have been doing was not ‘judgment,’ but a struggle to survive.”
When I added that it was a crude deduction, a new light returned to Feral Wolf’s eyes, which had been red with rage. She blinked at me, as if asking how I knew. Feeling my head heat up from Dawn’s Call, I continued,
“The intruders had sock tattoos around their ankles. That is the mark of Castalners. Ms. Nyxle was originally supposed to be sold to Castalners, was she not?”
Castalners would have paid Ms. Nyxle’s father in advance for her price. However, when Feral Wolf killed her father and fled, Castalners lost the chance to sell Ms. Nyxle to a mercenary group. They would not have been able to recover the advance payment either.
“That is where the ill-fated connection between Ms. Nyxle, Feral Wolf, and Castalners began.”
In order to recover the advance payment given to Ms. Nyxle’s father, Castalners would have pursued Ms. Nyxle.
To protect Ms. Nyxle, Feral Wolf would have shaken off Castalners’ pursuit. In the process, she likely killed Castalners members. There may have been a few suspicious individuals from other groups who got entangled as well.
“As retaliation for the dead members, Castalners would have pursued you even more persistently. Unfortunately, other small and mid-sized gangs that got involved would also have tried to capture you. And you would not have let them have their way.”
To deal with Castalners’ retaliation and pursuit, Feral Wolf would have needed to maintain control over Ms. Nyxle’s body.
“At first, a day or two of control might have been enough, but later, that would not have been the case.”
As Castalners’ retaliation intensified, a mere day or two would no longer have been sufficient to evade a criminal organization’s pursuit. Thus, Feral Wolf would have needed to maintain control for a week, or even as long as two weeks.
“You did all of this to protect Ms. Nyxle, but Ms. Nyxle, unaware of the circumstances, would have believed that you were trying to take permanent control of her body. As a result, Ms. Nyxle came to see me.”
As the pieces fit together like a puzzle, everything became clear.
“The pathological anxiety and explosive rage you showed when you realized that Castalners had come here would also stem from this. As with anyone, repeated threats make a person hypersensitive.”
“…How did you figure all of that out?”
“I can help you.”
I did not answer the clichéd question Feral Wolf threw at me. It did not seem necessary. Instead, I went straight to the point.
“No. I want to help you.”
Feral Wolf stared at me. The restraint chair, which had been clanking loudly until now, no longer made a sound.
***
“Currently, your anger is at a pathological level. The same goes for Ms. Nyxle’s anxiety disorder. In any case, it would be better to prescribe medication. Ms. Nyxle and Feral Wolf have separate personalities, but they share one body, so the dosage should be roughly…”
I released Feral Wolf from the restraint chair. Then, after prescribing the medicine, I explained the method of intake and the schedule.
Because Ms. Nyxle and Feral Wolf were experiencing Dissociative Identity Disorder, also known as a dual personality, I had to carefully explain all precautions.
When Feral Wolf’s personality fell asleep and Ms. Nyxle’s personality awakened, I planned to explain the intake method and schedule once again.
“So this medicine reduces anxiety?”
“It is temporary, but it will definitely help.”
Feral Wolf looked skeptically at the flask I handed her. The idea that psychological aspects could be regulated through medication seemed unfamiliar and suspicious to her.
That said, there was no need to drone on with explanations or force her to take it. My duty ended with prescribing the medicine. Whether to take it or not was up to Ms. Nyxle and Feral Wolf.
After the flask, I handed Feral Wolf a magical tool about the size of a finger.
“And I will give you a recorder. With this, Ms. Nyxle and Feral Wolf will finally be able to communicate. This will reduce trivial misunderstandings and help alleviate Ms. Nyxle’s anxiety to some extent.”
I explained how to use the recorder as well. Press this button to start recording, press that button to play the recorded voice, and so on.
“However, this is only a temporary solution. The root cause of the problem lies with Castalners.”
“So, Kain, are you saying you will help me eliminate Castalners?”
She had previously called me “Mr. Counselor” in a mocking tone, but now she was calling me by name with a sense of familiarity. It seemed that some trust had built up. I nodded with a gentle smile, not hiding my pleasure.
“Completely eliminating them would be difficult. However, I will make it so that they can no longer pursue you.”
“I did not know counselors did this sort of work.”
“This is a counseling office, but it is also a resolution office. You would have known if you had looked closely at the sign when you came in.”
Ah, come to think of it, Feral Wolf had awakened here.
“Then you are both a counselor and a resolver?”
“That is right.”
Feral Wolf stared at me. Suspicion and distrust flickered in her eyes.
“But how? Even when I killed several of their members, they did not give up on chasing me. Over the past few years, I have killed dozens of them, no, more than that…”
“Killing alone will not solve it. We need to talk.”
“Ha!”
She let out a short laugh.
“You are saying you will solve something with conversation that could not be solved with violence? Do you really think it can be resolved in such a peaceful way?”
For years, Feral Wolf had evaded pursuit from Castalners and other criminal organizations through violent struggle. To say that something unresolved through years of violence could be solved through conversation must have sounded laughable.
However, some conversations were more violent than violence itself.
“By tomorrow, Castalners’ pursuit will be gone. I guarantee it.”
There was no need for a long-winded explanation. From here on, it was not a matter of persuasion, but of proof.