Retire 330

330 Mud-Covered (1)

“Hello!”

The fairy Tati circled around us, beaming.

The delicate, almost feminine lines of her form were unchanged, but with mud dripping off her in clumps, it hardly mattered. I couldn’t even make out her face properly. She looked almost like a monster crawling up from the sewers.

She hadn’t exactly been clean the last time, either. But wasn’t that because the dungeon had been covered in mud? …Or was it? I still didn’t know all of this fairy’s habits.

Still, she hadn’t been this caked in mud before.

“Tati?”

“Yep!”

And it wasn’t just her appearance that had changed.

I glanced at Hong Seokyeong. He wore a strange expression as well. When our eyes met, he tapped his ear with a finger. I nodded.

We were definitely having a proper conversation with the fairy—through actual voices.

This was only my second time facing this fairy. But the first time, her voice hadn’t come through my ears or eardrums, but had resonated directly in my mind. Sometimes she’d made bird-like sounds that we couldn’t imitate.

But now… What was this? Had she suddenly grown vocal cords?

“This!”

She was definitely speaking aloud…

Tati held out the sword she was carrying to me.

“…Thank you.”

When I gave a small word of thanks, she nodded vigorously and hopped about, scattering more mud.

Hope had never liked explaining about fairies. More precisely, he found it difficult. Even after consulting with Gamble, and when he tried to explain himself, it was the same.

There was too much variation between individuals, he said, and since he’d hardly met any other fairies, he was afraid he’d say something misleading.

Maybe Hong Seokyeong had met more fairies than Hope had.

So Hong Seokyeong had also given a lot of thought to this fairy, Tati.

‘They’re intelligent beings. If there are ones like Hope, there could certainly be those who are friendly to humans.’

I agreed with that.

“Heejae, did you find him?”

Tati immediately asked about my brother.

To be honest, right after I tossed the sword through the gate, I’d worried the fairy might not give it back, but she hadn’t. Maybe the blade was blocking her view, because she brushed mud away from her face with the back of her hand.

I shook my head.

“No. I haven’t found him yet.”

“……”

“I’m still looking. That’s why I wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Have you ever seen something like this?”

At my cue, Hong Seokyeong handed the fairy a sheet of paper. It was crumpled from being carried around, but the drawing on it was still clear enough.

It was a well-drawn picture of a muscular man bearing a sphere. He used his shoulders and back, his whole body. He wasn’t just carrying it—one knee pressed to the ground, he looked as if he was supporting the sphere, or perhaps being crushed by it.

It was the classic image of the giant from myth, Atlas, punished to bear the heavens.

Usually, Atlas is depicted holding up the Earth.

Hong Seokyeong’s picture was much the same: a man straining to support the world with his whole body.

But there was one difference: what he bore on his shoulders was not the blue Earth.

It was, quite literally, a blazing sun. The sun’s bright light cast deep shadows, so Atlas himself was shrouded in darkness.

Tati tilted her head.

“This, picture…”

“Have you seen it before?”

Tati bent down. When a bit of mud fell onto the drawing, she jumped back in alarm.

That tiny movement was so human it was almost startling. It meant she understood she shouldn’t damage the drawing, that it belonged to someone else, that she’d dirtied it, and that she felt sorry for it. She was socialized enough to feel that way.

Compared to the monsters I’d seen in dungeons, she seemed like a completely different species. Or maybe she really was.

Even from the start, it was surprising. How had my brother met this fairy, and made her into such a friendly being?

Thinking back to how she’d attacked when I first entered the dungeon… No, that was because of the sword I was carrying. The dungeon had never been all that dangerous, so maybe her temperament was gentle to begin with…

…Or maybe, because she’d met my brother long ago, she didn’t attack Hunters who entered her dungeon.

Tati tilted her head from side to side as she studied the drawing. When I’d asked how she’d met my brother, she’d only ever answered “friend.” Judging by her vocabulary, it was hard to believe she simply didn’t understand. Maybe she just didn’t want to answer, or maybe…

“This.”

At last, Tati stopped her restless movements.

“Is it important?”

An unexpected question.

“Is it important?”

She asked again.

Not answering is a kind of answer. So is asking back like this.

If she didn’t know, she wouldn’t say that.

Tati’s eyes flickered between me and Hong Seokyeong. She brushed away the mud, and her eyes looked straight into mine—into a human’s eyes.

Do fairies have the same saying, that the eyes are the window to the soul? Or did she learn that from someone?

I spoke to Tati—the monster who knew my brother, the creature who called him a friend.

“It’s important.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

I spoke each word with care, with force.

“I need it to find my brother.”

Tati fell silent. Mud dripped from her head, thick and black—closer to tar than to mud. It didn’t smell bad, but it didn’t look pleasant, either.

Is it just humans who consider black to be ominous? Maybe it’s different for her.

“Heejae… searching?”

“I’m searching.”

“You need this?”

“I need it.”

I spoke gently but firmly, as if coaxing a child.

Tati’s eyes sparkled.

For a moment, I wondered if this fairy was far cleverer than she appeared. With her childlike manner and awkward speech, maybe I was being fooled without her even trying.

“I don’t know how much my brother told you, but—”

“…Heejae?”

“There was someone who tormented my brother.”

“Person. Human.”

“Yes, a human. A human my brother hated.”

But then there was the business card Tati had held, the one Kim Yuhwa had carried. My brother had written on it at length, saying it could be trusted.

When was the last time I saw my brother?

I couldn’t remember exactly, but it was definitely before I turned ten. I’d become too much of an adult to trust a man I hadn’t seen in over twenty years just because he was my brother.

No, of course I trust him. I do. He’s my brother. I do trust him.

I haven’t forgotten what he did for me. I don’t think the things he said to me were lies.

But I have too many lives depending on me now to chase after a childhood promise. Hong Seokyeong would probably ask why that’s my burden, but I can’t just leave everything to him. My sister wouldn’t want that, either.

I just can’t go charging in blindly, relying on childhood memories.

I want to find my brother. I never really thought he was alive, and as I told Hong Seokyeong, I just wanted to find his body, to know what happened. But I’m not so naïve as to throw myself in blindly.

“The people I’m talking about like this picture.”

I doubted a being from another world would understand things like brands or trademarks.

“Do you know it?”

“……”

“If my brother ever mentioned it, please tell me.”

Tati, who’d been fidgeting, suddenly went still.

The picture Hong Seokyeong brought—the Atlas bearing the sun—was the logo used by the pharmaceutical company Atlas before its board was replaced.

After the corrupt executives were ousted, Atlas changed its logo to a stylized globe, and though it’s changed a few more times since, the blue circle remained.

So what happened to the Atlas bearing the sun?

That’s the problem.

Some of those ousted executives and employees started up their own research lab, using twisted logic. That lab later passed into the hands of Noah Michel’s Ark.

I didn’t know whether the people from the old lab kept using their old emblem, but a closed cult village in America, supported by another Atlas, still used this image.

This was information from Herve Schneider, who’d attacked Hong Seokyeong in America and been captured.

The mage who killed his master quickly became cooperative once he understood his situation. He must have realized it was better to stay in America than be handed over to his dead master’s family or the French Mage Association, who had put a bounty on him.

And when Hong Seokyeong checked the photo Schneider provided, he realized something uncomfortable.

‘I had someone copy just the image for me. They’d painted it boldly at the entrance to the village.’

As he put away the picture, Hong Seokyeong said,

‘And surprisingly, I’ve seen this before.’

‘Where?’

‘Not the whole picture, exactly… this sun.’

The sun burning on the giant’s back.

‘It’s a tattoo worn by members of the Ark I was originally chasing—Henry Lehmann’s people.’

‘A gang tattoo?’

‘Yeah. As far as I know, all the officers have it. Right here, between the shoulder blades.’

‘…Just like Atlas.’

So, even if it wasn’t directly about my brother, I needed to know. Maybe it was related.

“It doesn’t have to be exactly the same as this picture. See this circle? Even if it’s just something similar, have you seen it before?”

So I wasn’t lying.

Tati stared into my eyes for a long time, then nodded.

“I’ve seen it.”

“You have?”

“Where?”

“Ummm…”

Tati reached out. I tensed, thinking she might grab me, but she didn’t.

Instead, she held her palm out flat, parallel to the ground.

“Hm!”

With a soft grunt, the dry earth turned soft. It rippled like a wave, bubbles rising to the surface. The ground sank like a tidal flat at low tide.

Tati tensed her whole body, trembling. Was she holding her breath? Do monsters have lungs? She looked human enough, but…

“……!”

When something popped up from the mud, I instinctively stepped back. I saw Hong Seokyeong, tense as well, reaching for a weapon in midair.

“Whoo!”

Tati raised her palm. In response, things buried in the mud rose up.

Corpses, twisted into grotesque shapes. Who knew how long they’d been in the mud, or what had happened to them there, but they were dried out like mummies, yet their forms were almost perfectly preserved.

“This!”

Tati grinned proudly.

“It’s them!”