Chapter 50 - When I Find You All (1)

The faintly brightening dawn shone over the boy.

Rose's Smiles.

The splendid flower garden the boy had created.

The boy, dyed a brilliant red, was moving with labored steps.

Leaving behind the countless roses he had made bloom.

"..."

At the end of sweet pleasure, emptiness always tended to take root.

Revenge was sweet, but once he had finally devoured it, no one could do anything about the hollow feeling that followed.

Soara's soldiers stared blankly at the boy emerging from the building covered head to toe in blood.

They had thought it impossible, yet the boy had truly cut down fifty men and come out alive.

As they looked at the boy who had accomplished something they would never dare approach, the soldiers showed both awe and fear.

Even Vordan, who had come down to take responsibility for all of this.

The executioner and avenger who had exercised his rightful authority was walking out alone like that.

Relying only on his unadorned sword.

At that moment.

"Vlad! Vlaaad!"

From behind the soldiers came the sound of someone crying out desperately.

"Vlad! Over here! It's me, Haven!"

The boy, who had not yet fully escaped from his own world, turned his head at the sound of a voice he had missed.

A sight settled in the boy's blue eyes.

A shabby cane was waving above the soldiers' heads.

"... Haven."

The boy's gaze, which had been fixed at the edge of the horizon, gradually returned to reality.

Haven's shabby cane.

It was one the boy had carved himself for Haven, who walked with a limp.

"Haven?"

Vlad gave a small wave to the brown-haired man desperately searching for him.

Seeing that, the soldiers quickly opened a path for the brown-haired man behind them.

"Hey, you little..."

His view cleared and a path opened.

And there, before that open path, Haven lost his words when the boy he had truly been looking for stood right in front of him.

More than the joy of meeting after so long, the sight of the boy, dyed bright red and looking almost pitifully wretched, pierced painfully into Haven's chest.

"Are you... are you okay?"

Haven hurriedly limped through the soldiers.

"... Ah, ow."

Vlad sheathed the unadorned sword he had been leaning on and embraced Haven as he approached.

Releasing the tension that had been squeezing him tight, throwing away the emptiness he had been holding, and looking truly free.

"Ah... shit. It really hurts. It hurts all over."

"What is this? What the hell happened?"

To support the boy who naturally fell into his arms, Haven had no choice but to let go of the cane he was holding.

Vlad, who had been relying on the unadorned sword.

Haven, who had been relying on the shabby cane.

The two set down the things that had been supporting them and held each other.

They stood in the world like that, leaning on each other.

Like back then, when they had leaned on each other beneath a single blanket.

"... It feels like I'm finally back."

Vlad closed his eyes in Haven's arms.

* * *

Morning in Soara, where the moon in the night sky had set and today's sun had risen.

As if yesterday's uproar had never happened, the city's back alleys had fallen asleep again.

And the boy, who now had to move in the day instead of the night, opened his eyes beneath the gradually spreading sunlight.

'... I can't get used to this.'

He could not adjust well.

Because the place where the boy opened his eyes was not the back alley.

Soara was the boy's hometown, but the areas outside the back alleys still felt unfamiliar.

"Whoa, whoa. Get up slowly, boss."

As soon as Vlad opened his eyes, Got, who seemed to have been watching beside him, quickly brought him water.

"... Every bone in my body aches."

"Right. Of course it would."

Not content with drinking water, Got had even prepared wash water, and he stood there with a towel draped over his forearm as if he were a butler, grinning away.

"... What's with you?"

"What do you mean? I've always been like this."

Watching Got's suspicious behavior, Vlad furrowed his brow.

"Cut it out."

"... All right."

Looking at Got's awkward smile, Vlad thought.

Of course he would be anxious.

Because Vlad's connections who had remained in Soara were appearing one by one.

To Got, they must feel like people threatening his place.

"As long as you do your job well, I'll take care of you well enough."

"..."

Hearing the boy say that he already knew what Got was scheming, Got only nodded.

Got had not yet stepped inside the line the boy had drawn.

To step inside the line the boy had drawn for survival, he would need a little more time.

"What time is it now?"

"It's already past noon."

Hearing Got's words, Vlad stared blankly at the light seeping in through the window.

Judging by the deep color of the sunlight, it seemed he really had slept in.

"If your body's all right, Sir Vordan said he wanted to see you for a moment."

"I should go."

One-Armed Jack was dead.

The boy had also killed all of his subordinates.

Even so, One-Armed Jack's shadow would not be erased all at once.

He was a man who had put down roots in the back alleys for a long time, and he had also ruled everything there.

"... Sir Vordan must be busy."

Vlad knew well, because he had watched right beside the organization bosses as they were defeated or pushed out.

Whenever a new tide rose, things were bound to become busiest.

"Ngh... I guess I should help."

Vlad dragged his heavy body down from the bed.

Because in every matter, finishing things properly was always important.

* * *

"The woman named Marcella is under proper protection. Looks like she went through a lot."

"Thank you."

"Come take her with you later."

"Yes."

Though Vlad let out a sigh of relief at the news that Marcella was all right, his eyes widened as he looked at the snacks set before Vordan.

"Want one?"

"... Did you eat all that by yourself?"

Stacks of sugar cubes, desserts without even a trace left behind.

The corpses of sweets the fat knight had devoured lay scattered across the desk.

"If you eat like this, you'll die."

"I feel like I'll die if I don't eat."

Seeing Vordan answer while dropping sugar cubes into the coffee he was drinking, Vlad ended up closing his mouth.

"What are you going to do from here?"

"... I don't know."

Vordan looked truly convincing now that he had an office of his own, but to Vlad, who knew his true self, it only felt strange.

"Because of you, the work ended faster than expected. Well, I'll be busy handling the aftermath, but officially, you could say your job is done."

"I'll help you."

Vordan smiled as he stroked the thick flesh beneath his chin.

"I would have been disappointed if you hadn't said that."

"I was going to anyway."

The old knight nodded and took a sheet of parchment from a drawer.

"Carry this around and take care of the things I ask you to handle."

"What is it?"

The boy could read letters, but he was not used to them, so he slowly read down the words written on the parchment.

"Acting... authority... of the guard captain."

"It grants arrest authority."

"Hmm. Arrest authority."

"It's also a permit to beat people up within reason."

Vordan took the parchment back from the boy, who nodded as if he understood, and quickly added a signature inside it.

But the name he was actually writing was not his own, but the mayor of Soara's.

"The remnants of One-Armed Jack are still in the back alleys. Lord Joseph wants to use this chance to clean up Soara's back alleys."

Since a giant weed had been pulled out by the roots, it was only natural that an empty space would be left behind.

Pulling the weed out by the roots was already a great achievement, but if they filled that place with something presentable, it would become an even greater one.

Joseph was a man who always thought of what came next.

"If that's what it is..."

Vlad stroked his chin and nodded.

If it was that kind of work, entrusting it to the boy would be the best choice.

Because Vlad knew the circumstances of the back alleys better than anyone.

"For now, until Lord Joseph arrives, you're officially on standby. You only have to help with my work from time to time."

Vordan pushed over the caramels beside him and smiled playfully.

"For a while, rest, go visit some old friends and catch up. And bring out that girlfriend of yours from the convent too."

"... She's a friend."

Though he denied it with his words, Vlad took several caramels with his hand and looked sheepish.

"Then rest for today. I have a lot to do."

"I said I'd help you."

Vlad wanted to go to the convent right away, but it was not a place he could go just because he wanted to.

It was a solemn place strictly separated from the secular world, so the dates and times when one could enter were set.

Got had submitted a visit request separately, but he probably would not be able to visit Zemina within this week.

"Then, there are some petty small fry of One-Armed Jack's in the jail right now, you see? Go interrogate them a little. About Jack's hidden assets and things like that."

"..."

One-Armed Jack's petty small fry.

Hearing that, Vlad recalled the memories of when he had escaped Soara.

The boy had always wanted to live proudly without regrets, but life in the end tended to create situations where one had no choice but to lean on someone.

"That works out well."

Vlad tucked the parchment Vordan handed him into his coat and stood as he spoke.

"There was someone I needed to find there too."

In a relationship of give-and-take that had not easily been severed, this time it was the boy's turn to give.

* * *

The underground jail prepared at the guard station.

Jack's lackeys, rounded up this time, were sitting packed tightly together in a place where proper light did not even reach.

The body heat touching one another was deeply unpleasant along with the gradually warming weather, but the people here only sat in silence.

Because all of them knew very well that there would be no salvation for people like them, who rolled through the streets like trash.

"To enter here, you need permission..."

"Here. I just received this."

"... Confirmed."

CLANG!

Afternoon sunlight briefly shone into the space where there had been no light at all except torches.

And a single brilliant color unsuited to this darkness stepped inside.

Seeing the man who had suddenly entered, some of those locked behind the bars began to murmur little by little.

Because some of those here knew the face of the boy now entering.

"..."

However, the men behind the bars could not easily speak to the boy walking outside them.

His face was certainly familiar, but the bearing he gave off was not.

It was a bearing so proud that it was hard to believe he had once rolled around the back alleys together with them.

"There you are."

Ignoring the men looking at him with something desperate in their eyes, the boy found the person he had been searching for behind the bars and smiled.

"You're already dark enough, and when you hunch over too, I can't even recognize you."

The men behind the bars turned their heads along the line of Vlad's gaze.

"..."

At the boy's voice, the dark-skinned man slowly lifted his head from the dark part of the prison.

The dark-skinned man looked at the boy before him with blank eyes.

Because in all his life spent in the gutter, no one had ever come looking for him while he was curled up.

"Otar. Give me forty silver. Then I'll get you out of here."

The boy playfully reached his hand through the bars.

Otar only stared blankly at that hand.

It probably was not only because it was a different color from his own.

"I'll accept an IOU too."

The only thing shining in the dark prison.

It was the boy from back then, who had not lost his blue light even amid a heap of trash.

"... Thank you."

Following that light, Otar took the hand someone held out to him for the first time in his life.

The boy's eyes, facing him, were still shining blue.