[90]
“Have you got what you need from the kid?”
Susanna asked, glancing up the stairs.
“Not particularly.”
Yuri walked over gruffly and sat on a bar stool.
“Drink?”
“I have no intention of having a drink here.”
Yuri answered flatly.
“Then have this at least.”
Susanna skillfully twirled the shaker, poured a white liquid into a cup, and placed it in front of Yuri.
Though it looked impressive, this was ultimately…
“Milk?”
“I added some honey. Good for sleep.”
Susanna added that she’d sprinkled in some expensive spices too.
Yuri looked at Susanna with an expressionless face.
Before Chris took center stage, Susanna had been one of the strongest in the Winter Continent.
She was so ferocious that wherever she passed, there would be a multitude of frozen corpses.
When someone tried to recover the bodies, limbs would shatter as if they were made of glass.
It was eerily strange how even the blood of the dead would freeze, not a single drop flowing from the broken sections.
Seeing such a Susanna now acting like the owner of a decent pub and offering milk felt strange.
Nothing is eternal.
Life on the run, the conflict between the Godrin and Luciano families, Rosenhauser’s glory, false peace…
Everything changes eventually.
Then where was he now?
After revenge is complete, where should one go?
“Miya Luciano.”
Yuri, lifting his glass, spoke for the first time.
“You’re still living even after her death.”
Susanna snickered.
“Should I die then? I’d be happy to be buried alongside her and save on land costs.”
Yuri’s expression became subtle.
From what he knew, Susanna had taken quite a lot of stolen goods when she fled the Godrin family, so hearing about saving land costs was ridiculous.
Was a woman who didn’t care about money really saying she’d crawl into the same grave?
“But Miya wouldn’t like that.”
“You care quite a bit about dead people.”
“And you still disregard the feelings of the living.”
Susanna sneered.
“Even though Chris Danil isn’t here.”
She tossed an ice-carving awl she was holding into the air and caught it.
As if she might stab Yuri’s neck with it at any moment.
“Go ahead and try.”
Yuri pulled up one corner of his mouth crookedly.
“Are you confident you can handle a retired has-been?”
“Wrong.”
Yuri quietly denied Susanna’s sarcasm.
“If I wasn’t confident I could handle you, Chris wouldn’t have been absent from the beginning.”
“That’s about Chris Danil.”
Susanna, who answered quickly, tilted her head as if puzzled.
“Sobolev, you’re not the type to stick your neck out in front of me without confidence…”
The memory of watching the ice awls she had stuck into his body melt was quite vivid.
As the ice melted and couldn’t block the wounds, the bleeding increased, yet Yuri didn’t say a word about Miya’s whereabouts.
Susanna felt no particular guilt about that incident.
She just wanted to kill the Guide who held his head high despite having spirited away Miya, who was as good as her life.
‘Anyway, Chris Danil barged in before I could have my fun and beat me up like a dog.’
If Yuri hadn’t been dying from excessive bleeding, Susanna’s life would have ended that day.
It was all due to her rough and explosive temperament.
People say she’s mellowed a lot with age now, but can a leopard change its spots?
“You, who can’t even follow the dead in death because you’re mindful of them, want to kill me?”
Yuri smiled slightly and emptied his glass.
“Go ahead and try.”
Susanna slammed the bar with her fist.
Genuinely angry, the temperature around seemed to drop by about three degrees.
“Damn it. Don’t tell me Miya’s last wishes were included in that damn contract too?”
With that outcry, the tense atmosphere eased in an instant.
“If you’re curious, ask Miya Luciano.”
His meaning was clear: he had no intention of telling her, so if she wanted to confirm the truth, she should die and ask Miya herself.
Susanna glared at that vicious Guide.
‘Chris Danil somehow manages not to get his insides twisted dealing with something like that.’
If Yuri had been her Guide, her insides would have been twisted from dealing with ‘something like that.’
Her organs and skin would have switched places, and she would have died long ago.
“I’d like to know about the status of unregistered Espers in the Spring Continent.”
“Why ask me that?”
Susanna grumbled.
“With that paranoid personality of yours, you would have planted at least an ear or two here before coming to the Spring Continent.”
“Explosives went off at the Barrel Society headquarters.”
Yuri said bluntly.
“…What?”
Both the Barrel Society and the flea market were known to Susanna.
Even if she hadn’t chosen illegal immigration, foreigners in the Spring Continent knew something about the Barrel Society.
Especially Susanna, who had kept her ears open for a while. She couldn’t relax for a moment until she heard about the downfall of the Godrin family and her sister through the Barrel Society.
Not only that, the memory of walking through the middle of the flea market with Miya, who was homesick, was vivid.
“It was quite a large explosion, but it seems you didn’t know yet. I thought there would have been more than enough time for news of a terrorist attack at the flea market to spread everywhere.”
Susanna kept her mouth shut.
“After Miya Luciano died, it seems life has lost its fun.”
Yuri’s voice was truly irritating.
“…Ha.”
Susanna, who had been silent, let out a sigh.
“You know damn well yet you still dig in. Snake-like bastard.”
Her voice was drained of energy.
“Listen. That place… I used to go to the flea market often with Miya.”
“Really?”
“Until a few years before she died, Miya suffered from homesickness.”
It was the place in the Spring Continent closest to the Winter Continent.
Well, parts of it.
“Every time we went to the flea market, we’d buy a cheap can of fruit and share it.”
Her voice was steeped in memories.
Yuri listened silently.
“Trying to split the last cherry in half, it flew off the spoon, and Miya’s face turned into a pout.”
Susanna quietly closed her eyes and then opened them.
“Even now, that image is clear before my eyes.”
“…”
She glanced at Yuri’s reaction.
With his temperament, she expected him to ask why he needed to hear more, but he was surprisingly docile.
“After Miya died, whenever I think of her, I sometimes go to the flea market and buy canned fruit.”
She had no one to share it with, so she had to eat alone. She didn’t want to share it with anyone other than Miya.
Susanna always looked for cherries to eat first.
Sometimes when it was the last one left, looking at it on the spoon was awkward.
Not wanting to eat it, but not wanting to throw it away either.
“I don’t know why that sugar-water lump, which has no special taste now, was so delicious back then.”
Susanna shrugged and added:
“But when I think of Miya’s pouting face, I find I’ve already emptied a can before I know it.”
“How sentimental.”
At Yuri’s dry commentary, Susanna smiled slightly.
She had the same thought as Yuri every time.
Sentimental. Unbearably so.
“Sentimental indeed. After eating like that, I toss and turn all night.”
“Because you can’t sleep?”
Yuri glanced at the glass of milk she had given him.
It was at a moderately warm temperature.
It seemed like she had prepared it in advance, but had she intended to drink it herself rather than giving it to Yuri?
‘She definitely didn’t poison it.’
She wasn’t the type to use poison anyway; she’d be more likely to simply slit your throat.
“Because I can’t digest it.”
Susanna added.
“It’s funny to say an Esper can’t digest something. It’s probably a psychological issue in the end.”
“…”
Yuri remained silent.
“So, whoever touched that flea market has touched me.”
Susanna stabbed the awl she was holding into the counter inside the bar.
Despite the sound of marble cracking, Yuri’s expression didn’t change.
“Should I take that as an offer to cooperate?”
“…I was wondering why you were listening so quietly.”
“I have no intention of stopping you.”
The Spring Continent was unfamiliar territory for Yuri.
The Barrel Society, which had served as his ears and eyes, would be busy with the bomb that exploded in their front yard. It would be difficult to immediately mobilize Peter Garrett, who had been handling mobility.
He had called in Northernlight, but they were too heavy a card to move already.
So why not borrow someone else’s cards?
“I’d like you to investigate people who are said to gamble.”
“…Gambling?”
Susanna clicked her tongue, mentioning drugs and now gambling.
“The corners where bad guys make money are relatively predictable.”
Yuri said calmly.
He deliberately didn’t mention the name of the informant, January.
It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust Susanna, but rather that it was just Yuri’s nature.
“What kind?”
Glancing at Susanna, who was listing games one by one like poker, blackjack, and baccarat, Yuri said:
“A fighting arena.”
“…Oh.”
Susanna’s expression became peculiar. She seemed to have something in mind.
“I’ll look into it.”
I have many who owe me debts, she thought as the tendons on her clenched fist visibly bulged.
“You’ll need to replace the counter.”
Yuri said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Miya would really dislike that.”
“Right. Miya wouldn’t like—”
Susanna, who was about to nod playfully, suddenly shut her mouth.
It was just someone responding to her long-standing habit of speech. Just the fact that this “someone” was a person who remembered Miya like herself caused emotions to well up from within.
Pain, sadness, longing…
That damn sense of loss, now as familiar as breathing.
And a feeling of welcome.
‘Why do your memories come to visit me from time to time?’
If she had met her in a dream, she would have sobbed, but it had to come when she was awake, making her a crybaby.
Having barely composed herself, Susanna blurted out:
“…Get out carefully.”
Rising from his seat at this dismissal, Yuri nodded.
“Well then, goodbye.”
He had no hobby of watching others cry.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
