[142]
Her rolled-up arm held a menacing energy.
Tom shook his head.
“W-what are you saying? Who are you? Are you Peter Garrett’s partner?”
He was confused by the unexpected situation, having assumed he would be dragged to Baekyah without any chance to escape.
Susanna narrowed her eyes.
“Being in this business and not knowing my face…”
She straightened her shoulders arrogantly. Even without trying, a threatening aura surrounded Susanna.
“You deal in bootleg liquor and you don’t know me?”
The shoemaker threw the question back at her.
Smugglers inevitably know each other. The market was too small, and the items they dealt with were limited.
Something that doesn’t take up much space. Something of high value. Or something difficult to obtain locally.
Bootleg liquor fell into the high-value category. Many people sought strong alcohol imported from the Winter Continent in particular.
“Because I never acquired anything through you.”
Susanna snickered.
“Ha. Could it be?”
Tom hesitated.
Although the Barrel Society was the largest smuggling organization, it wasn’t the only one.
Especially in Babel City, certain districts were completely under someone else’s control.
If they had exclusive supply of goods, there would be room to undercut prices, but with other suppliers present, price competition was inevitable.
The shoemaker had sent his subordinates several times to deal with those “suppliers.” But they always disappeared.
He had to withdraw rather than risk more bloodshed that might expose his hidden operations. It was a somewhat painful failure.
Still, since no one selling items other than alcohol disappeared, Tom quickly stopped worrying about it and focused on other matters.
Was Babel City the only major city in the Spring Continent? The shoemaker justified his failure in this way.
“I see such an expensive face here.”
Susanna responded to the shoemaker’s muttering with action.
The cold sensation lingering at the back of his head dug into his nape. Sensing the sharp edge without seeing it, the shoemaker nearly jumped but barely managed to stop himself.
He easily recalled the Esper who had been tracking him. The ice picks appearing from thin air and driving him into the alley where Peter had been waiting.
“It was you! You were the one who attacked me!”
It’s difficult to forget death that had come so close.
Susanna clicked her tongue at the shoemaker’s realization.
“Better late than never, I guess. How did you manage to do business all this time with such a brain?”
Tom squeezed his eyes shut.
The Esper who had knocked him unconscious had mentioned Baekyah.
If another Esper appeared in his place, then it would be right to assume this woman was also a member of Baekyah.
After all, Baekyah never hands over its prey to others.
“…Could it be that Baekyah has expanded to the Spring Continent?”
Tom’s heart pounded heavily.
He should have realized something was wrong before it was too late.
He should have questioned why, despite the Barrel Society’s network being so wide and firmly established, they could never claim one particular district in Babel City.
Even in the underworld, Espers shouldn’t be that common, yet when both lightning and ice wielders were chasing him simultaneously, he should have realized.
That there was something behind this that he couldn’t handle.
He barely suppressed his pounding heart as he looked up at Susanna.
An aura that ordinary people couldn’t possess unless they were involved in the underworld. An attitude that unilaterally dominated him.
It was clearly that of a powerful person, unmistakably so.
‘Damn it.’
Tom wouldn’t know.
That maintaining what he mistook as Baekyah’s territory as a “clean zone” was entirely the achievement of the person standing before him.
“Well, what do you think?”
The beast who had firmly defended her territory smiled, showing her teeth, pretending to be a dog serving its master.
Her fierce aura hadn’t diminished at all, causing the shoemaker to cower.
‘Interesting.’
It felt like putting on a past she had left behind. It seemed even someone like her could experience nostalgia.
Susanna twisted her lips into a smile.
The personnel Yuri had assigned to the shoemaker’s side were Susanna and Chase.
Since Peter was taking the shoemaker to the waterway, Chase stood by there, and Susanna was in charge of driving him.
“I-I didn’t know it was your territory. Really!”
The shoemaker’s stammered words lacked strength.
“I was just looking for profitable work. You know how much money it takes to run a large organization.”
“Woof, woof.”
Susanna barked indifferently. When Tom’s eyes widened, she shrugged.
“Listening to all this dog talk, I thought maybe using the same language would help us communicate.”
She pretended to clean her ear and then blew on her pinky finger.
It was obvious to anyone that she had no intention of listening to Tom’s explanation.
“…Damn it, damn it!”
Susanna grinned at his obvious despair and asked.
“So, how much did you make?”
“Q-quite a lot.”
Tom stammered his response.
His mind was too preoccupied with analyzing the intention behind her question.
Could it be that she would spare him if he paid money?
“H-hey… let’s make a deal.”
Susanna brushed her hair back and took out a lighter from her pocket, tried to light it a few times, failed, and frowned.
“So you did embezzle some.”
“Yes!”
The woman, with an unlit cigarette in her mouth, brushed her hair back again.
“How much can you offer?”
Her eyes looking at him were cold.
“F-fifty thousand credits!”
“Only fifty thousand?”
Susanna let out a hollow laugh.
“Ah, forget it.”
As she flicked her finger, an ice blade dug toward Tom’s nape.
If it got even slightly closer, he would clearly bleed.
Unable to even breathe as he froze, Tom heard Susanna whisper irritably.
“Hey. The one who tipped us off about you messing around in our territory got five hundred thousand credits.”
Tom let out a silent scream.
Peter had sold him out!
“We need at least that much to break even. Do you think our people were running around trying to catch you because they were bored?”
And he pinned the crime of transporting bootleg liquor that he hadn’t even committed on him.
‘That little bastard used his head in a dirty way.’
If he had acted directly, those who received money under Tom would have resisted.
Peter knew this and stepped back. To have a third party deal with Tom!
He had always underestimated him because he was young. He thought of him as a gentle person who carefully concealed his sharp claws unless it was for the Barrel Society.
To some extent, he had found it reassuring. But beneath that, there was also a mind that looked down on him.
And so, Tom felt betrayed.
“Peter. Did he… did he sell me out?”
Susanna confirmed with silence.
All sorts of thoughts and emotions began to stir in the shoemaker’s mind.
Wasn’t the locksmith supposed to be the protector of the Barrel Society? He had been dedicated as an executive for a long time, so how could they abandon him like this?
On top of the pain and fear, a sense of betrayal piled up.
Susanna was observing this well-heated hatred with cold eyes.
“Wait. The boss will be here soon.”
The shoemaker felt the death that had been hanging over his neck recede slightly.
But this was not a reprieve that would last very long.
Tom desperately racked his brain.
How could he survive?
And how could he effectively strike back at Peter and the Barrel Society who had sold him out?
While he was ruminating on emotions that were now pure malice, Susanna made a gesture.
“Boss.”
The black-haired man nodded. The moment his gaze met Tom’s as he turned to look at him, Tom swallowed hard.
A terrifyingly beautiful person with purple eyes that captured attention from first sight.
A cool chill lingered on his face, as if he had wrapped winter around himself.
‘Really…?’
Tom gulped.
The appearance of the man whom Susanna called boss matched that of Baekyah’s boss he had only heard about in rumors.
Although he was involved in smuggling, Tom had never dealt with a real “big shot.” To be honest, he had thought of himself, as an executive of the Barrel Society, as the big shot.
But the moment he faced Yuri Sobolev, his chest tightened.
It didn’t even occur to him that he could negotiate as an equal with this person. In fact, the first thing Tom thought of was an excuse.
An excuse explaining that putting drugs in the bridgehead they had created for expanding into the Winter Continent and the Spring Continent wasn’t intentional.
He had been defeated without even confronting them.
“Is this the shoemaker?”
“Yes. We secured him 14 hours ago.”
The shoemaker stiffened his shoulders, realizing more time had passed than he had vaguely assumed.
“Any use for him?”
“He seems to have some hidden money, but in my opinion, it’s not much.”
The conversation continued unhindered, as if they were discussing a piece of meat hanging before them.
Despite trembling with humiliation, Tom couldn’t say a word about his treatment.
“Five million credits.”
Tom was startled when he belatedly realized that the words that suddenly flowed from Yuri’s mouth were directed at him.
Baekyah’s Esper had said his bounty was five hundred thousand. So why was it suddenly ten times that amount?
“I-I don’t have five million. But I can somehow come up with two million eight hundred thousand credits!”
Honestly, he could somehow manage five million. But from now on, Tom was a fugitive. He could no longer return to the Barrel Society, and his days as a shoemaker were over. Unless he actually started tanning leather for a living.
He needed money to escape far away, safely. So giving up everything he had was impossible.
“Asking to be spared when you don’t even have that much money.”
The purple eyes looking down at him were emotionless.
Trying to gauge how to capture this person’s interest, Tom closed his eyes tightly and opened his mouth.
“I-I know something that could make money.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
