# Chapter 8. Canaria
[44]
“This is the Canaria?”
The woman asked.
Beyond the bars, her appraising gaze looking down at him was disgusting.
“That’s right.”
Despite his face being fixed forward due to the chain around his neck, Yuri stubbornly turned his head.
His profile was completely exposed, but laughter could be heard from the other side.
“Wow, he’s got spirit.”
She sounded absolutely delighted.
As if such minor resistance wasn’t even worth laughing at.
“He’s pretty enough to be a Guide, but I wonder if his abilities are decent too.”
“A Guide? Guides are strictly prohibited from being traded!”
The merchant greeting the customer jumped up in alarm. He added, as if trying to brainwash the customer:
“This is merely a Canaria.”
“Ah, right. My mistake. Fine, I’ll participate in the auction.”
“Excellent decision! It’s extremely difficult to find merchandise of this quality in the Winter Continent these days.”
The footsteps of the merchant and woman receded.
‘How tedious…’
Yuri looked down at his ankle in irritation.
The chain with elaborate craftsmanship looked more decorative than restrictive.
The situation of being tied up was bad enough, but this appearance made him even more furious.
A mere Guide like himself struggling to escape wouldn’t be threatening anyway.
At best, he was just an ornament.
Thinking about how he ended up here, Yuri found himself utterly pathetic.
All of this began just yesterday.
***
After settling in the Winter Continent, Yuri had managed to acquire a false identity and job.
He also obtained a house, though it was too shabby to call a “nest.”
Above all, his greatest achievement was that his “dog” slowly began to behave like a human.
He taught him to speak and instilled common sense daily.
Chris still caused minor accidents, perhaps because controlling his power remained difficult. Still, even when left alone for extended periods, he no longer went on rampages like before.
Rather, he seemed extremely cautious about becoming a burden to Yuri.
But that didn’t mean Yuri had opened his heart to the Esper.
A dog guarding the house.
No more, no less—exactly that.
But Yuri’s hatred toward Espers grew day by day.
Part of it was because of his godfather Rosenhauser, who had killed his parents and tried to make Yuri his exclusive Guide.
After all, Yuri had been constantly moving to escape his pursuit.
But the other half was due to his daily struggle to hide his identity as a Guide in this bleak continent.
“Yuri.”
At Chris’s call, Yuri realized he was trembling with his hand extended.
“It’s fine. You don’t need to receive guiding.”
From their first meeting, Chris had lacked what could be called expressions.
It wasn’t that he truly had no emotions, but rather that he didn’t know what emotions were or how to express them.
‘This is an improvement, though.’
“So you can go on another rampage and charge at me mindlessly?”
Yuri retorted coldly.
His voice turned cold because he didn’t want to acknowledge his own weakness.
In those days, Yuri always wanted to be stronger.
“Receive guiding while you’re in your right mind.”
No matter how hard he tried, whenever Yuri attempted guiding voluntarily, he had adverse reactions.
Cold sweats, tremors, or sometimes rushing to the bathroom unable to suppress nausea, vomiting everything inside.
To Yuri, Chris appeared not as a human but as an Esper.
“But…”
After hesitating for a long time at his command, Chris finally took his hand.
As he slowly channeled the guiding, Yuri struggled to calm his churning insides.
Even trying to think of the being before him as something other than an Esper, he could feel the guiding energy flowing out.
It felt like offering his body to a leech or vampire.
The sensation of his life, or life force, being sucked out.
‘Yet I’m the one who insisted on this.’
Yuri smiled bitterly.
“Your wavelength seems stabilized now. I’ll go wash up.”
By the time they finished guiding, Yuri’s back was drenched in cold sweat.
Hiding this, he rose from his seat.
At that moment, his vision turned black.
“Yuri!”
Chris tried to support his swaying body.
Even through that contact, guiding energy was being rapidly drained.
With rising nausea, Yuri swung his hand wildly.
Slap!
Chris’s cheek flushed red.
Having received sufficient guiding, his cheek returned to normal instantly.
But Yuri couldn’t shake the imprint of his hand branded on that cheek.
Gasping for breath, Yuri muttered,
“I said… I can stand on my own.”
What came from Yuri’s mouth wasn’t an apology but an accusation.
This fact filled Yuri with intense shame.
“I’m sorry. It was my fault.”
Chris was watching his reaction carefully.
The apology delivered with clumsy pronunciation triggered something in his mind with a bang!
Trying to steady his rough breathing, Yuri rushed out of the room.
“Yuri!”
He heard Chris calling after him.
Before flinging open the front door, Yuri managed to stop and snapped,
“Stay here. Don’t follow me.”
He would return once his head cleared.
Staggering onto the street, Yuri felt cold wind against his cheek.
Suddenly, he realized he was wearing a coat.
There was no way he had remembered to put on a coat when he was so desperate to open the front door.
‘Then this… did Chris use his power to put it on me?’
Because he was worried his Guide might be cold, even as that Guide fled in disgust?
He truly couldn’t understand these Espers.
How they could be so devoted without receiving anything in return.
His dog was different from any Esper Yuri had known.
The ounce of warmth Chris had left behind restored Yuri’s sanity.
Suddenly, he realized he hadn’t voiced his intention to return to Chris.
‘I’ll go back anyway, so what does it matter?’
With or without a promise, Chris would wait.
Even trembling with anxiety, that dog couldn’t abandon Yuri.
After all, he wouldn’t know any other Guide.
Disgusted with himself for thinking this way, Yuri stopped while walking and panted.
He used to be a better person than this.
A very long time ago.
Yuri tightened his coat collar.
Though knowing it was somewhat late, he hurriedly turned around.
Having left home with an empty mind, he had no idea how much time had passed.
Swallowing a sigh, Yuri turned his steps.
Suddenly, he spotted a shop selling sugar-coated donuts.
“…I think he enjoyed them the last time I brought some.”
Though he wasn’t certain since Chris ate everything given to him well.
As he searched his pocket, he heard coins jingling.
Yuri strode forward.
As he opened the door, a chime bell rang melodiously.
The shop owner, who seemed to have been working in the kitchen, hurried out.
“Welcome.”
“How much is one donut?”
“Ah, we’re not open for business right now.”
The owner scratched the back of his head.
“I see.”
Yuri had entered after clearly seeing donuts still available. But instead of pressing, he turned to leave.
At that moment, a frame hanging on the wall near the shop door caught his eye.
It was a newspaper article cut out and framed.
“Orum City’s Best Donuts! Meeting Owner Pavel.”
The headline and photo were rather crude.
It would have been easy to overlook, but Yuri hesitated for a moment.
The face in the article photo was different from the shop owner he had just seen.
Yuri felt a chill run through him.
But instead of showing that he had noticed something, he quickened his pace. At that moment:
“Ah. Tsk. Your instincts are too sharp.”
The fake shop owner, who had come over the counter, struck the back of Yuri’s head with something.
That was his last memory from the donut shop.
“No matter how I look at it, merchandise is merchandise.”
Exclamations reached his ears.
“Ah…”
Yuri raised himself, holding his head due to a headache. If he could have spat out curses, he would have.
But his movement was blocked with the sound of clanking metal.
Slowly, he lifted his face.
“You…”
The fake shop owner with expectant eyes was looking down at him.
He was holding a black terminal in his hand.
“Hello. Awake now?”
The man grinned.
“How… who are you?”
Yuri suppressed his anger as much as possible, showing only confusion.
He needed to appear powerless. Only then would he have a chance to strike back.
“Ah. Would you not believe me if I said I’m the donut shop owner?”
Yuri didn’t answer.
“I know the shop owner a little, but he didn’t pay me back my money. So I took over his shop. The location is quite good… Well, the merchandise doesn’t need to know this.”
Merchandise?
The utterly ordinary face that called a person “merchandise” without batting an eye could have belonged to any adult male on the street.
But his mind seemed to operate on a different track than ordinary people.
“I forgot to lock the door momentarily, and a pretty person walked in. I thought it was an opportunity. Merchandise used to warm beds is always in high demand.”
Blatant contempt showed on Yuri’s face.
Trash was everywhere you went.
It seemed like an endless task to clean it up, even until death.
Yuri contemplated how to make the man come closer.
‘If he gets just a little closer… I could strangle him with the chain attached to these handcuffs.’
But whether this man had the handcuff keys remained uncertain.
“But what do you know? I caught an unexpected big fish!”
“Big fish?”
Yuri asked as if he didn’t understand.
But his breathing instantly rose to his chin.
Like someone who had been running frantically.
Had Rosenhauser finally put out a warrant for him?
Was this man waiting to hand him over?
All sorts of fears and questions chained together until his thoughts were consumed.
Yuri’s mind went blank.
As if to wake him from his completely dazed state, the man poked Yuri with the edge of the terminal he was holding.
“You’re a Guide, aren’t you?”
