[45]
My heart sank at that question, but Yuri calmly asked back without so much as raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Beep- Beep-
But simultaneously, a mechanical voice accompanied by loud sound effects was heard.
[B-class or higher]
“Liar.”
The man grinned.
Yuri tried to maintain his composure.
He had never heard of technology that could identify Guides with such a small device.
Real guiding equipment was much bulkier and difficult to handle without expertise.
If portable guiding measurement devices had been invented, Rosenhauser would have tested everyone for being a Guide.
‘But what if research progressed while I was in hiding? What if new devices were developed?’
He couldn’t properly manage his expression.
Having never defeated an enemy, his fear only grew day by day.
‘Still, it registered as B-class.’
Fortunately or unfortunately, Yuri had considerably depleted his guiding energy.
It wasn’t because Yuri lacked power.
This was entirely due to Chris’s special circumstances.
When Yuri first began guiding, he realized Chris was suffering from aftereffects of going berserk.
This Esper’s condition was like a bottomless jar.
No matter how much guiding he provided, it was like pouring water into a desert with buckets—seemingly making no difference.
Naturally, having never received formal guiding education, Yuri didn’t know how to fix him.
Since he couldn’t request help from Northern Light, he simply did what he could.
Whenever possible, Yuri repeatedly poured guiding energy into that empty body until it overflowed.
Surprisingly, Chris’s total power gradually increased.
Perhaps it was natural since he had plugged the leak.
He was speculating that perhaps Chris’s recovery of sanity might also be related to guiding.
“Welcome to the canary’s cage. This cage suits you very well.”
The voice admiring his black hair and purple eyes as truly rare was disgusting.
“Canary?”
“Yes. Canary.”
The merchant grinned.
“Guides are… strictly speaking, prohibited items for trade. We just sell birds.”
Birds that sing beautifully and comfort their owners’ sorrows.
The man’s eyes gleamed with a grotesque light as he added this.
When Yuri’s face contorted, the man whispered with apparent delight:
“I’ll introduce you to a very good owner.”
As the footsteps faded away, Yuri closed his eyes with his face buried in his hands.
The Winter Continent was a place where crimes like murder, robbery, kidnapping, and human trafficking ran rampant.
Because of this, Yuri moved with utmost caution.
Whether it was luck or caution, this was the first time his identity had been exposed.
Of course, he had navigated through various difficulties before.
Troublesome customers, pickpockets, armed robbers, burglars…
Yuri could handle customers or pickpockets, but when it came to armed robbers or burglars, Chris would step in.
The problem was that his dog wasn’t here now.
‘…Will he come looking for me?’
He had rushed out without saying where he was going.
Would Chris, who wouldn’t even step outside without Yuri, know the geography of Orum City?
He slowly looked around.
Most of the “cages” were empty.
But in a couple of places, humans with vacant eyes were sitting.
They looked as if they had lost their minds.
‘Are they Guides?’
Yuri tried not to consider the reason, tried unconsciously not to imagine.
As if to fuel his anxiety, the lights went out in the dark room without windows.
Staring into the darkness, Yuri squeezed his eyes shut.
‘I’ve never left him alone all night before.’
It would sound ridiculous—being kidnapped yet worrying about an S-class Esper.
Still.
In this darkness, he kept thinking about his dog waiting for him.
‘What if I never return?’
Would Chris forever wait at the doorway for Yuri who would never come back?
He imagined that lonely back he had never pictured before.
Yuri’s thoughts paced in front of that door all night.
***
“C-class?”
“He’s in quite poor condition.”
“But I hear his guiding is exceptional.”
Yuri opened his eyes at the murmuring voices.
With his heart in turmoil, he hadn’t been able to sleep until dawn.
He gathered himself, thinking he must have fallen asleep like fainting when his extremely tense nerves finally gave way.
Apart from a slight numbness in his wrist and pain in his ankle, there were no other issues.
‘I should have rested well and looked for an escape method.’
Naturally, there had been little progress in his escape attempt.
He hadn’t found a way to break free from these chains.
Seeing the old-fashioned keyhole, he suspected there must be a key somewhere.
And it would be in that human trafficker’s possession.
“Exceptional?”
“The previous owner said so. Before dying in an organizational conflict, he handed over the Guide in exchange for his life. This is an item I received on consignment.”
The human trafficker flicked his tongue, saying he promised to sell it well for a very reasonable commission.
Thud, thud.
Their footsteps were approaching.
Yuri wanted to hide that he had woken up. But the chains attached to his body made loud noises as he stirred.
‘This isn’t a bell on a cat’s neck or something.’
He couldn’t tell if it was intended to completely block escape attempts, or if they simply liked the jangling sound.
“You’re awake. This is the canary we brought in yesterday.”
The man spoke with a satisfied voice.
“Since it was caught in the wild, it’s not yet tamed. But it’s the finest canary I’ve handled recently.”
“The finest?”
The voice of the presumed Esper carried interest.
“…Indeed, it’s beautiful.”
The Esper, staring at Yuri’s face as if entranced, looked at him so intently it was uncomfortable.
Yuri could see a hand reaching through the bars.
He waited silently, intending to bite off the fingers as soon as they came close.
But at the same time, his breathing quickened. It was hyperventilation.
‘Why now of all times?’
There were several contributing factors.
Fear of being suddenly dragged to an unknown place.
Terror at possibly being sold.
Exhaustion from staying up all night.
Perhaps the fact that the Esper was a middle-aged man similar to his stepfather also played a role in this reaction.
“Now, now.”
Surprisingly, it was the human trafficker who stopped the Esper.
“No contact is allowed until you become the true owner by participating in the auction.”
“Can I get a refund if I buy a Guide just based on looks and it doesn’t match me?”
Though said jokingly, the Esper’s gleaming eyes persistently followed Yuri.
As if wanting to consume even his breath.
“But it’s B-class, you know? We must be the only ones distributing C-class or higher Guides—I mean canaries—outside of Northern Light.”
“Even if you say it’s B-class, how can I believe that?”
“We’ll measure it again right before the auction and show you.”
“…Good.”
The two men retreated.
‘So there’s a time limit for escape.’
Being rated as B-class was a stroke of luck.
He needed to escape before they measured his values again and displayed them to customers before the auction.
‘If a mere B-class gets this kind of reaction… what if my real rank is revealed?’
Wanting to buy him with money might be a tame response. In the worst case, a bloody battle could break out among Espers.
Perhaps organizations, not just individuals, might move to secure Yuri, a possibility that couldn’t be ignored.
The current political situation in the Winter Continent was very chaotic.
It had always been a hotbed of crime, but now it was even more so.
This was because organizational conflicts were occurring over the districts of Orum City, which had established itself as the central city.
In this conflict, deploying Espers was more efficient and destructive than strategizing for victory.
Because of this, each organization was desperate to secure Guides.
‘That’s why I was hiding so desperately.’
Who would have thought the owner of the shop he entered to buy donuts would be a human trafficker?
Afterward, the criminal came in and out of the cage, bringing customers.
The goal seemed to be to showcase Yuri, a B-class Guide, to as many Espers as possible.
“This is a canary?”
After the last female Esper passed by, everything became quiet.
The interior lights went out. It was probably around the same time as yesterday.
‘It must be night.’
Like managing chickens in a coop, they seemed to control the condition of their merchandise by turning the lights on and off.
For Yuri, this was beneficial as it allowed him to indirectly track the passage of time.
He checked the clothes he was wearing. His coat seemed to have been taken, but his shirt was still the same one he had been wearing.
He rubbed his shirt sleeve against his knee. Fortunately, there was something that caught.
With his head lowered, Yuri began to unravel the stitching that secured the fabric with his teeth.
Having made it easy to disassemble from the beginning, the stitches came out easily.
And through that gap, a wire protruded.
It wasn’t inserted to maintain the shape of the sleeve.
He had put it there because the shirt sleeve was convenient for hiding such a wire.
Yuri carefully pulled it out and inserted it into the keyhole of the handcuffs.
He gently turned it to unlock them. The end of the wire seemed to scratch his skin, but he didn’t care.
The most concerning thing was the sound of the chain dragging. Although the guards seemed to have left their posts, someone could be watching from somewhere.
Yuri moved carefully, forcing down his impatience.
And at some point—
Click.
‘It opened!’
Yuri swallowed the cheer that almost escaped.
Getting out of the cage wasn’t very difficult either. Perhaps due to some old-fashioned taste, the lock on this cage was also analog.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness while unlocking the handcuffs.
Carefully moving his feet to find a way out, Yuri passed by two other Guides.
They were still awake but staring into space with clouded eyes.
They seemed to show the future of Guides who couldn’t escape this place.
‘Don’t look back.’
In truth, he wanted to save them.
Although he didn’t know their names and hadn’t spoken to them, weren’t they people captured for the same reason?
It would be good if they could leave together, but any goodwill Yuri might show now would only be reckless.
‘But someday…’
Yuri’s escape had almost succeeded.
If not for the human trafficker who came up to check his precious merchandise one last time before the auction.
Before jumping out of a window he had found with no security devices, a guard followed Yuri.
The canary, caught before fully escaping, was dragged not to the cage but to the basement.
“To think you’d try to escape.”
Sprawled in front of him, Yuri chuckled.
After all that noisy talk about canaries, did he really think Yuri was a bird?
“No. I knew. You were too vigorous.”
The mumbling man brought a knife with a visibly sharp blade.
“Do you know they clip the wing tips of pet birds to prevent them from flying long distances?”
Yuri remained silent.
Had the escape succeeded, it would have been different, but having failed, he had expected this much.
“I wanted to present merchandise without defects if possible, but…”
The man soaked something in a towel and covered Yuri’s nose with it.
He tried to resist, but two guards behind him held his shoulders, blocking his movement.
His body went limp, and his vision began to distort.
“Everyone who pays good money for a canary would prefer it to chirp prettily in a cage rather than fly away freely.”
The human trafficker spoke kindly.
“I’ll finish it quickly.”
