[46]
Yuri wasn’t coming back.
Chris stared blankly at the doorway and thought.
Had two days passed?
Honestly, waiting had never been difficult.
Time without Yuri was like the moment between turning pages in a book.
A blank space with nothing written.
Nothing to read, nothing to keep in his heart.
But during the time with Yuri, Chris’s world was filled with vibrant colors.
He didn’t think he had been abandoned.
‘Then he must be unable to return.’
After two days, Chris got up.
Something had been bothering him for a while.
Deliberately making noise as he moved, Chris flung open the front door.
It wasn’t because he suddenly wanted to take a walk without his master.
“Die!”
A man lunged at Chris with a knife.
As if he had been waiting for him to come out, the attack was swift and lethal.
If it had been an ordinary person leaving the house without thinking, they would have been caught off guard.
But the tip of the man’s knife began to bend before it could even touch Chris’s body.
After the handle bent, then his fingers, his wrist, and his arm.
“Ugh… Ah… AAAGH…”
The pain ambushed the attacker a step too late. He had been too stunned watching his hand bend at an unnatural angle.
But before the scream could properly escape, something invisible muffled his mouth.
The attacker was dragged into the open doorway.
Having completed the process without moving a finger, Chris looked down indifferently at the human sprawled by the shoe rack.
“Who are you?”
Terrified, the attacker answered readily.
An Esper was not a being he could handle.
“I-I’m a knife-hand working under Lord Leo.”
Thankfully for Chris, the human trafficker was a thorough person.
He wanted to eliminate loose ends, so he traced Yuri’s tracks.
Upon learning that another person was in the former nest of his new Canaria, the trafficker summoned his subordinate and ordered the murder.
“I was t-told to make it look like I accidentally killed him while attempting to burglarize the empty house while the owner was at work!”
“Why?”
“T-to prevent a missing person report…!”
It was a somewhat rational decision.
The problem was that the Canaria’s housemate turned out to be an S-class Esper.
S-class Espers weren’t common pebbles on the road, who could have imagined one would suddenly appear like this?
The Winter Continent was vast, but the spaces where humans lived were narrow. Therefore, when a powerful figure appeared, rumors spread instantly.
Yuri had always worked alone, and when he took Chris along, it was only for grocery shopping or walks.
For someone with common sense, it was unimaginable to waste someone who could easily dominate Orum City if they wanted to.
“Ah.”
So Yuri hadn’t chosen not to return.
He had been unable to.
A smile formed on Chris’s lips.
Since he wasn’t yet skilled at using expressions, it was a somewhat twisted smile.
“Kuh, kuh-uhhk. Kk.”
While Chris was lost in thought, sounds of someone struggling for breath could be heard.
“Ah.”
He shouldn’t kill him.
Chris released the force from his hand.
“Lead the way.”
***
In a room with subtly suggestive lighting, a cage occupied the center.
“Look there, both the Luciano Family and the Godrin Family are here. His business acumen is impressive.”
“The competition for securing Guides is fierce.”
“Even if it’s just C-class, well, as long as we can fill the numbers…”
“The merchant’s skill is remarkable.”
“All the Espers in Orum City are in a guiding deficiency state right now. The struggle is at its peak, but if they were to go on a rampage, it would be disastrous. How can they fight like this?”
“True. If all the territory they gained through fighting gets blown away by Esper rampages, they’ll all be weeping tears of blood.”
Yuri sat on what was designed like a perch. Unable to support himself, he was leaning to the side.
Even in this state, the words flowing from the mouths of those surrounding him were disgusting.
To them, Guides were not people but resources.
Espers were actually better. Although treated as weapons, people feared Espers and tried to appease them.
But Guides were like dog treats thrown to such Espers.
‘Still… I have some time.’
He took a deep breath.
Though he had been forcibly changed into different clothes just before the auction, his back was already soaked with cold sweat.
The drugs numbed most of the pain, but there was no way to stop the chills.
“Thank you for your patience! The final item is a Canaria that I secured with great effort.”
The merchant turned his head and looked over Yuri with dismayed eyes.
‘I need to get rid of this one soon.’
This bird might look pretty, but it concealed terrifyingly sharp claws.
He didn’t just attempt to escape. He caused quite a commotion on the way here.
Assuming he was limp from the drugs, when a guard approached to move him, Yuri strangled the guard’s neck – that was just the beginning.
Using his wrist chains, he killed the man instantly.
Not stopping there, the Canaria even took the guard’s holstered pistol and fired at them.
Not all shots hit, but there was considerable damage.
Because of that, one of the subordinates lost an ear. The fallen man’s finger remained on the trigger until the end, and the last bullet grazed the merchant’s ankle.
If he hadn’t been drugged and paralyzed, this Canaria might have killed everyone involved and escaped.
“Of course, I should first confirm the measurements for you.”
The middle-aged man said with a broad smile.
‘He’s a bit fierce, but an Esper could handle him somehow.’
After all, he’s a rare Guide.
While striding forward, the man tried not to show his fear.
After the creature collapsed, they marinated him in various drugs to prevent rebellion.
It was unfortunate that he was limp and lacked vitality, but it couldn’t be helped for a quick sale. Keeping such a thing would only bring disaster.
A black terminal pushed through the bars of the cage and pressed against Yuri’s limp arm.
Even through his blurry vision, he could see numbers appearing on the electronic board behind the cage.
The human trafficker grinned widely and shouted:
“As you can see, he’s a B-class Guide!”
Yuri let out a mocking laugh.
‘That bastard got scammed.’
The fact that he could still laugh in this situation meant he was still in his right mind.
Of course, someone like that couldn’t possibly have a real Guide detector.
It was obviously fake.
His previously swollen chest deflated a little.
But the atmosphere inside intensified rapidly.
“Ooh, B-class!”
“Considering that A-class and above don’t even come to auction…”
Rising heat and unpleasant gazes.
Different from Chris’s.
He wanted to gouge out all the gleaming eyes of the Espers looking at him as if they were licking him.
‘It’s not… easy to control my thoughts.’
Yuri clicked his tongue.
If he couldn’t escape now, well, he could try when he was handed over to his new “owner.”
Just as Yuri was catching his breath—
The floor shook.
Rumble.
RUMBLE.
At first, he thought it was his imagination. But then he saw a standing guard stagger and fall.
The entire building was shaking.
“Run away!”
Someone screamed. But while everyone was rushing outside, someone approached the cage.
“Ha, haha. What an opportunity.”
One of the Espers the merchant had brought was looking at him with bloodshot eyes. He extended his arm and crushed the cage bars. Yuri tried to stay still but moved back in revulsion.
But another Esper with bloodshot eyes was waiting on that side.
“Come here. I’ll treat you well. Let’s get out of here safely…”
“I got here first! Get lost!”
“As just a reinforcement-type Esper, you think you can beat me?”
The Espers surrounding the cage began fighting each other.
The sound of clashing raw desires made his head spin.
Whether due to the drugs indiscriminately administered by the trafficker, he seemed to be hallucinating.
At some point, all their bodies were completely crushed.
Like flattened soda cans.
“Yuri.”
As flames rose beyond the window, sprinklers activated from the ceiling and sprayed water.
People screamed, and the building was collapsing.
The shadow of the person standing amidst the path of rain and fire was so calm it seemed monstrous.
He ignored the fallen human bodies around him and fixed his gaze solely on Yuri.
‘Who is it?’
He should run away.
His dog would be waiting.
“I’ve come to get you.”
The one who reached through the already widened bars pulled Yuri out.
As if entranced, Yuri was led out by that arm, but the sensation of guiding energy being drained snapped him back to awareness.
An Esper.
“Let go!”
Yuri struggled.
Chris, who had never had the will to disobey his master’s orders, released him.
Yuri placed his hands on the floor and knelt. Leaning against the wall, he struggled to support his own weight.
The pain rising from his ankle was unbearable.
Cold sweat ran down his spine.
Nevertheless, Yuri barely managed to stand on his own two feet.
He had to go.
“Why, why go that far?”
A mumbling voice seemed to come from very far away.
Perhaps because of that, it somehow felt like Chris’s voice.
“I.”
Yuri staggered forward.
“I’m going back.”
He muttered, as if talking to himself.
“Why?”
Chris asked, as if entranced.
“My dog. Is waiting.”
Yuri, intoxicated with morphine, didn’t know what he was saying.
Even the thoughts that Chris was standing in front of him and that he would be waiting at home chaotically intersected.
With his jumbled mind unable to discern which was true, he just had to return.
Because Chris would wait.
Blue eyes reflecting light as they met his the moment the door opened, crouched in the entryway.
That scene seemed to dominate Yuri as if engraved in his mind.
“I. Decided to take responsibility.”
From the moment he picked up that dog in the snowy field, Yuri made an irreversible promise.
He might not be able to love him, but he wouldn’t betray him.
Just as he had endured guiding, though it was a nauseating act.
So he had to go back.
On Yuri’s path out, there were those who hadn’t managed to escape.
The woman who had appraised him like merchandise.
The man who had whistled mockingly.
The Esper who had coveted him with bloodshot eyes.
Even the human trafficker.
Above their bodies were collapsed ceilings, burning flames, and protruding iron bars.
Not a single one had escaped – they had all become part of the burning building.
Yet for Yuri, neither fire nor shaking ceilings nor collapsing pillars were obstacles.
Finally reaching outside the building, Yuri took a deep breath.
The cold air of the Winter Continent filled deep into his lungs.
At last, his mind cleared.
His ankle throbbed. Glancing down, he saw blood seeping through the bandage.
‘I must have truly gone mad.’
This couldn’t be explained by mere determination.
Lost in thought, his eyes met concerned blue ones looking at him from right beside him.
‘Ah.’
That’s right.
He had clearly been in danger of being sold.
Then the building shook as if there was an earthquake.
And Chris appeared.
In a place he never imagined, in a way he never expected.
The tension in his body released with a thud.
“Yuri, Yuri!”
Feeling warm body heat embracing him, Yuri closed his eyes.
A faint smile hung on his lips, barely visible.
***
When Yuri finally returned home, he had a seizure.
It was drug withdrawal symptoms.
