[82]
“Ha! Should I say I’m honored you remember me?”
Susanna growled, sending a sharp glance.
Once, there were two mafia groups that divided power in the Winter continent.
One was the Luciano Family, and the other was the Godrin Family.
Susanna Godrin was a middle boss of the Godrin Family who disappeared during the conflict between the two families.
To be precise.
‘Yuri made her disappear.’
The Luciano Family had a precious daughter.
Miya Luciano.
Outwardly, she was a frail young lady who wasn’t shown much to the public, but her siblings cherished her so greatly that everyone thought it strange.
The fact that Miya Luciano was a Guide was revealed only after she disappeared.
Miya, who had been exploited for guiding by her family, passed information about the Family to Yuri in exchange for freedom.
Means to travel to another continent. A new identity unknown to the Family and settlement funds.
Miya left Winter without looking back.
At that time, the mayor of Orum City had to step down after articles were spread alleging collusion with the Luciano Family.
The Luciano Family, which had been enjoying various privileges by co-opting the mayor, was also greatly shaken. The Espers of the Luciano house who had been exploiting guiding from their younger sister began to run wild.
It took only a moment for an entire Family to falter.
Susanna Godrin barged in on Yuri as he was harvesting sweet fruits in the gap.
At first, he thought she had come to seize the district that the Luciano Family had failed to protect.
But what the middle boss of the Godrin Family wanted wasn’t privileges or territory.
She wanted the missing Miya.
Susanna kidnapped Yuri and shouted at him to tell her Miya’s location while pulling out his fingernails.
Yuri adamantly refused to reveal Miya Luciano’s whereabouts. He always strictly adhered to the terms of his deals.
When Chris rushed over after learning of Yuri’s kidnapping, he heard Susanna screaming.
“I have to protect her!”
“If you truly wanted that, you would have been included in Miya Luciano’s deal terms.”
Despite having his fingernails pulled out and bleeding profusely, Yuri was provoking Susanna. Even now, Chris’s vision turned red when thinking about that time.
“Well done, Chris.”
Yuri, freed from restraints, roughly bandaged his hands and then tied Susanna to the chair he had been sitting in.
“Now, let’s start a proper conversation.”
That day, Yuri uncovered quite a few facts.
Who would have known?
That the only daughter of the Luciano Family and Susanna, the middle boss of the Godrin Family, were in a secret romantic relationship?
Susanna had essentially betrayed her sister, Hilda Godrin.
Chris doesn’t know the latter part of the conversation Yuri had with Susanna.
This was because Chris, who had become violent at the sight of Yuri’s blood, was literally about to tear Susanna apart. Eventually, his master made him unconscious by pushing in excessive guiding.
Susanna disappeared the next day.
Everyone thought the Luciano Family had taken action. This was because Susanna was being pointed to as a prime suspect in Miya’s disappearance.
Even Hilda, the boss of the Godrin Family who had been moving cautiously, could no longer remain still. With evidence suggesting her sister had been killed, sitting back with hands tied would only drag her authority through the mud.
As the Godrin Family declared revenge, a full-scale frontal war between the two families began.
To put it simply, both Luciano and Godrin fell.
“Come to think of it.”
Clang, clang!
As Chris moved his lips, the glasses Susanna had been meticulously cleaning began to shatter.
“I haven’t fully repaid you for touching Yuri.”
Susanna, who had pulled the trigger without hesitation simultaneously with the shattering sound, found the bullet aimed at Chris suspended in midair.
Chairs, tables, and dishes all floated up. Even Susanna’s body.
Only Chris and January, who had brought him, remained with their feet on the ground.
“…Such a monster.”
Susanna spat out.
“That’s not for you to say.”
Chris pointed above his head.
Icy spears had grown densely from the ceiling.
Those cold ice fragments, scattering dazzling light like a chandelier, were trembling as if struggling to fall onto Chris’s head.
Soon, unable to withstand the force, the shattered ice fragments scattered in all directions.
“C-Chris.”
January called out to him.
He was clearly wandering, unable to find where to look as the situation changed rapidly before he could even adapt.
“I showed an unseemly side. I’m sorry. Susanna Godrin is a beast-like human who needed to be subdued by force.”
“But… you said you were Chris Northern Light…”
January’s voice was tinged with bewilderment. He was learning for the first time that when too shocked, one doesn’t even feel fear.
January had heard of Chris Danil.
The loyal hound kept by the master of White Night, who seized hegemony in Orum City on the November continent.
He had heard he was a ruthless Esper, but the actual Chris he met was, unlike the rumors, the most gentlemanly Esper January had ever encountered.
That’s why it feels even more unreal.
“I was called that at times. Past tense, though.”
Chris swallowed a sigh.
Yuri had trusted him with this task, but it had already become a mess.
“Northern Light? Did the sun rise in the west while I wasn’t looking?”
Susanna muttered with a dumbfounded expression.
It was a face from which all venom had suddenly drained.
“Today’s business is ruined.”
There was little point in continuing to resist.
In her younger days, she might have struggled desperately against a predetermined defeat, but now it was different.
Susanna took out a broom and began sweeping up the fragments of broken glasses.
“You dog. Not a single one left.”
Resentment dripped from her grumbling voice.
‘Perhaps I should eliminate future trouble…’
Susanna’s tenacity and ability were certainly formidable. Even the Luciano Family had not identified the culprit behind Miya Luciano’s disappearance.
As Chris was contemplating dark thoughts, Susanna gritted her teeth and muttered.
“These were glasses my wife had chosen.”
It was a voice saturated with resentment.
“Do you two know each other?”
January asked cautiously.
“Susanna was originally from the Winter continent too. We had some personal grudges.”
Susanna was about to burst out in indignation at the explanation that had cut off the beginning and end.
But Chris was faster.
“So it seems you eventually met Miya Luciano again.”
Perhaps Yuri had told her.
“That bastard you call master sent me to the Autumn continent. He lied that Miya was there.”
Susanna shuddered at Chris’s face, which looked at her as if to say, “So what?”
Master and servant were exactly alike.
“That son of a bitch gave me work. He said if I gathered the information he wanted while struggling in the Autumn continent, he would take me to where Miya was.”
Susanna, who was held by the weakness of Miya Luciano’s location, became someone who would roll when Yuri said roll and bark when he said bark.
‘…Yuri is impressive.’
Chris lowered his eyes.
He felt somewhat bitter. Chris had wanted to completely exclude Susanna from Yuri’s life. He believed that would be truly helpful. But Yuri, without Chris’s intervention, had expertly manipulated Susanna to use her.
A thought suddenly occurred to him.
Perhaps he was just a well-sharpened sword, of little use to Yuri otherwise.
“It’s remarkable you didn’t return to the Winter continent.”
Chris asked, swallowing his inner thoughts.
From the moment Susanna met Miya, she owed nothing to Yuri. With a personality that would ensure revenge and more, she had not returned.
Even Chris had thought Susanna was dead, so completely had she washed her hands of the matter.
“Miya… told me. The deal included her asking Yuri Sobolev to block me for at least five years if I came looking for him.”
Susanna muttered.
“She said she wanted to live a life without me. What could I do?”
So in the end, it was Miya who brought Susanna Godrin down.
“But to start with an attack right away.”
Your temper hasn’t died down, Chris muttered.
January couldn’t adapt to seeing Chris, who had seemed so indifferent to the world, displaying such blatant hostility.
It was also the first time he had seen Susanna, the owner of Safe Haven, being dominated so one-sidedly.
“I know fellows like you well.”
Susanna sent a cold gaze.
As Espers, Susanna and Chris were kindred.
“You’d never forget what I did to your Guide. Right? I thought you finally found my location and… came to kill me behind your master’s back.”
She nodded toward January.
If Yuri had accompanied him, she might have felt more at ease. But instead, Chris had come with his old acquaintance, January.
She naturally thought the threatened January had exposed her location.
“Seems the misunderstanding is cleared.”
“Since my neck is still attached.”
Susanna touched her neck and thought.
‘…Has even the great Chris Danil softened his temper?’
In the past, her head would have been severed the moment he summoned those ice picks.
That’s why she had ordered her subordinates to create a disturbance in White Night’s territory to tie up Chris, then kidnapped Yuri.
Looking back now, it was insane, but Susanna had been completely blinded at the time.
To the point where she thought she didn’t care what happened to her life afterward if she could just find Miya.
“If you’re not here to belatedly take revenge for your master, what business do you have?”
“Mr. January.”
“Yes.”
Chris pushed him in front of Susanna.
“I’d like you to hide him.”
“I don’t deal with drug addicts.”
Susanna answered curtly.
“He ran away from a guiding establishment. There are many trackers following him.”
“…So Yuri Sobolev is still doing that charity work, I see.”
The other side sneered. But Chris responded stoically.
“Have you forgotten that Miya Luciano benefited from that?”
Some dogs learn their master’s behavior quickly.
Susanna gritted her teeth.
“Anyway. Trying to deceive me? The January I know isn’t a Guide. Or perhaps… did it manifest late?”
She grabbed January’s hand abruptly. January flinched at the rough gesture.
Through the hand that touched without expectation, a blissful sense of stability washed over her. Susanna’s mouth trembled.
While Chris pushed her away with telekinesis, Susanna remained frozen without movement.
‘Really, guiding?’
After a moment of silence, Susanna raised her head creakingly.
“…Tell me what’s going on. I’ll at least listen.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
