CH 38

“Well, I’ll show you to your room now.”

The room was not that far from the room where the physician stayed. No, it was almost right next to them.

“Azar ordered it. We don’t know what will happen, so we prepared a room as close to the clinic as possible. I also moved your luggage yesterday.”

“Aha. Then I could have stayed in this room since yesterday.”

“What? Yes, you could have. But last night, Hazard said that you had fallen asleep, so I just moved the luggage in advance. Is there a problem?”

“No, nothing.”

Vascent laughed wonderingly. Nathan smiled vaguely. Hazard’s words were a lie, too! Nathan entered the room imagining himself clinging to Hazard’s round head with a mischievous face inside.

“We prepared it in a hurry, but I hope you like it.”

“It’s a nice room. Thank you.”

Looking around the room carefully, Nathan said so.

“How would you like your breakfast?”

“Well, I don’t have any particular thoughts.”

“Even if you don’t, I think you’d better eat something light.”

Indeed, I had to take medicine, and I didn’t eat much yesterday, so I had to fill my stomach slowly. However, in the morning, I didn’t have an appetite, and as my appetite decreased, I didn’t really want to eat. 

So during travel, the food he ate was always minimal and depended on Hazard.

“Then can you choose for me? Salad, soup, bread, or something.”

Even though he was not exactly poor because he had saved money, Nathan’s diet could not get out of the minimal living mindset. 

“I see. I’ll bring up your food in a minute. While you wait, please make yourself at home. If you need anything else, feel free to call me.”

“Yes, I will.”

Clattering.

When Vascent left, Nathan was left alone in the room. He stood there blankly for a moment and looked around the room again. It was not empty to say that it was nice enough. It was a quiet room that seemed to come out of an old Western movie. 

It was similar to Hazard’s room.

The size of the bay was a little smaller, and the atmosphere was different from Hazard’s room, which has a strong cool atmosphere based on blue and white. Overall, the room decorated with white and light grass colors created a cozy atmosphere at first glance. Flower-patterned wallpaper, which can be tacky if done wrong, was also harmonized.

Nathan headed to the balcony of the room. 

I fiddled with the light green curtains on the windows and looked out of the windows. The sea was not immediately visible from this room, but the lush greenery drew my attention. This is because the well-kept garden was just around the corner.

The appearance of warm sunlight pouring through long branches and lush leaves and shadows hanging long was like an ornament.

Feeling warm and drowsy, Nathan stayed there for a while and waited until Vascent returned. 

***

Nathan closed his eyes and began to figure out what had happened in the original story around this time.

The dimly remembered scene suddenly becomes clear when it arrives at the place where the incident will begin.

It was one evening in the middle of the festival that the incident took place. Due to the festival that continued for days and days, the seaside village was noisy day and night. So no matter what happened during that time, it was obvious that people wouldn’t notice. 

That’s how the incident occurs.

It opened quietly beneath the water. If the main character hadn’t passed by there that day, if they hadn’t found the victim’s younger brother in the crowd, if they hadn’t believed the child’s words, the incident would have disappeared without anyone knowing it. Because the victim was a powerless, poor commoner, the case was only known to the public after the death.

The incident begins in earnest as the victim’s young brother asks for help from Hazard’s party who he encountered by chance on the street. It was said that the brother of the child who went to work did not come home for two days. Those who passed by the child earlier did not help even after hearing his case. This is because the child’s situation could be inferred quickly through the child’s dirty appearance.

‘He probably left his brother because they didn’t have money.’

Most people thought so when they heard the child. It was a world where that happens all the time. However, the child insisted on finding his brother, saying that he was never the one to do such a thing. It was Hazard who caught a person passing by almost falling on the floor in a barrel that violently dropped the child.

‘Kid, are you okay? Are you hurt?’

“Hyung… Please help me”

The child clung to Hazard. He cried and cried over what he had already told many people dozens of times. Hazard and his colleagues were righteous, and unlike most people, they did not turn a blind eye to the child. They all went out to find the missing child’s brother.

The search was inevitably slow because the sun was setting, but that night, there was heavy rain in the sky. In the end, there was no choice but to give up the search. Since the child cannot be left alone waiting for the guardian who hasn’t returned, Hazard and his group take the child and stay where the child lives in case the child’s brother returns.

It was not until the time when the sun rose that the rain stopped pouring at dawn, that they started searching again. Each of them was in a position where they could not move recklessly, so Hazard’s party could not openly conduct a search. Because of who they were they stood out just by standing still. The village was busy with the festival, so they had to act carefully to not draw unnecessary attention.

Therefore, the search was bound to be slow on its own. They had to double-check the places they had already passed once and had to ask people to follow traces. It was already noon when they left the village to check their breath, as the last person believed to see the brother of the child seemed to have seen him go out of the village. It was then that a scream was heard from the mountainside.

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

At the scream from the middle of the mountain, Hazard and his party ran toward the sound. A herbalist who was climbing a mountain to collect herbs sat on the floor.

“What’s going on?”‘

“Are you okay?”

“H-h-he-he-he…”

In the direction pointed out by the herbalist, there was a body that had been torn here and there through a pile of dirt. The group realizes that the body is the brother the child was looking for. This is because it was just the description that the child explained. 

The child had hoped to find his brother, but he had already died. Since then, all they could do was call the village security forces.

The traces of biting by the animal remained all over the body. Hence, not only the security guard but also Hazard’s group considered death to be caused by a wild animal. The case seemed to end in such a simple accident.

But when he was about to leave the place, Hazard was not sure what it was but something felt off. So when the security forces recovered the body and his colleagues were away to tell the child the news, he looked around by himself. The ground was muddy because it was right after the pouring rain, and there were traces of soil being swept down,

There seemed to be nothing, so Hazard was just trying to go back because he thought it was just his imagination. But among the piles of dirt that have been swept away a little far away, you find accessories that sparkle in the sun. It was a kind of token that pointed to a particular top.

The location of the accessories apart was strange no matter how much he thought about it. It’s impossible to say it’s just a lost item to be in a place like this. It was suspicious that such a valuable item was left alone in such a place. So Hazard looked around more.

On second thought, the location of the pile of dirt swept down by the rain was also subtle. The soil was soft and the color was a little different around the body.

As if you dug it once and covered it again.

Hazard recalled once again the disastrous body of the boy. Although swept away by the rain, the body was half buried in the soil. Because of the sharp teeth and claws of the animal, he thought it was just buried under the ground for emergency food, but what if it wasn’t? Hazard’s eyes turn to the jewelry in his hand. The jewelry with a specific pattern was made by melting gold. Of course, it was an item that poor commoners couldn’t have and it couldn’t have fallen in the middle of such a mountain.

If this isn’t an accident, it’s a murder.

Rustling.

“Who is it?”

Squeak!