Ch.102The Third Entanglement – Clichy and Ragtime (1)

“Recruiting Ysil won’t be difficult. She’s like a second mother to me. But I think there’s a better approach than publishing the article right away…”

The journalist recalled why she was so busy gathering people and evidence. It was because her father had shown a vulnerability. All of this had started from that tiny crack.

Perhaps it would be better to widen that crack? In other words, it would clearly be more effective to write the article after definitively demonstrating that the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn mobilize when Clichy Corporation is attacked.

She needed to make her father act rashly. So far, only the journalist and the people gathered here were paying attention to this vulnerability. Charles Clichy only felt regret, not realizing that a vulnerability had formed.

She needed to make her father feel that this was indeed a vulnerability… But something felt off. There seemed to be one thing she didn’t know. Some strange connection existed somewhere.

After pondering deeply, the journalist slowly raised her head to look at the detective. The detective had very easily captured two Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn and brought them before her.

Judging by the fact that he even had the map they used to plan the train attack, he seemed to know where they would hide. Someone who would know the hideouts of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn…

“Michael, you mentioned you’ve worked with my father before, right? Was that work possibly…”

“I was that elf’s muscle. Sometimes I led the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn on jobs, other times I handled more personal matters. Don’t even think about screaming. No one would answer anyway.”

The detective truly took on any job. He nonchalantly observed as hatred that resembled her father’s bloomed in the journalist’s eyes, and continued speaking.

“I’m just looking to jump ship because that elf seems to be on his way out. Is that a problem? He seemed to have no hesitation joining hands with Gremory, who had me kill the union leader.”

Though casually thrown out, the statement dispersed the hatred in the journalist’s eyes. Confusion visibly filled the void. Her lips, which had seemed ready to burst with words, sealed shut.

The journalist knew well that what she possessed was merely a powerless cause. She needed strength, which meant she needed people to help, but she wasn’t sure if she needed someone who was no different from unprincipled violence.

Using the detective would grant him absolution. She could almost see him washing his hands clean and walking away from this affair with perfect detachment.

Now she understood why he wanted to help her. The detective hadn’t come to form a cooperative relationship. What he wanted was merely a relationship where they used each other.

Her trembling lips finally opened.

“You don’t expect even a penny for helping with this, do you?”

“That’s right. My payment is a clear opportunity to walk away. Don’t pretend you’re any different, Rose Clichy. Have you truly forgotten you’re a Clichy during your time living as a journalist?”

The detective spoke with razor-sharp words without hesitation, as the journalist seemed capable of withstanding them. Not only he had benefited from the prosperity created by Charles Clichy.

Hearing those words, the journalist’s eyes filled with resignation. Moments of realization were always this empty.

“Others will see it that way too, won’t they? They’ll say I grew up in the Clichy household, benefited enormously from Charles Clichy, and now I’m using my weakened father as a sacrifice to escape that responsibility. Right?”

Where previously she might have collapsed in confusion and self-reproach, this time the journalist did not. With eyes exactly like her father’s, she looked up at the detective. You can’t choose your family. Blood doesn’t lie.

“Let them say that. I’ll ask who else could do this if not insiders like us. I chose to reveal the truth despite being able to indulge in that prosperity, and you chose to switch sides despite being able to have wealthy regulars. It’s a hundred times better to move forward with the stigma of being an insider than to sit complacently in unjust satisfaction.”

In that moment, the two elves saw the Forest’s Firstborn in the journalist. They felt more reverence than the fear they had experienced when told she was Charles Clichy’s daughter.

They hadn’t followed the Forest’s Firstborn for other reasons. To their eyes, the Forest’s Firstborn had seemed to possess tomorrow. A future they themselves had never had or seen.

They had gained the driving force to live from someone who had elevated them—worthless urban poor ignored by everyone—as masters of the future. They had received direction for their desperate and confused lives.

Charles Clichy had proclaimed to the elves that they would have a future, but his daughter was saying that only those who take action can seize today.

The words the Cowboy had left, the advice from Charles Clichy and Gremory, and what she had learned from observing the detective were finally crystallizing into a decision.

“Don’t even say you’re not on my side yet. I’ll recruit Ysil, and I’ll show you that switching sides is advantageous for you.”

“Now you’re starting to look like that elf’s daughter. Good. Still, this is something we need to approach like playing ragtime.”

The detective was beginning to see the odds of success. He was now convinced that it was time to definitively switch sides. That’s why, uncharacteristically, he spoke without mockery.

“Ragtime? But that’s orc music…”

“Ragtime should never be played quickly. It’s good that you’re acting like your father, but don’t be hasty. You know why I’m here.”

At those words, the journalist took another deep breath and calmed herself further. Yes, this wasn’t something to be rushed. Though she felt like she was dancing to his every word, she maintained her expression and said:

“You’re just betting on what looks like a winning horse. Anyway, if that’s what you did for my father… was your job this time to capture these two and bring them to him?”

“Yes, that’s right. But now they’re in your hands. And it seems like President Clichy is contacting the Pennsylvania branch to finally finish off that orc broadcaster. Does that give you any ideas?”

Sending the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn to deal with the orc broadcaster as usual would have been simple business for her father. He wasn’t one to create vulnerabilities in straightforward matters.

It seemed possible to make the situation worse. The journalist slowly reviewed the plan in her mind before looking back at the detective. Now their gazes met directly. Meeting gazes meant equality.

“Could you report to my father, Michael? Tell him that those two seem to have already fled to Pennsylvania. Since they won’t confess to the police, it might be better to deploy the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn from the Pennsylvania branch to find them. I’ll be contacting Ysil in the meantime.”

The detective, who always handled jobs perfectly, would fail this time, and then fail again at killing the target orc broadcaster… and ultimately, the two elves who had been the targets would end up appearing on that orc’s radio show.

It was a hastily conceived plan, but the probability of failure had decreased. She had hoped to feel a sense of duty that she was simply doing what needed to be done, but guiltily, she felt good.

It was similar to how she had felt when she first took photos with a camera and had her article published in her hometown newspaper’s reader submission section. Could such feelings arise in this situation? The journalist didn’t know yet.

“Not bad. Alright.”

The detective left Gremory’s mansion. It would seem strange for someone who had been searching for those two elves and failed to make a call from a quiet house. He went out to find a public telephone.

The journalist entered Gremory’s mansion. Gremory, who had been watching everything from the terrace, gestured toward the living room. It was a signal that she could use the phone.

Grasping the telephone in Gremory’s reception room—an elegant device with an ivory handle and a body carved from lightning-struck wood—she dialed Ysil’s number, which she had never forgotten.

State boundaries change. Using someone else’s phone for a long-distance call might be impolite, but Gremory didn’t seem to mind such things.

Ysil tends to answer the phone quickly. This time too, the call connected after just a few rings. An orc’s characteristically gruff voice came through.

“Who is this? If you have business with Madam Ysil…”

Always the same. The last time she had called him, she had been with the Cowboy. Now she was with a man who lived as the Cowboy had advised, so there wasn’t much difference this time either.

“Hector, it’s me. Rose…”

She paused briefly. Then, deciding not to hide her identity, she said:

“Rose Clichy. I need to talk to Ysil. Could you put her on?”

“You know Ysil doesn’t like that name, Miss Rose. But… yes, she should be able to take your call right away. I’ll connect you.”

After the connection sound rang again, this time a woman’s voice was heard. It was Ysil’s voice, gentle and cool like pleasant moonlight.

“Ah, it’s such a nice day and you’ve called, Rose. I hope this time it’s not because you’re feeling down. Can I hope for that? If you’d like, shall we have lunch together? There’s a place Hector and I went to recently with really good food. I think you’d like it too, Rose.”

She had come to know Ysil because of her father’s words. The fact that she was now using things inherited from him to hold a knife to his throat felt somewhat guilty, and somewhat… necessary.

The journalist didn’t stammer like last time. She spoke confidently.

“Thank you for the lunch offer, but I’m in Pennsylvania right now. I have some reporting to do about the Forest’s Firstborn. I need Ysil’s help with that reporting.”

Judging by Ysil’s immediate surprised response at the mention of the Forest’s Firstborn, she seemed to know about it too. Had Ysil left her father because he was the Forest’s Firstborn?

Still, Ysil didn’t remain surprised for long. She was someone who believed in the journalist. She was someone who had believed Rose could accomplish things, both when she was working as a journalist and when she was too sad to pick up her pen.

“You’ve learned about your father’s sins, Rose. Haven’t you? Tell me anything I can help with. I can make anyone who is his enemy my friend.”

The journalist was realizing how narrow her world had been. She had only thought of Ysil as a kind person, but she could also speak with such a sharp and cold voice.

That’s why she had to ask. She felt she needed to know all of her father’s sins in detail to understand how much responsibility she, who had been raised by those sins, should bear.

“Ysil, this might be a rude question, but did you leave my father because…”

“Don’t try to shoulder everything, Rose. You’re just one person. You don’t need to listen to everyone’s story. But, do you want to hear it?”

Yes, all stories are volatile. But some stories evaporate more slowly than others. They don’t disappear cleanly but leave dark traces behind.

“I want to hear it. I feel like I need to know.”

Ysil let out a short sigh. Not because she was worried about Rose, but because Rose was speaking like Charles in his younger days. Like him in the days when ambition and passion outweighed greed and mania.

“It was because he was the Forest’s Firstborn. At first, it was for a good purpose. It truly started as an activity to instill pride in poor, marginalized elves. You know the elven legend, don’t you? That someday the Forest’s Firstborn, wrapped in storms, would appear and lead all elves… an old, worn-out folk tale.”

It was the first time she had heard about her father’s past. Her father had always lived in the present, so he never told stories about the old days.

“At first, that’s all it was. They would gather in the forest to talk and give lower-class elves a chance to vent their frustrations. They didn’t even use the name ‘Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn’ back then. It was something like the Elven Tomorrow Association. They would talk in the forest during summer and in Charles’s store during winter. They were good people.”

It was hard to imagine how such people had become the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn. It was difficult to try to think like her father.

“But things started to change as Charles became successful. He had this obsession with protecting the people around him. He tried to raise his children to be strong because he had to protect his family, and he tried to become the Forest’s Firstborn himself because he had to protect those elves. The sight of him practicing lightning magic even as his fingertips and toes were burned… he looked like a madman.”

Raising children to be strong… For that, her sisters and brothers were good people. They were diligent, always working for tomorrow… She remembered how her eldest brother, large for an elf, had wept when she said she was going to New York.

“Until then, I was just worried. But he didn’t know when to stop. He was someone who gave his best every day. He killed an orc who had mocked them as they gathered in the store to cry and laugh and talk by striking him with lightning, and then stood in court claiming it was justified revenge, winning over the jurors’ hearts and being acquitted. From then on, he became an unpredictable person.”

Good purposes and good intentions became not-so-good purposes and worrying actions, and eventually crossed the line. No one ordered it. It was something her father did himself.

“I tried to endure somehow, but when I saw my child imitating the salute of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, I filed for divorce. It would have been good if I could have taken the child with me. Despite my pleas, he took the matter to court. The court didn’t give me any of the children. So, from then on, I became his enemy.”

Nevertheless, there was lingering attachment in Ysil’s voice. Since Ysil was one of the few people who remembered her father’s better days, the journalist thought she couldn’t help but have some delusions.

Everyone is gray. Even her father wasn’t without white, and even Ysil wasn’t without black. How white and how black am I? She decided to postpone judgment.

“Anyway, I’ve talked too long. Contact me anytime if there’s something I can help with. I’ll help your plans succeed. And be careful. You were a child who didn’t resemble Charles at all…”

The journalist instantly understood that this wasn’t a warning to be careful of her father. She could tell that what Ysil was worried about was herself, now speaking words exactly like her father’s.

That’s why she smiled brightly, childishly hoping her smile would transmit through the phone line.

“In some ways, I’m still not like him at all, Ysil! It’s just that blood doesn’t lie. Thank you for your promise! I’ll contact you again!”