Ch.111The Third Entanglement – Clichy and Ragtime (10)

“I didn’t expect you to leave without saying goodbye…. Ysil, I’m here!”

The detective had only stayed at Ysil’s house for that long. After making exactly two phone calls, the journalist watched as the detective disappeared outside the mansion as evening approached, then entered the house herself and called out.

She had many memories of receiving love that felt almost undeserved from her mother. When she said she wanted to try working as a journalist in New York, instead of trying to stop her, her mother had placed in her hands a necklace she had carried like a talisman since her youth. No one with such a mother could feel unloved.

Ysil had none of that. Though the journalist had received help from her after coming to New York, theirs wasn’t a relationship of familial affection. Nevertheless, Ysil’s house felt warm. It felt like home.

Inside the house where she now walked, a large raw mythril stone sat in a display case, reflecting its distinctive blue light without restraint. It was an object that always greeted her whenever she visited Ysil’s home.

The journalist counted again. At the count of four, Ysil would appear from behind it. Normally she would have waited with a giggle, but today she moved forward first. Like the detective, she didn’t want to waste even a second.

Ysil was short for an elf. About an inch shorter than the journalist, so the difference wasn’t that significant, and the journalist was actually glad they could look each other in the eye.

Her long ash-white hair was neatly tied back, and thanks to the elves’ characteristic resistance to aging, she looked at least twenty years younger than her actual age. Even her almond-shaped, moon-yellow eyes were warm.

“You’re in a hurry today, Rose. Has your employer already left? I heard a car leaving just now.”

Ysil’s voice carried a pleasant coolness like moonlight, as always. Though they could have exchanged some pleasant conversation in response to her measured words, today was different.

If this job succeeded, there would be plenty of time to have good conversations with Ysil, complain about the detective, and do everything else. Time would overflow.

“Ah, yes! He left right away. And, well… since I’m already being hasty, may I get straight to the point?”

Ysil nodded willingly. She wasn’t an elf who stood on ceremony. She couldn’t have become a capitalist if she hadn’t been a practical elf.

“Then, please lend me some people! I need to check the major hospitals in New York to see if any patients struck by lightning have been brought in. We should also search public records, but let’s start with the hospitals.”

Ysil’s eyes slowly scanned the journalist. She no longer seemed like a child in need of help and advice. Rather, she resembled Charles so much that Ysil felt uncomfortable.

“So you think you can implicate Charles if he’s made a foolish choice? I’ll help with that, but why not look for police who would do the implicating, Rose? Not many officers are willing to touch someone of Charles’s stature. Anyone with that kind of enthusiasm and ability would have already been bought off by Charles. You need someone a bit more… blindly devoted… to the cause.”

The journalist swallowed. Saliva? No, guilt. There was one person who came to mind hearing those words. One person whom it felt extremely disrespectful to think of in this context.

Uncle Leonard, who had asked her to publish an article about Giuseppina’s brother. He had seemed rational at first, but after failing and feeling betrayed in that incident, he appeared deeply shocked.

When he called about the child abduction case, his voice had been trembling with anxiety, and he kept talking endlessly about justice needing to be served. He even compulsively repeated the children’s names.

Wouldn’t someone like that boldly hold a knife to her father’s throat? She should at least keep him as an option. Yet the journalist rolled the guilt around in her mouth like candy.

What if, living like this, she became satisfied with merely remembering her guilt, making sin feel like nothing? The journalist swallowed her worry. If that happened, someone would send an enforcer after her.

There was a fact that criminals and villains easily forgot: the very basic truth that when you do bad things, someone comes to catch you. Her father had forgotten that, so the journalist had sent the detective.

The house seemed busier than usual; Ysil’s contractors appeared to be gathered inside. Ysil was a capitalist after all. She had contractors to protect her daily life. She just didn’t wield them carelessly.

Normally when thinking of contractors, one imagined orcs or ogres like Hector, but Ysil’s contractors were mostly human. There were even a few elves among them, physically the weakest of all.

Still, she didn’t doubt Ysil. She must have her reasons for hiring these people. By now, the journalist no longer believed in appearances. Only results mattered.

The contractors left the mansion garage in pairs, heading into New York City, and the journalist picked up the receiver that still faintly held the detective’s warmth. Though she only knew his work number, she called Uncle Leonard.

The dial tone rang. Once, twice… After the monotonous mechanical sound rang for quite some time, the call connected. It was Uncle Leonard who answered, but he was breathing heavily.

“Inspector Leonard Price of the New York Police Department. Who is this? If it’s nothing urgent, I’m in the middle of something personal…”

“It’s Rose. Rose Clichy. I mean… you know, don’t you, Uncle?”

At the words “Rose Clichy,” his heavy breathing stopped. The sound of one deep breath came through the phone line, followed by silence. This wasn’t an easy subject to broach.

“I see you know. I’m calling to ask for your help.”

The journalist chose her words carefully, though she didn’t take too long. To persuade someone blinded by justice, as both the detective and Ysil had described, these words would naturally fit.

“You said before that police work alone isn’t enough to realize justice. I’ll help you prove that’s not true. I’m currently looking for evidence needed to arrest my father, and it’s not just to ignore evidence of crimes just because the perpetrator is powerful, is it, Uncle Lenny?”

She tried appealing to his emotions using a nickname she rarely used. Or perhaps she was sincerely appealing to those emotions. The former was the detective’s method, the latter the orc broadcaster’s.

She couldn’t tell which approach she was using now. It could be called her own method. She was someone confident in her words, after all.

After another moment of silence, a voice tinged with a hollow laugh came through the line. Inspector Leonard was considering. But his deliberation didn’t last long.

This city was completely rotten. Directionless desires wandered the city like corpses risen from graves. Gold-plated corpses walked the streets. There was no justice. It had to be restored, no matter the cost.

How many traitors were there in the police force? What was he planning now? In such a situation, this girl made Leonard feel a sense of justice.

He recalled the almost ecstatic sensation he’d felt when he rescued the kidnapped children with the detective Rose had hired.

He remembered the tingling pleasure in his fingertips when he realized that to establish justice in this city, he had to do it himself. People couldn’t resist what was good.

“You always give me answers when I’m troubled, Rose. Go to the hospital on Beckman Street. Charles quite boldly made a request. He said a death certificate would soon be issued and asked to send the body to the unclaimed persons office for cremation. I trust you won’t let that happen, right?”

Inspector Leonard’s voice was trembling almost pathologically. The journalist thought it was the sensation of betrayal, but it was pleasure. It was the thrill of a rule-bound policeman becoming a free vigilante.

All good choices tend to become regrettable ones later. But for now, it was a good choice. Ominous signs were like the smell of fish—they only stink after they’ve begun to rot.

Among the police officers who had developed an obsessive fixation on justice through numerous experiences, Leonard Price was the only one Rose Clichy could use.

Beckman Street, Beckman Street. The journalist repeated it to herself so she wouldn’t forget, then hung up with thanks. She had obtained help instantly. She smiled, thinking that Uncle Leonard was indeed a good person.

“Ysil, you know how to use telepathy magic, right? Please tell everyone you sent to go to the hospital on Beckman Street. I think someone’s there.”

“Come learn it next time, Rose. You’ll need telepathy. Being able to speak without using a telephone is always useful. We can’t connect the whole world with telephone lines, can we?”

The smell of ozone began to spread around Ysil, and she softly whispered, “Go to Beckman Street.” It seemed unnecessary to speak loudly when communicating via telepathy.

Those who heard her voice echoing in their heads all headed to the hospital on Beckman Street. A hospital—even though they no longer prescribed heroin, it wasn’t a place one would visit frequently.

Since they’d been told this job involved dealing with the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, the only elven contractor among Ysil’s people pushed through the hospital doors. He headed toward the reception desk where an elven receptionist sat.

Thinking that if the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn had sent someone here, this receptionist must be one of those foolish followers, the elf pulled out a lightning-shaped emblem from inside his coat and showed it. He whispered naturally:

“Long live the Forest’s Firstborn who guides us. Long live the future of elves. I heard there’s an elf here who needs to be dealt with. Could you bring him out to the parking lot? I’ll handle it quietly and send him to the public morgue.”

The receptionist showed not a hint of suspicion at the elven enforcer’s words. No matter how capable Charles Clichy might be, he couldn’t remain effective in a moment filled with so many betrayals.

It was like water leaking from a punctured leather pouch, with holes too large to plug with fingers, and more holes appearing. The receptionist cheerfully returned the whispered greeting.

“We are the masters of the future. The true masters of the future he will bring. Yes, I’ll arrange it right away, so please wait in the parking lot. Oh, and if you could also relay a message to the Forest’s Firstborn…”

Fanaticism. The elven enforcer wanted to click his tongue in disgust but held back. In a world of one-eyed people, is the two-eyed person abnormal? He was an abnormal elf who didn’t worship the Forest’s Firstborn.

No, it was just that he, with two eyes among the one-eyed, appeared strange. How could anyone harbor such fanaticism in this 20th century, in this beautiful modern age? He smiled with contempt.

Soon, an elderly elf was wheeled out to the hospital parking lot. He had deep scars shaped like leaf veins starting from his chest and running down his arms and legs. He must be some famous elf.

He seemed barely alive, with an unstable pulse. Moreover, two followers stood beside him. They looked at the elven enforcer and spoke warily.

“Wait a moment. We also came for the disposal, so might there be some mistake in the orders? The Forest’s Firstborn wouldn’t take unnecessary actions…”

The elven enforcer, after confirming the identity of the old man on the wheeled bed, tapped the ground twice with the toe of his shoe as a signal.

One of Ysil’s human contractors, hiding behind a car, rushed out and tackled one of the followers. He threw away the gun at the elf’s waist and, with both fists clenched together like a hammer, struck the side of his head.

Seeing this, the other follower finally realized this elf wasn’t the Forest’s Firstborn’s enforcer and tried to run back into the hospital, but a grip strong enough to break his wrist wrapped around his arm.

It was an orc’s strength. The orc contractor who had been hiding behind a trash can rushed out, grabbed the follower’s wrist, and pinned him to the ground.

Though the impact was strong enough to break a few teeth, if he had struck properly, it wouldn’t have been teeth breaking but his skull being crushed.

Ysil’s contractors did their job well. This time they not only had a patient who couldn’t testify properly but had also captured two followers who could.

After confirming there was no one waiting inside the hospital, Ysil’s contractors pushed all three people into the car. They were certain Ysil would be pleased. Ysil was a good employer to them.

Normally when contractors killed someone while breaking up a strike, they would naturally be cut loose, but Ysil was the kind of person who gave them money to compensate the families of dead workers.

It was clearly an action taken to protect herself, but to those contractors, it seemed like she was protecting them.

A dog saved from wolves follows its master with remarkable loyalty. And it’s not just dogs. In that respect, humans might follow even more blindly than dogs.

They returned to Ysil’s mansion with their easily obtained evidence, or rather, people who would become evidence with minimal processing. The noose to bind Charles Clichy was certainly being prepared.

Both Charles Clichy and the Forest’s Firstborn surely knew this. Overnight, more than ten druids—no, action leaders—of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn had been killed. That detective bastard had probably burned them all to death.

Nevertheless, he knew how to cut this noose. He just needed to show strength and authority by using the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn.

He knew that if he could just show that he was still strong, the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn would never fragment. He was the Forest’s Firstborn. The leader and savior. Fanatics don’t abandon their god.

The detective would surely come to the gathering place. Elven senses were sensitive, and even that detective couldn’t move through the forest without making sounds.

He could find him by positioning a few followers as observers and targets. If they were attacked by the detective after being ordered to look for him, he would only need to strike that location with lightning. His magic was powerful but difficult to aim. Hitting with lightning from the sky was God’s work, not man’s.

Power control wasn’t an issue. When he thought about being betrayed by his daughter, he became angry and emotional, failing to control his power, which was why the New York branch leader had survived. But now this was a struggle for survival, so there was no reason to be emotional.

He regained his composure. Continuing to act emotionally would only lead to defeat. He hadn’t forgotten how the detective had treated him like a losing horse. Was he really a losing horse? A horse too old to run?

No, the detective was wrong. Charles Clichy, who had lived his life proving himself to people who always looked down on elves, decided to do the same this time. He was a winning horse. A horse that would win. The one who would hold the future.

He found it rather amusing how they were twisting their bodies to put nooses around each other’s necks, but Charles Clichy was the kind of person who would rather be a living donkey than a dead lion.