Chapter 13 – The Red (1)

Ŕ​ėａⅾ ө​ｎ Ḱ​аṫṚε​ɑɗｉɴ​ɡ​Ϲ​αƒε​

 

A butterfly with red wings bit Shuji’s nape.  

“Ah, ouch!?”  

Shuji exclaimed in surprise, grabbing her nape. Her hand came away stained with blood.  

“As I mentioned earlier, the butterflies ‘cleaned up’ the numerous intruders. All the butterflies in this library are one, and I am also one with them. Do you understand?”  

“…So they ate memories?”  

“That’s correct. Let’s take a look.”  

The reason the red butterfly bit her wasn’t simply for feeding.  

It was to inject memory-laden blood into her nape, allowing it to reach her brain as quickly as possible. This way, Shuji’s brain would begin to experience the memories as if they were her own.  

The library had explained it to me.  

“…Ah, I see.”  

Shuji closed her eyes.  

The butterfly injected the memories it held into her, and she began to trace her own memories to process the new ones.  

 

***  

 

*Clang—!*  

The old wooden door creaked loudly.  

In a decrepit warehouse on the outskirts, filled with darkness and the stench of decay, the voices of men echoed.  

“Damn it… They keep saying it’s hard to even see kids these days, but here we are, finding such a fresh one in the outskirts?”  

The hoarse voice of a middle-aged man rang out, filled with fatigue and irritation.  

He kicked the lifeless body of a child on the floor as he spoke.  

“Right? Who would’ve thought we’d find such a healthy kid out here…”  

“Tch. Hurry up! We’re running out of time!”  

“Sigh… What can we do?”  

They were harvesting the corpse.  

“Still, it’s strange. The birth rate is at rock bottom, and the few kids born are all forcibly relocated to the central area. So why is a healthy kid like this out here…?”  

Another man nodded in agreement.  

In his hand was a still-warm heart.  

The child’s small heart had stopped beating, lying lifeless in the man’s rough grip.  

“Exactly. Why would a healthy kid like this be wandering the outskirts…? Not that I’m against ‘harvesting,’ but it feels like we’ve stepped into something weird.”  

A third man sneered, stomping on the blood flowing from the child’s severed neck with his boot.  

Then, he wiped the blood that had splattered on his face with his sleeve, along with the dagger he had used to cut the child’s head off.  

Their hands were cruel, and their actions mechanical.  

But at that moment, heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed from somewhere.  

*Thud—! Thud—!*  

“Hey.”  

An unfamiliar voice pierced the silence.  

It was a deep, clear voice, but it carried a sharp tension.  

It felt like a predator eyeing its prey, intruding into its territory.  

Hearing the voice, the three men turned their heads in unison.  

And there, they saw a man standing before them.  

“Wh-what? Sirius!?”  

“What are you doing in the outskirts!?”  

Before them stood a man known as the “Heavenly Wolf Star.”  

His black coat blended into the darkness, and a cold smile hung on his face.  

With every step he took, the air seemed to change, as if the world around him couldn’t bear the weight of his presence and was being crushed under it.  

The Heavenly Wolf Star looked at them and said,  

“Well… I wasn’t supposed to come this far. The headless kid over there made a request to me. He wanted me to take care of some scum in the outskirts owned by his father. The kid must’ve seen me as some kind of hero from a comic. I took the payment and was doing the job when I thought I’d check this place out just in case…”  

He sighed, rubbing his temple with his index finger.  

It was an irritated gesture, but it carried an unmistakable anger.  

“Sigh… You’re ‘harvesting’ the young master of the Busan estate? You’ve got some nerve. If you were going to do this, why not just kidnap someone in the central area?”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star’s voice was low and calm, but every word sent chills down the men’s spines.  

And instinctively, they realized one thing.  

If this man decided to kill them here and now, no one would say a word against it.  

“Y-you know how it is! In the United States of Greater America, money is everything!!! You know that too!”  

One man stammered in a frightened voice.  

“Th-that’s right! We had no choice!!! There are too many people and not enough jobs. If we don’t do this, how are we supposed to feed our families!?”  

The second man shouted a similar excuse.  

In the end, they tried to survive by pleading that they “had no choice,” unable to withstand the Heavenly Wolf Star’s icy gaze.  

“Hey.”  

*Thud, thud.*  

The Heavenly Wolf Star slowly approached them.  

The sound of his black boots hitting the floor felt like the tolling of a bell announcing judgment.  

“Money? Hmm… Then this logic might work. If you can pay me more than what my client paid, I might have a reason not to kill you.”  

He spoke with a faint smile on his lips.  

“H-how much did you get?”  

Another man asked in a trembling voice.  

“3 billion Ruedal.”  

At the Heavenly Wolf Star’s words, the men froze.  

“Wh-what? 3 billion!?”  

“That little brat… paid you that much money!?”  

“Yep, and he gave it to me like pocket money. So, if you can pay even a little more than that, I might consider it. What do you think?”  

His voice was mocking, and the men’s faces twisted in terror.  

“W-we don’t have that kind of money! Even if we strip the kid’s skin, sell his eyes, teeth, tongue, and vocal cords, we’d barely make 100 million!”  

“We didn’t even bring a knife to cut tough stuff like skin!!!”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star nodded lightly at their response.  

Then, he quietly reached for his waist.  

*Swoosh—!*  

The sound of a sword being drawn cut through the darkness.  

*Crackle—!*  

The blade glowed blue, vibrating like a faint electric current.  

As the light illuminated the Heavenly Wolf Star’s face, his smile became even more pronounced.  

“Then… I guess I’ll just ‘harvest’ you instead.”  

“You bastard!!!”  

At that moment, the three men simultaneously drew their weapons.  

But they couldn’t have imagined that this would be their last desperate act.  

*Whoosh—!*  

In an instant, a blue light sliced through the air.  

The moment the Heavenly Wolf Star’s shadow passed between them, everything fell silent, as if time had stopped.  

*Thud—!*  

The men’s bodies collapsed belatedly.  

*Splurt—!*  

Blood gushed like a fountain from their headless bodies.  

The streams of blood intertwined with the blue light reflected on the Heavenly Wolf Star’s sword, creating a grotesque spectacle.  

The Heavenly Wolf Star swung his sword, shaking off the blood, and muttered quietly,  

“Right, if the body’s damaged, there’d be nothing to sell. I only cut off the heads, so it’s perfect. Hmm.”  

He looked down at the corpses and sneered.  

*Buzz—!*  

At that moment, his smartphone, tucked in his pocket, rang.  

“Huh?”  

*Click—!*  

When he took out his phone, the screen displayed the name “Wealthy Client.”  

“Hello?”  

As soon as he answered, a woman’s voice came through the phone.  

“Ah, Sirius. I was just about to call you. I was wondering if we could extend the contract right away.”  

“…Extend the contract?”  

 

*****  

 

[United States of greater America – Central District – Seongdong]  

After retrieving the bodies and giving the Alpha Legion the opportunity to ‘harvest’ them, he entered the client’s massive mansion.  

“So…”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star paused for a moment, then spoke to the artist John Menard sitting beside him and Prince Albert of the Hanseatic Empire, who was watching through a large TV screen. Though they had once been enemies, they were now, for some reason, working together.  

“In other words, there’s a library called the Butterfly Library, and it has books. Those books contain knowledge, and of course, they’re also worth money. Is that it?”  

“That’s correct.”  

“Indeed.”  

Feeling a slight dissonance at the simultaneous responses from both online and offline parties, the Heavenly Wolf Star nodded as if he understood.  

“Anyway, it’s one thing for the most famous artist in the United States to make a request, but…”  

He looked at Prince Wilhelm von Albert on the TV screen and said,  

“Why is the crown prince suddenly showing up?”  

Then, he glared at the client, a woman sitting beside him.  

“Ahem… Actually, we’ve been in contact with the Empire since before the war, so I was fortunate enough to be acquainted with the crown prince. After the war ended, we started talking again, and that’s when I heard about the library. Coincidentally, someone else was talking about the same thing.”  

The client, Maria, looked at John Menard, who was sitting on the sofa to the Heavenly Wolf Star’s left.  

“Yes, that’s right. Ah! The library!!! That incredible place… There’s no information, but there’s plenty of money. Since I don’t want to get involved directly, I’m leaving it to a professional PMC.”  

The artist seemed… quite twisted.  

In many ways, he seemed to know about the library, or perhaps about ‘something’ inside the library.  

But more importantly, it was the value of the books the library held.  

“Visiting the library isn’t a big issue. My 10-year career as an artist guarantees that.”  

“Isn’t that only credible when it comes to paintings?”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star challenged John Menard’s statement.  

“Hey! That’s not important. What’s important is that the library exists, and the books contain immense knowledge. The problem is, each time you obtain a book, the cost is astronomical.”  

He casually suggested that mercenaries should step in, do some cutting, take over the library, and then claim the knowledge.  

“So, in conclusion, you want our PMC, specifically the Alpha Legion, to handle this, right?”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star looked at John Menard and Wilhelm von Albert as he spoke.  

“Taking over the library is what John Menard wants. I’m against it.”  

Albert shook his head on the screen.  

“I believe that ‘knowledge should be equal for all.’ That’s why I wave the red flag.”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star tilted his head.  

“I don’t understand what that means…”  

“You don’t need to. Socialism, communism… You’ve never learned about them, so you chase after material things. Tsk tsk…”  

“Uh…?”  

The Heavenly Wolf Star couldn’t understand the crown prince’s words at all.  

 

***  

 

*Crackle—!*  

“Ugh!?”  

Shuji collapsed to the ground, bleeding from her nose.  

She groaned, clutching her head.  

“Wh-what was that just now…?”  

“Memories. They belong to someone else, but they’re also events that happened in the past.”  

“No…”  

Shuji, seemingly unable to comprehend the situation, continued to groan as she tried to sit up.  

Despite her state, she managed to shout defiantly.  

“But… I don’t feel like I’ve fully processed all those memories. What is this?”  

“It takes time to make all those memories feel like your own. The butterflies are countless, and the library is vast enough to accommodate them, but guests like you aren’t, so it takes time.”  

“Is that… so?”  

“That’s right.”  

Shuji didn’t ask any more questions.  

Instead, she sighed, wiped the blood from her nose with her sleeve, and lay down on the floor.  

*Snap—!*  

I flicked my finger for her.  

Then, a soft, warm blanket appeared over her body, and a fluffy, comfortable pillow appeared under her head.  

“Wh-what is this…?”  

“It’s the library’s power. Just a small part of it, but it’s a little service for guests who’ve made the difficult choice to view memories.”  

“Wow…”  

Shuji fidgeted with the blanket.  

It was much softer and more comfortable than she expected, and she even managed a small smile.  

“…My body isn’t moving well right now. How long will it take to recover?”  

“Hmm…”  

I closed my eyes.  

Then, I quietly listened to what the library had to say.  

“Three hours… That’s what it’ll take.”  

The library instinctively told me it would take three hours.  

“Three hours… That should be enough time to rest.”  

“Yes. May this rest be beneficial to you…”