Ch.223Request Log #017 – Enemy, Slanderer, and Adversary (8)

“If you’re not going to kill me too, then why…”

Scott Clichy struggled to steady his trembling voice as he removed his mask. He had the same bright blonde hair as the Clichy president, but his blue eyes suggested he was a child from the previous wife.

“I have a police collaborator who’s blinded by the need for results. If I tell him that the leader of the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn murdered five of his own followers, he’ll send it to prosecution without even checking the evidence. There might be a tedious court battle, but don’t you think these fanatics might come to their senses if they see the Forest’s Firstborn arrested twice?”

The journalist probably had no other options, but because Charles Clichy had conveniently died and wrapped things up, the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn still maintained their central organization.

Since you can’t charge a dead person, they couldn’t properly punish him legally. That was fortunate for Charles Clichy. Though he died, the organization could survive atop his corpse.

And now I was saying I could take away even what barely survived. For Scott, possessed by Charles Clichy’s ghost, there could be no more effective threat.

At least Scott was quick-witted. It didn’t take him long to understand what my words meant.

“I’d rather have some clueless killer come after me instead.”

I don’t like repeating myself. I had planned to sit and talk, but I stood up and walked toward him. He had no weapons and couldn’t use magic.

Scott Clichy hoped my standing wasn’t a bad sign. Unfortunately, it was. I grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the floor. I pushed his stomach toward the wall with my instep.

As Scott groaned after hitting his back hard against the wooden wall, I approached and kicked his stomach again with my instep. I reminded him:

“We’re not making progress because you’re still worried about your life, Scott. Hmm? I don’t like working overtime at night either. Listen carefully. You’re guaranteed two things: you won’t get a fist in your face, and I won’t pull out a gun here to put against your temple, pull the trigger, and leave a fake suicide note in your handwriting. So why am I here?”

The man who lived as the Clichy family’s young master by day and the Forest’s Firstborn’s excellent agitator by night was more dumbfounded than hurt by this raw violence.

He probably believed he was different somehow. He might have believed that being thrown to the floor like this didn’t suit him. He was wrong.

As he tried to curl up like a shrimp clutching his stomach, I stepped on one of his wrists horizontally. I made him focus and answer properly instead of turning away and concentrating on the pain.

“Huh, huh, stop! Stop! You must be here because something displeases you! If the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn attacked someone’s regular bar…”

I couldn’t tell if he was short-sighted or if he thought that sending people to kidnap a journalist and take her to Texas was just something done in the name of family love.

Instead of crushing his wrist, I nudged it away with my instep and said:

“Those guys who blow dozens of dollars a month in cheap bars aren’t worth the money. Keep your hands off Rose Leafman and quietly play the role of a rich young master that doesn’t suit your age back in your hometown.”

Now I feel like I’m back to my normal routine. I didn’t enjoy using violence, but I did it willingly. It wasn’t common to have to kill five people for intimidation, either.

At those words, Scott began to rage as if some lever had been flipped. Resentment can’t be shattered with violence.

“W-what? You think I’m doing this because I like that bitch? Fuck! She killed my father, but the main family says to bring her back because she’s still family, so I’m showing mercy! Yes, Detective sir, who easily kills five people for a job. If someone killed your father, you would…”

As I waited for him to finish speaking, such ridiculous words followed that I couldn’t help but laugh. With my foot still on the wrist I had kicked, I looked down at him.

“I’d buy a drink for the guy who pulled the trigger and say, ‘So that bastard finally died?’ Elf bastards don’t just have cheap lives, Scott. All lives are pretty much the same.”

Scott Clichy couldn’t continue. People who lived happily and then experienced brief misfortune think that misfortune is the lowest point in life. I don’t mean to ridicule that. Some people just live in a pit.

It wasn’t perfectly arranged, but I lifted Scott Clichy onto a crime scene that Yehoel could easily entangle if he wanted to. I threw him onto the wooden floor, now wet with blood.

It took no effort at all to throw the elf’s body. I sneered at Scott Clichy, now covered in blood among the corpses.

“If I could conveniently kill five people here, cleaning out your extended family at the Clichy main house wouldn’t be particularly burdensome. Let’s make sure Henry gets to celebrate his ninth birthday, Scott.”

Even if I really attacked the Clichy main house, I wouldn’t touch that kid, but it was good to mention it. Scott Clichy trembled as he imagined his family’s blood rather than his followers’ blood.

I walked toward him. He tried to push away from me with his palms against the wooden floor, but it didn’t take long to catch up. There was no need for more violence.

I extended my hand. When he took it, albeit with hesitation, I pulled him up and continued speaking. I whispered seductively.

“This is about protecting your family, Scott. Put aside your pride a bit. Even Charles Clichy would have prioritized family over the organization. Besides, if you go back and add some flesh to this story, you can prevent Rose Leafman from ever returning to your happy family. Just pretend to bow your head and do what you want to do. Is that so difficult?”

The grudge for killing Charles Clichy wouldn’t disappear anyway, and among those obsessed with family love, only Charles Clichy truly valued family more than himself.

Amusingly, people feel incredibly reassured when someone who has inflicted violence they’ve never experienced before tries to take their side. It was enough to speak as if I had no choice but to do this for the job.

Anyway, the five dead elves meant nothing to Scott. They were just nobodies with outstanding loyalty, but it wasn’t even certain they would have succeeded if they had raided the bar.

He nodded his head slightly with a confused expression.

“It’s not… that difficult, I suppose. I didn’t like the family meeting’s outcome anyway. They were saying, ‘Are we sure she killed him?’ and ‘Rose just hired the wrong person…’ I could clearly see they were favoring her because she’s my stepmother’s child. What I heard was the sound of an elf gun. It had a smaller report than that heavy gun you use!”

It seems there’s rivalry between Ysil’s children and the current wife’s children. What, does he expect me to miss Charles Clichy? When he was around, these things didn’t happen.

I pretend to listen quietly to his words. I was curious how far he would slide if I just gave him a push on the back.

“I thought you were the dumbest one in that family, but I was wrong. Yes, she did shoot him. She killed him directly. And they’re still protecting her because she’s their child? That’s absurd. Besides, when Charles Clichy died, the eldest son should have taken firm control of the family. What is your older brother doing?”

Scott Clichy, who seemed to have forgotten all the words I had mocked him with, burst out in anger. He now seemed to think I was his ally.

“Exactly! It’s absurd… My brother is running around trying to save Clichy Corporation, and I’m… I’m trying to preserve what father left behind, but those bastards… They won’t listen to words.”

I watched him for a moment as he clenched his fists as if they contained some great concern. After letting his emotions simmer, I continued:

“Yes, yes. Now you seem to know who your real enemies are. Rose Clichy is a runaway child anyway. She can’t return to that happy family anymore. Someone needs to act quickly to prevent the family from splitting in two over that woman. Your brother is busy, isn’t he? If the eldest son can’t do it, the second son should.”

I skillfully say things I don’t mean. Family was a tiresome word, but I hadn’t distanced myself from it so much that I couldn’t use it in situations like this.

Charles Clichy’s second son seemed to have completely regained his willpower at my words. He didn’t see the blood spilled around him or the meeting place staged like a theater to implicate him.

Somehow, not touching Rose Leafman had become about protecting his family, and using her name had become about standing up to his stepmother who was tearing the family apart. It was amusing how he tried to find meaning.

There is no meaning, only patterns. In this situation, applying this stimulus produced that result. It’s just an experiment result and a table filled with those results.

Now, if only to avoid admitting his own stubbornness, he would leave Rose Leafman alone. If I heard on the radio news that Charles Clichy’s second son, who held a position at Clichy Corporation, had died, I’d need to be careful at night, but otherwise, I didn’t have much to worry about.

What I did today was essentially necromancy. I just tickled and coaxed out the ghost of Charles Clichy that had possessed his second son. A person possessed by a ghost couldn’t see clearly what was in front of them.

Only then did he look around. Perhaps already thinking of me as his friend, he said in a trembling voice:

“Then, what about this place? No matter how worthless these followers were, five people died. When I worked for my father, I never handled things like this…”

He hadn’t. Charles Clichy used me as his trump card. He only called me when he couldn’t handle something without me, unless it was family-related. I lied.

“Of course I’m used to it. Go ahead and prepare to return home quickly. It’s your family and your home. This isn’t what you should be doing.”

He even thanked me before leaving the meeting place. I brought a gasoline can from the car trunk and drew a circle inside the meeting place. I threw a match among the elves whose faces I barely remembered and whose names I didn’t know at all.

If he truly couldn’t be persuaded with words, I had planned to use Yehoel to entangle him, but I was able to handle it with a simple method. I watched as Scott Clichy hurriedly drove away.

Time to go home. It would take about another week for Scott Clichy to return to Texas, cause a commotion in his family, convince his brother, and turn the household upside down.

After getting into the car hidden in the bushes, I took off my gloves and drove. With the smell of gunpowder slightly washed away by the smell of fire, I headed back toward New York City.

I wanted to go to Iris after a long time, but the job wasn’t over until Scott Clichy took proper action. I wouldn’t get paid during that period, but I needed to watch over things as if I were still working.

The only regret was that the person who made the monkey dance couldn’t see it dancing. I returned to my apartment and parked in the parking lot. After almost ten days, I removed the absence notice and entered my home.

I called the lawyer’s home phone. I wanted to finish reporting quickly and smoke a cigarette.

The dial tone rang. The call connected almost instantly, as if he had been waiting for my call. It was the lawyer’s voice.

“If someone’s calling at this hour… is that you, Mr. Michael?”

“Yes, it’s Husband. I’d prefer to report directly to the client. When you were her lawyer, I could talk to you, but not anymore.”

Work had to be done cleanly. As a detective, I didn’t have many principles. Do the job. Do the job well. Just do the job. Complete the job. Get paid afterward. These short sentences were all.

The half-ogre cleared his throat as if a bit embarrassed. He seems to have gone to bed early, how carefree. I sighed and said:

“Tell her to wake up and answer the phone. How can she sleep so soundly when people are trying to kidnap her?”

“Ah, haha, she says she feels safe because it’s our house. It felt somewhat nostalgic. Please wait a moment.”

This lawyer was also clean in her work. We communicated well and were quite similar in that we both never parted with secrets, but she had more composure than me.

Not long after, the journalist, her voice deep with sleep, picked up the phone. After making some groaning sounds as if trying to wake up, she said:

“Mmm… This is Rose Leafman. Mr. Michael…? Did the job end well? Last time, yawn… you said you’d call when the job was done…”

If this woman knew what had happened in that forest, she would seem like a madman as big as her father. Unfortunately, only those who were in the forest knew what happened there. There was no reason to bring it up.

“Scott Clichy will return to Texas, and the Clichy family won’t bother you anymore. Still, stay there for about another week. I’ll send the bill to that house, so keep that in mind.”

She knew I was thorough about work. But she still had some kind of expectation. I heard her voice becoming small.

“Ah, I’m glad it was resolved cleanly… but you didn’t point a gun at Scott and threaten him, did you…?”

I had never threatened him with weapons, and strictly speaking, I hadn’t even touched him. I answered with words that weren’t lies.

“Do you think threats with guns would work on the Forest’s Firstborn, no matter how ragtag they are? I persuaded him well through conversation, so don’t worry.”

Instead, I made him doubt his family and gave him a new purpose in life. Holding back the urge to sneer, I enjoyed the elf’s drowsy, slurred voice.

“Thank you for handling it cleanly… Scott was always, mmm, always someone who tried to find meaning in things. I thought I could talk a bit with Scott… He was trying to find meaning in the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, yes. Apart from that, he’s not a stupid person… Paulina, do you have something to say? I’ll hand over the phone…”

We were exchanging words that weren’t lies. The journalist, who sounded like she was about to fall asleep again, handed the phone to the half-ogre, who now sounded somewhat cheerful.

“Have you changed a bit as a person? Ah, while Rose is staying here, why don’t you come over for dinner sometime? You eat as much as an ogre. From the perspective of ogres who cook, it’s a pleasure to invite such a big eater to the dinner table, and it’s hard to count how many times you’ve helped Rose.”

Not many people remembered that I first met that woman when I went to kill her. Even I had almost forgotten.