Ch.293Work Record No. 041 – What I Don’t Want to Refuse (6)

La Roca was only able to regain consciousness after several days had passed. All she felt while collapsed were revelations repeating over and over. Just a few images painted repeatedly in her mind was all there was.

The image of El Sueño standing against the wasteland, striking down lightning—was it mythology, or a memory she had witnessed? She couldn’t answer with certainty. No. That is not a god. La Roca shook her head.

He’s just a corporate justice lackey trying to bewitch and devour Los Soñadores with cheap brainwashing devices. La Roca tried not to explain everything she didn’t understand with the word “god.”

She knew that she didn’t know many things. In this situation, the easiest way to ruin everything was to believe in words like “destiny.” La Roca had to resist.

As she struggled to hold onto her consciousness—which might have been contaminated by someone to an unknown extent—and tried to get up, the man who called himself El Sueño was standing beside her hospital bed.

She hadn’t turned her gaze away. She hadn’t heard the sound of a door opening or someone walking in. He might have been standing there all along, concealing himself with optical camouflage.

La Roca reached for the gun she had tucked under the infirmary bed, but it was in El Sueño’s hand. He handed the gun to her kindly, as if he had no intention of provoking her.

She didn’t think she could defeat this… reinforced suit she had never seen before in her life with just a gun, but nevertheless, a gun was a tool that could help gain control of a situation.

So, holding a gun provided at least some reassurance. It was a habit La Roca had maintained since her days as a cheap hitman. Only then did she take a deep breath and acknowledge her fear.

It was only after taking that deep breath and waiting a few seconds that she could clearly put into words what she feared. She… was afraid of feeling that El Sueño’s actions contained goodwill and warmth.

To her, the world was a cynical place. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t working as a proper licensed mercenary under a megacorporation, but rather as a hitman who killed people for money.

She knew the reason and thought that hoping for goodwill and warmth was asking too much, but even thinking that way, human goodwill and warmth were things she couldn’t help but desire.

Yet, clearly, she could feel that goodwill and warmth in the actions of El Sueño, whom she had met for the first time just days ago and had never spoken with. And it was exactly in the way she wanted it.

As contradictory as a hedgehog curling up while longing for a hug, La Roca pointed her gun at El Sueño, who had given her the warmth she so desired, and asked:

“I don’t know if the others bought it, but I still need more explanation. What are you?”

El Sueño’s voice wasn’t as painful as before. Rather, it was a gentle voice, except for the inhuman resonance it contained.

“I am the dream. The dream where all people enjoy and savor life. I am the dream that has decided to use you dreamers as tools to kill the Las Vegas Strip that desecrates that dream. Do you want to know more?”

El Sueño disappeared from La Roca’s sight, and soon the infirmary window opened. The scent of flowers wafted in from outside. Flowers were blooming profusely where El Sueño had torn apart the gang hunters.

They were red mint flowers she had never seen before. La Roca decided to deny it again. This time, she spoke to El Sueño, hoping all those words would become incantations to drive away evil spirits.

“Cut the nonsense. You’re a corporate justice agent. Those flowers must be… the ones Farmers Co. is researching. Are you a Belvedere special operative who can tear people apart with bare hands? Or from the entertainment industry…?”

“Then would you say that all those megacorporations have united to save Los Soñadores? Aren’t your words constantly hitting dead ends because you’re trying to force them away, La Roca?”

La Roca had no answer. She only knew the truth by intuition; she didn’t have such detailed evidence. Someone was quite pleased with this fact.

Someone thought that if she became enthusiastic about El Sueño, everyone would become enthusiastic about El Sueño. It was the thought of someone who had a role in this whole story but also had none.

Even without a rebuttal, La Roca didn’t immediately acknowledge it. She needed a little more time to swallow the dissatisfaction and complaints rising from deep within her.

“So in the end, everyone here is just a chess piece. Except for you.”

“You know how I made my first move, don’t you, Paulina?”

He pronounced La Roca’s real name with an impeccably rigid pronunciation. It felt like he knew it not because he was close to her, but through some incomprehensible method.

La Roca thought that El Sueño had placed himself as the first move. The fact that he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and torn the gang hunters to death was undeniable.

She could know one fact, but not the various backstories. For example, the backstory that someone had waited for Los Soñadores to become sufficiently weakened.

At least it’s not discriminatory treatment. La Roca believed that. There wasn’t much basis, but such a statement seemed like it would comfort herself. She asked El Sueño with a voice slightly less distrustful:

“At least… yeah. You don’t seem to be making us do things you won’t do yourself. So, why us?”

El Sueño knew Paulina’s, La Roca’s, preferences very well. He skillfully and leisurely began his answer with words she liked. La Roca felt like she would die from the discomfort of this comfort.

And, at the same time, she began to think a little that she might be clinging to old notions. Perhaps she had become too accustomed to the logic of the wasteland to accept good things as good.

“Think about it realistically. If not you, who would I choose? The handful of wasteland witches and their followers? The insane murder artists? Countless other gangs?”

Los Soñadores, though a futile religion, maintained some semblance of order thanks to their religious coloring. They did not tarnish the name of Santa Muerte, who had given them nothing.

What El Sueño needed was that order. That efficiency. La Roca thought for a moment. Then is he a Belvedere agent? But it was Farmers Co. that was thinking about growing plants in the wasteland.

And it was Fitz & Morrison that had bad relations with the Las Vegas Strip… Most of what he revealed seemed more like disinformation. The more she thought, the more her head hurt.

The bigger problem was… she didn’t want to think about it anymore. Just as few people would refuse candy approaching their lips, few would refuse their own ideals approaching before their eyes.

But something was wrong. Definitely wrong. As La Roca was repeating this to herself, one of the errand boys who had carried guns with her entered the infirmary with a tray of food.

The cultivator seemed to be fixed. It looked like a pale bean porridge with artificial seaweed chunks made from chlorella floating around, but at least two out of three things were working.

Uncharacteristically, La Roca spoke in English. This errand boy from Hollow Creek wasn’t good at Mexican. The only people around here who couldn’t speak Mexican at all were Creek escapees.

Not all Hollow Creek escapees were saved. Some merely managed to move their bodies from one cesspool to another.

“What happened while I was asleep?”

She had a trust—or rather, a non-trust—that El Pastor wouldn’t have done something at least twice as stupid as she thought. He was quite a typical religious person, after all.

“Um… El Pastor accepted El Sueño into Los Soñadores. It’s more like he delegated almost full authority to him… That person is really capable. So everyone’s not saying much about it.”

The timing is too good. La Roca silently rolled the words in her mouth. El Sueño had appeared only after the real gang members of Los Soñadores, who had fought with guns, had all died for some reason.

Were Los Soñadores being followed? Or did El Sueño, having turned invisible, reveal their position to the Strip to eliminate the manpower he didn’t need?

All that remained now were errand boys who had fought with guns just once and people with no connection to guns, like hydroponic managers. Even if they wanted to resist, they couldn’t.

“It’s not that he’s capable; it’s that the Strip doesn’t know who he is yet. They’re just observing for now because they don’t know what he can do and what consequences he might create. Don’t trust him too much.”

“But he’s a good person, isn’t he? At least he’s much more godlike than the people I experienced in Hollow Creek. He says he can do anything and doesn’t make us do the menial tasks.”

If even a Creek escapee says this… Am I really being narrow-minded? La Roca pondered in her mind again. Seeing her biting her lip, the errand boy from Creek said:

“Oh, and next, we’re going to rescue organization members who were kidnapped by the wasteland witch, and he said he’d like La Roca to come too. He said it would be good to have one more good fighter.”

“When? El Sueño has been in this room the whole time. I was just testing to see if I could badmouth him to his face.”

“Maybe… about three minutes ago? I was finishing preparing the meal and about to bring it when he came and said that before leaving. Was he really here?”

Did he just go to the kitchen while invisible? But the kitchen was quite far from the infirmary. He couldn’t have gone back and forth that quickly unless he could teleport.

A petty miracle-monger. Unlike before when she at least had circumstantial evidence, this time she was making accusations without any evidence, and La Roca knew that much. This time, she was being irrational.

But if not this response, was she supposed to kneel and worship someone she didn’t even know, like El Pastor? No. El Sueño had never asked for such things.

La Roca shook her head as if trying to shake off distracting thoughts. If she went to see him confront the wasteland witch, she would find out what kind of person he was, whether she liked it or not. There was no need to feel anxious or upset now.

“Tell him I’ll go. I want to see with my own eyes what kind of miracle-mongering he’s going to do this time.”

“You’re hard to convince. But whether the Strip is still trying to figure out El Sueño or whatever, thanks to him, we were able to bring parts to fix the cultivator again.”

At that moment, a hand appeared on the errand boy’s shoulder. Slowly, tracing up the arm, El Sueño began to emerge into reality. There was not the slightest sense of presence. Even the errand boy seemed unaware.

“I strike lightning and make flowers bloom in the wasteland, yet you still want new miracles, Paulina. Unfortunately, there will be no miracles when we go to find the wasteland witch. It’s just a simple favor.”

His English was as fluent as his Mexican. He must be from the South, at least. La Roca believed that gathering such clues would reveal that El Sueño was indeed human.

It was now a somewhat shaky belief. She had seen optical camouflage before, but she had never encountered someone who could hide and unhide so smoothly. It was as if the wind passed right through him.

El Sueño disappeared into the air again. Even as La Roca reached out and waved her hand, nothing touched it. And then, El Sueño appeared from the very spot her hand had just passed through.

He reached out and slowly lifted La Roca’s chin. El Sueño’s face was emitting light, just as she had seen that day. It looked like a ritual that would blind the eyes of someone looking directly at the face of a god.

“How long must I continue to give you clues that I am human, trying to fill that childish anxiety of yours, Paulina? Do you think the truth is more important than what I can do for you?”

“What if I keep doubting? You seem to see me as a lamb already.”

El Sueño, still holding her chin, let out a laugh. He seemed to quite enjoy La Roca’s expression, which looked as if she was trying to keep her eyes open to see through the light despite the flashes.

“No, you are a human who would be useless outside this wasteland. You’re a hitman with broken will, a mercenary without the ability to rise to the top. Would any person bother to come save someone like that?”

El Sueño’s voice suddenly sharpened. It seemed as if the sky was glaring and warning Icarus. At least, that was the weight La Roca felt.

“You might find your use here, but even you know that you’ll eventually remain as a corpse of the wasteland. What human would spend money and time for a corpse of the wasteland?”

El Sueño spoke the words that La Roca already knew but couldn’t utter. Words she had swallowed because they would tear her throat like blades if vomited from her neck were painful to hear.

His voice began to soften again. El Sueño was someone who gave answers. In this wasteland, he was someone who kindly or firmly answered every question without crawling on the ground.

Perhaps he was the person that La Roca, or rather the person called Paulina before, needed. Paulina wanted to ask El Sueño how she should have lived, but she didn’t want to interrupt his words.

“Only one who can enjoy that act can bestow charity. Only one who enjoys seeing those who have lost joy regain it, and seeing the death of those who have desecrated the joy and enjoyment I love.”

La Roca urgently gestured for the errand boy to leave, and in the room now alone with El Sueño, she asked him. She was trying to compromise a little with the facts she had been denying.

“You seem to be telling me to do whatever I want, so fine. Let’s hear your answer. You probably know what kind of person I am anyway. How should I have lived?”

“You should have been someone who doesn’t spend today worrying about what you should have done yesterday. Why do you hold today, which is so bright it dazzles your eyes, yet only look at things that have already faded?”

El Sueño’s words were orthodox. They were words anyone could say, and even La Roca had already anticipated them. But at the same time… it was proof that El Sueño was a being who said the words she wanted to hear.

La Roca muttered as if dumbfounded:

“Ha, that’s such a cliché.”

“That’s because what you dream of is that clichéd life others have, Paulina. Now get up. Let’s go see the wasteland witch. El Pastor is waiting too.”

Paulina made a reluctant groan as if she didn’t want to admit it, but eventually nodded. The beginning of everything was such temptation and deception.