Chapter 40- Jack and the Mad Dog

“Se, Seya, it hurts…….”

Jin, carried on Seya's back, whined.

“Will you be quiet? Is this hurting the problem right now?!”

Seya lowered his voice and spoke fiercely.

Normally, he wouldn't have been this sharp, but this wasn't a situation where he could afford to indulge Jin's whining and carry him.

Seya squeezed his body into a small gap between the shantytown shacks and assessed the situation.

The big hairy guy was as persistent as he looked and was still wandering around searching for Seya and Jin.

Persistent old fogey.

Seya clicked his tongue.

“Hey kids! Come out! I'm telling you I'm trying to help!”

Perhaps terrified by his booming voice, Jin finally started to sniffle.

“Ah, come on! Jin, don't cry. Crying here won't help one bit.”

Seya warned lowly, covering the mouth of Jin, who was sniffling and whimpering.

Even as he did so, Jack's shouts, heard from a short distance away, didn't stop.

On Jack's part, it was an effort to find the children quickly, but from Seya and Jin's perspective, it only seemed to create fear.

Jin, who had been watching the scene trembling in fear, glanced at Seya and carefully opened his mouth.

“B, but he keeps chasing us, saying he'll help us. Running away is scarier, so c, can't we just ask for help?”

At the small child's stuttering words, the child's brow furrowed instantly.

Seeing that, Jin, who knew Seya's temper, flinched.

“Jin, did you forget what the adults who said they'd help us did to us?”

Jin shut his mouth and just nodded his head.

At that blank reaction, Seya lightly smacked Jin on the head.

“You can't forget. You can't trust any adults. Got it?”

“……Yeah.”

While sniffling and sniffing, Jin pressed back his tears.

After confirming this, Seya anxiously looked around.

The opponent was a big hairy guy, but he wasn't to be taken lightly.

He was the fastest running and most persistent adult Seya had ever seen.

He remembered having to run like hell even when chasing him away from where he was loitering in front of Jill and Jin's house.

Just when he thought he had shaken him off to some extent, he would catch up right behind him, and just when he thought, 'surely he can't chase me this far,' he would somehow barge in. That image still sent a chill down Seya's spine.

That day, he had drained all his stamina running around uselessly and had to lie down all the next day.

In short, he wasn't an opponent he could shake off while carrying Jin.

Seya, who had been contemplating for a moment, set down the small child who was trembling faintly on his back.

To Jin, who was making a bewildered face, Seya lowered his voice and spoke quickly.

“Now, Jin. Listen carefully. You keep hiding here, and when you think I've put some distance between me and that old fogey, you just bolt in the opposite direction. And go back to where Jill is.”

The small pupils shook anxiously.

“Uh, th, then what about you, Seya?”

“I'll shake him off quickly and follow you.”

Seya replied roughly and rolled up his outer garment, slinging it onto his back.

Since what the child was wearing and what Jin had been wearing were no different from rags dripping with grime, a small child's doll that looked quite plausible at a glance was created.

“A, am I really going alone?”

Jin, who was watching the scene anxiously, asked.

“I can't run fast carrying you. What? Are you scared?”

“Of course I'm scared. I'm not fast like you, Seya.......”

Jin mumbled and glanced up at Seya.

“What kind of obvious thing are you saying? If you were as fast as me, that would be scarier.”

Seya, who laughed as if he had heard something absurd, placed his hand on Jin's head.

“If you had the guts to come find this place alone today, you have nothing to be scared about going back either. Besides, I don't think you're in a position to worry about the way back right now? You should be more worried about Jill than that kind of middle-aged man. When you go back, it won't just end with scolding, you know?”

Seya flicked the forehead of Jin, who was making an unconfident face, and spoke in a deliberately bright tone.

“Now, I'm going, okay? When you get back, tell Jill to give all the food to me from now on. And don't tell Mir what happened today!”

Showing confidence as if he could naturally escape, Seya quickly darted out from between the wooden planks where he was hiding.

Not long after, the sound of the man shouting was heard from far away.

“Huh? Huh? Huh? Hey! Wait a minute!”

“You think I'd wait?!”

And Seya's voice, which was just as loud.

Listening to the shouts of the two filtering through his hands that were tightly covering both ears, Jin curled his body up tightly.

***

He sure runs like hell.

Jack thought, looking at the back of the filthy child's head, who seemed about to be caught but never was.

His speed was one thing, but that ability to change direction was truly astounding.

Suddenly turning right in an alley, or climbing up a wall abruptly while going along fine.

He couldn't get his bearings because of the wondrous stunts, disappearing from view just when he thought he had caught up a bit.

But if he stopped for a bit, the distance would widen in an instant, so there was no time to grasp this winding alleyway.

If our guys were this fast on their feet, we'd have nothing to fear.

Jack, clicking his tongue, shook off the meaningless idle thoughts and put strength into his legs kicking the ground.

The distance narrowed slightly again.

How does a runt who looks like he hasn't even had thin rice gruel have so much strength.

He's not even running alone, but carrying a small child like that.

Jack, who was feeling a sort of admiration for the child running at such a speed even while carrying another child, narrowed his eyes for a moment.

No, is that even a child?

It's similarly dark and small, but.......

The moment he thought that, the child changed direction in the alley again.

One of the legs dangling and shaking on his back hit the wall with a dull thud.

Jack stopped his feet.

“Damn it all.”

Stupid me.

He was so out of breath because the kid was so fast, but did not realize that.

Whatever it was, the thing slung on his back was not the little kid who had appeared at the blue-roofed house.

If it were, there's no way that kid, who seemed to have a lot of tears, wouldn't make a squeak after getting his leg hit like that.

He immediately turned around and headed for the place where that fast-footed runt had shot out from.

When he deliberately made his footsteps loud, he felt the child glance this way.

“Huh? Huh? Where are you going?!”

The situation was reversed.

Seya, who had been smiling confidently, thinking he had finally given up the chase and was turning back, checked the direction Jack was running and shouted in bewilderment.

Jack smiled, raising the corner of his mouth in certainty that he had guessed right.

“Where do you think you're going, you old fogey!!”

Even the disrespectful words coming from behind felt pleasant, and Jack ran powerfully.

***

This feels fucking awesome.

Igo Crisa, who had stopped functioning again like a robot whose power was cut, just stared blankly into the air, unable to realize whether there was a squirrel or a person in front of him.

It had been several hours since Mentil Abalan had placed the suggestion on Igo Crisa and left.

Outside, the dawn sun was probably slowly revealing itself.

-One week. Find the book within one week.

Her firm and soft voice came to mind.

A voice that was gentle, considering she was threatening to bring everyone from the Crisa Family if he didn't find it within a week.

Yes, she was unmistakably Mentil Abalan.

The problem was, why did Igo Crisa have to be the target of that threat?

“Why you, of all people? In the original work, there was no reason to go this far with you.”

Even if I spoke to his unfocused eyes, there was no way he could answer.

She had said someone from the Crisa family.

Who could be confident that it wasn't the one remaining Crisa family member left in the Piteos Ducal Family?

***

Between the edge of the shantytown and the collapsing pillar next to the dirty sewer, if you squeeze your body into the small gap, a long path with an unbearable stench appears.

Few people bother to push through this path on the harsh streets, which at a glance looks blocked.

If you endure the stench and go further and further inside, a boulder as tall as an adult blocks the path.

Adults usually think this is the end of the path.

But if you squeeze a small body through that gap and go inside, a large space soon greets the visitor.

In this wide space, there are shacks, clumsily erected by the rough hands of about a dozen children.

It's a ragged house, embarrassing to say people live in, but for the children who originally lived in the shantytown, it was an environment that wasn't much different.

Jin, relieved to have finally returned, ended up bursting into tears.

“Sob, euk, Nuna! Nuna!”

And he wandered around looking for the older sister he relied on the most.

Since Jin wandering around crying wasn't a very rare sight here, the children didn't stop their work to look back.

Here, 'one's work' mainly meant eating stolen food before it spoiled, or lying still to prevent wasting unnecessary energy.

“Jill! Your crybaby brother is wandering around being loud again!”

One of the children, annoyed by Jin's crying, shouted loudly.

“I told you not to call my brother that?!”

Soon, Jill, wearing a worn-out brown one-piece dress, approached angrily.

Jin, relieved to finally meet his sister, burst into even louder tears, befitting a crybaby.

“What's wrong? Jin, what happened? Did someone bully you again? Or are you hungry?”

Jin stuttered to Jill, who was examining him with rough hands.

“Sis,Sister , Seya! Seya!”

“What about Seya?”

Jin gasped at the voice that cut in between the two.

“Mir!”

Jill happily called out to Mir, who was approaching them.

As soon as Jin saw the face of Mir, who was closest to Seya, his chest felt tight and cold, as if he had swallowed a mass of cold snow.

Other people said that Seya, who was like a mad dog, was the scariest, but Jin was more scared of Mir, who always stuck to Seya, than anyone else here.

He felt like everything would be revealed if he lied in front of the softly speaking Mir, so Jin couldn't even make eye contact with him.

“Jin, did something happen to Seya?”

“Ah, right. Jin, where did you go to be so pale.......”

Jill's complexion, who had been continuing her words, changed.

“Where did you go? Did you perhaps go home?”

Jin nodded his head, thinking that if he spoke, only whimpering sounds would come out again.

“This is driving me crazy, I told you it's dangerous there now!”

Jill and Jin had moved their shelter here because of the large man who had come looking for them at their house a while ago.

She had felt anxious when young Jin fretted about what to do if their dad returned while they were gone.

Jill wanted to hit her past self, who had muttered vaguely, unable to bring herself to say that their dad would never return even if they waited forever.

He finally went and caused trouble.

While the child was scratching her hair, which was braided in pigtails, and pressing him, Mir was calm.

“Jin, I asked what happened to Seya.”

“Ah, he was caught by the middle-aged man. The one who came to our house that time.......”

Jin's throat felt sore as he recalled the last image of Seya being grabbed by the nape of the neck and lifted by the man who was as big as a mountain.

“Because of me, because of me, Seya!”

“Why did you go looking for that place again! Damn it, if he really got caught, Mir! Where are you going?!”

Jill roughly swept her hair up and scolded Jin, then shouted at the small back of Mir's head disappearing into the distance.

But Mir never looked back.

Jin dropped his head, noticing that Mir's cold gaze, which was directed at him in the last moment, contained sufficient rebuke.

Unable to raise his head due to guilt, the child could only answer the questions Jill was asking him, this and that, with stutters.