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Book 2 Part 3 Chapter 4.3

Chapter 4.3

Yuri and Flynn ran up the slope leading to the citizens’ quarter as fast as they could. Their pockets were stuffed with as many coins as they could carry, but the weight didn’t slow them down in the slightest. In a way, their bodies were still recovering from an illness, but that didn’t matter right now. They could sleep as much as they wanted later.

They went straight to the market and bought up all of the panacea — sold now as common goods — in quick succession. Faced with their bizarre fury, the merchants accepted their money and handed over the goods without even trying to bargain.

As soon as they ran out of money the two of them immediately turned and ran back to the lower quarter. It felt like their hearts were going to explode from their chests, but they paid no heed to it.

By then, those who had drunk from the first panacea bottle had recovered enough to walk, and they took the panacea bottles from Yuri and Flynn and scattered throughout the lower quarter. At the same time, a message was sent out to everyone warning them not to drink from the fountain.

It looked like by the time the sun set, everyone, from the old to the young, would receive a precious drop of the life-saving panacea.

****

Night fell. Hanks and the other prominent members of the lower quarter gathered in the meeting room facing the plaza. Despite being told by Jiri to go back to ‘My Home’, Yuri stayed. Flynn, however, had left, not wanting the children back in ‘My Home’ to feel frightened.

The room was filled with sorrow. A cloth had been laid out over the ground, and lying on it was Jareth’s lifeless body.

It wasn’t just his corpse. Most of the residents had been saved thanks to the panacea, but those with particularly weak bodies had not survived. Either they had not held out until the medicine arrived, or they had been too weakened by then, their condition only worsening even after taking the medicine.

Two old men. A man and women who had frail bodies to begin with. As well as — one child.

Yuri stared blankly at the child’s face. It seemed like only yesterday that they were happily eating the sweets he had made. Their eyes lit up whenever they saw Yuri and Flynn swinging their swords, and then they would say that they wanted Yuri and Flynn to teach them someday. Now they lay there on the ground, their body cold as ice. Although it looked like they were sleeping, they would never wake up again.

He had also known the other four dead, and had spoken to them before. Everyone in the lower quarter knew each other. How could he not be sad about their deaths? But to Yuri, the death of the innocent child had shocked him the most.

I don’t understand. What in the world did she do wrong? What did she do to deserve this? To be sent to her death so suddenly? The sheer brutality that had been inflicted on this child, and the powerlessness of it all, made Yuri feel sick to the stomach.

Ever since he was born, as a resident of the lower quarter, Yuri had seen all kinds of ‘unfairness’ in this world, but none of them were comparable to this. No amount of violence or brutality he had witnessed could ever be equal to this.

It doesn’t matter what the law says. This should never have happened.

The adults were muttering something to each other, but their words didn’t enter Yuri’s ears.

Intense rage swirled inside his heart. He couldn’t hear anything. The only thing that was running through his head right now was a single thing — a name. One name. The name Jareth had given them in exchange for his own life.

Mirarem.

****

It was a moonless night. Yuri stood alone at the foot of the slope that led to the citizens’ quarter. The dark, towering castle walls, the numerous buildings of the citizens’ quarter rising above them, and above even the glittering lights of the royal quarter. It was an intimidating sight, and it felt like a symbol of all the unfair and irrational things that those with power held in this world.

His grip on the sheath of his sword tightened. Glaring at the royal quarter, at his enemy who was somewhere inside there, Yuri strode forward.

“Do you really want to get hit again that badly?”

Out of nowhere, a voice behind him said. Yuri didn’t stop walking.

“Yuri!”

The person spoke again, this time with force. It was a tone that he had obeyed ever since he was a child. This time, Yuri stopped. Gritting his teeth, he turned around with a grim look on his face. And there, he saw what he expected to see, but also what he didn’t expect to see.

Standing there was the ‘Dark Wings’. Arms crossed, clad in thick, black robes that hid the contours of their body. If you hadn’t heard them speak earlier, most likely you wouldn’t have remembered who they were just by looking at them, but of course, Yuri didn’t hesitate.

“……Aunt Jiri.”

This was the second time he was meeting Jiri as her ‘Dark Wings’ persona, but he still couldn’t help feeling a sense of disconnect as he said her name. Clad in shadows, Jiri, as the ‘Dark Wings’, slowly walked towards him.

“‘Where do you think you’re going’ — is what I’d ask, but it’s clearly written all over your face. So you’re going to that woman’s mansion?”

“‘That woman’?”

“I’m talking about Mirarem. Look, you don’t even know if she’s a man or a woman. You don’t even know where she lives, do you?”

Since Yuri didn’t answer, the shadowy figure continued speaking.

“That’s fine. More importantly, what I want to know is this — What are you going to do when you see her?”

The sword in Yuri’s hand grew heavier.

“……Isn’t it obvious? An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. I’ll have her pay back what she owes.”

Yuri spat out those words in a growl, but his eyes weren’t looking at the other person.

“It’s fine to be energetic and all, but this isn’t some simple children’s brawl. And that woman is much, much nastier than Godonan. You’ll never be able to get to her.”

Again. She said it again — that he couldn’t do anything. That he was powerless.

“If that’s the case…”

“Then are you saying I should just put up with this?! Just like when the Knights ransacked our houses!? Are you telling me we should shut up and let them kill us??!”

Packed into those clipped words of his were a boatload of feelings — the arrogance of the Knights, the scorn of the citizens’ quarter, the cold indifference of the government officials, the deaths of Norein, Jareth, and the others. He’d had enough.

“Didn’t you say it during the incident with Godonan? That it ‘wasn’t time yet’. And that you’d do something about it when the time came. But in the end, if Flynn hadn’t convinced the Knights to come down to the lower quarter, we would have been utterly screwed. So tell me, Aunt Jiri, when exactly will this ‘time’ come?!”

After screaming that all at once, Yuri fell silent, panting heavily. In front of his eyes, the ‘Dark Wings’ pulled down the cloth mask covering their mouth, revealing Jiri’s face. There was sadness in her eyes.

“You’re a smart kid, Yuri.”

The unnamed emotion contained in her soft voice prevented the burning rage inside of Yuri from flaring up even further.

It didn’t disappear, but it subsided a little.

“When I said it was for the best if I didn’t have to do anything, I was being truthful. And I was also telling the truth when I told you I’d do something about it when the time came. But there was one thing I lied about.”

Jiri looked at Yuri, and that straightforward gaze of hers made Yuri stiffen up.

“You were right, Yuri. Back then, the state the lower quarter was in had long since surpassed the limit. ‘That time’ had already arrived.”

“Then, when you told me ‘not yet’…”

“It was merely a convenient way of stopping you from doing anything. I thought if I said that, you’d accept it and let it be. I felt bad about it, but I couldn’t find the right words to explain it to you. So — yeah, I lied to you. ”

Even back then? And not just right now? Yuri was speechless. He wanted to criticise her, but he couldn’t. He was shocked that Jiri had lied to him, but at the same time, he felt guilty that he had essentially forced Jiri to do so. So instead of commenting on that, he asked her another question.

“But if that was the case, then why did you…”

…Not do anything? Yuri paused mid-sentence, obvious truth surfacing in his mind.

“Didn’t I tell you? That I’d do something about it when the time came.”

Recognising the look of understanding in Yuri’s eyes, Jiri nodded.

“I was already doing ‘something’, Yuri. Back then, the ‘Dark Wings’ had already finished their work.”

It seemed obvious that Godonan had been pushing for something that wasn’t in the original plan for the lower quarter. Godonan was a noble. And nobles weren’t on good terms with the Imperial Knights. In that case, all she needed was to throw the Knights a piece of juicy enough information, and they would happily come running to the lower quarter.

Either way, it was impossible for the lower quarter to face Godonan head-on and survive. They could hold on for a while, but it wouldn’t last long. They needed to call in a group who had the power to go toe to toe with him.

“But the problem was finding the kind of bait the Knights would bite at. I sniffed around a lot, but the nobles are a sly bunch, and I couldn’t find anything conclusive enough. In the end, I compiled all the information I’d collected and tossed it to the Knights’ headquarters.”

Yuri gasped.

“Wait. Then Flynn running all over the imperial capital…”

“-Was all for nothing? I don’t think so. On the contrary, if Flynn hadn’t gone to see them, things would have gotten even worse. I gave the Knights the information I had much earlier than that. If that was enough to convince them, they would have taken action much sooner.”

Jiri said that, as if trying to reassure him.

“As far as I can tell, my information had piqued the Knights’ interest, but it wasn’t enough for them to take action right away. Maybe I had been the trigger to get them to investigate, but I think it was Flynn who got them to get off their butts and finally move. The Knights just wanted a pretext to ruin Godonan — they didn’t really care about saving the lower quarter or anything like that.”

Yuri didn’t know what to say to that. While he had been complaining internally about Jiri’s lack of action, in actuality she had already finished laying the groundwork.

So in the end I was alone in my delusion. I thought Jiri wouldn’t be able to see that far ahead, and that there was no way she’d be able to stand by and watch it all happen. Maybe, just like how I couldn’t believe in Flynn, I didn’t understand Jiri either.

I couldn’t do anything. I lacked the strength to do anything. Yuri felt so frustrated, and yet he didn’t know what he really wanted. It was a miserable feeling.

A thought suddenly occurred to him, and Yuri hesitated to say it.

“Um, about what you just said… Are you going to tell Flynn about it?”

Jiri closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, as if she was thinking about what to say.

“No. I want that kid to stay the way he is. Pure, honest. Straightforward.”

Straightforward. In other words, the innate ability to believe in the goodness and righteousness of things. I don’t have that.

Yuri hung his head. Seeing that, Jiri gave him a troubled and somewhat sad smile.

“Did you know that his father was a knight?”

Yuri was bewildered by the sudden question. What now? Where was she going to go with this this time?

“…Yeah. It was only a hunch, but I thought it was something like that.”

“Apparently he was a pretty diligent and serious knight, too. I know it sounds like a joke, but I think you can tell just by looking at Norein and Flynn that I’m telling the truth. But it was that same diligence that caused his downfall and cost him his life. I don’t know the details, but apparently back then the Knights ran into some kind of problem, and they blamed it all on Flynn’s father.”

So it was like he thought. He had already garnered a rough idea just by observing Flynn’s usual behaviour, but hearing it anew from Jiri made him ponder.

“So that’s why Flynn acts that way towards knights…”

Admiration and repulsion. These two conflicting emotions were always swirling inside Flynn, regarding the knights. Most likely, both of those feelings towards the knights were just as true. Although he was angry at the knights’ conduct, he could not abandon his desire to see them act righteously — to act in the correct way. He wanted them to act in a way worthy of his admiration. He clung stubbornly to that ideal, and was unable to abandon it.

“Now that he’s a part of the lower quarter, it seems natural for his hatred to win out since, but the fact that he can’t stop yearning for it means that his father was just that great of a person. His father must have taught him well, in the rightness of things. I don’t want to do anything to tarnish that.”

Rather than Yuri, she sounded more like she was directing her words at herself. Her hand landed on Yuri’s shoulder, gripping it. Yuri looked up, staring directly into her eyes.

“But you know, Yuri. That’s Flynn’s story. That’s how he was raised. That’s all well and good, but you have your own way of living your life. Don’t lose sight of that.”

“Gran— Aunt… Ow!!”

Instantly a fist came flying and struck him.

“Geez, look at this kid. Saying something like that when I’m trying to have a serious conversation with him. —Now then. We’ve wasted quite a bit of time talking. We’d better get moving.”

“Huh?”

Yuri said, massaging his throbbing head.

“Silly kid. Why do you think I’m dressed like this?”

As they talked, he had started to treat her like he was talking to the usual Jiri, but now he remembered that the person standing in front of him was dressed as the ‘Dark Wings’. So — were they really going to go there?

“Thanks to Jareth, I know how to get the fountain back to its normal state. I’m not going to let it go to waste. Besides, if we just let it be, there’s no guarantee they won’t try something else on us.”

Jiri pulled her cloth mask back up. Her eyes glinted dangerously. Was that the look of the ‘Dark Wing’s? A robber’s? A chivalrous thief’s? Or…

“And it’s to prevent that from happening that we’re going to take measures.”

All lightheartedness had vanished from her tone. It was as if the temperature around her had suddenly dropped.

The faces of those who had fallen victim to the nobles’ schemes flashed through Yuri’s mind. They had committed no crime, and had died all the same. The rage inside of him that should have died down flared up once more.

“Then I, too, will…”

He instinctively tightened his grip on his sword, but Jiri — the ‘Dark Wings’ shook his head.

“Didn’t I tell you? This isn’t a game, and it’s no place for amateurs like you. But if you really insist, then come to the entrance of the royal quarter. If you wait there, there might be something for you to do.”

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