Chapter 172

A frosty silence descended.
For some time now, Gemma had been clutching Chelsea’s wrist. Her gaze toward Chelsea was not the same as a mother’s toward her biological daughter.
Not an ounce of affection. No apologies or shame.
He’s desperate, but he doesn’t expect Chelsea to turn him down. He’s like a creditor demanding payment. The words she just uttered blatantly summarized her feelings.
“Can you find it?
It’s not a request. It’s not a favor.
It sounds like you’re just claiming your birthright.
My mother’s eyes locked on Chelsea. Arrogance swirled through her. The resurrected past washed over her like a tidal wave, choking her.
My mother was much wilder than I remembered. Chelsea, on the other hand, has grown up. Not just physically, but mentally as well, having grown up through many hardships.
“But why.
It’s not the same as it was when I was abused… no, when I didn’t even realize it was abuse and had to deal with it, and yet we’re so different.
I wonder if I can’t hit this little bicep.
─Tap!
The sound of clapping hands pushed through the silence.
“Okay, calm down.”
It was just a word, and it was enough to clear the fog in my head and regain control of my body. Chelsea jerked her arm away from my wrist and stumbled backward.
“…….”
Gemma didn’t go any further. She just subtly pouted, and Chelsea couldn’t help but squirm in response.
That’s when Chelsea felt a hand guiding her.
Not soft. A rougher, but much warmer hand.
“Chelsea, have a seat.”
We’re back to where we were a moment ago.
But the three of them had a slightly different attitude.
“I honestly didn’t want to get involved, it’s somebody else’s business.”
“…Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, it’s a family thing.”
“It sounds like a dangerous problem to me.”
Kim Yi-hyun was smiling in a friendly way. He is polite when meeting with clients, but he doesn’t often smile, but now he does.
For some reason, it seemed more ominous for Chelsea.
“Let’s be honest.”
He put his arms on my thighs and mowed me down.
“I can see why you wanted this position.”
“This, this seat?”
“Your mother-daughter relationship is a little rocky, so you needed a buffer.”
Gemma hadn’t seen Chelsea for several years already. At the end of it all, she received threats. She was worried about the possibility of an enraged Chelsea pulling a gun on her.
We needed safeguards to make sure that didn’t happen.
Who can limit Chelsea’s behavior.
“No offense, I’m trying to do my part, if you think of it as a kind of employee benefit. Because Chelsea is one of my favorite subordinates.”
It’s employee benefits, as they say.
What if Gemma and Chelsea don’t see eye to eye.
It’s not hard to see where this would tilt further in either direction.
“Let’s organize the problem first.”
Kim said in an extremely natural tone.
“Brandon Putty and Sarah Putty are missing. Is that correct?”
A fact-checking question caused consternation.
Gemma hasn’t told me the full story yet. The names of her husband and young daughter, whom she never mentioned, came out of Kim’s mouth. As if she knew them by heart.
“……Mr. President?”
This time, Chelsea had to be surprised.
Kim realizes she has a sister she never knew existed.
How on earth?
And when did you know that?
Kim glanced at Chelsea, then back at Gemma. Her gaze demanded an answer.
“Ma, that’s right, yes.”
“When did you go missing?”
“So, the 17th, no, the 22nd. 19th…?”
“Let’s say it’s been about three weeks.”
I’m not crazy after all. I’ll have to figure that out.
“What’s the story, he didn’t just disappear from his home.”
“Yi, yi, went to work and hasn’t been back since.”
“What kind of work, your usual construction site labor?”
“…How do you, ah, know that?”
“I’m in a position to know.”
It’s not important,” she said, deliberately interrupting herself. Chelsea will need to make up for it later, but not Gemma. There’s no reason to convince her.
“Finish your answer, which one?”
“Why would I send that, that….”
“If you’re not comfortable, I’ll leave, you two talk.”
With that, he leaned back and crossed his arms.
“You’re getting the picture, Ms. Gemma Putty, we have more power than you realize. I’m telling you, after I leave this room, if a gunshot rings out here, it won’t hurt us.”
One example.
“A psychopath on the verge of becoming an Outlaw came to the company of an insulated child and went on a rampage with a weapon and we were forced to use self-defense, which is unfortunate.”
“Tongue, are you threatening me?”
“It’s just an example,” he says, “where there was a technical error and there was no footage on the CCTV, but for some reason the police got the evidence without a problem. It was just a mistake on the part of the person in charge.”
“Such nonsense….”
Gemma’s eyes fluttered shut.
“You see, we’re the kind of people who can create ridiculous coincidences. Do you understand now, what a great kindness I’m doing you.”
I added after hanging up once.
“Speak when you listen. Be honest.”
Kim was still smiling.
* * *
Gemma rambled on for a while.
My logic didn’t make sense because I was trying to make up for my disadvantage, and my words were incoherent because of my unstable mental state. He was a difficult person to talk to, but not impossible to deal with.
“What a bunch of assholes.
Dustborn are mercenaries outwardly, but within Kilikia, they are a different breed. They are more like fixers and detectives. They are commissioned by both the state and the private sector.
As is often the case in these jobs, the work drains the humanity out of you.
“Rather, it’s that normal clients are rare.
Someone who committed a crime and wants to blame it on someone else. A spy somewhere trying to navigate the Dustborn. An immature gold digger who lives on his own good taste…….
Of course, Kim hasn’t done much of it himself, since he’s out and about on fictional days. But she does get reports. The big-paying assignments almost always come with some sort of intrigue.
Sometimes the opposite happens, and we end up sending the client to the security forces, in this case, Saddam. For such a special client, this one wasn’t too complicated.
After I dropped Gemma off, Chelsea and I went up to the roof. Our hair was blowing in the wind. We both looked like we should be burning cigarettes, but alas, neither of us were smokers.
“What can I say….”
“You don’t have to be considerate.”
“Yeah. Crazy assholes.”
The case seemed deceptively simple.
Without Chelsea, the Putty family was broke. They were in debt. When asked how they got into debt, Gemma’s demeanor gave it away.
So Brandon Putty took a high-paying job. There are a dozen or so ways to go wrong. Under normal circumstances, Brandon Putty would have been one of them.
Under normal circumstances.
“The world has changed, and all those jobs.”
“How can you call that a job?”
Something new has happened in Kilikia.
Highly compensated but not illegal.
Jobs that require no connections, no credentials.
“It’s a cleanup. Necessary.”
A year ago, a small disaster occurred near Kilikia. Several boulders of unknown material fell. There were no casualties other than a few tramps and outlaws.
But that was only the first problem.
The entire area is contaminated. From the shattered stone, monstrous creatures were born: larvae with blue fluorescent shells that scattered in all directions.
Some are crossing over to Kilikia. Slowly but surely.
Shedding fine particles that spike the pollution index around them.
The larvae themselves can be killed by anyone. They’re smaller than your finger and don’t have any offensive capabilities. All you have to do is stomp them with your foot without a weapon and they’re dead.
“The problem is, they spray pollution and die.
They can’t be brought into the city, so they have to be treated outside. In Kilikia, “septic tanks” are periodically released to eradicate the larvae from the area.
“I don’t know, it’s all going to be done by the spellcasters.”
“It’s not easy, especially in a place like Kilikia.”
“Why Kilikia?”
“It’s a city that treats you according to your ability.”
They are a scarce and valuable human resource. Furthermore, spellcasters are only highly resistant to corruption, not immune. They are not immune.
“I’ve even forced them to work once or twice.”
You can’t treat able-bodied people like dogs when you’re talking about meritocracy and individual freedom. If the able-bodied are disgruntled, it’s hard to use them in truly dangerous situations.
“I’ll pay you, but money alone is getting harder and harder to move.”
If you’re going to throw money at me, you might as well throw money at me.
To the penny-pinching poor instead of the already full.
The applicant for the septic tank is a placenta poor.
Brandon Putty just happened to be one of them.
And Gemma Putty called for a search.
Dustborne, not the police, with two daughters.
“In case you’re wondering, I just recently found out.”
“What?”
“Sarah Putty.”
Chelsea faltered.
“Actually, I’ve heard about your family connection before.”
I received some materials through Kavek the other day. A bunch of records on people from Kilikia. Not just Chelsea, but Bryce’s family connections.
I’m not saying I did any digging, but there’s a reason.
“The Johanna Feltner case. That’s when we came out on both sides of the aisle. Of course, there were procedures. What would we have done if we had a violent criminal in the family of one of our key people.”
The results showed that there were no sensitive issues.
That’s why Congress gave Dustborn the benefit of the doubt.
“But what do you mean you just recently found out?”
“They said I didn’t register my birth.”
Chelsea, who was looking down the street, turned her head quickly. Her eyes were wide with disbelief as she stared at Kim.
“Didn’t you say six years old?”
“It’s not like we’re giving you a subsidy for having a baby.”
“So you suddenly became a citizen of….”
“In a sense, intent is really transparent, isn’t it?”
They’re trying to get more money. By taking the kid.
“Is that legally possible?”
“I don’t know, but I did take him.”
They were a great couple in many ways.
Chelsea was laughing her ass off at the absurdity of it all. Parents who had already disowned her. The only thing she felt for them was disillusionment, and now she was past that stage.
“It’s disgusting what they do.
Gemma Putty must have had some idea. What Dustborne is about. She didn’t get paid for it, but she has a daughter who works at Dustborne, so she’s trying to make a point.
And the request was still pending.
“I don’t think it’s up to me to decide.”
Kim looked at Chelsea in anguish.
“Think about what you want to do. I’ll help you in any direction.”
Whatever you decide, we’re here to help.
Chelsea picked up on the nuances hidden in the kind words.
If you want to be merciful, that’s fine,
It meant I would cooperate, even if it meant getting blood on my hands.
After a moment of silence, Chelsea said.
“…I’ll have to meet with him.”
I felt like I knew something.