285. Those who want to understand (1)
“-Shhhh. Please wait a moment.”
With those words, Oliver quietly began to read the letter.
slurp slurp. widely. Cheeky . . . . slurp slurp. widely. Cheeky . . . .
The sound of ripping envelopes along with the regular sound of paper pounding echoed quietly in the sewer.
Meanwhile, the two druids stood still and waited as Oliver asked.
It was truly an absurd sight.
An assailant who waits for the target’s request… No, is it correct to say that we have no choice but to wait?
The moment the two druids Oliver asked, I felt an indescribable presence.
It was the kind of presence I felt when I first interacted with nature when I was a trainee.
Of course, it could have been an illusion. No, it had to be an illusion.
A human with a presence equal to that of a huge nature… Shouldn’t there be something like that?
In fact, as I read the letter while sitting on the protruding part of the sewer, I couldn’t feel the presence I had felt before.
It was an illusion. It must have been a mistake, but there was one thing that caught on.
Why would the rats want to run away screaming at any moment?
“ha······.”
After a short and long silence, Oliver folded the letters he had read, put them in individual envelopes, and put them back into his arms.
Carefully, like a treasure.
Then he took a deep breath, exhaled, and stood up.
Even with that small movement, the rats squealed lowly.
Cheeky . . . . Chewy….
“What is the name of the two of you?”
Oliver stood politely and asked the two druids.
The Druid couldn’t shake the overwhelming presence he had felt before, so instead of clenching his fist, he responded.
“I’m Teddy… This guy is Dan.”
“Teddy and Dan… Nice to meet you. Could it be that the two of you attacked the poor brothers?”
“······okay.”
“Can I ask why you were attacked? Did Sheamus-sama do it?”
“no······. It is our will.”
“Well······. It’s not even an order, so why did you attack? There doesn’t seem to be any benefit to it, do you?”
The druid’s tip ordered Teddy to shut up. But Teddy didn’t follow his orders.
Then they would know they were scared. Druids themselves. could not tolerate
“Why don’t you get anything? It’s going to be irritating.”
“Are you upset?”
“okay······. Some bastards bit my ankle, and I have to be resentful. What are you complaining about?”
“Well······. No, I honestly don’t agree with that, but I don’t think it’s something I’d dare to question. Everyone has their own circumstances.”
“Your attitude is better than I thought.”
“So I have to do my own thing. Do you know where Sheamus is?”
“Do you think we can talk?”
“You don’t have to answer me. Arthur will find out. Please come with me.”
“I’m proud of how many druids I’ve won-!!”
Teddy brushed aside any remaining dread and dread, then rushed towards Oliver.
It was because he was more confident than anyone in close-range combat.
I was suppressed for a while earlier, but my opponent was a bean thief, so it was an exception.
Above all else, the guy named Dabra in front of him was not wearing anything right now. In other words, it is said that only one grind can be finished properly. Couldn’t miss this chance.
‘Then, you can greatly defeat the enemy’s power, and even in the business of the boss-‘
-[Targeting.]
While the druid Teddy rushed, Oliver quickly extracted his emotions and activated black magic.
Each of the dartboards struck Oliver’s hand and Teddy’s chest, and the two dartboards pushed each other away with the emotion of rejection.
━━━Bang!!
Teddy, who had a superhuman body, was not able to be pushed away by Oliver’s black magic, so he was thrown into the opposite wall.
so powerless.
It wasn’t a fatal attack for Teddy, but Oliver’s attack didn’t end there either.
By controlling the emotions in targeting, Oliver reduced rejection and gave more power to obsessive emotions.
Then, this time, the dartboards attracted each other like magnets.
Teddy, who had been hit by a wall and had an unstable posture.
“Kids, ask!”
Teddy’s partner Dan ordered the vicious sewer rats.
To his friends who have been working with the gangs since before Sheamus hired him.
Brave friends who fought against the environment in which bullets and bombs explode. However, at this moment, he was afraid of a single warlock and turned away from his request.
[Black Suit]
[Black Armor]
While casting targeting, Oliver slapped Teddy, who was being dragged around in a black suit and black armor like a gauntlet.
Bang–!!!
The druid teddy crashed to the floor with a roar that resonated throughout the sewer.
Obviously, it was no use defending the face with both arms.
Rather, it only resulted in broken arms and smashed faces.
As the vibrations echoed in the sewer subsided, and the roar subsided, there was a cold silence.
A very cold silence.
thump. thump. thump.
Oliver stood in front of Druid Dan.
Dan had no choice but to stand still, stiff.
Dan was just as warlike as Teddy, but he couldn’t do anything at this moment.
“I beg you again, can you come with me? I can’t carry two people because I don’t have enough hands. then······.”
Oliver mumbled, but Dan felt a greater fear than any threat.
It was as if something indescribably huge and sinister was looking down on him.
The pressure forced Dan to nod in a cold sweat, and Oliver thanked him and grabbed Teddy’s ankle and dragged him outside.
“ah.”
Oliver looked at the rats frozen in fear, as if he had realized too late.
The rat stood in its place, trembling as it was at first. As Oliver tells you.
Oliver extracted his emotions and cast two black magic on the rats.
[Eternal Famine]
[Cannibalism]
A vicious blackish black magic covered the rats, and Oliver moved forward.
When Oliver disappeared, the starving rats began to eat each other.
***
“Are you here?”
The broker’s office in the basement of the Forest Restaurant,
There, Forrest, who was sweating while holding on to several large communication devices, greeted Oliver.
He looked very tired, but apart from him, he pulled away his ruffled clothes. It was always part of an effort to show the best.
“I heard that you suddenly went somewhere.”
“I have an urgent business to do.”
“And I just heard that you captured two druids, handed them over to Carver and left.”
“I just finished a quick errand.”
“Then, may I ask why you came here?”
Forrest asked. Rather than being angry at the solver for abandoning the mission, he was more concerned about his unusual attitude and current mood.
“for awhile······. May I sit down?”
Oliver asked, pointing to the chair across from Forrest.
Forrest nodded.
As soon as permission was granted, Oliver sat down on the chair. It was definitely different from usual.
Oliver had always been sitting upright, but now he seemed to be very tired and drooping a bit.
“…are you ok?”
Forrest asked.
“Yes······. It’s just that this job took longer than I thought, and I’m tired. Rather, the office here is similar in size to the old restaurant, isn’t it?”
“As I said before, the working space is familiar… Do you have anything to say?”
“Exactly, I have something to ask you. May I tell you?”
“I’ll do everything except to ask for a guarantee.”
Concerned about Oliver’s unusual condition, Forrest replied with a mixture of jokes.
Fortunately, the response was good.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Yes.”
“Well······. It looks like fun. IM jealous.”
“If you want, I’ll even make a humor book for you. So, if you have a request, tell me. If you want to indulge in this mission-”
“-No, it is not. just······. Can I hear you now?”
“what?”
“A story from the past, Forrest and Cant. I was supposed to listen to it after the mission was over, but I was suddenly so curious.”
Oliver asked quietly as usual, but Forrest noticed a very subtle change in Oliver.
So instead of getting angry, he poured two glasses of wine into a crystal glass and held one to Oliver.
“You’re still organizing your thoughts, which part would you like to hear?”
“From start to finish?”
Forrest took a sip.
“Then, I should start talking about my youth. What do you think I would have done when I was younger?”
“Well······. Did you work in a restaurant?”
“Yeah, I worked at a pretty decent restaurant with a good name nearby. as a waiter.”
“Are you talking like Mr. Al?”
“Yeah, a waiter who politely accepts hats and coats from guests and gets tips for bringing food. Before that, I was a dishwasher. You could say it was a little better… Still, I was not satisfied.”
“Is that so?”
“The tip wasn’t bad, but it was more humiliating than I thought to keep seeing wealthy customers who couldn’t even compare to me. I didn’t want the store owner to make more money than me, who was standing holding weight without doing anything. Above all, there was no prospect.”
“A view?”
“No matter how good the waiter tip was, I didn’t think it would help me get out of the rent. I want to age with dignity. In the end, after much deliberation, I started trading with a broker who is a regular at the store. I decided to tell him what I had seen and heard in the restaurant, but instead, he taught me some money and a brokerage job. It wasn’t a bad deal. There was a lot of business talk about the restaurant back then.”
“That’s how you started working as a broker.”
“And then I met Cant. He was a kid-solver who had just dealt with a broker.”
“ah······.”
“At that time, we were both little kids, and we had a lot of greed for money like that. Receiving help, centering on the middleman… Time passed, and I realized the physiology of this floor as much as a broker, and I developed my own resourcefulness. Cant is not a superman either, but he has become a problem solver.”
“After that, what did you do?”
“The two of us started a business independently of the broker I was indebted to. I am a broker looking for a job with the connections I have accumulated over the years, and I cant mobilize the connections in the back alleys to make the most profit at the minimum cost. At that time, there was a boom in redevelopment, and I was mainly responsible for eviction of emigrants, debt collection, contract assault, arson, and contract murder. The work was easy, but the money coming in was staggering. It’s insignificant compared to your level… I’m a little embarrassed.”
“I don’t think it’s trivial or shameful.”
“is it?”
“Because I don’t think I’m the one to judge.”
“That’s a word of thanks…. Anyway, I was on the lower level floor, but Nana cant get what she wanted. I managed to save up for a decent old age, and cant earn enough to support my wife and son. Plus, I was lucky enough to get caught in a big deal in the city, and in return, I was able to get the right to do business in the area in front of me. It was great luck. The unit of money you roll is different.”
“But, why are you in Area T?”
“Things were a little tricky. One of the things we used to do ended up dirty. A man has come to retaliate. I was quite concerned about security, but I was distracted by the sudden fortune, and I was put in a situation where a gun was pointed at my forehead.”
“What did you want?”
“Information about cant. He was the guy who lost his family to cant.”
“Do you have an answer?”
At that moment, Forrest’s emotions fluctuated with guilt and regret.
Forrest nodded, drank and opened his mouth.
“I wanted to live…. There is nothing to criticize me for.”
“I don’t mean to criticize. Because Forrest has already talked a lot about the broker-solver relationship… What happened after that?”
“Avengers put a gun to my head, permanently crippled Cant’s leg, and took his wife and son. the way he was. Cant is gone, and instead of moving my business to the front zone, I moved to Zone T.”
“Is it because of guilt?”
“Well, I thought that was it at first, but now that I say it, I guess not. It’s just that you’ve lost your partner, lost your confidence, and you’ve come to a safe place to do business. In other words, they moved because they were afraid.”
Forrest grinned bitterly and drank again. His feelings lit up self-hatred with guilt, regret, and doubts about his feelings.
Oliver thought for a moment, and then opened his mouth.
“…life seems so complicated.”
“I agree.”
“Why is it so complicated?”
“Maybe it’s because I’m weak. If you’re weak, temptation… No, it’s just an excuse. 그냥 내가 개새끼라 그런 거지······. If you want to cut off business with me after this mission, tell me. Anyway, the duration of the contract is-”
“-Do you want to break up with me?”
Oliver asked seriously.
He was so serious that even Forrest flinched.
“that······. Absolutely not. How many opportunities in my life have I had the opportunity to work with a friend like you.”
“Then, that’s it…. Excuse me for a moment.”
Oliver stood up as if he had finished his business.
Forrest had doubts about his more calm attitude than he had expected.
“Do you know why I suddenly asked?”
Oliver waved in the air a few times, as if he had heard a difficult question, and barely answered.
“I am trying to understand.”