Day 2.
I woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling.
“…?!”
I startled awake, bolting upright in an instant.
What the…? Where the hell am I?
“Goodness, you have some nasty sleeping habits.”
Turning my head toward the voice, I saw an old man with sparse teeth, puffing on a cigar.
“Move gently. You’ll tear the house down at this rate.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration. This was an actual, dilapidated, falling-down ruin of a house. I had a memory of deliberately seeking out such a place.
‘Ah, right. Yesterday…’
Slowly, the events of yesterday came back to me.
That’s right. Walter had suddenly collapsed in front of me. So…
*
“Mister Walter?! Walter! Snap out of it!”
Hey, you bastard!
What am I supposed to do if you just collapse out of nowhere like that?!
‘He said to hide him… what the hell did he mean by that?’
Could it be that the person who did this to Walter is nearby?
Whatever the case, it was something Walter said. He was a man whose skills were undeniable, so it seemed best to do as he said for now.
‘A place to hide… where on earth is there to hide him?’
I frantically looked around. But where in a park like this is there space to hide a person? As I scanned the area, I saw a patch of earth that had been dug up deeply, as if someone was planning to transplant flowers.
‘Should I hide him here for now? No, if I mess this up, it’ll be a live burial.’
Fortunately, I didn’t have to bury Walter alive. Looking a bit more, I saw a handcart placed next to the dug-up earth.
It seemed they had been planning to move the pile of dirt that came from digging. The handcart was even piled high with burlap sacks.
‘Park manager, sir. I’m sorry.’
I loaded Walter into the handcart. Covering him with the stiff burlap sacks hid him perfectly.
—Clatter clatter clatter.
I pulled the handcart and moved. My plan was to transport Walter to a hospital like this.
But then.
From far away, suspicious-looking figures appeared. Men of massive, sturdy builds, with menacing expressions.
‘…! That person?’
One of the faces looked familiar. His clothes were different, but he was definitely someone I had seen just moments before.
The guard who had been escorting the Grand Duchess, dressed in his splendid ceremonial uniform.
‘Why is the Grand Duchess’s guard here?’
I held my breath and watched them.
“Hey!”
They were stopping passersby one by one, interrogating them.
“Have you seen a man bleeding profusely from his stomach?”
“He should have a girlish face. At a glance, you might mistake him for a woman.”
“That bastard ran off with our money. If you hide him, you might end up in a bad way too.”
Without a doubt.
They were looking for Walter.
‘Ah, damn. What do I do?’
I hadn’t known people like that were chasing Walter. Walter had just blurted out ‘hide me’ without any explanation and fainted.
‘What is this, some kind of fairy tale? Does he think he’s a deer fleeing from hunters?!’
But there was no time to stay angry for long. First, I had to figure out how to deceive those hunters and save the flower-deer in the cart.
‘Ugh. I’m not good at lying.’
What if they ask to check inside the cart?
Should I just run for it?’
The clumsily piled burlap sacks felt terribly insecure. I thought about turning and running even now, but that would probably just look more suspicious.
As the distance to the hunters narrowed, I could feel my heart rate rising. I swallowed dryly, trying to conjure up a plausible lie.
‘…?’
The hunters passed me by.
While stopping every other person passing by, they just ignored me.
‘What? Did my disguise look that convincing?’
I wasn’t in my usual gentleman’s attire. I had disguised myself as a laborer to tail Grand Duchess Catherine. Wearing those clothes and pulling a handcart, I probably looked like someone associated with the park.
‘Whatever the reason.’
I quickly pulled the cart past the men. I planned to leave the park straight away like this, but…
‘Ah, damn. Again?’
I felt a sense of déjà vu. The group of menacing thugs I had just passed. An identical group was standing over there.
Moreover, this group also had the Grand Duchess’s guards mixed in.
‘…This isn’t a coincidence.’
Grand Duchess Catherine’s subordinates were looking for Walter.
“……”
Gritting my teeth, I turned the cart’s direction. Not towards the exit, but towards the scenic high ground I had seen earlier.
Changing location made the situation even clearer.
“Really haven’t seen him? He has a disability in his left arm. You should be able to spot him at a glance…”
“Boss! Maybe he’s hiding in these bushes?”
“He wasn’t in the garden fountain!”
“Hey, you! If you come out after searching, you’ll die before he does! If he’s not in the fountain, search the lake!”
“Huh? In this season?”
Numerous strong men were wandering around, searching for Walter.
‘This is the worst.’
I had no idea how things had come to this. What was certain was that Grand Duchess Catherine was determined to find Walter.
In this state, I couldn’t leave the park. I might have luckily avoided inspection earlier, but that couldn’t last forever. I’d be caught by the men gathered near the park exits, and Walter would be discovered.
Even if I somehow managed to run and escape the park, the situation would be the same.
A dirt-covered handcart was only natural inside the park. Pulling it outside, even if I luckily shook off pursuers, witness accounts would undoubtedly pour in.
‘I can’t go to my office, or to a hospital…’
Suddenly, I was completely trapped in this desolate park.
*
—Rattle rattle rattle.
The handcart’s wheels rattled noisily.
“Mister Walter, are you okay?”
Even when I whispered, there was no answer. I sighed, covering the burlap sack that seemed stained with blood with another sack.
Three hours.
Unknowingly, I had been pulling the cart around for three hours.
The park’s bizarrely large and expansive area. And thanks to the past effort of searching out deserted places under the pretext of finding secret passages. I was able to avoid the searchers and pull the cart around for three hours, pretending to be a laborer.
Even when I occasionally ran into the searchers, they showed an oddly low level of interest in me.
‘But, that’s reaching its limit now too.’
As the searchers roamed, people who felt uneasy began leaving the park one by one. The park’s foot traffic thinned, and I started running into the same groups of searchers multiple times.
The searchers who had initially ignored me completely were now glancing at me sidelong. I didn’t know why they were avoiding me, but it didn’t seem like it would last forever.
‘At least it seems the prolonged search has thinned their numbers a bit…’
It wasn’t much comfort. By a rough estimate, there were still about thirty left.
Waiting for all of them to disappear would take longer than it would for Walter’s breath to stop.
‘How on earth should I do this?’
The weight of the handcart felt especially heavy. The rattling interior of the cart couldn’t be a good environment for a patient. For all I knew, I might be killing Walter right now.
Because of my mistaken judgment, a person was dying.
Again.
A white smoke spreading like fog, and a hand I couldn’t grasp, came to mind.
‘…Get a grip. If you get lost in self-blame here, that will be the real end.’
I gritted my teeth and pulled the cart. Cold sweat dripped from the tension, anxiety, and exhaustion. Unlike me, the park seemed utterly peaceful.
The sound of children playing came from afar. Kids were singing a nursery rhyme as they played.
‘…Wait a minute.’
Looking now, weren’t they kids?
Only one voice was audible.
Beneath the desolate park where people had all left.
One child was singing in a childish voice.
As if entranced, I pulled the cart toward the source of the sound.
In the distance, I saw a child playing hopscotch. The child had drawn boxes on the ground with a squeak and was jumping in time with a song.
‘He doesn’t look that much like a child though…’
His face looked young, but his frame was large. He looked a head taller than his peers—. No, wait.
‘Isn’t that the former leader of Toby’s group?’
The boy who commanded the little kids under Balthazar.
That street urchin boy was jumping around on numbered boxes drawn on the ground, singing.
Listening closely, it was a song with somewhat eerie lyrics.
“Featherless pigeon, where do you go~♪ The hunter’s silver arrow chases you. Sneak into the winding alleyways~♪ Jump between the breathless houses.
In the town where all are asleep, the one house awake~♪ Knock on that door and state your name. Knock, knock, knock, who are you? I’m the pigeon who dodged the hunter~♪”
A song with a strange rhythm reminiscent of Mother Goose. I knew one person who used something like that as a code.
‘…Could it be.’
I stared intently at the child. The child kept singing and repeating the same movements.
First box: one hop on the right foot.
Second box: two hops on the right foot.
Third box: two hops on the left foot. Then two on the right. One on the left.
Land with both feet in the last box, then move back to the starting box.
I watched the child’s actions over and over. Until I had memorized the song completely and understood the movements.
The child, panting and exhausted, didn’t stop, repeating the same actions.
“…This should be enough.”
I muttered as if to myself, then pulled the cart past the child.
—Clatter clatter clatter.
Making a noisy sound, I pulled the cart and left the park.
‘My interpretation has to be correct…’
No. It must be correct.
Because this was the only path left for me now.
“Hey, by any chance…”
I pretended not to hear the voice calling from behind, quickly exiting the park. Then I immediately turned right.
‘One hop to the right.’
I went straight to the next block.
‘Next. Two hops to the right.’
I turned right and moved two blocks. Then left for two blocks, right again for two blocks.
The further I went, the area gradually changed to cramped, secluded places. I entered an alleyway full of twists and turns and many branching paths.
The alleyway seemed to have long since lost its breath as a residential area, with only derelict houses in a row.
‘Last. One block to the left.’
I was there.
‘This must be the destination of the code…’
While looking around, one house suddenly caught my eye.
At a glance, it was a dilapidated ruin like the others, but it was the house with a crudely drawn, child-like white eye doodle on the gate.
‘Is this the place?’
I swallowed dryly and knocked on the door.
A rustling sound followed, and then.
“Who is it?”
A rough voice came.
“…I’m the pigeon who dodged the hunter.”
“What? Dodged the hunter? What on earth are you talking about?”
“You don’t know? I’m the pigeon who dodged the hunter.”
“My, what a strange person you are.”
My heart sank at the grumbling voice.
‘Did I get it wrong? Was the code not this?’
—Creeeak.
The door opened, followed by a curt voice.
“Next time, just say the pigeon is here. Cut out the weird talk about hunters and such.”
“Ah, yes. Understood.”
An old man with sparse teeth poked his head out.
He glanced at the handcart I was pulling and asked this.
“So, corpse disposal? Or injured person treatment?”
“Injured person treatment.”
Probably.
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