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Chapter 193 - Loose Ends (Thank you for your support, mak!)
🕑 Added 2024-11-16 12:57:45 +0000 UTCWhile I wanted to avoid trouble, I realized that avoiding all of them was useless. On the other hand, I could at least choose my poison, the type that I could endure and get something in exchange.
Clarice and whatever she was doing was the type of poison that I could accept. She had knowledge about the land that I needed and the location of the dungeons and labyrinths as well.
“Hey, Grandma. We are going to the old home, okay?”
“Are you bringing another boy to the old house? How many of them have been this week already?”
“Grandma…”
It looked like Clarice’s grandma was another one who tends to say a lot of nonsensical things. I sure hoped that this was a joke, or my image of the Elves would only keep plummeting.
In any case, I wondered if that lady was the wife of the previous leader of the silver bows. I still recall that Clarice mentioned something like that before…
“He is over seventy already. He has some skills, but he only got that position because our grandfather decided to retire. Before you think of anything, I am seventeen only.”
I wondered why I still could recall all those details… In any case, we climbed stairs close to the tree and I frowned when the steps only appeared when we approached and they looked like they were made of magic too. Still, it was quite firm.
Before long, we reached the third house in the tree. There were some others above, but this one looked quite old and like it hadn’t been reformed in a while. Considering that they didn’t even put a proper staircase on the tree, it looked like they wouldn’t do the reforms there either.
Putting that aside, this was the house that Glacien glared at that time… I wondered if she smelled the blood or something.
The interior of the house was a bit simple, but it was quite large. There were three floors with a large living room standing right in front of the entrance.
“My allies are hurt too, so they are resting in the other rooms. I would guess that you don’t want to talk or meet with them, right? They don’t want to meet anyone either.”
“Allies? Not friends?”
“We have our town goals unseen now. While my unit is a bit different from the others, we still share some similarities with the others… We will do our best to achieve the success of our missions, even if we have to sacrifice our allies. So, turning them into friends isn’t something we usually do.”
“What a charming group.”
Clarice’s wry smile was a rare sight, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes, leaving it more of a tight, uneasy expression than a genuine sign of a good mood. It was an unfamiliar gesture for someone so typically bright, and it spoke volumes about the turmoil she was experiencing. The smile wasn’t one of humor, but of weary acknowledgment, of the recognition of just how tangled her life had become. For someone who had always been happy-go-lucky, this small break in her behavior was clear was significant.
Being part of the underworld group tied to the Aeloria Dominion was far from a straightforward allegiance. It was a life where loyalty was demanded at every turn, but it came at the cost of personal freedom and peace of mind. The Aeloria Dominion, with its unyielding ambition and ruthless tactics, had a far-reaching influence, and its demands on Clarice were no less relentless. As a member of this faction, she was probably tasked with carrying out operations that required her to abandon her morals, making her complicit in actions that weighed heavily on her conscience.
Clarice pointed to a chair and then I sat down on it. While they loved their trees, they still could make that much with smaller fallen branches. The chair looked like it had been made like that.
“So, what have you been doing since the last time?”
I crossed my arms and then stayed quiet, I let the silence shimmer a bit more until Clarice got tired of it. Rather, she felt quite uncomfortable.
“Geeez, you are no fun. Once I returned home after that incident, I went to talk with my brother about what happened, but he denied his involvement. I thought at first that he was playing dumb, but he wouldn’t keep that charade for this long if he was indeed involved.”
“What about that guy who showed up inside the dungeon that time?”
“I tried to investigate him, but I didn’t find any piece of useful information.”
I didn’t know the guy’s name, and honestly, if I had ever heard it, it had long since slipped my mind. All I knew was that he was standing there, spouting a bunch of nonsense I couldn’t care less about. His words were empty, just noise, and I could tell he was trying to put on some kind of show. But then, without warning, he locked eyes with me and shot me a glare, one that felt like it could burn through steel. That’s when things shifted.
Clarice, who had been calm and composed up until that moment, suddenly snapped. Her expression hardened, her usual cool demeanor replaced by a fierce anger I’d never seen before. It was like a switch had been flipped. His confidence crumbled in an instant, and he turned tail and ran, clearly having been cowed by something far more powerful than his bravado. That was the only time I’d ever seen Clarice truly angry, and it left me with a lingering impression that there was far more to her than I’d ever known.
“Is he disposing of the people who had information about him or someone else doing that for him?”
“They wouldn’t go as far as killing Elves for that. We wouldn’t kill our own kin. We would buy their silence instead.”
“How virtuous of you guys.”
Clarice shrugged. Sure, it was better than killing those who could snick on them, but it was the kind of thing that it was pretty underhanded. Clarice should be used to this kind of thing happening around these parts.
“My guess is that those people gained some important positions in our society… but too many exchanges of personnel happened in the last few years, so I couldn’t check all of them. My best bet would be to look for the culprit and then force them to ask the details. I have been doing this for one year.”
“Sorry to say this, but it looks like you aren’t that skilled at it. Besides, you joining this group would make your intentions pretty obvious.”
“While that is true, everyone working here has their own goals, they wouldn’t mind if a few people kill each other.”
It looked like Clarice joined a pretty nasty organization out of guilt about what happened the last time… I didn’t blame her, but she still blamed herself. In that sense, she wasn’t very bright. Still, she had a connection with Jalal's grandmother, so perhaps she was doing this more out of anger than guilt.
“Speaking of which, were you part of the group that had eight people crossing the forest southeast of here two days ago at night?”
“How do you know… I had a feeling that someone was watching us at some point, but the others didn’t believe me… it looks like you make good use of the stealth skills that you learned in that labyrinth.”
“You smelled like blood back then. Did you fail trying to kill someone?”
“Something like that. Do you really want to know and risk getting involved in a big mess?”
“I would rather not, but… I have learned that what happens once happens twice. Someone from here caused me a lot of trouble before and I want to tie those loose ends before moving on. I also want some pieces of information and you can give me a lot of it.”
“What about your plans of lying low? I can understand now why you were so secretive back then.”
“I am still secretive. I am just not going to hide anymore. At least not like before, I will lure out all the rats that might aim for my life and then dispose of them in order to save time.”
Clarice studied me carefully, her eyes sharp and focused. She wasn’t quite convinced, not entirely sure if I was telling the whole truth. Her eyes analyzed every word I said, as if weighing my sincerity against something deeper, something she might’ve known that I didn’t. I could feel the tension in the air, the quiet judgment behind her serious expression. It was clear she wasn’t going to let me off the hook so easily.
I didn’t want to get involved with the Aeloria Dominion. In fact, every part of me recoiled at the thought of being connected to them even for a bit. But the truth was, they had already gotten involved with me. They’d left their mark on my life in ways I couldn’t ignore, and now, their influence was like a shadow I couldn’t shake off. What they had done to me, it still haunted me. Someone had to pay for that. There was no way I could let them get away with it.
The thought of Jalal’s Grandmother lingered in my mind. I still didn’t know if she had recovered from the damage the attack had caused, or if she even had a chance. It was a painful uncertainty that troubled me. I couldn’t afford to sit idly by while those who had caused us trouble remained untouched, especially when it felt like the Aeloria Dominion had their fingers in every pie, pulling strings behind the scenes.
“I am not sure if I like your idea… I can share some intel with you, but only if you guarantee to me that you won’t cause more trouble than necessary.”
“That will depend if those involved won’t cause me a lot of trouble. If they don’t resist that much, then they can die without causing trouble to everyone else.”
Clarice sighed and then went silent for a while… She looked at the bow on my back and then nodded to herself.
“I guess we can do something about this…”
Comments
ThoMiCroN
Clarice joined a pretty nasty organization out of guilty->guilt*
