Condition of Trust (9)
“Ah, the conversation continues again? Well, it’s over now.”
“What was it about?”
He would listen to the recorded one again anyway, but he was asking just in case.
“When he asked if she would like him to see her off, the woman refused. She said she had a ride ready.”
“Nothing much.”
The employee who was eavesdropping with him turned around and laughed, still wearing the headset.
“She came here suddenly in the middle of the night to have a talk, but we don’t have anything worth finding out about. I think he’s trying to scout someone he originally knew, right?”
“It is unlikely that they will talk about PMC or alien races openly in the office…”
“That’s true.”
The employee shrugged in response.
Meanwhile, Matt and his team focused on the traces left near the El Paso branch and found something suspicious. The traces of the invasion of an unknown force into the branch were very clean. Still, the trails left after entering the building and the traces left outside the building while retreating with Eraser were as if they were completely different groups.
It seemed as if they became completely different people before and after the invasion. It was possible to speculate that they escaped with him after being brainwashed by Eraser. Perhaps the hypothesis was that they weren’t the helpers of Eraser but were brainwashed while trying to capture Eraser from the company. Matt’s team discovered the existence of a PMC (Private Military Company) after intensively digging into the traces left behind; a company whose business owner disappeared several years ago has stopped official activities, judging from external data alone.
However, as a result of the investigation, it was discovered that there was a secret and steady movement in the meantime and several borrowed-name accounts associated with them were tracked according to the flow of money. As a result, it was found that there may be a connection between an account used to sponsor this PMC and any private foundation financially.
There was no conclusive evidence yet, but it was a discovery that was sufficient to change the investigation’s direction. Matt began to dig deeper into the foundation, which he couldn’t even imagine sponsoring the PMC when he looked at their publicly known activities. As part of that, it was the fifth day since he started eavesdropping on that man.
“I don’t know who she is, but that’s a bizarre talk. Did she said someone wrote a novel featuring the main character named Alice, whether it was her dead boyfriend or her husband?”
“How do you investigate personal information with such a hint? If we wait, she will come out of the parking lot, so just take a picture of her car number.”
“No, that’s not it…wasn’t Louis, the author of Alice in Wonderland? Louis Carrol.”
“Hey, when did Louis Carroll die?”
“…Hasn’t it been more than 100 years ago?”
“Are there only one or two novels featuring the main character named Alice? Stop talking nonsense and keep an eye on the entrance. Since that room is the only place that lights up in that building right now, I’m sure the woman with the sweet voice will be in the next car. I’m going to smoke.”
Matt checked the camera footage outside the truck. After confirming that there were no passers-by, he carefully opened the door, went back into the alley, and lit a cigarette. It had been a few days. Did he make a mistake?
Soon he cut off his own thoughts and shook his head. No matter how much he looked at it, there were too many suspicious parts. With a cigarette in his mouth, he lifted his head and looked up at the building. The name of the foundation, which used this building, sparkled in the light of a neon sign. Matt read after it realizing it.
“Global Initiative for a Better World”
It was also commonly known as GIBW. It was one of the most famous social-aid foundations in the world. Their ads were often exposed on TV, and there were rumors that the size of the aid fund being rolled was close to the level of a global company. The target of which Matt and his team members had been eavesdropping illegally for days now was the Foundation’s chairman, Eugene D. Wright.
Even this morning, he stepped inside the building, smiling at the people around him, revealing an incredible baby-face despite being in his late 40s. And he was stuck in the office until almost midnight. Matt had been bugging him all day, but he hadn’t been able to find any plausible content. Why did the foundation specializing in drilling wells, distributing food, and laying roads in Africa, have to make a complicated circumvention to the PMC and make deposits of large sums of money?
And the conversation he had in there…it couldn’t be said that it wasn’t suspicious at all. There were too many awkward contexts for an ordinary scout offer. How many times did the word family repeat? It was also meant to say that he was rejected while trying to invite a guest.
“Huh”
As if trying to clear up his complicated mind, he breathed in the cigarette smoke deeply, but Matt’s gaze fell toward the top and stopped in one place. The chairman’s office was the only one in the building with the lights still on. From the open window, he could see something small flying up.
Was it a bird? In the middle of the night? He thought birds were flying to such a high floor. It seemed to have been sitting in the gap of the open window and then took off again. He also thought he saw a small dot on the bird’s back glistening, but he felt it was insignificant because of the light leaking out of the office.
The cigarette burned, the deep scarlet light burning through the night.
Maybe it would be a long-term battle, right? Asking so, Matt exhaled cigarette smoke with a deep sigh.
* * *
The wind blowing in the winter night sea was cold, so it was still unpredictable. I regularly conjured warmth around my body and looked at the approaching dark figure.
“This is the last time.”
On the night when the moon didn’t rise, another body was pushed up on the beach of Yeong-jong Island, where darkness fell. The summoner pushed the man’s body and pulled it up to the beach, then looked at me while still half-soaked in seawater. I spoke to the summoned creature, which threw its eyes as if asking if there was anything else to do.
“Now go back.”
I opened the Channel on my chest, and the sea snake-shaped creature, which had rescued dozens of corpses from the sea of Yeong-jong Island, returned to its original dimension. I approached the corpses scattered all over the sandy beach. Although I prepared my mind in advance, it was the first time I saw a drowned body with my own eyes. It seemed that he tied a pouch full of scrap metal and sand to his ankles, then went out on a boat and jumped into the water.
I tried to keep my composure and carefully shed Mana on the bodies. The reaction came back quickly. Most of the artifacts were made in the form of jewelry, such as earrings and rings. As the Fake God said, if someone who wasn’t the owner touched or attempts detachment, it was supposed to self-destruct. The absence of a wrist or head among the corpses appeared to be a sign of the Fake God’s failure.
It was a peculiar magical pattern, but it wasn’t as untouchable as the Fake God thought. This level could be analyzed by myself without asking Parvache. I elaborately sent out my Mana to remove all artifacts’ self-destruct function. Then I began to search the bodies directly. Not only had all artifacts been retrieved, but I also searched for items that could identify them. Most of them had things like wallets and passports on their bodies. I didn’t know if the ID card was real, but I needed to secure it first.
It had been damaged considerably by seawater, but I needed to try somehow. These belongings weren’t the only ones damaged by seawater. I looked down at the bodies and asked Parvache.
“If they were alive…wouldn’t we have been able to reveal their identity by somehow pressing the Fake God?”
Having died like this, it was difficult to get the information out of their head.
[I don’t know what kind of magic it was that made the memory invisible, but if your skill level was about this artifact, it might have been possible to destroy the spell.]
“Right. After that, we could have threatened Fake God and shed their memories. Making everyone commit suicide…it’s frustrating.”
There would be limitations to revealing the identity of this organization with only artifacts. The best thing was to interrogate the parties involved directly. Still, I couldn’t immediately think of a way to get information from the dead. I didn’t learn the magic of that line in the first place. Even if I started training now, it would take too long.
Anyway, I decided to retrieve all of these bodies as planned. The corpses were loaded into a container and then compressed for a few days in a carefully prepared order. Having lost both its original weight and volume, I picked it up with two fingers and put it in my backpack.
“I have to find a way somehow. How to find out who these guys are. Why did they attack the Fake God? What about the scale and power of the ascetics…and, what the hell are they trying to do to regenerate the Dragon?”
Parvache nodded.
“Now, let’s go back.”
* * *
“The moon is so bright.”
It was a full moon. Mrs. Pearl, with her head out of the window, was facing toward the snow this time. While being engulfed in light, she watched the scenery passing by quickly, far below.
“Is there any way to further improve this technique, Daejong-maek?”
“What is there to improve?”
“If there was a way to fly so far in the first place, I don’t think Brother Garam and I had to suffer a few months ago.”
“Mrs. Pearl, are you saying it because you don’t know how hard the elders worked to complete this technique?”
“It’s not like that, but…”
Mrs. Pearl seemed like she couldn’t shake her regret.
“It’s a technique that we completed after working on both the White Deer and the Han River for almost a month. If it weren’t at the level of moving the whole village, we would never repeat this technique. Elder Mago told us that we would never move the village again while you were alive.”
“Is there any way to improve it so that it is not just possible to move the village, but also existences like us?”
“According to the principle of this technique, whether it is a village or you, Mrs. Pearl, there is no big difference in the amount of effort it takes.”
At that time, Garam, lying in his original main body on the heated floor with his stomach facing the sky, turned over to their side. He pointed at Mrs. Pearl with his long nose.
“Mrs. Pearl, you fainted the last time you flew with Brother Yu. Do you need such a technique?”
She responded with a blush.
“I couldn’t see it because I was out of my mind, but at that time, didn’t you almost become half-dead, too?!”
“No…well, it was the first time I ever flew so fast.”
“If you look at that, isn’t this technique really great? Even though it is flying at the same speed as then, it doesn’t strain my body, and I feel less dizzy.
“Would you like to take some Maek’s Iron if necessary? If you plant it in the center of the house to be built, the utility will increase when you spread the technique around the house.”
“Ah…no. I know that Maek people use it that way… I’m okay.”
Mrs. Pearl forcefully refused with a smile. It was called by a plausible name, such as Maek’s Iron or Maek’s Copper, but as long as she knew how to make it, it was uncomfortable to lay atop it.
“Ah, I understand. It is an idea that is familiar only to our people, but to others…”
Yusu laughed bitterly as he said so, but Garam suddenly got up from his seat as if he thought of something.
