Chapter 106
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
“Mother, why is my name like this?”
“The meaning of your name?”
“Yeah! Why did you name me this?”
Her face was kindly creased with wrinkles, her nun’s habit perpetually dirty, and her veil worn thin.
She was far from neat, but perhaps that was why her desperation came through whenever she clasped her hands in prayer.
Young Mosco Vichakos knew that desperation was for her sake.
Back in my hometown—.
“Mexico?”
“That’s right, Mexico. Good memory.”
She liked having her hair stroked.
Whenever she quietly leaned her head forward, Sister Jimena would stroke it for her.
“Back home, we called weeds mosco. It means ‘a friend of moss.’”
“The meaning of my name is ‘weed’?”
“Why? Do you dislike it?”
“Of course I do! Mother, that’s too much!”
Sister Jimena was a woman who laughed like a child despite being nearly sixty.
As usual, Mosco thought it was just another of her little jokes, but it wasn’t.
“Moscos grow sturdily by roadsides and in empty lots without anyone taking care of them.”
“……”
“I hoped you would become like that. I hoped you would grow well wherever you were.”
It could be called a good meaning.
But to give a weed’s name to a child who could be called your daughter even without sharing your blood.
“Still, ‘weed’ is a little much.”
“Hmm? Haha, really? To me, it’s the prettiest flower of all.”
“……Really?”
“Of course. And you’ve bloomed more beautifully than anything I’ve ever seen—.”
.
.
.
.
.
Drip! Drip!
A drop of water falling from the ceiling struck the bridge of Vichakos’s nose and burst.
Vichakos slowly opened her eyes.
As her vision adjusted to the darkness, she remembered that she was inside a container.
Villangsi’s final mission.
The assassination of Elik Dwalbe, the mayoral candidate virtually certain to win.
Before the mission began, he had said there was something else she needed to do and arranged a place where she could rest.
She had fallen asleep there for a little while.
“……”
Her body was difficult to move, but thanks to getting at least a little sleep, she had regained enough energy to act.
Creak!
When she opened the container door, she found herself on the rooftop of some unknown building.
Among Cyber City’s countless skyscrapers, it stood a handspan higher than the others, so it clearly wasn’t an ordinary building.
Following the night wind, she saw the fixer who had given her the terminal in the alley last time.
The skinhead stood leaning against the railing, calmly keeping watch over her.
A huge build, durability that wouldn’t leave even a scratch if a bullet were embedded in his head, and a body that felt no fatigue even without sleep.
Had Cyber City really had a fixer who had stuffed that level of expensive prosthetics into his body?
Vichakos knew this industry fairly well, but she had never seen anyone like him.
‘They say there are monsters among the fixers who only handle requests from specific individuals.’
He must have been one of that sort.
A fixer who only carried out the most top-secret missions at the very highest level.
“1011101.”
“Speak.”
“……”
“Inconvenient.”
The man folded his arms, sighed, switched languages, and strode past Vichakos.
“The client is waiting. Follow me.”
There was no further conversation.
Before following the man off the rooftop, Vichakos suddenly remembered the dream she had just had.
‘Sister Jimena.’
There had been a time when she thought that if she ever grew old, she wanted to become like her.
Was that why?
A few years after she had run out of the cathedral.
When she met Sister Jimena again.
When Jimena, knowing she wouldn’t live long because of her illness, asked her to take care of the children who remained.
Was that why she had accepted without hesitation?
She only realized it later.
There was a word for this feeling.
“Got a cigarette?”
At Vichakos’s question, the man calmly took out a cigarette and held it out to her.
Clack! went the Zippo lighter.
Along with the smoke, she let the emotions she had kept in her heart drift up into the sky.
The version of her that Jimena had wished for.
The version of Jimena that Vichakos had wished for.
The dreams she had dreamed while looking at her.
My mother.
* * *
Waiting for Vichakos downstairs were rich people who clearly had money smeared all over their bodies.
They ranged widely in age.
There was a stooped old man leaning on a cane, and a man wearing nothing but a coat over his upper body as if to show off his sturdy physique.
In any case, every one of them reeked unmistakably of an absolutely obscene amount of money.
One of them.
A blond, handsome man approached.
He gave off a distinctly artificial aura, yet his actual body was clean and flawless, without a trace of modification.
He must have spent an enormous amount of money on it.
“This is the first time we’re meeting face-to-face like this, Vichakos.”
The man greeted her with a smile.
Vichakos knew at once.
This man was Villangsi.
By habit, she tried to draw the pistol from the holster at her waist, but her hand grasped nothing but air.
“Tsk.”
Even though she knew there was no gun, she couldn’t help feeling disappointed.
Perhaps that reaction had stirred Villangsi, because he laughed in a deliberately jovial manner.
“Now then, before you carry out your final mission, we have a gift for you.”
A man with a neatly trimmed beard and striking rectangular glasses stepped forward from behind Villangsi.
Vichakos knew him, too—a famous man.
It was Zeke Pulan, praised as a genius director.
“Hold out your hand.”
“……”
Small patches, sensors that read her nerves, and more were attached in various places, from her wrist to her temples and toes.
A faint electric current prickled through her body.
The slight pain gradually grew stronger, and eventually a sensation of restraint seized her, like a headache spreading through her entire body.
Yet the exclamations came from elsewhere.
“Oh, ooh! Fucking crazy!”
“Huh, when I close my eyes, I end up in that woman’s perspective.”
“So this is the fucking feeling she’s been experiencing?”
Exclamations erupted among the wealthy.
S.E.L.
They were sharing Mosco Vichakos’s sensations exactly as she experienced them.
Her misery, indignation, and resolve.
Everything she felt had become stimulating content for them to consume like a drug or a film.
The realization brought a wave of nausea.
“Urk?! Puhahaha! This bitch thinks we’re disgusting?!”
“Good heavens, don’t. I’m at the age where retching might bring up my organs.”
“Kyaa…… This is insane. Zeke Pulan, Villangsi—you two made a masterpiece.”
Villangsi nodded in satisfaction as he watched the rich people marvel.
He was feeling the same sensations alongside them, and was equally excited.
“Now, Vichakos. Go put a hole in the mayoral candidate’s head. We’ll all feel it together.”
An unprecedented assassination that would be written into history.
Not some film recreating it—they could vividly experience it at the scene in real time.
If the word amusement were infected by madness, wouldn’t this be exactly what it looked like?
Hatred and hostility surged.
But even those feelings were transmitted to them.
“Oh? Why? Are you angry? What can you do? You have to protect the children, right?”
“……!”
“Taking your last failure as a lesson, do you know how many people I sent to the Third Floor? You’d faint if you heard.”
Her anger boiled over, but she had to endure it for the sake of the children being held hostage—
Smack!
Vichakos punched herself in the face.
Every face turned to the side at once.
“Ghk!?”
“You fucking bitch!”
“Ha, haha! How long has it been since I’ve felt pain like this?”
Because the synchronization rate had far exceeded S.E.L.’s legal limit, the pain had carried over as well.
“W-we’ll make some adjustments. We need to reduce the pain to a minimum.”
Leaving Zeke Pulan, who hurriedly began making adjustments, behind, Villangsi nodded with a laugh.
“Wow, this is fun, huh? Even your relief is coming through to us.”
“……You disgusting bastards.”
* * *
Inside Our Lady of Grace Cathedral on the Third Floor.
The five children looked around at the people surrounding them, puzzled.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Is it Sunday today?”
“Dummy! It’s Saturday today!”
There was a separate Mass on Saturdays, but the atmosphere now didn’t feel particularly holy.
“U-um, mister. Is something going on?”
Sora, the oldest of the five children, called out to me anxiously.
She seemed bewildered at being suddenly summoned to the chapel and surrounded by people.
I smiled and reassured her.
“Don’t worry. It’s the weekend, right? The uncles and aunties have the day off, so they were bored and came to play with you.”
“Who are you calling an auntie?”
Ryu Seoram sat on a cathedral pew and grumbled.
“I wondered why you called us in on the weekend. You said we were going to watch baseball.”
“Watch it here with the kids.”
“Ah…… I’ve gotten dragged into another weird situation.”
Even as he grumbled, Ryu Seoram fiddled with the chubby cheek of the child who had come to stand in front of him and stare.
“Let’s play!”
Meanwhile, Renea had already spread out the board games she had bought in bulk and carried over.
Kim Yang and Baek Yeonhwa also smiled and called the children over.
“Wow, wow. P-play.”
“There’s even a martial-arts version of The Game of Life!”
Just look at them smiling like that even after coming in to work on the weekend.
Wonderful.
Today was Meracle’s special event.
Weekend volunteer service.
A time to play with children waiting for their mother.
“Raichen! Let’s play together!”
At Kim Dajeong’s call, Raichen nodded to show he understood, but slowly approached me.
“Boss, are you leaving?”
“Yeah. I’ll be back in a bit. Keep an eye on the kids while I’m gone.”
Raichen gave a small nod at my words.
“You don’t need to worry.”
“……I’m not really worried, either.”
Raichen, disciple of the Great Archmage.
Baek Yeonhwa, one of the Ten Great Masters of Murim.
Ryu Seoram, one of the Seven Extremes.
Renea, queen of the elves.
With these four guarding the cathedral, could anyone even so much as brush against the children’s clothes?
Brrr! Brrr! Brrr!
Just then, my phone rang.
It was time to go.
I had planned to leave quietly, but Sora was still looking at me worriedly.
“Mister, where are you going?”
“……”
Her face was full of concern.
It had been the same before.
When I first met the children.
The children had asked me worriedly.
‘Will our mother be able to get married?’
‘We hope you won’t worry only about us, and that Mom can live for her own life, too.’
And back then, I had smiled and nodded irresponsibly.
Of course she could.
I told them not to worry.
But I had failed to make a match.
The hopes the children had held had returned as disappointment and resignation.
This time was different.
I had no intention of giving the children false hope.
What I could achieve.
I would tell them what I could do for them.
“I’ll bring your mother back.”