110 Confession

Mosco Vichakos and Yoo Yena.

Naturally, I assumed the two of them would head to the cathedral.

The children she had longed for so desperately were waiting there, after all.

“Huh?”

I stared blankly at them, forgetting even to say hello.

The other employees nearby took turns staring too, and just as they began to subtly retreat—

A calm greeting came from Vichakos’s lips as she slowly bowed at the waist.

“Thank you for watching over the children.”

Gratitude not as a fixer, but wholly as a mother.

The Meracle office, which had frozen under the chilly atmosphere created by Vichakos’s sharp features, began to thaw again.

“Haha! Nonsense! I merely did what I naturally ought to do!”

“Ms. Renea, you didn’t do anything?!”

“I-I did. H-headbutt.”

“You should be thanking the boss.”

Raichen moved aside and indicated me politely.

“Had the boss not told us, we would have had no reason to act.”

“…….”

Vichakos’s strange gaze turned toward me.

It looked as if she was trying to smile, yet also as if she was about to get angry.

Just when I thought the corners of her mouth were rising, they drooped again.

Her cheeks were trembling, so she did seem to be forcing it, though—

“Did you get fillers in your face?”

She immediately moved to draw her gun, but her holster was empty, so her hand merely waved around.

Under Vichakos’s glare as she gritted her teeth, I awkwardly offered an excuse.

“No, it’s just that your expression looks like it’s glitching…….”

I wondered if she had gotten plastic surgery in Cyber City.

* * *

The cathedral we arrived at with Vichakos.

As soon as we entered the chapel, the children’s eyes widened and they rushed toward her.

“Motheeeer—!”

“Waaaaah!”

“Where did you go, you idiooot!”

“……Sorry.”

The corners of Vichakos’s mouth loosened as she hugged the children.

‘So she can smile like that.’

As I watched from a distance to give them time together, Yoo Yena naturally came to stand beside me, folding her arms and leaning against the wall.

“You worked hard again.”

“At this point, shouldn’t the Tower Management Bureau at least give me a pension?”

“……You know this time I only went along with your unreasonable demands.”

“Ahem.”

“The plea deal with Vichakos. There were plenty of voices in the Tower Management Bureau opposed to it, but I forced it through. It’s fortunate the outcome was good. Otherwise, my position would have been in danger too.”

“Then you can come work for our company.”

“……You make it sound easy.”

Yena stared pointedly at me and sighed, calling me irresponsible, but soon a faint smile returned to her lips.

“Well, it was rewarding, at least. That’s a feeling I rarely get working in this industry.”

“The Tower Management Bureau is a little lacking in humanity.”

Aren’t institutions that serve the greater good usually like that?

As I watched Vichakos hug each of the children tightly, I casually tossed out a question.

“Can I ask you about Villangsi?”

“……Depending on what it is?”

“Did you find out why he was chosen as a Hierarch?”

“Hoo.”

Another sigh.

If she were a smoker like me, I would have offered her a cigarette.

“For starters, Villangsi is surprisingly cooperative. He’s answering everything we ask: how he was chosen and how to stop the elevator.”

“Really?”

“To explain briefly…… Villangsi was just an ordinary office worker until he became a Hierarch.”

“……?”

An ordinary office worker?

“Aside from having somewhat sadistic sexual tastes and enjoying snuff films, he was truly an IT office worker you could find anywhere.”

There was indeed a strange, unnatural look to his face, as if he had undergone plastic surgery.

“After becoming a Hierarch, he amassed immense wealth through his ability and ended up where he is now.”

“That means—”

“Right. For now…… it doesn’t seem there are any particularly special conditions for becoming a Hierarch.”

The worst-case scenario.

Random?

If literally anyone could become one, finding the Hierarchs of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Floors would become extremely difficult.

“That’s devastating.”

“Even so…… we have to try.”

Yena looked toward the children again. Seeing her do so, as if trying to kindle even a little fire in her resolve, made me feel rather proud of her.

But there was one more thing I was curious about.

I thought the timing was a little awkward to ask, but Yena glanced at me and tactfully spoke first.

“Because of the Seventh Floor?”

“Ahem, did something really change?”

“Tower-related ghost stories. Do you know about them?”

“I do. There are tons of them.”

The Tower was an unsettled place to begin with, and it had so many hidden spaces that all sorts of ghost stories abounded.

There was even a list widely circulated online as a collection of Tower ghost stories.

Looking at that kind of thing when there were no customers was surprisingly good at making time pass.

“Do you know the one about people disappearing?”

“I do. Several people disappear from the Tower every year. The elevator suddenly takes them somewhere strange.”

“It’s real.”

“……?”

“We don’t know why. But sometimes the elevator moves people to an entirely different place.”

That was creepy.

Did you come out intending to go on a trip, only to suddenly find yourself dropped somewhere you didn’t know?

“The frequency has been gradually increasing. And the Tower Management Bureau currently believes this is a precursor to the Seventh Floor opening.”

“…….”

[Sheathkeeper.]

I leaned back against the wall.

I didn’t want to look like I was staggering for no reason.

When I stood there without saying anything, Yena changed the subject, perhaps not wanting to discuss this any further.

“Oh, right. There’s somewhere else we need to go afterward.”

“Somewhere to go? I thought you said you’d only spare three hours.”

“It was Vichakos’s request. It’s not far, so come a little farther with us.”

“……Sneaky.”

* * *

“Didn’t you say it’d only be a little farther?”

“……”

Yena drove in silence, pointedly pretending not to hear me.

We were currently heading toward the Tower tollgate.

In other words, we would soon pass through a rift gate and race across the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“It can’t be helped. We’d have to take a plane to get where Ms. Vichakos wants to go, and we don’t have that much time.”

“That’s a sneaky way to go overseas, isn’t it? Didn’t the aviation industry strictly forbid this?”

“I’m allowed.”

After passing through the VIP lane and the rift gate, the Pacific Ocean immediately spread out before us, replacing the Seoul cityscape.

The scent of the sea had a charm that always made people’s hearts flutter.

“……The sea.”

Vichakos stared blankly out the window and murmured in brief admiration.

“There’s a sea in Cyber City too.”

“Yes, that’s true. But—”

“But?”

When I prompted her to continue, Vichakos turned her gaze back toward the sea and answered.

“Mother told me. The sea on the Third Floor is prettier.”

“Mother…… Sister Himena?”

“Yes. She was the one who took me in when I was young.”

At her words, I took a photograph of a blond girl holding a flower from inside my jacket.

It was the only photograph that had remained in the cathedral.

“This is you, right? Why didn’t you take this one?”

“Because the one I need to protect now isn’t the child in the picture.”

“……”

“Haa, give me the photo back. This is embarrassing.”

I discreetly pulled my hand back so she couldn’t take it, and Vichakos glared at me.

Her feelings toward me seemed complicated. Something like anger mixed with gratitude?

“Give it back.”

“Did you dye your hair?”

“……”

“No, I was just curious. You don’t look like someone who particularly likes dressing up.”

Vichakos irritably snatched the photo away and answered.

“The cosmos in the picture.”

“Huh?”

“It’s white.”

I was about to ask what she meant, but she turned her gaze outside once more and stared at the sea.

“Mother was right again.”

“……”

“It’s…… prettier.”

* * *

It took the group only five hours to travel from Neo Seoul to the southern United States.

It wasn’t even a flight. That was how long it took us by car.

The reason this was possible was, of course, the rift gates.

The Tower’s rift gates in the Pacific were connected to various countries.

In other words, we could travel from Seoul to the Tower, switch lanes there, and cross over to the United States.

For reference, it was illegal.

“No wonder the aviation industry threw a fit. I heard that when they built the road, airline stocks all hit rock bottom.”

I marveled at the vast fields and flowerbeds.

This place was called Elmwood Cemetery.

It was a cemetery with striking hills on the outskirts of Texas, and a massive memorial had been erected to commemorate Mexico, a country that no longer existed.

Brrr! Brrr! Brrr!

Yena’s phone rang as we arrived.

“Haa, Juseon. I’m going to take this call, so keep an eye on her.”

“All right.”

“Yes, I’m returning now. I’m giving her a little more time at my discretion. Yes, from now on, she will cooperate—”

I found it refreshing to watch Yoo Yena, who looked as if she had never once been late in her life, make excuses for being late.

Kim Juseon and Vichakos headed toward the hill path in the gentle breeze.

“It’s around six or seven in the evening in Seoul right now. But dawn is breaking here, so it does make my sense of time feel strange.”

As the fields gradually brightened, I awkwardly rambled on about this and that, until Vichakos quietly spoke.

“The reason I left the cathedral was because I thought I was standing in the way of Mother’s happiness.”

“……”

“If I were gone, Mother would be happy. I believed that if I made a lot of money and came back, I could make Mother happy. That’s what I believed.”

Sometimes emotions could be sorted out simply by talking about them.

Vichakos was currently sorting through the emotions inside her, one by one.

“The only way for an orphan with nothing but a nasty temper to make a lot of money quickly was to become a fixer. So I lived as a fixer and sent every penny I earned to the cathedral.”

“……”

“One day, I went to the cathedral…… and there were five children I didn’t know. Mother hadn’t changed at all after I left. No, she was actually worse.”

Every one of the children suffered from a disability.

They would already have been dead if Sister Himena hadn’t taken them in.

I had been angry, and frustrated too.

But what Vichakos had seen in those days was Sister Himena, whose health had deteriorated severely.

“Then she asked me for help in the form of a request. I…… accepted it.”

After we passed the massive memorial, a small gravestone came into view in an inconspicuous corner.

White cosmos flowers bloomed wildly all around it.

The gravestone at the center was plain, which made it stand out all the more.

Vichakos slowed her steps.

She had been walking as if nothing was wrong until a moment ago, but now that she stood before it, she seemed unable to approach any farther.

After a while, she opened her mouth in a low voice.

“The reason I was angry with you was—”

The wind brushed through the cosmos flowers.

A few white petals swayed.

“It was because the children had begun thinking like I did back then.”

Meracle had offered Mosco Vichakos and the children the dream that they could get married.

It had told them not to endure everything alone, but to let someone support them.

But having five children to support was a fatal disqualification.

Once the children realized that marriage was impossible, they naturally began to think—

That they were Mosco Vichakos’s burden.

“……I’m sorry. And thank you.”

“I didn’t exactly do everything right, either.”

Kim Juseon shook his head and cautiously pointed ahead.

“Go on. You need to say hello.”

After a short silence, she slowly nodded.

The area around the grave was filled with cosmos flowers in full bloom, but only the space directly before the gravestone was empty.

As if it had been waiting for someone for a long time.

Vichakos quietly knelt before it.

A field of cosmos flowers.

At last, the final blossom found its place.

She neatly folded her hands and closed her eyes.

The motion was natural.

She had repeated it countless times since childhood.

“I’m sorry…… Mother.”

With the first words softly escaping her lips, strength entered her clasped hands.

A single tear dropped onto the back of her trembling hand.

“I…… failed.”

Blood and gunfire.

Screams and shouts.

Money and deals.

The face of the fixer stained by a cynical world slowly crumbled.

What remained was the afterimage of a young girl who, knowing nothing, had wanted to do anything for Mother.

“Like you……”

A sob she had tried to hold back escaped from the back of her throat.

“Mother, I wanted to become like you.”

I may have protected something.

You could even say I saved the children’s world.

But when it came down to it.

Mosco Vichakos was unmistakably a villain.

The flowerbed where Sister Himena had wanted to grow cosmos flowers had ended up overgrown with weeds.

“I wanted to become the most beautiful cosmos you had raised.”

Her tears fell with her sobs, soaking the grass.

Her bowed head carried the guilt of a daughter who had walked down the wrong path.

Across her trembling shoulders.

The sky beginning to dawn slowly cast down its light.

Sunlight that began at the horizon spread across the fields and eventually illuminated the world.

The darkness of the previous night disappeared.

The world was becoming bright again.

“Can I atone?”

Confession.

In the memories of her childhood.

Like that moment when she knelt before you with her hands clasped.

“Can I be forgiven?”

No answer came.

Vichakos knew that too.

Because she hadn’t spoken those words to hear an answer.

Ironically, an apology was a door that had to be knocked on even if it would never open.

After swallowing her sobs for a long while, Vichakos slowly opened her eyes.

She quietly gazed at the gravestone.

The person resting beneath it was once again showing her the path she needed to take.

“Mother.”

Her voice trembled softly.

“Next time, not as Mosco (a weed)—”

When the wind blew, the white cosmos flowers swayed all at once and scattered their petals.

“I’ll come as a cosmos.”

The one you raised.

Your most beautiful cosmos.

“So—”

She swallowed the sob rising in her throat by pressing her lips tightly together.

“So—!”

I’ll really try my best.

Even if I’m never forgiven.

Even if I’m far too late.

This time, I’ll walk in the direction you taught me.

“Mother.”

Before you, when I was young.

Like when I used to wait for your praise.

“You have to pat my head…… really.”