Arc 2 - Chapter 8: Ship Voyage (2/2)

He didn't want to pay the tailor, so he sewed the broken sleeve of his bag back together himself, clumsy and rough, but somehow stronger than before.

From the bag he took out a diary, a pen and a jar made in Rolderhelm. He unscrewed the lid of the jar, dipped the pen in the ink and began to write in the diary.

"Rie and his group were attacked in the Sigma Tower by two killers wearing clown costumes and using the names Joy and Sorrow. Rie was killed by Sorrow. The tower was on fire from the clowns' stocks at the time, and the clowns probably killed other people who were supposed to be in the tower." He spoke at the same time so that Yurine could hear what he was writing.

During his time in Rolderhelm he had heard that the bones of dozens of people had been found in the Sigma Tower. Since they hadn't seen anyone else in the tower, it was safe to assume that they had been killed before they got there.

"Rie wanted to enter the Sigma Tower for some unknown reason. In order to hide, Rie chose to enter the tower through the sewer system. While traveling through the sewer system, she was attacked by a monster."

He drew a straight line on the page and marked the events below the line in chronological order.

"Given what happened both with the monster and in the tower, we can be sure that someone planned the murder precisely and wanted to make sure the victim was dead."

The feeling of vomiting was getting stronger as he shifted his attention from keeping his stomach under control to writing.

"Rie had a map in his hand, where did she get that map?"

"That stupid apprentice's uncle gave it to him."

He was finally happy to have a clue.

"Who is he? What's his name? Tell me about him," he said excitedly.

"N-name is Salery." She didn't like saying people's names. She said the name in a whisper. "He's the headmaster of the Wizarding Academy, and my mother's apprentice's uncle. My mother told him about the tower and said he was the one who gave her the map. I don't know much more, when they besides me…" Yurine's voice became a whisper again. "…they don't talk much about important things."

"I understand." Yurine felt left out. Yu, once a child, knew how she felt. "So what's his full name, let's write it down."

"Last name, Bishory."

Salery Bishory, the Wizarding Academy headmaster who gave Rie a map of the sewer system and directed her to the Sigma Tower.

After writing the note, he looked at his writing, which looked like a computer printout, and felt proud of himself. Even though he had just learned the alphabet, he could write better than the local users.

"But I feel like throwing up."

Yu was at his limit, he had completely missed the opportunity to keep his stomach under control by focusing his attention on writing, and now he knew he couldn't stop it.

"Just throw up."

He put down the pen and the diary and ran, sticking his head out over the deck and puking his guts out.

He spat, trying to get rid of the feeling of vomit in his mouth. "I can't taste the vomit either, but I have this disgusting feeling in my mouth and it won't go away..." he hadn't finished whining when the second mail arrived and he could feel the uncomfortable stares of the people on deck as the fishy vomit spilled overboard. "I don't like the sea or the fish."

On the Rolderhelm they ate fish almost every day. Even though he couldn't taste the food, he was tired of fish. If one day he had a choice, he would choose to stay away from fish for the rest of his life.

"As long as we live here, we will see plenty of fish."

He rinsed his mouth several times with water from the plastic bottle he had brought from his world and spat it into the sea. The vomiting was bearable, but the disgusting feeling in his mouth was unbearable.

"Normally people don't keep maps of the sewage system handy." He continued to rinse his mouth while talking. "This Salery guy is our first suspect."

Yu wondered why a teacher would want to kill Rie.

If he wanted to kill her, there must have been easier ways to do it. It was a far-fetched plan to kill someone by first capturing a monster, placing it in the victim's walkway, and then hiring clownish killers to burn down one of the city's most famous landmarks.

"Could the Sigma Tower have been burned down so that it couldn't compete with the Wizarding Academy?"

That would be the first thing a normal person would think. Competition was certainly the first motivation that came to mind when a teacher from the Wizarding Academy set fire to another educational institution.

"Maybe it was a crime of love. Maybe it was a betrayal or a rejection... But that seems unlikely."

Rie was beautiful.

When he thought of teachers, based on his own teachers, he thought of middle-aged people with thinning hair. He was unlikely to be young, especially if he taught at an academy.

Rie was twenty and wouldn't have gotten close enough to such a man to cheat on him.

"I had a feeling she liked me. I think I'm the only one high enough for a high-end beauty like her to like. She wouldn't even consider a man like Salery. So that leaves rejection as a more likely option, but that's unlikely."

Rejecting someone does not give the rejected person the right to take revenge, and even if he wanted to take revenge, he wouldn't burn down a huge tower to do it.

"Rejection killings are usually carried out with knives or guns, or, if the intention is to inflict pain rather than to kill, with caustic acid. Burning a tower is too extravagant."

He didn't think what happened to Rie was motivated by romantic feelings. Given the scale of the murder, there had to be deeper reasons under the iceberg.

"Of course, the perpetrator could have simply been a real son of a bitch who did it for his own amusement."

Without knowing more about Rie, it would be difficult to draw any reliable conclusions about the motive.

"If that asshole killed my mother..." Yurine's face turned red with anger, she clenched her fists and bit her lip. "I'm... I'm going to kill him. He didn't even have to be the one who planned the murder, he had a part in it and I'm going to kill him!"

"Calm down."

"DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!"

Yurine's angry voice attracted the attention of the other people traveling on the deck. Yu pulled Yurine by the wrist and sat her down on the floor as he told them to turn around.

"Calm down. We can't act without knowing the backstory. I also think Salery has a share of the blame right now, but when we meet him, you'd better put on your usual nonchalant expression. Hunters don't want to frighten their prey."

It was hard not to notice, but they had to make sure Salery didn't think they were coming for revenge. If Salery realized that Yurine was trying to get revenge on him, things could get messy.

Even if Yurine convinced Yu and they went there and tried to kill Salery, they would have blown it.

Yurine had a power that Yu could only dream of reaching, but they couldn't underestimate Salery, who was a headmaster at a place called the Wizarding Academy.

"How does a murderer act?" Yu's face tensed, his eyes shifting from Yurine to the floor. "Like me... How can I be so relaxed?"

His first murder was Rie. He felt guilty for her, but he blamed himself less and less as the days passed.

The second was not really a murder. Sorrow's death was purely in self-defense and he would do it again. He felt nothing for Sorrow.

But the third was Camaeron Don's murder and Yu could not comfort himself in any way.

He was the one who stabbed him. He had killed Cameron Don with his own hands, with his own selfishness.

Yu had not only killed him, he had stolen his future from him. All the dreams he had built, all his hopes, all the emotions he had felt had been taken from him in one simple move.

Yu Valarfin was a selfish thief and murderer.

Camaeron was burning him, and Yu was not the only thing he was burning. Camaeron had also burned Yu's ships. Yu could no longer turn back where he came from, he had to go forward, even if it meant going to the bottom of the pit. At least that's how he felt.

But there was also a desire to leave it all behind and live a peaceful life. Yu's feelings were tangled and he couldn't untangle them.

"Does Salery feel the same way?"

It was natural for anyone to feel guilt when they killed anyone else. But would someone with a bad personality feel guilt?

He thought the answer was no. Salery had sent Rie to his death, as it now appears, and perhaps he believed that what he had done was the right thing, that he was above society and above universal morality.

Perhaps Salery was not sure that Rie was dead and felt on edge. Salery would be relieved when Yurine appeared before him without Rie.

If Yu noticed this relief, it might increase Salery's suspicions.

"But I still can't understand why a teacher would do such a thing."

Someone living in Rolderhelm wouldn't set a fire in the middle of the city and get dozens of people killed, knowing that he would be executed if his crime was discovered.

"There is a possibility that Salery is just a pawn. That way it could go beyond Rolderhelm to the Mora. I thought you said you came from there. Tell me what you did there."

Yurine told him they came from Mora. Yu thought that the suspect, Salery, could not have had enough motivation for the murder, and the only thing he could say was that it could be traced back to Mora.

If the culprit was somewhere in Mora, Yu's job would be difficult and he had a feeling it would lead there. He didn't know why, but in his chest it was as if someone was whispering to Yu.

Mora was a poor country that had been bleeding with civil war for several years.

But years ago, it was a rich kingdom, far ahead of its neighbors in trade, agriculture, animal husbandry, mining and other fields.

It was the Battle of Heroes which began for stop Gawain of Gluttony, struck a blow to Mora's shining days.

The country was badly wounded during the Battle of Heroes, and attempts to recover after the war were unsuccessful.

Traitors who only cared about their own interests had been placed in the country's highest positions, and the kingdom and religion had become corrupt.

And three years ago the kingdom fell apart with the emergence of a new king. The king had no evil intentions. He wanted to strengthen his authority and put religion on the back burner in order to get rid of the rats that plagued his country.

But when the Zodian Church, the main rulers of the country, opposed the strengthening of the king's authority, the king said that he did not recognize religion and the kingdom split in two.

The Kingdom of Mora, led by the king on one side, and the Zodian Church, led by the Cathedral of Andromeda on the other, had been at war for three years.

The Zodian Church was a religion that worshipped the Storm God Azer. The Storm Kingdom to the west of Rolderhelm also worshipped Azer, but the only country where the Zodian Church was active was Mora.

Azer was the god who created the Blessings of Azer, with which Yu was somehow related.

"Zodiac, Andromeda, Church... All these words are familiar. I had assumed that the calendar was similar to the one on Earth because of the influence of the Rolderhelm prime minister, but the Church of Zodia has hundreds of years of history. Someone from my world must have brought these words, perhaps Azer himself is someone from my world."

Zodia comes from the English word 'zodiac' and Andromeda is the name of a galaxy in the universe where the First World is located.

"Someone came before me, lived and died. Why can't I accept that?"

Changing universes was a big deal, travelers between worlds were the main characters in their own amazing stories, and they were all forgotten. He was afraid that one day he would be forgotten too.

"If this is a dream, I don't want to wake up," he whispered.

"What are you mumbling to yourself?"

"You took so long to answer that I drifted off."

"I was trying to think of something to say." Yurine sat cross-legged and began to explain to Yu as if she were lecturing. "Azer is a god who was expelled from heaven four hundred years ago. After he was expelled from heaven, he gathered his followers and started Zodianism and offered his Blessings as a reward to his followers. My mother is the Cardinal of Virgo Cathedral, one of the sects of that religion."

Yurine spoke as if her mother was still alive, making Yu feel pressured.

"If Rie is a religious leader followed by millions of people, his death will have a great impact."

"Unfortunately, the Virgo Cathedral is not very popular. It only has a handful of followers and I don't think most of them care about the cathedral, and the cathedral building is not a big place."

"Still, she is a representative of the Zodian religion, and the murder is still no small matter."

"Yes, but unfortunately, with Mora in such a mess, no one will care."

Yurine's small fists clenched again made Yu want to hug her and comfort her, but Yurine wouldn't let him do that.

"Then we have to add the possibility that the murder was politically motivated to the list. Salery is probably just a pawn."

"We will find those responsible and hold them to account, even if they are in the bowels of hell."

With their ship arriving at the port of Redchapel, they decided to continue their conversation later and set foot in the depressing gothic town.