Chapter 102
Even with the terribly shabby map Max had provided, Einar found the exact destination in these ant colony-like back alleys.
His luck probably played a role since he had decided to go there, but it was also possible because he had passed through the Empire’s back streets countless times.
“Is this it?”
Though the deeply drawn hood made it difficult to see ahead, she wasn’t foolish enough to throw it off entirely.
But she needed to look around, so Riina raised her chin and even stood on tiptoe as she surveyed the surroundings.
The corners of Einar’s eyes, hidden under his hood, crinkled as he watched her.
“Yes. This is it.”
Deep in the back alleys, where the sun barely penetrated because of shabby tents spread between buildings that seemed on the verge of collapse, blocking the sky.
There were people, but the surroundings were utterly silent as they held their breath.
At the edge of their vision, a boy clutching two potatoes like precious treasures to his chest tiptoed toward home, desperately avoiding the gaze of the strangers who had just appeared while hunching his body.
The robes enveloping the two were ordinary by any standard, but this was a place where people couldn’t even afford such ordinary robes.
Moreover, since they had safely reached this deep part of the back alleys, they clearly weren’t ordinary people.
They weren’t like the back alley gang that occasionally bestowed jobs that were dirty and difficult but doable with a functioning body, as if doing them a favor…
People appearing so suddenly never brought good news.
From among those hiding in the shadows, hunching their bodies to avoid their gaze, a man whose hair was just beginning to gray shuffled forward.
Someone had to deal with these strangers, or they might cause unnecessary alarm.
“M-my lords. What brings you to such a humble place…”
Riina clicked her tongue inwardly as she looked over the man, who kept bowing and trailing off.
This man was probably the oldest among them.
Though he appeared to have just entered middle age, he had likely risked his life for the others because he had survived the longest.
While the current Empire was enjoying unprecedented peace and prosperity, where there is light, there must also be shadow.
Though she knew this intellectually, seeing it directly still unsettled her.
She knew that a country where everyone lives a decent life was merely an ideal.
That’s the nature of human society.
But isn’t it the duty of those at the top of the Empire, those supporting it, to narrow the gap between various strata and create an environment where even one more imperial citizen can smile and say they lived a “decent life”?
Though she alone couldn’t save the future of all these people, regardless of what information she heard, she at least wanted to treat the sick.
Riina addressed the man whose fingertips trembled with tension:
“Stand up. I’ve heard there are sick people among you. Guide us to them.”
She conveyed her business in extremely simple terms.
For these people, it would be better if she and Einar left as quickly as possible.
The middle-aged man moved without further words, and soon they arrived at a dilapidated house that seemed about to collapse.
Creeeeak.
As soon as the ear-grating sound came from hinges that were so rusted they barely functioned, a child’s voice flowed out from the dim interior along with the stagnant, musty air.
“Mister?”
Since the place was too narrow for three people to enter, the man gestured to the child.
“Come out here.”
The child, who came toward the door without protest at the man’s call, blinked his eyes, and the man said:
“These people are looking for you.”
At this, the child’s hazy gaze turned toward Riina and Einar.
Riina waved her hand at the child who was instinctively about to bow.
“That’s fine. But you don’t seem to be sick.”
“Ah, yes. My, my father.”
Fear momentarily filled the child’s face as he answered.
Strangers looking for the sick.
Even those who aren’t sick, but live in this place, could lose their heads at any moment with a word or gesture from strangers before them.
How much more frightening to be looking for the sick.
Instinctively, the child stepped back, glancing at the bed where his father lay, but Riina neither blamed him nor forced him to come forward again.
She merely asked:
“What work did he do before falling ill?”
The child answered hesitantly to Riina, who again asked very concisely, seeking only an accurate answer:
“He went out to gather things.”
“What things?”
At the follow-up question, the child trembled at the shoulders and then prostrated himself.
“I’m sorry, my lord.”
Though the child’s sudden apology might have been disconcerting, Riina didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.
She merely looked down at the child before turning her back.
Riina knew the child didn’t know the answer to her question.
The child probably expected to be scolded if he answered that he didn’t know, which is why he prostrated himself.
Well, considering where these people lived, the child’s thinking wasn’t entirely wrong.
But still.
Her mouth tasted bitter enough to make her tongue ache.
As she had told Einar before helping Lione, Riina had no desire to save everyone.
With her terribly bad luck, she could barely take care of herself, let alone help others—even a three-year-old would shake their head at such a notion.
But it was difficult to turn away from those before her eyes.
Sending physicians to the sick and providing food for a few meals wouldn’t cause her misfortune to stir…
Riina swallowed a sigh that was about to burst forth.
Since meeting Einar, she occasionally had illusions.
Thinking that things might be alright…
But misfortune isn’t called misfortune for nothing; it’s misfortune precisely because “bad” things happen unexpectedly from unexpected places.
In the end, she needed help even for something as simple as sharing a few pieces of bread or cheese.
How shameless to reach out her hand again, even though she didn’t want to depend on others.
No, this wasn’t like Lione, simply acting out of compassion.
These were imperial citizens, and she and Einar, as Bolshevik’s heir and of imperial blood, had a duty to take responsibility for them.
But Riina couldn’t bring herself to look at him directly, so she fixed her gaze on another house where the sick were said to be and opened her mouth.
“I want to help them.”
It was such a small voice that even she could barely hear herself, but Einar nodded without hesitation.
“For efficient information gathering, wouldn’t it be better to treat the sick and hear their stories rather than leaving them to die? This child doesn’t know what was gathered, but someone among those here might have seen something.”
He smiled as he looked at Riina’s clear blue eyes, which were looking up at him with widened eyes.
“So let’s help these people.”
He had laid out perfectly rational reasons that would make anyone nod in agreement, but Riina knew better.
She knew that even without plausible reasons, Einar would have willingly acted on Riina’s single plea for help.
And knowing that this would burden Riina’s heart, he had attached various other reasons.
Just how far do you…
Einar extracted information from other houses with sick people on behalf of Riina, who had closed her mouth.
But what these people knew was extremely limited.
“There’s not much we can infer from this information that wouldn’t need to be kept secret.”
“It means they’re not just wearing heads as decoration on their shoulders either.”
Riina tapped her chin and continued:
“We’ll need to build up information one by one based on what we’ve found out.”
“What we’ve found out so far is where the sick people worked and what they gathered.”
“Actually, even regarding what they gathered, everyone’s accounts differ slightly, so it’s hard to know what’s true.”
When gathering something, there’s a purpose.
So if one knows “what” was gathered, one can infer the purpose, and if one knows the “purpose,” one can infer what was gathered.
However, in this case, the purpose was completely unknown, and the variety of items made it difficult to specify what exactly was gathered.
“Anyway, we’ve found out where they worked, so shouldn’t we start by looking there?”
“Well…”
“Do you have another idea?”
As Riina tilted her head to one side, Einar tilted his head in the same direction.
“Hmm.”
Though her face visible through the hood didn’t look pale, it would still be too much to survey such a wide area right now.
No matter how much better seeing once is than hearing a hundred times, there was no need to push themselves without proper preparation.
Above all, the area was too vast for just two people to investigate.
The sick people had mentioned only one place, but…
‘We moved in pairs. So we couldn’t see what other groups were doing.’
Located on the outskirts of the capital, a place ambiguous to call a forest yet hesitant to call a plain.
Without organizing an adequate investigation team, it would be difficult to find anything unusual in such a vast area.
As Einar was about to open his mouth after organizing his thoughts, Riina pulled her hood down further over her face and said:
“Let’s go back for now.”
No sooner had those words ended than Einar’s eyes curved into a smile.
“Yes. Let’s go back.”
So the two stepped forward in the same direction.
Neither spoke a word, but they moved naturally to return to the same place.
