Chapter 24
Nina woke up not long after.
“Mmm…”
Opening her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling wasn’t all that strange considering her current situation.
But she had never seen a ceiling like this before.
While she was still dazed, staring up at the beautiful violet sky above her—
“Are you feeling better?”
A strange voice beside her startled Nina, and she quickly sat up.
The jacket draped over her shoulders slid down.
She couldn’t tell where she was at all.
It was definitely outdoors, but Lavian was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where did Lavian go?’
As she looked around in confusion, the voice spoke to her again.
“Over here.”
When she turned her head, she saw a boy sitting across from her near a toy house, waving at her.
With white silver hair and pale golden eyes, the boy looked like a porcelain doll from Normange.
There was a brief silence.
While Nina blankly stared at him, the boy set down the book he had been holding and spoke.
“Sorry I startled you. It’s just that the atmosphere here is so nice—I was going to let you rest a bit longer and wake you up later.”
Nina blinked rapidly.
For some reason, the boy’s face didn’t feel unfamiliar. Neither did the way he spoke.
Everything about him—his face, his mannerisms…
“…Merci?”
When Nina suddenly muttered this, the boy now blinked in surprise.
He seemed a little flustered.
“I’m not Merci. I’m Messiah.”
“Messiah…?”
“Yeah. I’m Merci’s younger brother.”
“Merci has a real brother…?”
Nina was left dumbfounded—this was something she hadn’t even dreamed of.
And yet, looking at him now, it was strange that she had assumed they weren’t brothers. He looked just like Merci.
“I usually live somewhere else, but I came to visit my brother for a bit.”
Messiah smiled calmly as he added that.
His golden eyes sparkled gently.
“I see… I had no idea.”
“Of course you didn’t. Even among my brother’s colleagues, not many know about me.”
Nina suddenly recalled the last time she had seen Merci in her dream.
His golden eyes had turned dark, like he was crying.
She had no idea what had happened to Merci back then, but she could tell that something serious had occurred.
‘If he really is Merci’s brother…’
Nina suddenly felt a pang of guilt toward this boy she had just met.
If she had been pretending to be Merci’s sibling while his real little brother was out there, wouldn’t that have been upsetting?
“Um, I…”
“You’re Nina, right? My brother told me a little about you.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. He said you’re a foreign princess in exile.”
“…”
It sounded… convincing.
Messiah extended a hand toward her, as Nina hesitated.
“We’ll be seeing each other often, so let’s be friends. I’m counting on you.”
“…Okay. I’m counting on you too.”
Blushing, Nina took his hand automatically.
She had never made a friend her age before, so the feeling was both shy and awkward.
‘First Katya, and now more new people keep showing up.’
It was a totally different kind of “new,” but still—Messiah was Merci’s brother, and such a beautiful boy was asking to be friends, so there was no reason to refuse.
“Um… but where are we? And where’s Uncle Lavian?”
“We’re at a playground near the hotel. Everyone ran into each other here earlier, but something urgent came up and they had to leave.”
“…I see.”
Was it really something urgent?
The thought that maybe he had gone on a date crossed her mind, and Nina pouted slightly.
‘He said he’d never leave me alone again.’
Strictly speaking, he hadn’t left her alone, but still.
The two of them were sitting inside a toy house connected to a slide.
As the sun set and darkness quickly began to fall, the playground started to echo with the voices of parents calling out to find their children.
“Marti, Marti!”
“Ronya, it’s time for dinner!”
“Come on, let’s go!”
It was a very ordinary, everyday scene.
For Nina, though, it felt new and wondrous.
She quietly watched the children being led away from the playground by their parents.
For a brief moment, a strange expression flickered in her blue eyes—a wistful, aching sort of longing.
“Looks like it’s just the two of us now.”
Messiah gently placed the jacket that had fallen off back over Nina’s shoulders as he murmured.
Nina blinked and looked at the jacket.
It was Lavian’s black leather jacket, embroidered with a unique design on the back.
It was far too big for her—she had to wear it like a blanket. But just having it on gave her a strange sense of comfort.
“Thanks.”
“All the rides are open now. Want to play a little more before we go?”
“Really?”
Nina had never even been on a swing before.
The playground, filled with strange play equipment, filled her with both excitement and a bit of worry.
“Is it safe with just the two of us here?”
Messiah grinned with a mischievous glint and replied teasingly:
“We’re probably the most dangerous ones here.”
Behind the glitzy streets of the Red District—lined with shopping malls, hotels, casinos, and every kind of luxury landmark—there was a side few tourists could even imagine.
A place called the “Gutter Street.”
Though technically the largest slum on the continent, no one knew its official name.
Locals in Lohas just called it Gutter Street.
And among the true locals, the old name had more flair: “The Hyenas’ Den.” Now it referred nostalgically to the slum’s glory days.
Once, the Hyenas’ Den was a dangerous neighborhood even the city guards avoided—infamous and lawless.
But now, it had degraded into a rat’s nest where gutter rats constantly clashed with each other.
Katya Dozer was one of those rats.
“Hey Katya, heard you scored big today?”
The voice that trailed her from the alley made Katya frown.
“What are you talking about?”
“That general store you said you’d work at got hit today. Did you take anything?”
Who knew if he even had the facts straight.
Katya pressed her lips together and picked up her pace.
The smog from the factories nearby made everything hazy and hard to see.
Lately, the smog had gotten so bad that even locals had trouble finding their homes—but Katya could navigate the entire slum with her eyes closed.
That was expected of a Dozer.
Timmy, who was quick on her heels, kept chattering.
“You went to that store just for that, right? We were worried you’d actually gone crazy or something—”
“I really was going to work there.”
Katya responded curtly, recalling the girl she’d seen earlier—Nina.
A girl even prettier than the child models on popular magazines, yet with eyes strangely similar to Katya’s own.
They say misfortune recognizes its own.
Katya was a master at spotting her kind—and exploiting them.
But what happened with Nina had been a genuine mistake.
She hadn’t planned to escalate things that far.
She just wanted to get some information, maybe scare her a little…
‘I lost control. That’s not like me.’
She felt regret and annoyance.
And her annoying brother wasn’t helping.
“Don’t joke with me. You know who got our dad killed. And now you were gonna work as a janitor in a store that pays tribute to that bastard? Were you really trying to disgrace our family?”
Swaggering with a sneer, Timmy looked less like a sixteen-year-old and more like a brat under twelve.
As always, he hadn’t changed a bit—and Timmy was proud of that.
