Chapter 38
The sky was a clear, deep blue without a single cloud.
The playground, seen in the bright daylight, was noisy and full of energy.
Except for the somewhat suspicious-looking adults lurking nearby, it was an utterly peaceful scene.
“Feeling a bit better?”
Nina lowered her gaze from the sky and looked back at Mercy.
Thanks to the fresh air, her head felt clearer than before, and a delayed wave of embarrassment washed over her.
“Yeah, sorry. Did I scare you?”
“What’s there to be sorry about? I was a little startled when you suddenly collapsed.”
Mercy was standing, arms draped over the back of a bench.
With drowsy eyes, he looked at Nina with a smile but then suddenly let out a deep sigh.
“Can’t you hide it a little better?”
“I know, right.”
Their reluctant gazes drifted toward a man lingering near a trash bin on the opposite side.
He looked like an ordinary civilian casually tossing out trash, but he kept glancing around nervously and wore an unnecessarily flashy leather mask.
Anyone would tell he was far from an ordinary civilian.
It was worrying—wouldn’t he cause some weird misunderstandings?
“He’d look better without that mask at least.”
“Seems like he has a strong conviction about his own fashion.”
“Sounds like one of those guard captains…”
Nina said this without thinking, and Mercy chuckled softly.
“Already met him? How was he?”
“Hmm, seemed like a pretty cheerful guy. Do you know much about the guard captain?”
“To some extent. He’s trustworthy — except when it comes to fashion advice.”
Mercy added jokingly, and Nina quietly stared at his bright eyes for a moment.
Inevitably, Mercy—or rather the Mercy from the dream—came to mind.
That figure whose golden eyes had turned pitch black…
Why is Hameln moving so fast?
Recalling the article about Hameln gave Nina a headache again.
Since morning, she had been hit by huge unexpected changes, and her mind was still in chaos, but she desperately tried to retrace her thoughts.
Just because I changed, it doesn’t mean everything else is unaffected. But still…
She could accept the incident from last night.
Even if the timing had been moved up, it was something that could still be prevented.
Above all, it was a matter between criminal organizations.
Conflicts could erupt anytime with the smallest trigger.
But this case was a completely different story.
It was way too early even to mention it.
Moreover, the difference wasn’t just in the timeline being months earlier.
In the Hameln incident Nina remembered, six children had disappeared in total.
Only two of them had survived.
The first child found was Prince Dout, one of the four cold corpses.
But…
The first child came back alive.
According to today’s article, Prince Dout was alive.
Though he had lost all his fingernails and was suffering memory confusion, he had returned home alive.
Could it all just be a whim because the timeline changed?
Even Nina didn’t know the criteria Hameln used to decide the children’s fate.
In fact, she wasn’t even sure if there was any criterion at all.
Honestly, it wouldn’t be surprising if he picked by lottery.
That lunatic is capable of that much.
But Nina’s relief at Prince Dout’s survival was not just because she was worried about the luck of the other children.
It was because of what had happened later to the two children who survived back then.
The two children, found in the same state as the current Prince Dout, were known never to have met each other before or after the incident.
Except for their age, they had almost nothing in common.
Yet both had committed similar acts around the same time a few years later.
They each killed their own entire family.
“Is it because Lavian isn’t here?”
Nina groaned alone with a splitting headache and suddenly looked up.
Mercy smiled knowingly at her.
“You’ve been gloomy since earlier. Is it because of Lavian?”
“…That’s not it.”
Nina’s cheeks reddened as she tried to deny it vaguely.
In truth, she felt even more desperate for Lavian than usual but was trying hard not to think about it.
“Nina, don’t worry about that article. There’s no pervert like that here.”
Mercy seemed to misunderstand that Nina had suddenly gotten scared because of that article.
“Even if there was, no one would dare do that to you, so don’t worry.”
His voice was kind yet strong.
Suddenly, Nina felt the urge to tell Mercy everything.
Though she knew well how dangerous that would be, this situation where countless variables were happening and she had to carry all the burden alone felt unbearably overwhelming.
Her head was about to explode.
First, clear my head. Then think through everything again step by step.
With that resolve, Nina looked around, trying to distract herself, and then asked curiously.
“Mercy, what are those kids doing now?”
“Huh? Oh, looks like they’re playing hide-and-seek.”
“Hide-and-seek…?”
Nina’s mouth dropped open.
Since she had only read about hide-and-seek in books, seeing kids actually playing was fascinating.
At that moment, Mercy suddenly suggested.
“Shall we play too?”
“Huh? Now…?”
“Yeah, now.”
“But there are only two of us.”
“Well… huh? Wait a minute.”
Mercy stopped speaking abruptly and turned around.
Nina followed him, not knowing why.
“What’s wrong?”
“I feel like something’s over here…”
They reached a flower bed at one corner of the playground.
As Mercy pointed beyond the low fence and started to speak, the bushes in the center of the flower bed suddenly twitched.
Then, in the next moment—
“Whoa…!”
A head suddenly popped out from the bushes, and Nina’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Ah, I thought so, you really came! What a relief.”
“Katya…?!”
The person who had popped out of the bushes was none other than Katya.
No one knew how long she had been hiding there.
While Nina was speechless from surprise and joy, Mercy acted as if he had expected this.
“So it was you after all.”
“What? What do you mean ‘after all’?”
“I could only think of one person who’d hide in a place like this for no good reason.”
Katya gave Mercy a sideways glance and then shook off the leaves and dirt covering her skirt with a snap.
There was something lively about her action.
“Katya, what are you doing here? Why were you hiding here?”
Nina asked, and Katya looked around once, then sighed deeply.
“Why else? Those Anubis people have been lurking around since earlier. They’re obviously going to try to chase me off, so I was waiting for the right time. What the heck are they doing here anyway?”
Katya had immediately figured out who the suspicious people hanging around the playground were.
“They’re just here to guard us. They said the playground with only kids might be dangerous.”
“But those people look the most dangerous here.”
Katya’s blunt comment made Nina and Mercy exchange embarrassed looks.
Maybe it would have been better to come with Kiss or Smoky.
But given Kiss and Smoky’s current faces, they would have terrified the innocent kids at the playground.
After much effort, Nina had convinced the two who insisted they couldn’t let the kids out alone to bring some lower-ranking members of the organization along for protection.
Though, Nina wondered what the point was.
The organization members who pretended poorly to be civilians were now blatantly sneaking glances toward Nina and the others.
They meant to be cautious because Katya suddenly appeared, but to the eyes of honest citizens, they looked sketchy enough to be reported to the guards immediately.
