Vicious Darling

[64]

Chris stood in front of a makeshift detention cell that had been converted from a factory office.

A guard wearing a Northern Light badge gave him a nod of acknowledgment.

There were fewer guards than expected.

Without Mihir’s “amplification,” Dahlia wasn’t a threatening Esper. Moreover, Northern Light had arrived yesterday with Esper-specific restraints, so Dahlia couldn’t even make a single wildflower bloom in her current state.

“Are you sure you want to see her?”

Peter asked for final confirmation. Despite secretly bringing Chris here, he still seemed uneasy.

Yuri had escalated the situation and then left while Chris was unconscious.

Now he seemed to be rushing to fill that void belatedly.

Chris had deliberately contacted Northern Light through Peter without informing Yuri.

Even knowing Yuri would disapprove, Chris had two reasons for meeting Dahlia.

First, to help with the unproductive interrogation.

Second, he was curious about Dahlia’s feelings toward Dain.

“Yes.”

“Ah, really.”

Peter scratched the back of his head.

But he withdrew without trying to stop Chris any further.

“You’re welcome to have a conversation. However, in a short while, someone from our side will be coming to interrogate the detainee.”

“I’ll finish as quickly as possible.”

After nodding in acknowledgment to the guard, Chris opened the door and went inside.

Dahlia was half-lying on an iron chair, staring at the ceiling.

When she sensed someone’s presence, she reluctantly lifted her head, her face full of boredom.

However, the moment she saw Chris, a strange light flashed in her eyes.

“So you came.”

Dahlia opened her mouth.

Her speech was still blunt, but her voice was cracked.

“What about the child? Where is Dain?”

“Dain? Why are you looking for her from me?”

After handing the child to Yuri, Chris hadn’t seen Dain either.

But unlike Dahlia, he wasn’t anxious.

His master was someone who could be quite kind to Guides, so the child would be doing well.

“You took her!”

She yelled suddenly, then coughed repeatedly.

The strain on her throat from shouting seemed to have affected her.

“Why do you think I would have her?”

To Chris’s question, Dahlia replied.

“…Because she’s special.”

She mumbled, staring at Chris with a sharp gaze.

“You’re an Esper too, so you wouldn’t want to share her with the others.”

‘Ah, so that’s it.’

Chris kept his mouth shut.

A wolf had suddenly appeared and prioritized saving the child. It was enough of a situation to secretly take away a Guide out of greed.

So Dahlia had been waiting for Chris, refusing to cooperate with the interrogation.

To check on Dain’s condition. And to find out how much information about the child had been revealed.

‘More dedicated than I expected.’

She was even deliberately avoiding mentioning the word ‘Guide.’

“If you grant my request, I’ll give you a special gift.”

Dahlia grinned.

Her eyes gleamed cunningly.

“Children are weak, disobedient, and irritating, aren’t they? Wouldn’t you rather meet a proper one?”

One with good durability and obedience.

Her additional words treated Guides like mere objects.

“A proper Guide? It seems you had a means to regularly receive guiding while being stationed in a place like this.”

“Which ear did you hear my words with?”

Dahlia clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction.

From the moment the word Guide was mentioned, her attitude had rapidly deteriorated.

“So, will you grant my request or not?”

“If your proposal is to help the child escape, I refuse.”

“Wh-what?”

Dahlia’s face twisted with bewilderment and anger.

She hadn’t expected her intentions to be figured out so quickly.

“No. I haven’t even brought up my story yet!”

Listen, just listen. She kept insisting while nervously biting her lips.

Chris didn’t respond to her words and slowly moved forward.

Until he sat in the chair across from Dahlia, she couldn’t make a sound.

The initiative in the conversation had already shifted to his side.

“Why are you trying to protect that child?”

“Fuck. What does it matter to you whether I look after that kid or not?”

Dahlia growled.

This was a completely different attitude from when she had been dangling an attractive bait.

Rather, it made it easier to read her. This was like a beast bristling with nerves to protect its nest.

Chris asked consecutively.

“Is it because she’s a Guide?”

Dahlia spat.

“Bullshit. How could that tiny thing be a Guide?”

Her eyes darted anxiously.

But inside this temporary detention cell was utterly desolate, without even a single blade of grass.

Even if there were trees or flowers, Dahlia was currently wearing restraints.

With her arms hanging limply, she licked her lips.

“I just took care of the sniveling kid a few times because I couldn’t stand seeing her pitiful state. You’re making quite an assumption.”

“I don’t intend to punish you for expressing goodwill toward Dain.”

“…You? Do you have that authority?”

“My name is Chris Danil.”

Leaning his body slowly forward, Chris spoke in a low tone.

“An S-class Esper from the Winter Continent.”

At this unexpected introduction, Dahlia glared at Chris with wide eyes.

‘A wolf transformation… wasn’t it therianthrope ability?’

That belonged to the enhancement category.

The problem was that the fact that Chris Danil was a telekinetic was spread throughout almost all continents.

‘All the external characteristics match though.’

Platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, and a handsome man who appeared to be nearly 190cm tall.

‘My head hurts.’

Dahlia squeezed her eyes shut at the throbbing sensation.

Thinking wasn’t her forte.

In times like these, she needed to rely on the intuition that had saved her all along.

The reason she wanted to see this man in the first place was because he seemed to handle Dain carefully. He was a person who cared for the child even at the cost of harming his own body.

‘When he snatched the child at the last moment. That was definitely telekinesis.’

Dahlia’s instinct whispered that he was indeed Chris Danil.

“I don’t understand why the distinguished gentleman from the Winter Continent has come all the way to the Spring Continent to do this.”

From the moment she recognized his identity, intense tension flowed through Dahlia’s body.

The main enemy of her organization, the Thorns Order, was Yuri Sobolev.

And this man was the fiercest of the hounds serving the master of Baekyah.

Why would such a person be in the Spring Continent, so far from the Winter Continent?

Moreover, what reason did he have to interfere in her and Dain’s affairs?

“Curiosity.”

Chris answered plainly.

“If the child being a Guide isn’t that important, why are you trying to protect her?”

Throughout the conversation, Dahlia had referred to Guides as if they were objects.

“Would you have saved her even if she wasn’t a Guide?”

“…I don’t know.”

It was an answer that was neither yes nor no.

“Tell me.”

Urged by Chris, the woman who had been glaring at him with tightly closed lips sighed.

“She’s just a child.”

“And if she wasn’t a child?”

“First you asked what I would have done if she wasn’t a Guide, and now you’re asking what I would have done if she wasn’t a child.”

Dahlia muttered.

The fact that Dain was both a child and a Guide was unchangeable, so what was the point of these hypothetical questions?

To her, all of these were unnecessary inquiries.

“Hey, do we have to consider all these things? Whether the other person is a Guide or not?”

She shook her head as if lost in thought for a moment. Chris calmly replied.

“…We’re Espers. We can’t completely separate ourselves from that fact.”

There were some Espers who questioned the life of being unilaterally bound to a Guide.

Since it was a relationship of emotional and physical subjugation, some even deeply despised that fact.

“That’s ridiculous.”

At that answer, Dahlia snorted and snapped.

“Does being an Esper suddenly turn the blood in your veins blue? No, it doesn’t.”

Chris remained silent.

“Aren’t all the emotions I feel toward Guides part of me as a human?”

For an Esper, she didn’t seem to think of herself as a monster.

In a good way, she appeared to have high self-esteem.

“So that’s how you could think about it.”

Chris muttered and then closed his mouth.

Despite hearing Dahlia’s words, certain emotions within him remained undiluted and unreconstructed.

He had tried to borrow another’s answer, but it seemed he needed to find his feelings toward Yuri on his own.

Until now, that fact had made him very anxious. But after coming to this realization, his mind felt more at ease.

He had always been in a rush to follow Yuri. He thought that if he stopped even for a moment, Yuri would go far away.

But now, didn’t he have the confidence that Yuri would wait for him?

“Never leave me alone again.”

Chris recalled the words Yuri had said to him.

“What an unpleasant face.”

Dahlia muttered.

The terminal screen flickered. Chris turned his head to check it and stood up.

For the first time, desperation emerged on Dahlia’s mischievous cat-like face.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

Dahlia was quite desperate.

“You won’t properly respond to interrogation, yet you seek me out only when it’s convenient for you.”

As if she couldn’t hear Chris’s words, she shouted.

“That child is not a Guide or anything like that! She just followed her father here!”

She seemed to think Chris might do something to Dain if his answer wasn’t satisfactory.

“Tell me what you’re going to do with the child! Now! Or I won’t let you go, even if I have to die!”

Chris swallowed a sigh and opened the door of the temporary interrogation room.

A handsome man with a soft, cotton candy-like appearance was standing there.

Golden hair as if spun from sunlight, and eyes so light red they almost appeared pink.

His impression was so different from the cold-looking Yuri that they could be considered polar opposites.

Chris was slightly disturbed by the face he hadn’t expected to see here.

But if Northern Light was at the scene, it wasn’t strange for the man before him to appear.

“Let me introduce. This is…”

Chris parted his slightly dry lips.

“Luka, the head of the Guide Welfare Team at Northern Light.”