Evil didn’t answer, and instead the seniors who had been listening to the phone conversation approached in surprise. Just as he was about to tell them the truth, fearing that the conversation had been heard, noise reached his ears.
– Hey!
Evil, who shouted loud enough to hurt his eardrums, poured out curses like a machine gun.
– You idiot, beggar bastard, who the fuck are you to say I must be tired or whatever bullshit. Cheeky for a lowly refugee.
“I’m sorry.”
– And don’t tell those people the conversation was heard. If they find out, fuck, I’ll blow up your empty, ignorant, and lightweight head! Got it?
“Yes, I understand.”
Cheche bowed his head toward the unseen opponent. After spitting out a few more curses, Evil hung up, and as soon as the call ended, the seniors asked with very anxious faces what conversation they had.
“What do you mean everything can be heard? We talked in small voices so he couldn’t have heard. Even if he hears what we say in the elevator, we know he can’t hear here since it’s around the corner at the end of the corridor.”
“He said he can’t hear. I thought he heard because he called at good timing, so I said that.”
“Ah, right. That’s a relief. If everything had been heard until now, I’d have to jump off right away.”
“If everything had been heard, quick suicide would be the only way to live…”
Cheche lied without changing his expression. The seniors believed him without a shadow of doubt.
After that, Evil called to harass him about once an hour. Calling without any particular business, he would say things like:
– Are all Tar refugees dull gray-haired like volcanic ash like you?
– Does it feel good to abandon your family and friends on the battlefield and escape alone?
– Were you tempted by the secretary’s salary?
Cheche responded with answers like “No.” and “I’m sorry.” Since his expression didn’t change and his voice’s pitch didn’t vary, none of the seniors knew Cheche was hearing such reproach.
Eight calls came before getting off work, and it was the same the next day and the day after. Even after the weekend passed, Evil’s calls didn’t stop, and today, a week after the calls started coming, Cheche received the last call before leaving work.
This time too, Evil poured out reproach asking how it made sense that someone like him had a salary in the hundreds of millions. Cheche, who always responded with “I’m sorry,” showed a different reaction this time.
“You must be very bored.”
– What?
“You’ve been picking fights with me like this all day. You must be very bored.”
The secretary office became quiet enough to instantly turn cold. The seniors who had only pitied Cheche, marked by the devil until then, raised their heads with looks of ‘What did I just hear?’ Cheche continued speaking as if reciting with sunken eyes devoid of any light.
“Besides criticizing a useless person like me over the phone from there, you must have other things to do. More important things. In many places where your power is needed…”
– You damned commoner bastard, come to my room right now!
Evil hung up. Cheche put down the receiver and stood up.
“The Director is calling me, so I’ll go and come back.”
“……”
He spoke while looking around at the frozen seniors with wide eyes, but there was no answer in return.
Cheche opened the door, came out, and turned the corner. He arrived in front of Evil’s office at a pace neither hurried nor slow. Just as he was about to knock, the door opened by itself.
The moment he stepped inside, something grazed his temple at high speed and hit the wall with a thud. What fell to the floor in pieces was a fountain pen with a sharp nib. In succession, things like a mouse and flowerpot narrowly grazed Cheche and fell.
“You beggar bastard, just because I’m letting you off since you’re a refugee, you think I’m easy? I saved a cripple who should have died on the battlefield, and you don’t even know your place!”
Evil shouted as if anger had risen to the top of his head. His red eyes flashed. Cheche only quietly watched him using crude and vulgar words in excitement.
Evil was using aura to throw objects. As if it were the easiest thing in the world.
“Huh? Does it look easy because I’m letting you off, you beggar bastard!”
Evil poured out all kinds of hateful remarks that ordinary people couldn’t even speak.
Thwack—this time a nameplate was thrown at Cheche’s head. Cheche, who had been listening to his words without any expression change, bowed his head.
“I’m sorry. I was too arrogant.”
“That’s why a refugee like you shouldn’t be accepted… What?”
“I’m sorry for making such presumptuous remarks.”
“…Ha.”
“I’m sorry.”
The objects that had been floating in the air with Evil’s aura stopped as they were. After roughly running his hand through his hair with an expression of disbelief for a moment, Evil strode toward Cheche. Soon after, with a thwack, Cheche’s head turned. Evil immediately raised his hand again. Even if he hadn’t used all his strength, he was an SSS multi-user and a large man in build. Cheche, who was struck left and right on the head by a man much larger than himself, staggered and leaned his back against the door.
“You’re trash refugee, you fucking bastard.”
Evil’s voice had calmed down from before but still felt excited.
“Just because you heard the word hero a few times, you think you’re a real hero? Just because you were lifted up a bit among vermin, you can’t see anything? I can tear you apart and kill you right now. I can make every trace that you existed disappear completely, and I can make everyone believe you were actually a male prostitute, not a hero.”
“……”
“Snapping this thin neck of yours is easier for me than breaking a matchstick, you fucking bastard.”
Evil raised his hand and grabbed Cheche’s neck with one hand. Then, as if to prove his words, he pressed down harder and harder. Under the pressure, when Cheche looked up, Evil wore a cold sneer.
“Are you a little scared now? Huh?”
“……”
“Don’t worry, your corpse will be thrown to the hometown you ran away from.”
In Tar, since there’s nothing to eat, they even roast and eat corpses. You’re pretty handsome, so you’ll be popular.
Evil added.
Cheche didn’t resist at all. He just closed his eyes with both hands hanging down.
It wasn’t that he had no sense of reality about death. Rather, it was the opposite. Since he had heard that the person before him had driven people who irritated him to death in the past, he would really kill me. Thinking that, he released the strength from his body.
In the thinning air, no past events passed by. Cheche had never seen anything from before. Other people said they saw the happiest scene or recalled the saddest time at the moment of death, but Cheche, even while experiencing numerous life-threatening crises, never saw anything. He only thought, so I’m dying now, I was going to die here like this… that was all.
“…Hey.”
The force that had been strangling his neck gradually loosened.
“Ah, shit…”
Evil threw Cheche away while spitting out curses. Cheche, whose back painfully hit the wall, coughed while opening his eyes. Physiological tears formed, making his vision blurry. Evil was looking at Cheche, who had fallen and was coughing, with raised eyebrows and eyes that showed he was very displeased.
“What are you?”
“……?”
“You, why… aren’t you scared?”
“Of what?”
A metallic sound came from the vocal cords that had just been strangled.
“Do you think I really can’t kill you?”
“No… I know killing me is an easy thing.”
“Then why? Why aren’t you scared?”
“What should I be scared of…”
Cheche blinked with puzzlement.
To the young Tar refugee who asked what he should be afraid of even after just being strangled, Evil didn’t give a reason. Instead, he spat out curses like a habit and roughly ran his hand through his hair.
“Get out right now.”
He turned his back and issued an order to leave, and Cheche bowed once and came out.
His struck head throbbed and his throat was scratchy. While staggering down the corridor, feeling dizzy, he eventually leaned against the wall.
Fatigue appeared on Cheche’s face as he looked at the white ceiling and lights of the wide, clean corridor.
It was fatigue about living.
When he returned to the secretary office, the seniors’ attitude had clearly changed. They couldn’t act like treating an easy child as before toward a person who dared to say things like ‘You’ve been picking fights with me like this all day. You must be very bored’ to Evil Devil.
When they carefully asked what happened, seeing his face reddened as if he had just cried and the wound on his neck, Cheche answered that nothing happened. Since handprints remained on Cheche’s neck, and his originally somewhat low voice was even more hoarse, no one believed him.
James, who learned something had happened from Julia’s report and Evil’s order (Make that refugee bastard disappear from my sight!), brought a dark navy scarf the next day. He called Cheche to an empty conference room 10 floors below Evil’s office and personally wrapped the scarf around his neck.
