Accepting the incoming communication from the vibration he felt on his terminal device, Yuri responded briefly to his subordinate.
[The target has been spotted on the tram. He’s returning to District 8.]
“Is that so?”
Yuri’s hand in black gloves checked the places where he’d hidden bugs, confirming once more whether they were well concealed.
“How’s the signal?”
Though he knew time was running short, there was no sign of impatience in Yuri as he slowly rose to his feet.
[The bug signal is being picked up, but there’s nothing showing on the camera screen.]
“There’s no suitable place to install a camera.”
The lens needed to properly survey the room, but at the same time, hiding the light reflection required an appropriate obstacle. However, this room was too empty, so it would be discovered immediately.
If he couldn’t properly monitor anyway, getting caught after installing a camera would only raise the surveillance target’s guard. Yuri wanted Chris to mistakenly believe this place was safe.
Only then could he gauge what was inside that head, so empty it was impossible to know what might be in it.
Watching Chris come and go until the bookshop threshold was worn, not even knowing who he himself was, had filled him with truly complex feelings.
He wasn’t such a good-natured person as to generously pretend not to notice when the dog that had broken its leash and run away on its own whim was now hovering around asking to be caught.
“The item?”
When he asked whether they had secured the item he’d ordered them to bring when entering the apartment earlier, the other party answered faithfully.
[It’s prepared.]
“Bring it up.”
Yuri, who had picked up the piece of paper Chris had wedged in the door gap, waited for his subordinate. What he held in his hand was an advertising flyer with flashy writing. Since he’d ordered them to bring one placed in a nearby store, even if someone later checked whether it was a real advertisement, there would be no trail to follow.
Yuri closed the door while wedging in the piece of paper. After closing the door, he didn’t forget to also stick the advertising flyer in the gap.
It was a method he’d thought of since he couldn’t know the original position of the piece of paper Chris had installed as a temporary measure. When Chris returned and opened the door to check the piece of paper falling, the advertising flyer would cover it. Even if the position of the piece of paper was a bit strange, he might judge it had been pushed by the advertising flyer.
After sticking advertising flyers in the neighboring apartment too, Yuri leisurely descended the stairs. Having finished everything just five minutes before Chris got off the tram, Yuri headed to the bookshop.
Raising the store’s shutter and entering inside, he took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack, then washed his hands and changed gloves. The touch of the white cotton gloves used when handling books was soft.
Opening a newly delivered package, Yuri took out the book. It wasn’t a proper antiquarian book but an item bound with cheap paper just to keep up appearances. When he turned the cover disguised as a dictionary, he saw a firearm with a dull sheen in the hollowed-out groove in the middle. After carefully checking this and moving it to the warehouse, Yuri opened another package.
It was full of books that looked perfectly fine. Author, publication year, and International Standard Book Number were all stamped on them. Yuri picked out the ones with country codes 35, 45, and 55.
They had in common that these country codes didn’t exist in the years these books were published. Yuri turned over the selected books one by one. From the subtle scent at his nose tip, he’d found the right ones.
‘How tiresome.’
The organization smuggling drugs was using various means to bring goods into the Winter Continent. Distribution through books was a method they’d recently started using. The organization dried the plants that were raw materials for drugs well, extracted them like fiber to make them look like paper. Then they smuggled them into the Winter Continent.
Rather than attaching separate markers or moving them all at once, they distinguished them by writing in fake country codes.
It had taken considerable effort to figure this out.
As soon as he realized they were being distributed through books, Yuri opened a bookshop and pretended to be someone doing business with antiquarian book enthusiasts, sweeping up goods indiscriminately. Rather than stepping forward as a private collector and easily becoming a target for enemies, he disguised himself as a bookshop, an intermediate route where books came and went, to catch the flow.
Anastasia had been one of the drug dealers he found at that time. Who would have guessed that the cookies baked by that kind grandmother whose hobby was knitting contained marijuana?
Honestly, the problem wasn’t just some marijuana. It was because he’d discovered several Espers coming and going from Anastasia’s residence. There was no reason for Espers to come and go just to obtain a few drugs they wouldn’t even use, and from the circumstances, it was clear that among the drugs Anastasia handled were Guiding drugs known as Heaven’s Kiss or Guiding Delight.
For Espers who chose to remain unregistered for various reasons, there could be no sweeter temptation. Because it was the only alternative besides Guides.
The lives of Espers born on the Winter Continent were similarly arduous.
Meeting a ‘real’ Guide was nearly impossible, and even if they went to the black market, more than half of those wagging their tongues claiming to sell Guides were frauds.
Even if they connected with those who captured Guides and sold Guiding before Northern Light snatched them up, they demanded large sums of money. At first, just barely enough to afford it, and gradually at astronomical costs they couldn’t meet.
It was a structure where Espers had no choice but to become hunting dogs for that organization in exchange for periodic Guiding.
When Yuri first arrived, such organizations were rampant on the Winter Continent. The November Continent was truly a lawless wasteland in utter chaos.
Chris played an important role in pacifying all those tiresome bastards and mopping up the remnants. No human could last long before an S-rank ability user who could pull out and twist steel beams, not just people.
One organization that resisted to the end tried to tempt Chris by saying they’d attach three dedicated Guides to him. Before his subordinates who were worried about the scout offer that came to him, Yuri scoffed.
Chris had no need for other Guides.
Because he had Yuri.
‘That vicious Rosenhower.’
Yuri’s gaze looking down at the drugs disguised as a proper book sank coldly. It was impossible for the existing criminal organizations whose frameworks Yuri had completely collapsed to distribute drugs in such a meticulous manner.
It was Northern Light’s doing. Since it had become difficult to enter the Winter Continent that Yuri was blocking off directly, they were causing trouble in this indirect manner.
Who would know? That Northern Light, which claimed to be guardians of justice, was in fact a hotbed of sin.
The Esper Alliance system, known externally to make decisions democratically, was in reality playing in the palm of Rosenhower, one of its founders and the sole survivor. Northern Light itself was his private organization.
Yuri Sobolev was a mafioso because Rosenhower had defined him as evil. As soon as Yuri established himself on the Winter Continent, he’d become the protagonist of the machinations Rosenhower had orchestrated.
Serial Guide abduction, illegal drug manufacturing and distribution, Esper brainwashing…
Every imaginable evil deed became Yuri’s share. Rosenhower clearly earnestly hoped for Yuri to sink as he was.
However, Yuri swallowed his crimes by force and inflated his size.
There were days when Chris alone had to stay up all night blocking attacks aimed at him. There were days when in an abandoned house, the only thing to lean on was the other’s body heat. There were days when the money to buy food ran out completely, so they melted snow from window frames to drink and ease their hunger.
Nevertheless, Yuri picked up each arduous yesterday by force and lived each unending today fiercely.
To reach the tomorrow when he would bring down Rosenhower.
‘He’s here.’
The music coming from the gramophone cut off at regular intervals then started again. Those who didn’t know it was a signal would assume there was a brief problem with the record and move on, but Yuri immediately understood it meant Chris would arrive at the bookshop soon.
Chris, who had been standing blankly in front of the door, entered inside before long. Yuri, who had been checking Chris beyond the window through the mirror while pretending to focus on work, only raised his head to give a slight greeting.
Though it had been less than a week since Chris last visited the bookshop, it felt like quite a long time. Perhaps because he’d disappeared after killing Anastasia without any warning. Yuri found it unpleasant when Chris left his sight.
Chris’s complexion was pale. At the wavering gaze that seemed to yearn for something unknown, Yuri quietly placed his hand on the cover of the book with the Glock inserted.
Because he looked like he was agonizing, having discovered a secret but unable to make a decision.
Chris’s attitude of being conscious of Yuri, paying attention to his every move, ignited his wariness.
It was just as he was agonizing over whether to raise his head again to see Chris slowly moving beyond the range visible in the mirror.
“Would you recommend a book?”
Chris suddenly spoke. Yuri lifted the hand he’d placed on the cover and opened a drawer. Inside sat a book he’d prepared in advance.
<A Farewell to Arms>
Yuri deliberately pulled Chris toward the secret. If he didn’t remember, he had no choice but to shove it in front of his nose over and over.
“It’s a masterpiece. I don’t know if it’s your taste, though.”
After all, training came down to how persistently one put in effort.
