A Forgotten Promise – Part 06
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Translator: Kell
“What the…” I stood up, dumbfounded. I followed the carriage with my eyes as it drove away, then saw Zero struggling in the arms of the man in the wagon. “Are you kidding me? Why is she the one getting kidnapped?!”
“I-I don’t know! Maybe they thought that if they couldn’t get the Grimoire of Zero, they could just take the author instead.”
“There aren’t many people who know that she wrote the grimoire. Anyway, we’re going after her!”
“Right!” I picked Albus up and started running after the wagon.
Three people would slow down the horse, and in a town with many turns, a Beastfallen should be able to catch up.
The wagon disappeared around a corner, and I followed it. The street ahead was long and straight, giving the wagon an advantage. Clicking my tongue, I continued the pursuit.
“Mercenary!” Albus cried. “You can’t catch up with you carrying me. Just leave me, and go get Zero!”
“Are you stupid?! If they’re after the grimoire, then you’re still in danger! If you’re kidnapped while I give chase, there will be bigger trouble.”
Zero was just an unknown witch in this kingdom, but Albus was the Chief Mage. If Albus was kidnapped in Fomicaum on the day of the festival of peace, it might spark another civil war.
Albus clung to my neck tight. “Sorry,” she said, fear in her voice.
She was probably thinking about what might happen to Zero because of her. Had she realized right away that the enemy could be after the grimoire, we would’ve considered Zero a target as well. But in that sense, I was just as guilty as her.
After reaching the end of the long street, the wagon slipped into a back alley. When I entered the same alley a moment later, we found the wagon abandoned, with no one in it. I continued on the straight path and made it out to the main street.
We found ourselves in a crowded slum in the outskirts of town. People that looked like crooks milled about, and there were a lot of buildings to hide into. The kidnappers had blended into the crowd.
I punched the wall in the alleyway. “Shit! They got us!”
“Mercenary, over there!” Albus leaned forward. “I sense Zero’s magical power. Go, I’ll lead the way!”
Zero once told me that if you had any knowledge of Sorcery or Magic, you could track people down by following traces of their magical power. I had no idea how it worked exactly, but I guessed it was similar to how animals followed scents. As a Beastfallen, I had a good nose, but I couldn’t track a specific scent with so many people around.
Following Albus’s directions, I started running. Zero was powerful, but she couldn’t use Magic at the moment, which made her a helpless woman who was just a little smart. Fear and impatience burned in the pit of my stomach.
“That way!” Albus said. “We’re close. We should catch up soon.”
We came to a familiar street located behind the slums. It was an area lined with stores selling looted goods and suspicious items. One of them was a deserted second-hand clothes store.
“Wait a minute…” I muttered, panting.
I’ve seen this place before. No, I’ve been here before.
Albus was stunned too, looking up at the store that stood like a demon’s dwelling place. “I think we bought clothes for Zero from here,” she mumbled.
When I met Zero, she was wearing tattered clothes that even slaves nowadays don’t wear. We needed to buy new clothes for her, so we stopped by this store that allowed even Beastfallen inside.
What if Zero was inside?
“Mercenary, I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Same here. Feels like a horrifying memory is coming back to me.”
“I don’t know what I’m gonna do with my life if you take that!”
A voice rang in my mind.
“You can take whatever you want, but please don’t take that away from me!”
Didn’t we take something from a man while he pleaded? We said we’d give him something else in exchange.
Slowly, I pushed open the door to the store.
“I’m sorry, milady! I had no other choice.”
I heard the husky voice of a drunk man, pleading desperately.
“I’m not gonna do anything to you. I just want to get what I was promised. I just want the meaning of my life back!”
As I stepped into the store, I saw a scene that was playing exactly as I imagined it from the voice alone.
Zero was sitting arrogantly on a soft, cushioned chair. A large, boorish man, who looked like the leader of a bandit gang, was prostrating by her feet.
Zero’s confused eyes turned to us. “Mercenary, lass. You took your time!”
The man, too absorbed in his pleading, turned to us. As soon as I saw his face, memories stuck in the back of my mind rushed to the surface.
To get something important, we struck a deal with the owner of this second-hand clothing store, a middle-aged, bald, boorish man.
“I remember now!” I exclaimed. “We made a deal with this guy!”
“We promised to give him Zero’s socks!” Albus cried.
We sank down to the floor.
“Socks?” Zero wondered. “Why would you promise this man my socks without my knowledge?”
“Uh, we kinda had a deal, you see. Remember? When we bought clothes for you, we gave him your cloak.”
It was the very same cloak that Zero wore over her bare skin. The shopkeeper said we didn’t need to pay as long as we gave it to him.
“We needed it back, so we promised to give him your socks next time.”
The man rose to his feet and stared at us with cold eyes. “Yes, socks. You guys took away my reason for living and promised to give me the lady’s socks in return. But you never did!” He pointed a finger at us.
“We forgot, okay?!” Albus yelled back. “How was I supposed to remember a dumb deal like that?! If you had written that in the letter, I would have asked Zero for her socks and sent them to you. You made it sound like I was supposed to give you a national treasure!”
“You fool! The lady’s socks are far more valuable and precious than any national treasure. If people found out that I’m supposed to get the socks, they’d kill me to get their hands on them!”
“Pretty sure no one would do that,” I remarked.
The owner shot me a wide-eyed glare. “You’re wrong! I would do it, at least. I’d kill a man for the lady’s socks!” His eyes were bloodshot, saliva spilling from his mouth.
“I admire your passion,” Zero said, “but you are creeping me out.” She backed away from the man, stiffening.
But he grabbed her by the leg and clung to it tight, not letting her go anywhere. “P-Please! I beg you! Give me your socks! The same socks wrapped around your milky, smooth, smooth skin! The ultimate treasure that holds your fragrance!”
“Stop being creepy to my employer!” Shivering from his sick behavior, I gave him a merciless kick.
With a grunt, the guy rolled across the floor. Albus then pulled on Zero’s hand and ran behind me.
Undaunted by it all, the shopkeeper crawled on the floor, reaching for Zero. “S-Socks…” After squeezing out that one word, he plopped down to the floor, completely exhausted.
No matter how much we hated the idea, no matter how creepy the shopkeeper was, a deal was a deal.
Albus made a promise to have Zero take off her socks in front of the shopkeeper and give them to him. As a Mage, people who valued contracts, she had no other choice but to hold up her end of the bargain.
I tied up the unconscious shopkeeper so that he could never approach or touch Zero, and then splashed him with water to wake him up.
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