Chapter 126: The Balance |
"I really hope that's the case." Grill said to Samuel.
But no one responded.
After waiting two seconds, he looked strangely in Samuel's direction, only to find that the paper that was in Samuel's hand had ended up in Falson's hands, and Samuel himself was gone.
There were only two people in the hallway. Falson leaned against the railing, looking at the paper in his hands, trying to memorize it.
"Hey? Where'd he go?" Grill looked around but couldn't see anyone, so he gently tapped Falson, who was staring at the paper lost in thought. "Kid, where's Gavries?"
"Huh?" Falson looked up blankly and looked around left and right as well. "Uh... he was just here..."
Falson pointed to the spot where Samuel had been leaning against the railing.
"I know he was just standing here." Grill pursed his lips in exasperation. "I'm asking where he is now..."
"Forget it, you probably don't know either." He shook his head.
Leaving without anyone noticing was easier for him than eating or drinking.
Even he himself hadn't noticed when Samuel left, so there was no point in making things difficult for Falson.
"Do you know why he said it would be over soon?" Grill asked Falson.
Falson shook his head with certainty.
"No."
Samuel hadn't told him.
"Is that so." Grill nodded, took out a cigar, and sniffed it. "This is my last cigar. If I really can leave this place today, then I'm going to smoke it."
"Then go ahead and smoke it." Falson handed the paper back to Grill, indicating he had already memorized it. "Mr. Samuel's judgment is basically never wrong."
"You really trust him, huh." Grill pocketed the paper.
Ssssssh.
The match flared up, placed beneath the already-clipped cigar to begin preheating.
While preheating the cigar, Grill looked out over the railing and suddenly spoke.
"Come to think of it, the innkeeper hasn't shown up for several days now."
"He looks dead..."
"Even though not having to pay is nice, the money here is probably useless if we take it out. So I still hope he's okay."
Grill put the preheated cigar into his mouth and took a puff.
"He's probably dead." Falson said, his tone devoid of emotion.
He had already learned the truth about this city from the System.
A city full of fake people.
In that case, he felt like whether someone lived or died didn't really matter anymore.
It was like watching a play.
You might feel sorry for a character when their part ends, but if they were a character with hardly any role to begin with, their departure wouldn't stir any emotions.
Grill didn't even glance at Falson; he just puffed on his cigar and nodded.
"He's testing you..." Samuel's helpless voice, disguised as the System, echoed in Falson's mind. "You need to be more perceptive."
"Huh?"
............
Samuel, sitting on a wooden shelf, withdrew his attention and smiled, shaking his head.
He felt that while Falson wasn't stupid, he still couldn't hold his own against Grill.
He'd have to teach Falson how to lie properly in the future.
Lowering his gaze, he looked down at the room below him.
It was a pawnshop. Very dark, with little light. Only a kerosene lamp hung above the counter, its glass chimney blackened with soot. The display window was cluttered with old clocks, silverware, all covered in a thin layer of dust.
Behind the counter sat a gaunt old man, head bowed, holding a handheld monocle.
No frame, just a stick supporting it, like a magnifying glass with two lenses.
He had his head buried low, looking at a yellowed piece of paper on the table.
A pawnbroker needed a good eye; otherwise, they'd easily be cheated. And since they took in a wide variety of items, a pawnshop often doubled as an antique store.
Samuel had been here before.
When he and Falson first arrived at Liant Town, they had exchanged some money at this shop.
He remembered the owner was a decent enough person, just a bit greedy.
The price he offered was already low, and then he took a thirty percent cut.
Jingle.
The wind chime hanging by the door rang.
Someone stooped to enter through the doorway.
This pawnshop had many tall shelves, so the ceiling was high, and the door frame was also tall.
But the person entering still had to stoop.
A knight in golden armor removed the door from its hinges and stooped into the shop.
The old shop owner didn't even look up; he kept his eyes on the paper on the table.
"There's no chair here for you to sit on, so you'll have to stand. Or, if you want, you can sit on the floor." The old man said in a creaky voice.
The three-meter-plus tall knight straightened up, the balance scale above his head nearly touching the ceiling.
He stood there in silence, looking at the old man.
The old man picked up the paper from the table and held it up to the kerosene lamp.
"Ever since a week ago, from the day that bulletin board appeared. I've had this strange feeling." The old man seemed to be talking to himself. "Like there's something in my head, like something is trying to grow out of my heart, like everything that's happened lately feels somehow familiar."
The old man's voice was slow and unhurried.
The knight stood there silently, saying nothing.
After finishing his inspection, the old man put down the yellowed paper.
"What's your business? Buying or selling?" The old man took out a cloth and slowly polished the lenses in his hand.
"Do you want to leave?" The knight asked in a deep voice. "Leave this city."
After a pause, he added, "You know what I mean."
The old man's gaze swept over the knight, up and down, and he nodded. "I do."
But soon, he shook his head again. "But I don't want to leave here."
"I've lived here most of my life. Dying here would be fine too."
"But you haven't lived here most of your life." The knight corrected. "You've only lived for these seven days."
"Ah... I've only lived for these seven days..." The old man lifted his head to look at the ceiling. "So that's how it is... Just as I thought..."
"So, if you're willing to leave this place..." The knight extended a hand. "Just—"
"No need." The old man shook his head. "I was there when you executed that innkeeper. I heard roughly what you said."
"Then, what is your answer?" The knight lowered his hand.
The old man hadn't answered yet, but the knight already had an answer in his heart.
As expected, the old man shook his head.
"I still don't plan on leaving here."
Silence.
Silence fell over the pawnshop.
After several seconds, the knight spoke again.
"What did you mean by what you just said?" The knight looked down at the old man.
"What did I mean? Which part?" The old man glanced up at the knight.
"You said you had a strange feeling." The knight reminded him.
"Oh, that." The old man nodded. "I meant it literally."
"I remembered some things, but I couldn't quite grasp them. Over these seven days, they've become clearer and clearer day by day..."
"And by today, I've remembered most of it." The old man said.
"An old man like me just likes to reminisce about the past." He stood up slowly.
"Lately, I keep thinking about the time when the City Lord first arrived in Liant Town. Even though he was a noble, he always liked to wander around the town. I heard he was pushed out of the power center in the capital."
"He must have been around twenty-something, I think. A spirited young man." The old man looked at the knight, his eyes dark and murky, the whites barely visible, giving him a perpetually sleepy look.
"I remember he was a cheerful, laughing little noble. Curious about everything. He even came to me to learn how to do business."
"And how did you answer him?" The knight asked in a low voice.
The old man stood up for a while, then sat back down, adjusting his position to curl up in the big, worn armchair. His cloudy eyes shifted with the knight's question.
He looked at the knight, as if trying to see his eyes, but was blocked by the visor. So he lowered his head again and leaned back against the chair.
"I told him that a businessman needs a balance scale." The old man pointed to the balance scale on the corner of the table, but quickly shook his head.
"But not one in his hand. One in his heart." He took a deep breath, his chest rising only weakly.
"It doesn't matter if you have a scale in your hand. What matters is that you have one in your heart."
"You have to use it to weigh the value of your 'heart'."
The flame in the oil lamp flickered uneasily. The old man glanced up and saw the balance scale above the knight's head. He pointed and smiled, the firelight seeming to pierce his murky eyes.
"Hmph... well, this is the first time I've seen someone carrying a balance scale on their head."
The knight remained silent, unbothered by the old man's audacity.
The old man slowly withdrew his pointing hand.
"You might not know how much the thing you want is worth. But you need to know how much your own 'heart' is worth."
"And then?" The knight silently drew his longsword. He pulled out the heavy blade slowly, excruciatingly slowly.
He knew it was already too late.
Killing this old man now was useless.
Just like Major General Miles, he too had chosen to deal with the most troublesome 'nodes' last.
Without a doubt, it was the old man before him.
With all the previous 'nodes' failing to be destroyed, the knight roughly knew that his chances of success this time were very slim too.
He was just listening. Listening to a piece of history that was about to be completely buried. Listening to the last whispers of a soul.
His task was this: whether he succeeded or not, every single node had to die.
Success would be best, but failure was fine too.
But the 'nodes' had to die.
Even if this was the last one.
Patiently listening to the old man's final words was the last act of mercy he, as a Sacred Law Knight, could offer.
"And then?" The knight's voice remained low.
"Then?" The old man's shriveled lips parted in a grim smile.
"What I said back then was," he mimicked the tone of that bygone era, "if there's something you want, you can buy it, trade for it, steal it, cheat for it, or take it by force."
He paused, his murky gaze seeming to pierce through time, seeing that spirited young man standing before him.
"As long as you feel that what you want... is worth the value of your 'heart'." The old man said.
He stressed the word 'heart' heavily, as if it were the only weight in the world worth measuring.
The knight looked at the old man and felt that he seemed to be getting younger.
A double image appeared before his eyes, the old man's face overlapping with that of a young man.
A young man with golden hair and golden eyes.
It was Mr. Pride.
But younger, more spirited and confident.
The knight immediately tightened his grip on his sword hilt.
As a Sacred Law Knight, he knew he couldn't be hallucinating.
The old man continued.
"And then he told me..." The old man's tone changed, mimicking the young noble's voice from his memory, not noticing why he could remember it so clearly.
"'In that case, there's nothing in this world worth me stealing, cheating for, or taking by force.'"
"That's what he said."
"And I replied:" The old man's voice lowered. "'Of course, you're the City Lord of this city. The entire city is yours. You can certainly have anything you want.'"
"But he said no." The old man shook his head, the movement slow and heavy.
"He wasn't talking about Liand, and he wasn't talking about Liastan either. He said he was talking about this world."
The old man laughed again, a silent laugh, his shoulders shaking slightly as he shook his head with a smile.
"What an arrogant little fellow..."
After saying this, he fell silent with a smile. The entire pawnshop was silent for several seconds, with only the tick-tock of some antique clock echoing in the air.
The laughter faded, and he fell completely silent. The smile froze on his wrinkled face, his eyes gazing blankly at some distant, non-existent point.
The knight's grip on his sword loosened slightly.
"It's been so long..." The old man muttered to himself in a voice no ordinary person could hear.
"Sometimes I feel like only a day has passed, like it all happened yesterday. But then I think again, and it feels like a year has gone by... ten years... even a hundred years."
The 'tick-tock' of the mantel clock continued to sound.
Tick. Tock.
The knight slowly raised his longsword.
"Is this your final farewell?"
Since the old man had fully awakened, there was no need for further negotiation.
The old man looked at the massive raised sword, catching a glimpse of a pair of golden eyes in its polished blade.
His aged face broke into a confident, spirited smile.
"Of course, this isn't my farewell."
His voice echoed with a harmonized quality, as if another younger voice had overlapped with it.
"I won't be leaving any farewell."
His voice was proud, full, and spirited, radiating an incomparable 'Pride'.
His hunched back straightened little by little as he looked at the knight's raised sword.
The knight nodded and said nothing more.
He had kept his sword raised to put pressure on the old man. Regrettably, he had failed.
Up. Down.
The old man faced the sword swinging towards his neck, his expression never changing.
Even as his head hit the floor, that confident, spirited smile remained frozen on his aged face.