บท 22: Murphy's past
After the three hobos have talked and reconciled with each other for a while. Murphy remembered Daniel and turned to where he was.
Daniel was still sitting there on the plastic seat near the shack wreckage. There is a small safe place on the makeshift table that Daniel made from a pile of junk.
Seeing his Metal safe, Murphy let out a smile and excused himself from his friend, and walked toward the metal safe.
Murphy squats down, enters the password for the safe, and opens it. Inside was a small white porcelain urn with a lid on it. On the urn is a picture of a little girl who clearly has Murphy's features.
"Is that…" Daniel was curious but didn't dare to ask.
"Molly, my daughter... She's a lovely girl, just like her mother." Murphy replies, turning the side of the urn with the picture of a little girl so that Daniel can see it.
She was a sweet girl who seemed to be about 10-12 years old. Her innocent smile and charm were well captured in the picture. She seems to be a girl living a happy life.
"My condolences." Said Daniel softly, knowing why her picture was on the urn.
"Thank you." Murphy smiles and hugs the urn as intimately as if he were embracing the living, breathing body of his daughter.
"If...you want to share... I am here to listen. I have a lot of time on my hands anyway." Offers Daniel, knowing that Murphy should feel better if he stays to listen to whatever was going to say about his daughter.
Murphy went silent for a moment before he started the conversation.
"Remember the question you asked me five minutes ago? About the desperation that makes people betray the one they love?" Asked Murphy.
Daniel nodded but said nothing as he waited for Murphy to continue.
"I was once a betrayer in such a scenario as you spoke of," Murphy revealed, and sadness was evident in his eyes as they darkened for a second before returning to his normal expression.
"And this ... is the result." Murphy raises the urn for Daniel to see, indicating that this is the result of his betrayal.
The revelation of Murphy stuns Daniel. He never thought that Murphy would be the one to sell his loved one for something as trivial as money or power. So there must be something more significant that compels him to do this act of betrayal.
"What happened?" Asked Daniel.
"The oldest and tritest trick of the royal family when they want something from their adversary. The false promises, they promise that they will give us a pardon If I were to contact the embassy and then destroy all of the evidence I have that relates to the royal family.
At that time I fled to Europe with my daughter unprepared, all my property and possessions in Tessia were confiscated by the royal family. I have no money except the little I still have in my pocket.
And I had no skills other than those I had acquired in my long career as a police officer. As you know, no immigrant can work in this industry. I could open a private detective agency, but since I still pride myself on never working in a profession that is against the law, I never even considered it.
I want a better future for my daughter, I want her to go to the best school I could find, and I want her to have many good friends. I want her to be surrounded by good people, not the thugs or drug dealers in the slum where I lived when I sought refuge in Europe.
At that time I still trusted in the king's promises. I trust that they will never be false, moreover, it was very easy for them to do so.
I went to the embassy and filled in the form waiting for the contact. I waited for hours until it was evening but no one came. I remember that I need to go back to the apartment since my daughter should be hungry."
Murphy stopped, his face darkening as he looked at the urn, while deep sadness appeared in his eyes. A drop of tears falls on the urn in his embrace.
"I found my daughter's body on the bed with a gunshot wound on her chest. There's no sign of struggle… At least I know that she died without much pain. As for evidence, they can only get the fake one in my apartment as I kept the real one in a different place." Murphy paused and adjusted his emotion.
"Why… Why did they do this?" Daniel asks in disbelief… Killing an innocent child!? Seriously!?
"Because the royal family in this damn country see us only as resources to be exploited, like cattle from which they can harvest the meat. Haven't you heard about the imprisonment of a college student asking the royal family questions about how they're using taxpayers' money to buy their new personal island?
They pin the lesser majesty on those college students' heads, arrest them, and put them in jail without a trial. Do you think that's normal?"
Murphy asked the question with a little anger in his voice then continued.
"The royal family doesn't want any resistance and once someone resists or asks the wrong question. They make sure that those people would suffer, and they won't compromise and whatever promises they made with these people they won't bother to keep it. This is the fuck up nature of this damn country royal family."
Daniel can only nod, agreeing with Murphy's statement.
After a few seconds of silence, Daniel then looked at the urn in Murphy's arms. He remembered that he had designed a card that could revive a creature. He doesn't know if they could be used or not in the real world and when he will get it. But he decides to at least tell Murphy to keep the urn safe.
"Uncle Murphy… Please keep the urn safe." Daniel instructed, then stood up from his seat.
"Of course, why wouldn't I? This is my little girl after all." Murphy smiled and kept the urn in the safe but Daniel stopped him.
"Wait a minute." Daniel then let the metal scarab out but this time they came out with a prismatic orb and dropped it on his hand.
Daniel then commands the metal scarabs to disassemble the safe, melting all of the steel parts and rebuilding it with the technique in his head in creating the artifact.
The steel safe is now a white color, the metallic sheen clearly reflecting the surroundings like a mirror. He then controls the scarab to inscribe the anti-impact rune, which ensures that whatever is stored inside is safe even if the safe is directly hit by an anti-tank warhead.
Daniel also engraved many runes and magic circles he knows into the safe, such as an anti-theft rune that makes it difficult for anyone other than the owner to open the safe, a binding rune in case someone tries to crack or force open the safe, and the rune will bind them like a mummy, a self-charging magic circle for longer operating time, and many other useful runes.
"Artifact class safe, It's just temporary. When I get back to my workshop, I can make a better one for you. Now smash this orb on the safe and it'll remember you as its owner." Daniel said then gave the prismatic orb to Murphy.
Murphy was stunted at the skill Daniel showed him but he regained his wits, grabbed the orb from Daniel, and smashed it into the safe.
The runes and magic circles lighten up for a few seconds and quickly disappear indicating that the safe has been operated.
"Damn...this is so over the top. I bet this safe is safer than a national bank vault." Murphy chuckled when he saw what Daniel had done to the safe.
Murphy was not a magician, but since he was once the police commander of the kingdom of Tessia, he has permission to know about the Curtained World. He has a basic knowledge of how magic works.
And from Murphy's point of view, Daniel having more than three runes and even a magic circle engraved on a single artifact was pretty ridiculous. Because he knows that an average artifact has 1 or 2 runes at most, and he has never seen a magic circle with one rune.
"It's normal, Uncle Murphy, you saved my life after all." Replied Daniel, but then he saw Murphy's confusion show on his face.
"What Are you talking about lad?" Asked Murphy.
"Huh? C'mon, Didn't you save my life, the day when I woke up in your shack?" Daniel states, but Murphy shook his head in denial.
"You've misunderstood. It's not me who saves your life. It's that shy girl in a brown hood who brought you to me before she went somewhere to remove the trace about you and prevent anyone who may follow you." Said, Murphy.
"What!?" Daniel exclaimed.
Murphy's revelation made Daniel wince, but then the figure of Wrath appeared in his mind. Before, he was 60% sure Wrath was his former girlfriend, but now he was 80% sure.
Except for that one time when she had lured him to that ritual site 10 years ago. She never wronged him, not once, even under massive pressure from her agency she never gave in or compromised when it came to him.
And from what he heard from Murphy, if it's her, she might be crazy enough to resurrect someone, but since it should be an almost impossible feat even if it's magic. It took 10 years for her to pull it off.
[But then, does that mean his power came from her? No that wouldn't be since she doesn't know a thing about the cards and her surprise when she saw the Artifact for the first time was not fake. She might resurrect me or at least know something about it, but the power should come from a different source.]
He doesn't know what she experienced during these past 10 years that made her become a mage and gain the title of the Witch Of Wrath. He imagined that it would be anything but simple.
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