章節 15: Ryo's Thoughts
Ryo pushed open the door to the Gate Inn and stepped inside, brushing off bits of dew that had gathered on him from the late night condensation. The smell of meat and ale filled his nostrils instantly and his face was met with the warm of a strong log fire that was coming from the kitchen. The eating hall was fully laid out with wooden tables and benches, and what seemed like the occupants of the rooms were now there tucking into their meals.
Mosa could be seen handing dish after dish out of the kitchen to hungry customers, while there were a few new girls that Ryo had not seen before going round from table to table serving drinks and plates of food. Ryo raised a brow at the sight, because it had been a bit busier now than he'd thought it would be. Shrugging his shoulders, he turned to make his way to the stairs when he was met with Martha's smiling face all up in his own all of a sudden.
He stood there, keeping eye contact with her for a few seconds before giving her a pointed tilt of his head.
"What do you want?" He asked her.
"A nice little 'Hello Martha' would be a good way to start." She said, smiling cutely at him.
"Hello Martha." He said as politely as possible. "May I go to my room now?"
"You're not going to eat?" She cocked her head to the tables and in the direction of the kitchen.
"I ate out." He said simply as he walked past her.
Martha followed him with her eyes as he began to ascend the stairs.
"Still as untalkative as ever." She commented as she put her hand over her mouth to amplify the sound of her voice over the loud chatter. "Well if you want something, you can call for me you know? We serve to rooms as well."
Ryo paused for a moment before he turned around and stared at her.
"You do that?" He questioned.
"For special guests like you..." She winked at him while holding her chin with her index finger and holding her serving tray under her ample bosom as she looked up at him. It was some sort of pose that was supposed to be appealing he assumed. "...at least, I do it. People like you who spend so much money in advance are given privileged treatment."
"Privileged treatment." Ryo repeated with a small smirk. "Are there any other examples?"
"I refilled your firewood and cleaned your room anyway while you were out." Martha said as she wound up her arm. "All part of a good day's work."
"...I suppose I should thank you then." Ryo said. "I'll be going to sleep now so don't disturb me for anything."
"Okay." She replied cheerily as she waved at him. "Sleep tight, and don't let the bugs bite! Not that we have any mind you."
Ryo shook his head, actually feeling amused for some reason by this girl's childish antics. Perhaps it was the satisfaction of killing that prostitute earlier. Murder always did have him in high spirits for a short while afterwards...it also felt like it gave him a tiny burst in power too considering the elevated levels of cursed energy in the air upon a person's death. Ryo turned towards the staircase and began going up again, only to pause once more and so suddenly as well that Martha became confused.
"Everything alright Ryo?" She asked inquisitively. "Is there something you need after all?"
"...Hey." He said softly as he looked over his shoulder back at her. "Have you been feeling alright today?"
"Huh? What kind of question is that?" Martha raised a brow as she rubbed her nape. "Yeah, I guess."
"No tiredness or anything? Any lapses of fatigue?" Ryo further inquired.
"I think I'd remember that if I did." Martha smiled at his 'concern' before she frowned and rethought upon her words. "Well come to think of it, my back has felt real kind of stiff today."
"Stiff?" This time it was Ryo's turn to raise a brow.
"Yeah, like there's a heavy weight clinging to me or something." She said rolled her neck around. "My shoulders feel all locked up too and my collarbone clicks a lot when I stretch. I haven't done any pack lifting recently so I don't know why it's playing up. Maybe I'm just stressed or something. It has been a busy few days after all."
"I suppose." Ryo replied.
Martha watched his gaze upon her and noticed a bit of a piqued interest on his end towards...something. When she focused on him a little more, she began to doubt whether or not he was actually looking at her. In fact, she could have almost sworn that he was staring at something over her shoulder. She turned around to see if there was anything there but was met with nothing but the front door from which he just came.
"Something wrong Ryo?" She asked.
"Nothing in particular." He said. "Just do make sure to get some rest alright? I can appreciate a hard worker, but I don't think your mother would approve of you being overworked."
"I beg to differ considering all the stuff she gets me to do." Martha put her hands on her hip. "But anyway, she's got a killer talent for back massages. I'll ask for her help later. You know, you should also try it at some point."
"I'll keep it in mind." Ryo said as he walked up the stairs and began walking across the landing that cut right across the room and into the upstairs. "Night Martha."
"Night Ryo." She waved at him one last time before walking to a new table that had just been occupied.
The Spirit came to a momentary pause as he looked over the railing onto the eating area below and looked at Martha one more time. Though this time he was using something else alongside his normal sight to see. For only he could see it as both a Spirit and a sorcerer himself, qualities that these mortals below him didn't have.
Wound around Martha's neck was a strange creature whose body was more tail than anything else with two arms that held onto her shoulders. It's head was shaped like a diamond and two googly eyes stuck out of its head as it looked right back at him, making odd and yet stupid noises that only he could hear. As prominent as a presence to him, the people below could neither hear nor see it. It was a creature that was part of a world hidden to most mortals.
"Fly Head." Ryo muttered before he continued onwards to his room. "So...they're already spawning. Strange. It's much quicker this time."
Ryo was not unused to the sight of seeing other Cursed Spirits due to the many happenings over his life time, and all the encounters he'd gone through. Well...encounters was just a generous term he used to describe the times he'd go hunting those creatures. He'd needed battle experience after all and because Curses would stay away from him thanks to his high output of CE, it was not probable that he'd just stumble into one. In order to battle one, he had to seek it out.
The only exceptions were either when a Curse was too stupid to run or when it had found a suitable human to leech off of. Such as the Fly Head currently giving Martha difficult time at the moment. By itself, it couldn't really do her any real harm besides just make her work a little harder. Amongst Curses, it was the weakest of its kind. But still, Ryo would have given it a good few more days before he started seeing other Cursed Spirits.
...
It was of little concern though, as he thought to himself while throwing a log into his fireplace. His clothes were thrown across the table and he sat in the chair across from the fire while garbed in just a dressing gown as he held a cup of steaming hot cocoa in his hands which he bought from the system. Raising it to his lips, he appreciated the warm smoothness, and the silky sweetness touched with just a hint of bitterness.
His first day in Orario had been nothing more than a success in many areas. He'd already procured for himself a servant in the high ranks of the Guild, attained a title deed to quite a pivotal location in this world, and he'd already been in the Dungeon and seen what it had to offer. Though Ryo was not here for the excitement of adventure mainly, it would also be fun to fight monsters from time to time purely for the sake of it.
He was ever slowly coming closer to an old, yet stolen dream of his. An ambition and an aspiration left over from a time he'd once been flesh and vulnerable, a leftover piece that gave his new existence meaning and a bedrock upon which his 'contract', his leased abilities had been built upon. For all Ryo did not care for humans anymore than he did a maggot on a pile of excrement, he was still capable of drawing very human-like pleasure just from following his desires.
It would be worth seeing the effect of otherworldly, stat boosting food on adventurers from here on out.
---
"Hey dude." A man with a pair of binoculars said to his friend sitting behind him. "I've got a question."
Said friend was at the moment fiddling around with a bunch of wires and plugs, connecting them to each other as he threw long coils of cable down the edge of the cliff they were camping on. In about roughly two klicks ahead of them was a large bridge that connected one mountain to another over a large ravine.
"Are you going to waste my time with this particular question of yours Chilvers?"
"You know, it's rude to answer a question with another question." Chilvers chuckled as he took his eyes off the binoculars.
"Then let's drop this conversation and focus on the job at hand." The man said without even looking at Chilvers.
"You've got nothing to worry about Ryder." Chilvers said. "The poor bastard and his convoy aren't due for a few minutes yet. We can chat while we wait."
"I'd rather we finish the job." Ryder replied. "Then you can flap your jowls to your hearts content."
"I'm not fat." Chilvers grumbled before smirking. "But I know you well mate. You'll get curious and ask me yourself eventually. It's probably the one thing that the brass wouldn't like about you if they knew."
A few moments passed before Ryder's fiddling lessened to a degree and he sighed in exasperation before turning to Chilvers.
"Alright. What do you want?"
"Told you." Chilvers smirked before sitting a little more upright. "Have you ever given thought to what you might have done...you know, if they hadn't just snatched us up first to do the dirty for them?"
"Why are you asking me that?" Ryder asked as he flicked on a small box and watched the numbers on it go up. "You thinking of retiring?"
"Honestly, maybe." Chilvers shrugged. "I mean, we've been through enough operations to learn how to just...'blend' in if you know what I mean. With our resumes, it won't be that hard to get a job and do something else for once instead of all the BS we're doing now."
"BS you say." Ryder said grimly as he turned to his friend with a serious look. "You know what those idiots with sticks up their asses would do if they heard you speaking like that."
"Who cares about them?" Chilvers rolled his eyes. "I'm not a grass and you ain't either. But my point is this...we're about to just kill a dude by blowing up the bridge under him. All because he stands in the way of a few pricks in pinstripe suits all the way back home who want to take power through political stooges in this guy's country, so they can siphon away resources at little cost and sell it at high prices to people like us. I mean sure we get paid good and all that, but they basically just take it all away with how they're bumping up all the prices even though they're pulling in tons more stock." Chilvers shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just saying, don't you ever feel like doing something different than all this? We're just filling the pockets of people who already have more money than their great great grandkids would know what to do with and they still want more while not wanting to share any with us."
"Does this have anything to do with that woman you've been seeing?" Ryder asked him knowingly. "You scared she might flip if she finds out what you really do for a living?"
"I just want a life of my own now." Chilvers said as he leaned back. "I'm tired of just moving from one place to another and blowing crap up or spiking people's drink and having to torture naked men for information. Is that too much to ask?"
"That is a rhetorical question." Ryder said as he snapped off a berry from a nearby bush and popped it in his mouth, wincing slightly at the bitter unripe taste. "The company will never just let us go that easily. And frankly, as a friend to another, I think you signed your death certificate the moment you began seeing that girl."
"I'm already halfway through my thirties." Chilvers said as he threw a pebble over the edge of the cliff and watched it clatter into a ravine. He then reached into his camouflage pocket and pulled out a fag to puff on. "And besides, it's better than all that anime crap you're into."
"I need some way to pass my time." Ryder reasoned before raising a brow. "Better than going and creating weaknesses that could be used against you. You're a fool if you think they don't know about her. And on account of your dumb ass, she's going to get hurt."
"I've saved up enough and I've made connections." Chilvers said as he puffed and tapped away some ashes. "I'll be long gone before that happens. And anyway, back to the topic, I've always wanted to be a sailor. Or I'd even settle as a waiter or something on one of those posh cruises that go between Europe and Africa now and then. You know those ones?"
"You just want to be at sea." Ryder deadpanned.
"Yeah, with the fresh wind in my face and the emptiness of the deep around me."
"You realise you'd be spending a whole lot of time away from your lady love, right?"
"We'll get used to it." Chilvers said as he finished his joint and threw that over the edge of the cliff too. "So, what about you? Before our parents decided money was worth a lot more than their own kids, what would you have become?"
"...I guess, I'd want to be a chef." Ryder said.
"What? Like world famous type or something? Master Chef? Gordon Ramsay, Pierre White or Harriot type?"
"Nah, Fanny Cradock." Ryder rolled his eyes, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Obviously not. I'd probably just want to open some tiny restaurant in a place like Malaysia or somewhere, preferably a beach town. I'd sell steak and tartar by day, and swing on a hammock under the mango tree, sleeping the night away." Ryder then sighed as he clicked a few more buttons on his contraption before holding up a detonator switch in his hand. "Unfortunately for people like us, we don't get to have that choice."
"Sure we do. We just have to take it ourselves." Chilvers said. "Come on man. Just last week, you had to put a bullet through the head of a 'three year old girl', a baby for Pete's sake! Aren't you sick and tired of it?"
"I'm good at what I do and I get paid good for doing it." Ryder said as he noticed the armoured convoy they'd been waiting for finally begin to cross the bridge. "It's a dog eat dog world out here Chilvers. A battle for survival...the kind of people we work for aren't just ones you can walk away from. You stand with them, you get to keep breathing. Go against them..." There was click of a switched as Ryder pressed the detonator in his hand. "...and you die."
...
A moment later, there was an eruption of fire, debris and soot, and explosions began blasting across different parts under the bridge across which the convoy with their political target was travelling across. In one fell swoop, the support for the bridges were completely taken out and the bridge collapsed in on itself as it took the vehicles with it down to the abyss below where they would most certainly smash to pieces amongst the rocks down there. And even if they didn't survive that, there was a river at the bottom which would wash them away, a river known to be infested with certain things.
One way or another, death was guaranteed. Chilvers sighed, though numb to the destruction they'd caused, he was still fed up of just having cleaned out another person who just wanted to protect his people from the likes of them.
"You'd better stop your prattle about wanting to leave." Ryder said seriously to Chilvers as he hoisted his backpack on his shoulders, ready to vacate the scene and to their truck hidden in the jungle nearby. "If the brass hear about it, I might one day have to put a bullet through your head. And though I wouldn't really care, that is one kill I'd rather not have to make."
"You think you can do it?" Chilvers lifted a brow at his friend.
"...I already have." Ryder smirked suddenly, which set off alarm bells in the head of Chilvers as he noticed Ryder holding a vine in his hand.
Ryder pulled on the vine, and suddenly Chilvers felt the ground collapse beneath him. As the man with the binoculars, he'd had to be on the very edge of the cliff to spy out on the bridge, and he'd actually been resting on a slab of rock that was jutting out of the cliff face. But vines had grown through that rock and weakened its sitting over time.
So Ryder had only needed to pull on one vine while he kept his now former friend talking and distracted, and that had been enough to dislodge the rock, with Chilvers' weight adding to the rock tumbling off the edge of the cliff...and taking the other assassin with it. Chilver's heart lurched as he went tumbling off the edge of the cliff and into the drop below, his gaze fixated on the indifferent face of whom he'd thought to be his one friend in this life of blood and dishonesty.
But even amidst the pain of that betrayal, Chilvers smirked to himself. Because if he was being honest with himself, that was exactly the kind of thing Ryder would do. At least he'd let him have a smoke before he offed him like this. So now as he fell to his death, Chilvers could do nothing but lament the fact that his trust had cost him the life he'd been planning to have with that dancer he'd met a few months back.
...
Ryder watched his colleague fall until the body became a blood spatter on the rocks below before pulling out a radio and speaking into it.
"Pale Snake calling Mother Hen. Targets neutralized...BOTH of them."
---
Ryo opened his eyes again, escaping from the reminiscence of times long past to see he'd completely downed his cocoa absentmindedly. Having been lost in his thoughts, he'd not been able to savour the taste of his treat enough.
Of course this could not stand...so he ordered another one off the grocery system immediately alongside a box of stuffed doughnuts. He ate his treats, making sure to this time take note of the flavours while he watched the flames inside his fireplace burn the wood within down to embers. Flashbacks gave much to reflect upon after all and if there was one thing he could say about himself...
...was that he'd not really changed. He was as he'd always been, just more dangerous now that he had powers.
Chilvers had been a good friend but the idiot should have known better. And because of his choices, he was still dead while Ryo could now roam free. Ryo had to follow orders for his self preservation...but if nothing else, then to honour the friendship with Chilvers, he'd make sure he lived this new life of his well enough for the both of them, and make his restaurant the best in this whole damn city.
There was work to do.
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