TFOA Chapter 31

Mark Richter. A name impossible to forget.

That happened over ten years ago.

"Huff... huff..."

Urgh. The boy collapsed on the ground, dry heaving.

Nothing but stomach acid came up from his empty stomach.

Heat rose to his hands, throat, and head, but everything was chilled cold by the pouring monsoon rain.

The boy crawled on his belly and peered down the cliff below.

The river water had swollen black from ten straight days of downpours.

If anyone fell to this place, no one would be safe.

Even if breath remained, with the current churning so ferociously, the body could not stay whole.

They'd be torn apart or drown in the end.

Especially that man with the limp... surely...

The boy swallowed dry saliva.

His burning palms ached.

Palms drenched in blood. Flowing guilt.

The boy scrubbed his hands frantically in the stagnant muddy water.

No matter how much he scrubbed and scrubbed, the dark red would not erase.

And then he escaped that place as if fleeing.

"Hey, kid."

Rolling and tumbling as he ran down the mountain, his clothes torn to shreds, he finally arrived at the foothills.

The first person he encountered was the young officer Carl, who had been stirring up the village for the past few days.

He instinctively caught the metallic scent coming from the boy.

And he also noticed that the boy before his eyes possessed an eerily glinting gaze that could not be seen in ordinary people.

"...What's your name?"

"..."

Hidden by his filthy appearance, but that wasn't something that could be hidden just by hiding it.

Those eyes were the eyes of a beast that had lost its humanity after harming someone.

Carl swung his baton and struck the boy with a thud. The boy fell backward with a thump.

"I'm asking again. What's your name?"

"Gilbert!"

Just then, someone came running along the wet dirt path.

The man who came rushing desperately, not even realizing his umbrella had flipped inside out, embraced the fallen boy.

"Do you know how much I searched for you? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have scolded you so harshly this morning!"

The man who cupped the boy's face with exaggerated hand gestures roughly rubbed the boy's grimy face with his thick, large hands.

Carl raised an eyebrow.

"Who are you?"

"Oh my, Officer sir. Did our child do something wrong...?"

"Our child?"

The officer asked back in a voice crooked and thorny with barbs.

The man's voice was familiar - he was an acquaintance.

A man with curly brown hair and a kindhearted smile. Always grinning that easygoing smile, the type that drained people's spirits just by looking at it.

"Jeremiah Grace."

"Yes, Officer, sir."

He put his baton back. Carl found this type of human troublesome to handle.

When you approached to get information, they'd act stupid and good-natured, giving you nothing while making you irritated - weren't there such people?

This smiling type would hand you a handkerchief even if you spat in their face.

"...This brat is your son?"

"Yes. He's our eldest, but did something happen?"

The boy looked at Jeremiah who was embracing him tightly.

"...Keep a good eye on your child. That kid reeks of blood."

"Oh dear. During the rainy season, my nose gets blocked so..."

"Don't be an idiot. I'm not saying it like that. Your son has the eyes of a beast that killed a person."

"Oh, of course! This one's been going through puberty lately, so he's been a bit moody. Please understand."

"Tch."

Still making him speechless. The officer turned around.

And...

"What would Mr. Richter do if he knew that what he thought he had eliminated was perfectly alive and well?"

Gilbert snapped out of his old memories.

Somehow, he and the painter were standing in front of Benjamin's house having this conversation. Benjamin muttered as if chewing over the question.

"If what he thought he had eliminated is still perfectly intact..."

"Yes."

Mark Richter. That hateful hunter.

Certainly ten years ago, that man fell off the cliff and died.

He had pushed him directly, and heard the news of his death directly as well.

But now, that man's traces were beginning to emerge one by one.

And gradually from his surroundings, as if hoping he would notice that he was alive.

Like something that tightened around his neck each time he moved his body, unaware he was caught.

"...I won't believe it until I confirm it with my own eyes."

The painter said.

"...Is that so?"

"..."

"You're strong, Mr. Richter."

"..."

"I'm not like that."

From the time he saw the man's crutch and shotgun in the basement, his heart had been beating as if it would burst.

That bastard is alive. That bastard is here.

"I'm going to kill that son of a..."

At that moment, from far away came the sound of a bell announcing the hour.

Gilbert lifted his head, escaping from his thoughts. It was time for him to step forward for the village patrol that would begin today.

The blonde neighbor had been making a fuss about joining together, so if he didn't arrive on time, she might run around the entire neighborhood shouting that Gilbert had disappeared.

"...I'll be going. We decided to do village patrol starting today."

"I see."

Gilbert left his house yard with diligent steps.

Only belatedly did the thought occur to him that he had failed to ask the painter not to speak about the basement.

But he had already come too far to return to his house.

Moreover, he had rattled off things he would never say even when drunk, and even he didn't have the courage to shamelessly visit that house again right now.

'I definitely wasn't in my right mind.'

I need to get my head together.

Smack!

Gilbert struck both his cheeks loudly with his hands. Then he thought of Jeremiah Grace.

His kindhearted face. His always unhurried way of walking. His chuckling voice.

Father.

He lifted his head again. He was his usual self.

After the officer came to Auvers, he began stirring up the village in earnest.

He went around the village patrolling, and interrogated the village people about whether there were any suspicious signs.

They knew that when an unwelcome outsider barged in, their peacefulness would be broken, but they hadn't expected it to become this unsettling.

Niksi was nibbling on chickpeas at Raul's bar table.

"The village is too depressed these days. The people and the atmosphere both."

"Things did get serious. Plus it's almost the rainy season so the weather's gloomy too."

"Ughhhhh."

Niksi, who heard the sound of rain, collapsed on the table.

She was someone who hated humid things.

For her, the news of rain pouring day and night for several days was as desperate a sentence as a cicada born in the rainy season.

"Still, I didn't think it would get this serious..."

That's because the Auvers she knew was closer to a place where people would unite and beat down the culprit, whether it was wild beasts or humans. Not being hushed and dejected like this.

"I only heard about it myself too. They say there was a big incident in Auvers long ago."

Raul, who had been wiping glasses, said.

"An incident?"

"Yes. I heard that before the war, outsiders who came to visit Auvers were getting hurt and disappearing. At that time Officer Carl was assigned to Auvers and tried to solve the case, but in the end they couldn't find the culprit and the case ended inconclusively. The village people are probably being careful because they're reminded of that time."

'Someone getting hurt and disappearing.'

A chickpea that had been nibbled at with her fork escaped the plate and rolled across the table.

"I see."

Outside the window, hazy clouds laden with rain drifted by, just as Raul had said.

The wind that wouldn't blow even in the blazing heat now blew bleakly.

It was the water-soaked wind from before rain.

If the rainy season was coming soon, what was there to do?

Check if the ground was solid and clear the waterways.

Also set up supports so the peppers and cabbages wouldn't get swept away, and since there was no answer for those planted in low places, pray for their souls.

"This isn't good."

"No, it isn't."

Whether this situation or that situation, nothing was good.

She thought she should get moving before her body was drained by the sound of rain.

The officer decided to stay on the second floor of the village hall until the case was resolved.

Although he disliked the officer, Gilbert, as the village head, placed a gray blanket left in his house on the officer's bed.

The officer stared piercingly at Gilbert as he moved leisurely.

Before long, Gilbert finished arranging the bedding and looked toward where the officer was.

"If there's anything else you need, please let me know."

The face that smiled gracefully as he said this was exactly the same as the man with curly brown hair from long ago.

He wanted to spit in that face.

"I've been working all day and my stomach is empty. Isn't there anything to eat?"

"Food, you mean?"

Gilbert had not the slightest intention of cooking for him.

So he took the officer to Raul's bar.

Never dreaming what would happen there.

He ordered three dishes even though he couldn't possibly finish them all.

Goldfish and puppies are creatures that die from their stomachs bursting because they can't measure their own capacity - shouldn't this officer be included among them? Gilbert thought this while laughing heartily.

Raul signaled to Gilbert with his eyes that he would take care of hosting appropriately.

Inside the bar where gentle jazz flowed.

Normally you would have heard the sounds of clinking glasses and giggling laughter at trivial jokes.

But with the appearance of one officer whose basic attitude was looking down on people, tension circulated in the pub.

The food came out, and Carl picked up his fork while grumbling.

"Isn't the portion too small?"

"If you want to eat more, please let me know. I'll give you more anytime."

Raul spoke obsequiously.

At the same time, the pub door burst open.

"Raul! I forgot to give you money earlier and left! I brought a customer while coming to pay!"

The noisy blonde neighbor. It was Niksi, dragging the painter's hand as she entered.

"Oh. I was wondering where everyone had gone - you're all gathered here. Gilbert, hello!"

She waved her hand casually toward Gilbert. Gilbert also waved his hand awkwardly toward her.

"What brings you at this time, Benjamin?"

"Don't ask me since I don't know either..."

Benjamin muttered with a troubled face at Raul's question.

"Two dark beers and one sausage platter!"

Niksi called out cheerfully.

The officer looked toward the noisy bar entrance, following Gilbert's gaze.

The blonde woman was someone he had never seen before, and the man standing next to her was a man he had encountered once on the street.

'I haven't seen those two in the village. Do they live somewhere a bit removed?'

He could see that the villagers acknowledged them but seemed somehow reluctant.

'They seem glad to see them but are wary?'

Two contradictory, incompatible atmospheres.

The officer wasn't one to miss such subtle reactions.

Most importantly, Gilbert Grace, who hid his hostility toward him while pretending to smile cleanly with his black heart, showed a momentary expression of relief when he saw them.

The blonde woman and the man with a stiff impression.

They would be good material for digging into Gilbert Grace.

"Now that I think about it."

The officer spoke up.

"Everyone in the Grace family died except you, right?"

The bar instantly turned cold. You couldn't even hear the sound of someone drinking water.

Carl felt that the blonde woman and beige-haired man sitting at the window table were looking this way.

Gilbert's good-natured expression began to crack slightly.

'As expected, that information was correct.'

The officer sipped his drink nonchalantly.

"You have no relatives either, so you're the only one left in the Grace family."

"..."

"You must be happy to inherit such a large fortune."

Gilbert grabbed the officer by the collar.

Crash!

Dishes and empty glasses fell to the floor, and the bar became a complete mess in an instant.

"Gilbert, calm down!"

Bar owner Raul quickly reached between them to intervene.

The villagers watching them also all rose from their seats.

Carl, whose collar was being grabbed, remained calm.

'Now you look just like you did back then. I was sick of you pretending to be nice.'

He looked with interest at the man who seemed ready to strike him at any moment.

The young man's sharply upturned eyes were exactly the same as when Carl first saw the boy long ago.

Even after ten years had passed, they hadn't changed at all.

Indeed, people don't change.

He had gathered information while stirring up the village for the past few days.

The fairly useful information the officer had collected in the village - most of it was things related to Gilbert Grace.

Gilbert Grace's childhood.

The Grace family members dying in the bombing.

The boy who, at just twenty, barely an adult, had to guard all those fields and houses alone.

Gilbert Grace, who became village head at a young age with his characteristic affability.

Carl thought the culprit of both the incident ten years ago and this current incident was Gilbert Grace.

He whispered briefly in Gilbert's ear.

"You. Do you know a hunter named Mark Richter? A hunter with a limp in one leg."

Gilbert's eyes trembled faintly at those words.

'He knows him.'

Carl twisted Gilbert's hand away sharply and straightened his wrinkled collar.

The people around who had expected a fight stirred restlessly.

"Why are you looking at me like that? As if it's something I shouldn't know about."

"...Why do you ask about that person?"

"We became friends when I met him in my hometown. He said he really wanted to meet someone who lives here. I thought Gilbert Grace, being the village head... might know him."

"..."

"You do know him, don't you?"

"That bastard..."

Really.

"Is he... alive?"

The officer raised one corner of his mouth.

"Why? Should he have died?"

Indeed, Gilbert Grace was the culprit of the incident ten years ago. Carl was certain.

"You know."

Niksi chewed on her fork.

"Don't you really want to beat up that guy?"

Though her tone was light as if joking around, her pupils were dilated.

One wrong move and the missile called Niksi might launch. Benjamin put down his glass.

"Do you know what might happen if you mess with an officer?"

"What do I care? That person messed with my friend."

"You'd get arrested."

"There's a way."

Eventually Niksi shot up from her seat. It was the beginning of a revolution.

"Hey."

With her single word, countless people split in two.

Carl flinched at people's sudden movements and turned his head.

The identity of the one who had split the humans in half - it was just a woman who came up to about his chin level. One of those who had greeted Gilbert earlier.

Niksi walked toward him step by step.

From the 3cm thick-soled sandals she wore came what sounded like an elephant's footsteps.

"My my. Did you call me, young lady?"

"..."

"Hm? You should give me an answer."

The officer looked at the woman walking toward him with her waist straight and chuckled.

She had probably expected him to be flustered like a country bumpkin when called out boldly with that sharp voice. Looking at how her mouth was frozen and words wouldn't even come out.

"Looking at you, you seem to be around the same age as this friend. Are you trying to take your friend's side?"

"..."

"Sure. At that age, you can do that. It's a time when your blood is overflowing. But miss, your friend isn't someone worth you taking his side. So..."

Looking carefully, her face was quite nicely formed. Her glossy, deep blonde hair and slightly tanned but still spotless skin too.

He had said he'd never seen her in the village, and she seemed like some clueless outsider who had come to play in the village.

'That's why she's acting so arrogant.'

"Get lost before that pretty face gets damaged."

'Her eyes have gone crooked.'

Benjamin sipped his drink while watching the scene.

As soon as the officer finished speaking, Niksi's footsteps came to an abrupt stop.

When her footsteps stopped, the villagers' Adam's apples gulped.

"You."

Niksi's finger landed gently on the officer's shoulder.

To the officer's eyes, it felt relatively like a butterfly's legs tickling flower petals, but it looked different to Gilbert's eyes.

It was like looking at the sucker of a Venus flytrap.

Niksi leaned her body slightly against the officer and whispered quietly.

"...Do you know who I am?"

The painter couldn't bear to listen and buried his face in his hands.

"Who... who are you?"

"..."

With her cat-like upturned eyes approaching him, the officer had expected a prickly response.

His face changed color moment by moment at the woman's unexpectedly sultry gestures.

"Don't you know... who I am?"

Her voice, seeming regretful with a sigh, tickled the officer's nape.

Gilbert squeezed his eyes shut at the sight too unbearable to watch with both eyes open.

The officer lifted his reddened face and nodded a couple of times.

Just as he was about to.

The officer realized that his sideburns felt refreshingly cool. As if an incredibly large wind had blown.

What could that be, he turned his eyes to that place.

Near the officer's temple, Niksi's sandal platform was placed.

Crack!

The moment of realization was already too late.

Niksi kicked the officer's head with a spinning back kick.

The officer's head, flying like a comet, was instantly driven into the floor, creating a large crater in the ground.

Raul's pub floor, made of wooden planks, was completely shattered.

The villagers gasped like circus audience members.

In the breathtaking silence, only the echo of the officer's head striking the ground reverberated.

Niksi grabbed the hand of Gilbert, who was squeezing his eyes shut.

"Did you hear that, Gil? He says he doesn't know who I am."

Gilbert's olive eyes were filled with his yellow neighbor.

"Let's run!"

She grabbed his hand and rushed out of the pub.

It was a scene like a reckless lovers' escape.

"..."

"Niksi did something good there."

"Indeed she did."

"That noisy bastard. He kept bothering the village, stirring things up. I knew this would happen."

The remaining villagers clicked their tongues and sat back down.

Grandmother Charlotte, who had been drinking health juice near the entrance, also put down the hammer she'd been holding.

Farmer Colette from the corn field and Remy, the owner of the second hen eaten by beagles, laughed and joked.

"The young ones are all taking the lead, so us old folks have no chance to join in."

"That's right. But what about that officer?"

"Let's leave him to cool his head."

The villagers raised toasts, each mimicking "Do you know who I am?" and "Who~!" whether the officer was lying on the floor or not.

Raul put the hammer he had borrowed from Grandmother Charlotte back into the tool drawer.

"Or maybe the bar owner, who says difficult customers are still customers, will handle it well. Right, bartender?"

"Haha, you're being too much. If it doesn't make money, I don't treat troublemakers as customers either."

Raul wiped the table.

Though it was food ordered by an unwelcome customer, his masterpiece Eggs in Hell plate was cleanly empty.

A restaurant owner's happiness comes from empty plates. Raul smiled with satisfaction.

"She smashed him quite cleanly."

Benjamin walked to the counter, avoiding the legs of the officer sprawled on the floor.

Her technique was so clean that she had precisely split three floor planks lined up side by side in a straight line. Yet there wasn't a single drop of blood flowing from his head.

'That woman... could she actually be from special forces?'

While he was pondering, Raul happened to be taking out the cheapest wine from the cabinet.

"Oh, Benjamin."

"The bill."

Benjamin paid for the two dark beers and sausage platter that his unfriendly neighbor had ordered without permission. Having offered to buy but ending up extorted, he felt bitter.

"Wait a moment. Heave-ho."

Raul flipped the cleanly fainted officer over so his face faced the ceiling, then stuck the cheap wine in his mouth.

Benjamin watched the scene with his arms folded.

"Gilbert has good luck with people. Don't you think?"

"Well... it seemed that way."

Right next to him a good-natured young man was chuckling, so it wouldn't have been visible to the officer's hyena-like slit eyes... When the young village head grabbed the officer's collar, the villagers were each gripping crude tools tightly in their hands.

Forks, wine glasses, pickled herring. The chihuahua Happy.

Vicious things that would have flown at the officer's head if there had been any scuffle.

"This officer seems to be digging into Gilbert's past. According to the village elders, it seems this guy is tormenting Gilbert out of spite for failing to solve the 'tourist disappearance incident' from ten years ago."

"Don't tell me about it. I have no interest... But maybe stop feeding him that now."

"Ah. I forgot about it. Thanks."

Raul popped the wine out of the officer's mouth.

With this, the perfect crime was complete.

The incident Raul had just made up on the spot was like this:

A very, extremely drunk officer got caught on the floor and fell over. Unfortunately he crashed head-first and fainted just like that.

But how hard was his head! A hole got drilled in the floor.

Bar owner Raul planned to charge him a total of 300 euros for costs of drinks, floor repair, and compensation for the bar owner's mental shock.

"How about it, Benjamin?"

"...I must never get entangled with you in a creditor-debtor relationship."

Whatever the truth was, whether it was the neighbor whose eyes had gone crazy because someone bothered her friend, or the bar owner who made the officer drink alcohol to hide that neighbor's crime scene, he could tell.

Definitely, none of them were in their right minds.