Deer and trap
“It’s dangerous, so lock the door···.”
I tried to tell Hannah to be careful before leaving the bar, but she was taking something out from under the counter table.
The gesture was as natural as taking out change or a rag. However, what he was holding in his hand was not a rag, but a large axe.
Hannah placed a large axe on the table, took a moment to catch her breath, then reached down again and took out another one.
‘···crossbow?’
It was a crossbow, although it was small and crude.
Crossbows were similar to guns of this era.
Of course, it was blocked by thick iron armor, but since it was rare to see someone armed like that, the crossbow was something that could definitely be sent.
“Huh? What did Aaron say?”
Hanna, who was walking with the crossbow string like Kanna, tilted her head and asked.
Kanna wiped the part where the bow was inserted into the sleeve.
“···no.”
Hannah was a woman who ran a tavern alone.
I waved my hand, thinking that I had worried for nothing.
“Oh, the canoe has a see-through function, so if someone knocks on it, tell them to look.”
I told Hannah about the hidden security feature in my mini fridge. It was only as good as a front door spyglass, but it was better than nothing.
“Yeah! Aaron, take care! Kanna, I have to say hello.”
“Have a nice trip···.”
The sight of the two waving hands was truly peaceful.
“Brother, I’m here to protect you two···.”
I grabbed the ear of the weasel that was waving its hand next to them and went outside.
Thud thud.
Thick raindrops roughly beat against my whole body.
The rain was pouring down so hard that the alley in the distance was obscured from view.
‘It was clear earlier. This is really fucking crazy.’
He clicked his tongue at him and pulled the leather belt near the seam of his breastplate, tightening it.
The cool iron pressed against me and the rainwater that had seeped in between was pushed back.
“Captain, are you here?”
Berman greeted me, running his hands through his soaking wet hair. With his freckles, he looked like a wet strawberry.
“What about the rest of them?”
“The grass went to headquarters and the rest are over there.”
Berman pointed to the side with his finger.
When he turned his head, he saw Kel and Brick talking side by side, holding umbrellas. Kel had an umbrella with a rose on it, and Brick had a white umbrella with a stain on it.
Kel playfully poked Brick in the ribs while saying something, and Brick quirked the corners of his mouth in response.
“Hey, bring that.”
“Yes? Captain, this is Rosa’s.”
“Bring it, honey.”
“Rosa gave it to me···.”
Kel grumbled and held out his umbrella.
“Why is it so small?”
“I told you it was Rosa. You can’t break it, Captain.”
“I understand. What do you mean by this person?”
The umbrella was so small that my shoulders got wet even though I used it.
Berman snatched Brick’s umbrella and shared it with him.
Brick grinned, wondering what was good about it, even though his right shoulder was soaking wet, and Berman frowned and kicked Brick in the shin.
“evil!”
Brick grabbed his shins and jumped through the rain.
I clicked my tongue at the stupid sight and headed to headquarters.
“Whew… We all escaped. Captain.”
Kel, who had come in from under the umbrella, said, wiping the rain from his face with his hand.
“How many people were there?”
“There are thirteen.”
“That’s why I told you to change the wooden shackles to thicker ones. Anyway, I was trying to save some money.”
“It was broken last time, so we replaced it. But one of them gnawed at the wooden chain with his teeth and escaped.”
“You ate that thick thing? Are you a beaver?”
“Huh? What’s a beaver?”
“No. So?”
At that moment, a weasel, who had become thoughtful, clung to my back.
Even though I pushed the weasel with my arm, it clung to me tenaciously, saying, “Brother, brother.”
“Oh my, what’s wrong with this kid?”
“Brother! Brother!”
“The guy that he beat up and locked up is the poisonous guy who ate the wooden shackles and ran away. But when I looked into it, I found out that he was the troubleshooter sent by Karzan, who lost his head last time. He’s quite notorious in Karzan···.”
“Problem solver?”
I looked back at the weasel because I was dumbfounded.
The weasel was trembling and constantly looking around as if someone was chasing him with a knife.
‘This piece of shit caught the solution?’
Even though there are differences depending on the organization, if they are problem solvers, they are guys of a certain level, so it was surprising that a weasel caught him.
Of course, the problem solver is also a gangster in the end.
‘Did you get hit in the back of the head?’
I was convinced, looking at the miserable weasel, like a rat that had been drenched in rain.
This kid broke the back of his head.
“so?”
“The captain ordered the first and second groups to block the gate, and the rest to gather at headquarters.”
“The inner guard isn’t moving again? You honey-sucking bastards.”
“Don’t you originally care about the external appearance? Let’s share it. Isn’t it mine?”
“It’s Rosa.”
“Oh, really, you’re not a kid···.”
Kel tried to squeeze in somehow, but was pushed away with a slight push.
Kel, who was soaking wet, was shouting something, but it was muffled by the sound of the rain.
I laughed out loud because it was so funny, and Kel grinned and laughed along.
The small umbrella felt stuffy, so I folded it up and shook my wet hair.
The rain was cool so I didn’t feel bad.
“If that’s the case, then why did you take it away···.”
“It’s annoying.”
I handed Kel an umbrella, but he seemed upset and refused, grumbling, “No, use it. Rosa, I have ten more umbrellas.”
I took my umbrella with me to my side.
Berman, who was watching him, also closed his umbrella, and eventually everyone got drenched in the rain.
So I arrived at the headquarters, and there were guards from other groups gathered in front of the headquarters.
After telling him to stay there and play with me, he went into the headquarters alone.
“These stupid kids!!”
The sound of a pig being slaughtered was heard from inside.
I shook the water from my head, roughly turned my armor with my hands, and headed toward where the sound came from.
As we entered, the captain standing in front of the sergeants was shouting.
“The guys who were locked up escaped?! Are they out of their minds?!”
“That’s why I suggested we change the wooden shackles to iron shackles. Those elves over there eat trees.”
“Huh- You little punk! Do you know how much an iron chain costs?! One of those is worth fifty wooden chains! Fifty! And what chance do you have of meeting an elf in the countryside like this!”
“They’re not elves, but they actually ate and escaped, right? And Byzantine Castle is said to be a chain.”
“This guy! He didn’t even say a word about what he did well!”
Group 6 leader Dwarf Kelup grumbled and talked back.
The captain shouted loudly, but Caleb turned his head as if he couldn’t hear and yawned deeply.
The captain trembled at that.
“Oh, why are we fighting among ourselves? We should be friends.”
I knew that if I left it any longer, the captain would get upset, so I sneaked a peek.
“Oh, Aaron is here.”
“You’re late, Aaron.”
The other leaders bowed their heads slightly and greeted him.
I waved my hand at him lightly.
“These guys? They didn’t even say hello to me···.”
“Captain. Team 4 leader Aaron has joined.”
I quickly gave the captain a formal report that he liked, even though he looked like he was going to get angry.
The captain let out an awkward sigh.
“Aaron, did you hear what happened?”
“Oh. You escaped, right? What kind of guy is on duty today?”
“Ahem… It was our group, but I heard that Fener opened the can at the request of a soldier and then chaos broke out.”
“Oh, you little bastards. Are your kids okay?”
“Oh, they jumped to the other side. They say only the soldiers of the Fener family got beaten up.”
“Armed guys getting beaten up by naked guys? This is fucking sick.”
The rest of the leaders nodded at my swearing.
“Anyway, the two who ran towards the gate were caught, and one who was stabbed in the middle was found dead on the street. The remaining ten scattered like rats and hid.”
Group 5 leader Giant Flip nodded and explained.
‘By the way, that stupid method works. I can even see him escaping from prison.’
It was a crude method of first hitting the back of the head of a mean or stubborn person with a wooden club and then locking them in a barrel if they resisted, but the method gained credibility as the captured people escaped.
It was obvious that if he escaped, there would be bigger problems, but seeing that he escaped despite the risk means that there was something fishy about it.
“Let’s finish this as quickly as possible. If we get rained on, we’ll catch a cold.”
“Aaron, are you catching a cold too?”
At my words, Caleb’s eyes widened and he asked a stupid question.
“That’s obvious. I caught a cold last summer and was in bed for several days.”
Everyone mumbled and let out a sigh at my answer.
It was a look of disbelief.
“So, do you have a plan in mind, Aaron?”
Everyone focused on me as I asked Flip’s question.
It was quite unpleasant to see those scary-looking guys concentrating like elementary school students.
“Do you remember last year’s friendly hunting competition? When I made a bet with the inner city guards.”
I took out the method I had been thinking of while lightly scratching the ball.
The other team leaders nodded to my suggestion and added their opinions, and the plan became concrete.
“···What are you guys doing?”
As the heat was rising, the captain, who was standing alone, began to tremble.
“Without even listening to my opinion as the captain···.”
“I wonder if our captain has some amazing plan?”
Kelep interrupted the captain’s words and muttered. The others pretended to pay attention and waited for the captain to speak.
The leader opened his mouth and coughed in vain, looking at the gathered gaze.
“In any case, it’s important to resolve this quickly. Let’s proceed according to the plan of our trusted leader, Aaron.”
Laughter erupted at the shameless captain’s words.
The captain brushed back his barely visible beard and smiled solemnly for no reason.
Then he looked like a pig accepting death calmly.
“Then do as the captain orders.”
I nodded without even pointing it out.
It was a winner-win deal, as the captain got some cheap confidence and I got someone to take the blame for things when things went wrong.
“Okay, okay!!”
At that moment, a child I had never seen before ran out and blocked my path.
“What is this?”
“Oh, he was caught with the escaped guy, but instead of being put in a container, he was left behind in the headquarters.”
“Not a kid! Huris! Hey- big guy! Are you in charge here?!”
“···Hey? Big guy? There’s another baby tiger.”
I was dumbfounded at the sight of a guy who wasn’t even tall enough to reach my waist suddenly cursing and speaking informally to me.
‘These days, kids are all self-educated.’
Dalus’ son, who suddenly threatened to kill, and Kanna, who was a dice fraudster.
Why is it that every girl I meet these days is of bad quality?
“Are you in charge of the security here? I asked you!!”
“This man is in charge.”
I pointed at the captain, and he lifted his chin as if he had heard a compliment.
“That pig is a scarecrow! You can tell just by looking at it that you’re the boss! Who do you think is the fool?!”
The child’s words caused laughter to erupt from the surroundings. The captain’s face turned red as if it was going to burst, and he trembled with his chin raised.
“How old are you?”
I crouched down in front of the whining, angry child, and grabbed his shoulder with a kind smile.
“She… is twelve years old! What!”
The little boy, who was obviously self-educated, screamed.
Even with all these big guys gathered together, it could be seen as bold for a young child to express his opinion so clearly.
To me, he was just a worthless brat.
I put a little strength into the hand that was holding my shoulder.
“Ahhhh! Ouch! It hurts! Aahhh!!”
“What kind of kid is talking informally to an adult?”
The guy tried to slap my hand away by twisting his body, but there was no way he could do it with those small hands.
When I took my hand off after exactly 5 seconds, the eyes of the guy who had received short-term compressed home education became much gentler.
“Uh… please save our teacher.”
“Yeah, how nice to see you.”
When I patted the guy’s head, he shivered.
“So who is your teacher?”
“Levi···yo.”
Levi··· Levi···.
I recalled the name because I had heard it somewhere.
“Oh, that cheapskate? He carries silver coins under his boots.”
“That’s right! ···Yes. Our teacher···.”
“What happened to him?”
“You guys··· No, these guys took it···”
“The soldiers who were checking put it in a barrel, but it jumped out with it.”
“No way! I had no choice but to come here because I was threatened by that guy who looked like a pole! ···”
I nodded to the brat’s words.
There was no way that cowardly, stingy Levi could have escaped. He must have just been unlucky.
‘But Levy, didn’t you yell at that kid last time that he was a piece of shit and that he’d never come back?’
I remembered shouting from so far away that he couldn’t even be seen, in case he got caught.
I wondered what kind of expression the cowardly Levy would make when they met.
“Okay. I’ll bring him over right away. Stay with that old man.”
I pointed to the captain and he smiled brightly.
The captain, who had no intention of going outside in the pouring rain, seemed glad to have an excuse.
We didn’t want to go out with a leader who would only be a hindrance. That pig would be taken hostage, but he wouldn’t be of any help.
“No! That guy stinks! He smells like rotten meat!”
The brat pointed at the captain and shouted, “Bam!” and everyone laughed loudly.
The captain, his eyes wide open, sniffed at my body.
As I frowned, the brat ran up to the captain and clung to him. Heh heh- The brat slapped the captain’s hand away as he laughed and patted his head.
“Then let’s fuck each other.”
The other leaders nodded.
***
‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’
Levy leaned back against the wall, panting.
The cool touch on my back and the cold rain soaking my body made me realize that the situation was not a nightmare but reality.
‘Why me too?’
Levy had no intention of escaping.
I was crouching in a corner of a strange space, trying to hide my presence as much as possible, when I was caught by those vicious men and almost dragged along.
‘That guy… Jake.’
Levy shuddered at the memory from earlier.
The guy named Jake who was the leader.
Jake stubbornly bit the wooden chains to free himself, even as blood poured from his mouth, and instantly took down an armed soldier who came in to check inside with his bare hands.
Levy was sure that the outcome would have been different if Jake hadn’t passed out first during the inspection, given how skilled he was.
“But why did you all come all the way to this remote place? It seems like you’re just doing one thing.”
The guy with thick eyebrows started talking.
Levy was crouching in a dark alley with three unknown men.
“If you’re curious, why don’t you start by talking?”
“Well, it’s already come to this, so what’s there to hide? I received a request to hand over information related to the daughter of the Cassadic family and they’ll pay me a lot of money.”
“Were you Young-ae too? I made an anonymous request, but your handwriting is so elegant that you seem like an aristocrat.”
“Oh, can you read?”
“No, I don’t know.”
Perhaps a sense of camaraderie had developed, as the three men began to chat.
The more he heard the story, the more Levi felt resentful that he was tied up with these scumbags.
“If we get hit in the head on our floor and just let it go, we won’t be treated as human beings. But these damn things hit us in the head.”
“That’s right, these guys know our floors like crazy. How could they come up with such a method?”
‘Was it like that?’
Levy shuddered slightly as he realized that the seemingly simple checkpoint was not as simple as it seemed.
“So what do we do now?”
“What should I do? I’ll just hold out like this for a few days, then just pick up some clothes and mix in with the crowd, and that’s it.”
“Really? You seem to have a lot of experience like this.”
“Tsk, I touched a noble lady before.”
“A noble?! You’re more impressive than you look. No, are you stupid?”
“Aren’t you curious? They say they are born different, but what’s inside them···.”
Levy wanted to cover his ears at the continued dirty talk, but he forced himself to smile and respond.
I was so scared that I started to pee.
Luckily, I didn’t get drenched in the rain and it didn’t show.
Beep-.
At that moment, a whistle was heard in the distance.
The men jumped up and ran.
From then on, I kept running towards a place where there was no sound of a whistle.
Levy slipped and fell halfway through and scraped his knee, but it didn’t hurt at all.
I just kept running, following the backs of the heads of the men in front of me.
Since he had already escaped from prison, it would be over if he got caught.
I felt a surge of resentment. I worked so hard my whole life, but now I’m left with nothing to use.
“These kids… they’re cornering us. It’s like they’re hunting us. Those fucking kids.”
The thick-browed man running at the front gritted his teeth and shouted.
Even if I knew the truth, there was nothing I could do.
I had no choice but to run towards the side where there was no whistle.
‘It’s a herd hunt.’
Levy gasped for breath, his jaw clenched, and he recalled the old festival.
A hunting method in which the prey is driven to a trap by making a loud noise in the surrounding area and then caught in one go.
At that time, I laughed at the deer running away to its intended destination and thought it was stupid, but when I actually put myself in that position, I had no other choice.
How long did you run like that?
An alley where no whistle sounds.
There was something there.
‘That’s the trap.’
Everyone stopped at the ominous aura that wafted in.
At that moment, three people appeared from behind.
The men were swearing and wary of him, but upon closer inspection, they were the same men who had escaped from prison earlier and run off to a different place.
Although it was their first time meeting today, they greeted each other warmly as if they were old friends from their hometown.
“···Six, seven. The numbers are empty.”
Boom! At that moment, lightning struck and a purple light filled the alley. He could see the true identity of the trap that had been blocking his way.
Huge size and colorful armor.
Eyes that shine brightly.
She was wearing a fancy umbrella with a rose on it, but comically, the umbrella was small and the tip of her shoulder was getting wet.
The bizarre and comical elements combined to create an atmosphere of horror that was too horrible to describe in words.
But that face was familiar.
“···Aaron?”
Levy quickly covered his mouth.
As soon as I saw that scarred, demonic face, my last memory with the guy suddenly came back to me.
‘Hey you- you fucking piece of shit Sherry! You’re so dirty I’m never coming back! Kyaak- Thud!!’
I remember losing 10 silver to Aaron in a game of dice and losing sleep the next day, screaming in anger and running away.
‘You forgot… right? It was half a year ago.’
Levy nodded slightly, looking at the huge figure that seemed to easily forget trivial things.
I must have forgotten.
Beep beep beep beep
The sound of the whistle blasting around them grew closer, pressuring them.
The men hesitated at that.
Between the whistles and Aaron, who boasted a strange presence, I was weighing things.
Beep beep beep-
An unusually long blast of the horn was heard, and one of the men shouted in exasperation.
“There’s only one! Break through! There are seven of us!”
That was the signal, and the men who had been swollen to the point of bursting out in a rush.
Thud thud-.
The backs of men running in the midst of falling, heavy raindrops, and the giant Aaron facing them.
‘You idiots.’
Levy clicked his tongue at him.
Euaaaah!!
The men rushed forward, shouting in a show of courage.
Aaron grabbed the man running in front by the scruff of his neck and slammed him against the wall. With a bang, the man disappeared into the wall.
A distorted face amidst the crumbling stone debris and scattering rainwater.
The man next to him swung the hook he was holding, but it was blocked by the red breastplate.
Aaron grabbed the hook man’s head and this time slammed it into the opposite wall.
The splashing stones and rainwater again.
The men hesitated as two of them were instantly pinned to the wall, turning them into ugly decorations.
“Come quickly. You’re catching a cold.”
Looking at the deer in front of him, the trap smiled brightly.
‘···You don’t remember, do you?’
Levy slowly knelt down on the rain-soaked floor.
