Chapter 5 – The Man Who Drifted Down the River (Two)

“I was telling a story about the rainbow.”

Viola.

She was the person in Sector 50 who bore the most traces of time on her face and body.

Rumors said she was over a hundred years old.

Even if she wasn’t quite that old, no one disputed that she was the oldest person in the slum.

That was why she was respected by the slum residents.

The average lifespan in the slum was around forty, and longevity itself was proof of experience and wisdom.

Even gang operatives didn’t collect protection money from her or pick any fights with her.

“Looks like she asked to hear the rainbow story again.”

“Yes. She likes that story the most. I wonder if she ever gets tired of hearing it, no matter how many times.”

Viola chuckled as she spoke.

She told mysterious stories to passersby and received coins based on their satisfaction.

Her main clientele were young children.

A single coin in the tin can.

It was clearly Josephine who had put it in.

It was the lowest denomination, a 1 Shilling coin, but it was probably the maximum expression of satisfaction the little girl could manage.

“The rainbow story? The one that appears in the sky?”

“Hehe. That’s right. I wonder how many times she’s heard that story now.”

Ray recalled something Josephine had once said to him, making a huge fuss.

「Hyung! Hyung! They say there’s a rainbow somewhere in the sky!」

「What’s a rainbow?」

The little girl explained the rainbow with all sorts of gestures and movements.

On a clear day after the rain stops.

Sometimes a long, colorful ribbon called a rainbow hangs in the sky.

「I’ve never seen one.」

「Even when the rain stops, clouds gather again right away. We just haven’t found it.」

A colorful half-donut that someone had taken a bite out of.

That was the impression of a rainbow Ray had formed after hearing Josephine’s explanation.

「Doesn’t it sound super pretty? They say if you find the end of the rainbow stuck in the ground, you can make one wish! Any wish comes true!」

「Speaking of which, the Cruter gang was eyeing my donuts today. From afar, with greedy looks. This won’t do. I’ll have to go beat them up tomorrow.」

「Ah! Come on! Listen seriously!」

Ray snapped out of his thoughts.

He spoke in his flat, toneless voice.

“Please don’t tell stories to our kids. If they keep increasing their fantasies, it’ll be hard for them to adapt to the streets.”

Fantasy.

The act of picturing in one’s mind events that can’t happen or things one can’t have in reality.

Ray had never indulged in fantasy.

Because he had no emotions, he wasn’t allowed to feel joy or excitement by imagining something.

But he knew this much.

The more one fantasizes, the harder it is to survive on the streets.

Without a single exception.

Children who couldn’t take root in reality and drifted in a world of fantasy usually died before reaching adulthood.

Like a balloon that rises too high, unable to withstand the pressure, and pops.

Viola smiled gently.

“If children don’t fantasize, who will?”

“Well, adults don’t. And children shouldn’t either.”

“I don’t think so. Children are the ones who have the privilege to picture anything in their minds.”

“…….”

Ray’s gaze moved to Viola’s closed eyes.

She was blind.

There were many stories about it.

That she had her eyes pecked out by crows during an adventure.

Or that she had mechanical eyes and was reluctant to show them.

Anyway, it was thought that someone who had lived as long as she had couldn’t have had an ordinary past.

…More than anything.

A deep purple Mana always resided in Viola’s chest.

‘She must be someone who came from outside Sector 50.’

Purple Mana never flowed into people’s Vessels.

With one exception.

Viola, that is.

That was why Ray couldn’t take his eyes off the Vessel in her chest whenever he met her.

‘What emotion does purple represent?’

It wasn’t difficult to figure out the emotions corresponding to other colors of Mana.

There were many specimens containing Mana, and people usually showed their emotions directly through their actions.

Years of observation.

By the end, he could pair most colors of Mana with their associated emotions.

But purple Mana was different.

The only specimen was Viola.

And just by looking at her outwardly, it was impossible to tell what thoughts or emotions she held.

Ray, who had been staring intently at Viola, turned and left the spot.

“You should probably move to another street. A war might break out.”

Leaving behind that dry remark.

The tin can glinted in the faint sunlight.

It had never once contained a coin from Ray.

Another cloudy day, as usual.

Afternoon on 17th Street.

Creak— Creak—

Ray pushed a delivery cart from a general store, crossing the street.

It was a day job he’d found.

Hector’s food warehouse was unavailable for the time being, and the junkyard piled with scrap metal had already been circled once in the morning.

If you don’t work, you starve.

That was an ironclad rule in the slum.

“H-heek.”

One of Ron’s gang members, peeking from an alley, met Ray’s eyes and scurried away in a hurry.

The winner and loser from the fight in the junkyard a few days ago were clearly defined.

‘They probably won’t think of picking a fight for a while.’

If he had lost that fight, the situation would have been reversed.

For starters, he wouldn’t have found work today.

Not to mention the risk of losing the underpass, he would have had to withdraw from 17th Street, his main area of activity.

Creak— Creak—

Ray silently pushed the cart, sweating.

He couldn’t feel pain or hardship, but objectively speaking, nothing had been easily obtained.

The underpass only became usable as a hideout after clearing away the piled trash underneath for a long time.

His freedom to move on 17th Street was won after clashing with other groups dozens of times.

That was why Ray couldn’t leave 17th Street and the underpass to avoid the war.

Abandoning what he had built was an extremely inefficient action.

Creak— Creak—

Only the sound of the cart echoed in the empty shopping district.

Places with “Closed” signs hung up.

Or shops that had been completely vacated.

There were quite a few such places.

They had sensed the signs of war and evacuated early to streets with different numbers.

Creak— Thud.

The cart stopped in front of a shabby cafe.

When Ray knocked on the door, a man with a tired expression appeared.

“Delivery’s here. Four boxes of milk and six boxes of beer, right?”

“Oh, it’s you? That Ron guy was bragging loudly that he’d deliver it himself next time.”

Ron can’t come out.

Both his legs are broken.

Ray swallowed his words.

Watching the shop owner organizing the goods, he asked.

“Mister, aren’t you evacuating?”

“My shop is here. Where would I go?”

“Ordering this much stuff. Isn’t it inefficient? You won’t have customers for a while.”

“Why wouldn’t I have customers? One table’s being served right now. And a war might not even break out.”

Ray tilted his head.

He thought it took more than just a strong heart to enjoy a drink at a cafe during such ominous times.

“Are they customers from another Sector?”

“No. They’re from here.”

“What do you mean, a war might not break out?”

“If the talks go well, it’s possible.”

Just then, the shop owner looked inside the door and spoke.

“Ah. Looks like the talks are over.”

The shop owner pushed the cart aside next to the door and stepped back.

Soon, a group of men came out of the cafe.

“Boss. Your lighter, sir.”

“Right.”

Click—

The moment he saw one of their faces.

Ray instinctively pulled up his hood, covering his face and head.

A man with a scar-covered face, exuding a cunning and sly impression.

It was Hector, who along with Niles occupied half of Sector 50.

He was also the owner of the warehouse Ray regularly stole food from.

“Huh?”

Hector, having spotted Ray, narrowed his eyes.

It was a gaze that meticulously scrutinized and observed.

He probably hadn’t been found out.

He had never revealed his face or done anything that would make his name known in Hector’s territory.

But you never know.

Just in case, he subtly turned his toes toward the street, ready to flee.

“Boss. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just find it admirable that a kid is working on a street where everyone else has run off with their tails between their legs.”

Hector, his torn lips curling into a grin, approached Ray and pressed something into his hand.

“Yeah. You gotta live hard like that. Struggling. Giving it your all. That’s how you get something. Buy some candy with this.”

It was a coin. 1000 Shillings.

Enough to buy about ten packs of cheap candy.

“Let’s go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hector’s group headed toward a car parked nearby.

Just then, a man following behind Hector glanced back at Ray.

“…Hmm.”

A 190-centimeter tall skinhead.

Humphrey, an executive of Hector’s organization, the silent type.

His gaze was precisely fixed on Ray’s earlobe inside the hood.

The day the Black Rain fell.

It was where he had been injured during the fight in the warehouse.

“…….”

Seeing Humphrey’s eyes narrowing further, Ray could sense it.

He’s been found out.

There’s no room left to deceive the other party.

Ray tensed every nerve in his body, put his hand in his pocket, and tightly gripped the handle of his folding knife.

How many seconds passed like that?

“Humphrey. Aren’t you coming?”

“Yes. I’m coming.”

Humphrey took one last sweeping look at Ray’s face, then turned and headed for the vehicle.

Vroom—

The vehicle disappeared down the street.

Why, though?

Why did he pretend not to know and let it go?

Ray was certain he had confirmed that the emotion Humphrey held was curiosity and anticipation.

But for Ray, it was still difficult to discern intent based solely on emotion.

Just then, another voice came from behind.

“How did it go?”

“It’s hopeless.”

Turning his head, he saw Niles talking with the shop owner.

“They want too much.”

Niles put a cigarette in his mouth with a bitter expression.

He wanted to avoid war if possible.

Once it broke out, the damage to people and property would inevitably be severe.

Using a gun on the Hector operative who had intruded into 17th Street was also a kind of warning.

A warning and a threat that they would never back down in a war.

But Hector hadn’t yielded an inch in today’s negotiations.

The boundary lines of the newly established zones.

The tax rates for protection fees imposed on each management area.

The amount of conversation exchanged was substantial, but there was no substance.

Hector demanded unreasonable conditions tantamount to ‘organizational absorption,’ leaving Niles with no choice but war.

Understanding Niles’s meaning, the cafe owner shook his head repeatedly.

“So the negotiations broke down.”

“We’ve reached the worst possible outcome.”

“That’s a shame. If I have to pay protection fees anyway, it’d be better to pay them to your organization.”

In Sector 50, taking and being taken from was a law of nature.

Without someone’s protection, you couldn’t do business anyway.

Since Niles’s organizational policy was symbiosis rather than domination, the cafe owner’s words just now were also the common sentiment among the shops on 17th Street.

Ray, fiddling with the coin, caught Niles’s eye as he was lost in thought.

Seeing the delivery cart beside him, Niles gave a wry smile and spoke.

“Do you have energy to spare? After all that hardship a few days ago, you’re working again right away?”

“Is the war confirmed?”

“That’s how it is. For now, don’t come out of the hideout. You could get hit by a stray bullet and die for no reason.”

Ray nodded.

It was a fact he knew well.

The world contained certain kinds of events that were inevitable no matter how much one struggled.

Shooaaah—

It was a night of Black Rain.

Even without the curfew imposed over all of 17th Street, it was weather that made going outside impossible.

“The war. It needs to end quickly.”

“Still, it probably won’t end within a week.”

Watching the raindrops falling outside the tent, Pale and Ray conversed.

The younger kids were huddled inside the tent, hugging each other as they slept.

17th Street and 18th Street.

It was the second day since Niles and Hector had entered a standoff, using the two streets as a boundary.

The gunpowder was ready to be ignited.

At any moment, the moment one side showed a gap, gunfire would ring out.

“Ray. Which side do you think will win?”

“I don’t know.”

The military strength of the two organizations was comparable, making it hard to predict a victory for either side.

「Which side’s victory do you hope for?」

If the question had been that, he could have answered easily.

Even before the friendship they had built, Niles was a person who possessed at least a minimum of morality compared to Hector.

He didn’t kill his subordinates on a whim.

Or kidnap orphans from the streets to sell.

At the very least, he was someone who didn’t commit such acts.

“I just wish it would pass quickly.”

“I wish that too.”

This violently falling rain.

This night with its sticky air flowing.

This war that can only end when one side is erased from the streets.

All of it, without fail.

Because then he could go out again to search for food.

“Wait. Did you hear that just now?”

“I heard it.”

That was when they heard a strange sound.

The two boys stopped talking and listened intently.

Groooong—

It wasn’t a scream, gunfire, or the sound of rain—all familiar to the boys.

It was a bizarre sound.

It sounded like air resonating inside an empty machine.

And also like the chilling cry of some unknown beast.

The sound was coming from the direction of the street.