Chapter 04
Terror swept through his mind, which had turned stark white.
They hadn’t told him the delivery would be this.
He’d thought it would be, at most, smuggled goods banned from entry into the Shelter, or maybe drugs.
But a bomb? And a lethal weapon set to detonate in just 30 minutes? They wanted him to leave this with the security guard at the department store’s back entrance? Who on earth was supposed to be standing thereā
In an instant, the puzzle pieces clicked into place in Raimund’s mind.
His client hadn’t wanted a simple errand boy. What the client had desired was a scapegoat.
They planned to have the errand boy’s face clearly exposed to the surveillance cameras near the department store, making it undeniable that he had delivered the bomb.
He couldn’t fathom why the client wanted to blow up the department store and massacre countless innocent people. Nor did he want to know.
But now, the moment the delivery was complete, he would become a criminal with every law enforcement agency in the Shelter issuing a warrant for his arrest.
Even if he changed his mind and didn’t make the delivery, as long as he didn’t get rid of this bag, a vague future loomed where he would be caught in the explosion and die.
Even if, by some stroke of luck, he survived or wasn’t seriously injured, he would have failed to complete the delivery, and the client wouldn’t let him off the hook.
Someone who would send a bomb to turn a department store into a hellscape wouldn’t hesitate to kill a single civilian who failed the delivery.
Raimund gripped the bag strap tightly. His palms were completely soaked with cold sweat.
About 29 minutes remained. After that, this bag would explode, and things would become irreversible.
He had to do something before then.
Should he move to a place with no people?
But getting to the industrial district, where there would likely be the fewest casualties, would take well over two hours.
What if he buried it deep somewhere?
But he had no idea how large the explosion would be. Haphazardly burying it in just any spot might actually cause even more damage.
Raimund ran, clutching the bag tightly. He pushed through the dense crowds, swimming against the massive tide of people.
Sorry, excuse me, coming through! People glanced at him with unfriendly eyesāsweating cold, pale with fear, scrambling franticallyāand passed by indifferently.
Then, someone whose shoulder he had bumped hard grabbed his arm.
“Hold on, youā”
“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry right now, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Shaking off the black-gloved hand, Raimund looked around.
The sky was gradually darkening.
Defying the fading light, buildings flashed and blazed with light and music.
Advertising drones flew through the air, spewing a torrent of tacky commercials. Energy-saving reminders blinked on the dome ceiling. The surrounding cacophony of noiseāsomeone’s laughter, shouts, merchants hawking discounts.
This was the Economic District.
The busiest place within the British Shelter.
Everywhere he looked, people overflowed. There was no way he could get out of here within half an hour.
The moment he realized that, Raimund’s knees gave way. As he slumped to the ground, passersby overhead muttered among themselves, but
Raimund couldn’t hear a single word.
A sharp ringing in his ears grew steadily louder.
What do I do?
What if the bomb goes off here?
Will I die? Of course I’ll die.
Dying didn’t matter. If the bomb exploded right at his side, he probably wouldn’t even have time to feel the pain.
But Raimund hadn’t lived his life to die like this.
At the very least, he wanted to choose his own deathāthe way he died.
Not as a terrorist who set off a bomb in the Economic District!
His vision swam. Think, Raimund Geppert. For God’s sake, *think*!
Cold sweat trickled down his cheek and fell onto a manhole cover.
Staring blankly at the brass-colored manhole cover, made darker by his own shadow cast over it, Raimund suddenly sprang to his feet.
“That’s it!”
His near-scream drew more glances his way, but Raimund had no time to care about that.
He had heard it once before.
A long time ago, during the early construction of the British Shelter, some people had argued that, concerned about soil and water pollution, the dome should be built as a complete sphere, entirely sealed off underground. But it was practically impossible. Moreover, due to budget issues, it was built in its current hemispherical form, focused on protecting humanity from air pollution.
Thanks to that, various nuisance facilities and large public infrastructure could be buried underground, allowing people above ground to live in a ‘clean city,’ as if only the essential parts had been carved out.
Raimund jumped up and started running again. He squeezed into the narrow alleyways between the shops lining 1st Avenue.
Behind the buildings, reeking of stale odors, he spotted a filthy sewer manhole cover on the ground.
It was old, rusty, and dirtyābut that didn’t matter. A place no one came to was even better!
Groping the cover, he felt a ring he could grip and a hole that could fit two fingers.
But the stiff manhole cover wouldn’t open easily. In the end, he grabbed a broom leaning against a shop’s back door, struggled with it for a while, and finally managed to use it as a lever to pry open the heavy cover.
*āCreak.*
A foul stench, *whoosh*, hit him square in the face.
Darkness greeted him as he descended for a while, the bag still slung over his shoulder.
The first sewer pipe, close to the surface. There were probably water pipes running even deeper than this, weren’t there?
Slippery walls. The gurgling sound of flowing water echoing from somewhere.
The wastewater lapping at his ankles was lukewarm and unpleasant. Moreover, the stench was so sharp it gave him a headache, and his sense of smell gradually became numb.
But now was not the time to leisurely complain.
Faster. Further.
To the deepest place possible. Further down than this.
The darkness constricted his breath. On a path where he couldn’t see an inch ahead, he slipped and fell again.
The face of the heavy explosive he’d taken out of the bag clearly blinked with the numbers: ’02:14′.
14, 13, 12…
The ceiling of the sludgy sewer grew lower and lower. Raimund hunched over, and now he was practically crawling.
5, 4, 3…
His own ragged breathing echoed back as if right next to him. Something splashed into his mouth, but he forced himself not to think about the source of the liquid.
50, 49, 48…
When he put his right hand down, he realized a beat too late that the floor, slippery with filth and moss, had suddenly vanished.
His body, losing its balance, plummeted into the yawning depths below.
All that remained in the sewer were a short shriek and, following it, a foreboding ‘thud’.
20, 19, 18…
Raimund lay at the bottom of an underground water pipe, where wastewater barely reached his shins, splashing faintly.
He had clearly heard the sound of his own spine breaking.
He was conscious, but parts of his body felt broken. He could move his fingers, but his legs wouldn’t obey him.
Carrying a dull pain in his back, with his arms and neck twisted at grotesque angles, he saw something from a perspective he normally wouldn’t see.
1, 59, 58…
The red numbers flickered in the distance.
Raimund thought dazedly.
If this was all the price for daring to covet 50,000 credits, it was cheap.
47, 46, 45…
After leaving the orphanage, Raimund had known hunger and cold.
They were things that gnawed at people and made them pathetic. They were like worms that ate away at dreams and hopes, growing fat and leaving only despair and loneliness behind.
The director’s voice echoed again.
*You’re worthless, dirty scum, not worth a thing, you damn brats. It’s because of useless wretches like you that the Shelter gets dirty!*
20, 19, 18…
He was cold. A fishy smell mixed with the stench.
The bomb, half-submerged, blinking, and the wet bag.
And himself, equally dying.
5, 4, 3.
Hoping that coming down this far had been effective, Raimund let the dreadful drowsiness wash over him.
Sorry, Olive. Looks like I won’t be able to buy your painkillers today. Sorry for making Peony’s meal get cold too. Sorry I can’t play with Hazel anymore.
The faint, intermittent beeping seemed to stop, and thenā
His eardrums burst, and his blackened vision flashed white.
That was all.
—
***
A mysterious explosion suddenly occurred underground in the Economic District.
The shopping street, slightly off from 1st Avenue, collapsed miserably, and nearby water pipes were also damaged, forcing the Economic District to declare a temporary shutdown and begin rapid restoration work.
The construction site was cordoned off with yellow tape and barricades to prevent citizens from approaching.
However, shop owners who were inadvertently unable to do business began filing complaints with the Shelter government almost daily.
Succumbing to the pressure, the government decided to conduct an on-site investigation to determine the cause of the explosion before calculating the scale of compensation to be paid to the self-employed business owners and the injured victims of the blast.
—
One day before the Shelter government’s field investigators were dispatched.
With shops forcibly closed, the streets were quiet and deserted. Only the occasional uninvited guest who had been shopping across the way and came to see how big the accident was could be seen, here and there.
Someone was walking towards the explosion site, cloaked in silence save for the streetlights.
“Mr. Friedrich, are you really sure?”
“I’d bet 5,000 credits it’s not my imagination. It was faint, but it was definitely the distinctive scent of the Red Witch.”
“It was just a scent, yet you’re so certain.”
“Just wait and see.”
Two people had crossed the barricades and yellow tape.
One was a man dressed entirely in black, save for his somewhat disheveled white hair. The other was a woman in an ordinary-looking brown coat and suit.
They approached the edge of the gaping black hole and looked down.
The white-haired man spoke.
“Gunpowder.”
“Indeed. We can scratch the scenario that it was caused by water pipe pressure. Can you see anything down there?”
“I’m trying. My night vision isn’t the best either.”
The woman leaned over the abyss, where even the streetlight’s glow didn’t reach, but she couldn’t make out a thing.
The man, however, stared intently below with his blue eyes, then raised one eyebrow.
“There’s someone there.”
“Who? A citizen caught in the explosion, perhaps? Or an anomaly?”
“I have a hunch, but what’s certain is that the cause of the explosion wasn’t an anomaly. However, before I reveal the details, I’d like to contact the Association’s Cleaners to secure that corpse.”
“You said the Red Witch was involved. What if that’s one of the witches’ research subjects?”
“Only God knows what schemes they’re cooking up, but at least regarding ‘why they tried to blow up the Economic District,’ I can probably find out. That’s why I need that corpse.”
Having explained this, the man slowly stood up.
In the dark, early morning street, his hair, pale under the streetlight, shone vividly.
Pointing below with a black-gloved hand, he said,
“Whether it’s an unlucky citizen or a collaborator of the Red Witch belonging to the High Lexis sect, I’ll show you just how much can be gleaned from a mere hunk of flesh. Call the Cleaners.”
