“Mister Saito — you don’t mind me addressing you like that, do you?
Seeing as you’re new in town and all, you must surely need someone to show you around the place.”
The Ursus NCO let out a low, oily chuckle, putting on a thoroughly mercenary little expression that stood in jarring contrast to his rough-and-rugged outward appearance.
Ever since pocketing Saito’s little token of gratitude, this Ursus NCO had instantly switched into a brand-new face.
He leaned in close with great enthusiasm — and by the look of it, he was almost certainly angling to squeeze a few more benefits out of Saito.
“No problem at all.
I do need to head into town and trade for some supplies — and, well, I’d probably want to get a sense of how things are around here, too.”
Saito gave a nod.
If he wanted to get the lay of the land in town quickly, he really did need a guide.
The character of the Ursus NCO in front of him might be tough to vouch for, but the man was, at the very least, a fairly bright sort.
“Well then, you’ve come to the right man!
There isn’t a single thing big or small going on in Vyshegrad that I don’t know about.
Though, you might have to wait just a moment — there does need to be somebody watching this gate, after all.”
Seeing Saito agree, that Ursus NCO’s face lit right up with delight.
He scurried back into the guardhouse he’d been sitting in moments earlier with eager, scampering little steps, exchanged a few quick words with his colleague, then briskly made his way back over.
“The name’s Ivan Savelyev.
On account of there being a little one back at the house, folks around these parts have gotten into the habit of calling me Big Ivan — you can just call me Ivan and that’ll do fine.”
Hoo — now there was a name with some muscle to it.
The corner of Saito’s mouth gave a little twitch.
There had to be at least a few hundred thousand people in Ursus going by the name Ivan, but nicknames as gut-punchingly hearty as ‘Big Ivan’ couldn’t be all that common — and it did line up rather neatly, in its own way, with that face of his, the kind that radiated quiet menace without him having to so much as scowl.
“Mister Saito, if you don’t mind, you can leave the vehicle parked over by our checkpoint here.
We’ll help carry your things for you.”
Ivan pointed toward a small enclosed yard tucked away behind the checkpoint.
Saito gave it a moment’s thought, then nodded — there wasn’t anything important on the snowmobile anyway, and if he really did run into danger, he could always use the Protocol Synchronizer to teleport directly back to the Protocol Core.
Although, according to the Administrator, since the Protocol-based teleportation function wasn’t yet what you’d call stable, the rule of thumb was to avoid using it whenever you possibly could.
Once the snowmobile had been properly parked, Ivan led Saito on into Vyshegrad proper.
A border town perched atop the Frozen Plains was, very obviously, not the sort of place you’d ever stick the word ‘bustling’ anywhere near.
To make it easier to haul mining freight back in the day, the main streets had been built generously wide, and the surface of the road still bore plenty of marks from the wheel-ruts that had crisscrossed it.
Only — those things themselves were now nowhere to be seen.
The buildings lining either side of the street still gave off some faint impression of their former bustle — but the sparse, scattered handful of figures along the road in the present day laid bare just how thoroughly Vyshegrad had fallen on hard times.
As the mining sites have all shut down, Vyshegrad has gone gradually cold and quiet right along with them…”
A note of wistful sighing crept into Ivan’s tone.
He had seen this town in its lively days, which was precisely why looking at the bleak, desolate scene of these streets now hit him that much harder.
“After all that, just about everyone here packed up and left.
The only ones still around are a few sentimental old-timers — and unlucky bastards like us who can’t get out.”
“You’re not from Vyshegrad, then?”
Saito kept right on sizing up the town around him while shooting a sideways glance at Ivan beside him.
The resentment in this fellow’s words was practically on the verge of brimming over the edge.
“Of course not.” Ivan’s eyebrow shot up, his expression taking on a touch more cheer — this was probably the one thing he actually had to be proud about.
“I’m actually from Chernobog.
My family and my kid are over there as well.
I just got transferred out here by the military to watch this gate.”
“Transferred out to Vyshegrad?”
“Alright, fine — the truth is, back when I was in Chernobog I got myself into a bit of trouble, rubbed a few of the wrong people the wrong way, and so I got shipped out here.”
Ivan let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
That was very obviously a chunk of past he found exceedingly hard to chew on — otherwise he wouldn’t have ended up stuck in this godforsaken place for this many years on end.
His sigh let a gradual silence settle over the atmosphere between the two of them, and just like that, the pair walked another ten-some meters through the wind and snow, with Saito still not so much as opening his mouth.
Ivan, meanwhile, was very obviously starting to have trouble keeping it in.
“…You really don’t have anything you want to ask?”
What I’d more like to ask, right about now, is how the heck your whole character setting flipped this fast.
Setting aside the power of cold hard cash for the moment, the pivot in Ivan’s attitude really was a bit too sudden, a bit too forced.
And going by the situation he was currently displaying, in all likelihood he had simply happened to swing through Vyshegrad to pick up some supplies — whether or not he’d even be around again afterward was anybody’s guess.
Saito’s gut was telling him that the reason for Ivan being quite this eager probably wasn’t just about the money.
With that thought in mind, the inner alarm bells in Saito’s chest went up a few extra notches as a reflex — but at the same time, Saito was also now pretty keen to see exactly what kind of medicine Ivan was selling out of his proverbial gourd.
So he put on a very curious-looking face and asked:
“So what was it that got you sent out to Vyshegrad in the first place?”
“Now that — that’s a long story…”
Many years ago, Ivan had been a wet-behind-the-ears, hot-blooded grunt fresh out of training, his head full of nothing but the urge to give every last bit of himself for the Ursus Empire.
He’d even fully prepared himself for laying down his life on the battlefield.
But that suddenly-erupting civil war had, in a single instant, shattered his dream. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
After being mustered off the battlefield, he had returned to Chernobog, married an ordinary Ursus woman, had a child with her, and life ought to have simply gone on, plain and ordinary, from there.
Until an unforeseen incident, dropping right out of the clear blue.
“That day, I’d just finished work and was on my way home when a child of one of my old comrades-in-arms found me — they said their mother was about to die.”
“By the time I rushed over there, she had already collapsed in a pool of her own blood.
Her husband had given his life for Ursus — but she’d been beaten by a few worthless scumbags till she was alive, but crippled.”
Saito’s heart grew heavier and heavier along with the man’s voice, but Ivan’s tone remained as easy as if he were just chatting with the neighbors across the fence.
Only — that smile on his face, no matter how you looked at it, was unmistakably bitter and sour through and through.
“After that, I taught the lot of them a little lesson.
The consequences of that — well, you already know.”
The Ursus man drew in a deep breath, and then leaned his body in a touch closer toward Saito’s side.
“Back when I was young, I did manage to get a few years of schooling under my belt — so I happen to know a little something about the profession of a Catastrophe Messenger.
You’re one of the Infected, aren’t you?”
As the very name itself suggested, the Catastrophe Messenger profession spent its days in the constant company of Catastrophes, which on its own made them extremely prone to contracting Oripathy.
And here was Saito, walking these Frozen Plains all on his own, without so much as carrying any kind of arts staff on him — his being one of the Infected was basically a foregone conclusion, set in stone.
“Mister Saito — take a word of advice from me.
No matter what kind of treatment you might’ve been getting over in Yan, in Ursus you must not, on any account, let your status as one of the Infected slip casually into the open.”
“Those ignorant folks aren’t going to give a bit of consideration to your standing as a Catastrophe Messenger.
All they’re going to know is — you’re an Infected, and you’re a very wealthy one.”
Right on the heels of those words, Ivan handed Saito a small pouch.
Saito opened it up for a look — inside were several wrinkled, crumpled-up banknotes, and the denominations on them were anything but small.
“This should be enough for you to buy plenty of supplies.
After that, get yourself out of Ursus — and quickly.”
“…”
Saito looked at that somewhat rough-hewn, careless-looking face of his, and for a long moment, had no idea how he was supposed to respond.
____
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