Chapter 28
Chapter 28
The One Thing I Wanted to Commission
***
I spoke in a tone as if it were nothing serious.
To Sera, I was an extremely suspicious figure. However, there was no doubt that I was the key to breaking through the current situation. She had no right to report whatever might happen inside the mansion anyway.
She could not give me an opportunity.
She could only leave me some leeway.
“I’ll be going now. My work hours are approaching. It would probably be better to enter through the back gate rather than the front gate today. It’s closer in distance.”
At that moment, my eyes narrowed. It sounded like she was saying that security at the back gate was weaker than at the front.
“You’re saying you trust my words?”
“I don’t have the authority to decide that.”
“Then it can’t be helped.”
***
―I had no choice but to tail her as she wished.
I hopped lightly between walls like stepping stones, adjusting the distance between myself and Sera.
She hadn’t mentioned it directly, but it was no different from saying this.
I’ll be heading somewhere secluded, so enter on your own.
She hadn’t invited me, nor had she helped me. She had only left room for me. It was the maximum goodwill she could show without breaking the shackles placed on an android.
From this point on, achieving my goal depended solely on my own capabilities.
Before long, I saw Sera entering through the back gate.
In that fleeting instant, I flicked my thumb and slipped a coin into the narrow gap.
Kigik.
After approaching stealthily and confirming that Sera’s presence had disappeared, I retrieved the coin.
Yes, the coin that had blocked the gate just before it locked.
No matter how much advanced technology was layered on top, in the end it was still something humans had to use.
Nothing was perfect.
Just like Sera herself.
Avoiding the surveillance devices, I passed through the garden and sprinted between the columns of the corridor. The reason I could act this boldly was thanks to the unusually arranged personnel.
‘Only androids.’
And even then, there were very few of them.
The guards I had seen before seemed to be stationed only outside. Because of that, entering the mansion itself wasn’t difficult.
Given how vast the place was, I briefly wondered if I should search the annexes first, but I moved my steps straight toward the central area. Considering Dobby’s situation and position, the guest rooms weren’t even worth considering.
As expected, that choice soon led to results. In the long corridor, there was only one room with a door.
There was only one meaning to occupying the prime spot.
“Is it here?”
The moment I stepped inside, an elegant fragrance brushed past the tip of my nose.
Antique furniture, a soft rug, and even flowerpots filled with blossoms of every color. It was a composition lacking nothing at all.
Suddenly, a breeze blowing in through the wide-open window made the silk curtains sway softly. Soon after, a single petal settled atop a medical pod.
It was a luxury product manufactured by ‘Inatomi Corporation,’ a company well versed in modern medicine, called ‘Anima.’
Its interior was kept sterile at all times.
Not only could it autonomously produce drugs that allowed survival even when cut off from the outside world, but its built-in manipulator could reproduce every existing form of surgical operation.
As long as electricity was supplied, it was a device that could be used semi-permanently.
Needless to say, each unit cost hundreds of billions.
As if drawn in, my eyes fell upon a young man lying beside it.
Curly brown hair that resembled Koln.
An innocent, pure face without a single crease, like a pristine white canvas.
Although it was my first time seeing him, there was no way I wouldn’t know who he was.
‘Dobby.’
He looked as if he were sleeping peacefully, but by checking the display, I could tell he was in a catatonic state.
For a span of time that couldn’t be explained by just a day or two, the young man had been living inside Anima.
That was why the guards and Sera had reacted the way they did.
“Ha.”
The friend of someone who couldn’t step a single foot outside the room had come in person. Even if they couldn’t express it outright, they must have found it absurd.
Not believing and harboring suspicion was, in a way, only natural.
I had thought he lived without a care in the world since he spent all day clinging to Lost Saga.
But that wasn’t the case.
The order had been reversed.
For Dobby, Lost Saga was the only channel through which he could communicate with the world.
“You idiot.”
“Who are you calling an idiot?”
Startled by the sudden voice, I staggered backward. The fact that I hadn’t sensed him until he was right behind me was no ordinary matter.
What appeared before me was a young man who looked exactly like the Dobby lying down.
I wondered if they were twins, but that wasn’t it.
The appearances of the two matched perfectly.
As expected, when I casually grabbed his shoulder, instead of warmth I felt a light repulsive force.
It felt as if my hand were parting the surface of water.
If I wanted to, it felt like I could pierce straight through to the other side.
“A solid-mass hologram?”
Looking around, it was clear there were projectors installed at the corners where the walls met.
I had heard it was a technology still being experimented with by the military, but it seemed that a major corporation on the level of Maximum Noise could experience it ahead of time.
“And you are…… no way, are you Ga-on?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, I didn’t think you’d make it all the way in here. This is the part where I can be moved, right? I never thought I’d end up with a friend who’d come looking for me like this…….”
Hearing his carefree voice, it felt like all the tension drained away at once.
Even offline, Dobby was still Dobby. Sitting atop Anima, I shrugged my shoulders.
“I had a bit of trouble since there was no one to let me in.”
“I heard you were a fixer. Looks like you’ve got skills worthy of calling yourself one?”
“Yeah. And the guy who said he wanted to commission me disappeared, so I couldn’t give up even out of curiosity. By the way, why didn’t you receive my contact?”
“All communications inside the mansion were cut off. As you can see, with my body like this, I couldn’t even request rescue.”
Even if it were a temporary issue, for Dobby, who couldn’t walk out on his own two feet, it was no different from being isolated.
The only countermeasure would have been to issue orders to the androids, but the fact that he hadn’t done so suggested that Allen had seized the authority.
What came out of Dobby’s mouth was no different.
“Hyungnim’s attitude changed all at once. As if he’d become a completely different person. Ah, when I say hyungnim, I mean…….”
“Allen Howard. One of Maximum Noise’s shareholders and an executive director. Currently the chief head of technology development, right?”
“You even found that out? You’re more capable than I expected.”
It wasn’t a particularly surprising evaluation.
“So why are you being treated like this? Unless you’re not even an illegitimate child.”
“An illegitimate child? Me?”
Dobby frowned, as if asking what nonsense I was talking about, and added,
“On the contrary, hyungnim was the one who was adopted.”
“Sounds like there’s a story there. But I hate long stories.”
“I’ll keep it short, so just listen.”
***
In modern society, orphans were worthless beings. They were born into the world when no one wanted them. No different from surplus resources that couldn’t be used.
Moreover, even households without children didn’t want them.
No, to be precise, there was no reason to want them. Artificial insemination technology had reached such extremes that new life could be conceived even from somatic cells.
“Let’s go to our home.”
That was why, when I heard Koln say those words, it felt like I had gained the whole world.
I wanted to have a family.
With that wish fulfilled, Allen repaid those expectations with results befitting them, regardless of the strict environment.
But Koln’s gaze was always directed at Dobby.
A half-baked existence who couldn’t even breathe on his own from birth and could only barely sustain life in a catatonic state.
In a way, it was a life even more useless than that of an orphan, yet Allen hid his true feelings and treated Dobby well.
Because if the gap was this wide, he firmly believed that even as an adopted son, he could catch up to the legitimate heir.
However, he realized that was nothing more than a delusion of his own not long ago.
That was when Koln suddenly collapsed while handling work.
The fact that he had suffered from a chronic illness since childhood was a top-level secret within the company, known to virtually no one.
In that process, Koln revealed feelings he had never shown before.
“You’re telling me to help Dobby run Maximum Noise?”
The shock was so great that even now, the advice from that day clung to my ears and wouldn’t fall away.
It was a verdict that outright denied Allen’s life.
“So even after I lived like a dog, the one who only gets to lie down and sleep comes first?”
They called him a professional manager, but in reality, he was no different from a glorified errand runner.
In the end, an adopted son was still just an adopted son.
One brought in to exercise the authority of a biological child.
Suddenly, I saw Koln’s face, quietly sleeping inside Anima. It had already been ten days since he lost consciousness.
How had Koln viewed him all along?
A guard dog watching the house?
Or perhaps a cat kept around for its charm?
Either way, he hadn’t been human.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right.
And it wasn’t satisfying.
This wasn’t the kind of life he had struggled desperately to live.
After leaving the hospital room, Allen immediately contacted someone.
“I’ll accept the deal we talked about last time.”
The Allen who had lived as a good child, as a good son, was no longer there.
All that remained was an adopted son rebelling for the first and last time.
***
After hearing Dobby’s story, I let out a yawn.
“You said you’d keep it short.”
“That’s all you have to say?!”
I had been a fixer for nearly a hundred years now. At this point, just listening was enough to see the outline of a case.
Dobby’s story wasn’t much different.
Two brothers and an enormous inheritance.
It would have been strange if sparks hadn’t flown.
The only thing that bothered me was why Dobby was being targeted only now.
‘Maybe…….’
No, nine times out of ten, it had to be connected to Koln, whose whereabouts were unknown.
Was this also Allen’s doing?
As I was thinking, Dobby opened his mouth.
“There’s one thing I want to commission.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s an android named Sera in this mansion. I want you to take her in.”
That was unexpected. I had assumed he would ask for personal protection.
“She’ll probably be disposed of if I die.”
“Sounds like she’s important to you.”
“She’s like an older sister to me. She’s taken care of me ever since I was young.”
That explained where Sera’s freedom came from.
“Why not commission me to get rid of your brother instead?”
“What, you taking out my hyungnim?”
Dobby stared at me for a moment, then let out a snort as if he had heard a ridiculous joke.
“If you fund it, I could hire mercenaries myself.”
“You mean struggling so you won’t go alone? I don’t know. I don’t want to force death onto a friend just to satisfy my personal desires.”
There was no way he didn’t know that even facing Allen like this was a burden for me. Challenging the decision of a third-generation chaebol was sheer recklessness.
“And with the money I have, it’s already hard enough to hire you. So please. I want Sera to be happ—”
Dobby vanished mid-sentence.
No, the projector’s power had shut off.
The light from Anima also dimmed.
This wasn’t something I had anticipated.
It seemed the power inside the mansion had been cut. It was far too coincidental to dismiss as an accident.
That said, it couldn’t have been an android. Androids couldn’t harm humans.
Which meant third-party intervention.
Just as I was about to head out to assess the situation, Sera kicked the door open and rushed in.
“Shouldn’t we not have met like this?”
“This isn’t the time to be saying something so airheaded.”