-Frame-up
Yantu quickly looked around the inside of the house.
There was nothing especially conspicuous, and yet somehow, the scenery inside the house felt different.
‘Hm?’
The door hadn’t been left open, nor was the house in disarray. It wasn’t as though someone had broken in.
Even so, for some strange reason, he kept feeling uneasy.
Yantu slowly crossed the living room, then suddenly realized he had forgotten the most important thing.
The house was empty. The person who should have been there was gone.
“Lily? Lily!”
Yantu called out the name Ren was using in the dwarf village, hoping his guess was wrong.
But as expected, no answer came back. He could not sense any presence at all.
“Lily!”
While he had been on the call, Ren had been sitting on the living room sofa. Thinking she might have gone into a room, he opened every door, but Ren was nowhere to be found.
Yantu searched the house from top to bottom.
There were no signs that anyone had broken in. It seemed Ren had left of her own accord.
‘I said I’d protect her. Did she not trust me?’
Yantu sank down onto the sofa.
He carefully went back over the things he had said while speaking with Oudin. He tried to recall whether he had said anything Ren might have misunderstood, but nothing in particular came to mind.
‘No. Ren wouldn’t have left because she didn’t trust us.’
All this time, Ren had lived on good terms with Yantu and the villagers.
In particular, Yantu was the only person in the dwarf district who knew Ren’s circumstances, so he had taken special care of her.
There was no reason for Ren to start doubting Yantu now.
‘She may have thought the power we dwarves possess isn’t enough to stand against Vanaheim or the government, but……’
More than that, Ren had likely left out of fear that her presence here would bring trouble to the dwarves.
With a bounty on her head, she must have been afraid that mages would come swarming in and tear apart the dwarf district.
That was the kind of person Ren was.
“Ha! Well, this is……”
Yantu stepped outside the house.
He could not simply let Ren leave on her own.
He went around the village searching for her. He checked the house where Ren had been renting, the central square, the shops, and even the hotel.
“Have you seen Lily, by any chance?”
Whenever he ran into people who knew her, he asked them as well.
But he could not find any trace of Ren anywhere.
The village was still bustling. Everyone was busy moving about in preparation for the search.
There was nowhere else left to look.
‘Hmm. This makes me look bad in front of Mage Oudin.’
Oudin had deliberately called Yantu. Though he hadn’t asked outright, it was clear he had been trying to check whether Ren was safe.
Yantu had confidently said that nothing was wrong, yet while he was on that very call, Ren had disappeared.
But he could not call Oudin again and inform him of this fact. There was no guarantee the call would not be wiretapped.
‘She’ll be fine. Ren will be fine……’
Yantu was worried about Ren, who had left alone, but at the same time, he was not overly concerned.
‘Who in the world could possibly find Ren? She’s someone who can change her appearance freely, like a chameleon.’
Even Yantu, who had lived no small number of years, had never imagined someone possessing a trait like Polymorph.
When it came to hiding herself, she possessed the finest ability no one else could match.
Yantu prayed in his heart that Ren would continue to hide herself well until the very end.
* * *
Just as Cheon Danbi was about to leave Bolba Restaurant, her phone began to ring.
But it was not a good situation in which to answer a call.
Sirens were blaring noisily. The moment she stepped out the door, she could already see police cars rushing in from a distance.
Cheon Danbi quickly moved toward the back alley. She thought she should return to the herb shop through the narrow alleys where cars could not enter.
“What on earth are they planning to pull, swarming in like that?”
Both her muttering to herself and the ringing of the phone in her pocket were swallowed up by the blaring sirens.
A little while ago, as she was opening her shop late, she had received a call from the lady at Bolba Restaurant.
She said trouble was brewing in the underground dwarf village.
At first, it had begun as a verbal argument, but when several men turned it into a physical fight, a child caught in the middle had ended up getting hurt.
[While they were fighting, they knocked over a kettle of water that had been boiled for tea, and the child got scalded. A shrimp’s back got broken in a whale fight, that’s what happened. Please come here and treat the child. I’m begging you. We can’t go to the hospital right now.]
Cheon Danbi found it strange that a fight had suddenly broken out in the peaceful village, but instead of asking for the details, she hurriedly gathered her herbs and ran to Bolba Restaurant.
From there, guided by the restaurant lady, she went down into the underground dwarf village.
Cheon Danbi had been there a few times before, but it was like a maze if one tried to find the way alone.
“Let’s see. Oh dear, this must hurt a lot. Still, bear with it just a little. I’ll treat it properly.”
She immediately went over to the injured child and began treating the burn, and sure enough, the surroundings were in utter chaos.
The physical fight had stopped now, but even though a child had been hurt, several men still could not stop arguing.
“I’m telling you, this is no ordinary matter! The police will be storming in any minute now.”
“Who’s the traitor? Which bastard went and stuck himself to the mages?”
“Why do you keep going on about a traitor? The police already knew about this underground village in the first place. Don’t stir up trouble by talking about spies or whatever for no reason.”
“No. There has to be a traitor. If not, then why are they suddenly coming to search this place? And who spread those ridiculous rumors?”
“Like you said, those are all ridiculous rumors. So what traitor? The humans have made up their minds to catch dwarves. That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s right. What reason would they need? They’re just trying to torment us.”
From what she heard, it did not seem like an ordinary problem.
Talk of traitors and spies was one thing, but more than that, the news that the police were coming to search the place sounded ominous.
‘What on earth is going on? They’re coming to search this place? And what rumors?’
She wanted to know the details. But she had to finish treating the child first, so Cheon Danbi simply kept her hands moving busily.
Then, the news coming from the television turned on in one corner reached her ears.
“From the outside, this building appears to be an ordinary restaurant, but if you go down beneath it, you will find an underground base resembling a cave. Such an illegally constructed dwarf village existed near Neo Forest. It is said that the swarm of monster rats originated from this very underground base.”
‘What? The swarm of monster rats originated from this underground dwarf village?’
It was news that left her mind numb.
Cheon Danbi continued listening to the broadcast.
“It is presumed that the dwarves have been conducting various experiments in their underground base all this time. As stated earlier, the monster rats are the result of a natural mutation, but it appears that harmful substances released underground by the dwarves during their experiments caused the rats to mutate.”
This was utter nonsense. Having observed the dwarves up close, Cheon Danbi knew very well that the news was false.
The dwarves simply liked making all kinds of equipment; they did not experiment on living creatures.
Moreover, their craftsmanship was meticulous to the extreme, and they were never sloppy with cleanup.
Harmful substances released during experiments had caused the rats to mutate? It was an entirely forced story.
‘I clearly felt mana from those rats. A natural mutation caused by harmful substances? That makes no sense.’
Cheon Danbi thought it over carefully.
‘Who made up that story, and for what purpose? What do the mages gain by framing the dwarves?’
Usually, when fake news like this was fabricated and spread, it was to hide something or pin the blame on someone else.
The mages were definitely hiding something about the outbreak of the monster rats.
‘Unbelievable. Why would they try to cover for a black mage who caused a terror attack?’
The news went on to report that searches would be carried out not only in the underground dwarf village, but also in all other legal dwarf districts.
‘What? This is openly making the dwarves into targets!’
It seemed they were trying to stir up conflict between races. They were diverting the problem to a completely wrong place.
Cheon Danbi was quietly furious.
Even she, a human, was this angry, so she could understand why the dwarves were losing their heads in rage.
But the more it was like this, the more they had to keep their wits about them. This was no time to be fighting among themselves.
“There, it’s done. The herbs will heal the wound quickly. Be careful not to let the bandage come loose.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Having just finished treating the child’s wound, Cheon Danbi approached the dwarves.
“Everyone! This isn’t the time to be arguing. It’s not the time to fight among yourselves about traitors or spies. The police and mages will be barging in soon, so you need to prepare quickly.”
At Cheon Danbi’s words, several dwarves chimed in.
“She’s right. This isn’t the time for this. We have to protect our village.”
“Let’s do what needs to be done first. We need to look after the children and evacuate them. We can’t let the mages harm them for no reason.”
Some people came to their senses at once and ran off to prepare, while others were still floundering and only raising their voices.
“Humans who have nothing to do with this should stay out of it!”
“What do you mean prepare? How are we supposed to prepare? Are you saying we should fight the government mages? You want us all to get slaughtered?”
“We need to catch the spy first! Even if we run somewhere from here, if the spy goes and tattles again, it’ll all be for nothing.”
“Everyone, calm down! Calm down and prepare for battle first!”
It was absolute pandemonium.
Cheon Danbi shook her head. A community that had lived peacefully had turned into chaos in an instant.
On top of that, they were even shouting at Cheon Danbi, who had lived in a mutually beneficial relationship with them until now, telling her that humans should stay out of it.
For now, she thought it would be best to leave.
“Ma’am, I’ll be going now. The child’s treatment went well, so just be careful that the wound doesn’t get worse.”
“Thank you. Now hurry and get out of here. It’s going to turn into a mess soon.”
The lady from Bolba Restaurant showed Cheon Danbi the way out and waved for her to hurry away.
After coming outside through the restaurant like that, Cheon Danbi avoided the approaching police cars and walked for a long while through the back alleys. At last, unable to ignore the continued ringing, she took out her phone.
When she checked the caller, it was Oudin.
“Oh, Mage. What’s going on?”
Only after asking did she realize he must have called because of the news.