Vicious Darling

# Chapter 10. Pretense

[55]

He looked at Dahlia naturally, without showing any sign.

“Dain!”

Chris held out Dain to the woman running toward him.

It was an act of handing over a minor Guide to an Esper belonging to a criminal organization.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t hesitate.

The child, returned to Dahlia’s arms, settled comfortably.

He picked up the ball that had fallen nearby and handed it over respectfully.

“Here it is.”

“Thank you,” the child mumbled. His tongue was dark red, perhaps from the candy he had eaten earlier.

‘Wasn’t that bought to keep his mouth shut outside?’

It seemed she had let him eat it all.

“I’m sorry. Our child…”

Dahlia’s eyes scanned Chris’s body.

“He completely ruined your clothes. I’ll compensate you somehow.”

She stamped her feet, still pretending to be a sweet mother.

“No, it’s alright,” Chris said politely.

“I spilled it due to my carelessness. There’s no fault with the little lady here.”

“…Oh.”

Something like an exclamation or curse seemed to be heard, but it was too small and muffled to be certain.

“Still. I wouldn’t feel right just letting you go like this.”

Chris was somewhat surprised.

He had staged a situation where they would inevitably have to interact in front of others.

But it was unexpected that Dahlia would insist on compensating him.

‘I thought she would try to minimize contact with outsiders.’

In the worst case, he thought she would just throw some money at him and leave.

He was lucky from the start.

Chris changed his clothes and came back down to the lobby.

Dahlia and Dain, disguised as mother and son, said they would wait in the hotel restaurant.

He had prepared a plan assuming they might try to slip away during this time.

However, making Chris’s preparations seem unnecessary, Dahlia was sitting side by side with Dain, waiting for him.

The ball seemed to have been confiscated, and Dain was playing with some puzzle.

‘Where did that come from?’

Upon close observation, Chris realized it was a toy provided by the restaurant.

It seemed they were prepared for families who came to dine.

“Over here,” Dahlia waved as she noticed Chris’s arrival.

When he took a seat across from them, a waiter brought menus.

Simple conversation passed while they ordered food and waited.

“My name is Dahlia, and this is Dain.”

“Ah. Nice to meet you. I’m Chris.”

Chris introduced himself as someone who had worked an office job but was now taking a break after quitting.

Naturally, the incident in the lobby also came up in conversation.

“My husband is in Babel City, so when I went out with just the two of us, I couldn’t catch him when he ran off.”

That seemed to be her established story.

Dahlia expressed her gratitude again.

“The child caused trouble, thank you for being so understanding.”

“Not at all. I was just looking straight ahead.”

Chris shook his head.

“How did the coffee…”

At Dahlia’s question, Chris smiled bitterly.

“Ah. It had gotten cold, so I was thinking of asking for hot water, but no one paid attention to me.”

This too was a prepared excuse.

“So I was going to make the request directly, but then… thinking about it now, it was fortunate. The child could have been burned.”

Dain, realizing they were talking about him, briefly glanced over.

“Hello. My name is Chris.”

Though his face was layered with an illusion, it was a fairly gentle impression. Perhaps because of this, the child seemed curious rather than wary of Chris.

‘Does he have discerning eyes? It doesn’t seem like she scolded him much.’

If Dahlia had acted according to her temperament, Dain would certainly have been greatly intimidated.

At the same time, Chris’s thoughts became quite complicated.

Is she treating him well because the child is a Guide?

If so, what was that scolding at the factory?

With just a few days of one-sided observation, it was difficult to fully understand the relationship between Dahlia and Dain.

Still, one thing was certain: that Esper knew Dain was a Guide.

Introduced as his mother and acting accordingly, Dain clung well to Dahlia.

The basic condition for guiding is contact.

Moreover, at such a young age, he couldn’t possibly have guiding control ability like Yuri, so at least Dahlia would know the child was a Guide.

Though her attitude was dry, perhaps their mutual matching rate was low.

“Just going to the restroom for a moment.”

At that time, Dahlia rose from her seat.

She seemed to have dropped her guard, judging their meeting to be completely coincidental.

Getting the chance to talk with Dain earlier than expected, Chris quietly observed the girl.

Her movements were not too busy, and her actions were small like those of a small animal.

She kept glancing at him curiously and perking up her ears. But when their eyes actually met and he smiled, she quickly turned her head and stared at the puzzle.

“Your mother seems to care for Dain a lot.”

At those words, the child nodded repeatedly. There was no sign of hesitation or wariness.

‘Unexpected.’

“You’ve been working on that puzzle for a while. Want some help?”

Dain readily handed over the puzzle she had been struggling with.

Chris turned the blocks one by one, matching the colors.

When all sides were unified with the same color, Dain’s eyes sparkled.

“Wow. My dad isn’t good at puzzles.”

“Really? Maybe he’s letting you solve it on your own because you like puzzles?”

After mumbling for a while, Dain asked, “Do you think so?”

Though uncertain, there was a strangely happy tone in his voice.

“You seem to like your dad a lot.”

“Mm-hmm. I like Dad.”

The child nodded repeatedly.

“Since he went to Babel City, you must be staying quite far apart. You must miss him.”

At this age, children don’t understand adult deception.

So he probably couldn’t detect the trap Chris had mixed into his question.

“He’s not far away.”

Dain, who had answered honestly without realizing it, slumped his shoulders.

“But I can’t see Dad. I miss him.”

“Have you asked your mom to go see Dad?”

“Ah, I can’t. She said we can’t be together.”

Dain shook his head.

“You can’t? Why?”

“That’s. That’s…”

Soon, Dain firmly closed his mouth.

It seemed less like he didn’t want to talk about it and more like he had been told to keep quiet.

Just then, Dahlia returned.

“Dain. Have you been playing nicely?”

Chris smiled awkwardly and said, “I’m sorry. I solved the puzzle for him, but he became sad saying he misses his father.”

“Ah.”

Dahlia nodded slightly.

“That happens.”

It was a strangely indifferent tone.

As if she had momentarily forgotten that she was pretending to be a caring mother.

After receiving a meal as an apology, Chris returned to his room with a plain attitude after saying goodbye.

Holidayz was just a two-story accommodation, and Chris’s room was right in front of the stairs.

Thanks to this, he could hear the sounds of guests coming and going.

When night fell, Dahlia left her room.

Looking out the window, Chris discovered her heading to the bar next to Holidayz.

After stubbornly waiting for a couple of hours, he saw Dahlia coming out with a man she had picked up.

She disappeared in the opposite direction from Holidayz, giggling with the man.

She seemed unconcerned about Dain’s existence, left alone.

‘Her guard around the child is lower than I thought.’

This meant he could make contact again.

Chris operated his terminal and contacted Anong.

-Hello, Chris.

The Esper appeared, waving her hand.

-Are you using the items I sent earlier well?

“Very well.”

-It was my first time modifying something for an animal to use, so I was concerned, but I’m glad.

Anong, who had been saying this opened up new possibilities for Espers with theriomorphic abilities, closed her mouth.

This was because Chris’s face was quite serious.

-Let’s see. Your expression looks like someone who has a favor to ask me?

After hesitating, Chris spoke.

“How long would it take Northern Light to make a recording device for a child?”

-A child?

Anong blinked on the other side of the screen.

-A child, you say? There’s a child there?

As Northern Light was in a cooperative relationship with White Night, she knew the general outline of the ongoing investigation.

Plus, given Chris’s equipment requests, she would also be aware they were investigating a factory producing drugs.

From Chris’s silence, Anong quickly read the affirmation.

-Really. Just impossibly awful people.

Anong’s eyes cooled coldly.

She immediately moved on to professional conversation.

-Making something wolf-sized was relatively easier because it was larger, but for a child… making something for a child would be difficult. It’s harder to make something smaller than to make something larger.

“It doesn’t have to be in the form of something inserted into the eye. Just in a form that can be hidden.”

Chris searched through the photos he had taken for a while, then selected and laid out a few.

They were all photos of the little one from Factory 8’s basement, Dain.

“This child will be using it.”

If possible, that is.

Chris didn’t initially plan to plant a recording terminal on Dain.

But from his observations so far, contact with insiders from the outside was nearly impossible.

However, Dain was relatively free to move around.

At the very least, he wasn’t tied up, and there was no separate monitor.

Above all else.

‘He’ll be able to capture the raw situation.’

There was a need to collect as much data as possible about the situation in the abandoned factory district and the people trapped there.

Yuri’s plan would not just be about taking down the site but toppling those behind it.

Chris knew better than anyone how his master operated.

-Hmm. A child, a child…

Anong murmured as she carefully examined Dain’s photos.

-Hmm. A lens form would be difficult…

Suddenly, as if discovering a clever solution, her eyes gleamed.

-Chris, do you know how to sew?

“What?”