In the northern district of the city of Blackridge, a 3-story building stood in the middle of a neatly arranged garden. Its iron fence was tall and clean, the plants in its yard were trimmed regularly, and two guards stood at the main entrance with rifles on their backs. It was the official office and residence of the mayor of Blackridge.
On the 3rd floor, at the end of a corridor that could only be accessed by certain people, a middle-aged woman knocked on the mayor's office door twice before entering. Her hands carried several sheets of documents that needed to be signed before the afternoon.
Mayor Harven Dross sat behind his desk with a rigid back. His face was flat, but flat in a way different from usual, not flat from calm, but flat because of something he had been holding back very hard from before. His eyes stared at a point above the desk without truly seeing anything there.
His secretary, Mara, placed those documents at the corner of the desk and produced a pen without saying anything. She had worked for Harven long enough to know when it was time not to ask.
From the adjacent room, which was a private meeting room with a thick door and double locks, a sound was heard. Not the sound of a meeting, not the sound of discussion or debate. The sound that penetrated through that thick door was a loud moan that was easy to understand by anyone.
Mara did not lift her head from the documents. Harven did not move from his chair.
Both of them fell silent with different burdens.
The office door flew open roughly from outside, hitting the wall with a loud bang. A uniformed man entered with hurried steps, his eyes sweeping the room before stopping on Mara. "Where is Balton?"
Mara pointed toward the meeting room door beside it without uttering a single word.
The man walked there and opened the meeting room door with a push just as hard.
"Boss! There is an important report, someone has defeated Jason and his abilities are very–"
"Bastard." The voice from inside the meeting room was heavy and full of anger. "Do you want to die? Get out immediately!"
"But boss, that man can–"
BANG.
The sound of a gunshot thundered from behind the open door, then silence. The sound of a body falling was heard briefly, then it was gone.
Silence filled the third-floor corridor once more.
Then Balton's voice was heard from inside that room again, this time lower, with a completely different tone. "Right now you are the most important thing, Lucy. Oh darling ...."
"Ahh ... please stop! That hurts, I beg you!"
Mara stood very still in front of the mayor's desk. Her face that had been blank changed completely. Her eyes opened wider, her breath caught in the middle, and both her hands stopped touching the documents in front of her.
Lucy ... She knew that name.
Everyone in that building knew that name. The name that two weeks ago was still printed on a birthday invitation distributed to all the office staff, the name spoken with pride by the man who now sat silently in the large chair before her.
His daughter.
Mara did not dare to look at Harven. But she did not need to look at him to know what was happening on that man's face. The sound of the chair shifting slightly was already enough to describe everything, the small trembling of someone holding something too tightly because they did not know what to do.
Mara took those unsigned documents, tapped them neatly on the edge of the desk, then stored them back under her arm. "I will return later, Mr. Mayor."
She walked out of that room with steps quicker than usual, closed the door behind her softly, and chose to know nothing about what she had just heard.
***
Balton came out of the meeting room pulling up his trouser zipper. He stopped briefly in front of the door, adjusted his belt with a casual movement, then stepped into the mayor's office like someone who had just come out of a dining room.
The man was tall and large. His shoulders nearly touched both sides of the door frame as he passed through it, his arms as thick as an adult's thigh, and his long black hair was left loose and untidy down his back.
His way of walking was strange, his body swaying left and right with each step, like someone who had just finished drinking but was not drunk, simply carrying that large body in a way he found comfortable.
"Sorry about that, Mr. Mayor." Balton raised one hand toward the floor near the meeting room door without looking there. "I dirtied your floor. Have someone clean it later."
Harven Dross sat behind his desk with both hands folded on top of it. Every muscle in his jaw appeared to be working hard, but his voice came out in a nearly flat tone. "It is fine, Balton, leave it."
Balton stopped in the middle of the room and stretched his back, his bones cracking loudly. His smile had not changed since he entered. "You know, I feel like the luckiest man in the world today." He rolled his neck to the right and to the left. "Getting the first chance to explore Lucy's body. I did not want the wicked men out there to take it from her first, you understand, don't you, Mr. Mayor."
Harven did not answer. His eyes stared at the blank paper on the desk.
"Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Mayor." Balton patted the man's shoulder once, then walked out of the room with the same swaying gait.
***