Who hid my body?

Chapter 340 I just want to take all the people like me with me.
"Bang" sound.

Lyle was thrown into the warehouse, where the children were awakened and looked at him with panic.

Then, Torre, his head covered in blood, strode over to Lyle's side, raised his foot and viciously kicked him, cursing, "You fucking bastard, are you satisfied now? Huh, tell me, you bitch, are you satisfied now!"

Lyle, however, remained completely unresponsive, like a lump of mud.

Haro immediately stepped forward to stop Torre: "Alright, alright, don't really kill him."

"So what if he's dead? After doing something like that, do you think this guy could still live?"

“Of course he won’t survive, but he can’t die tonight,” Harlow advised. “Don’t forget his identity; the necessary procedures still need to be followed.”

Torre calmed down and remembered that this guy was also a reserve gold merchant. He couldn't kill him on the spot. He had to report it to headquarters and then notify the gold merchant who gave him the seed of the contract.

"Pah!" Torre spat viciously in Lyle's face. "Just wait, I'll kill you tomorrow morning!"

With that, he turned and left, leaving only Harlow and Lyle, along with a group of goods.

Harlow first glanced at the "goods" in the warehouse, and seeing that no one dared to speak, he slowly stepped forward and squatted down in front of Lyle.

"Tell me, why did you do this?" Harlow said calmly. "You lost your wife, you couldn't save your son, and now you've ruined yourself. Is it really worth it? You could have had a better life, but you've given it all up yourself."

Lyle did not respond; there was no sign of life in his eyes, as if he were dead.

With a "click," the cigarette was lit by the flame, and then Harlow placed it in front of Lyle's mouth.

"Think it over carefully." Harlow got up and left. "Think about whether it's all worth it."

Just as Harlow was about to leave the warehouse, Lyle, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke up: "It's you, isn't it?"

Harrow stopped in his tracks: "What?"

“No outsiders have ever been to my village. You’ve been the only one here all these years! You don’t even know the location of the Land of Contracts!” Lyle stared intently at Haro. “Only you know that you were the one who sold this information… it was you!”

Harlow turned to look at Lyle, his previously indifferent eyes now filled with coldness.

“You really are an ungrateful bastard,” Harlow said slowly. “I didn’t want to make things too awkward between us. If you’re still alive tomorrow, we could work together like before, but now it seems unlikely.”

"you……"

Before Lyle could finish speaking, Harlow lunged forward and kicked Lyle in the stomach.

"I'm the one who brought you out here! If it weren't for me, you'd be joining your family by now!" Haro, having completely abandoned all pretense, was no longer willing to play dumb. His eyes were filled with murderous intent. "You bastard, not only do you not know gratitude, but you even dared to lay a hand on me... Ahhh!"

Harlow screamed as Lyle bit his calf.

"You fucking dog!" Harlow kicked Lyle in the back of the head with his other foot, finally making Lyle release his grip. "Fine, since you're so eager to know, I'll tell you. It's true, I sold the location of your village five years ago, right after I brought you out... No, that's not right. To be precise, the location of those villages was my real objective. You were just a reckless stray dog ​​I brought along on the way!"

Lyle let out a painful whimper, his voice shrill and muffled as his mouth filled with blood.

"Are you satisfied now? What bullshit about changing your destiny, about letting your family know they were wrong... Let me tell you, the only one who's truly wrong is you!" Harlow roared. "Do you really think you and your family are the same kind of people as us? In my eyes, you and your family are nothing but a bunch of dressed monkeys! I gave you the chance to pretend to be human, but that doesn't mean you're actually human! You bunch of people with no faith, no past, and no future, go to hell!"

Harlow's final kick broke several of Lyle's ribs.

Lyle vomited blood, finally exhausting all his strength, and lay limp like a rag doll, no longer moving, but the anger in his eyes still hadn't dissipated.

Haro was also panting heavily, and it took him a while to recover. Then he glanced at the children in the warehouse whose faces were full of fear, and suddenly thought of something and smiled.

"Speaking of which, I just peeked at it too. Your child has been sent to Rhine, right? And if I remember correctly, you were in Rhine a month ago, and you also encountered a similar convoy."

Lyle's pupils dilated rapidly, which Harlow naturally noticed, and his smile widened.

"Looks like I guessed right, your son really is on there... Heh, how interesting. So, does this mean you personally delivered your son there..."

"Hello!!! Cough cough cough..."

"Heh, no matter how loudly you shout here, it's useless," Harlow said calmly. "I think you should feel fortunate that at least your son will never know what kind of person you really are."

These words drained Lyle of his last bit of strength, and he collapsed to the ground, not uttering another sound until Harlow left.

The warehouse fell into a deathly silence. The children, who had been too afraid to make a sound, still dared not approach Lyle, who lay in a pool of blood, as if he were no longer a person, but a corpse, a corpse waiting to rot.

He didn't know how much time had passed before he finally managed to utter a sound.

Why...why is this happening?

The children exchanged glances, unsure whether Lyle was talking to himself or to them.

Only Bai Wei knew that he was talking to himself.

So Bai Wei slowly asked, "Which part are you referring to?"

“All of it…” Lyle said hoarsely, “I don’t understand… what did I do wrong… I just wanted to live a better life, I wanted to prove to my family that I was right… that’s all, but this world… is unfair to me, really unfair.”

"Where is the unfairness?"

“It’s everywhere,” Lyle said softly. “People outside… are born with vast skies, fresh air, a past and a future, but we have none of these, we can’t even imagine them.”

Is this what they call unfair?

"Is not it?"

“Then, according to you, what about these children whom you call commodities?” Bai Wei said. “They do have vast skies, fresh air, and what you call a past and a future… or at least they should have them. But is that fair to them?”

Lyle's eyelids twitched: "This has nothing to do with me. They would have done the same thing even without me."

"Then who is responsible for your unfair treatment?"

Lyle was stunned.

“You can’t just complain about unfairness when disaster strikes you,” Bai Wei said. “That’s the biggest injustice.”

Lyle opened his mouth, instinctively wanting to refute something, but didn't know how to start.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally spoke as if he had found the answer: "If that's the case... then I'm even less wrong..."

"is it?"

“The world is like this, everyone is like this.” He seemed to be trying to convince Bai Wei, or perhaps himself. “Then why blame me? It’s… the world’s fault, not mine! What can I do alone?!” Lyle almost screamed the last half of the sentence hysterically, but because his mouth was full of blood, it was not clear and sounded like the ramblings of a dying man to onlookers.

Only Bai Wei could hear what Lyle was saying. He calmly waited for Lyle to finish venting before slowly speaking, "Yes, it's almost impossible for one person to change the world. Even if you really were a good person, you might not be able to avoid this ending, because this world is just like this, rotten to the core."

Lyle was initially stunned when he saw that Bai Wei had actually acknowledged him.

He originally thought that Bai Wei would mock him, scold him, or even "instruct" him, just like a god in legends guiding believers.

But Bai Wei accepted him.

The legendary Vessas, a being comparable to the gods, also acknowledged his statement that "this world is utterly rotten."

Lyle thought he would be happy and feel relieved, but he was not. Instead, he felt an indescribable sorrow and despair spreading through his heart.

Just then, Lyle heard a rustling sound. He looked up and saw two children carrying a basin of water, carefully approaching him.

Lyle heard their deliberately hushed voices.

"Do we really want to help him? He's in cahoots with those people."

"But he's dying, at least give him a drink of water."

"……All right."

A brief conversation caused Lyle's body to suddenly stiffen.

The two children tried to feed him water, but Lyle kept his mouth tightly shut and refused to accept it.

A child said anxiously, "Why won't you drink it? You'll die if you don't!"

Another child responded, "Even if you drink it, you'll die."

"What if?"

...What if?
……

Why do you insist on leaving him? He's lying to you!

"What if it's true?!"

……

Lyle's lips parted, and water slid into his throat, icy and chilling.

"Is this okay?"

"Hmm... that should be fine."

After giving him water, the two children quickly left. They didn't say anything more to Lyledo; saving his life (in their eyes) was enough.

Lyle just stared at them blankly.

"Do you remember what the world was like five years ago?" Bai Wei, after a brief silence, spoke again. "You couldn't see the sky, you couldn't smell fresh air, the average lifespan was only forty years, there was no past or future—those were your exact words. But did you know what the outside world was like back then? Why did you dare to leave that endless desert based solely on that black marketeer's words? Weren't you afraid he was lying to you, that there was no better world outside, but a worse place, and that leaving your hometown meant certain doom? Didn't you think about that?"

Lyle opened his mouth.

“Of course you thought about it, but you still did it,” Bai Wei said. “Because you were betting that what he said was true, betting on that ‘what if,’ and in your eyes, that ‘what if’ was worth everything. So why didn’t you accept your fate five years ago, but you did today?”

Lyle's breathing gradually became heavier.

“I’m not criticizing you. Not everyone can walk that path, but how can you not admire those who can?” Bai Wei said. “Just like your son will surely be proud of you five years ago when you dared to venture out of the desert, won’t he?”

Lyle fell silent.

Although his breathing was still heavy, like a broken musical instrument, he was now unusually "quiet" compared to his previous disorder and irritability.

There was silence for a very long time, so long that the two children began to wonder if he was dead and hesitated whether to come and check on him, when Lyle finally spoke.

“Where is my son…” he asked softly.

“Tianqin,” Bai Wei said, “a place that is in ruins, but still holds some hope.”

"Ah, Lyra... I know, I know."

Lyle gently closed his eyes. He didn't ask how Bai Wei had saved his son, nor did he make any demands. He just kept repeating "I know," like a broken record.

After a long while, he slowly opened his eyes and asked, "Are you Vesas, or what they call the Tongue?"

Is this question important to you?

“It’s very important,” Lyle said. “If you were Lord Vesas, I could pray to you.”

"I wish to see your son?"

“No,” Lyle said, “it’s something else, something you promised me: to lend me your power.”

Even if it's power at the cost of lives?

Lyle didn't speak, but he clearly acquiesced.

“I’ll never see my son again after using it,” Bai Wei said. “Is that alright?”

“I have no face to see him anymore,” Lyle said in a low voice. “I’m sorry to my wife, I’m sorry to my parents, and I’m sorry to my son… so I want to do something.”

"So you want to rescue all the children here?"

“No.” Lyle shook his head, then looked at the black market dealers outside the warehouse and said, word by word, “I just want to take away guys like me…”

Bai Wei remained silent for a while, then smiled.

"can."

　I admit my mistake; this chapter isn't well-written, I know. But after two days of polishing, this is all I could manage. I feel the groundwork wasn't laid enough. There are too many plot lines to cover in this volume, resulting in Lyle not having the storylines of previous main characters, yet having to follow the same path, which is frustrating. So, he ends up as a flat, uninteresting character. It seems that such a character transformation would require at least 200,000 words like in the first volume about Uru, focusing solely on one person; otherwise, it wouldn't work. Fortunately, Lyle was initially intended to be just a plot device, so it doesn't affect the overall plot of this volume.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)