After Edward's house had been completely cleaned, Edgar stood at the entrance, looking at the empty place with frozen eyes.
Although everything seemed neat and tidy,he felt no satisfaction.
On the contrary,a silent anger was rising in his chest.
The reason wasn't the smell or the walls that had regained their white color,
but something else:Alexander.
That man who had snatched the mission from him with utter calm, as if it were a small game not worth the attention.
Edgar hadn't said anything at the time,but the spark kept burning inside him even as he left the place.
Behind him, Duncan was walking with a strange silence, his head lowered and his face expressionless as if he was thinking about something he hadn't yet understood.
The first minutes of the journey passed without a single word,
only the sound of their footsteps on the wet ground filling the damp silence around them.
Edgar finally decided to break this suffocating quiet and said with a tone tinged with annoyance:
"Come on, what's wrong with you, Duncan? You've been silent the whole way. Is there a problem?"
Duncan raised his head, slightly confused, and said hesitantly:
"A problem? No... I don't think so. Just... I feel resentful that we didn't handle the mission ourselves."
Edgar looked at him, then at the small key in his hand,
the key that was supposed to be his reward.
He contemplated it for a moment,then said in a faint, bitter voice:
"I don't know what was going through Alexander's mind when he took the mission from me...
Was he mocking me? Or warning me about something? I don't know.
But in any case..."
He lifted the key in front of his face, looked at it with an empty gaze, then threw it far into the mud.
"I won't need this key. It's not the result of my work, and I don't deserve what it holds."
The sound of the key falling into the mud was like a small slap against his pride.
But Edgar didn't look back.
He smiled lightly as he said:
"But no problem, I received another mission from the bracelet... its address: the Local Prison."
Duncan raised his eyebrows with fear and worry, looking around as he said:
Prison?
Edgar laughed lightly, patting his shoulder:
"Why? Are you scared, Duncan?"
Duncan replied with surprising seriousness:
"Yes, I am. Scared, and realistic too."
Edgar laughed more, as they climbed onto the road leading to the public square where carriages waited.
The wind whipped at their coats,the sky leaned towards a desolate grey,
and the city was slowly swallowing the daylight.
Edgar stopped a small carriage, driven by an old man with a thick beard.
But the old man,as soon as he saw Duncan, scowled and said, pointing with his stick:
"That animal doesn't ride in my carriage!"
Edgar and Duncan exchanged glances,
then Edgar began a sharp argument with the driver,
raising his voice at times,lowering it at others,
until it almost turned into a full-blown quarrel.
The sound of the argument attracted the attention of people on the street,
and finally,after long altercations and a fair amount of swearing,
the old man reluctantly agreed.Duncan rode beside Edgar,
but his face remained sullen as the carriage moved.
The sound of the wheels hitting water-filled potholes made a
crack... crack...
and the horses emitted angry groans whenever their hooves hit the stones.
Duncan looked out the small window,
then complained with genuine grievance:
"Even the horses are angry because they're carrying a donkey like me."
Then he added,
his eyes still fixed on the road,as if something was seriously worrying him.
"We need to be cautious this time, Edgar...
These missions don't come out of nowhere.
Prisons are places where people don't come out the same as they went in."
Edgar smiled confidently, looking out the opposite window.
"What's wrong with you, Duncan? You've become strange lately.
Didn't you see how I defeated the giant serpent last time?
While you were trembling behind the rocks?"
Duncan retorted quickly, his eyes widening with sharp sarcasm:
"Yes, I saw you when you were lying unconscious and crying.
'Grandpa, grandpa,' like a little child who wet himself!"
Edgar froze for seconds, his face expressionless,
then turned his face towards the window,exactly as Duncan had done.
Both were silent,
but the atmosphere between them filled with a thread of amusing tension that neither wanted to break.
The carriage continued on its way,
the people in the street walked in uniform black clothes,
as if the whole city was attending the funeral of an unknown world.
Even the children were without laughter.
The sky was tilted towards dark grey,
and the cold penetrated the bones with a heavy silence.
Clak... doom... crack...
The wheels hit the damp ground with a monotonous rhythm resembling the pulse of time itself.
When they finally reached the local prison,
the horse stopped suddenly,its breath rising as steam in the cold air.
The two got down quickly,sheltering from the rain that had begun to turn into sharp showers like glass.
The prison gate was massive, made of black iron,
topped with bars resembling the teeth of an ancient creature.
They approached the small side door,
Edgar knocked on it lightly.
The guard opened a small hatch in the door,
looked through it carefully,
then raised his eyebrow when he saw Duncan behind him.
"What do you want?"
He said it in a dry tone.
Edgar didn't know how to respond at first,
he just raised his card with his hand,trying to look official.
But as soon as the guard saw it, he immediately closed the small hatch,
then opened the iron door with a loud metallic soundCraaack!
The guard came out saying sternly:
"Only humans can enter."
Duncan and Edgar exchanged glances again.
Duncan's eyes spoke silently:
"Say something! I can't stay here alone in this harsh cold!"
But Edgar, contrary to expectation, shrugged his shoulders and said to the guard with a faint smile:
"You're right.
What would a donkey do in a prison anyway?"
Duncan frowned deeply,
but Edgar entered without hesitation,the door closing firmly behind him Dooom!
Inside,
the guard led Edgar through a long,dark corridor smelling of iron and old sweat.
The walls were cold,and sounds echoed between whispers and echoes.
The guard said,pointing to a rusty wooden chair:
"Wait here a little."
Edgar sat on the chair,
while the bracelet on his wrist glowed with a faint blue light,
but suddenly...everything changed.
And unlike usual, instead of transferring to the World of Doors as normally happens,
the bracelet suddenly opened a small rift.
It resembled a purple eye blooming in the void,with a deep, dark purple color,
and the bracelet emitted a faint sound like an electronic hum:
Wooooo...
Edgar extended his hand, placed the paper inside the rift as if he knew exactly what to do.
And the moment he did,
suddenly the System instructions regarding the mission appeared,different from the usual.
System Active
Mission: Accompany Ronny, the Angry Steel.