I! Cleaner!

"Thud thud thud thud..."

Just as Emma gritted her teeth and gripped the long-handled rapier, the footsteps below the deck gradually faded away. The previously uneven and dense sounds fell silent, leaving only a light and small soft footstep.

Hearing the sound of soft cloth slippers dragging on the floor, the bearded strong man who had just kowtowed and begged Emma to kill him completely suddenly trembled all over. He involuntarily took half a step toward the entrance of the deck but immediately recoiled as if bitten by a snake.

"Creak."

Accompanied by a soft sound of wood friction, the trap door on the deck of the king ship moved slightly, as if someone was trying to push it open from below.

But this trap door leading to the lower cabin had long been sealed by the Cleaners using various means. The people below had tried several times but couldn't push it open and had no choice but to laboriously raise a small fist and knock forcefully on the cracked trap door bottom.

"Daddy?"

When the clear child's voice came from below, the bearded strong man's legs suddenly went soft, and he fell to his knees on the deck with a thud. The child under the trap door seemed to hear the sound above and couldn't help but happily shout through the door:

"You're outside, right? Daddy! Open the door!"

"Thud thud thud."

"Open the door, why are you ignoring me?"

"Daddy?" 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Baflo, are you okay?"

Glancing at the bearded strong man lying half-prone on the deck, wanting to go toward the trap door but unable to move a step, the woman Cleaner standing in front hesitated for a moment, then suggested:

"How about I just send the child..."

"No! Don't!"

Hurriedly stopping the woman Cleaner, the bearded strong man propped himself up on the deck and tried to move toward the trap door. Unfortunately, his legs were uncontrollably trembling, and after a long while, he had moved less than a meter, still quite far from the trap door.

After waiting for a while without anyone coming to open the door, the child's voice under the trap door seemed a little anxious, knocking on the door and saying fearfully:

"Daddy! Come help me open the door, there's such a bad smell of smoke at home... so hot!"

"Let me out, okay? I can see red flowers that can dance, they're licking Aunt Mary's cabinet and coming toward me!"

"Daddy! Open the door, please? I won't be naughty anymore, don't lock me at home!"

The child's voice below the deck gradually took on a crying tone. Soon, a large amount of choking gray smoke began to seep up through the cracks between the trap door and the deck, as if a dangerous fire had indeed occurred below.

As the child truly began to cry and begged him for the third time to open the door, the bearded strong man could no longer hold back. He jumped directly forward, crashing open the half mast on top of the trap door, desperately clawing at the groove of the trap door.

Unfortunately, the groove of the trap door had long been completely sealed by exotic objects to hold for a while longer. Even after the bearded strong man clawed until his nails lifted and the wood splinters flew, almost entirely destroying the door, it remained tightly shut, showing no sign of opening.

"Open the door!"

Seemingly coming to his senses, the bearded strong man, driven by emotions, suddenly turned around, looked at the woman Cleaner who had just spoken, knelt on the deck with eyes red and begged:

"I beg you! Please open the door!"

"I... alright..."

The woman Cleaner bit her lip, seemingly wanting to persuade him otherwise, but finally closed her eyes, reached out and gently tore towards the trap door.

"Clang!"

A clear mechanical click came from below. With the woman Cleaner's tearing action, the trap door, which seemed like it had been welded shut, sprang open. The dim light of the Realm of the Dead shone down, illuminating the tear-streaked face of the little girl below.

"Daddy!"

Once the bearded strong man's trembling arms lifted her from the smoke-filled cabin, the little girl wearing white rabbit slippers immediately extended her chubby arms and clung tightly to his neck, her eyes red and choking with sobs:

"I kept calling and you didn't come open the door... I thought you didn't want me because I was being naughty..."

"Never, never!"

Trembling all over, holding the little girl and feeling the small heartbeat he had been missing for over ten years, tears and snot blended on the bearded strong man's face. He couldn't help but kneel on the dirty deck and continuously promised between sobs:

"I won't abandon you, I won't abandon myself! I... Daddy was just angry and locked you in at home for a moment! But whenever you call for Daddy, I will surely come! As long as you call, as long as you call me!"

"Okay!"

The little girl broke into a smile through her tears, nodding repeatedly:

"I will call you! I... Daddy? My throat feels suffocated... I seem... can't call out..."

As the little girl's voice grew hoarse, the initially contained choking smoke slowly seeped from her mouth and nose.

Under the terrified gazes of the Cleaners, a large amount of ash with red embers spewed from her mouth, landing on the bearded strong man's arms and chest, scorching his already unstable soul with dense black and red holes, then burned further inward.

Meanwhile, the little girl in the strong man's arms quickly withered and cracked in the blazing smoke, transforming from an originally delicate and lovely child into a charred corpse ravaged by fire.

Daddy!

After spewing out another plume of ash, the rapidly withering little girl looked at the bearded strong man, her inquisitive eyes wide open, and her mouth opened in confusion.

I clearly called... why didn't you come to save me?

"No! No!"

Looking at the rapidly withering and breaking small body in his arms and her questioning gaze, the bearded strong man couldn't help but tear at his clothes, desperately showing her the burn scars on his body, kneeling in despair before the little girl and explaining:

"I didn't lie! Daddy really did go! Right after I found out about the fire, I rushed in! I searched the entire house! But I... I..."

As the small body gradually disintegrated, in his smoke-blackened and red-tinted vision, the bearded strong man seemed to once again see the burning and falling cabinet and his daughter beneath it, watching him pass by, unable to call out, only watching his back as she was burned alive.

"I didn't hear! I didn't hear you!"

Amidst the bearded strong man's desperate cries, the holes burnt into his body by the smoke became ever larger, almost splitting him from the chest down, yet he seemed oblivious, only knowing to desperately bang his head against the deck in front of him... until pierced through the chest by a rapier!