Chapter 2 - Boy of the Back Alley (2)

The city of Soara.

Soara, one of the three cities held by the Bayezid count family, was always crowded with people.

It was not only the center of northern logistics, where two rivers met, but also a city that continued to develop thanks to the prestige of the Bayezid Family, a distinguished house of the North.

Because of that, people called the city of Soara a city that shone at night as if it were day, and sometimes called it the beacon of the North.

But beneath brilliance, there is always a shadow hidden by the light.

Beneath the splendid lights of the city, there was one district everyone knew about, yet turned their eyes away from.

It was the slum, where every filthy and sordid thing in Soara had been gathered and beaten into a single district.

"Second-floor candles are 20 silver, third-floor candles are 30 silver."

"... Don't you throw in a little extra if I buy a lot at once?"

"20 silver, 30 silver."

"Vlad, you brat, how many loaves of bread did I hand you when you were out begging? Give me a little more!"

The balding, fat, middle-aged man shouted with a slurred tongue, but the blond boy did not care in the slightest.

"If you don't have the money, go home and grope your wife's ass."

"Well now! Look at this little shit. Is this what happens when you grow up without a mother or father to teach you? Don't be like that..."

The air was damp with desire and lust.

The endless music and people's shouts echoed through the gaudily decorated four-story building.

"... Eyes. Look at my eyes, asshole!"

But no sound reached the ears of the thoroughly drunk middle-aged man anymore.

All of his senses were held fast by the blue gaze of the blond boy sitting before him.

It was a gaze with a strangely heavy force for something coming from a boy who had only just turned sixteen.

"... I guess I don't know who my father is, and my mother died a long time ago, so I never learned."

Vlad lowered his head and continued speaking while tapping the table with his finger.

"Your kid had better hope his father lives long and stays healthy, or he'll end up like me."

"Second-floor candles! Three of them!"

The middle-aged man snapped back to his senses the moment he avoided Vlad's eyes, then quickly snatched up the candles and dropped the silver coins as if throwing them.

"Sir, this is a 100-silver coin?"

"You keep all of it, you bastard!"

"Have a good night, sir!"

"You unlucky blue-eyed bastard!"

Vlad had been glaring at him as if he would eat him alive until just a moment ago, but once an unintended tip came in, he did not hesitate to bow deeply.

"... Not bad."

Vlad smacked his lips as he looked at the 100-silver coin in his hand.

As a developed city, Soara had countless brothels, but there were few as famous as this place, Rose's Smiles.

That was because Marcella, the owner and Madam of this place, was exceptionally beautiful, and the quality of the liquor, the women, and the services provided in between were also excellent.

Because of that, even for Vlad, who only sat quietly and sold candles in this always-thriving place, it was not difficult to gather a coin or two in tips.

Of course, the process was also a rough one.

"Aaaah!"

"You filthy whore! You should just sell your body quietly, but now you're even trying to scam people!"

In the second-floor hallway, one prostitute was being dragged out by the hair and beaten by a customer.

"What scam did I pull!"

"I spent 20 years as a mercenary! Don't try selling me some bullshit that won't work!"

The brown-haired prostitute seemed more frightened of the man's fist swinging in front of her than ashamed of her exposed breasts, and she waved both arms in front of her.

"Not a quiet day in this place."

Vlad let out a sigh, gathered the candles in front of him, and went up to the second floor.

"Sir. What is the matter?"

"Vlad! Save me!"

"What the hell is some brat doing here! Bring the Madam here, you bastard!"

Vlad quietly set down the box of candles he was holding in the hallway and let out a sigh.

"If you want to meet our Madam, you'll need gold coins, not silver."

"What gold coins, when you're running this place like shit! You bastard! If the Madam's not here, then bring your mother instead!"

As the commotion that began in the second-floor hallway echoed throughout the building, several of those drinking in the first-floor lobby began watching with interested eyes.

With coquettish prostitutes on their laps.

With beer in their left hands, and cigarettes in their right.

To watch a fight, said to be the most entertaining spectacle in the world.

"... Let's hear what you have to say first."

Vlad made an effort to cover both eyes with his palm and asked the man who claimed to have been a mercenary for 20 years.

"This candle!"

The man threw a candle at Vlad in frustration and shouted.

"This isn't a seven-minute one, is it? What kind of damn candle burns out when I've only taken off my pants!"

Vlad silently stared at the half-burned candle rolling to his feet.

Rose candles, used as a means of measuring time.

These candles, each of which took seven minutes to burn out, were both the standard used to measure the time between customers and prostitutes and a medium of trade.

"Fine, then."

Vlad rummaged through the box he had set down and picked up one of the candles used on the second floor.

"You see that clock over there? I'll light this candle from now, and we'll see if it lasts seven minutes."

There was no clock in the first-floor lobby, where people were meant to carouse without a care.

But on the second and third floors, where time had to be handled sensitively, clocks were hung.

"Why should I listen to scammers?"

The man who called himself a mercenary crossed his arms and refused Vlad's proposal.

"Let's do it."

"..."

But when he saw the blue eyes before him, he could not help nodding without realizing it.

A gaze that could overpower another person just by looking at them.

Jorge, the boss of the organization, would look at Vlad's eyes and say he was the kind of guy who would become the leader no matter what alley he went to.

"If it doesn't last seven minutes, then do whatever you want with the woman in your hand, whether you keep beating her or not."

Vlad struck a match along the sole of his shoe as he spoke.

"But if this really is a seven-minute candle, then you're getting beaten half to death by me right here."

"... What?"

Before the mercenary could stop him, Vlad lit the candle, set it down in the middle of the hallway, and gave a slight tilt of his head.

"Vlad..."

Only the pitiful prostitute, trembling uneasily, was looking at Vlad instead of the candle.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes.

As time passed and the attention of everyone gathered in the brothel began to focus on them.

"Huh?"

The moment the eyes of the mercenary, who still held the prostitute by the hair, widened.

"That's seven minutes, you bastard!"

Vlad swung the club at his waist with lightning-fast movement.

CRACK!

At the fierce blow, bright red blood spurted up from the mercenary's head.

"Aaaah!"

As an opening appeared from Vlad's sudden blow, the prostitute who had been held all this time slipped free.

"You're dead today!"

Vlad grabbed the still-dazed mercenary by the nape of the neck and dragged him into the room they had just come out of.

CLICK.

"You were the one who scammed first! What kind of twenty-year mercenary bastard has a gut sagging like this?"

CRACK!

CRACK!

"Aaaaargh!"

"And why are so many people looking for my mother today? How am I supposed to live under the sky with no parents without feeling miserable!"

The locked door.

From inside came the ceaseless sounds of blows and the man's screams.

Vlad focused on beating down the man in front of him, adding even the anger he had held back earlier.

"It wasn't...!"

"Shut your mouth, you bastard!"

When the drunk spectators could not see the fight they had expected, they smacked their lips and turned their heads back toward the prostitutes sitting on their laps.

CRACK!

The sound of the club and the man's screams.

When the black-haired woman sitting on the fourth floor gestured downward, the band's music grew even louder.

Someone cried, and someone raged, but all of it was buried beneath the loud music and simply flowed by in silence.

This was Soara.

This was Rose's Smiles.

It was only a place where drifting lives gathered and pooled for a short while.

* * *

After the noisy night passed, quiet morning sunlight settled over the Rose inn along with silence.

In the morning, Rose's Smiles, decorated with elegant ornaments, gave off the impression of a noble's villa by atmosphere alone.

Every splendid pattern contained the resentment and tears of the black-haired woman, but few would recognize that.

"Vlad."

"Oh. Anna."

There was a woman calling to Vlad after he had even politely escorted the last remaining customer onto the alley floor.

"The area around your eyes has gone dark blue. You'll need to rest for a few days."

"Yeah, I guess. Still, I'm lucky nothing's broken."

She was the brown-haired prostitute who had suffered the mercenary's violence last night.

"Thanks."

The woman smiled faintly with her bruised blue eye and handed him something.

Vlad silently looked at what she held out.

"I'll enjoy it."

It was an egg.

"Eat it here now. That's a raw egg."

"Hmm..."

Vlad looked at Anna smiling at him and put on a meaningful expression.

"All right."

Vlad cracked the bottom of the egg with his finger and drank it down.

The woman called Anna watched Vlad's Adam's apple move with satisfaction and said,

"I'm worried that men have gotten rough these days. At times like this, I really need a man I can trust..."

"Thanks for the food."

Anna looked at the eggshell placed on her palm and smiled bitterly.

"... Tell me anytime you change your mind. I must earn more than that red-haired little twig of a kid, don't I?"

"Maybe."

With those words, Vlad started walking.

"Oh, right. Anna!"

"Hm? What is it?"

Anna looked at Vlad with her eyes wide, filled with perhaps a bit of expectation.

"Isn't the front of your dress open too much? It's still winter, so you should take care of yourself."

"... This is also a sign of gratitude."

Only after Vlad pointed it out did Anna cover her breasts.

When she raised her head again, Vlad, who had been in front of her, had already disappeared to the end of the hallway.

"The only thing I can sell is my body, but he really won't fall for this..."

In the middle of the empty hallway.

A woman with no one to rely on smiled sorrowfully.

* * *

"Jorge. Someone tampered with the candles."

The first floor was a lobby that sold liquor and food.

The second and third floors were the brothel.

And the fourth floor was the living space for the prostitutes and employees.

Vlad sat in the dining room on the fourth floor and reported to the man eating breakfast.

"They weren't seven minutes."

"Really?"

The huge man called Jorge did not seem to care much about Vlad's report.

"I said they weren't seven minutes."

"Mm. Yes. So I hear."

Grilled sausage, black pudding, hash browns, and white wheat bread.

Jorge's breakfast was always the same.

And just like the menu he ate, the man named Jorge was someone who did not change.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? Someone messed with the candles that put food on our table."

"Why, who would dare do that!"

The black-haired woman who had been making breakfast herself in front of Jorge cut in with a playful smile.

"We have to find out who did it from now on."

"Of course we have to find them!"

"Should I find them?"

"You find them!"

"Why should I find them?"

"Actually, I already found them!"

"Who is it? Marcella."

Marcella, the owner of Rose's Smiles.

A woman whose beauty ranked among the top five in Soara.

Though she was in her mid-thirties, she still maintained her beauty, and she possessed both the allure of a mature woman and the innocent smile of a young girl.

"It was me. I tampered with them. I wanted to make some easy money fleecing drunk guys."

Trash-like words came out of the plump red lips any man would covet.

"Ha..."

Vlad lowered his head as if dumbfounded.

"So I beat up a poor bastard for nothing..."

What could an employee say when the owner said she had done it?

"... If I'd stuck the candle on the railing instead of the hallway floor, things could've gotten ugly."

He had deliberately put it on the floor just in case.

If he had not, then even the spectators on the first floor would all have realized the candle was not seven minutes long.

After hearing the Madam's confession, Vlad rose weakly from his chair.

"Where are you going? Eat before you go."

"I'll go down for a moment."

"Why?"

"... To at least cover the guy I just threw out with a blanket."

"How kind!"

Vlad trudged down the stairs.

Even if he had split open the head of an innocent man, he did not feel guilty, but one of Vlad's beliefs was that he still had to live while doing the bare minimum as a human being.

Because if beliefs like that did not stand firm, one would quickly be swept away by the dark current, and that was the nature of this back alley.

"Hey there! My proud junior!"

There was a voice that grabbed hold of Vlad as he trudged down to the first floor.

"Don't mess with me. I'm tired today."

"I heard you did something big yesterday. As expected of my proud junior!"

He was a man named Burray, who belonged to the Jorge Family.

"Did you maybe make some tips selling candles yesterday? Your seniors have something to spend money on today, you see."

At the end of Vlad's gaze, he saw the members of the Jorge Family.

"Fuck off."

"Come on, don't be like that. Hear me out. We're not pieces of trash who forcibly shake down our juniors for money."

Burray put an arm around Vlad's shoulders and came close.

"What bullshit are you trying to pull?"

"It's an exchange. If you give us money, we've got something to give you too. That's what I'm saying."

"What is it?"

Burray winked as if Vlad had finally understood him.

"Follow me."

When Burray jerked his chin, the other members of the Jorge Family moved out of the way.

"It's in the basement."

Following Burray's guidance, Vlad walked with him into the basement of Rose's Smiles.

This place, where liquor and food ingredients were stored, was important to the operation of Rose's Smiles, so it was also the place managed by Burray, whom Jorge especially favored.

In other words, this place was Burray's territory.

"Fuck me..."

"What do you think? Familiar face, isn't it?"

For Vlad, who was still practically the youngest in the Jorge Family, taking anything from this place required his permission.

"I'll hand him over for just 40 silver. That's really cheap. Where else would you find such a good senior?"

Behind Burray, who wore a mischievous smile, something was wriggling.

A child looking pitifully at Vlad while blood flowed from his forehead.

It was a child with black skin.