Chapter 3 - Boy of the Back Alley (3)

"Pickpocket."

Burray spoke behind Vlad, who wore a stricken look.

"He was awkward, stupid, and useless. So he got caught."

"..."

Rather than answer Burray, Vlad was checking the condition of the child writhing on the floor.

"Did you cut off his fingers?"

"No."

"Did you slash his ankle?"

"No."

Seeing Vlad ask after the young pickpocket's condition, Burray smiled.

Because he was certain his cute junior would hand over the silver.

"He's really fresh. I only dressed him up a little. You could probably eat him raw right now."

"Hahahaha!"

"Of course! I even beat him just enough to make him taste good!"

The Jorge Family members behind him burst into loud laughter, as if Burray's words were hilarious.

"... Fine."

Vlad sighed and took a gleaming silver coin from his breast.

"I knew it! I was sure our proud junior would accept the deal."

"Next time, don't call me. Just kill him."

"Why are you being like this? We're gang members, not murderers."

"Says the bastards ripping off their own Family."

Even when Vlad, practically the youngest, spat out harsh words, the gang members of the Jorge Family only laughed.

Because they already acknowledged Vlad, who had survived the rough back alleys.

A little younger brother's rough grumbling was something they could take as much as they liked with a man's broad heart.

"Your hyungs are going for a drink!"

"Go catch a venereal disease."

"That's our prospect! Vlad, whose club bites and whose tongue is sharp!"

"Though I don't know if the club in the middle bites too!"

"Hahaha!"

Besides, Vlad stood out despite his young age.

Wherever they were, sharp awls were bound to poke out of the sack.

Not only had Vlad survived in one piece, he had brought the young back-alley vagrants under his thumb, and he was already someone several organizations operating in the slums were watching.

To the young back-alley vagrants who had not yet been called by an organization, he was an object of admiration.

To organizations in need of talent, he was the top recruitment target.

That was the value the sixteen-year-old boy named Vlad possessed.

"Get up. Before I kill you."

"Mmph..."

Vlad tapped the bound boy with the tip of his foot as he spoke.

"You saw me get fleeced just now, right? Read the room."

"Yeah..."

At Vlad's murderous warning, the dark-skinned child, whose hands were bound and who even had a gag in his mouth, rolled around on the floor and somehow managed to stand on his own with desperate effort.

"Puha! Sorry, Vlad. I was going to do it just enough and back off."

Whether he was sorry for pickpocketing or sorry for getting caught, Vlad could not tell, but he could at least tell that the Black boy in front of him was apologizing sincerely.

WHACK!

"Agh!"

"You're pissing me off, seriously."

After smacking the Black boy heartily on the back of the head, Vlad rubbed his eyes with both palms as if tired.

"Five gold is getting even farther away."

"You need money? Then borrow it. From One-Armed Jack."

"I'd rather eat rat poison than borrow money from that man."

When the name of another boss who controlled the back alleys like Jorge slipped out, Vlad shook his head.

"Anything broken?"

"No."

"Then get the hell out, you little shit."

"... Are you going to tell my brother?"

Whether he knew or not that he had nearly been made half-crippled just now, the Black boy was only afraid that what had happened would be made known to his brother.

"I'll be getting the 40 silver from your brother."

"No! Vlad, please!"

"Then your brother will hand me 40 silver and beat useless you about four hundred times."

Seeing that Vlad's blue eyes did not waver, the Black boy predicted the future to come with a fearful smile.

"Next time, I just won't get caught..."

"Maybe because you're stupid, you never improve at all."

Vlad sent the young pickpocket, who was pledging his next success with a gloomy look, out of the shop.

Watching the Black boy disappear toward the end of the back alley, Vlad lifted his head and looked up at Rose's Smiles.

Without its brilliant lights, Rose's Smiles looked filled only with silence.

However.

"... Today is a day when I need someone's comfort."

Today, he had wrecked one innocent, unlucky customer, heard about the cheerful Madam's corruption, and even had money extorted from him by his seniors.

Normally, he ought to go into Rose's Smiles and try to sleep, but today, he decided to go face the bright sunlight.

Vlad walked in the opposite direction from the one the Black boy had taken.

At the tip of his nose, he could smell the thick fishy stench hanging heavy along with the water mist.

* * *

Jorge, the Whores' Knight.

One-Armed Jack, the Money Bug.

The Black Bear, the pig slaughterer.

Dice of the gambling house.

And Captain Hoover, the Whale Hunter.

These five were the bosses currently ruling the slums of Soara.

"So you came looking for me?"

"Got any money?"

And the man Vlad had come to see, Haven, belonged to the organization of Hoover, the Whale Hunter.

"The first thing you say when you see me after all this time is to ask for money?"

"Five gold is all I need."

"If I lend money to a guy who just got fleeced, can I get it back later?"

"I had no choice."

"No. You have no credit."

Haven shook his head from side to side.

Haven's hair was an unremarkable brown, not a brilliant blond like Vlad's, but the impression he gave was as intense as Vlad's.

"You're really too much, too. How can you ask a disabled man whose body isn't even whole to lend you money?"

It was a small room.

A small room that would be full with just the two of them sitting in it.

That was why even Haven, who limped on one foot, could lean on his cane and take out a bottle from the cupboard.

Even with his left hand, which had only three fingers.

"Drink that and get lost. Your hyung is busy."

"Is this something you can drink?"

Vlad opened the bottle and frowned at the suspicious smell coming from the liquor.

"It's Captain Hoover's masterpiece, Captain Q. It's a liquor where if two people drink it, three people die."

"I can use it as poison later, then."

Giving up on drinking the suspicious liquor, Vlad sat down in front of Haven and watched the work he was doing.

Piles of paper filled the shabby desk in the small room, and numbers and letters were packed densely across them.

And Haven flipped through them without pause.

"I'm sure I can read and write, but I have no idea what any of that says."

"I'm the one who taught you that, too."

"Though I can only read numbers."

"I'm the one who taught you that, too."

As he listened to Vlad grumble, a smile lingered around Haven's eyes.

Haven was like a benefactor to Zemina and Vlad.

Because he was the one who had shared his blanket with Zemina and Vlad when they were children rolling around in the back alleys.

If not for the warmth he had given them, Zemina and Vlad would have frozen to death long ago, and if not for the bread he had stolen, they would have starved to death ages ago.

"Still, that little kid was lucky. He got caught pickpocketing and still didn't get sliced here and there like I did."

"Hmm. The times are better too, I suppose."

When the three of them had wandered the back alleys, they had kept themselves alive by pickpocketing, but that ended after Haven was left half-crippled.

"... That's true. Unlike the bishop last time, this bishop is more interested in other things than thieves and pickpockets."

Haven had not been lucky.

Because the bishop who had happened to be in Soara at that time was a man sensitive to theft and pickpocketing.

Normally, it would have ended with a beating, but as an example to show the bishop's disposition, Haven had his fingers cut off and his left ankle slashed.

Haven's pitiful screams rang through the back alley, but no one protected a young vagrant who was like the city's refuse.

Fortunately, by the time Haven could not earn his keep, Vlad had grown enough to feed the three of them.

Like that, barely, precariously, Vlad, Zemina, and Haven managed to survive by feeding one another.

"What was this bishop sensitive about again?"

"Pedophilia."

"Ah, right. Hahaha! I remember Zemina grumbling about that."

Depending on the disposition of each bishop in the city, the church rules they posted changed little by little.

Unlike the previous bishop, the bishop newly appointed to Soara five years ago was a man more interested in children than in theft and pickpocketing.

"Zemina's debut day got forcibly delayed because of that, didn't it?"

"Madam is being careful. Since the shop is famous, it draws the church's attention."

For young back-alley girls with nothing to sell but their bodies, it was only natural to go into prostitution regardless of age.

But because of the newly appointed bishop five years ago, all of that was banned.

Anyone who had relations with a girl who was not an adult would be excommunicated.

That was the main church rule this bishop had put forward.

Whether it was misfortune or fortune, because of that, Zemina, who still had not become an adult, was even now stuck washing dishes.

Until she came of age, Zemina would probably have no choice but to remain a virgin under the protection of the church and Madam.

"A virgin aspiring prostitute! That's like saying a pregnant maiden! Hahaha!"

"On top of that, her body still hasn't grown at all. Even if Zemina becomes an adult, anyone who sleeps with her will definitely be excommunicated."

"Hehehe! Is she going to stay small until she dies?"

After snickering for a long while over talk about Zemina, Haven was smiling, yet unconsciously looking at the wall.

A small room.

When one cleared away the smell of dust and paper and concentrated, there was a smell one could sense.

It was the smell of the river.

The base of Captain Hoover, who mainly dealt in smuggling, was set up by the docks, and beyond the wall Haven was looking at was the river that fed the city of Soara.

A wide, blue river that could go anywhere.

Unlike Haven, who had been tied down here.

"Well. Just like Zemina won't grow until the day she dies, I guess I won't be able to leave here until the day I die."

"..."

Vlad felt sad that he could not tell Haven that was not true at his murmur.

"Oh, right, Vlad. There was something I wanted to tell you."

"Yeah?"

The clever Haven had learned letters by watching over others' shoulders and come to understand numbers.

He had done it because he knew he had to hold more than others if he wanted to survive.

Because he was such a clever Haven, he had been able to get a job even with his body impaired.

Because he was such a clever Haven, though his body was in a cramped room, he could grasp how Soara was running through the letters and numbers written in documents.

"Be careful."

"Of what?"

"I hear someone at Rose's Smiles played around with the candles this time?"

"... That spread all the way here already?"

Though Vlad had somehow smoothed it over with quick thinking, the seasoned hands had probably all figured it out.

The fact that the only person who could tamper with the candles was Madam Marcella.

"Marcella isn't the kind of person to do that."

"Right."

"If she did it when she isn't that kind of person, it means she had a reason she had to."

"A reason?"

Vlad looked at Haven beyond the swaying liquor bottle.

"It means she needs money. Marcella does. Urgently, at that."

Seen beyond the viscous brown liquid, Haven's face was distorted.

"There is only one situation where an organization gathers money in a hurry, Vlad."

Haven spoke to Vlad in a serious voice.

"When it's going to war with another organization."

"..."

After hearing Haven's words, Vlad had nothing in particular to say in reply.

He merely shook the blameless liquor bottle.

* * *

"Be careful."

Those were the final words Haven said to Vlad as he got up with the liquor bottle.

But even if he heard the warning, there was no way Vlad had any method of being careful.

"Wow... This liquor tastes fucking awful."

This was a place where, to live, one had to take from someone else, and to take, one had to hurt someone else.

In the midst of that, getting hurt yourself was something that could not be helped.

"It really is a taste where if two people drink it, three people die."

He might die, perhaps.

This back alley was a place where moths to the flame gathered, living with such danger.

And Vlad also knew that fact well.

That he, too, was nothing more than one of those fleeting moths.

"It's shining..."

His vision was growing faint from the strong liquor, but there was one shining thing reflected in Vlad's eyes.

The boy stood before it and stared endlessly at the thing that shone.

"... It's a light worth every bit of five gold."

In the dark back alley, hard to escape from, he was comforting himself with cheap rotgut, but even so, the boy was looking at a star.

Like a moth rushing toward flame.

He stood before the old smithy and gazed at it for a long time.