Chapter 1 – The Beginning Is Humble (1)
A different world where swords and magic dance in harmony.
How would you feel if you fell there?
In return for entering this world, you gained amazing abilities?
Congratulations. You can play around with that ability and live as you please.
You don’t have great skills, but what if you used to be a hotel chef?
You can open a restaurant based on your cooking skills. If your name is known, you can become a chef at a place where a high-ranking person lives.
Also, what if you graduated from an engineering school somewhere like Harvard or Oxford and are good at machines?
It is the time of the industrial revolution. Carve the hot taste of fever weapons into the heads of savage knights and wizards.
By the way, what if… You don’t have any great abilities, no distinguishing skills like cooking skills, no practical knowledge at all?
How it goes
I look like me.
* * *
-Kick it!!
Chicken crow. I reflexively opened my eyes.
“Is it morning already? Damn it.”
The shitty day started with a yawn. I stretched out and raised my body.
I brushed my messy hair roughly with my hand, and washed my face with water from a basin where I had collected water.
Ready to go out. I left the old hut and headed for the plaza.
Even though the sun is still rising, there are quite a few people in the square. Most of them are shop owners.
I found a place where I could see the plaza and sat down.
Now is the time for patience. I took out the dried rice and popped it into my mouth.
“…Fuck.”
It was the taste of cursing. Hard, stuffy, and tasteless. But it is cheap and high in calories. If it wasn’t for that, there would be no reason to eat this.
I forgot my food and waited for people to gather in the plaza.
After about an hour or so, armed guards began moving around little by little.
After about three hours, people gathered in the square. They were people passing by or people who came to buy items at the store.
“It’s down quite a bit today.”
There were fewer people gathering in the plaza than last time.
Is it because the festival ended a while ago?
I put my disappointment behind and looked for prey by carefully observing them.
By prey, of course, I meant the person who robbed the pocket.
There are several rules for choosing this prey.
Whoever robbed first will not rob again. If you get robbed once, you might say it was bad luck, but if you get robbed twice, you think you’ve been ignored and try to catch it somehow.
The second is to avoid the people you often see in the plaza. It’s best not to pickpocket or pickpocket once or twice.
The third is similar to the second, but aims at tourists as much as possible. There are as many tourists as there are many things to enjoy in the city, and there is nothing wrong with robbing them, and the income is good.
“Okay.”
Found a nice guy
He was a neatly dressed man wearing a hat with a brim.
I hadn’t seen him in the two years I’d lived in this city, and he looked like he had a lot of money.
I walked slowly and followed him. Waited for him to buy and expose his wallet.
However, as if reading my mind, the man did not intend to buy anything.
‘Ac, it looks like it was just passing by.’
Just as he was about to give up trying to follow the man, he stopped in front of a fruit shop.
I returned the steps I was about to turn and walked as slowly as I could, staring at the man.
The man tried to negotiate a price with the shopkeeper, but he sighed and took out his wallet.
I watched carefully where he took out and put his wallet.
‘Left waist dance.’
The man had his wallet strapped to his left waist.
Locating his wallet, I quickly walked past him. And he naturally turned around and walked back.
The man and I ended up walking in opposite directions.
The moment I passed him, my hand moved like lightning.
He grabbed his wallet with his right hand and cut his strap with the dagger in his left hand.
The man didn’t notice at all because it had been mastered through hundreds of repetitions. I slipped my wallet into my pocket and ran out into the alley.
“Let’s see, how much is in it…”
There were 3 5 copper coins and 5 1 copper coins.
“20 Cooper? That’s great.”
Usually, if you empty your pocket, it is 5 copper if it comes out a lot, and 1 copper if it is small.
One pickpocket made four or more profits.
It was really great.
I put the coopers in my purse, not holding back the corners of my mouth going up. And I’m trying to get out of the alley-
“I was here. You were looking for it.”
I heard a voice I didn’t want to hear from behind. I clicked my tongue and turned my body to the back.
Calix, a man with a mean impression, has approached
“Isn’t it too early to pay the installment?”
In order to make a living doing illegal work in this city, he had to pay a bounty to a gangster organization called ‘The Masked Gang’.
I couldn’t avoid it either, and I paid a huge amount of 2 silver every month as a bonus.
Calix is an errand boy who takes money from me.
“Right, it’s still early.”
“Then what did you come for?”
“Can’t I just come and see you?”
“Uh. No.”
Calix kept being friendly to me. During that time, I will take good care of my followers.
“Don’t say anything strange, get to the point.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”
Calix nodded his head and said good.
“Have you been to Kalita?”
“Kalita?”
Kalita was the name of a city about two days away from this city.
“Why are you there?”
“Why is it the boss’s order? To deliver this letter. So you should go to Kalita with me.”
Calix slipped his stationery between his fingers and waved.
“To deliver the letter?”
“Okay, you just need to deliver it to the boss’s younger brother in Kalita. Is it easy?”
“It is easy. But why do I do that? There are your followers too.”
“Follow me, my friends. And they have other things to do.”
“What else is there to do? Don’t hide it, tell me everything.”
“If you want.”
Calix shrugged.
“You know that a new organization has recently arrived in this city, right?”
Know.
Even so, the slums were shaken for a while because of it. I heard that there is a place that sells drugs cheaper than the masked gang.
I’ve heard that there’s definitely a girl with pink hair, a girl with bobbed hair, and a guy with a small dagger.
“Do the three count as an organization?”
“No, the three of us are enshrined in an organization.”
“I have heard of three. So, what, are you saying that they created an organization?”
“Okay. It also created an organization of over 20 people.”
I was dumbfounded by Calix’s words.
It’s been less than two weeks since I heard the story of the three, and they created an organization of over 20 people?
“What did the masked gang boss do without them?”
“Isn’t the captain of the guard changed this time? I didn’t pay attention because I had a face-to-face relationship with the new chief of guard.”
“Then why don’t we ask the captain of the guard to wipe them out? It’s good that the head of the guard has good results, and it’s good that the boss doesn’t have people who get in the way.”
“It would have been most convenient if I did as you said. But who the hell, the new chief of guards is that woman… What was her name… Oh yeah, Roxy. He seems to have connections with Roxy as well.”
“They said it wasn’t long before the chief of the guard was changed. By the way, do you have connections?”
“I know yeah! A sudden change of guard. Roxy, who has a connection with the chief of the guard. Doesn’t something smell bad?”
Calix said exaggeratedly.
The tone was a bit jarring, but my thoughts were similar to Calix’s.
The leader of the guard who created an organization within two weeks of appearing and changed radically.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence.
“Well, that’s why the boss took a hard line.”
“Extortion book?”
Calix looked around and confirmed that no one was there, then spoke in a serious tone.
“War.”
“Crazy.”
War.
To put it simply, it is a grandiose word applied to a fight between organizations that sell drugs.
But there are many reasons for adding such a word.
These thug organizations don’t know how to moderate once a fight breaks out. Fight until one side is smashed.
Thanks to this, when war broke out between organizations, the slums were literally lined up.
If I’m not careful, I could end up like that too. When I thought that, my face automatically frowned.
“Huuuuu, then the letter that needs to be delivered is a request for reinforcements, is it something like that?”
“Uh. You can deliver it to the boss’s brother in Kalita. Then they will send someone for you.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. I just sorted out my thoughts a bit.
But no matter how much I thought about it, there was something I couldn’t understand.
“Good. I understand everything. But I don’t know why I have to go to Kalita? Like I said before, you can go with your men. Even if you have work to do, not everyone is busy.”
Calix had 7 followers. Could they all be busy?
To my question, Calix answered with his characteristic mean laugh.
“Everyone is busy. Because the work to do is very important.”
“What’s important? What… Hey, you can’t…”
Suddenly, a bad thought ran through his head.
As if affirming that thought, Calix put her shoulder on me while maintaining a smile.
“See you at the eastern gate early tomorrow morning, before sunrise.”
Calix tapped me on the shoulder a couple of times and then turned and walked out of the alley.
I looked at him from behind, frowning at him.
“What about friends…”
Friends you sold off to get ahead.
Even if you put an iron plate on your conscience, it’s enough.
I shook my head and came out of the alley.
* * *
After talking with Calix, I robbed two more people’s pockets.
The total revenue thus obtained was 30 coppers.
Compared to the average earnings of 15 coopers, this was a huge profit.
I put my slightly heavy wallet in my arms and walked towards the cabin where I was staying.
The sun was setting before anyone knew it, and there was not a single smile on the faces of the people illuminated by the sunset.
A completely different atmosphere from the lively plaza.
It was a slum as usual.
“If there’s even a war going on here…”
There was only one war between organizations in the past.
Back then, after walking ten steps in a slum, a new corpse could be seen.
“I’m going to stay at the inn for a while.”
If you stay at the inn, you will be able to avoid dangerous things. It’s a back world organization. No matter how grandiose it is, they’re criminals after all.
I’m letting them go because they’re eating in the slums, but the guards won’t stand still if they go wild in other areas.
“Oh, but inns are expensive.”
Accommodation at the cheapest inn is 3 copper per night. Meals are separate.
At the thought of going out with money, tendons sprouted on my face.
“The more I think about it, the more I get angry. Why did those bastards make a mess here…”
The woman named Roxy, who didn’t even know her face, was resentful. There are villages and cities everywhere, so why is it here?
Inside, she cursed at Roxy, and as she walked, she arrived at the cabin.
I opened the cabin door.
I was greeted by the dim interior, where not even the slightest hint of warmth could be found.
I went inside and laid her body down. I forgot to bolt the door.
Lie down on the cold floor and stare at the dark ceiling…
“It sucks.”
Crying and sadness came up. Impulsively, I drew my dagger and pointed it at my throat.
I felt the sharp blade of a sword on my thin skin. If you give me strength like this…
“Hey shit. Quit it. You won’t be able to do it anyway.”
I threw the dagger. How many times is this?
I lit a bonfire and closed my eyes. My shitty day ended like that again.
And the next day.
“Are you here? It’s a little late.”
A new shitty day has begun.
