Chapter 102
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 102
Giselle and I walked side by side through the streets of the Lower District. The night was deep, and eerie movements stirred in the alleys and shadows.
Twirl.
I drew my service pistol and spun it around my finger. You had to make it clear you were armed—otherwise every half-baked thug on the street would try his luck. Not that I particularly enjoyed flaunting my strength in such a crude way.
The people of the Lower District carried themselves rough, wearing a violent aura like a badge. Many were obsessed with showing off to a vulgar degree. But there was a reason for it. Here, looking weak only invited trouble.
"The mood on the streets hasn't been good lately," I remarked casually to Giselle. The silence between us was too stiff and awkward to launch straight into my real business. Though when I'd started caring about things like that, I couldn't say.
In any case, talking to civilians was exhausting. A soldier's way of speaking was direct and rational. If something needed saying, you just said it—no emotions attached.
Sometimes you didn't even have to persuade anyone. You could simply crush them under authority and power. Soldiers understood that logic. On the battlefield, there wasn't even time to question a superior's order.
But conversations with civilians meant weighing their feelings. Troublesome in every way.
...Damn it, my mind keeps wandering today.
"Why is it bad?" Giselle asked, a beat late.
"Clashes between gangs have gotten more frequent. Gabriel says this kind of period comes around in cycles. On top of that, the Arena gang—the ones who handled the big operations—got cut in half, so the chaos is worse than usual. With the balance of power this unstable, outlaws from the outskirts and the ruins are creeping in. And those are the worst of the lot."
The gangs of the Lower District were a necessary evil. They doubled as vigilantes, filling the vacuum where public security should have been. But the outlaws from the ruins ignored not just the rules but even the unwritten laws. Having shed the last scraps of human shame, they were bastards with absolutely nothing to lose.
My thoughts kept drifting elsewhere. Probably because bringing up this particular business to Giselle sat uncomfortably even with me.
"Right. I see."
Giselle answered half-heartedly, without a shred of interest in gang matters. Her attitude irritated me a little.
"This matters to you too. Didn't you say you wanted to do business in the Lower District? You should at least understand the gangs' balance of power and how it shifts."
"I don't need to hear that from you. I can just ask Gilda or Gabriel—they'll know far better than you do," Giselle said sharply.
Well, she wasn't wrong. No matter how much I put on airs, I no longer belonged to the Lower District. It felt like a blow to the gut.
My head's not in the game today.
We walked on. Once we cleared the high-crime zone, a relatively decent street opened up ahead.
"Didn't you say you had something to tell me?" Giselle asked, stopping in her tracks.
"Do you remember Ilay Kartika? We owe him a favor from last time."
Of course she remembered. Even as I said it, I felt foolish.
"Watching you dance around a subject like this—so unlike you—tells me you want to talk about something uncomfortable. Stop stalling. Just say it. I'm listening."
Clever as ever. She'd already guessed what kind of topic hid behind my lukewarm approach.
I closed my eyes, then cracked them open again.
She was right. I was acting unlike myself. Pull yourself together, Luka. I had a mountain of serious problems piled up. Today's matter was trivial by comparison. At least no lives were on the line.
"Ilay asked us for a favor. He wants us to attend as guests of the Kartika family—to give him some leverage."
"That's hardly difficult. Showing off connections is important for nobles."
"And it seems Ilay's in a tight spot. His father collapsed before he could cement his position as the next Family Head. So he has to enter the succession struggle much sooner than expected."
"You don't need to spell it out; I understand perfectly. Relatives with a bit of power will see this as their opening and start coveting the seat of Family Head. However brilliant his potential, Ilay is still a greenhorn without a foundation. If he loses the position, he'll either die or be ruined beyond recovery. A usurper would never leave a legitimate heir alive to threaten him."
Giselle grasped it well. It seemed the same thing happened in every family during a generational shift.
"Ilay invited you as his fiancée. Of course, it's only a formal engagement until he secures his position. That way, the other Kartika relatives can't easily touch him. Do so, and the Custoria family might intervene."
I tried to keep my voice level. Perhaps that was why it came out flat, stripped of emotion. Fortunately.
"...Ha. So that was your important business. I understand, Luka. It's very important indeed. You're finally acting like a proper noble."
"Be as sarcastic as you like. I know this is a terrible thing to ask of you."
"Father will grant permission without a second thought. He might even tell me to go through with a real engagement if it came to that. Putting the next head of the Kartika family in our debt, forging a close relationship—that benefits Custoria as well."
Giselle had it all worked out in her head. Engaging and then breaking it off according to mutual interest was a common enough occurrence in noble society.
I dug through my memories and recalled Lillian Ramones. Though born into a noble family, her humanity had been stripped away by money. A 'living doll' whose appearance and every last gesture had been corrected to suit her fiancé's tastes.
Had I been placed in the same position as Lillian, I might have taken my own life. That was how monstrous her ordeal had been.
Compared to Lillian, Giselle's situation was practically freedom.
"Since you understand, I'll arrange the schedule."
"And if I refuse?"
Giselle snapped the words out. She didn't actually intend to refuse, I was sure. It was hypothetical—she just wanted to hear how I'd react.
I was willing to indulge a little grumbling.
"If you refuse, there's nothing I can do. I can't force you."
"Big words. You already knew I wouldn't refuse anyway. There's nothing in it for me to act against the family's interests."
"True."
I didn't deny it. Giselle let out a sigh.
"You tell Father."
"I will."
"And just so we're clear—you're a jerk."
Giselle balled her hand into a fist and punched my chest. It didn't hurt. But it did.
...I knew all too well that I was a jerk.
* * *
A week passed. I secured Heilas's permission for the 'fake engagement,' and Ilay quickly set the schedule.
And so we attended the gathering of the Kartika family.
The Kartika main estate lay outside Akbaran. But like most noble families with any real power, the Kartikas also owned a high-rise within the city, held under the family name.
Today's venue was the Kartika Building.
The Kartika Building doubled as temporary lodging for low-ranking family members and vassals. As I always noticed, there was a strict hierarchy even among nobles.
Upper and lower.
Two broad categories, but within them lay countless finer divisions of class.
I had climbed to a high rung even among the classes of the Upper District. The direct Custoria line was, after all, one of the most prominent prestigious families among the military households.
The reason I brought this up now... was because watching nobles grovel so submissively before me—an orphan from the Lower District—stirred a strange feeling in me.
"We have been awaiting you, Lord Lucaus, Lady Giselle."
It wasn't servants who came to greet us at the airfield, but nobles. Alongside the guide Ilay had sent, there were several low-ranking nobles.
The lesser nobles and vassals of Kartika knew Ilay and I were close friends. So they came flocking, trying to curry my favor by whatever means they could.
"Thank you for the warm welcome," Giselle said as she stepped out of the aerial vehicle. Unlike her usual self, she wore an alluring dress. She surely hadn't wanted to, but she was playing the role of fake fiancée faithfully.
I stepped out onto the rooftop airfield as well.
Lifting my head, I took in the surrounding scenery. As night deepened, the lights blazed dazzling. This being a district thick with noble buildings, aerial vehicles came and went in constant streams.
The Kartika family stood fairly well among the military houses. But measured against the whole Empire, they were merely mid-tier. The height of a family's building was an unspoken measure of its power—and there were countless buildings taller than the Kartika's rising all around.
Feuds like the one tearing through the Kartika family must be playing out in those buildings too.
The internal interests of the Empire were monstrously tangled. The more I learned, the more invisible strands I sensed. To fully grasp and exploit such intricate dynamics... just what kind of monster, steeped in the dark, would one have to be?
"I heard you received the 4th Class Cross Sword Medal—a first in the history of the Imperial Guard," said a noble whose name I didn't know, standing beside me. Actually, I'd heard his name earlier, but I was too lazy to dredge it up.
The old me would have repeated everyone's names again and again to carve them into memory. But now there were too many people to bother. My brain wasn't limitless. There was a ceiling to what I could hold.
Suddenly Giselle's words came back to me. You've become like a noble.
I was becoming one, too. I only bothered remembering people who could influence me or prove useful down the line.
I had long since forgotten the names of the children I'd known in my orphanage days. I'd never meet them again in this life anyway. And even if I did, they'd be of no use to me.
"...I got lucky," I said, offering a dull, cliché piece of humility. Despite my flat response, the guiding noble broke into an exaggerated smile and heaped on praise.
"Lucky? Most people would call it a disaster, not luck, the moment they came face to face with one of the Empire's most wanted criminals."
I didn't answer.
The noble kept smiling. It was obvious what ran through his head. He no doubt thought I was putting on airs despite my Lower District roots.
But so what if I was arrogant? None of them could say a word against it. I fought down a chuckle that threatened to slip out.
Whirrrr.
We rode the elevator up to the banquet hall. Passing through the corridor and pushing open the doors, a spacious banquet hall spread before us. The walls were entirely glass, offering an unobstructed view of the city outside.
Inside, nobles had already gathered, chatting among themselves. Beyond the Kartikas, guests from other families could be spotted here and there.
A brief hush fell as we entered. Everyone in the hall stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at Giselle and me.
Every eye fixed on us. And with good reason—we were the stars of the evening.
"Forgive me for not coming out to greet you. I hadn't finished my introductions. It has been a while, Lady Giselle."
A finely dressed Ilay approached. He addressed Giselle in a tone more formal than usual.
Giselle gathered the hem of her skirt and dipped her head slightly.
"I never expected to meet you again like this. You're quite skilled in politics and scheming as well."
Half sarcasm. Ilay and I were using Giselle for our mutual gain.
But in the end, nobles were nothing more than tools for their families. Individuals existed for the family. And by extension, the family existed for the Empire.
We understood reality all too well. That was why Giselle went along without a fuss.
"I'm not entirely insincere," Ilay murmured, sliding a glance toward me.
With Giselle's head lowered, I couldn't read the look in her eyes. Then again, I didn't particularly care to.
Instead, I swept my gaze across the banquet hall, taking in face after face.
"Hmm..."
Mid-scan, I clamped my mouth shut and let out a sigh.
A familiar face stood in a corner of the hall.
Enrico Lagan.
Enrico was trembling, eyes wide with fury. He looked ready to weep tears of blood at any moment. He must have come after hearing news of Ilay and Giselle's engagement. Judging by his expression, he still burned with unrequited love for her.
A wretched rage was carved into Enrico Lagan's face. Soon his glare swung toward me.
Ugh, my head hurts. Feels like these headaches have been coming more often lately.