I Became the Damn Menace's Bodyguard (2)
"How's the body holding up?"
An hour after the contract between Karma and Gul was struck, Karma shoved everything else aside and hauled the boy straight to a hospital—leave him unattended any longer, and he genuinely might have stopped breathing.
"Feels like my insides are gonna spill out every time I cough."
"...How in the hell is this kid even alive?"
Even with every stitch of clothing stripped off for disinfection, wounds requiring bandages spread across his entire body, so the boy was actually more covered than before—Gul looked like nothing so much as a mummy. Karma was stunned speechless. Forget breathing; the boy hadn't even lost consciousness.
"If you're feeling up to it, we'll get you discharged... How's that sound?"
"Never mind my condition—the only clothes I have left are the ones that doctor just cut off me with scissors because they were in the way of treatment. You want me to walk out of here looking like this?"
"Figured as much."
Karma pulled a bundle of small clothes out of the paper bag he'd been carrying and tossed them at Gul.
"You've got a good eye, I'll give you that—how is it that not a single one fits? Ugh, and why does brand-new clothing smell like a widower's closet? Is that your idea of taste?"
"..."
Every word of Gul's sarcasm was a polished gem, and Karma nearly blew his top—
Knock, knock.
"Come on in."
"Pardon the interruption. We need to check on the patient's condition..."
At a feeble knock, an elderly doctor stepped into the room, and Karma cut the conversation short and gave up his seat.
"I need to examine you, so raise your arm, young man."
"Here you go, Doctor. Thank you so much for treating me."
At the doctor's request, Gul's earlier rudeness vanished without a trace, and he offered the courtesy bow and bright smile that won over every adult within reach.
"!?"
Karma's eyes went wide before he could stop them. Wondering if sheer exhaustion had made him hear things, he gave his own cheek a light slap.
"To think a boy your age ended up in such a terrible state... but you seem to have a very sturdy constitution. Keep up with your medicine and your meals, and you'll be right as rain in no time."
"It's all thanks to you treating me so promptly, Doctor. Truly, thank you."
At the stream of humble, grateful thanks that followed, the doctor's wrinkled face creased into a satisfied smile—while behind him, Karma barely strangled the laugh that threatened to burst out of him.
"I don't know how you got into this mess, but you make sure he rests, sir. If any wound opens up, bring him straight back to me."
"Ah—yes, of course. I'll keep that in mind."
Having delivered his diagnosis and his final words of advice, the boy's guardian turned physician quietly left the room.
"So... you do know how to be polite."
At Karma's openly amazed remark, Gul instantly switched back to the smile that had been grinding on his nerves just moments ago and sneered at him.
"My mom and dad probably think I don't even know how to talk casually."
"...Then why the attitude with us?"
"Politeness is for people worth respecting. You're the dregs of society—what exactly am I supposed to respect about you lot?"
"Ugh, for God's sake... you certainly don't talk like a kid."
The mockery was so saturated with malice it practically overflowed, and Karma's stomach churned—but for some reason, losing his temper over this would feel like handing the little snake another win, so he forced himself to play it cool.
"Fine, whatever. Once you're up on your feet, let's get moving."
"You didn't see my knives?"
"Your knives? Oh—the weird ones? The kukri, was it?"
"...You know them?"
"Someone showed me a collection once, years back. Foreign blades, they said. Impressive that a runt like you can actually use them. And your parents—I heard they're the kind of folks who'd struggle to hold a kitchen knife."
"My parents are a bit on the gentle side..."
Even the boy who'd swung knives without a flicker of fear at the biggest mafias in the duchy was, in the end, still a child. At the mention of his parents, he scratched the back of his head.
"Weird blades aside, and a kid carving the limbs off grown men aside—who taught you to fight?"
"My grandfather used to be a mercenary. The knives were his keepsakes."
"I see."
At the word keepsakes, Karma asked nothing more.
"I moved your knives to my place. You're living with me from today anyway, so come on—we'll go together."
Gul, who was layering the clothes Karma had brought over his bandages, gave a silent nod.
"By the way, runt. What's your name?"
"Gul Raven."
"Unusual name. Got a family name and everything—noble blood somewhere back there?"
"...Don't know. Doesn't matter. Hurry up and let's go."
He claimed ignorance, yet somehow he reacted as though the very topic of his name were something he'd rather not touch. Karma studied him carefully—and then something clicked.
"...Just asking so I don't assume. But don't tell me the name 'Gul'—don't tell me it came from 'kukri'..."
"Wh—don't jump to conclusions!? What kind of person gets named for that reason?! Make fun of my name again and I'll kill you!"
Thwack—
The moment his name got tied to the kukri, Gul went scarlet to the ears and hurled a pillow straight into Karma's face.
Flustered, his words weren't the nerve-grinding provocations from before anymore, just the petulant whining of any ordinary boy his age, scared of nothing and no one.
"Pfft."
The pillow caught him square in the face, but Karma only laughed—there was a certain satisfaction in finally landing a blow on the brat who'd been needling him all day—and Gul flew into an even greater fury at the sight.
"Stop laughing! You've lived long enough to rot twice over, and mocking a kid's name doesn't embarrass you!?"
"Nope, not one bit. Embarrasses me even less when the kid I'm mocking is a brat with no manners."
Abrupt as it may seem, the Empire harbored more than just its knightly orders and military when it came to protecting the imperial family and its people from foreign threats and disasters.
None of these groups existed in the public eye; officially, they did not exist at all. They were the ones who handled problems that could not be dealt with through official channels—or that the Empire had no wish to drag into the light.
Among all the Empire's shadow units, one was counted, in both power and track record, as one of the two great pillars: Cerberus. True to the name of the guardian hound of the underworld in myth, it was a unit that moved solely for the safety and preservation of the imperial family.
"What?"
Gladius, the Commander of Cerberus who held the unit's real authority, couldn't help echoing the report from his subordinate.
"The Marcosius lot are raising hell, sir. They're claiming we hijacked a job that was theirs again. They say they've been letting things slide once or twice, but this is the fifth time already—and that we're arrogant bastards with no professional decency and no sense of camaraderie whatsoever."
"Bullshit. What the hell would we even hijack?"
A protest had come in from another department—one that served entirely different purposes from his own—and Gladius groaned, unable to make head or tail of it.
"If you're talking about what they claim was their job... you mean the illegal slave traders?"
Cerberus's intelligence capability ranked at the very top of the Empire's shadow units—second only, perhaps, to the organizations that specialized purely in information gathering. Which meant that even for jobs assigned to other units, they'd quietly collect at least a baseline of intel in advance.
"Yes, sir. They'd been manufacturing slaves illegally for close to twenty years. Operated as a cell network, so every time we got close to cracking something, they'd cut the tail and burrow underground. Then recently, the higher-ups finally decided enough was enough and sharpened the knife for good."
"Come to think of it, that's what that rumor going around the underworld lately is about, isn't it? You know—the lunatic who only targets slave markets, and chops the arms and legs off everyone inside."
It was a fairly well-known piece of gossip in this line of work, independent of anything Cerberus had gathered.
"One of the other units said the only witness was a kid. I figured it was one of the Marcosius rookies, so I let it go."
"That's what I thought too, so I didn't dig any deeper..."
Faced with a situation that defied comprehension, Gladius, his subordinate, and Natasha all clutched their foreheads at the same time. The Commander spoke first.
"So, to sum up: for twenty years the Empire finally drew its blade to catch this slippery eel, and at the perfect, ghostly timing, some brat with absolutely no connection to us shows up, tracks the bastards down, and beats them within an inch of their lives?"
"...When you put it that way, yes, sir."
"Ha."
Even as he said it, the absurdity wrung a hollow laugh out of Gladius. If he reported this up the chain, he could already picture the clipboard and the scolding flying at his head—you're writing fiction now, Commander?—and frankly, he wouldn't have a word to say in his own defense.
"At least it wasn't our people. Right?"
"Of course not, sir. Where would we even find a kid in this unit?"
"Fair point."
"I'll inform the Marcosius crowd that it has nothing to do with us, then."
It was a headache-inducing situation, but mercifully the other party wasn't the higher-ups, who demanded accountability for their every move—it was just the rival unit squabbling over performance metrics. Stating the plain facts would suffice.
But just as Natasha turned to leave, Gladius, having realized something, caught her by the arm.
"Natasha, hold on. Don't say anything to them. Not a word. Stall them."
"What? Why?"
The subordinate tilted her head at the incomprehensible order.
"And have the recruits do the legwork. See if you can't track down that little Limb-Severing Demon."
"...Excuse me? What exactly are you planning, sir? Don't tell me—"
"Don't drink the kimchi soup before the dumplings are even cooked. Just have them look into it for now—preferably with orders to bring the kid in entirely."
The subordinate, stroking her Commander's meaning from the way he ran his hand through the thick brown thicket of beard on his jaw, gave Gladius a doubtful look.
"We're short-handed as it is, sir, and you want to—"
"Their endless rookie-showing-off was already rubbing me the wrong way. This is a golden opportunity."
He'd told her not to drink the kimchi soup prematurely, yet here he was, already fantasizing the whole scenario through to its conclusion, getting worked up all by himself.
Natasha understood: his mind was made up, and no one on earth was going to talk him out of it. She bit back against a surge of rising irritation.
"We barely have anyone free in personnel as it is... and the Vice-Commander's going to be furious if you dump something like this on him..."
It wouldn't do for the other unit members to suffer for their Commander's absurd flight of fancy, so ideally she'd take the burden onto herself—but if she stepped out of the room, who knew what fresh disaster that man would cook up next?
In the end, Natasha resigned herself and headed for the room where the one person with empty hands—the rookie Vice-Commander—was waiting.