Chapter 56
Chapter 56
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Like Attracts Like (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Hey, you!”
A voice right in his ear, cracking slightly like it belonged to someone just hitting puberty.
Yuri, snapped out of his reminiscing by the sound, let out a silent sigh.
*Haa, damn it...*
His encounter with the perverted playboy.
And the choice Yuri had made afterward.
Thanks to that, he’d scored a chance at points and various items.
But where there’s light, there’s shadow. In exchange for the opportunity, some downsides had cropped up too.
Namely...
*I drew too much attention.*
He’d stood out way too much.
The guy who’d shown up last, vanished with the Black Sword Soldiers.
And not content with that, came back lugging a bunch of weird sacks and stuff.
It was the kind of situation where you couldn’t avoid paying attention even if you wanted to.
Even if all of it had been unavoidable due to his own plans, it still left a bad taste.
*The three I tipped off aren’t around, so Jerry must’ve handled them clean. That’s good, but...*
The problem was, shaking off those three initial flies had put him in the sights of some much bigger ones.
Sure enough.
The flies were already swarming.
“Hey, inkhead! You deaf or what?”
It was obviously aimed at him, but Yuri just kept staring blankly at the sky.
*Ah... what a pain.*
Annoyance dripped from his eyes, half-hidden by his shaggy hair.
When Yuri didn’t react to his call, the other guy moved in.
“Not answering, you beggar punk? You’re that guy from before, right? The beggar who slept for days straight.”
The one approaching Yuri was a brown-haired boy covered in freckles.
His sharply upturned eyes hinted at a nasty temper.
He flashed Yuri a smirk.
One corner of his mouth hitched up as a bonus.
“Man, you actually survived? Thought you’d be the first to drop.”
Yuri didn’t bother with a long reply to the taunt.
Instead, he smirked back and jerked his chin between the freckled boy and himself.
“Beggar punk? Who?”
“......”
The freckled boy flinched at Yuri’s gesture.
Instinctively, he glanced down at his own body.
Clothes torn here and there, caked in grime, and filthy from not washing properly.
Meanwhile, the guy in front of him?
Clothes spotless, like they’d just come out of the laundry.
And the skin peeking out was pale as could be.
Only then did it dawn on the freckled boy.
That among the 50th Cohort on this black ship, the cleanest one might just be this ink-haired guy right here.
Yuri knew it too.
Which was why he immediately unleashed an area taunt.
“Oh, so the beggar punk you meant wasn’t me...”
Yuri nodded toward the area behind the freckled boy.
At the passersby sprawled across the deck, looking just as grubby as him.
“You meant them?”
Yuri’s area taunt drew hundreds of eyes at once.
“......?!”
People have this weird instinct for when someone’s staring at them.
Especially if it’s hundreds of pairs.
You’d feel it whether you wanted to or not, even if you tried to play dumb.
Drip, drip.
Feeling the stinging glares boring into the back of his head, the freckled boy broke out in cold sweat.
He bellowed at Yuri.
“W-what the hell! I never said that!”
“You just did. Beggar punk.”
“That was for you!”
“Man, that’s weird. These days people call the cleaner ones beggars?”
“Th-that’s ‘cause b-back then you were the dirty one...”
“Oh? So it’s okay to call someone a beggar punk if they’re dirtier than you? That it?”
Yuri rattled off his words like a machine gun, then bellowed in a booming voice before the boy could respond.
“Everyone hear that? If someone’s dirtier than you, they’re a beggar punk. But... let’s see.”
Yuri’s eyes swept the surroundings.
“No matter how I look, there aren’t that many cleaner than me here. So that means everyone here’s a beggar punk?”
“...Huh?”
“See! You weren’t calling me a beggar punk—you were calling them! Damn, this guy’s just spewing crap left and right? Scary, scary.”
“...H-huh?!”
Thanks to Yuri’s miraculous logic, the freckled boy had become the criminal who’d lumped hundreds of his cohort-mates as beggar punks.
Panicking, he spun around, waving his hands frantically.
“N-no! I never said that—don’t get the wrong idea!”
A few onlookers snickered at the sight.
Realizing he’d been played by Yuri’s agitation, the boy whipped back around, face twisted in rage.
But...
“Huh?”
Yuri, who’d been right there moments ago, was gone.
A quick scan, and there he was in the distance—sneaking away with his stuff.
“You little...!”
The freckled boy stormed over and grabbed Yuri’s shoulder.
“Hey!”
“Haa...”
Yuri’s short sigh oozed irritation.
He turned slightly to face the boy.
“What.”
His voice was low and flat.
The freckled boy felt an inexplicable chill and yanked his hand back from Yuri’s shoulder.
Like he’d been cowed by Yuri’s presence.
Then, realizing he’d felt fear from this guy of all people, he exploded.
“You... what the hell are you!”
“What?”
“W-what gives you the right to get special treatment all by yourself!”
“Special treatment? What special treatment.”
“You pretending not to know?”
“Yeah, I really don’t.”
“Those things! You vanished with the Black Sword Soldiers all by yourself and came back with that junk!”
The freckled boy pointed at Yuri’s shoulder.
At the random crap he was lugging around.
At his shout, not just a few—but quite a lot—around them showed signs of agreement.
To them, Yuri suddenly disappearing and returning loaded with stuff looked exactly like special treatment.
Sensing the mood shift in his favor, the freckled boy grew bolder.
“You got some connection with the Black Sword Corps or something?”
“......”
“Honestly, it was suspicious from when you showed up late. Hundreds of us waited because of you, and no one did shit about it...”
Blah blah.
Mumble mumble.
The freckled boy kept yapping right in front of him, but Yuri let it go in one ear and out the other.
But the longer the rant dragged on, the steeper Yuri’s irritation climbed.
*Ah, what a pain...*
Why had he even given up points to hand Eric and those other two over to Jerry?
Precisely to avoid crap like this—excessive attention turning into annoyances.
*Is this really how it’s supposed to go?*
Yuri had planned to spend his first year in the cradle stealthily, gauging things, staying low-key, dipping in just enough to snag the benefits he needed.
*The whole ‘hidden powerhouse’ vibe, you know?*
Or like the shadowy puppet master pulling strings from behind the scenes.
*Something like that...*
But right from the start, everything had gone sideways.
In that moment, Yuri realized something.
*Hidden powerhouse? Shadowy mastermind? Sounds cool, sure...*
But those roles just weren’t for him.
*If I tried that crap, I’d choke on the frustration first.*
How was he supposed to put up with flies buzzing right in his face like this?
Frustration was already bubbling up to his throat.
*Hoo...*
After a brief internal debate, a resolute glint filled Yuri’s eyes.
*Yeah, there’s more than one way to prevent annoyances ahead of time. Hiding your strength isn’t the only option.*
Annoyances usually came from tangling with people.
So just don’t tangle with them, right?
And when it came to avoiding people, Yuri was an expert.
*People avoid shit not because it’s scary, but because it’s dirty.*
Human relations worked the same way.
Instinctively, folks shied away more from people who seemed like they’d dirty you up if you got involved, even more than scary ones.
So Yuri made up his mind.
He’d become the massive pile of shit everyone swerved around.
Mumble mumble.
Yuri looked at the boy still blabbering in front of him and spoke up.
“Hey.”
“......?”
“You swim?”
“What’s that outta nowhere?”
“So, can you or not.”
“Yeah, I can.”
“Yeah?”
At the boy’s answer, Yuri’s lips twitched, forming deep dimples.
He took a small step back and said,
“Hey, you know something?”
“......?”
“Every time you open your trap, it reeks like 27-day-old rotten squid.”
“......?!”
“When’s the last time you brushed? Your breath’s no joke.”
“......?!”
Yuri pinched his nose and took another step back, making the freckled boy’s eyes waver in panic.
Truth be told, it hit a nerve.
He’d rinsed his face and hands with spit and grime, but he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d brushed.
While the boy floundered,
“Guess it can’t be helped.”
“......?”
“Go wash up or something.”
“...What?”
Where was he supposed to wash up around here?
Before he could get the words out, Yuri moved first.
Tap!
With a short step, Yuri’s figure vanished.
Grip.
In an instant, he closed in and snatched the freckled boy’s throat with one hand.
At the same time, he hooked the boy’s ankle with his right leg, toppling his balance.
And then.
Dash dash dash.
He charged forward, shoving the boy’s neck along.
“G-guhk!”
The freckled boy flailed to pry Yuri’s hand off his throat, but Yuri’s grip was ironclad—he couldn’t budge.
Scraaaape.
Dragged along in Yuri’s grasp, the boy slid across the deck.
His kicking feet scraped against it.
Thud.
Before he knew it, the boy’s back hit the ship’s railing.
Yuri bared his pearly whites in a grin.
“Scrub up real good.”
Without hesitation, he shoved the kid over the rail.
“W-wait...”
The freckled boy flailed his arms, but no one grabbed hold.
Just like that, he plunged into Lake Montparche.
Splash!
The whole thing happened in a mere ten seconds or so.
It was over so fast the onlookers couldn’t process it.
But soon enough, some bolted up in shock.
“Th-that guy?!”
“Crazy!”
Outbursts of dismay and horror erupted here and there.
They’d assumed he wouldn’t actually toss someone overboard.
Yuri, meanwhile, was unfazed.
“Not sure if you’ll make it back, buuut if you dooo, bring some snacks!”
The ship kept moving despite the missing passenger, and Yuri waved cheerily at the increasingly distant boy.
After waving for a good while, Yuri slowly turned to face the crowd.
A chilling smile played on his lips.
In that smile, the onlookers saw a strange illusion.
Grrrrr.
A mad dog with madness-glazed yellow eyes flashing.
It screamed, *‘I bite even if you don’t touch me!’*