A Clumsy Performance
After tasting alcohol for the first time in ages, I let my greed get the better of me. I snatched up the sword that had fallen to the ground and tried to copy the swordplay I had only ever seen in wuxia movies. Or rather, I struggled to imitate it as best I could, and the more I tried, the greater the sense of dissonance became. This wasn’t the sound of a blade cutting through the air. Whoosh, whoosh. Forcing something that simply wouldn’t work, my swings kept devolving into completely wrong movements. I looked like a traffic officer waving a baton or an orchestra conductor brandishing a baton. One absurd, comical motion after another followed, and contrary to my initial bravado, my face grew paler and paler.
“S-stop.” Even the man seemed embarrassed, his words stumbling. “Your courage was admirable, at least. You may leave now.”
“So it really won’t work?” I stared at him with feigned desperation. Honestly, even I found it pitiful to be begging like this. Other protagonists in another world obtained special powers from the start and raced toward success, but what about me? Clinging to the hems of bandits who, in novels and movies, were usually taken down in a single blow by the protagonist—all for the sake of survival. What a wretched state.
“Pfft.” Suddenly, laughter erupted from inside. Both the man and I turned our puzzled gazes toward the chair.
“Puahaha!” The female leader threw her head back and burst into uproarious laughter. Watching the scene, a bright smile naturally formed on my lips. Was this a good sign? The man and I waited in silence until her laughter subsided. Once it did, I found myself quietly anticipating what she would say next. Surely there wouldn’t be some grim twist waiting after this. Please, let all this sweat and the dangling “pepper” have been worth it.
“I like the way you struggle. I’ve only ever seen arrogant men puffing out their chests, so seeing you feels refreshing.” It was the first time I had heard her voice since entering. “I’ll take you in. Do your best.”
An angel’s voice. At her words, I clenched my fists, my face lighting up with joy.
“Th-thank you!”
The man immediately pressed, “Are you certain? Even if it means giving up the gold bars?”
“We’ll see whether that boy is worth more than two gold bars. It’s not as if we’re in urgent need of money right now.”
So this wasn’t a firm acceptance—she might still sell me off if things went south?
“Y-yes, I’ll work hard!”
Anyway, I stepped out of the tent with a bright expression. The man followed and informed the waiting guide of the decision. While the two conversed, I stood beside them and let out a sigh of relief.
“Phew.”
I had at least put out the immediate fire. From now on, I would pretend to get along with the bandits while slowly and carefully searching for a way to escape. Before returning to the tent, the man glanced at me.
“You’re lucky the leader took a liking to you. My name is Ision.”
“Thank you for accepting me, Ision.”
“I didn’t accept you, so there’s no need to thank me. I don’t trust you.”
His words were sharp.
“Life here won’t be easy. Before you even learn everyone’s faces, I hope you won’t get any strange ideas. For your information, our punishment for traitors and deserters is extremely strict and cruel.”
Leaving those barbed words behind, he went back inside. I mulled over his warning as I quietly followed the guide. Being openly threatened while powerless felt like being coiled by a snake. Something heavy pressed down on my limbs.
After walking a little, the guide spoke up. “Hey, newbie. I’ll let you know where you’ll be staying after I discuss it with the vice-chief. Until then, stay in the prison with the other captives. It’ll be uncomfortable, but that’s how it is. Anyway, let’s get along from now on.”
Perhaps because I had become a comrade, his tone was brighter than before, which lifted my mood a little. I immediately brushed Ision’s words from my mind.
“Please take care of me as well. By the way, who is the vice-chief, and what position does Ision hold?”
“Curious?” The guide turned around with a playful expression. I nodded right away.
“Yes.”
“Look up.” He pointed at the sky. “At the very top of that sky is the leader. Below her is Ision, serving as her strategist. And on equal footing with him is the vice-chief.”
“So Ision and the vice-chief hold the same rank?”
“That’s right. But in practice, the vice-chief handles almost all the troop management. Ision is merely the strategist who comes up with schemes.”
“What’s below the vice-chief and Ision?”
“Under those two are the squad leaders. Each squad leader has four or five subordinates, and there are fifteen squads in total—from the 1st to the 15th. Each squad has different roles: raiding, hunting, gathering, labor, and so on.”
“Ah,” I nodded, then asked again, “Which field am I most likely to end up in? Raiding? Hunting? Gathering? Labor?”
“Who knows. Since you’re new, you’ll probably start from the very bottom.”
“What does the bottom do?”
“Thieving.”
My energy drained away. An otherworld protagonist reduced to petty thievery without any flair? Was my life a hardboiled noir? Surely it wouldn’t end in a bad ending, right?
While I walked along gloomily, worrying about my depressing future, the door to the crudely built communal latrine swung open. A woman emerged, pulling up brown pants with a dagger strapped to her thigh. It was the 8th squad leader—the same woman who had made me erect in front of everyone, the one with a scar on her left cheek.
I felt a sudden dread at the thought of more humiliation. I tried to hide behind the guide and slip past, but she spotted me and smiled brightly.
“Oh? Isn’t that the big guy from before?”
The smell of alcohol hit me hard. Her cheeks were flushed red—she must have been drinking heavily even in the daytime. Still, calling someone by “big guy” instead of their name was a bit much.
“Hello…”
She barely acknowledged my greeting and turned to the guide. “Perfect timing. Where’s he headed?”
I had hoped the guide would make up some busy excuse to refuse, but my expectations were quickly dashed.
“To the workshop, ma’am.”
“What? The workshop? Then he doesn’t have anything urgent to do, right?”
Damn it.
A moment later, the guide, pressured by her, left, and I changed direction to follow behind her. The place she took me to was a tent with liquor bottles scattered messily across a table. Around the table sat three loud couples, drinking noisily and chattering away. She shielded me with her body and called out brightly to everyone.
“Ta-da! Guess who I brought!”
“Who?”
“Look carefully!”
She hopped aside. When I appeared from behind her, everyone stared in stunned silence before whistling and clapping. Not because they liked me, but because they were staring at a specific part of me. Every gaze was fixed on my lower body. To the drunkards, I was just an amusing spectacle.
“I just heard—this guy joined our crew today?”
“Huh? Really?”
“Who accepted him?”
“If he’s a captive, there’s a risk he’ll run away soon. Why take him in?”
“What did you say?!”
The voice was so thunderous that I thought lightning had struck in broad daylight. “Who the hell accepted a newbie without my permission?!”
I turned toward the source of the voice that made my bladder shrink. A man sat sprawled across two chairs, a woman on each arm. His appearance was the very image of a macho bandit boss—tiger-like features, a thick beard, a muscular pig of a man with a large face. Exactly the archetype I had imagined.
“Was it that bastard Ision again?!”
“Your ears must be ringing. Lower your voice. It was the leader’s decision.”
At the 8th squad leader’s words, the man’s expression suddenly changed and he burst into loud laughter. “If it’s the leader’s decision, then there’s nothing I can do! Wahahaha!”
His quick-tempered personality, flipping in an instant, matched the simple-minded bandits I had always pictured from novels and movies. He felt like a direct transplant of a Korean mountain bandit from old stories. I grew slightly curious about his identity.
Just then, one of the men spoke to me. “What are you doing? Hurry up and greet the vice-chief.”
The vice-chief? The one right below the female leader? I looked at the man again with slight surprise. He was the complete opposite of the gentlemanly Ision.
“P-please take care of me!”
“Yeah! Work hard from now on! This vice-chief will be watching you with sharp eyes!”
He pounded his chest, which was as wide as the Pacific Ocean. Well, at least his personality seemed generous. It was a relief that my superior wasn’t some petty, grudge-holding type. Still, I worried—what if his massive build came with a violent and eccentric nature? That would be troublesome too. But any such concerns were washed away by how genuinely good-natured the vice-chief turned out to be.
“Come here and have a drink! Since you just joined today, this vice-chief will pour for you himself!”
After that, he treated me extremely well at the drinking party. He kept pouring me drinks, saying I looked cute, and made sure I ate plenty, worrying that I must have been hungry from prison life. Of course, there were sacrifices to match. When asked to show off a talent, I ended up singing every K-pop song I knew, complete with awkward dances, and even forced out old songs whose lyrics I barely remembered. It was pure suffering. At first I worried whether music from another world would work here, but the reaction was explosive. More than anything, they seemed to enjoy my mistakes and awkwardness far more than any polished performance. Thanks to that, I managed to win over the vice-chief and the older sisters while also growing a little closer to the older brothers. Whether these relationships would survive once the alcohol wore off remained to be seen—we had only met while they were heavily drunk. Tomorrow they might pretend not to know me. Still, I was satisfied with finally getting to drink again, and I did my best to keep the mood lively. Though the 8th squad leader—who introduced herself as Gladia—and a few mischievous older sisters made “Little Smart” suffer along with me, at least I was only subjected to sexual harassment and not actual assault. That was something, I supposed. Finding Earth-level civic consciousness in another world was impossible anyway. Regardless, it felt good to get properly drunk for once.
“Ah, I’m dying……!” Hic!
The drinking party that had seemed endless finally ended after sunset. I walked alone along the darkened path and arrived in front of the prison. I was probably the only person who would voluntarily ask to be locked up.
“Get a hold of yourself, you bastard. The vice-chief gave special permission just this once.”
“Ah, yes, yes……”
“Good grief. I can’t tell if you’re a captive or my superior. Tsk.”
I barely registered the guard’s scolding. My head was spinning from all the rum I had drunk for the first time. “Get in.”
Clang.
I staggered into the open cell. Everyone who had been resting in a daze from the day’s hard labor looked at me in shock.
“D-did you drink?!”
“Who gave it to you?”
“Must’ve been nice……”
The envy lasted only a moment. Drawn by the delicious smell of food, their gazes instinctively shifted to the wooden bucket in my right hand. It was filled to the brim with all kinds of leftover dishes from the drinking party, which I had gathered with the vice-chief’s permission.
“You must be hungry. I brought this for you guys. You worked hard today.” Hic.
At my words, the captives who had been swallowing their saliva broke into delighted expressions. The moment I set the bucket down, they rushed at it like starving beasts.
“Waaah!”
“Whoa!”
“Thanks!”
Watching the chaotic scene, a bitter smile formed on my lips. Poor things. Not their current state, but what awaited them tomorrow. When the sun rose, they would all be sold off as slaves. Did they know their bleak future? Ah, whatever. It wasn’t my place to worry about others. At least I was better off than them. If we measured by the thickness of our lives, I had maybe an extra centimeter.
“How did it go?” Freyr stuck close to my side as if he had been waiting. His face was bright, like a new bride eagerly awaiting her husband’s return from work. His once-curly blond hair clung to his forehead, heavily tangled from all the sweat he had shed during the day. While the others were busy reaching for the bucket, he asked in a low voice, “It looks like things went well. What did they say? Are they letting you join?”
I stared at his face in silence. What should I say? Teaming up with him to become a bandit felt… off.