Promise (3)
The air in the slums was filthy from the start.
I had never liked the place to begin with, but after everything Sister had suffered here, I came to hate it even more.
Yet for Rhea, Claudia, and Ceria, there was nowhere I would not go.
At barely twelve years old, the world was far too cruel for a boy to carry alone. Scraping by day after day might somehow be possible, but living like a proper human being demanded more than that.
What was so wrong with dreaming?
The way Rhea had once stood in a dark alley, staring enviously at the academy students walking the sunlit streets outside, still sat heavy in my chest. So did the fact that Claudia and Ceria had fought after spending all their time cooped up in the church.
Fighting meant they liked me. I told myself it was because of the things I had done—things that made them feel they could rely on me.
One way or another, next year Claudia and Ceria would have to meet other people. I could not let them live the way I did.
I needed money.
My happiness now only existed in the moments when Rhea, Ceria, and Claudia smiled. So I needed money even more.
Splash—.
I returned to the slums, boots sinking into ground that squelched with every step because the drainage was worthless. Prostitutes, thugs, and orphan kids just like us still crowded the streets. Rather than wander around outside and invite trouble, I wanted to work as fast as possible and get out just as fast.
I had not run into any old acquaintances yet. But if I did, they would start shouting “traitor” and the rest, and trouble would follow for certain. So I pieced together my fading memories and slipped into an alley.
The prostitutes and thugs gradually thinned out. In their place appeared adventurers whose curious eyes asked why a child had come to a place like this.
The slums had a guild.
Outside there were nobles and clear ranks. Here, adventurers were as good as nobility. Except for the occasional fallen aristocrats who came sniffing after women, it had always been that way. In a place where fists sat closer than the law, people treated with respect the men and women who could kill orcs and hobgoblins with nothing but a sword.
Was that why?
“Kid, this isn’t a place for a child like you.”
A low-ranking adventurer blocked me as I tried to enter the guild. More precisely, he shoved me with his boot. If I cried or toppled over like an idiot, I would become a stumbling block instead of bait. They had built a guild here because the slums paid well, but the adventurers themselves were no fools of the slums.
Even they found it hard to make enemies of the entire district, so they turned a blind eye to internal matters. Outside the slums, though—when they marched out to subjugate monsters—it was different. Trying to save a child used as bait got precious adventurer lives killed. If you looked useless, you could not even serve as bait.
So.
“Hah—ptooey!”
I spat on his shoe.
“Mister, do you know me?”
I had to look strong. I had to look fearless. I had no intention of attending the academy; once I turned fifteen I planned to hunt monsters myself. Whether as bait or anything else, if I built ties with an adventurer guild I thought I could at least support the three girls’ dreams.
“Out of the way. I came to make money.”
“Money?”
“The bait you people keep looking for—I came to do it.”
The adventurer’s face flushed for a moment at my boldness, then he tilted his head. Apparently the decision sat above his pay grade.
“Wait a bit.”
He pushed open the guild’s wooden door, disappeared inside, and reappeared in less than ten minutes. The guild master was a woman with striking black hair; her face did not look particularly kind. Scars marked her body everywhere, silent proof of the life she had lived.
“Come in.”
Her voice was low and alluring. I followed her inside. More ordinary-looking people filled the hall than I had expected. There were prostitutes, as befitting the slums, but also plenty of women who were not. Adventurers, or guild staff, I guessed.
I glanced over them as I climbed the stairs behind the master to the second floor. A proper reception room waited there; I had never imagined I would be taken that far. I had assumed a kid and a piece of bait would be talked to anywhere convenient. I was wrong.
“Sit.”
The master seated me and propped her chin on one hand. Then she drew a single gold coin from between her breasts and set it on the desk.
“Once things quiet down, take it and go home.”
I stared blankly, not understanding. She sighed.
“Haa—. You came to make money, right? So take this and go home.”
There was no reason to refuse free coin, so I pocketed it at once. Then I simply sat there in silence. We did not speak. I only watched the master manicure her nails. After a while a knock sounded at the door.
Knock. Knock.
“Have you finished talking?”
“Yeah.”
The answer was short.
“Understood. I’ll wait. The funeral will begin soon.”
“Got it.”
“You must not be late, Master. This time the guild members who sacrificed—”
“I said I got it.”
The voice faded. A few minutes passed. The guild master pointed at the door with her chin.
It clearly meant leave. I did not leave. Unless she handed me a hundred gold, one coin was not enough to send me away. What I wanted was not a single gold to wet my throat for the moment; I wanted the role of bait. Not a one-time job that ended the instant I finished, but a long-term connection with a guild that stood inside the slums yet apart from them—a place where a person could walk with head held high.
So I could not walk out now. The gold she had given me was no free gift; it almost certainly meant never come back.
If I wanted to become an adventurer at fifteen and hunt monsters the way I planned, I would have to leave the village. We could not even secure a house for the four of us, which meant living on odd jobs forever. Naturally the three girls’ dreams would die with that life. Isolated, dreamless… maybe even dead.
I clenched my fist until the knuckles whitened. Then I looked straight into the master’s eyes. It did not matter whether she looked back. I said what I had come to say.
“I came to be bait.”
“…Is that not enough?”
“No.”
“How much more do you need?”
“Give me a hundred more and I’ll leave right now.”
It went past boldness into the territory of madness. The corner of the master’s mouth twitched as if she found the whole thing absurd.
“You can buy a slum brat for ten silver, yet one gold isn’t enough so you want a hundred?”
“…If I take this and leave, I won’t be able to come back to this guild again, will I?”
“Just leave. I’d prefer you disappear while I’m still being nice. You’ll die after a few runs anyway, kid.”
“Instead, other kids will live.”
The master stopped filing her nails, propped her chin again, and studied me with open interest. The “kids” I meant were Rhea, Ceria, and Claudia, but she seemed to take the word another way. The moment interest sparked, I knew I had to keep talking.
“…Instead of buying children to use as bait, use me. No one ordered me to do this. I want money, and in three years I want to become an adventurer. I have no intention of dying. My feet won’t freeze up, and I won’t cry like a brat begging to be saved. You already know that using someone who actually wants the job is better than getting people killed while you subjugate monsters.”
I felt her gaze on me, sharp and unblinking. Her lips were red; her eyes were redder still. I spoke to the woman who kept examining me with that same curious light.
“…I won’t hold anyone back. No guild members will die trying to save children.”
And, in case my words and my appearance failed to match—
“If you think some slum brat wandered into the guild just to scrape up pocket change—”
Tak—!
I pulled the gold coin out again and set it on the desk for her to see.
“—then take this too instead of your cheap pity. I don’t need it.”
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Only the second hand of the wall clock filled the silence. The master looked at me, smiled faintly, and held out her hand.
“I like those eyes.”
“…I’m Riel.”
“Laika.”
We shook hands.
“We head out on a subjugation right away. Just pick a fight the right way and run well. If things go south, fight. There’s no training. Instead…”
Laika drew a dagger from the multipurpose belt at her thigh and held it out.
“Take this. If you fight, your odds of dying are high. No one will help a mere piece of bait. You look after your own body.”
I took the dagger and hung it roughly at my waist, sheath and all. Somehow the weight felt familiar. Before I could chase the reason, Laika rose and started walking.
“Let’s go. Stop dawdling and get up.”
I followed her. When we opened the office door, the guild floor looked different from before: several well-dressed adventurers stood waiting. Swords, bows, shields, axes, spears—every kind of weapon filled the room, and every pair of eyes widened at Laika’s words. Not every guild master was the strongest, yet the old saying that most of them were seemed true enough.
“We’re going to hold the funeral.”
At Laika’s voice the adventurers nodded with solemn faces. I walked behind her. Someone tried to stop me.
“Leave him. He’s this run’s bait.”
“…B-bait? Didn’t you say we wouldn’t do that anymore…?”
“…This way is safer. And the kid says he wants to be an adventurer. So stop asking. You’ll know when you see for yourself.”
It was the deputy guild master. The rough-faced man with one eye closed gave me an uncomfortable look, then lowered his head. I fell into line with the rest of the guild members and walked out.
I did not catch every conversation, but a few pieces reached me. Lately the power of the demon race had grown stronger, and monsters were swarming. On a wood-rank request—lowest of the gold, silver, copper, stone, wood ranks—they had gone to clear twelve goblins. Somehow the place turned out to be a full colony; the swarm that poured from the nest killed two of their comrades.
If they had simply run they would have lived. But a child bought for ten silver in the slums had screamed for help, and they turned back. Thin, belated guilt had driven two adventurers to their deaths.
“So don’t hold us back.”
The deputy guild master—Cronian—spoke the words. If I cried or otherwise hindered the recovery of the two bodies, he would put an arrow through me himself. The threat was ice-cold.
There was no time to think. We pushed through the fence that ringed the village and stepped onto a wide grassland. After an hour’s walk a dense forest rose ahead. Green-skinned, human-like shapes moved among the trees.
Thud—.
Someone shoved me. I tumbled from the horse; no one even glanced back as they rode farther away. Only then did I understand why they wanted bait.
The goblins fixed their eyes on me, dropped to all fours, and charged. Any other child would have wet himself instead of screaming. Because I was small and weak they treated me as easy meat—easier than the armed adventurers—and came running.
I ran.
The horses had already gone too far for proper luring, but first I simply ran.
…
Cronian frowned and asked,
“…This isn’t even a colony. Goblins don’t need bait, Master. And we’re too far to help. That kid will die for certain.”
“I know.”
“…Then why?”
Laika smiled faintly while wiping oil along her blade.
“Because I like him. We need new blood soon anyway. He looks desperate enough to do anything, doesn’t he?”
Cronian nodded as if that settled it. They watched Riel from a distance. Strength failing, the boy fell hard enough that the impact carried to their ears.
Four goblins total: one adult roughly Riel’s size, three juveniles. The adult swung a thick branch at the boy’s head; Riel rolled across the dirt on pure instinct and avoided the blow. Realizing that escape as mere bait was already impossible, he drew the dagger from his waist.
No miracle followed. At first he seemed to run well enough, yet the adult’s next swing caught him square in the head. He staggered and collapsed. Cronian wheeled his horse without thinking; Laika stopped him.
“Just watch. Somehow that kid feels different.”
“What—just watch, you say?!”
The instant Cronian shouted, the instant he prepared to turn the horse again—
“Aaaaaaagh—! Fuck—! You fucker—! Die—! Dieeeee—!”
Riel’s roar tore through the trees. Laika’s smile widened with genuine wonder; she even clapped once.
“See? I told you he’s different.”
Cronian’s eyes went round.
Riel had looked finished—down and about to die. Yet when the deputy looked again the boy had already risen and was driving the dagger into the back of the adult goblin’s skull. Closer inspection showed the adult had been trying to drag Riel away alive, intending to feed fresh meat to the juveniles. Even with steel through its head it still clutched the boy’s body.
Only then did Cronian understand why Laika had called him different. Unable to win head-on, the child had gambled everything. A boy who could neither dodge nor counter properly had staked his own life on a bet no one else would take—and he had done it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. If the adult had not been trying to feed its young, the gamble would never have worked.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud—!
As the goblin with the dagger buried in its skull staggered and spilled red blood, Riel stabbed and ripped the blade free again and again, so savagely that the juveniles never dared approach.
Laika parted her lips.
“The little ones can’t even run. Let’s finish the funeral and come back. By then he’ll have figured out what kind of work we do. He’ll need time to settle the guilt too.”
She turned her horse; Cronian followed. One guild burned an entire goblin colony and smashed the hobgoblins as well in a single hour. When they returned, Riel had already killed every juvenile and lay collapsed, chest heaving.
Laika held out a hand.
“Huff… huff… G-give me the money. S-subjugation fee.”
Riel demanded payment.
“Heh. This kid’s hilarious, really.”
At that pure, unfiltered boldness Laika laughed out loud. There would be nothing but more of this work ahead, yet instead of resentment the boy only asked for coin—and somehow that made her like him even more.