How to Overcome Childhood (4)
We no longer played house.
It was more accurate to say we simply couldn't.
Claudia would sometimes wake and force herself to joke around, laughing through gritted teeth at the sobbing Sister's side. Ceria clutched Sister Flora's hand tightly and prayed for help, just as the Sister had always prayed over us whenever we fell ill. Rhea trailed after me, pulling up whatever weeds looked edible and hunting for mushrooms.
Children who should still have been pure enough to whine for their own sakes began living for the Sister who had always put others before herself.
In their own ways, they lived for Sister Flora—the woman who had taken them in, cared for them, and given them love.
I was no different.
Without even time to fully heal, I wandered outside the orphanage every day—the dilapidated church that looked ready to collapse into ruins. My arms and legs ached as if they would shatter, but I knew I had to keep moving if we were going to survive.
Winter was coming soon, after all.
Every time I exhaled, a pure white plume of breath drifted out. It was cold, yet my clothes remained as thin as ever. I wasn't wearing the winter garments Sister Flora had once gifted us; we had turned those into her blankets and pillows.
I wondered whether I should light a campfire inside the crumbling church for her sake. We had never owned anything like a stove, so when winter arrived we had always used one another's body heat as our only warmth. Even now Claudia had wrapped her sensitive Wolf Tribe tail around Sister Flora's body, while Ceria had slipped under the covers to share her own warmth.
Food could be forced down somehow. Even if it had no nutrition, even if it was dirt, we would eat anything so long as it kept us alive. The real problem was money.
I had thought about lighting a fire, but I had known from the start that a campfire would never work—that it was a stupid idea. If the smoke filled the place, we would all simply be committing suicide together. We needed warm clothes. We needed warm blankets. We needed money.
Money.
Fucking money.
…No matter how many times I turned it over in my mind, the bright world Sister Flora had taught us about seemed not to exist. For days I had walked around offering to clean, yet people had seen me bringing the Sister home. Who would ever take in a boy cared for by a heretic? I found no work of any kind. No one welcomed us.
I had believed the Orthodox Church would help Sister Flora. Instead they had abandoned her. In a single moment we went from children the Pope himself might have smiled upon to street vermin—insects. Our stomachs hollowed out. Sister Flora would sometimes wake, only to fall asleep again almost at once.
I could see the pus seeping out as if her wounds were rotting. She woke because of the pain and slept because of the pain. My chest hurt. I was so sad.
"…Riel, what should we do?"
Claudia asked me while still holding Sister Flora's hand tightly. Ceria was the same. Instead of answering I smiled and shouted that they shouldn't worry.
"Just wait for me, okay? I'll take care of everything."
I walked outside. Then I searched for a secluded place, moving toward the darkness as if I really were a cockroach. Rhea, who had followed me, suddenly stopped and spoke while trembling.
"…Riel, wh-where are you trying to go…? Th-that's the Slums…"
"…I know."
"Th-the place we barely escaped…!"
"There's no other way…"
I headed for the Slums. It was a place that held Wolf Tribe folk and even creatures that resembled reptiles. It was only a small village, yet because it sat inside the city, walking its perimeter always brought you to damp, foul alleys.
There were prostitutes. There were plenty of orphans. There were criminals and the dregs of adventurers who had killed someone and gone into hiding. But it was also a place where money changed hands—where people spent freely.
There was no way to earn money by honest means. Or rather, even if I could earn some, it would never be enough to last the winter. Before Sister Flora had been hurt, a few people had still given us donations when winter came. After those Orthodox Church bastards branded her a heretic, every last bit of charity vanished. It was a choice I had no choice but to make. Coins dropped in sewers and drains would never buy even a single piece of clothing.
"…R-Riel…. I-I'm scared—"
Rhea grabbed the hem of my clothes. Beyond the place I was heading, the stench of sewers and the acrid reek of cheap rum and cloudy liquor already hung thick. Broken bottles and men and women sprawled out asleep were already visible. A touch inside their clothes found no money; they had clearly been robbed and then thrown outside, passing out after whatever drug or drink they could get.
I felt that if we entered the Slums we might be able to earn money. The moment I took a single step, Rhea yanked on my hem.
"C-can't we just… not go?"
There was a reason Rhea was this terrified. We were from the Slums.
Calling it our origin was less accurate than saying we had been born into the Slums from the very start. Because her parents had been criminals, Rhea had watched them die right in front of her during a power struggle when she was little.
I was not so different. The only difference was that I had never even seen my parents' faces. The place where we had lost our families, the place where we had been abused, the place Sister Flora had rescued us from so that we could forget it existed—returning to it made Rhea's fear completely understandable.
It was the place where we would have to do the bad things we had once done just to survive, the things we had long since left behind. It was a place utterly unsuited to living with the warm hearts and good deeds Sister Flora had taught us.
But there truly was no other way. Rhea was the one who had said she would follow. She had lived in the Slums with me; she would have known that I had stolen, that I had been beaten half to death, that the wounds were not from simple falls. Of course she was worried. There was nothing for it.
"…That's why I told you not to come."
"Th-there has to be another way. W-we're still kids…. S-someone might help us…"
"Rhea, the villagers already see us as vermin."
"V-vermin…"
"Those Orthodox Church bastards…. They called Sister a heretic. The daughter of a witch."
I explained it as clearly as I could, yet Rhea still would not let go of my collar.
"Rhea, you know, don't you? When I used to go out saying I was looking at bugs. I wasn't looking for bugs—I was cleaning sewers and earning money every single time. I know, too. Even when you pretended to be greedy, you always shared your food with Ceria and Claudia the same way I did. We can't do that anymore. No one will take us in. We can't bring home a single tasty thing. No one helps us. Because we're vermin."
"…B-but still…"
Rhea's voice trembled with tears. She was only eleven. Even if she had lived at the very bottom of society, she was still so young—too young for purity to have been stripped away completely.
"…We can't just die. Not when we think of Sister."
Rhea took my hand and hiccupped, trying to hold back her sobs. In the end she spoke through her tears.
"…You're scared too, Riel. I can see your hands shaking."
I yanked my collar free and rubbed my trembling hands.
"You saw wrong. Now go back."
I spoke shortly and stepped into the alley. The alleys of the Slums were coated in sticky filth that rotted and decayed, only to be washed away by the occasional rain and then begin the cycle again. It was filthy, and the stench was so foul that lying down on such a street would surely make you sick and kill you.
The reason people still lived there was simple: it was not territory ruled by nobles. There were no taxes to pay to any lord.
Step. Step.
After walking a little farther, a street cleaner than the entrance came into view. The scenery was the same as ever.
On one side, women in roughly built shacks openly displayed their chests, thighs, and underclothes, beckoning to men. On another, people clustered in threes and fives, shouting about killing or sparing someone. Everyone carried daggers or similar weapons for self-defense. The only ones who did not fit in were Rhea and me.
In the Slums even children had to grip a dagger. Public order was so poor you never knew what might be stolen from you. I looked around carefully.
I was not searching for people born and raised in the Slums. I was looking for the few naive ones. Because we might truly die, I planned to pickpocket someone careless. Just as I was scanning the surroundings, someone seized my wrist.
"…I-I'll d-do it with you."
It was Rhea. She kept her head bowed low, as if simply returning to the Slums was enough to terrify her.
"…If you help me, you won't go to the heaven Sister talked about. We're going to do bad things."
"I-it's okay."
"…You might get hurt."
"…Yeah. I know."
"If Sister finds out, she might hate it."
"…I-it's okay. I'd rather that than you getting hurt."
Whatever had become of the hot temper she used to show at the orphanage, Rhea now held my hand tightly, as if she would never let me go.
"…L-like before. We'll do it like before."
Cheating a few naive people just to survive was, in truth, something I was used to. When Rhea would ask where her mother was, my role had been to sneak up behind some careless person and lift their coin pouch or wallet.
"…I-I really hate it when you get hurt, Riel. Really."
It was familiar work, yet it was also work I had long since quit—before we met Sister Flora.
"…What if you get hurt as badly as that time…"
Once I had been caught and beaten unconscious right in front of Rhea. It was not hard to realize that was why she had followed me.
I flicked her on the head. Because she had been so tense, tears had slipped out without her noticing; she stared at me with a dazed expression.
"I told you I forgot all of that."
"…Y-yeah."
So that we would not lose Sister Flora, we walked the Slums hand in hand just as we had before we met her. After circling a few times we fixed on a man in white clothes as our target. A prostitute clung to his side; she seemed to have caught the scent of money and was nestled against him, talking about wanting to rest at an inn.
The man did not seem opposed. He looked like a city man who had come seeking exactly this kind of entertainment. He did not seem to be from the Slums, he was young, and the way he laughed so freely made him look perfect. I knew that men being watched by women could sometimes become extremely generous. I had been born and raised in the Slums, after all.
We began carefully approaching the man, sniffling as if we were about to cry. That was when we heard it.
"…Ah, that's right. Witches bleed the same red blood, you know. I thought it would be purple."
Witch?
"A witch…? Rather than talk about that, I'd rather see a man of the cloth put all his effort into me…"
Religion?
"…Who would believe I'm from the Orthodox Church? It's our little secret, heh. How many times have I told you?"
"…Even though your lower half is so angry, you keep looking for somewhere comfortable. We're more used to doing it on the street…"
We heard the man in white clothes reveal that he was a cleric of the Orthodox Church. Rhea and I both froze in place.
Right in front of us stood one of the pieces of trash who had hurt Sister Flora and forced an unjust brand upon her. Rhea looked at me with a face full of injustice, then stared at the hypocritical believer of the Orthodox Church.
"…Sister was beaten like that… because she wasn't recognized by people like him?"
She could not bear to look at the man who must have struck Sister Flora; she kept wiping her tears. Perhaps he noticed. The man in white approached us, still keeping the prostitute pressed to his side, as if he wanted to show how kind he was.
"Why are you crying?"
His voice was warm, yet it was disgusting. The moment Rhea heard it she cried even harder. The man took out a coin purse and seemed to be choosing what to give us. Then he spouted nonsense about how we must not cry if we wanted the Lord's blessing.
On the coin purse was the clear emblem of the Orthodox Church—the same emblem Sister Flora had never been allowed to possess, the one she had embroidered stitch by stitch onto her habit. That same pattern was on the purse.
"Here, take this. Buy yourselves something tasty."
He held out a single silver coin. It was worth more than copper yet far less than gold—a moderate currency. Rhea was still crying, and the prostitute cooed beside him about how wonderful he was. I stretched out both hands as if to receive the coin, then stepped a little closer and snatching the entire purse in one swift motion. I grabbed a fistful of coins and flung the half-empty purse hard in a random direction.
"The Orthodox Church is here alone for an interrogation!"
Mercenaries of the Slums, people on the run, even believers who had committed crimes and gone into hiding all flinched and turned toward us. Before the thoroughly flustered man could say a word, I shoved him with all my strength. Then I seized Rhea's hand, clutched the coins to my chest with the other, and ran.
As we fled I heard the prostitute scream in horror. She must have seen the emblem on the purse she had picked up to take the money.
"I-it really was the Orthodox Church!? H-help me, kyaaaah—!"
The Slums were where discarded people stayed. Even if they had never been directly harmed, they hated those in power. The Orthodox Church was no exception. Why would people abandoned at the bottom believe in any god? Merely associating with them was a sin in the Slums.
That was why I had never wanted to return. We had left the Slums and been branded traitors by the people we knew, all because we had followed Sister Flora.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I ran with Rhea. A few coins slipped away, but I stuffed the rest into my pocket so they would not fall. Please, I thought, let the money we just stole be enough to buy medicine that can heal Sister Flora's wounds.
Fortunately, it was enough. It was all copper and silver, yet there was even a single gold coin among them. Because the villagers hated us they charged more than ten times the proper price for the medicine, but we could still buy it. With the remaining money we bought grain to boil through the winter, along with blankets and clothes.
Whenever it ran short I returned to the Slums and repeated the things Sister Flora would hate. Only a few days after she woke, she asked me.
"…Was there really a benefactor?"
I answered with a lie.
"…Yes."
Sister Flora pulled Rhea and me into her arms with a sad expression and asked nothing more. She simply sobbed and repeated that she was sorry, over and over. She already knew we were from the Slums.