An Offer I Couldn't Refuse
The most important stat for surviving in the Hood? Brute strength? Luck? Guts? Sheer willpower? They're all important, but if someone asked me, I wouldn't hesitate for a second. Reading the room.
In a place where your life can hang in the balance over the smallest thing, you absolutely have to be good at reading the room. How far you can push before the gangs get annoyed. How much you can steal before the owner gets seriously pissed off and decides to kill you. How much fallout from your own actions you can actually handle. You have to judge all of it perfectly.
Every risky move I'd made so far—like striking that deal with the old man using the goddess statue or baring my teeth at the Blade—had been done because I was confident I could handle the consequences somehow.
But this?
“The location is the clock tower in Sentinel Central Park. All you have to do is deliver this there safely, then secretly hand it off to a member of our family. It's an incredibly simple job.”
Gulp. Cold sweat slid down my spine. My instincts screamed at me instantly. Do not touch this. Those pale, elegant hands were the devil's own, and that obnoxiously expensive-looking jewelry box was the seed of catastrophe.
What had started as nothing more than playing along with an ambitious noble girl's little adventure—at Katarina's suggestion—had somehow morphed into something far heavier. Something dangerous enough to get tangled up in a noble house's secrets or dirty laundry.
If a noble family was borrowing an outsider's hands to hide something, then obviously the first person to get cut loose if things went wrong would be me.
The kind of risks I could afford to take were, at worst, the kind where I could still protect my life and Sarah's.
Getting mixed up in a noble family's darkness meant that wasn't an option.
Having thought this far, I silently squeezed my eyes shut.
“So, uh, miss.”
“Oh my. Does such a simple task really require more questions? You seem like a rather intelligent man.”
Too bad, but this job ends here. Even my ridiculous luck must have run out by now. If I keep living diligently, another chance will come someday. Bye-bye, my lucky streak.
“This is a bit…”
The moment I started to carefully voice my refusal to the head-tilting Katarina—
“Shh.”
A pure white finger pressed against my lips. Soft. An unfamiliar texture. It was just a finger, yet a scent I'd never once encountered in the Hood stung my nose. The sudden contact honestly threw me off balance. Without thinking, my eyes drifted to the gently curved corners of hers. Her lips, which didn't look painted, somehow glistened a vivid red as they moved.
“Cain, you're hesitating, aren't you?”
“……”
“That's a good attitude. Caution is an important virtue, after all. If you'd accepted immediately, I would have lowered my evaluation of your worth.”
Katarina smiled sweetly, withdrew her finger from my lips as if nothing had happened, and continued.
“This matter is quite important to me as well.”
“Then find someone else. Why pick a bastard like me instead of hiring a proper fixer from uptown?”
“A meaningless question. You already know that if I could have, I would have done so long ago.”
This wasn't working. Nobles really were a pain in the ass. At some point I'd clearly lost the initiative and was being dragged along at her pace.
“…Tsk.”
Rather than getting sucked into the swamp by trading words, I clicked my tongue and turned to leave.
“I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.”
“What?”
“If you take this job, on top of the additional success bonus, I'll write you an Academy admission recommendation letter under the Eastwood name.”
I ended up stopping in my tracks. Like a bug caught in a spiderweb—the more it thrashes, the tighter it gets tangled.
“Don't talk shit. I've never heard of the Academy accepting dirty beggars from the Hood.”
“It's true there's no precedent. However, if there's no precedent, we can simply create one.”
“I won't fall for fancy wordplay.”
“It's not wordplay. The Eastwood family can manufacture as many exceptions as necessary.”
Ah. I'm really, really fucked.
I didn't know why Katarina was going this far, but at this point my nose was already firmly hooked. After hearing all this, after a noble lady had clung to a Hood rat like me this desperately, pulling away now would just give her something to hold over me. The fact that she was being this persistent meant the danger level of this job had been upgraded to critical. Maybe they were already planning to use me and then throw me away.
But.
The reward was just too damn big.
Academy admission was basically a guaranteed ticket to social climbing. The Academy—the empire's greatest elite educational institution, far beyond even Sentinel—guaranteed success in life even if you dropped out midway. Just having that “dropout” label was enough.
My brain began spinning like a gambling addict's at the sweet prize dangling in front of me.
Dangerous? Living in the Hood is dangerous by definition. Getting discarded after being used? I just have to twist my way out of it. I can do this. If it's me.
Honestly, my head knew it was insane. But sometimes in life, you have to do insane things.
“Fuck.”
I spat the curse and snatched the jewelry box.
“Fine. I'll do it. I'll take the job.”
“A wise choice.”
Katarina's fake smile grew even brighter. And that pissed me off more than anything. Smiling after screwing me over like this?
—Bang!
The gunshot shattered the translucent barrier.
“What?!”
Katarina's composure shattered along with it. As expected, there was no etiquette instructor quite like a bullet.
Having fired into the air to break the barrier, I slammed her upper body against the alley wall before she could react.
—Crash!
Then I drove my fist into the wall right beside her head. Cheap bricks cracked and the wall crumbled slightly.
“Hic!”
The elegant composure of nobility was nowhere to be found on her ridiculous, trembling face as she hiccuped.
Now this was a face I could somewhat respect.
“H-how dare you… do something like this…!”
“But there's one more condition.”
I stared straight into her shaking eyes.
“The recommendation letter.”
“Pardon?”
The Academy? Honestly, I didn't need to go. I didn't know Cain's exact age. I could only guess he was around twenty or maybe a little older. Without even knowing his birthday, how could I know for sure? Either way, it was definitely a bit late to be starting school now.
There were plenty of things I wanted to learn, but if I was given a chance to study, there was a kid far more deserving than someone like me.
I spun the revolver in my hand and laid down the threat.
“Write it in my sister's name, not mine.”
“What did you just say?”
Katarina's expression twisted strangely.
“You did all this… just to say something like that…”
“You seemed curious about Hood culture earlier, miss. Consider this a hands-on experience. This is the Hood-style negotiation method. It's pretty famous.”
With that sly remark, I grinned and lowered both my fist and the revolver.
“Ha!”
Katarina let out a dumbfounded laugh.
“I'll admit it. You're definitely not in your right mind.”
“I get that a lot.”
She swept her hair back with one hand and looked at me with an amused expression that seemed full of composure. But her legs were trembling faintly. She'd gotten scared.
“I'll be counting on you for this job.”
“Yeah.”
I didn't refuse the hand she offered in an attempt to hide her fear. However, while shaking it, I didn't forget to whisper my intentions directly into her ear.
“If you even think about stabbing me in the back or disposing of me once the job's done, I'll make sure you go down with me—even if it kills me.”
“…What a vulgar mindset. The Eastwood family never betrays trust.”
Katarina narrowed her eyes petulantly, as if she didn't like what I'd said. Her pure white hand felt slightly damp in mine. She must sweat more than she looks.
* * *
On the day of the operation, I finally left the Hood and came up to the upper district for the first time in what felt like a million years. It wasn't my first time here, but it was my first time coming so openly.
The place I stood now was Border Town, located on the outskirts far from Sentinel's central area.
True to its name, this transit hub on the boundary between the Hood and Sentinel saw massive flows of people and cargo moving through it.
“Hey, move faster!”
“Coming through.”
“Damn it, I almost got run over! Learn how to drive!”
—Hoooonk!
From the brass exhaust pipes attached to every locomotive, car, and building, powerful bursts of white smoke erupted. At first glance it didn't look all that different from Phantasmagoria, the bustling district in the Hood. But there was one crucial difference: the smoke was white. It meant they actually cared about pollution here.
I didn't know the details, but it was clear some kind of strict regulations were in effect. It was also proof that law and order actually functioned in this place.
In a strange mood, I adjusted the brim of my fedora.
“Whoa!”
“This is insane. So this is what the upper district looks like?”
“Fuck, the air itself is different!”
According to Katarina, the low-ranking Blade members mobilized for this job's camouflage operation were also reacting with fresh excitement. It took a long time to climb this far from the bottom of the Hood, after all.
You could reach it instantly by elevator, but not just anyone could ride it. In reality, traveling from the Blade's headquarters to Border Town meant navigating the cliffs in a roundabout way that took nearly a full day, so it made sense they'd feel like they were on a trip.
But despite the somewhat heartwarming sight, I felt a vague discomfort in one corner of my heart. The fact that my feelings could change this easily probably meant I wasn't all that different from them yet.
Come to think of it, this wasn't even true Sentinel. Geographically it was close to the center, but its only real role was serving as the boundary between the Hood and Sentinel.
I needed to get higher. Soon.
Thinking that, I quietly slipped away when I saw an opening.
“What the—where did Cain go?”
“He said his stomach hurt and went to the bathroom.”
“Tsk, we're almost there. What's his problem?”
I could hear Edge's voice searching for me as she quickly sensed something off, but it didn't matter. I just had to do my part. They wouldn't pay me any more attention than necessary anyway. As far as I knew, they'd been given their own separate important tasks.
“Let's get moving.”
—Clack. The jewelry box in my inner pocket asserted a heavy presence. Its actual weight was far lighter than a rock of similar size, yet somehow it felt more cumbersome than all the usual junk I carried.
Katarina hadn't told me what it was, and I hadn't asked, but I could roughly guess its identity.
One of the most precious resources in this world. A mysterious crystal that made the very foundation of the world possible.
Arcana.
Explaining it properly was complicated, but the simplest way to describe it was like a top-grade gacha ticket.
The value of the Arcana currently sleeping in my arms could probably buy this entire Border Town. Maybe even that comparison fell short.
If it had been something only moderately expensive, I might have considered running off with it. But with this, I wouldn't even get to die cleanly.
I just had to transport it quietly as instructed and collect my reward. I wasn't interested in whatever business the Eastwood family and Katarina were planning with the Arcana. To be exact, I was deliberately trying not to be interested, but anyway.
Let's not draw attention and move quickly. The sooner this job ended, the better.
With that thought, I headed toward Central Park. It wasn't far. Ten minutes running, thirty walking.
“Whew.”
I took a deep breath and started forward when—
Crack…!
From inside my coat. A tiny but bone-chilling sound rang out.