Reading the Room
What’s the most important stat for surviving in the Hood? Brute strength? Luck? Guts? Willpower? They’re all important, sure. But if someone asked me, I wouldn’t hesitate for even a second before answering: reading the room. In a shithole where your life can flip on the smallest mistake, you have to be able to read the room perfectly. How far you can push it before the gangs start getting annoyed. How much you can steal before the owner gets seriously pissed and decides to kill you. How much weight your own actions can actually carry. You have to judge all of it accurately.
Every risky move I’d made so far—the deal with the old man using the goddess statue, baring my teeth at the Blade gang—had been calculated. I only rolled the dice because I was confident I could handle the consequences. But this?
“The location is the clock tower in Central Park in Sentinel. All you have to do is deliver this there safely, then make a discreet handoff with one of our family members. It’s an extremely simple job.”
Gulp. Cold sweat slid down my spine. My instincts screamed at me instantly. Do not touch this. Those pale, elegant hands belonged to the devil, and that obnoxiously luxurious jewelry box was a seed of catastrophe.
What had started as nothing more than playing along with a bored noble girl’s whim had suddenly morphed into something far heavier—something that could tangle me up in the secrets and dirty laundry of a noble house. If a noble family was borrowing an outsider’s hands to hide something, the first person they’d cut loose if things went south was obviously me.
The kind of risk I could handle was the kind where, even in the worst case, I could still protect my life and Sara’s. Getting dragged into noble darkness made that impossible.
Having thought that far, I shut my eyes tightly without saying a word.
“Um, miss.”
“Oh my. Is there really any need for more questions on such a simple task? You seem like a rather intelligent man.”
Too bad. This was where it ended. Even my ridiculous luck had run out of juice. If I kept living carefully, another opportunity would come someday. Goodbye, my golden ticket.
“This is a bit…”
I was carefully trying to convey my refusal to the tilting Katarina when—
“Shh.”
A white finger pressed against my lips. The soft, unfamiliar sensation made me freeze. It was just a finger, yet an expensive scent I’d never once encountered in the Hood stung my nose. The sudden contact threw me off balance. Before I knew it, my gaze had drifted to the gently curved corners of her eyes. Her lips, which didn’t look painted but somehow still glistened a vivid red, parted slightly.
“Kain, you’re worrying over it, aren’t you?”
“……”
“That’s a good attitude. Caution is an important virtue. If you had accepted right away, I would have lowered my evaluation of your worth.”
Katarina smiled sweetly, withdrew her finger as if nothing had happened, and continued.
“This matter is rather important to me as well.”
“Then find someone else. Why come to a bastard like me instead of hiring a fixer from up top?”
“A meaningless question. You already know I would have done exactly that if it were possible.”
This wasn’t working. Nobles really were the worst. At some point I had clearly lost the initiative and was being dragged along at her pace.
“…Tsk.”
Rather than keep talking and sink deeper into the swamp, I clicked my tongue and turned to leave.
“I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
“What?”
“If you take this job, in addition to the success reward, I will write you an Academy admission recommendation letter under the Eastwood name.”
I stopped walking. Like a bug caught in a spiderweb, the more I struggled, the tighter it wrapped around me.
“Don’t talk shit. I’ve never heard of the Academy accepting some beggar from the Hood.”
“It is true that there is no precedent. However, if there is no precedent, we simply need to create one.”
“I’m not falling for wordplay.”
“It is not wordplay. The Eastwood family can create as many exceptions as we like.”
Ah. I’m so fucking screwed.
I didn’t know why Katarina was going this far, but at this point my nose was firmly hooked. After hearing all this—after a noble lady had clung to a Hood rat like me this desperately—if I tried to pull away now, she’d find a way to use it against me. The fact that she was being this sticky also confirmed that the danger level of this job had officially skyrocketed. She might already be planning to use me and then dispose of me.
But.
The reward was too damn big.
Academy admission was basically a guaranteed ticket to climb the social ladder. Even if you dropped out midway, just having attended the Empire’s greatest elite educational institution was enough to guarantee success. My brain started spinning like a gambling addict’s at the sweet bait held in front of me.
Dangerous? Living in the Hood was dangerous in itself. Getting stabbed in the back after the job? I just had to twist my body and avoid it. I could do it. If it was me, I could.
Logically, I knew this was insane. But sometimes in life, you have to do the insane thing.
“Fuck.”
I spat the curse and snatched the jewelry box.
“Fine. I’ll do it. I said I’ll do it.”
“A wise decision.”
Katarina’s fake smile deepened. It pissed me off. Smiling after screwing me over?
—BANG!
The gunshot shattered the translucent barrier.
“What?!”
Katarina’s composure shattered along with it. Nothing taught manners quite like a bullet. I fired into the air to break the barrier, then roughly shoved her upper body against the alley wall before she could react.
—CRASH!
I slammed 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, hiccupping, trembling face. Now this was a face I could work with.
“H-how dare you… after doing something like this…!”
“There’s one more condition.”
I stared straight into her shaking eyes.
“The recommendation letter. Write it in my sister’s name, not mine.”
“Pardon?”
The Academy? Honestly, I didn’t need to go. I wasn’t even sure exactly how old Kain was. Somewhere around twenty, maybe a bit more. Without knowing his birthday, how could I? Either way, it was definitely a bit late to be attending school now. There were plenty of things I wanted to learn, but if I was given a chance to learn them, there was a kid far more suitable than someone like me.
I spun the gun in my hand and growled.
“Write it for my little sister instead.”
“What did you just say?”
Katarina’s expression turned strange.
“You did all this… just to say something like that…”
“You seemed curious about Hood culture earlier, so consider this a hands-on experience. This is how we negotiate in the Hood. It’s pretty famous.”
With a cheeky remark, I grinned and lowered both my fist and the revolver.
“Ha!”
Katarina let out a disbelieving laugh. “I’ll admit it. You are definitely not sane.”
“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 was scared.
“I look forward to working with you on this job.”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t refuse the hand she offered in an attempt to hide how scared she was. However, as we shook, I didn’t forget to lean in close to her ear and politely express my intentions.
“If you think about stabbing me in the back or disposing of me after the job’s done, even if I die, I’ll make sure you go down with me.”
“…What a vulgar way of thinking. The Eastwood family never betrays trust.”
Katarina narrowed her eyes in displeasure, but I could feel a slight dampness on her pure white hand. She must sweat more than she looks.
* * *
The day of the operation.
I had come up to the upper district from the Hood 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. This place was Border Town, located on the outskirts far from Sentinel’s center.
True to its name, the town sat on the boundary between the Hood and Sentinel. Countless people and goods flowed through it.
“Hey, move faster!”
“Coming through.”
“Damn it, I almost got hit! Learn how to drive!”
—Hooooonk!
From the brass exhaust pipes attached to trains, cars, and buildings, smoke billowed out with powerful sounds. At first glance it looked similar to Phantasmagoria, the bustling downtown of 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 some kind of strict regulations were clearly in effect. It was also proof that law and order functioned properly.
Feeling a strange emotion, I adjusted the brim of my fedora.
“Whoa!”
“This place is insane. This is the upper district?”
“Fuck, the air itself is different!”
According to Katarina, the low-ranking Blade gang members mobilized for this job’s camouflage operation were also reacting with fresh excitement. It took quite a while to climb up 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 winding along the cliffs for nearly a full day, so it made sense they felt like they were on a trip.
Despite the somewhat heartwarming sight, something about it left me uncomfortable. The fact that my own feelings could shift so easily at this told me I wasn’t all that different from them yet. Technically, this wasn’t even real Sentinel. Geographically it was close to the center, but its only role was to serve as the boundary between the Hood and Sentinel.
I need to climb higher, and fast.
Thinking that, I quietly slipped away when I saw an opening.
“What? Where did Kain go?”
“He said his stomach hurt and went to the bathroom.”
“Tsk, we’re almost there. What the hell.”
I heard Edge’s voice looking for me as she quickly noticed the strange atmosphere, but it didn’t matter. All I had to do was my own job. They wouldn’t pay me any more attention than necessary anyway. As far as they knew, they had their own important mission to carry out.
“Shall we go?”
Clack. The jewelry box in my coat asserted its heavy presence. Its actual weight was much lighter than a rock of similar size, yet it felt more cumbersome than all the random junk I usually carried in my inner pocket.
Katarina hadn’t told me what it was, and I hadn’t asked, but I had a rough idea of its identity. One of the most precious resources in this world. The mysterious crystal that made the world itself possible.
Arcana.
It was complicated if explained in detail, but the simplest way to put it was that it was a kind of supreme gacha ticket. The value of the Arcana sleeping in my chest could probably buy this entire Border Town. Maybe even more than that. If it had been something moderately expensive, I might have considered running off with it, but with this thing I wouldn’t even die cleanly. The smart move was to deliver it obediently and take the reward.
I had zero interest in whatever business the Eastwood family and Katarina were planning with the Arcana. Or rather, I was actively trying not to be interested. Anyway.
Don’t show any signs, just move quickly. The sooner this job ended, the better.
With that thought, I headed toward Central Park. The location wasn’t far. Ten minutes if I ran, thirty if I walked.
“Hoo.”
I took a deep breath and started walking when—
Crack…!
From inside my coat. A very small but chilling sound rang out.