About Gutter Alley, Part 5
How did it come to this?
Not long ago, we were all sharing meals and laughing together.
"How long are you going to be so stubborn, Arciel? This place is finished!"
"No, we're making a fresh start here," Arciel countered. "We'll change this place they call the Gutters. We'll show everyone who looked down on us and treated us like trash just how much we can change, how great we can become."
The joy of their liberation was short-lived. Labin and Arciel clashed fiercely.
"Look around you!" Labin yelled. "Nothing grows here. We're surrounded by woods, so travelers never come, which means we can't even trade. If we stay here, we'll grow up to be just like the adults we hated!"
"Wherever we go, they'll just treat us like homeless vagrants anyway," Arciel shot back. "This is our home."
"How is a dump like this our home?!"
"It is! If a bunch of kids with no clear background go wandering around, people will mistake us for bandits and kill us!"
"You coward! Have you ever even been outside? Have you?!" Labin sneered. "You're just scared. If you only focus on what can go wrong, you'll never accomplish anything here either."
"And you aren't even trying to change this place."
"For God's sake, Arciel, look at reality! The foundation of this place is rotten. There's nothing for us here but pain."
"This is the place we have to overcome!"
Labin couldn't understand why Arciel was being so stubborn.
Perhaps Arciel herself didn't fully understand it either.
Though she never spoke of it, Arciel was the only child actually born in Gutter Alley, and one of only two who had lived there since infancy. Her attachment to the place ran deeper than anyone else's.
To her, Brack and the other adults were nothing but intruders—uninvited rulers who had usurped their home.
Now that they had finally reclaimed it, she refused to abandon it so easily.
"Say we do leave, like you want," Arciel said. "What then? What's the plan?"
"We raid the surrounding areas for a bit while we look for an opportunity—"
"That will only bring a subjugation force down on our heads!" Arciel interrupted. "If we do that, we're no different from the adults!"
The gap between Arciel and Labin's views refused to close.
Hours passed with neither side yielding, the atmosphere growing increasingly hostile. Finally, Labin shook her head and walked away, leading those who sided with her to the opposite side of the hideout.
"What are you doing, Lee? Let's go."
"Huh?"
Labin gestured to Lee with a casual, nonchalant nod, but her heart was hammering against her ribs.
Quite apart from her crush on him, she calculated that if Lee sided with her, Arciel would have no choice but to follow.
Arciel also looked at Lee with pleading eyes, but Rina chose that moment to step forward, completely oblivious to the tension.
"I... I'm staying here," Rina said. "You guys don't know what the outside world is like. Here, you only have to worry about fists. But out there, the world will reject us with a complex web of laws and social classes. I think it's too early to leave."
Although her words made sense, the other children found her overly formal, difficult language annoying.
She shrank back under the glares directed at her from all sides, but Rina—who had fled to this place after carelessly boasting about being the Emperor's daughter—refused to budge.
Just then, someone stepped up to stand beside her.
"Rina is right," Lee said. "Leaving blindly is too dangerous. Wherever we go, we'll be outsiders. Even if this place is rotten, it seems best to cultivate our own land."
Labin bit her lip, a wounded expression crossing her face.
"If only you came with us, Lee, we could make it work. We wouldn't have to give up."
"We're only fifteen," Lee replied gently. "We have plenty of time."
"Death doesn't wait for time!" Labin snapped.
Startled by her own sudden outburst, she flinched.
"Sorry for shouting..." she muttered.
And with that, the heated debate came to an end.
From that day on, Labin began targeting Arciel's faction in order to win Lee over.
At first, it was just simple tricks.
"Lee! Labin is looking for you!"
"Me?"
"She said it's urgent and she needs to talk to you!"
They tried to hurry the confused Lee away, but Rina caught them in the act.
Rina had only reported it to Arciel because she was annoyed that someone was messing with her self-proclaimed "Vassal Number One." However, the entire faction took offense, marching over to snatch Lee back while he was in the middle of talking to Labin.
Labin was furious, and her faction was equally enraged.
They knew Arciel would have no choice but to follow if they had Lee. To them, Arciel's stubbornness was nothing but a foolish obsession with Gutter Alley, which only fueled their anger.
The conflict grew increasingly violent. Since Arciel would heal the wounded regardless of which side they were on, the kids eventually began brandishing actual weapons.
In the blink of an eye, confusion turned to disappointment, and disappointment spiraled into resentment, anger, and outright hostility.
Meanwhile, Rina's attitude toward Lee began to shift as well.
"What are you doing, Lee?"
"Hmm, I'm looking through an encyclopedia to see how to make the plants we sowed grow better."
"Forget about that. I need some flowers to decorate my room."
"I'll look around when I go out to the forest and bring back some nice ones if I find any."
Back when Brack ruled, Lee used to linger around her, trying to catch her eye. But ever since their liberation, he had become much more absorbed in his own tasks.
For some reason, she found this irritating. Now, it was Rina who would occasionally seek him out first, acting petulant.
Although he accommodated her, there was a subtle wall in his demeanor now. Ironically, this only made Rina hover around him even more.
"Alright! This time, we're going with my strategy!"
In the skirmishes against Labin's faction, the strategies Rina racked her brain to devise were only half-successful.
And even that half was only achieved because Lee's quick wit or Arciel's brute strength forced a victory out of a failing plan.
There was a limit to how much she could sway the other kids with her exceptional beauty alone.
It was no wonder Arciel constantly nagged Rina and called her an idiot.
Feeling her influence slip away, Rina instinctively tried to stay close to Lee, which only grated on Arciel's nerves even further.
The breaking point came on the day Arciel found herself cornered alone.
The very day Rina had clumsily sent Lee on a detour toward Labin's territory.
And the night Lee had reconciled the two girls with his potato-and-jam sandwiches.
That night, Lee packed a generous amount of sandwiches and crossed over to Labin's base.
"Whoa!"
Everyone practically jumped for joy.
Letting them steal the bread in hopes that Lee would make something out of it had paid off.
Some kids devoured their sandwiches in huge bites, while others nibbled carefully to make them last.
Labin was one of the former.
"It's because of you that we can't just leave," Labin said between bites.
"Because of me?"
"Because I want to take you and Arciel with us."
"We seem to have drifted too far apart for that," Lee pointed out.
Labin let out a deep sigh at his words.
It was something she already knew.
"The kids are getting wilder by the day."
The sweet taste of the sandwich suddenly turned bitter.
"Lee, you spent most of your time at the hideout, so you might not know, but the rest of us have tasted blood since we could walk. We took up weapons, went out to the outskirts, and survived by robbing and hurting passing peddlers and merchant caravans."
This was the reason Labin was so skeptical of Arciel's dream of changing Gutter Alley from within.
She did not believe human nature could be changed so easily.
"This land is cursed. It stains people with evil, and nothing but wild weeds will grow in this soil."
"Labin?"
"Arciel is ultimately just like us," Labin continued. "She talks about hope, but violence is all she knows. You're the only one who shows us that things can be resolved without force, the only one who teaches us human warmth. That's why we want to leave this place—carrying your warmth and Arciel's hope with us."
The playful, mischievous Labin was nowhere to be seen.
The young leader of this faction knew the true nature of her followers all too well.
"It's getting harder to control them. You've been sharing food with us in secret, but it's not enough to feed everyone. Most of them want to go back to raiding."
When he had come to deliver the sandwiches, he had only wanted to see them happy.
He hadn't expected her to lay bare such a heavy burden.
"Lee, please. Just come with us," Labin pleaded.
"I feel like if you're with us, we can make it anywhere. It's just a vague hope, but... you make us dream of a normal life. Working hard all day, coming home, and laughing with family, even if we don't have much."
Labin's desperation was palpable.
Her earnest plea made Lee hesitate, plunging him into deep thought.
"Labin, I..."
"Boss! We've got trouble!"
"Is it Arciel?!" Labin demanded.
"No! The outskirts! There's an army emitting a white light coming from the outskirts. They're heading straight for us!"
"An army...? Inform Arciel immediately!"
Jack's frantic shout and the sudden appearance of an army threw them into chaos.
Labin and Lee rushed toward the outer boundary.
Clambering onto the ruins of the collapsed castle walls, the children trembled in fear as they watched the glowing army approach through the dark night.
"Labin! Lee!"
"Arciel."
It wasn't long before Arciel's faction arrived as well.
Arciel and Rina narrowed their eyes at the sight of Lee standing beside Labin, but given the gravity of the situation, they put their grievances aside to face the threat.
"Halt! This is Gutter Alley, our territory!" Arciel shouted, stepping onto the highest pile of rubble. "What business does an army have in a worthless place like this?"
As the children gripped their weapons in tense silence, the approaching army drew closer, their white light growing even brighter.
"You want a fight? You aren't the only one who can shine!" Arciel barked.
She slammed her leather-gloved fists together, unleashing a burst of divine power.
She had meant it as a threat, but the soldiers, upon seeing the light, erupted into gasps of awe and cheers.
"Heavens! A girl clad in divine power!"
"This is surely the guidance of the Goddess!"
"Ah! Let us offer our prayers at once!"
The children of the alley stared in bewilderment at the soldiers, who showed not hostility, but reverence.
"W-what is this?"
Even Arciel relaxed her fists in confusion, causing her divine light to fade.
At that moment, a resonant voice called out from the front of the army.
It carried authority, yet it was not the voice of a warrior. It was a gentle, soothing tone that brought an odd sense of relief.
"Please, do not extinguish that beautiful light."
"Nobles? No, that's the way priests of the Goddess speak," Rina muttered.
As the most educated member of the gang, Rina instantly recognized their class.
Hearing Rina's warning, Arciel flared her divine power once more out of unease.
Seeing the light envelop her body, the soft-spoken man smiled and extinguished his own light.
The army's glow had been emanating from him.
As the light—which had been even brighter than Arciel's—vanished, the children and the soldiers could finally see each other clearly.
"Oh, heavens! How utterly pitiful!" the man lamented.
"Pitiful? Us?" Labin bristled, but Rina quickly pulled her back.
"Quiet," Rina whispered. "Priests are even bigger showmen than nobles. If you interrupt their performance, they'll hiss at you like angry cats."
"Look at these gaunt, hollow faces! Yet beneath the grime, they are so young. You must all be growing boys and girls!"
The man spread his arms wide toward the heavens.
"I am Agreus, a humble servant of the Goddess! I temporarily hold the undeserved title of shepherd, tasked with guiding Her lost lambs. Months ago, we witnessed a pillar of light piercing the heavens! Taking it as a divine revelation, my companions and I journeyed here. And lo! We have been led to the Saint chosen by the Goddess Herself!"
"A Saint? Me?" Arciel grimaced at the embarrassing title, but the man paid her no mind, his smile widening.
It was a smile as stiff and hollow as a doll's.
"Divine power! Only those chosen by the Goddess may wield it. Their numbers can be counted on one hand! Since the era of the Second Hero, only the Saint among women has been granted this power! And true to your nature, you have been sheltering and protecting these poor, pitiful souls!"
"N-no, we just grew up here..." Arciel stammered.
"I, Agreus, can barely hold back my tears at your grace! How you must have suffered! How you must have hurt! But fear not! I, along with the priests who serve the Goddess, shall save you all!"
What made it truly bizarre was that despite his theatrical, fanatical speech, his tone remained softly modulated, almost soothing.
Delivering his speech with a fervor bordering on madness, the man turned to the crowd behind him.
"Is that not so, my brothers?!"
"Indeed!"
"We pay our respects to the Saint!"
"I could die happy right now...!"
Even Arciel took a step back.
It was sudden and chaotic.
The children felt a deep sense of unease watching these strangers arrive out of nowhere and make such a fuss.
But that unease did not last long.
"Behold! Receive the salvation of the Goddess!"
At the sight of the bread and meat piling up beneath his outstretched arms, the children erupted into excited cheers.
Even Rina swallowed hard as she watched endless amounts of food and ingredients pour out of large leather sacks.
"It is late, but shall we begin the feast?" Agreus asked.
"Yes!!!!"
Before long, fires were lit, and meat skewered on sticks sizzled over the flames.
The starving children scrambled forward, eager for a proper meal.
"Here, it's dripping with juice," a priest said, offering a skewer.
Even the wary Arciel took a bite of the skewer offered to her with a friendly smile, before sitting cross-legged in front of the bonfire.
But Lee could not bring himself to join them.
For some reason, he felt as though his place had been stolen.
Before he knew it, he had retreated back to the hideout.
But he wasn't alone.
"Wait for us, Lee!"
"Honestly, how dare a vassal leave his lord behind!"
Labin and Rina had followed him.
"You guys should go back and eat," Lee said. "I have some things to clean up here."
"No way. I haven't even finished the sandwich you gave me," Labin said, pulling the jam-soaked sandwich from her pocket and taking a bite.
Rina frowned at her.
"Hmph. There's no such thing as free goodwill in this world," Rina remarked coldly.
"Wow, coming from you, that just sounds like a bitter cynic," Labin retorted.
"Why, you...!"
Watching the two bicker, Lee let out a soft chuckle.
He felt deeply grateful to them for following him.
Yet, it took less than a day and a half for Lee, Labin, and Rina to open their hearts to Agreus, who stayed for three days and nights, generously distributing food.
The priests were kind, and they never beat the children.
That alone was more than enough to win over the entire alley.
"What? To the Holy Kingdom?" Arciel asked.
"Yes. Arciel, you are the Saint. Naturally, you must come to the Holy Kingdom."
"B-but... I have to protect the alley..."
"Do not worry," Agreus reassured her. "Would we ever neglect a place cherished by the Saint? We will support it with all our resources. Until the day you defeat the Demon King and return."
"Really?!"
Arciel's face lit up, and Agreus nodded deeply.
His long, navy-blue hair swayed gently.
"Of course. Without a doubt."
And so, in just three days, Gutter Alley lost one of its few pillars.