The Rogue Prosecutor's Survival Guide in Another World: Evan, Eric, and Emily (Part 1)
The kids are beings who must be protected.
Yet the violence they committed was still a crime.
Even if it was nothing but a sloppy weapon point, a human life could be snuffed out by a blind blade.
Especially when a passerby is used as a weapon to extort someone. The crime of that was truly despicable.
The boy who had approached with bravado, weapon raised high, now stood with a deathly pale face, wetting his pants with a small stain.
“It was me who said to do it. Just send the others away.”
The short-haired boy shouted in a harsh voice, shoving the other two behind him.
With his small hand pushing the kids back, he glared at me with eyes full of determination.
I was a prosecutor who had to arrest criminals. And no one was exempt.
So then.
'It would be easy to prevent them from committing violence in the first place.'
I summoned lightning and knocked them into a state of helplessness. I took away all their weapons.
But they didn't look scared at all.
“Prosecutor, that's going too far.”
Piaje, the office manager, approached the short-haired boy and lightly teased me.
“Hey, we're bad people. Let's talk it out nicely.”
The office manager smiled gently as he walked toward the terrified kids.
At that moment, the wind blew.
The hand mace at the office manager's waist shimmered in the light.
“Please save us.”
The kids raised their hands and knelt.
……
The office manager, looking confused for a long time, spoke to the kids.
“Who told you to do this?”
“No.”
The short-haired boy shook his head as he answered.
“Where did this weapon come from?”
“We found it in the mountain over there.”
The place the kids pointed to had a shallow hill.
Seeing them call it a mountain after looking at a tiny hill, it seemed they had been born and raised in this village and never left.
“Where are your parents?”
The boy's mouth that had been answering carefully all along snapped shut.
“That person is a prosecutor from the Capital Defense Force. Tell the truth. Otherwise, the empire's knights will all come and take you. They'll summon your parents too.”
The office manager pressed with a smooth threat.
At that, the boy holding an arrow shouted.
“No way. If Dad finds out, it's over.”
Suppressing his rising emotions, the boy's bangs stood up.
His eyes turned bloodshot, and his lips trembled.
“Please don't touch my parents.”
The kids' voices were desperate.
These kids weren't receiving any touch from their parents.
Their hair was pushed around roughly, their clothes loose and ill-fitting, and their skin dry in a way that didn't look like a child's.
It showed that young lives that hadn't even grown fat were being tossed around carelessly in this rough world.
“Don't worry. I'm an orphan too. And now I'm a prosecutor.”
It wasn't meant as boasting.
I just wanted to say that no matter how tough it got now, things could change later.
The red-haired girl's eyes sparkled.
The little girl who had been spreading out a fake magic circle.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
With the kids' wariness eased, they began to tell their stories cautiously after being reassured several times.
“Dad doesn't know where he is because he's being chased by debt collectors.”
“Mom said she went to earn money, but…”
With those words, the kids' tears fell one after another.
They were siblings.
Without listening closely, I could guess how things were going.
The family had scattered because of debts.
I didn't know if Mom really went to earn money or just ran away.
“We were so hungry we had no choice but to do bad things. I remembered what I saw before.”
Probably they had survived on food left at home until it ran out, so they came to the streets.
“Who taught you magic?”
I asked the red-haired girl.
Unlike when casting magic, the arrow-holding boy answered in a mosquito-like whisper behind her back.
“Mom.”
Then the boy who introduced himself as the second older brother, holding the bow, continued.
“Our mom is a mage. Mom taught us all kinds of magic, but strangely only she can do it.”
The boy pushed his red-haired sister's hand in front of me.
It seemed he was proud that his sister was a mage.
“Don't do that, Opba.”
The girl said, secretly pulling her hand away from her brother's.
On the girl's hand, there were gruesome wounds.
They were backlash scars from magic that untrained people use.
Her palm skin was torn from not properly controlling the mana.
Even a little help using mana from the side would have prevented the side effect.
Probably she had practiced the magic Mom taught her alone and got hurt.
Noticing my gaze, the girl curled her palm and slipped away.
I pulled my eyes from her palm and asked.
“Is there a place nearby to eat?”
For now, I decided to get something to eat.
Looking at their hollow cheeks in an age when they should have been plump, it seemed they hadn't eaten for a long time.
According to the kids, there wasn't even a restaurant nearby, let alone a place to live.
Instead.
“Uncle Taily James lives over there.”
Under the shallow hill where the wind had blown earlier, Uncle Taily James lived, and if you helped him, he would give you something to eat.
'A lone man living in a sparsely populated place…'
With that feeling in my heart, I headed with the kids to the place where Taily James lived.
* * *
The hill was covered with nameless wild grass.
Getting closer, I saw that there were quite a few large trees. It looked like a lush forest at first glance.
We cut through the wild grass that had grown to a height of an adult's waist and advanced.
The short kids and the office manager had to brush their faces as they advanced.
After walking for a long time.
“Here it is.”
The kids pointed without hesitation.
“Really here?”
The office manager asked.
Where the kids pointed had only wild grass and trees.
There was no sign of a house.
“Yes, this is it.”
“That's strange…”
The office manager tilted his head.
“He hid the house well…”
I murmured.
“What? Prosecutor, what do you mean?”
“It seems the man named James has sharp eyes for terrain and landforms. He hid the house well.”
Where the kids pointed was a sunken basin terrain beyond the shallow hill.
Thanks to that, from a distance, you couldn't even tell there was a basin, let alone a house.
He must have carefully chosen the place over a long time so no one would find him.
“Is it okay to go? Maybe he's a heretic or a criminal…”
The office manager whispered only to me.
A lone man living in a hidden place.
There was no way the kids had accidentally found James's house.
Perhaps James had lured the kids, and now he was hiding some dirty plan.
It couldn't be left like this.
“I'll go first.”
After the kids and the office manager waited in a nearby thicket, I approached alone carefully.
An empty thicket.
A place of silence where nothing was felt except the occasional sounds of nature.
Different from the wide basin at the entrance, as I got closer, a narrow downhill path appeared.
Some artificial trace.
At that moment.
Thwack—
An unfamiliar sound came from between the trees.
Swish—
Arrows flew simultaneously from multiple angles.
I quickly drew my dagger and knocked out all the arrows.
Between the fallen leaves on the floor, there were cleverly laid iron wires, connecting to the trees from the ground.
If anyone touched it, the connected wires would loosen, and the small rings would move, releasing the bowstring tied to the trees.
It was clear he intended to kill anyone who entered.
“Don't move.”
At that, a man holding a spear appeared between the thickets.
A weapon designed to be carried on the shoulder, like a modified rifle.
His face was half-covered by a messy beard.
I narrowed the distance and carefully loosened my hand.
At that moment.
“Uncle James, I'm Emily.”
The red-haired girl shouted from behind the thicket, causing the spear of the man named James to tremble slightly.
So the girl's name was Emily.
“Emily? Are you okay? No injuries?”
While keeping the spear pointed at me, he turned his eyes to look for the red-haired girl and scanned the surroundings busily.
“That uncle isn't a bad person. He's a prosecutor from the Capital Defense Force.”
The word “prosecutor” that Emily spat out made his shoulder twitch unusually.
Grabbing that moment.
I rushed in quickly and pushed the barrel of the spear up with my left hand while twisting his wrist hard with my right.
“Ugh!”
James staggered.
Bang—
A gunshot rang out.
But the barrel was already pointing at the sky.
I bent his arm behind his back and pressed his shoulder hard.
“Don't move.”
This time, I whispered in his ear.
* * *
“Sorry about earlier.”
James apologized with a casual toss, touching his shoulder.
“The injured part is over there, but what apology…”
I answered vaguely and asked what I was curious about.
“How did you end up living in a place like this?”
The weapon he used was a spear that looked like a crossbow and a rifle.
A combination of weapons that didn't suit this place, the Gilorian Empire.
“Well, when hiding, there's a reason for that kind of thing, isn't there?”
James evaded with an ambiguous answer.
“The weapon is unusual. Did you make it yourself?”
“You mean this?”
He poked the rifle with his finger and said.
“It's familiar to sea people, but land people look a bit strange. It's very useful for catching krakens underwater. Especially since the strap allows it to be aimed while carried on the shoulder, it's especially good on a rocking ship.”
James grinned with a hearty laugh while making a gesture as if aiming something while carrying the rifle on his shoulder.
It seemed he called the rifle a strap.
The west of the Gilorian Empire connected to the sea.
Across that, there were still unknown situations.
After several long voyages with a large fleet, they only got endless sea.
The official longest voyage period was 7 years.
Adding unofficial periods, it was probably over 10 years.
For over 10 years wandering the sea, they didn't even discover a decent continent.
That's why the fear of the sea among the Gilorian Empire citizens is beyond imagination.
It was like the fear of an infinite space that couldn't even be imagined, similar to Earthlings going to explore space.
James was a person who had played an active role in that sea.
And now he lived alone in a hidden place.
There must have been a story.
“How did you get to know these kids?”
That's why I couldn't easily accept that he was just looking out for them with good intentions.
The kids seemed close to James. The moment he saw them, he immediately yelled at them, and the kids clung to him like a stray dog that had come back.
He constantly scolded them while making food, and the kids helped with necessary chores next to him.
They moved cut wood and took dishes from the kitchen.
It was a sign that they had lived with him for quite some time.
The kids, who hadn't eaten their fill in a long time, were sleeping near the fireplace.
“I wandered around here until I was spotted. I almost had my neck pierced by that arrow.”
While saying it nonchalantly, James's gaze was also fixed on the kids.
When the fire in the fireplace died down, he carefully walked over and lit it with a disposable magic lighter.
“Coming all the way here to live, I thought it was like me, so I gave you a meal a couple of times. That's how we got close.”
At that, the office manager who had cleaned the food bowls and returned to his seat asked.
“What about the kids' parents? They said they were running away from their dad and Mom went out.”
“It seems the guy called Dad got caught by a scammer named Jacob, his entire fortune gone, and he's being chased by debt collectors.”
James clicked his tongue while looking at the kids with pity.
“Mom was a mage, right? Then it shouldn't be a problem to raise the kids.”
“That's right, she's a mage. But she was a bit different from normal people. She was gloomy and depressed. More focused on not being home than the kids… Anyway, she wasn't a very maternal person. Then one day she just disappeared.”
“According to the kids, she went out for a while saying she would earn money.”
“More than a year. At this point, she ran away.”
A typical story of a family with complex family drama.
A debt-collecting father who couldn't stand it, leaving the kids behind. And the kids who kept waiting, denying reality.
Sad, but a common third-rate drama with a set ending.
“So the kids grew up early… They don't just take advantage. After watching me scold them for trying to pick up sticks, they stopped, and especially the youngest one has good stealth skills because she looks like her mom.”
He was talking about Emily, who spread crude magic.
The three siblings slept piled on top of each other. It had been a long time since they had slept full and warm with adults watching.
It couldn't be helped that I felt sorry.
The office manager seemed the same.
He asked with a shadowed face.
“Is Jacob a famous scammer in this village?”
“You don't know Jacob even though you came from the city?”
“What?”
“I heard he was a pretty famous company in the city.”
“Ah… Is that Jacob the Jacob Department Store?”
“You thought I was some local uncle?”
“Ah…”
I and the office manager nodded at the same time.
The Jacob Department Store was a complex trading company in Clovan City that sold all kinds of goods.
From everyday necessities like soap to armor, healing herbal tea, mana-charging potions, and even luxury items. Anything that made money.
Coincidentally, the office manager had visited the Ruby Lab investment explanation meeting held at Jacob a few days ago.
There was clearly something happening at the Jacob Department Store that we didn't know.
“But Jacob is scamming?”
At my question, James ground something and answered.
“Apparently, they make you join, set levels, register another member to give bonuses.”
He said, mixing something like crushed mud into water.
“But Evan, that is, the first one with the short hair on the right, Evan. It seems not only Evan's family was hit by Jacob. Recently, a body hanging by the neck was found in the field over there, and the will was full of resentment toward Jacob.”
According to the explanation, there was a separate secret business model.
For example, like a pyramid scam.
“What do you do then?”
The office manager asked, watching James pour hot water again on the mud he had mixed with water.
“Hmm?”
Then, a very familiar smell rose over it.
“Doesn't it smell good? I was trying to show you my favorite delicacy.”
He brought out a deep bowl full of black liquid.
It was coffee.
……!!
I couldn't help but swallow my saliva.
On the other hand, the office manager beside me.
“What is this? A new potion?”
Smelling it, he frowned and pulled his head back.
“If it's a potion, it's a potion. Drink it. It gives you energy.”
James winked at me and stirred the steaming coffee with a knife.
“This is really the best after eating!”
I stared at the sight blankly and swallowed the saliva in my mouth.