The Cost of Bed and Board
No one stood in the way of the road leading into Belok.
Thanks to the chaotic sprawl of factories and shanties expanding far past the city walls, the outskirts lacked anything resembling a proper checkpoint. As I dragged my feet through the churning mud and stepped past the city threshold, the foot traffic instinctively parted to both sides.
It was hardly out of pity for a bloodied fourteen-year-old waif. More likely, it was because the cocktail of dried blood, street grime, and rotting muck clinging to my frame gave off a stench fouler than most fresh corpses.
A human woman pushing a vegetable cart pinched her nose and spat onto the cobbles. An Orc laborer passing nearby looked me up and down before immediately clapping a heavy hand over the purse at his waist.
Real generous of you bastards, isn't it?
A thick canopy of coal smoke choked out the sky. When a distant factory bell clanged, hordes of workers in oil-stained overalls spilled out into the narrow alleys. Orcs, Dwarves, and even horned beastfolk jostled among the throngs. I wedged myself into the current, breathless just trying to avoid bumping into anyone.
The last potato I had managed to steal had been digested the previous night. My canteen had long run bone-dry, and my empty stomach twisted into vicious, wringing cramps.
Every time I skirted the edges of the market alleys, the aromas of sizzling sausages, freshly fried potatoes, and crusty, hearth-baked bread nearly numbed my brain.
Behind one of the produce stalls lay a towering heap of discarded turnip trimmings and rotting cabbage leaves. Just as I reached down toward the refuse to salvage a turnip that looked marginally less decomposed than the rest, a thick wooden paddle cracked violently across the back of my hand.
Thwack!
"Get lost, you filthy rat!"
"You threw it out."
"If a mangy beggar girl like you starts pawing through my trash, it'll bring bad luck and scare off the customers! Piss off!"
The stallkeeper barked his curses while darting nervous glances toward a City Guard post stationed across the alleyway.
Had this been inside the facility, I would have snapped his wrist like kindling, taken the paddle, and walked off with his entire sack of turnips. But this was the outside world. The instant I laid a hand on that man, the guards would blow their whistles and come charging, turning me into a fugitive hunted at gunpoint all over again.
God damn it all.
First and foremost, I needed coin. Legitimate, honest labor to earn my keep and put food on the table. Back in my past life as a twenty-nine-year-old unemployed bum, I had always managed to land part-time gigs to keep myself fed. With the physical specs of a ten-year veteran augmented body, I figured finding simple manual labor would be child's play.
Belok's job market, however, proved infinitely more ruthless than any convenience store back in South Korea.
On my first night, I slept curled up against the outer brick wall of a textile mill, hugging a warm pipe where steam hissed through the joints. At the break of dawn, a street sweeper nudged my boots with the rough end of a broomstick.
"Can't sleep here. If I let one of you linger, ten more bums will be stretched out beside you tomorrow."
Driven off the pavement, I limped toward the southern industrial sector and queued up in the labor market line for day workers. The hiring foreman took one look at my dirt-caked face and diminutive stature before reaching down to check my wrists.
"Where's your registration tag?"
"Don't have one."
"Guardian?"
"None."
"The hell am I supposed to do with an unregistered stray brat? Head over to the civil registry and pull a temporary residency permit first."
When I trudged over to the registry, the clerk demanded proof of residence. When I admitted I had no address, they told me to bring a guarantor. When I said I had no guarantor, they demanded an identification document issued by my home fief.
Every answer I offered merely spawned three more required forms, eventually culminating in that classic bureaucratic conclusion: Your very existence is illegal, so you are entitled to nothing. I couldn't help but chuckle dryly, suddenly reminded of the municipal civil servants back home who used to send me on endless wild-goose chases just to issue a basic resident registration certificate.
On the second day, I scoured the black-market labor docks where nobody bothered asking for papers. Behind the central market, men were being hired to haul eighty-kilogram sacks of flour. The gang boss took one look at my blood-stiffened bandages and waved me away with a scowl.
"Don't hire kids."
"I'm strong. Stronger than you, old man."
"With those twiggy arms? Stop talking out of your ass."
Snorting, I reached down with my right hand and seized one of the heavy burlap sacks of flour by the twine. In one clean, effortless motion, I hoisted all eighty kilos into the air and slung it across my shoulder.
"...What the?!"
The boss's jaw dropped slack. Even the burly laborers carrying loads beside him froze in their tracks.
Up to that point, it had been a flawless demonstration.
The problem came immediately after.
Rrrrip.
The moment I exerted sudden force, the gunshot wound on my left upper arm and the crude stitches across my flank screamed in unison, tearing wide open. At the same instant, the muscles along my right inner thigh locked up like solid stone, and my knee gave way with an ugly buckle.
"Ngh...!"
I barely managed to slam the sack back down onto the cobbles, but hot, fresh blood was already soaking rapidly through my torn shirt. The boss's stunned expression instantly twisted into bitter disgust and annoyance.
"Get the hell out of here before you bleed all over the merchandise! If you drop dead on the job, hauling your rotting carcass away costs more than you're worth!"
"I told you, I can work—"
"Scram before I throw rock salt in your eyes! Bad luck, the whole damn lot of you."
I had no comeback for that. In my previous life, I had always been the one bailing on shifts while making excuses about a herniated disc; now, my body had broken down before I could even clock in. The gods were clearly putting in overtime just to sabotage my honest work ethic.
The tavern back alleys were no different. Whether it was scrubbing greasy pots or shoveling coal ash, I knocked on every service door offering to do anything. But the head cook only cracked the door open a few inches, caught one whiff of me, and pinched his nose in revulsion.
"Go wash up first."
"Where?"
"Public bathhouse at the end of the alley."
"I don't have any money."
"Then earn some and wash yourself. Or collect rainwater in a ditch."
"Listen here, you dumb bastard, earning that money is the whole damn reason I came here to work in the first place!"
The cook blinked at my furious outburst for half a heartbeat, then slammed the heavy wooden door shut in my face without a word.
You needed money to wash, and you needed to be clean to earn money. Staring down the bolted door, I finally turned on my heel.
Don't they have Child Welfare Acts in this world?
Not that I truly expected any. There was nothing left to do but starve.
By the evening of my fourth day wandering the city, I was running on empty.
The foul, oily aftertaste of a half-rotted fish head I had scavenged from behind a monger's stall around noon still clung stubbornly to the roof of my mouth. Even that miserable scrap had mostly been surrendered after losing a vicious staring contest with three heavily pregnant alley cats. My stomach was glued flat against my spine.
Passing by a pawnshop at the edge of the market district, I stopped dead in my tracks several times.
Concealed inside my oversized coat was the six-shot Sermaize Revolver. Its blued octagonal barrel, polished walnut grip, and understated brass fittings clearly marked it as a bespoke sidearm that only high-ranking aristocratic officers could afford. If I hocked that piece, silver coins would pour out—more than enough to rent a warm room at an inn and gorge myself on steaming meat pies until I burst.
...Except a wheelgun's romance is just too damn sacred to give up.
I pulled my hand back from the shop's brass door latch.
Even setting aside sentimentality, would a pawnbroker ever give a fair price to a half-dead, blood-soaked street urchin brandishing a luxury military weapon? I'd be lucky if they didn't accuse me of fencing stolen goods and beat me half to death. Even if I got the coin, keeping it would be another nightmare. If someone pulled a shank on me in the next alley over, what would I defend myself with?
This revolver wasn't an emergency fund. It was my lifeline.
Trudging aimlessly, I looked up to find that the sun had completely dipped beneath the horizon. Shadows draped over the gloomy back alleys of the Old Town. Across the narrow lane, warm yellow lamplight poured through the frosted windows of a weathered tavern, carrying the rich scents of roasting fat and bitter, cold ale.
The strength drained completely from my knees. Slumping against the brick wall beneath the eaves of a ramshackle two-story building across from the tavern, I slid helplessly down to the wet dirt.
Just five minutes... Just let me shut my eyes for five minutes, and then I'll move.
I slipped a hand into my coat, resting my stiff fingers against the revolver's grip. Three rounds remained in the cylinder. Comforting myself with the thought that I hadn't lost everything just yet, I tried to keep my eyes open, but my heavy lids sank shut of their own accord.
How much time had passed? The faint crunch of footsteps on gravel, accompanied by clumsy whispering, prickled against my ears.
"Hey, is it breathing? You sure it's alive?"
"Who cares? Probably starved. Look under the coat, though. Is that a piece?"
Cracked, juvenile voices, their tones wavering with adolescent rasp. Fifteen, maybe sixteen at most. The bottom-feeding gutter rats who lurked in alleys waiting to strip warm clothes off fresh corpses.
A rough hand reached forward, peeling back the hem of my coat to snatch the revolver nestled at my hip.
You little punks haven't even dried behind the ears... Did you really pick today to try your luck?
It was my gun. The one thing in this miserable world I refused to lose.
Before my eyes even opened, my right hand whipped through the gloom like striking lightning, snapping with unerring precision around the wrist reaching for my holster.
Crr-crack!
"Aaaaargh!"
I hadn't even applied half my strength, but the grip of an augmented human who had survived ten years of experimentation was utterly merciless. Bone and cartilage ground together, groaning in agonized protest.
"Let go! Let go of me, you crazy bitch!"
The other boy panicked, lunging forward and latching onto my arm in a desperate bid to pry my fingers loose. As both boys threw their full weight into pulling back, a sharp, searing pain flared across my stiffened shoulder and elbow joints.
"You little runts... didn't anyone ever teach you that reaching for another person's gear will cost you a hand?"
"You're just a brat too, you psycho!"
We snarled back and forth, and I was just about to draw the revolver with my left hand to finish the job when a calm, composed voice cut through the darkness.
"If you keep pulling with that kind of leverage, kid, your wrist is coming clean off the arm."
The voice, low and laced with easy amusement, drifted from the mouth of the alleyway.
The two boys froze instantly.
"Th-This ain't got nothing to do with you, mister!"
"How does it not? If a rotting corpse starts stinking up my front doorstep, it'll ruin my morning foot traffic, and the City Guards will come knocking on my door before anyone else."
Crunch, crunch.
A figure stepped out from the clinging gloom.
He was a tall man with remarkably broad shoulders. Streaks of distinguished grey were naturally woven through his dark hair, which was slicked back with meticulous care. His dark blue overcoat was weathered around the seams, yet it hugged his imposing frame with tailored precision. A high-bridged nose, a sharp, square jawline, and faint crow's feet framing his eyes completed the portrait.
He was far too handsome a middle-aged gentleman to be loitering in a gutter alley like this. Yet the thick, faded scars and heavy calluses running across the backs of his hands and knuckles testified that he was no soft-handed scholar.
The man arched a single eyebrow. Terrified by the subtle gesture, the boy whose wrist was on the verge of splintering wrenched himself free with his companion's help. Without looking back, the pair bolted down the alley like scalded rats.
"Fuck you! Just you wait!"
Even as they fled, they couldn't resist wheezing out parting curses—typical half-baked runts.
Bracing a hand against the cold brick wall, I struggled to my feet and tried to clear my holster to face the stranger. But my fingers had gone completely numb, and the smooth walnut grip nearly slipped from my grasp.
The man didn't close the distance immediately. Stopping roughly two paces away, he lowered himself onto one knee, resting his weight comfortably as his sharp eyes methodically took in my blood-crusted face, the makeshift bandages, and the Sermaize Revolver peeking from my coat.
"I won't touch the iron. Think you can take a hand and get up?"
He extended an open palm. Thick, solid veins ridged the back of his hand.
"Fuck off, asshole."
My parched throat rasped, yielding nothing more than a dry, metallic hiss.
"Suit yourself. Lie there if you prefer. Frost is coming down tonight—prime weather to freeze into a solid block of ice by dawn."
He made no move to rush me. He didn't cluck his tongue in patronizing pity, nor did he try to haul me up against my will. Just then, the heavy wooden door of the tavern across the lane creaked open, releasing a sudden draft of warm steam thick with the savory scent of sizzling animal fat.
That fleeting aroma snapped the very last thread of my pride.
"...Save me. Please."
At my ragged plea, the right corner of the man's mouth hitched upward into a broad, roguish smirk.
"Now that makes business ever so much faster. Mind you, it won't be charity."
I appreciated the honesty. In my experience, anyone offering handouts with a smile was simply waiting for the right moment to bury a knife in your back.
Without another thought, I reached out and clamped my fingers around his palm. Even though I believed I was barely exerting any grip, the tendons across the back of his hand twitched taut, and his thick knuckles popped audibly against my hold.
His dark eyes flicked down to my frail, slender wrist, then drifted back up to meet mine. The surprise in his expression lasted only a fraction of a second.
"Well, well... This isn't the sort of tab that's squared away with a single warm meal."
That dry, nonchalant drawl was the last thing I registered before the entire alley tilted sideways, plunging my vision into absolute blackness.
When my eyes fluttered open, the flickering orange glow of an iron stove was dancing across a low ceiling.
Beneath my back lay a thick, thoroughly dry wool blanket, cushioned by the creaking springs of a worn leather sofa. The foul, blood-soaked rags that had bound my left arm and flank had been stripped away, replaced by crisp, sterile bandages. Instead of the harsh sting of cheap lye disinfectant, a soothing, subtle aroma of bruised medicinal herbs drifted through the room.
I tried to bolt upright, but a wave of dizzying vertigo instantly nailed me back against the cushions.
Propped against the opposite wall was a weathered wooden signboard, its surface pitted and grey from years of rain and soot.
And sitting neatly on the edge of the adjacent desk was my Sermaize Revolver. The hammer rested safely over the empty chamber, and the three unspent primer caps seated in the cylinder were untouched, exactly as I had loaded them.
"Left the three cartridges right where they belong. Petty theft isn't my line of work."
Standing by the tall window, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers, the man turned around. He had shed his heavy overcoat, his crisp white shirtsleeves rolled up past his forearms. Standing upright, he loomed a good two heads taller than me.
Sitting on the low coffee table was a deep earthenware bowl of thick potato and beef stew, steam rising in rich plumes alongside several hefty slabs of dark rye bread.
Pleasantries were entirely out of the question. I lunged forward and snatched up the wooden spoon.
The scalding soup washed down my throat and pooled into my hollow stomach. It carried no chemical tang of laboratory nutrients—only the rich, authentic depth of simmered marrow broth and melted butter. It was so overwhelmingly delicious that tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
The first spoonful scalded my tongue; from the second onward, I swallowed without bothering to chew. As I practically shoveled the food into my face, the man casually nudged the plate of bread closer with the tip of his finger.
"Pace yourself. If you heave on my sofa, I'm tacking an extra cleaning fee onto your bill."
I forced myself to slow down, if only slightly. The man remained quiet, not pressing a single question until I had used the crusts of rye bread to wipe the earthenware bowl bone-clean. Only after he slumped into the armchair opposite the sofa, poured a measure of clear hard liquor into a plain teacup, and took a measured sip like a man enjoying afternoon tea did he finally speak.
"Name?"
"Sonya."
"Family name?"
"Don't have one."
"Age?"
"Fourteen."
His gaze drifted slowly over my youthful features, lingering briefly on the frail, slender wrist poking through the clean linen wrappings.
"I'm Orban. Owner of this establishment."
"What kind of work do you do?"
"I match bodies willing to sweat with clients holding coin, and I track down missing property or quiet intelligence."
"A broker?"
"Something like that."
Orban let out a faint chuckle and tapped the spine of a thick, leather-bound ledger resting on the corner of his desk.
"The fee for the street doc who came out at midnight to stitch up your flank, the tab for the stew and bread you just inhaled, and the overnight rental on that plush sofa—I've tallied it all up as your debt."
"I'll work it off."
"Doing what, exactly?"
I could read. I knew how to use an abacus. I could haul freight—though trying to shoulder a flour sack had burst my stitches only yesterday. When I searched my mind for the one trade I had executed with absolute certainty, the blood-spattered faces of the handlers I had left broken in the facility's white corridors surfaced unbidden.
Brushing the rye crumbs from the corner of my mouth, I looked him dead in the eye and spoke flatly.
"...I can kill."
Orban's teacup halted a bare inch from his lips. There was no flicker of shock. Instead, his sharp, predatory eyes cut across my face, cataloging the dead calm in my gaze, the heavy revolver on the desk, and the dried blood stiffening the edges of my bandages. The playful smirk that usually graced the right corner of his mouth vanished entirely.
"...I think I'll listen to that again tomorrow morning, when your head is clear."
"You don't believe me?"
"I'm telling you to wait precisely because I believe you, brat."
Orban set the teacup down on the saucer and leaned back deeply into the leather armchair.
"Eat your fill, stretch out, and sleep for tonight. Paying back what you owe can wait until I run you ragged tomorrow."
My eyes flicked between the Sermaize Revolver and the thick ledger resting on the desk. Three bullets remained intact, and my belly was full and warm.
All it meant was that I had to work off my debt. At the very least, no one was throwing me out into the freezing mud tonight.
Watching Orban's pen scratch my name into the ledger, I pulled the wool blanket up to my chin and closed my eyes.