After passing through inspection at the city gate, the merchants headed for the commercial district.
The middle-aged woman introduced herself as Martha and allowed Lelouch to accompany her.
As she arranged fruit across her stall, she answered whatever questions he asked about Orario.
Lelouch spent the afternoon studying recruitment notices from several Familias before applying to those he considered the least problematic.
The results were worse than anticipated.
The recruiter from the first Familia squeezed Lelouch’s wrist once and immediately shook his head.
The second asked about combat experience.
When Lelouch truthfully replied that he could not remember having any, the recruiter dismissed him from the line.
The representative of the third Familia—
Was considerably more interested in Lelouch’s face than in his potential as an adventurer.
The work he offered, no matter how generously Lelouch interpreted the description, appeared to have absolutely nothing to do with exploring the Dungeon.
By the time Lelouch returned to Martha’s fruit stall, his expression had become noticeably colder.
Martha took one look at him and handed him an apple without asking for payment.
“I told you.
You’re not suited to being an adventurer.”
“Three rejections constitute an inadequate sample size for such a conclusion.”
“Stubborn too, aren’t you?”
The bread merchant at the neighboring stall laughed.
“Why not try clerical work?
Can you read and write?
You look clever enough.
Or volunteer at a temple.
At least they’d probably give you food and somewhere to sleep.”
“And if none of that works…”
Martha deliberately stretched the words as she studied Lelouch’s face with obvious amusement.
“With looks like yours, you could just win over some nobleman’s daughter.
Then you’d never have to work again.”
Laughter spread through the surrounding stalls.
Lelouch’s fingers tightened slightly around the apple.
“I have no intention of entrusting my future to the purse of a woman I don’t know.”
His voice remained composed.
“And I certainly have no intention of turning affection into a tool for feeding myself.”
The firmness of his answer made Martha blink.
Then her grin widened.
“Oh?
Pride too.
Now I’m really starting to believe you might be a nobleman’s son.”
“Even if I once was…”
Lelouch looked down at the apple.
“I currently possess neither a family name nor a home to return to.”
The laughter gradually faded.
Lelouch bit into the fruit.
Its sweet-and-sour taste eased his hunger.
It did nothing for the emptiness inside his mind.
His gaze moved over the crowds passing through the market.
He began unconsciously searching for the structure beneath the apparent chaos.
Who controlled this district?
Which Familias were dangerous?
Where did patrols concentrate?
Why did people flinch whenever an unusually loud sound came from somewhere nearby?
Orario appeared full of life.
Yet fear lingered behind almost every corner.
Was that what this city truly was?
“Please!
Give it back!”
A woman’s desperate cry came from the other side of the street.
“That money is for my husband’s medicine!”
Lelouch turned.
Three men in leather armor had surrounded a thin woman and a small boy.
The man in the center casually tossed a coin pouch in one hand.
An emblem resembling an animal horn was stamped into their armor.
The moment the nearby merchants noticed it—
Their expressions changed.
“Fee for using the area,” the man said.
“You sell things in our territory, you pay.
Simple.”
“But I paid three days ago…”
“That was three days ago.
Today’s fee is today’s fee.”
“My father is sick!”
The boy shouted and threw himself forward.
He wrapped his arms around the man’s waist and desperately reached for the coin pouch.
“Give us our money back!”
The armored man cursed.
His backhand struck the child hard enough to send him sprawling.
The mother screamed and immediately threw herself over her son.
The other two men laughed as though they were watching some amusing street performance.
No one moved.
Even two adventurers standing outside a weapon shop turned their faces away.
“They belong to a mercenary Familia with a filthy reputation,” Martha whispered.
The moment she saw Lelouch beginning to rise, she grabbed his arm.
“They’ve got a Level Two adventurer backing them.
Don’t get involved.
They’ll beat someone bloody in the middle of the street without caring who watches.”
Lelouch looked at the boy.
The child’s lower lip was split.
Tears filled his eyes.
His fingers clutched desperately at his mother’s clothes.
And yet—
He was still trying to stand.
Still trying to put his tiny body between his mother and the men threatening her.
Another image overlapped with the scene.
Small hands.
A girl whose face he could no longer remember.
Gentle laughter beneath warm sunlight.
Pain stabbed through his skull.
This time—
Lelouch did not close his eyes.
“If you get on your knees and beg, maybe I’ll be generous enough to give one coin back.”
The man holding the pouch kicked over the woman’s basket of herbs.
“Or maybe your brat can crawl around and pick everything up for us.
That might be entertaining.”
Lelouch handed his half-eaten apple back to Martha.
“Would you hold this for me?”
“Wait!
Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Perfectly.”
He slipped his arm from her grasp and stepped into the street.
He failed to notice the red-haired girl standing a short distance behind them.
Lelouch had already determined the obvious.
He could not win.
Even the smallest of those men carried several times more muscle than he did.
If Falna created as great a difference as Martha and Borg had suggested, then confronting them directly was not bravery.
It was suicide.
And yet his legs continued forward.
As though somewhere inside an erased past—
He had made decisions like this more times than he could count.
“Remarkable.”
His cold voice cut through their laughter.
All three men turned.
Lelouch stopped several paces away.
His back straightened.
His chin lifted.
His clothes were stained with dirt.
He carried no weapon.
And yet—
For one strange moment, the entire street seemed less like a market and more like a throne room awaiting judgment.
“I had assumed those blessed by the gods would possess something that placed them above ordinary men.”
His violet eyes moved over the three of them.
“Apparently I was mistaken.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in contempt.
“Your god must have been truly desperate to pick up three pieces of refuse from the roadside, put them together, and call the result a Familia.”
Silence.
“Wow…”
Martha raised a hand to her mouth.
Behind her, the red-haired girl gave a quiet whistle.
The man holding the money pouch slowly stopped smiling.
“What the hell did you just say?”
“Are you deaf?”
Lelouch tilted his head slightly.
“Or does divine blessing increase muscle mass while leaving deficiencies of the brain entirely untreated?”
Someone in the crowd snorted.
They immediately tried to hide it.
All three men went red.
Lelouch had not insulted them merely because he was angry.
That would have been wasteful.
He wanted their attention.
All of it.
The incident was no longer three armed men extorting a helpless woman.
Now it was a public challenge to their pride, made before dozens of witnesses.
Anger narrowed judgment.
Humiliation made people predictable.
The more furious they became—
The easier their next move would be to anticipate.
If they possessed even a minimum of self-control, they would retreat before the incident escalated further.
And if they didn’t—
At least the woman and her child would have time to escape.
“You arrogant little bastard.”
The man on the left stepped forward.
“Do you have any idea who we are?”
“I do.”
Lelouch’s expression did not change.
“Three dogs who need to hunt as a pack to steal medicine money from people who can’t fight back.”
A pause.
“That’s all I need to know.”
“Kill him!”
The man in the center roared and drew his sword.
Steel scraped against the sheath.
The surrounding crowd scattered.
Martha shouted Lelouch’s name.
He remained where he was.
His violet eyes never left the blade.
“Remember this.”
Lelouch spoke slowly.
Every word was perfectly clear.
“The only ones who have the right to draw a blade are those prepared to have one turned against them.”
“Fine!
Then die!”
The man charged.
Lelouch watched.
The shoulder moved before the wrist.
Weight shifted through the front foot.
The angle of the hips exposed the intended path of the swing.
He knew exactly where the blade was going.
His mind understood the attack perfectly.
His body—
Was another matter.
He did not possess enough speed to evade completely.
He had known from the beginning that he might be cut.
That he might die here—
Without ever discovering who he had once been.
But behind him stood a child using his tiny body to shield his mother.
That was enough.
Heat spread through Lelouch’s left eye.
For the briefest instant—
A strange crimson sigil appeared deep within his violet iris.
Then—
Before the sword could descend—
A bright female voice rang across the street.
“That was an amazing line!”
CLANG!
Sparks exploded through the air.
A red-haired girl appeared between Lelouch and the blade like a streak of living flame.
The man’s sword crashed harmlessly against the red scabbard in her hand.
Before he could recover, she twisted her wrist.
His weapon was ripped from his grip.
Then the ridge of her scabbard slammed into his stomach.
The large man left the ground.
He crashed backward, smashed through a wooden barrel beside the street—
And immediately lost consciousness.
The other two drew their weapons by reflex.
The girl sighed.
“You watched your friend go down and still didn’t understand?”
She smiled brightly.
“Guess I’ll have to teach both of you.”
She vanished.
No.
She had simply moved faster than Lelouch’s current eyes could follow.
Two impacts sounded almost simultaneously.
One man was swept off his feet by a kick and sent spinning through the air.
The other received a sharp strike to the wrist.
His weapon dropped.
A heartbeat later, the girl’s scabbard stopped a hair’s breadth from the tip of his nose.
“If you move again…”
Her smile never disappeared.
“Next time I’ll use the sharp side.”
Her green eyes, however—
Held no trace of humor.
Now that the man had seen her clearly, all color drained from his face.
“R-Red hair…
flame-colored sword…
Alice Lovell…”
“Oh!”
The girl brightened.
“You know me.
Great, that saves time on introductions.”
She rested the scabbard against one shoulder.
“Threatening civilians.
Stealing money meant for medicine.
Assaulting a child.
And drawing a weapon with intent to kill in the middle of a public street.”
Her smile sharpened.
“Your god can be as good at making excuses as they like.
I don’t think even they can talk the Guild out of punishing you for all of that.”
The instant they heard her name, the two adventurers who had previously been hiding near the weapon shop hurried forward to restrain the criminals.
Apparently—
They had rediscovered their courage.
Alice picked up the fallen money pouch and knelt in front of the mother and child.
“Count it carefully.
Make sure everything’s still there.”
The woman accepted it with trembling hands.
Tears ran down her face as she thanked Alice over and over again.
Alice called over one of the merchants and asked him to escort the pair to the nearest apothecary.
Then she removed several coins from her own purse and added them to the pouch.
The woman immediately tried to refuse.
Alice insisted.
“Think of it as compensation from justice for arriving too late.”
Only after the mother and child had safely left did Alice turn back toward Lelouch.
She appeared close to his age.
Her beautiful face was overflowing with energy.
Her white-and-red armor was far cleaner and better maintained than that of most adventurers he had seen.
And the sword at her waist radiated a far greater sense of danger than the weapons of all three men combined.
“You’re not hurt, are you?”
“No.”
Lelouch glanced down at himself.
“You arrived before the incompetence of my body could create a serious problem.”
Alice blinked.
Then burst out laughing.
“You’ve got a surprisingly accurate opinion of yourself.”
“Lying to myself would not make me stronger.”
“But you knew you couldn’t win, and you still walked out there?”
Lelouch looked toward the direction the mother and child had gone.
“If everyone must first calculate what they stand to gain before deciding whether to help a child…”
His eyes cooled.
“Then this city may be more frightening than the Dungeon beneath it.”
Alice’s eyes widened.
Her expression slowly changed.
The amusement remained—
But beneath it appeared genuine admiration.
“You know, I was watching from the moment you stepped out of the crowd.”
Lelouch frowned.
“Then you should have intervened sooner.”
“Urk—!”
The direct criticism made the girl who had just demolished three adventurers flinch.
“That’s not what I meant!
I only just got here!”
She waved both hands.
“When I said I was watching, I meant the few seconds before you said that ridiculously cool line!”
“In that case, there’s no issue.”
Lelouch nodded magnanimously.
“Wait.
How did this suddenly become you forgiving me?”
The tension that had filled the street finally broke.
Quiet laughter came from the surrounding merchants.
Alice sighed in defeat.
Her smile never left her face.
….
I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
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….
I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length.
If you’re following a particular series, please wait your turn a little If there’s a particular novel you’re enjoying on Patron, please give it a ‘like’ so I know to focus on it