Liliruca Arde hated adventurers.
More precisely, she hated every single one of them equally.
The ones who went around talking about protecting their companions were the same ones who squeezed the life out of people behind closed doors, leaving them no way out.
You worked yourself to the bone earning money in the Dungeon, and they came to take a cut.
Soma.
That was the Familia she belonged to, and the hell she lived in.
The god was obsessed with brewing his divine wine and didn’t manage Familia affairs at all.
To get their hands on that wine, the members would do anything, and the ones they squeezed were the supporters at the bottom.
Plenty of them used excuses like “protection fees” or “air-breathing fees,” but more often it was like this, straight robbery.
They wanted to crack her bones open and drink the marrow, wring out every last Valis she earned.
So…
Just let it all be destroyed.
Backed into the corner, looking at the snarling, alcohol-reeking adventurers in front of her, Lili could only curl up with her back against the wall.
It was the only way she could think of to feel even slightly safe.
“Lili, everyone’s short on cash lately…
you understand, right?
You don’t want things in the Familia getting even worse for you, do you?”
The familiar voice echoed in her ears.
She tried to buy a little peace by keeping her eyes averted.
“I…
I haven’t been to the Dungeon today…
so I don’t have any money.”
“No money!”
Enman Kowo, the beastman adventurer leading the group, cracked his knuckles with a vicious grin.
“Funny, I don’t believe that at all.”
“How about you sell your equipment?”
“I can’t…
without my equipment I can’t work in the Dungeon…”
“Then go borrow it!”
“Borrow from another Familia, go to the Pleasure Quarter and figure something out there, I don’t care.
I want to see fifty thousand Valis today.”
Fifty thousand Valis.
Working as a supporter, it would take her more than a month of giving it everything she had to save up that much.
“I…
I can’t do that…”
“Can’t?”
He grabbed Lili by the hair and hauled her straight up.
“I’ve got ways to make you hand it over nice and quiet.”
“Hahahaha!”
His methods were the most basic kind of bullying.
Feeling the punches and kicks land on her body, Lili bit down on her lip, her nails digging into her palms.
Why?
Why did it have to turn out like this?
She hadn’t done anything wrong.
She just wanted to live, so why couldn’t even that much come true?
So that’s the reason.
That’s why she hated every adventurer equally.
If she could have her way, Lili genuinely wished every one of these adventurers would die, die painfully and in despair.
“Useless!”
“Garbage!”
“A pallum should just shut up and be a slave!”
The insults in her ears gradually faded, and as her body went numb to the pain, she lost all sense of time.
Endure it.
Keep living, until she’d saved enough to get out of the Soma Familia.
She didn’t know how much time passed.
Lili lifted her head with difficulty, her vision blurred, and saw the Soma Familia adventurers hurrying away.
The Ganesha Familia guards had shown up at the mouth of the alley, though they didn’t seem to notice the girl curled up in the corner.
“I really wish…
it would just end.”
Lili tugged her cloak hood into place and curled up on the ground, breathing deeply, trying to let time smooth out the pain in her body.
The pain slowly eased.
But the despair in her heart only went deeper.
“Miss Lili?”
A voice she’d heard before spoke up.
She raised her head, and through the gap in her hood she saw a very familiar face from the Dungeon yesterday.
Renn.
The rookie adventurer in high-grade equipment with no experience at all.
Lili wanted to get up and run, but the pain kept her from moving.
“How…
how are you here…?” she said coldly.
“I was passing by and saw the guards driving those people off.”
Bullying.
It seemed common enough in a world like this, but Renn hadn’t expected to run into it in Orario so soon.
He ignored the chill in her voice.
He didn’t look at the state she was in either, just kept eating the Jagamarukun he was holding.
“So I came over to check on you.”
“Want some?”
“…”
Lili looked at the Jagamarukun being offered, and at his face, then turned her head away to hide the scrape on her left cheek.
“Are you here to extort me too?”
“If I were here to extort you, I wouldn’t have gone and gotten the guards to chase off that trash.
I’d have waited until they left and then come over.”
“Then thanked nature for its bounty…”
Renn could tell she was like a hedgehog with all its spines up.
He crouched down a short distance away, keeping a safe gap between them.
“…”
Lili said nothing.
It was true.
If he’d come to extort her, he should have grabbed her valuable equipment right then instead of crouching here talking to her.
“So, Jagamarukun?”
He asked again, his tone easy.
“Fresh out of the fryer.
They’re pretty good.”
“I…”
She wanted to refuse, but her stomach picked that moment to growl in protest.
Her face went red, and in the end she reached out and took one.
She ate it without looking up.
The warm food went into her mouth, and the familiar taste left her feeling conflicted.
Lili thanked him, though not exactly willingly.
“…Thanks.”
“…”
Renn shook his head and leaned back against the wall.
“I only just became an adventurer.
There’s no way I could beat a bunch of old hands like that.”
“So…
if you’ve got a problem, go to the Ganesha guards.
That logic works here too, doesn’t it?”
“…”
He really was a rookie.
Lili had thought of that years ago, but even if she went to the Ganesha guards, they’d just fall back on not interfering in another Familia’s internal affairs and look the other way.
Lili took small bites of the Jagamarukun and glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye.
She couldn’t understand why he was helping her.
She found herself hoping for something, but her words came out cold anyway.
“Even if you just helped me, I don’t have any money to give you.”
“Hm?”
“You can just treat it as me doing a good deed to build up some karma.
If there’s nothing else, I’m heading to the Dungeon to start exploring.”
Buying her a couple of Jagamarukun was fine.
That much Renn actually had.
And seeing her being bullied, remembering her warning yesterday, calling the guards over had cost him nothing.
But worrying about her injuries on top of that would only make his already less-than-wealthy household situation worse.
“…”
Lili didn’t say anything.
She just watched him walk away.
After a moment of internal struggle she gritted her teeth, braced herself against the wall, and got up off the ground.
Then she shouldered her supporter backpack again and started toward Babel Tower, or more accurately, toward one of the few sources of warmth she’d ever felt.