“Urk!”
“That’s what happens when we go easy on you for being a kid.”
They immediately began kicking Khalid, who had slammed into the wall and collapsed to the ground. Thud, crack, wham! The heavy sounds burst out one after another.
“Khk, ngh!”
Khalid curled in on himself and took their kicks head-on. Even then, his eyes were fixed on the torn letter of recommendation in one robber’s hand. I have to get that back. If I do, then Young Master… somehow…
“This little bastard’s persistent.”
“And he’s just a kid.”
“He’s pretty enough. Should we sell him to a slave trader?”
“Forget it. They say some high-ranking bastard’s been going around rounding up slave merchants these days.”
“Tch.”
They gave the fallen Khalid one last hard kick. After hearing him choke out a ragged sound, the robbers turned to leave the alley in a hurry. But Khalid, gritting his teeth, braced a hand against the wall and forced himself up, then spoke to their backs.
“The paper, that… give it back.”
His round blue eyes had narrowed to slits, shining fiercely. The robbers snorted.
“Is it really that important?”
“Give it to me!”
“I don’t think so.”
They were rotten by nature. Men born as drifters, the kind who found it only natural to steal from others and feed on them. They were far too used to seeing someone’s desperation, and they had no desire to show kindness to people like that. One of the robbers tore the already half-ripped letter of recommendation to shreds.
“N-no…”
Limping, Khalid ran toward them. It seemed they must have stomped his ankle wrong. The robbers scattered the shredded letter across the ground and started cackling. Khalid dropped to his knees and began gathering the scraps of paper. His hands were trembling violently. Without this, if I don’t have this, then I’ll never be able to see Young Master again…
Khalid started panting shallowly. The robbers clicked their tongues as they watched the young boy trying so desperately to gather those scraps of paper no matter what. Then, looking as though the whole thing had soured their mood, they spat on the ground and disappeared deeper into the alley.
Khalid moved his hands frantically, trying somehow to fit the filthy scraps back together, but there was no way it could work.
“Hah… ngh…”
His vision spun. Losing the money was fine. It had been far too much money, but to Khalid it had never mattered all that much. The problem was that his path back into a noble household was gone.
Plop, plop.
Khalid’s tears fell onto the sandy ground. Ah, ahh. Curling in on himself, he began to cry as if he were screaming.
Outside the alley, quite a few people were still passing by. But even if someone was wailing in a dark alley, not one of them looked inside.
After that, Khalid was thrown out of the inn. The clothes he wore grew dirtier and dirtier. Before long, he looked no different from the drifters on the street.
While he was still at least somewhat clean, he went around desperately trying to find work as a servant in a noble house, but without a letter of recommendation not a single place was willing to hire him.
Khalid’s patience was wearing thinner by the day. He had no money, nowhere left to stay, nowhere to wash, and no matter how pretty he was, there was no helping the fact that his appearance was gradually becoming more and more wretched.
Whenever the longing for him became unbearable, whenever something seemed to boil and writhe inside his stomach, Khalid would secretly go to Nox’s estate and hide near the iron bars close to the garden. Then he would steal glimpses of Nox when he came out into the garden.
He had not changed at all. Not the black-dark eyelashes, not the green eyes that glittered when they caught the light, not the straight back, not the gentle way he beckoned to the young servant. Not one bit. Nothing had changed at all.
Unlike himself, who had changed like this.
“Young Master…”
Every time he looked at him, it felt as though something inside him were scraping at his stomach raw. As though his insides were being stabbed through with a skewer. He wanted to seize the iron bars and scream. Young Master, I’m here. Khalid, the one you used to cherish, is standing here like this.
No longer beautiful…
The moment that thought flashed through him, he would flee back into the alleys of the city as though running for his life. He did not want Nox to see him in such a state. And yet, at the same time, there were moments when he wished Nox would reach out a hand to him, to him living this miserably.
Clutching his empty stomach, Khalid collapsed into a crouch in the alley. The stomach that had gone unfed for days burned. He did not know whether that was because he had eaten nothing or because he had seen Nox.
Khalid’s mind had deteriorated so badly that he could no longer see anything clearly. He did not want to die in a place like this. He would rather go kneel before Nox, prepared to die, and beg him to kill him.
If he died like that, in a way Nox could never forget him again, then at least there would be some meaning in it. He did not want to vanish in some alley no one would ever see, forgotten by him.
“Young Master, please save me…”
But what came out of his mouth was something entirely different. Please save me. Nox. His voice was dry and cracked to pieces. Staring into empty air, Khalid went on as if pleading in prayer.
“Please help me…”
His voice trembled violently.
“Please come and find me. Please…”
Tears he had thought long dried up began to fall again. Khalid bent over the ground and began to beg the empty air. Please save me. Please rescue me. Please, give me a place by your side. But naturally, nothing answered him. His Young Master had thrown him away. Only now did that fact seem to reach him with perfect clarity. The sensation of having been abandoned by him, something he had thought he already knew, surged up hard enough to turn his stomach inside out.
Know your place.
And then, of all times, just as he was begging and begging, the last words Nox had spoken to him rose in his mind.
The very fact that you love me is the problem.
“Ah, aha, ahaha…”
With his eyes half-rolled back, Khalid let tears stream down his face. But the hand that had once comforted him, the gaze that had once looked at him with warmth, none of it remained anymore. Khalid clasped both hands together, knelt on the ground, and begged and begged again, until at last he accepted that Nox’s voice would never come back to him.
“…Why to me?”
Why are you giving me this trial? Did you hate me that much?
He staggered to his feet. Then he bent down and seized one of the larger stones scattered across the ground. I have to survive. If he survived, he could do anything. Even so, returning to Nox Rainerio’s side was impossible. And with that, the snake that had coiled in the belly of the Khalid Nox had abandoned lifted its head.
“…I hate you.”
Khalid whispered it.
“I hope you’re more miserable than I am.”
I hope you live a life far more painful than mine.
Thinking that, Khalid clenched the stone hard.
Just then, someone was entering the alley.
Driven by the single-minded determination to survive—and by the thought that he would make Nox Rainerio just as unhappy as he was—Khalid threw himself into it with everything he had. Then he stepped directly in front of the two people who had just entered the alley.
“What the hell?”
“He looks like a beggar.”
First of all, he had to deal with the fact that he had gone days without eating. In a low, ragged voice, Khalid said,
“If you have anything on you, or anything to eat, leave it and go.”
“Huh?”
The men in leather armor barked out disbelieving laughs. But Khalid’s eyes were blazing. In that gaunt, wasted face, only his blue eyes remained bright, fixed on them without wavering.
“…Doesn’t look like he’s joking.”
“Never thought I’d live to see a bastard come at us like this.”
As though he had decided there was no longer any need for conversation, Khalid lunged at the two men. He raised the stone high.
Whoosh—
They dodged to the side.
“Huh?”
But as if he had expected them to move to either side, Khalid swung both arms sharply to the right. The stone smashed into one man’s shoulder.
Wham!
The sound rang out viciously.
“Ugh!”
Fortunately, the leather armor on his shoulder seemed to blunt the damage, but that did not make it a trivial blow. The other man, who had been watching from Khalid’s left, tried to kick him in the waist.
But Khalid dropped to his knees and avoided it, then lashed out hard at the other man’s opposite ankle. His body lurched.
“Well now, this is more than I thought…!”
In the end, the two men both stepped back and drew the daggers hanging at their waists. Khalid frowned. The blades were well kept—real weapons used for real fighting.
“Mercenaries?”
“You figured that out fast. What, you charged in without even checking?”
The two mercenaries properly set their stance and prepared to attack Khalid.
“You still look like a kid. Kind of ridiculous for two grown men to do this.”
“We fight our hardest even against children.”
“Doesn’t sound like much to brag about. If word gets around that we got robbed by some little gutter rat, our captain will probably rip our mouths apart.”
Saying that, they rushed Khalid.
Frowning, Khalid tried somehow to break away from the two of them. But then, with the sudden burst of movement, his vision spun violently.
“Ah…”
He did not know if it was anemia or what, but his sight turned yellow for an instant, and then—
Thud.
Everything went black, and he collapsed.
The two mercenaries stood there awkwardly, staring down at Khalid sprawled on the ground. The hand scratching one of their heads was full of embarrassment.
“…So that’s how this turned out.”
“Ah, hell. Let’s go. Not like we can go around telling people we got serious against a kid.”
“No, wait a second.”