Was even the fact that it lay near the border with the Empire enough to make him uncomfortable?
Kyle immediately boarded the fastest train heading for southern Weiden.
However, perhaps because it was already late, the train could not take him directly to his destination, forcing him to stop briefly in an intermediate city.
Perhaps the problem was that he had spent the past twenty years confined to the military.
Kyle had never traveled before, and he wandered through the city in Weiden with an awkward expression.
People kept glancing at him.
“Hmm… Should I change my clothes first?”
Kyle muttered that perhaps it was because he was wearing his military uniform.
After twenty years of wearing one, it was naturally the most comfortable attire for him. However, unless he intended to walk around advertising, ‘I am a soldier,’ he needed to change into something an ordinary civilian would wear.
“Right! Different clothes first.”
As though changing his appearance was the first step toward fully enjoying true freedom, he immediately headed for a clothing shop.
However, his face was stiff with tension as he approached it.
This was an unknown realm that he had never experienced before.
He had grown up in an orphanage, where he had also lived under strict rules.
Even his clothes had simply been handed down from the older boys.
Once he was old enough, he had gone directly into the military. To him, the free life of an ordinary civilian had quite literally belonged to the realm of dreams.
As though to prove it, every piece of clothing stored in his subspace was a military uniform.
Jingle~
A small bell attached to the door rang as Kyle entered a modest clothing shop.
There was a much larger clothing store a little farther down the street, but entering a place like that felt too intimidating.
“Oh my~ Welcome.”
Perhaps business had been poor because of the larger store nearby.
The female owner greeted Kyle enthusiastically the moment he entered.
“What style of clothing are you looking for?”
Kyle furrowed his brow at her question. After looking around at the clothes, he spoke in a stiff voice.
“May I look around first?”
“Of course!”
The woman told him to take his time, so Kyle calmly began looking through the shop.
A different thought passed through his mind with every step.
‘If I change too drastically all at once, it will only feel more awkward.’
Telling himself that even change had to be approached gradually, he picked up one piece of clothing.
He took another few steps while sinking into thought once more.
‘Still, it would not be right to make no changes at all. I should be a little bolder here.’
With that thought, he picked up another item.
For Kyle, even visiting several different clothing stores felt like an extravagance.
For now, he needed to shed his military appearance entirely in this shop.
Kyle eventually selected everything down to his shoes, paid for his purchases, and changed into his new clothes before leaving the store.
He walked out with a satisfied expression.
The woman watched him leave, tilted her head, and muttered,
“How is that any different from a military uniform?”
He had exchanged his black military coat for a similarly styled, drab gray coat.
He had also chosen an equally drab shirt and gray trousers.
Even his footwear consisted of boots rather than dress shoes.
The only real difference was the fedora.
“What an interesting man.”
The woman continued muttering to herself.
The sucker—no, the treasured customer—had selected nothing but clothes that rarely sold. Out of gratitude, she had discreetly slipped in a complimentary gift, hoping that he would like it enough to visit again.
To everyone else, his new clothes might not have appeared significantly different. To Kyle, however, changing into them had required a major decision.
Once he stepped outside, the number of people glancing at him noticeably decreased.
“This is nice.”
Satisfied that he had taken another step toward becoming a civilian, Kyle slowly walked through the city.
After filling his stomach with food from a street stall, he quietly wandered along the streets.
Compared to the imperial capital, the city was nothing remarkable.
It did not even possess any distinctive characteristics compared to the many cities filled with unusual buildings that he had visited while conducting operations in the south.
However, perhaps it was because this was the first time he had walked without thinking about anything after gaining his freedom.
The simple act of looking around and walking without a destination felt entirely new.
“I think I understand why people travel now.”
No sooner had he said that than a petty criminal appeared, only for Kyle to hurl him into an alley at a speed no one could even see.
Was it because Kyle was wearing civilian clothing?
Or was Kyle the madman for wandering around while the sun was beginning to set?
As an unusual number of petty criminals continued to bother him, Kyle gradually began to wonder whether changing clothes had been a mistake.
He headed back toward the train station.
After dealing with several more criminals who continued pestering him until the very end, Kyle boarded the train and finally arrived in Boritz, Weiden’s largest city.
Boritz was the largest neutral city on the continent and was said to be even larger than the capital.
The first thing Kyle noticed upon arriving was the smell of the sea.
“Ah! I love the smell of the sea.”
Kyle had arrived in Boritz, Weiden’s largest port city.
Since this was his final destination, he looked around the city with an openly excited expression.
At that moment, a pickpocket targeted his luggage.
“Aagh!”
The thief screamed as Kyle subdued him with a single move.
Kyle stared down at him.
However, that was only the beginning.
Before Kyle had traveled far from the train station, another pickpocket rushed at him.
“Gah!”
Kyle casually kicked the thief into a wall and continued on his way.
Perhaps because Boritz was such a large city, even more petty thieves targeted him than in the previous city.
One would have expected them to stop after several of their number had already been defeated. Nevertheless, even while Kyle walked along the main road outside the train station, groups of criminals emerged from the alleys and attacked him.
“Urk!”
“Gah!”
“Cough!”
Kyle effortlessly crushed them using only the standard hand-to-hand combat techniques of the Herse Army.
He did not even need to use Aura.
The body gradually became stronger from the moment a person awakened mana, and Kyle had possessed a talent for mana ever since he enlisted.
An ordinary person could never compete with a body that had undergone nearly twenty years of continuous enhancement.
The problem was that after Kyle dealt with one group, perhaps word spread about him, because even more thieves began hiding nearby and waiting for an opportunity to rob him.
“Hmm… How strange.”
Kyle looked genuinely puzzled by the unusual number of thieves targeting him.
There was a reason for it.
He was looking around everywhere as though he had only just arrived in the city. He even stopped to examine the maps posted on public noticeboards.
To anyone watching, he was obviously a country bumpkin who had only just come to the city.
Some people like that possessed a reasonable degree of skill. However, most of them had only recently awakened mana and had come to the city hoping to become mercenaries.
If several criminals attacked them together, they could usually be robbed.
Country folk also tended to bring all their money with them when they came to the city.
Successfully robbing just one of them could result in a considerable windfall.
Most city residents kept their money in banks and carried only the minimum amount they needed, so robbing them was rarely worth the risk.
The current disorder surrounding Boritz Harbor also contributed to the problem.
Weiden continued to maintain its position as a neutral nation while the surrounding countries descended into chaos.
Countless people had consequently flooded into Weiden, including many petty criminals.
“Surely the entire city cannot be like this….”
Kyle muttered uneasily as he looked at the criminal he had just beaten.
Unlike the other nations at war, Weiden was a neutral nation and a relatively wealthy one.
Boritz was also its largest city.
Surely it could not be this much of a mess.
Kyle continued walking.
His assumption was half correct.
There was the bank, a symbol of what had enabled Weiden to establish itself as a neutral nation.
Around it lay the residential district of the upper class.
There was also the commercial district surrounding Boritz’s largest harbor.
Security along these central streets was certainly stable.
However, the ordinary industrial and residential districts that occupied most of Boritz were a complete disaster.
Refugees, petty criminals, and all manner of factions had gathered there.
People had fled their unstable homelands and poured into Weiden, plunging the districts into chaos.
In practice, Boritz thoroughly managed only its central districts while virtually abandoning the rest.
In other words, anyone who wanted to enjoy a stable life in Boritz had to bring money.
“Ha….”
Kyle released a quiet sigh.
The broker had not lied.
For nobles seeking asylum, this city was certainly an attractive destination. As long as they brought sufficient capital with them, it was easy to increase their wealth and live a stable life.
A free city without anything resembling a class system.
A land of opportunity.
A stable life where no one had to tread carefully around anyone else.
All of those things were possible only for those who possessed money.
Kyle was not a noble, but he had accumulated enough savings to enjoy a stable and comfortable life here.
The broker had been right.
However….
‘Is this really right?’
Kyle furrowed his brow as something continued troubling him.
With a deep discomfort lodged firmly in his chest, Kyle headed toward the bank.
At that moment, he spotted a criminal attacking someone in the distance.
Even though a bloodied child lay before them, not a single person attempted to help.
“…….”
A distant, faded memory surfaced in Kyle’s eyes.
He remembered how he, like the child before him, had once been abandoned.
Sister Haynes came to mind.
Although she had sent him away as though selling him to the battlefield, she was still the greatest benefactor of his life.
He remembered her crying and apologizing as she watched him leave on the day he was sold.
She had made that decision because the money paid for him was the only way to raise the children who remained at the orphanage.
Even so, she had wept as though she were a sinner.
Kyle clenched his fist.
“It seems there will be no such thing as comfort in my life.”
Muttering those words, he quietly stepped forward.
He rescued a girl whom this nation, in its pursuit of absolute freedom, had cast into the abyss from a merciless beating.
“Who are you….”
Before the man could finish speaking, his arm was dislocated, and he released a piercing scream.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“You are too loud.”
Kyle struck him in the jaw to silence him.
He then knelt on one knee to meet the bloodied girl’s eyes and asked with the gentlest expression he could manage,
“Can you wait here for me?”
The girl’s eyes widened, and she nodded faintly.
However, because her condition was serious, Kyle administered emergency treatment with the medicine he carried. He then removed a piece of clothing from his bag, tore it apart, and wrapped the fabric around her wounds like bandages.
“Sit here and wait just a little longer.”
With those words, Kyle slowly walked toward the criminals who had already heard the news and begun gathering nearby.
As though determined not to allow the filthy bastards to crawl out into the light, Kyle entered the narrow alley of his own accord.
Several minutes passed while the sounds of breaking objects and agonized screams echoed from within the alley.
“Where do you think you are going?”
Kyle grabbed a criminal who was attempting to crawl out into the light by the hair and dragged him back into the dark alley.
He pulled the cockroach-like bastards infesting the city even deeper inside, ensuring that none of them could escape into the light.
A considerable amount of time had passed by the time Kyle finally emerged again.
He stood before the girl, who had trusted his words and waited for him until the end.
“Did you wait long?”
The girl shook her head.
Kyle’s entire body was drenched in blood, but the girl did not appear frightened.
Instead, she welcomed him back.
Kyle smiled faintly at her and disappeared somewhere with the girl.
Several days passed after that small incident at Boritz Harbor.
Before long, rumors began spreading that an orphanage had been established on the outskirts of the city.