Emilio passed through the city, so dazzling it made his head spin, and entered the part of Subura known as the “Inside.”
A familiar sight, unlike the bright and splendid Outside, greeted him.
Muggers watched him with meaningful looks, ready to bash in the back of his head the moment they saw an opening.
Addicts, high on drugs, lay sprawled against the walls.
Someone’s distant screams and curse-laden shouts drifted through the air.
Even the faint scent of blood tickled his nose.
It was strange.
This was the scenery of the hometown he had seen, heard, and felt his entire life, yet it felt unfamiliar.
No, it felt as though something was wrong.
Emilio bit his lip at the thought that suddenly came to him.
‘It was all a lie.’
The claim that the Outside was a living hell in the human world, and that the people there routinely preyed on and sold one another.
They had been nothing but blatant lies.
The Outside he had seen after crossing the line Johan had drawn for him was not like that.
People wore nice clothes and treated one another kindly.
They did not beat or betray others as though it were an everyday occurrence.
More than anything, there were people who kept their promises. People who treated trust, worth less than a single coin, as though it were worth a thousand gold pieces.
In that sense, the Outside was such a good place that he never wanted to return to the Inside again.
“Oh... Emilio. Where’ve you been?”
“Your dad was pissed. You’re dead now.”
Had he looked easy to pick on as he walked lost in thought?
A gang he had never gotten along with appeared one by one and started picking a fight.
“Shut your mouths and get lost. I’m not in the mood to hang out with you. Or do you want some holes punched in you?”
Emilio growled at them.
Yet, strangely enough, the big-mouthed gang kept provoking him, fearless for once.
“You think a guy who’s about to die is supposed to scare us?”
“Exactly. If you ran away, you should’ve put down roots there, no matter how hellish it was. Why? Did you visit the hellish Outside and start missing home?”
“You stupid bastards. Move.”
Emilio’s strength drained at the nonsense from people who knew nothing.
So much that he no longer felt like fighting them.
He roughly shoved them aside and started walking home again.
“Did you think I wanted to come back, you morons...?”
With every step, his body felt heavier.
He did not want to leave the paradise he had encountered for the first time in his life and return here, either.
But he had to.
Luka had survived, but the other kids who clung to him and called him their boss were still here.
Because he had to take responsibility for being their boss.
How long had he taken those heavy steps amid all those swirling thoughts?
Emilio finally stopped before the shattered wooden door of his home.
He could still run away.
He could abandon those little kids unrelated to him by blood and go where his sibling was waiting.
Where kind people were waiting.
He wanted to run.
Tormented by that thought, Emilio bit his lip until it bled.
Then he threw the door open.
“Oh... just as I expected from my son. You came back.”
“F-Father. This....”
“Oh, this? The little bastards were needlessly tough. They wouldn’t even open their mouths after I beat them a few times.”
The sight beyond the door Emilio had opened after squeezing out every ounce of his courage was horrific.
Children no older than nine hung upside down from the wall in a row.
Their condition was beyond dreadful.
The marks of lawless violence covered their fragile bodies.
And grown men were giggling as though they found it amusing.
This was hell on earth.
“Hehe... Boss. Why... did you come? You shouldn’t have. I didn’t say... anything.”
The word that suited Nulla better than person was half-dead corpse.
Even with his face covered in red and purple bruises, he smiled faintly as he spoke. Emilio gritted his teeth.
“Nulla! You... you bastard lower than garbage! What did these kids do wrong?!”
“What did they do wrong? It wasn’t enough that they kept their mouths shut when a father was looking for his son. They dared to defy an adult. Ah, and following you around was a crime too.”
Father.
No, the beast not even worth calling a father chuckled and struck Nulla across the cheek again.
The child who had somehow endured until then finally went limp.
Emilio watched Nulla sway where he hung from the wall after the blow.
He watched the beast smile grotesquely as though he was enjoying himself, even after committing such cruelty.
At last, Emilio drew his blade and charged.
“Ha ha! My son, do you think that is enough? Your father has spent years surviving in this fucking world!”
He did not stand a chance.
A casual kick from the beast knocked Emilio’s blade from his hand, and he dropped to his knees clutching his solar plexus.
The beast grabbed Emilio by the hair and yanked his head back.
Forcing Emilio to meet his eyes, he grinned chillingly and babbled on.
“You do not need to worry so much. Our son is good, unlike this garbage. Dad knows everything.”
“You lying... bastard.”
“Ha ha, a liar? Go on, say more!”
Apparently displeased by Emilio’s words, the beast raised his hand high.
Then, instead of Emilio, he struck one of the hanging children.
“Stop! They’ll really die!”
“My son, you spent a little time outside and your heart has grown soft. Bugs like these only listen after you beat one or two of them to death.”
After hitting and kicking the children several more times, the beast puffed out his chest as though teaching the truth of the world.
“You have to beat the rest to the brink of death too, if you want them to listen. They need to think, ‘If I step out of line, I’m going to die today!’ Only then will they become obedient afterward.”
“How... how is that a way to teach people?!”
“Still, do not worry too much. You are my precious son. You are different from those bug bastards.”
The beast, still grinning, struck Emilio’s solar plexus again.
Emilio curled up like a shrimp, gasping, before the men forcibly hauled him to his feet.
Then they stretched out his leg and placed it on top of a chair.
“You are not bad. This leg of yours is bad.”
“What... what bullshit is that?”
“The one who talked bullshit was the bastard who lured you outside.”
The beast gripped a heavy cudgel and smacked it against his palm.
In his own way, he gently tried to persuade Emilio.
“I will not kill you. How could a father kill his son? No matter how stupid you are, you are still the son I love.”
“Shut up... You make me sick.”
“Ha ha. The good son who bought medicine and alcohol—how did he turn out this way? Until yesterday, you were a kid I could not help loving.”
Words better suited to a slave than a son.
Yet the beast even let tears stream down his face, as though he truly believed his feelings were love.
“Still, this father loves you. So I will punish only the leg that let you run away.”
A healthy body was not what made a person run away.
The longing for freedom was what made people run and fight.
As though he knew nothing of that, the beast glared at Emilio’s leg, forced onto the chair, as if it belonged to the enemy who had killed his parents.
Then he raised the cudgel high.
“This is the rod of love. Take it gratefully, and return to being a good son!”
The rod that had risen nearly to the ceiling fell mercilessly.
At the moment a boy’s leg, and his dream, were about to be cruelly shattered.
At the moment his agonized scream was about to mingle with joyful, sickening laughter.
A sword sheath flew in from somewhere and knocked away the iron bar.
“Which bastard was that?!”
Has the beast’s dream of exploiting a slave called his son been shattered once more?
As he shouted and turned around, a boy limped into the house.
“The one who lured him out. His guardian and sponsor. And an older brother figure.”
In a voice as cold as a blizzard blowing at the height of winter.
With the face of a great Swordsman who had lived through winter his entire life.
The boy declared,
“I am the blade that has come to sever a bond worse than none, once and for all.”
To bring an end to foolish evil deeds.
***
For the residents of Subura, the struggle to survive was routine, and assault and murder were vocational pursuits.
That was why they did not waste time babbling at an enemy who had suddenly appeared.
They charged immediately instead.
“Die, you crippled bastard!”
They did not know intricate martial arts, but they had spent their lives fighting.
True to form, their first attack was a thrown projectile.
I avoided the stone flying toward my head by merely tilting my head to the side.
At the same time, I struck away the chair that came flying after it with my Pirate Blade.
As long as someone had two arms and two legs, every movement created an opening.
Taking advantage of that opening, the man calling himself Emilio’s father charged at me.
“You well-fed outsider bastard! Where do you think you’re going, not knowing your place?!”
I did not react.
Because I trusted that the companion who had come with me would stop him.
And, just as expected, Uncle Aldo appeared, striking the man’s iron bar aside with flair.
“A man who sucks children’s marrow dry to stuff his own belly has no right to say that, Nicola.”
With a resounding metallic clang, Uncle Aldo’s sword stopped the falling iron bar.
The blade did not stop there, but slid onward and carved chunks from Nicola’s index finger and the back of his hand.
“Aldo! You cowardly traitor bastard, you came back!”
“The coward is you. You are vermin who lack the courage to go outside and only drink rotten water from the gutter.”
“Shut up! I’m different from you, who ran away after abandoning your family and friends!”
“Not something a man who was about to shatter his son’s leg should say.”
Had Nicola realized the difference in their skill after that brief exchange alone?
Rather than rush Uncle Aldo recklessly, he began throwing every object he could grab at him.
The other men, meanwhile, approached me with clubs and blades in their hands.
Looks like they think a cripple is easy prey.
“Looks like you followed Aldo here relying only on him. Let’s settle this peacefully. Drop anything dangerous.”
“Then we’ll go easy on you.”
The men approached with what they thought were threatening smiles.
Instead of answering, I quietly closed the distance with Shadow Walk.
The moment I came within reach of my blade.
“Aaargh!”
I knocked aside the club held out by the man at the front with my Pirate Blade, then struck him across the head.
Even without an edge, what I held was a lump of iron that weighed nearly a kilogram.
The man who took that blow collapsed at once with a short scream.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the remaining men were not intimidated by that alone.
Seizing the opening created when the man at the front fell, a man wielding a wooden pole charged at me.
My response was simple.
I struck his exposed shoulder.
A quick, compact blow that snapped forward like a thrust shattered his collarbone, and the second man fell facedown as well.
The last man to charge managed to get fairly close to me.
That was the reward for rushing in as though he did not know fear.
But there was nothing beyond that.
At a distance where swinging a sword would have been meaningless, I turned my body aside and avoided the dagger he brought down at me.
At the same time, I pulled my blade back and drove it down over his arm, pinning it beneath my sword and forearm.
His arm was forced down, and he grabbed the dagger with his other hand to stab me.
But by then, the hilt of my blade was already striking up beneath his jaw.
A horizontal blow to his temple as he staggered back, his brain reeling, ended the short battle.
Nicola was flustered by the battle that had ended in the blink of an eye.
Uncle Aldo alone had been more than he could handle, and now I, who had looked like easy prey, had turned out to be a formidable opponent as well.
“Give up, Nicola. We are not weak enough for someone like you, who only knows how to brawl, to beat us.”
Uncle Aldo pressed Nicola while smiling as though he was having the time of his life.
He clearly did not have any pleasant memories with that man, but I did not ask and quietly stood beside him.
Nicola staggered backward with a pale face, then fell.
With a pale face, he begged for mercy.
“I-I’m sorry. Still, I went easy on you when you ran away, didn’t I? I didn’t even stab you in the back.”
“What are you talking about? I remember you chasing me as though you meant to kill me.”
“Just spare me. I’ll live a good life from now on!”
“Our kid might be soft-hearted enough to fall for that, but I don’t believe a Subura bastard can live a good life. So just die already.”
The man who had been so cruel to Emilio became this pathetic the moment he was the weaker one.
With a bitter feeling, I sheathed my blade.
The reason I had come here: to tend to the sprout that had pushed up from the gutter.